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PaperclipPerfector  10mo ago (text post)   3397 thread views

Small-Scale Question Sunday for July 2, 2023

Do you have a dumb question that you're kind of embarrassed to ask in the main thread? Is there something you're just not sure about?

This is your opportunity to ask questions. No question too simple or too silly.

Culture war topics are accepted, and proposals for a better intro post are appreciated.

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What the hell does it mean to be lindy?

Or a member of TPOT on Twitter? I know they're rat adjacent shitposters with an interest in AI, but I'm sure there's more to it.

The term Lindy comes from Taleb.

Lindy is a deli in New York, now a tourist trap, that proudly claims to be famous for its cheesecake, but in fact has been known for the fifty or so years of interpretation by physicists and mathematicians of the heuristic that developed there. Actors who hung out there gossiping about other actors discovered that Broadway shows that lasted, say one hundred days, had a future life expectancy of a hundred more. For those that lasted two hundred days, two hundred more. The heuristic became known as the Lindy Effect.

https://medium.com/incerto/an-expert-called-lindy-fdb30f146eaf

There are two classes: perishables and non-perishables. For humans, the older you get, the more likely you are to die. For non-perishables, it is the opposite. The older a building gets, the more likely it is to survive. In 200 years, the pyramids will still be standing, the Eiffel tower will probably still be there, and those newly erected apartment blocks almost certainly not. Same goes for books, ideas, countries, laws, and so on. Shakespeare will live on longer than the latest Hugo Award winner.

That's the Lindy effect. The adjective lindy is used to describe anything that's old, that has stood the test of time, and thus implied that is it true or useful or valuable. Or at the very least, a certain lens worth applying.

Video games? “Not Lindy.”

Nightclubs? “Lindy. In fact, deep Lindy.”

Sleek midcentury modernism? “Anytime you get away from fractal patterns and ornate details, it’s not Lindy.”

How about sex toys? “Lindy,” he said, adding, by way of explanation, “ancient Egypt.”

The Jeffrey Epstein scandal? “Some rich guy going around and doing criminal behavior and abusing people? It’s pretty Lindy!”

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/06/17/style/lindy.html

Thanks, that clears it up!

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