Memetics & Attention · Practice
The Lindy Effect
Why old ideas, books and technologies tend to outlast new ones: the Lindy effect's origin, power-law survival math, Gott's Copernican estimates, where Lindy applies (non-perishables) and where it doesn't, and uses in investing and reading.
Step 1 of 6 · Overview25 min read ·
Key idea
Prereqs: Distributions & fat tails. Next: Memetics; Optionality. Sources: Albert Goldman, 'Lindy's Law' (*The New Republic*, 1964); Benoit Mandelbrot; Nassim Taleb, *Antifragile* (2012); J. Richard Gott, *Nature* (1993).Next: 1. The idea