Lindy Effect

The Lindy effect (also known as Lindy's law[1]) is a theorized phenomenon by which the future life expectancy of some non-perishable things, like a technology or an idea, is proportional to their current age. Thus, the Lindy effect proposes the longer a period something has survived to exist or be used in the present, the longer its remaining life expectancy. Longevity implies a resistance to change, obsolescence, or competition, and greater odds of continued existence into the future.[2] Where the Lindy effect applies, mortality rate decreases with time. Mathematically, the Lindy effect corresponds to lifetimes following a Pareto probability distribution. The concept is named after Lindy's delicatessen in New York City, where the concept was informally theorized by comedians.[3][4] The Lindy effect has subsequently been theorized by mathematicians and statisticians.[5][6][1] Nassim Taleb has expressed the Lindy effect in terms of "distance from an absorbing barrier". https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lindy_effect

Toby Ord: The Lindy effect is a statistical tendency for things with longer pasts behind them to have longer futures ahead. It has been experimentally confirmed to apply to some categories, but not others, raising questions about when it is applicable and why. I shed some light on these questions by examining the mathematical properties required for the effect and generating mechanisms that can produce them. While the Lindy effect is often thought to require a declining hazard rate, I show that it arises very naturally even in cases with constant (or increasing) hazard rates — so long as there is a probability distribution over the size of that rate. One implication is that even things which are becoming less robust over time can display the Lindy effect.

• Keywords: Lindy effect, Lindy’s Law, Laplace’s law of succession, Copernican principle, survival analysis, survivorship curve.
• One book has been in print for three years; another for three hundred. Which should we expect to go out of print first? The Lindy effect is a statistical regularity where for many kinds of entity: the longer they have been around so far, the longer they are likely to last. This was first clearly posed by Benoît Mandelbrot (1982, p. 342) in his book, The Fractal Geometry of Nature: ‘However long a person’s past collected works, it will on the average continue for an equal additional amount. When it eventually stops, it breaks off at precisely half of its promise.’ Mandelbrot called this effect ‘Lindy’s Law’ in honour of an anecdote by Albert Goldman (1964) about how the future career length of a comedian might be predicted from their past exposure.
  • The term “Lindy’s Law” was coined by Albert Goldman in 1964. Named after the famous New York delicatessen, Lindy’s. At Lindy’s, comedians would gather after their shows and discuss the comedic climate of the time. In his New Republic article, he explains that “The life expectancy of a television comedian is proportional to the total amount of exposure on that medium.”
    • Goldman: According to a law established and promulgated by bald-headed, cigarchomping know-it-alls who foregather every night at Lindy's, where always punctuating their talk with the same expression - a long, quizzically inflected "Fun-ny?" - they conduct post-mortems on recent show biz "action," the life expectancy of a television comedian is proportional to the total amount of his exposure on the medium.