
Why are people bad at recognizing and interpreting exponential growth? - firatcan
https://medium.com/jooseph-blog/why-are-people-bad-at-recognizing-and-interpreting-exponential-growth-45366f8c57d9
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lonelappde
The human senses for intensity (brightness, volume, etc) apply a logarithmic
transform before our conscious brain interprets the sensations. That's why we
don't develop an intuition for exponential scales in abstract concepts.

Also, exponential growth means that every derivative is exponential, so there
is no way to get an approximate single number of magnitude, rate of change,
acceleration...

We can take a few derivatives intuitively (velocity, accelerarion/force).

We're not even that good at understanding quadtratic growth, let alone higher
polynomials and exponentials.

If you accelerate at 10m/s/s (gravity), how far will you travel in a year
(100K seconds)?

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firatcan
That was an answer I am looking for now I have a point that I can search on.
Thank you, really appreciate it.

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murkle
Because exponential growth always levels off or goes down in real life (eg
logistic)

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pnako
I've observed an exponential number of people wrongly assuming that infectious
diseases exhibit exponential growth.

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firatcan
Hmm can you explain that more... I know that will eventually turn into
logistic curve or something like that. Please clarify me, as I said I am just
bored curios human asking silly questions.

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pnako
Even in the beginning it's not exponential. It's a very simplistic model used
to give an idea, maybe to teach high-school students about how it might look
like. It's not exactly a logistic model either, although that's clearly a
better approximation.

One critical aspect is that humans act and react. They cluster. They're not
random gas molecules.

See this article for a better explanation:
[https://www.zdnet.com/article/graph-theory-suggests-
covid-19...](https://www.zdnet.com/article/graph-theory-suggests-
covid-19-might-be-a-small-world-after-all/)

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firatcan
Perfect thanks for guidance :)

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omniscient_oce
I don't see where you've concluded that 'people' are bad at 'recognising'
exponential growth in relation to Coronavirus. Are you saying people don't
understand the concept because that seems like you're projecting hard. If
everyone including the media was saying how 'it's just a flu' then how come
the news was airing info about it 24/7 and everyone was talking about it
constantly and about how it could spread. Everyone was scared of the potential
for its growth. I'm thoroughly confused.

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firatcan
Actually news are saying that after the numbers get big enough.

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woodandsteel
I think the correct answer is a version of his first one, that it is
unnatural. The human brain is designed to detect the sorts of patterns that
are relevant to behavior and intelligent decision making in environment in
which human beings evolved, namely foraging societies. There is little
relevant exponential growth in that environment, so we don't have the inborn
cognitive mechanisms for recognizing and thinking about it.

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firatcan
Cool I'll make more search upon that I don't have any evidence that was just
an assumption, thanks for participating :)

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antasvara
Seems like our brains aren't optimized for exponential growth because it's not
integral to our survival. I could be wrong (not a scientist), but I find it
hard to find a situation in which comprehending exponential growth would have
been important even 500 years ago.

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firatcan
Hmm interesting thanks for sharing your opinion, I write it down. I'll search
about this

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aaron695
Relevant XKCD

[https://xkcd.com/947/](https://xkcd.com/947/)

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frumiousirc
This comment is not going to discuss the linked article. It will not explain
why nor will it address to the subject of the article. I am not qualified to
comment on the linked web page and have not even read it. Instead I will write
a never ending scroll of words with cartoon data for some reason.

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firatcan
Funny, yeah I wasn't sober. You should be quite smart to come up with those
sarcasm ahaha

