image courtesy Mainichi Shimbun Despite today's date, this is not an April Fool's prank. At a press conference in Tokyo last weekend, professor Hiroshi Yoshida from the Tohoku University Research Center for Aged Economy and Society, sounded the alarm bell for a looming crisis. By the year 2531, e

Despite today’s date, this is not an April Fool’s prank. At a press conference in Tokyo last weekend, professor Hiroshi Yoshida from the Tohoku University Research Center for Aged Economy and Society, sounded the alarm bell for a looming crisis. By the year 2531, e

  • blindsight@beehaw.orgEnglish
    4·
    7 months ago

    The math is also wrong.

    You can’t apply exponential growth to the proportion of a total.

    Growing from 1% to 2% (a 100% gain) is equally a reduction from 99% to 98%, a 1.01% drop.
    Going from 99% to 100% (a 1.01% gain) is equally a reduction from 1% to 0%, an infinite drop.

    Simple exponential modeling is the wrong tool.

    • uristEnglish
      3·
      7 months ago

      Oh… he’s just doing an exponential growth model?? I have trouble understanding how this got traction at all then, he should be embarrassed. Maybe the delivery was tongue-in-cheek?

      I assumed there was more interesting happening in that paper. How disappointing.

      I assumed there was more behind that graph (I assumed he calculated the coefficient from something more interesting and just slapped it on a graph with like y = exp(\beta_0 x) for his news article)