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Tuesday, September 30, 2008

The Apocalypse Used To Be Nigh

Gabe, the divorce rate is not "increasing exponentially." It used to be increasing exponentially, but then fell afoul of Stein's Law:
Stein was the formulator of "Herbert Stein's Law," which he expressed as "If something cannot go on forever, it will stop," by which he meant that if a trend (balance of payments deficits in his example) cannot go on forever, there is no need for action or a program to make it stop, much less to make it stop immediately; it will stop of its own accord. It is often rephrased as: "Trends that can't continue, won't."

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