in the process of discussing the Lindy effect with @pareinoia yesterday, I realized that the concept has strong ties to that of civilizational filters (ie the Great Filter), and I don't think this is an angle I've seen brought up before

to explain, let me first define Lindy

it relates to the concept of "probable persistence", wherein the length of time some phenomenon has already existed determines how likely it is to persist for various future timescales

there is a property such that the latter increases non-linearly, proportional to the former

some phenomenon posses this property, others do not, & this roughly defines two general classes; the ones which do are referred to as "being Lindy", in reference to some NYC diner (idk the details, something about that diner having been around for an unusually long time)

so, say, couples: if a couple has been dating for a week, well, that doesn't mean very much, but for every additional week they're dating, their projected relationship length gets longer, by more than a week, bc fewer couples last that long, and the ones that do, last even longer

if you look at the probability distributions for these various phenomenon, you'll find cliffs at certain points along the timeline, where if it passes that point, the projected persistence jump discontinuously; consider how that relates to civilizational filters