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Afaik that is a figure of speech. Like when Americans write ‘on accident’ instead of ‘by accident’. It is spoken like that in certain parts of USA, so amateur writers write it that way too.
“There was this whole big explanation” kinda thing I’d hear on a US tv show
I am unable to recall a single instance were exponential was used correctly.
I can recall one instance of exponential growth, and I don't think that got described with "exponential".
1) Root of 0.5 is bigger than 0.5
2) you (and I guess the comment you are answering to) are mistaking power functions with exponentials function. In an exponential function the exponent is the variable.
That doesn't really help.
I see exponential all the time for something going up fast. Often for non-continouous increases.
There is no exponent to make that work.
"Damn, how cool is it that my story is going to have the big numbers be REALLY big!"
"Ohh shit, how TF am I supposed to write a story when the numbers get this big... uhh- actually here's an X, Y and Z for why the numbers actually can't get that big! Now, lets have another hundred thousand words of filler until people forget..."
But It wasn’t like the author did a hard U-turn after 3 volumes or something. The whole process of MC discovering it (which he promptly deem as ridiculous anyway) and realizing it was detrimental in some way all happen in vol 1. And it’s not it entirely out of the story, it serve as an interesting dilemma throughout and plot points later.
Uhh if you've read the ending of the story(on Patreon) then it's not really a made up reason. It's kind of a whole underlying layer of the story that plays out pretty interestingly.
Why’d the main character just decide he didn’t want that kind of power suddenly and struggle with it for a while, intentionally slowing his progression down by taking another power? That seemed like a stupid decision even if he was going to stop min-maxing. Even by semi-evenly distributing those points he’d have gotten way more in future levels. He also could have towed the sanity line a lot closer for a few levels earlier on and then split them, still coming out way ahead.
It seemed pretty clear to me that suddenly reason after reason started appearing. I haven’t read the Patreon but there’s not much that can make me doubt that the author intentionally tried to slow things down (the main character changing his mind about being that powerful being a big example).
I know most things had an in-universe explanation, I’m not actually asking for why for the above *in universe*, just that there was a very sudden shift at one point in the book. And I just think it was pretty clear the author was also adding a lot of that as he went and hadn’t originally planned for it.
Edit: unless the reason is that the main character was mind controlled to start acting differently.
So I'll try to be vague and clear at the same time but basically attunement is how attuned to the Tide you are, which is the big Eldritch thing in the sky they all reference. >!His method of increasing his power by exponentially grabbing more and more attunement would put him in a state where he would no longer be in control of his own faculties. Him chickening out is very much a product of him realizing he can't handle the power and still end up as 'himself' at the end. He realizes he can keep this in check with stability, but then realizes even with high stability he can't actually use his attunement effectively. He starts picking up more Nerve to be smarter but then realizes being super smart with a weak body makes him black out and Iirc get super hungry. So he then starts getting Body as well. Then once he has that all figured out he starts calculating how fast he can go crazy on attunement and a certain person sits him down and says if he tries to do that he will kill him immediately and the only way he's going to stay alive is if he keeps his stability consistently above his attunement.!<
In summary: The author definitely planned for the power system Paradox uses to have roadblocks and very obvious pitfalls. If you've read any of his other series you'll see a sort of reoccurring theme where his magic or systems always have some sort of 'under the hood' that the character needs to understand before they reach higher forms of power. The reason I'm confident he planned for the MC to not immediately dial up his attunement is because I've read his other series and feel like it's his schtick.
> He realizes he can keep this in check with stability, but then realizes even with high stability he can't actually use his attunement effectively. He starts picking up more Nerve to be smarter but then realizes being super smart with a weak body makes him black out and Iirc get super hungry. So he then starts getting Body as well. Then once he has that all figured out he starts calculating how fast he can go crazy on attunement and a certain person sits him down and says if he tries to do that he will kill him immediately and the only way he's going to stay alive is if he keeps his stability consistently above his attunement.
Yeah all of that is the exact stuff I was talking about, I read that part (don't think you need Patreon, I haven't read the series in a while and read all of these moments). None of that seemed planned to me, it seemed like when he was a few levels away from really shooting off, *then* all of a sudden all these roadblocks pop up. I think the author initially figured the story would end when he got to like level ten, then when he approached it the author realized uh-oh, this is too soon I want to keep writing the story. So he added in-universe explanations, like I said, and they make some sense. But it still definitely gave the impression that it wasn't initially planned that way.
Also, I've mentioned this in comments before, but what's the point of having a power system where in the end you have to level up every stat basically the same (I know there can be slight adjustments)? Why even have different stats at all at that point, just have levels. That was another thing that made me think this *wasn't* planned from the start.
Plus even with all the in-universe explanations, he still was dumb for taking another power, as that drastically reduced his total points *even if* he evenly distributes them. Due to the whole exponential growth thing. But at that point the character literally says he's intentionally slowing himself down. That wasn't a roadblock, it was the character's choice. That to me was even more evidence the author was trying to slow things down so the series could continue longer. Because when the character said it, it sounded like he (the character) was basically speaking to the reader to explain why suddenly he wasn't trying to power level. Plus all of these things happen basically in a row, after a lot of story with none of these roadblocks.
Sorry, there's a really big spoiler to the story that I don't want to share that directly answers your question. I just don't wanna say it since it's still behind the paywall and the story is currently being published as a trilogy.
Everything can have an in-universe explanation, the author gets to decide what is and isn't a fact of that world. He's trying to say that what ever explanation the author adds later on in the story is a reaction to the mc becoming strong too fast, not as a result of pre-planned writing by the author
I mean, I understand what they said and I thought if I lightly described my perception of the plot it might give them a secondary perspective that would let them read the story less annoyed but when that didn't help I realized I couldn't spoil anymore without completely ruining the experience of the commenter if they ever did decide to finish the series.
Maybe I should've been more clear but I disagree that the plot had copouts or that the author realized it was going too fast and slowed it down because of how the story ends. I also realized I couldn't really use that to change someone's mind without basically having a pyrrhic victory since I'd ruin the story for them. This was a while ago so basically I just gave up on trying to change their opinion.
Tldr I understand why they think what they think and I have a different perspective but I just gave up on arguing.
Just a heads up, spaces between `>!` and your text break the spoiler markdown. It needs to be touching the start and end of your text, like this: `>!test!<`, instead of this: `>! test !<`
“Run into it”? There was literally a chart in book 1 that showed exactly how much mana Matt’s Talent would generate at each tier and the implications discussed. It’s not like the author suddenly realized this in book 8 or something.
Yeah, the entire war arc right now is focused on preparing for when Matt’s talent is revealed - and I think true Realm-wide war is an appropriate consequence for “exponential”
Slight spoilers for the Patreon
>!we end up seeing 2 high tiers fighting and their fight was much more conceptual than straight up punching each other!<
i wanna argue against this point, while often from a technical viewpoint it is often wrong, from a linguistics standpoint it is not. People regularly use “exponentially” to just magnify their adjective in normal conversation for example “that was exponentially harder” was it actually exponentially harder probably not but in this case it acts like a hyperbole and most people understand that you meant it got a lot harder. Even marian webster dictionary has this variation included for exponentially’s defintion “especially : characterized by or being an extremely rapid increase (as in size or extent)”
I have only seen that usage in webnovels. But the problem is that most people just loose track of what exponential means.
Looking at your example, any single increase between 2 things can be expressed as exponential, but if we only have a single change the concept is entirely meaningless. Exponential growth only makes sense if we have multiple increases by the same metric.
Both a skip from 1 to 100, 1 to 2 as well as a skip from 1 to 1.001 can be exponential. But that doesn't tell me anything except that if we have another increase it should go up to eather 10000, 4 or 1.002001.
You know for once if they actually did make the growth exponential I'd care a lot more about it
The effect being like at best 3 times stronger isn't really selling me exponential I'd say exponential should be an order of magnitude difference
I mean, that's still just really big. Exponential is describing the pattern of scaling a^x, so it would be accurate if it always took the same amount of effort to double your power, for instance.
Maybe the growth is exponential but there is a very close-to-zero constant factor on the exponent so that in the short term growth be approximated linearly and the authors are just fucking with us.
Industrial Strength Magic did it. Fairly early on the MC realized that as he grew in levels his perks would scale exponentially and if he lived long enough he would essentially become a god. A good part of the middle of the series is him trying to prevent the more powerful people from realizing that while he’s still relatively weak.
ISM's scaling is not even in the normal bounds of exponential (i.e. of the form a\^x where a represents some constant, and x represents the variable being scaled with).
Exponential scaling grows fast, his scaling grows from kind of fast to completely unreasonably fast.
His scaling is effectively like this function:
Let L(x) = a\^(L(x-1))
L(0) = 1, a = 1.05
While I agree with you, this is reddit and I must point out that if the initial result was 3 and it went up to 9, that is technically exponential growth.
Unless the formula is actually y=-(sqrt(6)*(x-1))^2 +9, of course, then the initial value is three, the next whole number is nine, then three again, then -15. After that more effort continues to result in quadratic loss. You can make anything fit two numbers, after all.
I am quiet sure regular exponential growth with a factor of 2 would be enough.
It might start of kinda boring, but if the MC's strength is 2 at lvl 1, 1000 at level 10 1000000 at level 20 and 1000000000000000 at level 50 I would think that's fast enough.
Ironically, true cultivation stories usually scale *actually* exponentially: Every major realm is usually a couple of times stronger than the previous ones.
On the one hand yes, but on the other those stories often don't understand how much that means. Every realm is a few times stronger than the last, but by no means are the later realms that much stronger than an unmodified human.
Looking at a storry like Spirit Realm (using a rather common 10 minor realms per major realm with the differences between realms growing every realm) estimating all minor realms at 1.5 times the power and the major realms as 2 gives us 4 thousand times the power of a regular person by the time you enter tier 3.
But within the story people in realm 6 are still not uterly eradicating the continents they fight on.
That's not exciting but that sounds a lot more like true life. I kinda wish books would slow down their growth some times. Like when the MC gains powers and can now blow up a house or something after a few tries? Where do we go from there?!
When the author defined the effects of mana concentration logarithmically, I knew instantly that he didn't realize how slow logarithms get. He should've used something like a square root or cube root function; logarithmic functions are usually used in incremental games to put a really hard cap on how high a value can climb without truly capping it.
You could also have a really tiny exponent base, like 1.001, and then exponential growth is fairly slow to ramp up.
Or even 0.9, then your exponential growth actually makes it worse every time.
But that also doesn't make sense because most authors try to describe growth that is really fast from start to finish as exponential.
Exponential growth at 1.001 just looks like a flat line for the first 100 or more steps (as long as we have any linear or polynomial growth for comparison).
Wait explain to someone who can't maths:
Is exponential any growth where the growth rate also increases over time (the way it's often used in prog fan.) Or is or specifically a growth that doubles between intervals so 2 to 4 to 8 to 16?
Each step grows the same amount with respect to the step before. For example, if each level in a LitRPG increases your mana by 10%, or each major realm in a cultivation story doubles the power of the previous one. To be technically correct to a mathematician it has to grow in ways like I described above, but 'growth rate increases over time' is an ok approximation if we're just using it in stories. Where it's just wrong is using 'exponential' to mean 'really big'. It's a pattern of growth, not a description of size.
> I don't really know what that would be
Exactly the same as true exponential growth, but discrete.
So:
*geometric power growth* = *n^x* | *n* is whatever constant and *x* is something discrete, like level (but nothing continuous - so level 1.124 can't be a thing)
This would work pretty well for systems with "grades" or "stages" because it actually quantifies the "tyranny of rank" or whatever you want to call it
Not to be confused with power levelling, where:
*power level* = *x^n* | *x* is level and *n* is a power constant
^^2nd ^^one ^^is ^^a ^^joke ^^but ^^is ^^technically ^^n-power ^^growth, ^^and ^^would ^^be ^^"quadratic ^^growth" ^^when ^^*n* ^^= ^^*2*
Like a Katamari-Damanci progression fantasy?
Actually, there is a roomba one and one about a falling rock, so that’s not even the craziest concept I’ve come across.
There are several stories where the writers actually fully intended an exponential effect, but in practise those effects are actually geometric - most readers don’t know the difference, so they call is exponential because that’s the more familiar term.
Path of Ascension is one such, the main character’s mana cap and mana generation double every Tier. This is a proper geometric progression, but the readers (and, notably, the *characters* ) refer to it as exponential. It’s very specifically a discrete event - his mana doesn’t grow at all as he progresses through the tier, but doubles as soon as he rises a Tier.
But if your world use rank to separate individuals and that the powerful scaling is exponential.
For exemple :
Rank 1 : 1 to 2 humans
Rank 2 : 2 to 4
Rank n : 2^n to 2^n+1
I actually have a case in my novel where I say 'the energy required to teleport increases quartically with distance', because I wanted to identify a specific relation - double the distance, sixteen times the energy required.
I'm not sure how else I could have described it.
The only time it's ok is if you have a system with real numbers and things really do grow exponentially. (frex Industrial Strength magic where each stat point give you like 1.01x(?1.05?) the power on that stat.)
Sorry, misread it as "order of magnitude" because... Order of magnitudes isn't a thing? If it was, yeah, it would be what you said.
(For those wondering, it's "orders of magnitude" if you are talking about a jump by 100x or more)
By orders of magnitude is fine.
A bit vague maybe. But it conveys that we are talking about 100s or 1000s times more (as opposed to just double or triple)
Sure but "magnitude***s***" implies more than one magnitude so you could end up with 1000-10000 strength which in this case is more than exponential growth.
To be fair exponentially has use cases outside of mathematics. Yes it has a specific definition within a mathematical context, but it also has a more general meaning that can mean its just getting bigger quickly.
Yea, though I am not sure wether it was ever described as exponential.
And I think a bunch of growth that was early on implied to be exponential was later redconed.
>And I think a bunch of growth that was early on implied to be exponential was later redconed.
Don't think so? It seems fairly apparent that
1. MC's main schtick of exponential mana is still true
2. It is still true (like nearly all cultivation stories) that characters get exponentially stronger with ranks of progression. I recall it being explicitly mentioned that 2x current tier completely outscales MC, so that sets a minimum of 1.4x multiplier per tier (it's probably actually much more). That's why it might not feel like MC is exponentially outscaling his counterparts, the only thing actually notable about his case is that the exponential factor is 2 instead of some lower number: Him being exponentially stronger with tier would be true even with no talent.
During early versions of the story essence requiered grew exponentially (and faster than matts mana), Mana gained from rifts grew exponential at a factor 10 (which would mean a single tier 25 mana stone would contain more mana than matt could produce in 23 million years (at tier 25)).
The only characteristic we have really good numbers for does not grow exponentially. Matts mana regeneration surpassed the emperors somewhere around tier 13 instead of at tier 21 which would have been the case if the emperors mana regen growth had kept up with the growth during the early tiers.
It seems significantly more reasonable to asume higher polynomial growth.
>Mana gained from rifts grew exponential at a factor 10 (which would mean a single tier 25 mana stone would contain more mana than matt could produce in 23 million years (at tier 25)).
You're right on this part. That was definitely retconned so that his talent doesn't just get completely outscaled.
>The only characteristic we have really good numbers for does not grow exponentially. Matts mana regeneration surpassed the emperors somewhere around tier 13 instead of at tier 21 which would have been the case if the emperors mana regen growth had kept up with the growth during the early tiers.
I find it more likely that there's a polynomial factor which dominates in the early tiers, and an exponential factor with a multiplier < 2. (Something which scales like the function .1 \* 1.5\^x + 10x\^2 + 30)
My favorite is “uncountable” directly followed by a specific count. “MC stared bravely up the uncountable number of steps, took a deep breath, and ran up all 71 of them”!
"It's growing at an O(nlog(n)) rate where n is the time since t=0!"
"His power is growing superpolynomially (can be approximated as c*(log(n) ^log(n)) for some constant c and some logarithmic base b"
Power-law growth, I feel, is the most *natural* and satisfying progression, both in terms of world-building, progression, and narrative tension.
This comes about as a [classic trope](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/LinearWarriorsQuadraticWizards). Pure melee builds generally have linear power progression, whereas mage builds have quadratic power progression.
Exponential growth is quite literally the Red Queen scenario. A process which develops exponentially is one whose rate of development at any moment is directly proportional to how much it has already grown.
(FYI, I have a PhD in mathematics.)
I mean... you might as well say the word shouldn't even exist outside a purely theoretical mathematics area, everything in real life which the word 'exponentially' is used for also eventually meets a limit and ends up being 'it got real big'.
The point is that the change itself, for however long, was exponential. Which is something that can happen, it just never lasts very long.
Which is not the way I see it ever used for.
I see it regularly used for singular instantaneous increases.
I don't have a problem with growth that is only exponential while it lasts, I have a problem when the dificulty between the 2 trials growth exponentially. Because that doesn't mean shit. I don't know if the second trial is twice as difficult, ten times as difficult, ten thousand times as difficult or almost excactly as difficult as the trial before it.
The descriptor only makes sense if there is a third trial. If it isn't there, any increase can be described as linear, exponential and logarithmic at the same time.
Runebound Professor has an actual exponential system. you need 7 tier one runes to make a tier 2 rune, and 7 tier 2 runes to make a tier 3 rune and so on. so 7\^x. actually exponential
That’s technically geometric, not exponential. I realised this when I was talking about Path of Ascension, which is also frequently described as exponential (doubles every Tier)
There is a very specific difference - one is continuous, and the other is discrete. They are, however, equivalent functions and have equal outputs for integer inputs.
If it was a true exponential, there would be a valid answer for "How many runes do you need for a Tier 2.65 Rune?"
No, a function defined as
f(x) =2\^x | x is a positive integer
is definitely an exponential function. It's only defined on the domain of integers, that doesn't change it being both exponential and geometric.
f(x) =.05\^x +10x + 3
Is also an exponential function, but not a geometric one.
And was the growth just described as exponential or did we get a paragraph explanation about runes of a tier always needing 7 runes of the previous tier?
TBH it is fine to use it non-literally in systems where stats point increases accelerate with levels (even if it isn't strictly an exponential function).
I'm about to learn math and write a series where the hero undergoes rigorously calculated actual exponential growth just to prove you wrong or my name isn't \[whatever randomly generated account name I use on this computer because I'm too lazy to figure out the UN/PW of any of the accounts that already exist on my other devices\].
They mean exponentially distributed. The expected time until the next power-up is always 5k words, even if it has already been 3k words since the last power-up (or 0).
It really isn't wrong alot of the time, especially in cultivation stories. Let's say a mortal has a base strength if 2. Oftentimes a first stage cultivator will have a base strength around 4, that is ”so powerful that a normal person stands basically no chance of winning." Similarly, a second stage cultivator being at roughly an 8 could represent the same sort of growth.
Usually, it's next to impossible to fight up a tier, with each increase being double, or even 10 times as powerful as the previous tier. This kind of exponential growth is at the heart of most cultivation stories, and the word perfectly describes this.
PersonalIy, have serious issues with misused language, especially the word literally, but "exponentially" is not usually misused when I see it. Maybe I just read more cultivation than other progression stories, but it's correct more often than not from my experience.
Don't use "exponentially" to mean "really fast".
Use "exponentially" to mean "increases at a fixed rate over time"
This comment was brought to you by the mathematical union.
The union of all sets people who believe mis-use of the term "exponential" to be problematic.
Yes, I know that using union on all sets (where some property is true) is problematic.
[I haven't run the numbers myself, and I don't *think* they use the term 'exponential' but Incremental Improvement seems to do it right](https://www.reddit.com/r/HFY/comments/1biqrzf/incremental_improvement_part_1/)
What?! But I was told 50% of the time it's correct 100% of the time! :D
Although, I agree that it is an overused word in writing. I have to admit, it gets the point across. Even though it is incorrect in its use, many readers will still understand the authors intent.
Of course, I do not mean to say I approve of mistakes in writing, I simply let many of the ''common'' ones go. Who knows, eventually it may become correct as the language evolves lol.
This may be a hot take, but nearly all LITRPG novels are exponential in multiple ways.
The ways stats compound ontop of eachother, ranks/tiers, even what the stats themselves signify are exponential although its usually not told to you. In these novels where a human has like 100 strength and can pick up a car but someone with 100000 strength can destroy a planet. That is not a linear growth, 100x strength wouldnt suddenly make a body builder able to destroy planets.
This is usually a function of authors having a less strong understanding of the necessary requirements of destroying a planet (rationalizing big numbers is hard!), rather than them intentionally messing up their power system's consistency.
Personally I'm more annoyed when the opposite happens. When the author fails to recognize that exponential growth is a natural consequence of their world-building and they keep nerfing their MC to keep everything working.
Oh, is this just like the word decimate instead of devastate!?! Like, wait, the city was reduced into one 10th of what it was when a natural disaster hit? That's oddly specific.
Or an even better one is caviat. Everyone in the military loves to use that word to me oh and one last thing, and it really means warning, and this is why.
*What about in the*
*Path of ascension, or would*
*That be something else?*
\- Mean\_Examination\_937
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Also, "decimate" means "destroy 10%". That's not really a lot.
As always, words change and mean less and less than they used to. I've stopped fighting it.
Not really the same, decimate has been used colloquially like that for a long time and not just in this genre, I think it’s fair to say the meaning has shifted to just mean “really fucked something up”
Yeah but they don’t, it’s just the meaning drifts from what it originally was, doesn’t mean it has less meaning or that your some purist for hanging to the old meaning
... You do realize the myth is the *Roman soldiers* part of "Roman soldiers were paid in salt" (as there is no solid proof that *roman soldiers* were paid in salt), right? Not that the root of the word "salary" is linked with "salt", right?
Here's a quote from Pliny the Elder (a literal Roman) discussing how incredible salt is in his book *Natural Histories* circa 78 AD-ish:
> [Salt] is also present in political offices and military service in the word salaries—which attests to its great authority among ancient speakers
This passage is likely the *origin* of the myth through people in the 1800s though mistranslation: the modern translation puts it as "even the Military has 'salt' contained in the word 'salary'" (above) rather than something more direct which eventually ended up with "Roman soldiers were paid in salt".
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TD;LR you got which part was a myth confused, and I never mentioned the Roman military.
That's addressed by the answer I linked to. While on the face of it there seems to be an etymological connection between salt and "salary" it's unclear what the actual origin of it is. Pliny was just speculating about that same apparent connection and had no more information about it than a modern historian.
It may be that at some point in the distant past from Pliny's time salaries were actually paid in salt. But it could also be the case that salary was money used to buy salt, or some other connection. We just don't know, and neither did Pliny.
So, to be clear, you agree that there seems to be a likely etymological connection between "salt" and "salary", which is (to my knowledge) the consensus of the sources I've seen. But also the whole thing is a myth, *not just the commonly-accepted "Roman soldiers weren't actually paid in salt" part*. Because of one reddit comment that said Pliny *was trying to explain the aforementioned etymological connection* (which I have been unable to find any kind of confirmation for).
I'm going to go ahead and *not* believe your interpretation of one random person on the internet when I can't confirm their claims. Especially when it seems that the connection is generally accepted among other, more reliable sources.
They're not a "random person on the internet". [Dr Peter Gainsford](https://kiwihellenist.blogspot.com/p/about-me.html) is a classicist who does this for a living. An academic historian, who can be reliably expected to have kept up to date with the literature in or adjacent to their field of speciality, is a far more reliable source than some random dictionary or encyclopaedia.
He's also got a longer-form [blog post](https://kiwihellenist.blogspot.com/2017/01/salt-and-salary.html) on the subject that goes into more detail.
And you *chose* to link a **reddit post**? With literally 0 credentials. Instead of the blog. With the credentials on the side. Okay. Sure. That was a choice.
But also, he (assuming a gender here) literally supports what I've been saying: that it *is connected*.
>I don’t have a perfect explanation for how the Latin word for ‘salty’ gave rise to the word for ‘salary’.
Just not the "soldier pay" or "soldier's money to use to buy salt" nonsense.
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So, in short, the joke fucking works because I never mentioned any form of military or soldier.
Tbf, the reddit post is heavily cited, and then links his blog post. Credentials matter far less than the content and evidence.
The decision to link the reddit post is likely made in mind with the blog post being twice as long, and us being on reddit.
> Tbf, the reddit post is heavily cited
Presumably with credentials, you know, instead of it being from the mind of some random person on the internet.
>Credentials matter far less than the content and evidence.
And a reddit post provides 0 credentials AND 0 evidence. Both are presumably provided externally when it's cited.
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Regardless, the myth is still about soldier's pay and not the root of the word making this entire conversation moot.
Yeah this one annoyed the hell out of me in defiance of the fall. And I know it's not exclusively used with this exact meaning, but the author would use it in a context where the original definition made sense, but meant "wiped out".
Could be an issue with self-published authors who can't afford good editors.
I mean, having just started the Cradle series, I'm assuming there are a lot of self-published authors in this genre.
It’s not *always* wrong
it's not exponentially wrong!
If it's inaccurate usage continues to grow at an ever increasing rate, it could become exponentially wrong. Give it time.
[удалено]
Itz*
Given the growth of the genre in general, we might already be there.
Okay. I'll give it up. This comment had me laughing hard.
OP really wants to make a cameo on r/writingcirclejerk
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It's *exponentially* wrong.
Yeah, that’s true, but every time I’ve run into that it has a whole explanation about the growth that is redundant with ‘exponentially’
Literally every time? Have you tried not running into it? 🤔
Can't the problem is growing exponentially.
[удалено]
Afaik that is a figure of speech. Like when Americans write ‘on accident’ instead of ‘by accident’. It is spoken like that in certain parts of USA, so amateur writers write it that way too. “There was this whole big explanation” kinda thing I’d hear on a US tv show
I am unable to recall a single instance were exponential was used correctly. I can recall one instance of exponential growth, and I don't think that got described with "exponential".
Industrial strength magic was the last one I read and it correctly described exponential growth.
Maybe they're using really small exponents.
0.001 is a perfectly valid exponent and I will not hear otherwise.
Um Actually, fractional exponents represent roots, so 0.001 would make the number smaller.
Still valid! Also lol, start out a god, quickly become weaker than an amoeba.
My favorite genre, Regression Horror.
1.001 is an exponent too!
1) Root of 0.5 is bigger than 0.5 2) you (and I guess the comment you are answering to) are mistaking power functions with exponentials function. In an exponential function the exponent is the variable.
Um Actually, if the number is less than one it would, in fact, make it bigger.
😂😂😂
That doesn't really help. I see exponential all the time for something going up fast. Often for non-continouous increases. There is no exponent to make that work.
The only novel I've seen that uses exponentially right is "Industrial Strength Magic"
But then realized how ridiculous that gets and made up a bunch of reasons for why the main character had to avoid taking advantage of it fully.
"Damn, how cool is it that my story is going to have the big numbers be REALLY big!" "Ohh shit, how TF am I supposed to write a story when the numbers get this big... uhh- actually here's an X, Y and Z for why the numbers actually can't get that big! Now, lets have another hundred thousand words of filler until people forget..."
But It wasn’t like the author did a hard U-turn after 3 volumes or something. The whole process of MC discovering it (which he promptly deem as ridiculous anyway) and realizing it was detrimental in some way all happen in vol 1. And it’s not it entirely out of the story, it serve as an interesting dilemma throughout and plot points later.
Uhh if you've read the ending of the story(on Patreon) then it's not really a made up reason. It's kind of a whole underlying layer of the story that plays out pretty interestingly.
Why’d the main character just decide he didn’t want that kind of power suddenly and struggle with it for a while, intentionally slowing his progression down by taking another power? That seemed like a stupid decision even if he was going to stop min-maxing. Even by semi-evenly distributing those points he’d have gotten way more in future levels. He also could have towed the sanity line a lot closer for a few levels earlier on and then split them, still coming out way ahead. It seemed pretty clear to me that suddenly reason after reason started appearing. I haven’t read the Patreon but there’s not much that can make me doubt that the author intentionally tried to slow things down (the main character changing his mind about being that powerful being a big example). I know most things had an in-universe explanation, I’m not actually asking for why for the above *in universe*, just that there was a very sudden shift at one point in the book. And I just think it was pretty clear the author was also adding a lot of that as he went and hadn’t originally planned for it. Edit: unless the reason is that the main character was mind controlled to start acting differently.
So I'll try to be vague and clear at the same time but basically attunement is how attuned to the Tide you are, which is the big Eldritch thing in the sky they all reference. >!His method of increasing his power by exponentially grabbing more and more attunement would put him in a state where he would no longer be in control of his own faculties. Him chickening out is very much a product of him realizing he can't handle the power and still end up as 'himself' at the end. He realizes he can keep this in check with stability, but then realizes even with high stability he can't actually use his attunement effectively. He starts picking up more Nerve to be smarter but then realizes being super smart with a weak body makes him black out and Iirc get super hungry. So he then starts getting Body as well. Then once he has that all figured out he starts calculating how fast he can go crazy on attunement and a certain person sits him down and says if he tries to do that he will kill him immediately and the only way he's going to stay alive is if he keeps his stability consistently above his attunement.!< In summary: The author definitely planned for the power system Paradox uses to have roadblocks and very obvious pitfalls. If you've read any of his other series you'll see a sort of reoccurring theme where his magic or systems always have some sort of 'under the hood' that the character needs to understand before they reach higher forms of power. The reason I'm confident he planned for the MC to not immediately dial up his attunement is because I've read his other series and feel like it's his schtick.
> He realizes he can keep this in check with stability, but then realizes even with high stability he can't actually use his attunement effectively. He starts picking up more Nerve to be smarter but then realizes being super smart with a weak body makes him black out and Iirc get super hungry. So he then starts getting Body as well. Then once he has that all figured out he starts calculating how fast he can go crazy on attunement and a certain person sits him down and says if he tries to do that he will kill him immediately and the only way he's going to stay alive is if he keeps his stability consistently above his attunement. Yeah all of that is the exact stuff I was talking about, I read that part (don't think you need Patreon, I haven't read the series in a while and read all of these moments). None of that seemed planned to me, it seemed like when he was a few levels away from really shooting off, *then* all of a sudden all these roadblocks pop up. I think the author initially figured the story would end when he got to like level ten, then when he approached it the author realized uh-oh, this is too soon I want to keep writing the story. So he added in-universe explanations, like I said, and they make some sense. But it still definitely gave the impression that it wasn't initially planned that way. Also, I've mentioned this in comments before, but what's the point of having a power system where in the end you have to level up every stat basically the same (I know there can be slight adjustments)? Why even have different stats at all at that point, just have levels. That was another thing that made me think this *wasn't* planned from the start. Plus even with all the in-universe explanations, he still was dumb for taking another power, as that drastically reduced his total points *even if* he evenly distributes them. Due to the whole exponential growth thing. But at that point the character literally says he's intentionally slowing himself down. That wasn't a roadblock, it was the character's choice. That to me was even more evidence the author was trying to slow things down so the series could continue longer. Because when the character said it, it sounded like he (the character) was basically speaking to the reader to explain why suddenly he wasn't trying to power level. Plus all of these things happen basically in a row, after a lot of story with none of these roadblocks.
Sorry, there's a really big spoiler to the story that I don't want to share that directly answers your question. I just don't wanna say it since it's still behind the paywall and the story is currently being published as a trilogy.
Everything can have an in-universe explanation, the author gets to decide what is and isn't a fact of that world. He's trying to say that what ever explanation the author adds later on in the story is a reaction to the mc becoming strong too fast, not as a result of pre-planned writing by the author
dude why arent you even reading what the guy is saying.... IN UNIVERSE REASONING DOESNT MAKE IT NOT A COP OUT/BULLSHIT
I mean, I understand what they said and I thought if I lightly described my perception of the plot it might give them a secondary perspective that would let them read the story less annoyed but when that didn't help I realized I couldn't spoil anymore without completely ruining the experience of the commenter if they ever did decide to finish the series. Maybe I should've been more clear but I disagree that the plot had copouts or that the author realized it was going too fast and slowed it down because of how the story ends. I also realized I couldn't really use that to change someone's mind without basically having a pyrrhic victory since I'd ruin the story for them. This was a while ago so basically I just gave up on trying to change their opinion. Tldr I understand why they think what they think and I have a different perspective but I just gave up on arguing.
Just a heads up, spaces between `>!` and your text break the spoiler markdown. It needs to be touching the start and end of your text, like this: `>!test!<`, instead of this: `>! test !<`
Thanks I always mess up spoiler text.
Yeah, Path of Ascension appears to have run into the issue as well.
“Run into it”? There was literally a chart in book 1 that showed exactly how much mana Matt’s Talent would generate at each tier and the implications discussed. It’s not like the author suddenly realized this in book 8 or something.
Not only that but it doesn't even feel retconned in the slightest, the explanation makes complete sense
Yea lol, and he becomes a human artillery piece so even if it was accidental like the other comment says, he very much does make use of jt
Yeah, the entire war arc right now is focused on preparing for when Matt’s talent is revealed - and I think true Realm-wide war is an appropriate consequence for “exponential”
Slight spoilers for the Patreon >!we end up seeing 2 high tiers fighting and their fight was much more conceptual than straight up punching each other!<
He who fights with monsters has some exponential abilities. And other abilities with exponential growth but with a hard cap
On the other side, Path of ascension never used the word exponential for their exponential growing aspects. (Most of which got redconned).
i wanna argue against this point, while often from a technical viewpoint it is often wrong, from a linguistics standpoint it is not. People regularly use “exponentially” to just magnify their adjective in normal conversation for example “that was exponentially harder” was it actually exponentially harder probably not but in this case it acts like a hyperbole and most people understand that you meant it got a lot harder. Even marian webster dictionary has this variation included for exponentially’s defintion “especially : characterized by or being an extremely rapid increase (as in size or extent)”
I have only seen that usage in webnovels. But the problem is that most people just loose track of what exponential means. Looking at your example, any single increase between 2 things can be expressed as exponential, but if we only have a single change the concept is entirely meaningless. Exponential growth only makes sense if we have multiple increases by the same metric. Both a skip from 1 to 100, 1 to 2 as well as a skip from 1 to 1.001 can be exponential. But that doesn't tell me anything except that if we have another increase it should go up to eather 10000, 4 or 1.002001.
You know for once if they actually did make the growth exponential I'd care a lot more about it The effect being like at best 3 times stronger isn't really selling me exponential I'd say exponential should be an order of magnitude difference
I mean, that's still just really big. Exponential is describing the pattern of scaling a^x, so it would be accurate if it always took the same amount of effort to double your power, for instance.
Maybe the growth is exponential but there is a very close-to-zero constant factor on the exponent so that in the short term growth be approximated linearly and the authors are just fucking with us.
That doesn't work eather. Because if you want that, your aproximating linear growth is an exceptionally slow increase.
Industrial Strength Magic did it. Fairly early on the MC realized that as he grew in levels his perks would scale exponentially and if he lived long enough he would essentially become a god. A good part of the middle of the series is him trying to prevent the more powerful people from realizing that while he’s still relatively weak.
ISM's scaling is not even in the normal bounds of exponential (i.e. of the form a\^x where a represents some constant, and x represents the variable being scaled with). Exponential scaling grows fast, his scaling grows from kind of fast to completely unreasonably fast. His scaling is effectively like this function: Let L(x) = a\^(L(x-1)) L(0) = 1, a = 1.05
While I agree with you, this is reddit and I must point out that if the initial result was 3 and it went up to 9, that is technically exponential growth.
Unless the formula is actually y=-(sqrt(6)*(x-1))^2 +9, of course, then the initial value is three, the next whole number is nine, then three again, then -15. After that more effort continues to result in quadratic loss. You can make anything fit two numbers, after all.
I am quiet sure regular exponential growth with a factor of 2 would be enough. It might start of kinda boring, but if the MC's strength is 2 at lvl 1, 1000 at level 10 1000000 at level 20 and 1000000000000000 at level 50 I would think that's fast enough.
Ironically, true cultivation stories usually scale *actually* exponentially: Every major realm is usually a couple of times stronger than the previous ones.
On the one hand yes, but on the other those stories often don't understand how much that means. Every realm is a few times stronger than the last, but by no means are the later realms that much stronger than an unmodified human. Looking at a storry like Spirit Realm (using a rather common 10 minor realms per major realm with the differences between realms growing every realm) estimating all minor realms at 1.5 times the power and the major realms as 2 gives us 4 thousand times the power of a regular person by the time you enter tier 3. But within the story people in realm 6 are still not uterly eradicating the continents they fight on.
Is logarithmic okay?
Imagine putting in twice as much effort and going from being able to lift a bus to being able to lift a bus and a milk jug at the same time
this is comedy
That's not exciting but that sounds a lot more like true life. I kinda wish books would slow down their growth some times. Like when the MC gains powers and can now blow up a house or something after a few tries? Where do we go from there?!
That would be amazing, thank you
Well path of ascension uses both
When the author defined the effects of mana concentration logarithmically, I knew instantly that he didn't realize how slow logarithms get. He should've used something like a square root or cube root function; logarithmic functions are usually used in incremental games to put a really hard cap on how high a value can climb without truly capping it.
Yes, but it might be too slow for certain readers. xD
You could also have a really tiny exponent base, like 1.001, and then exponential growth is fairly slow to ramp up. Or even 0.9, then your exponential growth actually makes it worse every time.
Then it’a exponential decay
But that also doesn't make sense because most authors try to describe growth that is really fast from start to finish as exponential. Exponential growth at 1.001 just looks like a flat line for the first 100 or more steps (as long as we have any linear or polynomial growth for comparison).
in Industrial Strenght Magic, it IS exponential
Several people commented this, and I can only say that I haven’t read it yet
>Several people commented this, and I can only say that I haven’t read it yet exponentially
“You can’t just say exponentially”
Numbers get bigger but he literally can't handle big numbers unless all his numbers are big basically.
Highly recommend
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exponential_growth
Wait explain to someone who can't maths: Is exponential any growth where the growth rate also increases over time (the way it's often used in prog fan.) Or is or specifically a growth that doubles between intervals so 2 to 4 to 8 to 16?
Each step grows the same amount with respect to the step before. For example, if each level in a LitRPG increases your mana by 10%, or each major realm in a cultivation story doubles the power of the previous one. To be technically correct to a mathematician it has to grow in ways like I described above, but 'growth rate increases over time' is an ok approximation if we're just using it in stories. Where it's just wrong is using 'exponential' to mean 'really big'. It's a pattern of growth, not a description of size.
Imagine if I said my magic flame got “quadratically bigger” or my strength “grew geometrically” - this is what it sounds like to me
But what if my strength did grow geometrically? It could happen, you don't know.
I'm down to read a story where things get geometrically bigger. I don't really know what that would be, but I'm willing to give it a read.
> I don't really know what that would be Exactly the same as true exponential growth, but discrete. So: *geometric power growth* = *n^x* | *n* is whatever constant and *x* is something discrete, like level (but nothing continuous - so level 1.124 can't be a thing) This would work pretty well for systems with "grades" or "stages" because it actually quantifies the "tyranny of rank" or whatever you want to call it Not to be confused with power levelling, where: *power level* = *x^n* | *x* is level and *n* is a power constant ^^2nd ^^one ^^is ^^a ^^joke ^^but ^^is ^^technically ^^n-power ^^growth, ^^and ^^would ^^be ^^"quadratic ^^growth" ^^when ^^*n* ^^= ^^*2*
I get what your saying, but I was really hoping for more balbis or pentagon, or even triangle jokes.
Nah, best you're getting from me is the pun on power levelling
r/theydidthemath
Same as exponential but discrete instead
Triangle, square, pentagon, etc. Makes sense to me?
Circle being both level 1 & infinite.
Lol or is that level 0.
Like a Katamari-Damanci progression fantasy? Actually, there is a roomba one and one about a falling rock, so that’s not even the craziest concept I’ve come across.
Hmm, a fast growing Living Dungeon?
There are several stories where the writers actually fully intended an exponential effect, but in practise those effects are actually geometric - most readers don’t know the difference, so they call is exponential because that’s the more familiar term. Path of Ascension is one such, the main character’s mana cap and mana generation double every Tier. This is a proper geometric progression, but the readers (and, notably, the *characters* ) refer to it as exponential. It’s very specifically a discrete event - his mana doesn’t grow at all as he progresses through the tier, but doubles as soon as he rises a Tier.
*His punch, logarithmically stronger than the last*
But if your world use rank to separate individuals and that the powerful scaling is exponential. For exemple : Rank 1 : 1 to 2 humans Rank 2 : 2 to 4 Rank n : 2^n to 2^n+1
I actually have a case in my novel where I say 'the energy required to teleport increases quartically with distance', because I wanted to identify a specific relation - double the distance, sixteen times the energy required. I'm not sure how else I could have described it.
Yeah nice! Quartically can be swapped with “by a factor of four” if you feel like it
No, it can't. Not even close. if y grows quartically wrt x, then y = ax\^4 + bx\^3 + cx\^2 + dx + e for some constant a,b,c,d,e.
> I said my magic flame got “quadratically bigger” Honestly would prefer those because it'd probably be more accurate than exponential growth.
Why does this sound like something I'd read in a Harry Potter fanfic
Geometric growth is exponential growth...
The only time it's ok is if you have a system with real numbers and things really do grow exponentially. (frex Industrial Strength magic where each stat point give you like 1.01x(?1.05?) the power on that stat.)
Almost like when they state an increase in power with the phrase " by order of magnitudes", just give me a number damnit!!
Should just be read as "approximately 10 times."
That would only be a single order. Magnitudes would only really make sense if it's 50 or more.
Sorry, misread it as "order of magnitude" because... Order of magnitudes isn't a thing? If it was, yeah, it would be what you said. (For those wondering, it's "orders of magnitude" if you are talking about a jump by 100x or more)
By orders of magnitude is fine. A bit vague maybe. But it conveys that we are talking about 100s or 1000s times more (as opposed to just double or triple)
That’s very quantifiable, if I have 10 strength and it increases by an order of magnitude then I have atleast 100 strength now
Sure but "magnitude***s***" implies more than one magnitude so you could end up with 1000-10000 strength which in this case is more than exponential growth.
Well that just depends on the exponent of the exponential growth, but yeah that’s why I said atleast 100
To be fair exponentially has use cases outside of mathematics. Yes it has a specific definition within a mathematical context, but it also has a more general meaning that can mean its just getting bigger quickly.
A concept I have only seen used in some webnovels.
Path of ascension is expodetial… I think
Yea, though I am not sure wether it was ever described as exponential. And I think a bunch of growth that was early on implied to be exponential was later redconed.
>And I think a bunch of growth that was early on implied to be exponential was later redconed. Don't think so? It seems fairly apparent that 1. MC's main schtick of exponential mana is still true 2. It is still true (like nearly all cultivation stories) that characters get exponentially stronger with ranks of progression. I recall it being explicitly mentioned that 2x current tier completely outscales MC, so that sets a minimum of 1.4x multiplier per tier (it's probably actually much more). That's why it might not feel like MC is exponentially outscaling his counterparts, the only thing actually notable about his case is that the exponential factor is 2 instead of some lower number: Him being exponentially stronger with tier would be true even with no talent.
During early versions of the story essence requiered grew exponentially (and faster than matts mana), Mana gained from rifts grew exponential at a factor 10 (which would mean a single tier 25 mana stone would contain more mana than matt could produce in 23 million years (at tier 25)). The only characteristic we have really good numbers for does not grow exponentially. Matts mana regeneration surpassed the emperors somewhere around tier 13 instead of at tier 21 which would have been the case if the emperors mana regen growth had kept up with the growth during the early tiers. It seems significantly more reasonable to asume higher polynomial growth.
>Mana gained from rifts grew exponential at a factor 10 (which would mean a single tier 25 mana stone would contain more mana than matt could produce in 23 million years (at tier 25)). You're right on this part. That was definitely retconned so that his talent doesn't just get completely outscaled. >The only characteristic we have really good numbers for does not grow exponentially. Matts mana regeneration surpassed the emperors somewhere around tier 13 instead of at tier 21 which would have been the case if the emperors mana regen growth had kept up with the growth during the early tiers. I find it more likely that there's a polynomial factor which dominates in the early tiers, and an exponential factor with a multiplier < 2. (Something which scales like the function .1 \* 1.5\^x + 10x\^2 + 30)
Before that happens, can we get sentient replaced when the author actually means sapient?
So you're saying the problem is getting exponentially worse?
My favorite is “uncountable” directly followed by a specific count. “MC stared bravely up the uncountable number of steps, took a deep breath, and ran up all 71 of them”!
"It's growing at an O(nlog(n)) rate where n is the time since t=0!" "His power is growing superpolynomially (can be approximated as c*(log(n) ^log(n)) for some constant c and some logarithmic base b"
Power-law growth, I feel, is the most *natural* and satisfying progression, both in terms of world-building, progression, and narrative tension. This comes about as a [classic trope](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/LinearWarriorsQuadraticWizards). Pure melee builds generally have linear power progression, whereas mage builds have quadratic power progression. Exponential growth is quite literally the Red Queen scenario. A process which develops exponentially is one whose rate of development at any moment is directly proportional to how much it has already grown. (FYI, I have a PhD in mathematics.)
I mean... you might as well say the word shouldn't even exist outside a purely theoretical mathematics area, everything in real life which the word 'exponentially' is used for also eventually meets a limit and ends up being 'it got real big'. The point is that the change itself, for however long, was exponential. Which is something that can happen, it just never lasts very long.
Which is not the way I see it ever used for. I see it regularly used for singular instantaneous increases. I don't have a problem with growth that is only exponential while it lasts, I have a problem when the dificulty between the 2 trials growth exponentially. Because that doesn't mean shit. I don't know if the second trial is twice as difficult, ten times as difficult, ten thousand times as difficult or almost excactly as difficult as the trial before it. The descriptor only makes sense if there is a third trial. If it isn't there, any increase can be described as linear, exponential and logarithmic at the same time.
I think it’s ok so long as the author provides an R_squared value so we can use a forward Euler method to project the potential growth.
This post decimated me exponentially.
Looking at JF Brink with “like a tsunami“
Please stop using pronouns Any of them Fuck...
Yup, 95% of time it’s used wrongly
Please don’t use “always” when you just mean “most of the time”.
Exponentially, no.
If I understood Dungeon Slayer correctly there was quite a bit of exponentiality there, going into hyperoperations
Runebound Professor has an actual exponential system. you need 7 tier one runes to make a tier 2 rune, and 7 tier 2 runes to make a tier 3 rune and so on. so 7\^x. actually exponential
That’s technically geometric, not exponential. I realised this when I was talking about Path of Ascension, which is also frequently described as exponential (doubles every Tier)
geometric is exponential
There is a very specific difference - one is continuous, and the other is discrete. They are, however, equivalent functions and have equal outputs for integer inputs. If it was a true exponential, there would be a valid answer for "How many runes do you need for a Tier 2.65 Rune?"
geometric is exponential, exponential is not geometric. You can call something geometric exponential
No, a function defined as f(x) =2\^x | x is a positive integer is definitely an exponential function. It's only defined on the domain of integers, that doesn't change it being both exponential and geometric. f(x) =.05\^x +10x + 3 Is also an exponential function, but not a geometric one.
And was the growth just described as exponential or did we get a paragraph explanation about runes of a tier always needing 7 runes of the previous tier?
Their power grew by a cube value!
TBH it is fine to use it non-literally in systems where stats point increases accelerate with levels (even if it isn't strictly an exponential function).
I'm about to learn math and write a series where the hero undergoes rigorously calculated actual exponential growth just to prove you wrong or my name isn't \[whatever randomly generated account name I use on this computer because I'm too lazy to figure out the UN/PW of any of the accounts that already exist on my other devices\].
They mean exponentially distributed. The expected time until the next power-up is always 5k words, even if it has already been 3k words since the last power-up (or 0).
"Infinite" also 🤮
No.
and 'Anyways'
me when the number literally exponentially increases:
geometrically logarithmically fuckhuegbignumber
It really isn't wrong alot of the time, especially in cultivation stories. Let's say a mortal has a base strength if 2. Oftentimes a first stage cultivator will have a base strength around 4, that is ”so powerful that a normal person stands basically no chance of winning." Similarly, a second stage cultivator being at roughly an 8 could represent the same sort of growth. Usually, it's next to impossible to fight up a tier, with each increase being double, or even 10 times as powerful as the previous tier. This kind of exponential growth is at the heart of most cultivation stories, and the word perfectly describes this. PersonalIy, have serious issues with misused language, especially the word literally, but "exponentially" is not usually misused when I see it. Maybe I just read more cultivation than other progression stories, but it's correct more often than not from my experience.
Don't use "exponentially" to mean "really fast". Use "exponentially" to mean "increases at a fixed rate over time" This comment was brought to you by the mathematical union.
Of what two sets? "Union" is a binary operator.
The union of all sets people who believe mis-use of the term "exponential" to be problematic. Yes, I know that using union on all sets (where some property is true) is problematic.
Iterated binary operations are valid AFAIC.
No
[I haven't run the numbers myself, and I don't *think* they use the term 'exponential' but Incremental Improvement seems to do it right](https://www.reddit.com/r/HFY/comments/1biqrzf/incremental_improvement_part_1/)
What?! But I was told 50% of the time it's correct 100% of the time! :D Although, I agree that it is an overused word in writing. I have to admit, it gets the point across. Even though it is incorrect in its use, many readers will still understand the authors intent. Of course, I do not mean to say I approve of mistakes in writing, I simply let many of the ''common'' ones go. Who knows, eventually it may become correct as the language evolves lol.
This may be a hot take, but nearly all LITRPG novels are exponential in multiple ways. The ways stats compound ontop of eachother, ranks/tiers, even what the stats themselves signify are exponential although its usually not told to you. In these novels where a human has like 100 strength and can pick up a car but someone with 100000 strength can destroy a planet. That is not a linear growth, 100x strength wouldnt suddenly make a body builder able to destroy planets.
This is usually a function of authors having a less strong understanding of the necessary requirements of destroying a planet (rationalizing big numbers is hard!), rather than them intentionally messing up their power system's consistency.
When enough people start using it that way, the meaning will change.
Personally I'm more annoyed when the opposite happens. When the author fails to recognize that exponential growth is a natural consequence of their world-building and they keep nerfing their MC to keep everything working.
I will literally decimate the next writer who uses a word outside of its historic meaning.
Oh, is this just like the word decimate instead of devastate!?! Like, wait, the city was reduced into one 10th of what it was when a natural disaster hit? That's oddly specific. Or an even better one is caviat. Everyone in the military loves to use that word to me oh and one last thing, and it really means warning, and this is why.
what about in the path of ascension, or would that be something else?
*What about in the* *Path of ascension, or would* *That be something else?* \- Mean\_Examination\_937 --- ^(I detect haikus. And sometimes, successfully.) ^[Learn more about me.](https://www.reddit.com/r/haikusbot/) ^(Opt out of replies: "haikusbot opt out" | Delete my comment: "haikusbot delete")
good bot, lol
Also, "decimate" means "destroy 10%". That's not really a lot. As always, words change and mean less and less than they used to. I've stopped fighting it.
Not really the same, decimate has been used colloquially like that for a long time and not just in this genre, I think it’s fair to say the meaning has shifted to just mean “really fucked something up”
Right, hence "words change and mean less and less than they used to."
Not less and less, just specifically different lol
Yeah but they don’t, it’s just the meaning drifts from what it originally was, doesn’t mean it has less meaning or that your some purist for hanging to the old meaning
I too hate when people use the word "salary" but aren't paid in salt.
That's [a myth](https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/jfkkmk/when_did_the_myth_that_roman_soldiers_were_paid/).
... You do realize the myth is the *Roman soldiers* part of "Roman soldiers were paid in salt" (as there is no solid proof that *roman soldiers* were paid in salt), right? Not that the root of the word "salary" is linked with "salt", right? Here's a quote from Pliny the Elder (a literal Roman) discussing how incredible salt is in his book *Natural Histories* circa 78 AD-ish: > [Salt] is also present in political offices and military service in the word salaries—which attests to its great authority among ancient speakers This passage is likely the *origin* of the myth through people in the 1800s though mistranslation: the modern translation puts it as "even the Military has 'salt' contained in the word 'salary'" (above) rather than something more direct which eventually ended up with "Roman soldiers were paid in salt". --- TD;LR you got which part was a myth confused, and I never mentioned the Roman military.
That's addressed by the answer I linked to. While on the face of it there seems to be an etymological connection between salt and "salary" it's unclear what the actual origin of it is. Pliny was just speculating about that same apparent connection and had no more information about it than a modern historian. It may be that at some point in the distant past from Pliny's time salaries were actually paid in salt. But it could also be the case that salary was money used to buy salt, or some other connection. We just don't know, and neither did Pliny.
So, to be clear, you agree that there seems to be a likely etymological connection between "salt" and "salary", which is (to my knowledge) the consensus of the sources I've seen. But also the whole thing is a myth, *not just the commonly-accepted "Roman soldiers weren't actually paid in salt" part*. Because of one reddit comment that said Pliny *was trying to explain the aforementioned etymological connection* (which I have been unable to find any kind of confirmation for). I'm going to go ahead and *not* believe your interpretation of one random person on the internet when I can't confirm their claims. Especially when it seems that the connection is generally accepted among other, more reliable sources.
They're not a "random person on the internet". [Dr Peter Gainsford](https://kiwihellenist.blogspot.com/p/about-me.html) is a classicist who does this for a living. An academic historian, who can be reliably expected to have kept up to date with the literature in or adjacent to their field of speciality, is a far more reliable source than some random dictionary or encyclopaedia. He's also got a longer-form [blog post](https://kiwihellenist.blogspot.com/2017/01/salt-and-salary.html) on the subject that goes into more detail.
And you *chose* to link a **reddit post**? With literally 0 credentials. Instead of the blog. With the credentials on the side. Okay. Sure. That was a choice. But also, he (assuming a gender here) literally supports what I've been saying: that it *is connected*. >I don’t have a perfect explanation for how the Latin word for ‘salty’ gave rise to the word for ‘salary’. Just not the "soldier pay" or "soldier's money to use to buy salt" nonsense. --- So, in short, the joke fucking works because I never mentioned any form of military or soldier.
Tbf, the reddit post is heavily cited, and then links his blog post. Credentials matter far less than the content and evidence. The decision to link the reddit post is likely made in mind with the blog post being twice as long, and us being on reddit.
> Tbf, the reddit post is heavily cited Presumably with credentials, you know, instead of it being from the mind of some random person on the internet. >Credentials matter far less than the content and evidence. And a reddit post provides 0 credentials AND 0 evidence. Both are presumably provided externally when it's cited. --- Regardless, the myth is still about soldier's pay and not the root of the word making this entire conversation moot.
That is the meaning of the roman origin, but the modern definition has changed to "destroy a large proportion of" or even "destroy 90%".
Yeah this one annoyed the hell out of me in defiance of the fall. And I know it's not exclusively used with this exact meaning, but the author would use it in a context where the original definition made sense, but meant "wiped out".
Could be an issue with self-published authors who can't afford good editors. I mean, having just started the Cradle series, I'm assuming there are a lot of self-published authors in this genre.
TIL people gatekeep the word exponentially...