reinforcing feedback loop \ stacker news ~econ

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576 sats \ 3 comments \ @cryotosensei 13 Jan econ

Am reading ‘The Undercover Economist’ by Tim Hadford and came across this term, Reinforcing feedback loop. Tim used it to compare against ‘vicious cycle’.

I have never heard of ‘reinforcing loop’ until today. I guess if I want to convey this concept through my writing, I will use ‘virtuous cycle’. But to me, ‘reinforcing loop’ sounds more down-to-earth than ‘virtuous cycle’. Like it is used for those ordinary practices and routines in daily life. ‘Virtuous cycle’ sounds more transformative and seems suited to denote the significant events in one’s life.

This year, I intend to just praise the good things my students are doing, without suggesting any area of improvement. I am guided by the principle of what the mind focuses on expands. Reinforcing loop seems to be a more holistic description of the process. It reminds me of the life cycle of organisms - reaching fruition, passing on their DNA, a never ending process.

**What reinforcing loops are you applying in your life to make yourself more efficient and effective?

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168 sats \ 2 replies \ @Undisciplined 13 Jan

It's kind of funny to me that we have all these different names, when all three of the processes you mention are just examples "positive feedback".

Like you illustrate, the colloquial usage is trying to better capture the feel of the thing and it sounds weird to most people to describe something like a "fiscal death spiral" as a "positive feedback loop". You can't call it a "negative feedback loop", though, because that means something else.

It's a good example of positive (yet another usage) and normative butting heads.

23 sats \ 1 reply \ @cryotosensei OP 14 Jan

Cool. You had me googling ‘fiscal death spiral’!

Isn’t it a bad thing though? In terms of government debt - When a government issues more debt than it can pay back, and interest payments grow larger. Why is it considered a positive feedback loop?

Thanks in advance!

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @Undisciplined 14 Jan

"Positive feedback cycles" aren't a good/bad category. Rather it's a description of the dynamics of a system.

Positive feedback just means the system reinforces or strengthens the effect: in a fiscal death spiral, the attempts to mitigate the problem actually make it worse.

Negative feedback means the system pushes back on the process. Sticking with fiscal metaphors, something like tax evasion is a negative feedback on raising taxes: i.e. states can't just raise taxes to increase revenue, because of the negative feedback from tax evasion.