# Talk:Jevons paradox

The introduction claims both phrases are in circulation. Related concepts seems to largely be referred to as "effects": e.g. "rebound effect", "reservoir effect". "Paradox" assumes that the concept violates readers' intuition, whereas "effect" seems less assuming and at least as technically accurate. I edited the contents to largely prefer this less assuming terminology, but my attempt to rename the page accordingly was rejected. I can imagine some arguments for preserving "Paradox" in the title (discoverability, historical preservation), but they weren't articulated in the revert message and I'm not sure how to weigh them. So, seeking more input regarding the article's title here. Wallacoloo (talk) 03:23, 3 June 2022 (UTC)

Jevons Paradox is what the article has been titled since 2004 when it was created. I think a discussion would be appropriate before a move. Thriley (talk) 04:20, 3 June 2022 (UTC)
I started a discussion here as well: Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Economics. Thriley (talk) 04:21, 3 June 2022 (UTC)
The issue with using "Jevons effect" (or, as is currently the case, "Jevons' effect") as the primary term for the phenomenon throughout the article is that that term doesn't really appear to be in use. A Google Ngrams search for "rebound effect," "Jevons paradox," and "Jevons effect" reveals a (comparative) lot of use of the first, some (almost entirely recent) use of the second, and almost no use of the third. Oooooooseven (talk) 23:01, 29 January 2023 (UTC)
It is in fact, more of a paradox than an effect. According to [en.wikipedia.org, effect:](https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/effect)
1. The result or outcome of a cause.
And [paradox](https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/paradox):
1. An apparently self-contradictory statement, which can only be true if it is false, and vice versa.
Not all causes have paradoxical effects. While common, efficiencies do not always lead to increased consumption. The paradox identified by Jevons, resulted from historical data on coal consumption before and after the Watt steam engine came on the scene. Given that we can never know what the consumption curve would have looked like in the absence of improved efficiency, we can not simply declare that the change in adoption of coal fired steam engines was an effect of the efficiency change.
The rapid increase in consumption seemed paradoxical, given the sudden increase in efficiency, but it might have been much worse without those efficiencies, so we certainly have a paradox, but it is not certain the observations were caused by said efficiencies, though they were probably a contributing factor. JwD (talk) 05:32, 4 May 2023 (UTC)
Bit late to the discussion, but I believe, per policy WP:COMMONNAME, that we should be using the term "Jevons paradox" throughout the article, as this is the term that is commonly used in the wider world.  As such, unless there are objections, I will be reverting the edit from last year that changed almost all instances of the term "Jevons paradox" to "Jevons effect". LK (talk) 06:32, 20 September 2023 (UTC)

If the market cost of a resource (product or service) includes compensating those affected by externalities of the consumption then there would be no reason for society to try to minimize its consumption, right?  If there is no reason to minimize consumption then there is no reason to discuss the Jevons paradox, right?  Despite the sparsity of discussion in this article, it seems that the difference between market cost and true cost plays a crucial role for the Jevons paradox.  Would someone who knows the topic please modify the article accordingly?  —Quantling (talk | contribs) 22:05, 31 January 2025 (UTC)

AI section, see here
https://x.com/TheStalwart/status/1883919482504327625 2603:6000:B445:1A06:C25C:E1A:75F6:2232 (talk) 19:28, 28 January 2025 (UTC)

I mostly care for people to understand this big reality. I truly believe that it happens in such a scale for the first time after the industrial revolution. I believe it would be a shame for Wikipedia not to mention the most modern and extreme playout of Jevons.
The comment was deleted and then was replaced with LED! Which is not a good example because the electricity usage decreased because of it. There is some inelasticity of demand. I included several links that support this, and I believe that someone needs to take care of this as this page is now read by thousands. Dimknaf (talk) 21:12, 28 January 2025 (UTC)
And a last comment, when I first edited, this pages was rarely visited, so I did not have much to earn. I was mostly interested to learn more about Wikipedia and contribute. Dimknaf (talk) 21:14, 28 January 2025 (UTC)
@https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Contributions/2603:6000:B445:1A06:C25C:E1A:75F6:2232 - so the first time that the section was deleted by the same person, was because chip and compute demand is not "Jevons Paradox". I do not know why this user was so committed to find a way to delete this section. Dimknaf (talk) 21:18, 28 January 2025 (UTC)
I'll give a try at answering that.  Wikipedia is not for breaking news stories that haven't yet been published, nor for original research such as synthesis.  Wikipedia summarizes well-established facts from other sources that state them.  We have to find a reliable source that says something and only then can we put it into Wikipedia.  —Quantling (talk | contribs) 21:29, 28 January 2025 (UTC)
So for agriculture that is a single link, it is considered acceptable, but for AI that it is obvious and there are several sources available doing an excellent analysis it's not?
Also what parts are not relevant or not true? And why these double standards? Dimknaf (talk) 00:18, 29 January 2025 (UTC)
Someone just added a deepseek section. I worry the edit wars will begin Ricelord1 (talk) 14:36, 29 January 2025 (UTC)
I removed the FinAI and other secondary links, and added Dario Amodei's essay which is very well grounded, and from someone that is the pioneer of the industry. However, I think it is good for other opinions to be expressed, so I added a criticism section. If you disagree with Dario or that view, you can express it. So, all together can work on this and at some point combine it, and avoid deleting a very credible and useful essay for the readers. Dimknaf (talk) 19:45, 29 January 2025 (UTC)
it got removed and then someone else added another ai sentence.
The edit wars have begun Ricelord1 (talk) 02:43, 31 January 2025 (UTC)
Dimknaf writes "So for agriculture that is a single link, it is considered acceptable, but...".  I will attempt to clarify.  The "double standard" that you are seeing is actually that one link often isn't sufficient if the material is controversial and another editor contests it.  I haven't researched the one link for agriculture, but if you think that it is insufficient, you are well within your rights to contest it.  Because that text has been in the article for a while it has seemingly been accepted by many readers and editors and thus it might be overboard to jump straight into deleting the offending text.  Nonetheless you would be well within your rights to start a discussion on the topic.  (On the other hand, if you don't actually object to the agricultural example then such a discussion isn't going to help anyone and should be avoided.)
The AI example is brand new so the default assumption if there are objections is that the text should not be inserted until some sort of consensus can be achieved.  Discussion here is the usually best first step, but if you are unhappy with the discussion there are other possibilities that you could pursue.  At the risk of stating the obvious: edit warring is not one of them!  I hope that's helpful —Quantling (talk | contribs) 15:19, 29 January 2025 (UTC)
Can we start editing and adjusting instead of removing a real and credible fact? 2A00:23C7:5A9B:6B01:9152:508C:31C3:B4C0 (talk) 01:19, 29 January 2025 (UTC)
I believe it would be a shame for Wikipedia not to mention the most modern and extreme playout of Jevons. Dimknaf and 2a00:23c7:5a9b:6b01*: If AI is indeed "the most modern and extreme playout of Jevons" as you describe, there should be no trouble in finding multiple high quality reliable sources to support the article text. But LinkedIn posts, tweets, and blog posts do not qualify. GorillaWarfare (she/her • talk) 15:38, 30 January 2025 (UTC)