the.com/marginality
The last unit decides everything; the rest just came along for the ride.
means The state of being on the edge rather than the center — the condition of mattering only incrementally, or of living at the border where small changes tip big outcomes.
from Built from 'margin,' which comes from Latin margo/marginis meaning edge or border — the blank strip bounding a page. Economists later seized on 'marginal' to mean 'the next unit' (marginal cost, marginal utility), and 'marginality' grew from that soil to describe anything existing at the edge of relevance, attention, or power rather than at its center.
- economics core
- Value comes from the next unit, not the average one
- diminishing returns
- Each extra unit helps less than the last
- water-diamond paradox
- Explains why water is cheap and diamonds are not
- decision rule
- Act only while extra benefit beats extra cost