> The term is regularly abused in the general English-speaking culture. New
> Age types, and many others, are always smiling gratefully when they receive
> what they call `positive feedback' (meaning, for them, encouragement or
> praise) and recoiling from the dreaded `negative reinforcement' (meaning,
> they suppose, disapproval). In fact, positive feedback is nothing more
> than returning a part of the system's output in such a way that the output
> *increases*, while negative feedback uses part of the system's current
> output to *restrict* or *lower* continuing output.
I had the pleasure of being in an auditorium in which
a marketing type asked an audience of engineers for
"positive feedback" just as he moved in front of the
speaker while wearing a portable microphone. He got
his positive feedback then, from the PA system. The
Audience cracked up, laughing uproarously. The marketeer
got a puzzled look on his face.
Population growth, epidemics, and our singularity scenarios
are examples of positive feedback. The non-technical public
just doesn't get it.