
Ask HN: Idea Propagation through Social Networks? - rajansaini
I&#x27;d like to learn about how ideas propagate through ordinary social networks via word of mouth. It seems like a very rich problem that could combine theories from graph theory, game theory, psychology, and epidemiological modeling. Are there any rigorous treatments of this problem?<p>Bonus points if they discuss requirements for widespread diffusion or possibly have a marketing-based skew.<p>Apologies if I break any HN rules, spoken or unspoken; I have not posted very often.
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sitkack
You basically should read all of [https://arxiv.org/list/physics.soc-
ph/recent](https://arxiv.org/list/physics.soc-ph/recent) Physics and Society

[https://arxiv.org/list/cs.SI/recent](https://arxiv.org/list/cs.SI/recent)
Social and Information Networks

Two random samplings look to be right on topic, search for survey papers in
both disciplines.

Spreading of Memes on Multiplex Networks
[https://arxiv.org/abs/1810.12630](https://arxiv.org/abs/1810.12630)

A model for meme popularity growth in social networking systems based on
biological principle and human interest dynamics
[https://arxiv.org/abs/1902.00533](https://arxiv.org/abs/1902.00533)

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rajansaini
Whoa thanks!! I'll definitely take a look! Have you happened to come across
anything dealing with optimal initial conditions that was particularly
noteworthy?

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yamrzou
You might be interested in this paper: "The Majority Illusion in Social
Networks",
[https://arxiv.org/abs/1506.03022](https://arxiv.org/abs/1506.03022)

Abstract:

Social behaviors are often contagious, spreading through a population as
individuals imitate the decisions and choices of others. A variety of global
phenomena, from innovation adoption to the emergence of social norms and
political movements, arise as a result of people following a simple local
rule, such as copy what others are doing. However, individuals often lack
global knowledge of the behaviors of others and must estimate them from the
observations of their friends' behaviors. In some cases, the structure of the
underlying social network can dramatically skew an individual's local
observations, making a behavior appear far more common locally than it is
globally. We trace the origins of this phenomenon, which we call "the majority
illusion," to the friendship paradox in social networks. As a result of this
paradox, a behavior that is globally rare may be systematically
overrepresented in the local neighborhoods of many people, i.e., among their
friends. Thus, the "majority illusion" may facilitate the spread of social
contagions in networks and also explain why systematic biases in social
perceptions, for example, of risky behavior, arise. Using synthetic and real-
world networks, we explore how the "majority illusion" depends on network
structure and develop a statistical model to calculate its magnitude in a
network.

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rajansaini
In case anyone's interested, mindcrime's comment lead me down a series of
links, and I found this: [https://www.cs.cornell.edu/home/kleinber/networks-
book/](https://www.cs.cornell.edu/home/kleinber/networks-book/)

Seems to be exactly what I'm looking for! If anyone knows anything at all in
this area, no matter how small, please share!

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mindcrime
The closest thing I'm aware of is the work on "diffusion of innovations".

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diffusion_of_innovations](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diffusion_of_innovations)

If you look at this stuff, and you're familiar with the Crossing the Chasm
idea, you may be struck immediately by the similarity of some of the charts.
There was definitely some influence by the former, on the latter.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crossing_the_Chasm](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crossing_the_Chasm)

Also, there is an interdisciplinary field called "Network Science" that
heavily builds on graph theory, but includes elements from sociology,
economics, complex adaptive systems, statistical mechanics, etc, yadda yadda.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Network_science](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Network_science)

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rajansaini
Oooh very interesting, thanks! From what I've skimmed, it's so surprising how
well his ideas transfer over to the present era!

Edit: Did not read the second half of your comment, absolutely!!

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mindcrime
_Edit: Did not read the second half of your comment, absolutely!!_

I've been editing stuff in kinda piecemeal. :-)

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mindcrime
Forgot to mention this earlier, but two other related areas that you might
find worth studying are:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_physics](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_physics)

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_network_analysis](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_network_analysis)

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Solstinox
Look into network science. Albert-László Barabási does cool work in the space.

Don't get too dazzled by proxies.

Ideas propagate through people. If you want to get people, read some fiction,
some history, and some philosophy.

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rajansaini
This is gold to me, thank you.

I apologize, what do you mean by proxies?

Do you have any recommendations for a less-abstracted view of history
(focusing on individuals rather than their emergent structures)? Or branches
of philosophy that are particularly illuminating in this context?

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Solstinox
People have tackled this stuff for millennia. By all means focus on the
emergent structures, as that's the only way to learn about that structure. If
you only study the modern proxies for these structures ("network theory") you
miss out on great stuff.

An Aesop's Fable from 2000+ years ago about influence in a network:

"A trumpeter being taken prisoner in a battle, begged hard for quarter. "Spare
me, good sirs, I beseech you," said he, "and put me not to death without
cause, for I have killed no one myself, nor have I any arms but this trumpet
only." "For that very reason," said they who had seized him, "shall you the
sooner die, for without the spirit to fight, yourself, you stir up others to
warfare and bloodshed."

He who incites strife is worse than he who takes part in it."

