

10% of a population is the tipping point for intellectual disruption - anigbrowl
http://news.rpi.edu/update.do?artcenterkey=2902&setappvar=page(1)

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nostromo
This seems more interesting than it actually is. In effect, it seems like the
authors are saying, "exponential growth is like real fast!"

The model seems very one-sided. I can't access the original paper, but it
seems they have 4 states for each node:

1a) Committed to opinion A

1b) Has opinion A

2) Has opinion B

3) Has both opinion A and B

In this model, there is no "committed to opinion B" -- which makes this
useless as a model for things like climate change, evolution, or civil rights
where both sides have a committed population. Since this is the case, opinion
A can only grow, and at some point will hit a threshold that takes over the
whole population.

I assume they built the model this way because if it were balanced, you would
likely get random outputs, depending on how the graph is arranged. And random
outputs don't make good headlines. :)

~~~
warmfuzzykitten
Your state 3 should be "Has opinion B but has been exposed to a node in state
1". In that state, the next exposure to different node in state 1 would change
the node to state 1b. True believers win by being immune to contrary opinions.

I doubt the researchers were motivated by headlines. Rather, they put together
a simplistic model and got a simplistic result that is surprising only for the
consistency of the tipping point across their chosen variations of the model.
For example, other (field) research shows that the common reaction to opinions
or facts that contradict one's opinions is to argue, which tends to cement
one's opinions further. This doesn't necessarily imply one starts out
committed. It also ignores confirmation bias, which limits exposure to
contrary opinions. Etc.

As others point out, if their model was accurate, there could be no long-term
stalemates, like progressive vs. conservative, both of which have
significantly more than 10% true believers. Nonetheless, it is suggestive,
particularly as it describes relatively isolated communities and as it
implicitly distinguishes between belief systems which insist on absolute
commitment (e.g., Evangelicals, Tea Party) vs. those which are satisfied with
mere agreement and tolerate dissent (e.g., Ecumenicalists, Independents).

------
sorbus
> “When the number of committed opinion holders is below 10 percent, there is
> no visible progress in the spread of ideas. It would literally take the
> amount of time comparable to the age of the universe for this size group to
> reach the majority,” said SCNARC Director Boleslaw Szymanski, the Claire and
> Roland Schmitt Distinguished Professor at Rensselaer. “Once that number
> grows above 10 percent, the idea spreads like flame.”

So how does a small group reach 10%? This description of their model appears
to claim that it is impossible for the beliefs of the majority to change
(because _every_ group begins with below 10% adoption of their ideas).

~~~
jerf
This appears to be Yet Another "we threw some code together and published the
results without feeling obligated to check our model against the real world"
study. At least if they did any sort of real-word verification, the article
doesn't mention it.

The assumptions strike me as unreasonable, the results worthless because the
details matter a _lot_. Another prime candidate for "we tuned our unverified
model until it did something publishable", too.

~~~
Geee
That passes publishable, it doesn't have to be final verdict on the subject.
It should be taken as is. They mentioned observing the revolutions which
happened really fast and would fit in the model.

~~~
jerf
Yes, the low bar of publishable is part of my point. I think I failed to
communicate my main point, which is that you can make these iterative models
do _any damn thing you please_. It's a fun sort of entertainment for
programmers, kind of like those "evolve a cart that runs over random terrain"
things that pop up every so often... but without proving a correlation to the
real world, it's useless. I can make very small tweaks to their model and make
the threshold 20%. I can make very small tweaks to their model and make the
threshold 5%. How do you judge which of these three results is correct? Or how
do you judge if a single numeric threshold is even meaningful in the real
world?

No, seriously, don't just blip over that. How do you verify this result? How
do you tell which is correct? There is no evidence in the link that anybody
has asked that. Maybe they did, but it's not a negligible detail, it's very
important!

Here, run one of them in your browser:
<http://www.openprocessing.org/visuals/?visualID=6599> Have fun yourself
seeing how very small tweaks, well below the real-world noise threshold, can
have profound effects, the source is right there.

It's not an interesting result, without some sort of verification against the
world, and cherry picking a few current events and making vague allusions to
how it sort of acts like a system you threw together isn't verification in the
slightest.

~~~
Helianthus
This may be a useless post since it just reiterates, but I feel strongly that
I should re-emphasize that yes, _very small tweaks_ can make the threshold 20%
or 5%, so the number is essentially pulled out of a hat.

~~~
jacques_chester
Finance types refer to this as a "sensitive" model -- it's not robust in the
face of small changes to parameters.

A good way to explore these problems is to perform monte carlo simulations
over the set of possible parameters and then derive general behaviour from
that -- looking in particular for 'catastrophic' features in the phases space.

Later you can narrow your data set down based on empirically observed
parameters.

As an undergraduate I wrote a standard grid-based model of epidemics which
does this. So it's not as though it's rocket science.

------
stretchwithme
I think it matters WHO the 10% are.

Its been shown in various experiments that a significant percentage of the
people go along with the group even when the group is obviously wrong. I think
it was at least 60%.

So that leaves 40% or less that are capable of adopting something new. You'd
have to get half of them to sway the followers. That's 20% or less, which 10%
certainly is.

But if your 10% are in some kind of subculture and most are followers, they
aren't going to be influencers of the larger society.

If the 10% are all in the media and politics, I think the change is likelier.

It also depends on the nature of the change. A change that requires
significant inconvenience will be harder than deciding Pluto is no longer a
planet.

~~~
lhnz
This all sounds very likely to me. But is there a source for this information?

~~~
stretchwithme
There's the Asch conformity experiments, where people went along with the
group with no overt pressure and with nothing at stake:

    
    
      http://psychology.about.com/od/classicpsychologystudies/p/conformity.htm
    

The Milgram experiments on obedience to authority are also relevant. 65% of
subjects went along with what amounted to torture of another person:

    
    
      http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milgram_experiment
    

While these experiments weren't about the spread of ideas, conformity and
obedience are certainly at work for the vast majority that simply repeat what
they hear. You can have a perfectly sound, logical case, even with physical
evidence and many will not trust their own judgement if its contradicted by an
authority.

But it sort of has to work this way. There have to be followers if there are
to be leaders and leaders are necessary if groups are to compete with each
other, which was the case even before modern humans showed up.

------
zoba
I think the population of atheists (and near atheists) is at or above 10% in
the US. Judging from my perspective in North Carolina, the population of
devout Christians is at least 10%.

I wonder what this model would say about ideas that oppose each other.

------
pitchups
This is based on a computer model/simulation. One of the assumptions in the
model was that if a person talks to 2 people who hold a different opinion than
him/her, they will then change their opinion. I am not sure how realistic that
assumption is. Do you change your opinion or belief if just 2 people disagree
with you?

~~~
pnathan
Counterexample to their assumption: religions.

~~~
Helianthus
any reasonable model would consider atheism as a religion when it comes to the
mechanics of its spread.

~~~
pzxc
I have no idea what that is supposed to mean. Religion spreads when people
tell other people about the religion. You can't believe in Jesus (or whomever)
until they tell you who he is.

Atheism, on the contrary, simply means "the lack of theistic belief". Anyone
who has not subscribed to a religion is technically atheistic. I'm not sure
how many "atheist missionaries" you've met, but do you really think that
atheism spreads by people convincing other people?

All babies are atheists, by the way.

~~~
JanezStupar
And your post is founded on scientific fact not belief?

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espeed
Isn't the "tipping point" in the law of diffusion of innovation
(<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diffusion_of_innovations>) somewhere between
15-18% market penetration?

------
pitchups
It seems like the RPI.edu server hosting the original article is down - thanks
probably to the link appearing on Hacker News..

~~~
Joakal
Seems to be the same article if not similar: Minority rules: Scientists
discover tipping point for the spread of ideas
[http://www.physorg.com/news/2011-07-minority-scientists-
idea...](http://www.physorg.com/news/2011-07-minority-scientists-ideas.html)

------
anigbrowl
These slides might shed some further light on the research models and
application domains:
[http://www.rpi.edu/dept/phys/sicsin2011/NetSci2011_Sameet.pd...](http://www.rpi.edu/dept/phys/sicsin2011/NetSci2011_Sameet.pdf)

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DrJokepu
So what happens if there are multiple groups, each larger than 10% and all
holding mutually exclusive beliefs? Say for instant, 40% of the population of
a country is Catholic and 45% is Protestant? Civil war, I guess?

~~~
Geee
I think the new opinion has to come from 'in-group'. I mean, it would be
needed that suddenly 10% of the catholic population thinks that 'Hey,
protestants are better'. Then, they might influence their friends to change.

