Changes

::No problem Leonard. Here's how I interpret it; others may well disagree. As Andy observes, the rate at which new conservative ideas are produced and refined is increasing rapidly. Andy's original observation was of an exponential increase, but I think that's an artifact of the measurement - if you look at the top right part of the green line on the first graph, it looks exponential in that region, but taken as a whole it's a quadratic curve. Likewise, Andy's observation of words since 1600 shows exponential growth, but graphing exponential growth over several thousand years shows that it can't be that fast over the whole period. It has also been observed that liberalism is on the increase. In both cases, what we're talking about is - in my opinion - the relative strength of the two world-views. As humanity develops, ideas are tested against each other, old ideas are tested against new ideas and so on, with the better ideas surviving in the long run. The previous observations about growth of conservatism and liberalism can be reconciled on that assumption; the two sides are both developing their ideas and improving them. Thus the first graph shows how conservative ideas develop faster than liberal ones - liberals merely add more ideas linearly, while conservatives can combine new with old productively, so each year the increase is greater than the year before.  

::No problem Leonard. Here's how I interpret it; others may well disagree. As Andy observes, the rate at which new conservative ideas are produced and refined is increasing rapidly. Andy's original observation was of an exponential increase, but I think that's an artifact of the measurement - if you look at the top right part of the green line on the first graph, it looks exponential in that region, but taken as a whole it's a quadratic curve. Likewise, Andy's observation of words since 1600 shows exponential growth, but graphing exponential growth over several thousand years shows that it can't be that fast over the whole period. It has also been observed that liberalism is on the increase. In both cases, what we're talking about is - in my opinion - the relative strength of the two world-views. As humanity develops, ideas are tested against each other, old ideas are tested against new ideas and so on, with the better ideas surviving in the long run. The previous observations about growth of conservatism and liberalism can be reconciled on that assumption; the two sides are both developing their ideas and improving them. Thus the first graph shows how conservative ideas develop faster than liberal ones - liberals merely add more ideas linearly, while conservatives can combine new with old productively, so each year the increase is greater than the year before.  

::The second graph shows (again, hypothetical) numbers of conservatively or liberally inclined people, based on the previous graph - the number of adherents of each view is assumed to be proportional to the ratio of the numbers in the previous graph. Again, it's all just a demonstration rather than an assertion about the details of actual politics, but hopefully it illustrates what we're talking about here. [[User:Jcw|Jcw]] 19:10, 17 June 2011 (EDT)

::The second graph shows (again, hypothetical) numbers of conservatively or liberally inclined people, based on the previous graph - the number of adherents of each view is assumed to be proportional to the ratio of the numbers in the previous graph. Again, it's all just a demonstration rather than an assertion about the details of actual politics, but hopefully it illustrates what we're talking about here. [[User:Jcw|Jcw]] 19:10, 17 June 2011 (EDT)