Tipping point is determined.. it's 10%!

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Serge Issakov

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Jun 12, 2012, 6:13:43 PM6/12/12
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I've long felt that we have to reach a certain critical mass or tipping point for the bicycle driver idea to start spreading better, but didn't know what point was.  Now we know!

We only need 10% of the population to unshakably hold the idea that cyclists are drivers with the same rights and responsible as drivers of vehicles, and this idea will spread like wild fire!  Just 10%!

"Scientists at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute have found that when just 10 percent of the population holds an unshakable belief, their belief will always be adopted by the majority of the society."

"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."

Serge Issakov

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Jun 12, 2012, 6:15:05 PM6/12/12
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Oops, that's a link to a post about the article.
Here's the link to the actual article: http://phys.org/news/2011-07-minority-scientists-ideas.html

Serge
 

John Forester

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Jun 12, 2012, 6:40:19 PM6/12/12
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If you read the more detailed account, you will see that the Renselaer Institute study was based on situation where the new idea was not competing against an old idea of similar strong belief, just a sea of people who are open to the new belief. Here's an obvious counterexample for the RI concept. In America, both committed Republicans and committed Democrats number more than 10% of the population, and neither view sweeps the nation. In cycling the cyclist equality concept is up against the motorist-superiority, cyclist-inferiority concept. The motorist-superiority side surely has many more holders than 10%, quite possibly more than 50%. The RI study is irrelevant to us.
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John Forester, MS, PE
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Serge Issakov

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Jun 12, 2012, 6:50:31 PM6/12/12
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Yes, I realized that after posting.  I wrote this in a discussion with Geof Gee on Facebook:

yes - apparently this applies only when the idea in question doesn't have a contrary idea also held by more than 10%. See the last paragraph of the article. I guess then it's more like two opposing magnets or something and they dynamics are much more complicated.

Also, this explains why the cyclists are drivers meme has so much trouble growing - it's probably because the contrary meme - cyclists need to be separated from drivers - has a lot of traction. So the big fight is about getting us to the 10% point, while the others are fighting, directly and indirectly.

Well, this explains why the disagreement is so important to each side.  Each is preventing the other from prevailing.

The idea of compromise, argued by some - that the "need" for separation AND the idea that cyclists are drivers can be pursued simultaneously - is folly.

Serge


Wayne Pein

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Jun 12, 2012, 9:50:24 PM6/12/12
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First we need to get 10% of bicyclist on board.

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Wayne

www.bicyclingmatters.wordpress.com
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