Are You a 10 Percenter?

There was a science story this week from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute that got some talk in the liberty sphere, and, interestingly, not much other coverage.  Glenn Beck's website for one reported the group announced their computer modeling showed:

... if 10% of people (on any topic) strongly believe in something – 100% of the time it becomes the norm for society. (bold added)

That means if those of us who consider ourselves threepers, could engage enough people with persuasive arguments about liberty, reducing the size of the government and reducing the size of the debt, once we get to 10% of the population, we have won.  To quote a more in depth report at ScienceBlog.com: 

“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.”

The abstract is viewable at Physics Review E (but doesn't say much).

The authors cite as example the overthrow of the Egyptian and Tunisian governments, where decades-old governments collapsed in short order.  There is no specific mention of Libya: did they start from much less than 10%?  Are there other forces at play?

A second reason to know this is that Leviathan will certainly use this against us.  Obviously if the liberty sphere figures out that if we spread enough belief in our values we'll collapse Leviathan, and they sure ain't going down without a fight!   They will mount counter campaigns to convert the Free S*** Army zombies that they feed off of.  Plus, we'll be fighting the media.

I will personally file this as "interesting claim that deserves some tests".   It certainly can't hurt to spread the word on our beliefs. 


EDIT 7/30 1144 - I left a sentence in there that was so hard to read it would actually damage your eyes.