How quickly does a society change?

There are many ways to measure change:
- propagation speed of fads or memes
- language migration
- acceptance time of new ideas or mores
- establishment of new technology or science

While everyone today thinks technology changes rapidly, major changes take a long time. Looking at the "industrial revolution", the time from basic tool-making to assembly lines was thousands of years.

Why has Marxism been widely believed?

Marxism as a testable theory has been repeatedly debunked, disproved, and dismissed. But many people still believe it.

A possible reason is that Marx told a simple and compelling story. Like many religious stories, Marx's story gives a purpose to humanity. The story frames a "big picture" view to those confused by the world's randomness.

Marx used Hegel's framework of linear progression to describe steps to a social utopia.

It's not useful to point out Marxism's failures or fallacies if the believers accept it on faith.

How will a new theory be developed that captures the faith of the average person? In a world of seven billion people, a movement of a small minority, say 10%, is still huge.

factors in change

Change in large system often starts gradually.

After a period where a factor influences the system but no change is observed, suddenly the effect becomes obvious. Why the sudden switch? If a change cannot be detected until it erupts, can the influence be detected?

These questions appear in complex systems of all types -- biological, human, financial, and others.

One possibility is that the normal spectrum of a system will show a difference in its statistical variance before there's a noticeable difference in the average.