Talk:Essay:Best New Conservative Words

Archive 1

A different take on the Geometric Growth issue

It might be geometric growth, it might be geometric decay too. If say every year one new conservative word is coined, but every hundred years half of the existing conservative words fall out of use, then the words from the 1600's would be half as prevalent as conservative words than the words from the 1700's. Also, why is transistor a conservative word? It doesn;t seem like it is any more politically important than automobile, or cucumber, or steak. --JGHuston 23:28, 31 May 2009 (EDT)

But there is no "decay" in the conservative examples provided. Your point would apply to the liberal terms, which do quickly fall out of use. The conservative insights grow in usage and value.

The transistor is "more politically important" than a steak. The transistor played a central role in national defense systems, such as the Strategic Defense Initiative, a program proposed by conservatives and which helped bring the downfall of communism in the USSR. Moreover, the transistor epitomizes Yankee ingenuity, which is a conservative value.--Andy Schlafly 09:04, 1 June 2009 (EDT)

If my proposal were correct would you expect the decayed examples to be in the list? I would think that would throw off the numbers and we wouldn't see the exponential growth in the numbers. As someone working in the cattle industry I would contest the notion that steak isn't politically important. It is a food source for conservatives by conservatives. It seems like the SDI is built on a whole lot of other technological innovations as well that aren't on the list. --JGHuston 12:34, 1 June 2009 (EDT)

There is exponential growth of conservative words that continue to be useful. The liberal words do fizzle quickly, but the conservative words do not. If you have counterexamples, let's see them. If you say the counterexamples have vanished and cannot be found, then your proposal is non-falsifiable and thus unscientific.

"Transistor" is on the list for several reasons, as I explained here and in the entry. If you can find other examples used for SDI that are comparable, then let's discuss them too.--Andy Schlafly 14:03, 1 June 2009 (EDT)

My point was that it might be decay too, of course we cannot test it unless we find a comparable list from 100 years ago. However, it seems contradictory when you say that we can't test, but our words are increasing and their words are decaying. It seems like both sets would be simultaneously growing and decaying. --JGHuston 15:38, 1 June 2009 (EDT)

Conservative words don't disappear as you suggest. You have access to older works on the internet. I've provided 150 new conservative words that have lasted. Can you identify even 1 that has disappeared?

It doesn't seem to me "like both sets [conservative and liberal] would be simultaneously growing and decaying" the same way. In fact, I'd be shocked if these very different categories behaved identically. One is almost certainly growing and lasting more than the other, and the evidence is that the conservative words are winning this struggle. Difficult for liberals to accept, I'm sure, but the facts don't care if they are accepted or not.--Andy Schlafly 17:15, 1 June 2009 (EDT)

Let me jump in here just to ask, Andy, do you have a dictionary-type definition of "conservative word"? It is impossible to test for geometric growth (or whatever we call it!) if we don't know how to identify a conservative word. AddisonDM 17:20, 1 June 2009 (EDT)