[nchmy]

I just saw this post so am starting with Part 1. Could you replace the charts with ones on some sort of log scale? It makes it look like nothing happened til 2010, but I'd wager its just an optical illusion...

And, even better, put all the lines on the same chart, or at least with the same y axis scale (perhaps make them all relative to their base on the left), so that we can the relative rate of growth?

[jared_hulbert]

I tried with the log scale before. They failed to express the exponential hockey stick growth unless you really spend the time with the charts and know what log scale is. I'll work on incorporating log scale due to popular demand. They do show the progress has been nice and exponential over time.

When I put the lines on the same chart it made the y axis impossible to understand. The units are so different. Maybe I'll revisit that.

Yeah around 2000-2010 the doubling is noticeable. Interestingly it's also when alot of factors started to stagnate.

[nchmy]

The hockey stick growth is the entire problem - it's an optical illusion resulting from the fact that going from 100 to 200 is the same rate as 200 to 400. And 800, 1600. You understand exponents.

Log axis solves this, and turns meaningless hockey sticks into generally a straightish line that you can actually parse. If it still deviates from straight, then you really know there's true changes in the trendline.

Lines on same chart can all be divided by their initial value, anchoring them all at 1. Sometimes they're still a mess, but it's always worth a try.

You're enormously knowledgeable and the posts were fascinating. But this is stats 101. Not doing this sort of thing, especially explicitly in favour of showing a hockey stick, undermines the fantastic analysis.