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In the following sentence, the adverb "rapidly" is modified by "as ... as..." I'm wondering if this comparison is incompatible with the sentence-initial "more than ever before," which is a comparative modifier.
More than ever before, our language and our ideas about language are changing as rapidly as the world around us.
It's from the preface to Roget's 21st Century Thesaurus.
The phrase "More than ever before" here compares what is happening now with what happened in a past time.
The phrase "changing as rapidly as the world around us" compares the speed of change in our ideas with the speed of change in the world.
The whole sentence:
More than ever before, our language and our ideas about language are changing as rapidly as the world around us.
is grammatically valid, and reasonably natural. A fluent speaker might well say or write this. (It feels more like a sentence from a written essay or a prepared speech than an off-hand remark.) The construction "X goes as rapidly as Y" is a common one, and perfectly acceptable.
