by Blender Dumbass

Aka: J.Y. Amihud. A Jewish by blood, multifaceted artist with experience in film-making, visual effects, programming, game development, music and more. A philosopher at heart. An activist for freedom and privacy. Anti-Paternalist. A user of Libre Software. Speaking at least 3 human languages. The writer and director of the 2023 film "Moria's Race" and the lead developer of it's game sequel "Dani's Race".

When it comes to the utter war between Liberals and Conservatives, the so called, Right and Left sides of the political spectrum, a lot of people avoid the fighting by simply choosing the center. I, on the other hand joke sometimes that the best option is to choose the square root of -1.

So is it center, left or right?

To square a number you simply multiply this number by itself. 2 squared is the same as 2 times 2. Which is 4. I gonna talk a bit about math, but it is important to understand the political spectrum that I'm trying to present here. A square root is when you try to reverse squaring. For 4 the square root will be 2. Because 2 squared is 4. Some square roots are more complicated. Square root of 2 is a number similar to Pi with an endless amount of integers after the dot starting with 1.41421... and so on. But apparently multiplying this number by itself gives you 2, and therefor this is the square root of 2.

But what is the square root of -1? We can deduce that the square root of 1 is 1. Because 1 times 1 ( times itself ) stays 1. Therefor the square-root of 1 is also 1. But when you introduce a minus into the multiplication it becomes complicated. For example -1 times -1 is 1. And 1 times -1 is -1. The minus flips whether you are before or after the zero. Therefor square root of -1 is impossible, since you can't multiply something by itself and make that result in -1. Although the real answer is that square root of minus one is "i". So what is going on here?

Some rather straight forward math operations useful for various real things required, for ages, to calculate various formulas including the square root sign in them. And depending on what was being calculated, sometimes a negative number would appear in the square root sign. But that made no sense mathematically. So as with everything that stops making sense, mathematicians decided to simply add a dimension to solve the problem.

There is a plane of X and Y coordinates that is used to calculate square roots of negative numbers. And the Y plane is often called "imaginary". Therefor square root of -1 is an imaginary number. Which sits roughly speaking at zero on the X axis and 1 on the Y axis. It's not in the center. It is outside of the line, roughly where the center is. Far enough, to observe both ends of the line.

When I say that between Left and Right, the best option is the square root of -1. I mean that we need to take ourselves out of this one dimensional frame of reference and look at the whole thing objectively as an outside observer.

Is there only one political dimension?

Looking at the entire spectrum from the outside reveals interesting things. Both Conservatives and Liberals claim that they are the ones pro-Freedom. And that the other one is against it. While both sides would sometimes engage in various anti-freedom activities like censorship.

Therefor there is a separate dimension of Freedom. Perhaps Freedom versus Power. And it is perpendicular to Right versus Left. Meaning some people on the Right, for example, will allow for Freedom of Speech, for example, when it comes to spreading Conservative values. And will be for Censorship, when it is to stop Liberal values. Other people from the same Right, could be open for Free Speech in general, no matter who is saying what. The same can be said about the Left too. One might be in favor of censoring the Right, the other might be actually fighting for the freedom of speech. Therefor the Freedom versus Power dimension is not parallel with the Left versus Right.

There is probably a slight tilt, or at the very least there is some kind of pressure deferential, trying to tip the scale, and collapse it back into one-dimensional. Conservatives most of the time seem to argue for freedom, as far as I can see, to have some platform to fight Liberals. Many people observe a higher tendency for Free Speech among the Conservatives ( at the very least today ). And a higher tendency for censorship among Liberals ( at the very least today ). Other people observe a higher tendency toward thinking in Human-Rights terms among Liberals. While Conservatives often apparently scapegoat people. In other words: Conservatives are more okay with hate and violence. While Liberals are more okay with strangeness. ( I define here minorities as "strangeness" since normality is often associated with the majority and often is advocated by the Conservatives. Therefor, the opposite of majority, minority, possesses characteristics of strangeness. Which often trigger Conservatives, but not Liberals. )

To be center on the Left v Right and high on the Freedom dimension would make you okay with hate ( as long as it is only an expression ), but on the other hand, you would be totally pro-strangeness. As in be all pro-gay, pro-trans and all that stuff.

On the other hand center on Left v Right and low of Freedom dimension will make you somebody who wants to ban both hate-speech and gay people. And this sounds like, it correlates a lot of with some kind of purely religious way of looking at it. And that's where I see the tension. Since it feels to be more towards conservatism. But then other things balance it out, so perhaps it is only pressure, not tilt.

Is there a third dimension?

There seems to a much more parallel dimension running somewhere alongside Freedom. Making it only slightly perpendicular to Freedom and totally perpendicular to Left versus Right. You know what I'm talking about: Paternalism.

You can say that the scale of Paternalism has Freedom on one side and Safety ( or well-being, which may include Freedom too ) on the other. But the Freedom on the Paternalism scale is not exactly at the same place as freedom on Freedom v Power scale. High Paternalism is high Well-Being. The highest would be to put people into a soft room so they could not harm themselves even if they want to. Or politically, high Paternalism would be something like: to censor any attempt at persuading the public to give up freedom. And you kind of see how it is on the Power side of the Freedom v Power scale. Because you have to take freedom away from a person to do so. But it's also not totally Power. Because Power could mean lack of well-being too. Therefor they are separate scales, just not very perpendicular, to one another.

On the other side, low Paternalism is so much Freedom that there is high risk. Like for example, when a person ignores warnings. Technically freedom, but could lead to suffering consequences that were not chosen, or consented by that person.

A suicidal person that consents to being killed is low Paternalism, but not the lowest. Because there is at least some understanding of what the person is consenting to. The lowest would be consenting to something you know nothing about. High paternalism is complete lack of ability to consent to anything that others find remotely dangerous. But because consent and Freedom are so intertwined, those two scales run more or less parallel to each other.

Both Left and Right tend to paternalise based on their views. For example Conservatives tend to ban any sexual suggestive material from being ever shown to kids. Out of fear of some consequence or another. But a lot of them are totally okay with kids handling firearms. On the other hand on the Left there is a strong push for sexual education for children, especially including information about strange groups of people that Conservatives might find too strange. But on the other hand Liberals, out of safety argument, hate weapons.

Questions?

Is there a 4th dimension?
Where are you on the spectrum?

Happy Hacking!!!


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