Of course, it’s not all that clear cut. More likely, there is a spectrum between those two extremes.
Examination of this sentence should set alarm bells ringing. The world is wide and things (and people) can vary in many ways. To just focus on a skinny line in this wide world is to throw away almost all of your information.
The point is rather that everyone’s views are not on a straight line between two points (though, vectors being neat, everyone’s views can be projected onto any line). Not on a line between two political views: complete the pattern: “Nobody is exactly on a line between two political views.”
I agree on how people should separately form their opinions on individual matters (or avoid politics altogether). I also agree with your statement: nobody is exactly on a line between two political views. However, most people fit so close to the line it would be accurate to identify them according to a one-dimensional scale.
The notable exceptions (e.g. libertarians, anarchists) can have their views accurately represented on a 2D plane, in which the X-axis represents economic freedom and the Y-axis represents represents personal freedom. A 2D plane is still negligibly small in the multi-dimensional field of politics.
Moldbug, as a contrast, is so unique in his views compared to the mainstream he needs tens of dimensions in order to accurately plot his views against other independently-minded people.
Given that political views can be arbitrary propositions, at some point thinking of them as embedded in n-dimensional space for some n stops being useful.
Examination of this sentence should set alarm bells ringing. The world is wide and things (and people) can vary in many ways. To just focus on a skinny line in this wide world is to throw away almost all of your information.
Actually, I wrote this sentence because my own alarm bells rang. It could not actually be that simple, right? The problem is, it feels that simple.
Moldbug’s views are off the right-left scale.
The point is rather that everyone’s views are not on a straight line between two points (though, vectors being neat, everyone’s views can be projected onto any line). Not on a line between two political views: complete the pattern: “Nobody is exactly on a line between two political views.”
I agree on how people should separately form their opinions on individual matters (or avoid politics altogether). I also agree with your statement: nobody is exactly on a line between two political views. However, most people fit so close to the line it would be accurate to identify them according to a one-dimensional scale.
The notable exceptions (e.g. libertarians, anarchists) can have their views accurately represented on a 2D plane, in which the X-axis represents economic freedom and the Y-axis represents represents personal freedom. A 2D plane is still negligibly small in the multi-dimensional field of politics.
Moldbug, as a contrast, is so unique in his views compared to the mainstream he needs tens of dimensions in order to accurately plot his views against other independently-minded people.
Honestly? I’m just mildly annoyed you non-sequiter’d my comment by doing reflexive pattern-completion for some guy you like and I don’t care about.
For how large n can this be generalized to “any n political views form a hyperplane on which no other political view held by any person exactly lies”?
d-1, at least.
Given that political views can be arbitrary propositions, at some point thinking of them as embedded in n-dimensional space for some n stops being useful.