Life in the 21st Century is a reader-supported publication. Please become a paid subscriber. Geometry – concerned with the shape of individual objects, spatial relationships among various objects, and the properties of surrounding space. Power is like gravity, a curvature of space-time. The more concentrated, the more power warps and influences everything around it. Power is helpfully understood from a geometric perspective. The geometric form centralized power has largely been depicted is that of a pyramid. Paradoxically, the top of the pyramid has the least mass, though it exerts the most influence. To understand centralized political power, an understanding of the shape and properties of networks is also necessary. Centralized power is always simplistically networked. Wide channels of communication flow forcefully in one direction, very narrow feedback channels fitfully return information. With unsymmetrical structure, hierarchical systems of power are by necessity rigid, not only zealously conservative of the established forms they rely upon, but incapable of change, even when it's in power’s own greatest self-interest.
The Geometry of Power
The Geometry of Power
The Geometry of Power
Life in the 21st Century is a reader-supported publication. Please become a paid subscriber. Geometry – concerned with the shape of individual objects, spatial relationships among various objects, and the properties of surrounding space. Power is like gravity, a curvature of space-time. The more concentrated, the more power warps and influences everything around it. Power is helpfully understood from a geometric perspective. The geometric form centralized power has largely been depicted is that of a pyramid. Paradoxically, the top of the pyramid has the least mass, though it exerts the most influence. To understand centralized political power, an understanding of the shape and properties of networks is also necessary. Centralized power is always simplistically networked. Wide channels of communication flow forcefully in one direction, very narrow feedback channels fitfully return information. With unsymmetrical structure, hierarchical systems of power are by necessity rigid, not only zealously conservative of the established forms they rely upon, but incapable of change, even when it's in power’s own greatest self-interest.