"LIFE ETC."

Cartesian Geometry, Human Identity and "Shake It up Şekerim"

This week's Life etc. will be much more complex than usual (as can be seen from the diagram). You don't have to read it. It might be torturous to finish it.

Are you determined to continue?
Okay…

Basic geometry is based on different axes. Once you have a straight line, you can explain the vectors on a line with respect to the others (I've warned you). If vector x is equal to 2 units towards right, and vector y is equal to 6 units towards left, when someone asks "what is y in terms of x," the answer is -3x.

When you drive a line perpendicular to the first one (let's say, a vertical one), you'll have 2 axes. If you take a vector on the line 2 and ask, "what is this in terms of vector x?"… Well… There is no answer. Because vector x does not include any understanding of verticality. Vector x does not understand verticality.

Enough? Ok, let's get back to the social space.

Asking what vector y is in terms of x is similar to asking what management is in terms of advertisement, what a political party is in terms of authoritarianism, or what nation is in terms of tradition.

These conceptual couples have components on the same axis, thus they can explain and understand each other. They can communicate.

And where is the Internet in this picture? It would take serious research to answer this question in depth. But it can be said that the Internet can hardly be explained in terms of human identity. Your nationality is nothing but a single line on your myspace.com ID. If you have good grammar in a foreign language, you can pretend to be a native speaker of that language. If you have enough photos of someone else, you can use them as yours. You can pretend to be someone who hates you. Your mind is free from your physical identity.

And, since the Internet functions via X-Press On identities floating on a slippery surface instead of humanity, traditional understanding fails to regulate it.
It's a huge problem: our regulations exist on the Enlightenment axis, and they cannot communicate with the mysterious beings of the Internet, just the way they cannot communicate with mysticism. Not because one is superior to other, but because they cannot even be compared. They're like unicorns to one another: completely nonexistent.

The Atatürk video on YouTube, the Al-Qaeda terrorist network, and our 2007 Eurovision song, these all exist on an axis which cannot be reached/regulated by national identity, states, politics, traditional regulations, and physical imprisonment.

If there's a way to regulate hyperspace, it appears to be different from the conventional ways of regulating everyday life, because every time we apply traditional ways, we fail. When you ban YouTube, you lose. When you fire at an Osama Bin Laden video, all you'll have is your own TV set destroyed. One way or another, the image will continue its infinite circulation.