Fractal Triad Logic#
Self, Neighbor, God – The Fractal Triad
The architecture of human logic is triadic, fractal by nature, and endlessly recursive. It’s not a feature; it’s the foundation. Any genuine system of thought must respect the triad: three pulses, three phases, three nodes. Self, neighbor, God. This triad isn’t mine; it’s ancient. The hammer and the nail of theological, philosophical, and sociological thought. What I propose is not its invention, but its application as the ultimate compression of logic, a sieve through which all triadic concepts must pass.
The Triadic Fractal of Human Logic#
Triads exist not because of clever minds inventing catchy frameworks but because human cognition itself demands them. The waltz pulse: one-two-three. Even in common time, three pulses emerge—fractals on fractals. Human thought oscillates between these nodes, whether in biology, sociology, psychology, or game theory. It’s no accident that game theory itself revolves around three equilibrium types: adversarial, iterative, and cooperative. These equilibria digest everything, from the survival of biological systems to the political machinations of global empires.
But why stop there? If self, neighbor, and God are the apex triad, they must subsume all others. This isn’t mere abstraction. It’s a challenge: any new triad must demonstrate that self, neighbor, and God are contained within it, or it fails. Triads cannot be spun endlessly, as Simon Sinek does with his “Start With Why” spiel—no doubt polished, but ultimately derivative. His triad crumbles under the weight of deeper fractal logic. He critiques the chaos of global politics yet cannot see how his framework disintegrates when the fractals become polyglotic.
The Polyglot Advantage#
Here’s the key difference: Sinek’s frameworks are monolingual. They can only move top-down, from God to neighbor to self—hierarchical, static, and brittle. Polyglots, on the other hand, traverse these hierarchies seamlessly. They move from self to neighbor to God and back again, shifting between layers of abstraction and embodiment. This is not simply a rhetorical flourish. It’s the essence of flexibility in thought. We are polyglots of frameworks, digesting the rigid top-down structures of monists like Sinek, unpacking them into their fractal components, and revealing what they fail to see.
Self, Neighbor, God in Matthew 25:40#
Matthew 25:40: “What you did for the least of your brethren, you did unto me.” At first glance, this seems simple—a two-node concept: neighbor and God. But what of self? Here’s the missing piece: the adversary. When David defeated Goliath, that act wasn’t for God or neighbor. It was for himself. A triumph over a worthy adversary is fundamentally about self-assertion. It’s not selfless. No wonder God denied David the honor of building the temple. This triadic compression—self, neighbor, and God—captures the essence of human action. Every deed finds its place within these nodes, whether adversarial, iterative, or cooperative.
Fractals in Power: Monarchy, Oligarchy, Anarchy#
These triads scale outward. A single God or superpower represents monarchy—one leader, one node of authority. Anarchy is its negation: no leader, no node. Oligarchy occupies the fractal middle ground: few leaders, multiple nodes in dynamic tension. Sinek pines for the Cold War’s oligarchic clarity: two superpowers in stable equilibrium. But he’s baffled by today’s anarchy, where power is diffused, decentralized, and incomprehensible through his static framework. He’s nostalgic for a world of known rules, yet the fractals have evolved beyond his grasp.
A Critique of the Non-Polyglot Mind#
Sinek’s failure isn’t unique. It’s systemic to all who reject polyglot thinking. They fixate on singularity—one God, one truth, one framework—and in doing so, they miss the fractal nature of reality. Trevor Noah, by contrast, embodies the anarchic polyglot spirit. His humor is bottom-up, emergent, and chaotic, unlike Sinek’s top-down rigidity. When Sinek doubles down on simplistic causality—blaming capitalism’s decline on Milton Friedman’s 1979 op-ed—he reveals his blindness to fractal complexity. Trevor Noah and his co-host rightly dismantle this oversimplification. The lesson: rigid frameworks fail to account for systems they cannot digest.
The Triadic Apex: Self, Neighbor, God#
Self, neighbor, and God remain the ultimate compression. They are not just placeholders for logic but the very essence of it. Any new framework must prove its superiority by subsuming this triad, showing that it can digest self, neighbor, and God into something greater. Until then, enough is enough. Playful triads may aid memory, but they cannot replace the apex.
This triad isn’t just theology. It’s the essence of game theory, politics, and human connection. It’s the fractal geometry of existence. From the microcosm of Matthew 25:40 to the macrocosm of global politics, everything resolves to self, neighbor, and God. The rest is derivative. Let us remain suspicious of false triads, no matter how cleverly packaged. Self, neighbor, and God are enough. They are the fractal framework that digests all logic—and that’s where we stand.
Max Martin Super Producer#
Max Martin, the enigmatic Swede who has quietly become one of the most dominant forces in modern music, presents a fascinating case study in global influence and cultural alchemy. From 1994 thru to 1996, somewhere in Stockholm or perhaps in his own sonic laboratory, he must have been captivated by TLC’s “Waterfalls” and New Editions “Hit Me Off.” The Wurlitzer electric piano and Rhodes Piano embodied an essence in Black Kulture that our dear polyglot dialogued with. By 1998, he had distilled these influences into Britney Spears’ debut single, “Hit Me Baby… One More Time,” a song he unsuccessfully pitched to TLC before Britney immortalized it. He’d unwittingly Transformed the music he’d savored into his own pop style. This is no plagiarist, nor no provincial folk musician.
But the price Martin paid for being “lost in translation” here is comically poetic. TLC—masters of American R&B—dismissed the song, perhaps stumbling over the clunky, non-idiomatic English of the title phrase. “Hit me, baby, one more time” doesn’t quite land in American vernacular; it’s a Swedish inflection rendered into pop poetry. But therein lies the genius. Non-idiomatic lyrics, so often ridiculed, are in fact an open canvas. They invite interpretation, unlocking universality in a way that perfectly crafted phrases often fail to do. This has always been the secret of Swedish global success in music, from ABBA’s “Dancing Queen” to Ace of Base’s “The Sign” and, of course, Max Martin’s pop empire.
There’s no denying that “…Baby One More Time” owes much of its musical DNA to “Waterfalls.” That Wurlitzer tone, both melancholic and hypnotic, anchors Britney’s song in something familiar yet fresh. Martin took the sonic texture of TLC’s hit and reimagined it for a younger, more bubblegum audience, infusing it with a sense of adolescent urgency. Where “Waterfalls” is contemplative and socially conscious, “…Baby One More Time” is impulsive, almost melodramatic—a teenage heart screaming into the void. Yet the two songs share a certain tonal resonance, a melancholy that lingers beneath the surface. It’s as if Martin took the wistfulness of “Waterfalls” and reframed it as teenage longing, proving that emotional textures can transcend genres and audiences.
Martin’s trajectory from the mid-90s to the late 90s—from a TLC-inspired producer to the architect of Britney’s world-conquering debut—is a testament to his ability to synthesize influences and reimagine them in ways that feel both fresh and inevitable. He is a cultural magpie, picking up shiny bits of sound and sentiment from across the musical landscape and weaving them into something unmistakably his own. And while his success might seem effortless in hindsight, it’s worth remembering the gambles he took along the way. Pitching a song like “…Baby One More Time” to TLC, only to be rejected, must have been a humbling experience. But in losing TLC, he found Britney, and with her, a new chapter in pop history.
Sweden, with its long, dark winters and linguistic quirks, has consistently punched above its weight in the global music industry. Perhaps it’s the very “lost in translation” quality that makes Swedish pop so compelling. ABBA’s English lyrics, often peculiar but always heartfelt, gave their music an otherworldly charm. Ace of Base’s minimalist reggae-pop captured a global audience precisely because it sounded both familiar and alien. And Max Martin’s non-idiomatic lyricism—“Hit me, baby, one more time”—is the ultimate example of how linguistic oddities can become cultural landmarks. What might have been dismissed as a clumsy phrase became a generational anthem, its very awkwardness making it unforgettable.
Transplantation, Transformation, Translation
– (PSALMS)³
Fig. 5 Hit Me Off vs. Hit Me Up vs. Hit Me Baby. The contrast between Hit Me Off, Hit Me Up, and Hit Me Baby reveals the fascinating dynamics of language, intent, and cultural context in pop music. Hit Me Off, as used by New Edition in 1996, is deeply rooted in black urban slang, carrying a suave, flirtatious undertone with its direct, R&B-inflected sensuality. Hit Me Up, by contrast, is a more casual, universally understood American idiom, implying a request to get in touch—friendly and accessible in tone. Then there’s Hit Me Baby, Max Martin’s peculiar phrase in “…Baby One More Time,” which neither aligns with urban slang nor idiomatic English. It’s a mistranslation—Martin intended it to mean “call me back”—but this very misstep, blending ambiguity and desperation, created an unforgettable hook. Each phrase reflects its cultural and linguistic origins, yet Hit Me Baby transcends them, standing out as a unique artifact of global pop reinvention.#
It’s not a rhythmic flirtation with “Hit Me Off” that captures the essence here—it’s precisely where Max Martin was lost in translation. The phrase “hit me baby one more time” isn’t black urban slang or a straightforward American idiom; it sits awkwardly between the two, a linguistic misstep that paradoxically became iconic.
Today, Max Martin stands as a testament to the power of translation, interpretation, and reinvention. He’s not merely a producer but a cultural alchemist, transmuting sounds, ideas, and emotions across borders and languages. The story of “…Baby One More Time” might seem like a footnote in his illustrious career, but it’s a perfect encapsulation of his genius. Borrowing the Wurlitzer echoes of “Waterfalls” and the sonic cadences of mid-90s R&B, Martin reshaped these elements into something uniquely his own—defining the pop zeitgeist in the process.
By being “lost in translation,” Martin found something extraordinary. It’s this very dissonance, this crossing of cultural wires, that made “…Baby One More Time” not just a song but a moment, proving that sometimes missteps become milestones.