Lines vs. Circles?

I have been reading my Hegel recently and there is a definite allure to the man's circleomania. But the ubiquitous line is still holds court. The roof over your head. The train to work. The queue to lunch. There's something safe about lines, you can be held by them, life can be delineated. The inability to decirculate makes the circle fearsome, but then how can you not vote for it based on its grandeur? Tough one ngl

the universe is tubes and that is the problem with having to choose here

Circles can be vicious.

lines can be dead

Dots or loops?

Everything we do is a loop, which is kind of both.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/OODA_loop#/media/File%3AOODA.Boyd.svg

Voting circles because that’s how Sisyphus’s boulder operates

Voting lines because white

circles because pizza

Lines far more versatile

Hell with lines you can make circles

waves are just lines made by circles, mannnn

I feel like lines have a deeper impact on our collective psyche. Always wondered why they were referred to so often in song. Coming on down the line etc.

some circular cultural big hitters: wedding ring, mandala, yin-yang, ouroboros. the sun, the moon, the earth. the wheel.

circles are infinite, lines are also infinite, but not in the same way

voted lines but I believe the right choice is circle

Circle is purity, bound by form. It can only be a circle but a circle seems to be ideal.

A line can be straight, curved, a circle or a portrait.

Circle is the rockist vote, I’ll do a line.

Xxp the main thing I have understood from the phenomenology of spirit is that lines are like, bad infinity, and circles, are good infinity!!! That's why you don't want to be a square

Circles are closed off, lines are freedom

a circle is a dot, while a line is a dot that went for a walk

infographic of 2D circle split and then pulled into 3D space, creating a spiraling/screw shape, and then pulled taut, forming a straight line, and then that line moves around and draws a little funny guy with a mustache

but then you zoom in on the funny guy's glasses and see a 2D circle again, seamless loop, nice

voted line

Something about the ages.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h0yf7IkWceI

ℝ vs. 𝕊¹

Sorry, circles are far from the rockist choice. Lines can only go one of two ways, back or forth. The train to work? Don't fence me in with your lines. Give me the infinite, the sprawl

both have no start and no end and are therefore scary af

Yeah but the line retains the concept of start and end in its form, the circle disavows the concept completely (true infinitude!)

I grew up in the 1980s, so I'm partial to triangles myself. They were the futuristic shape of the 1980s. This image contains two of my favourite things - Agnes Varda, and a triangle made of triangles:
https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/8154jFXcwKL._UF1000,1000_QL80_.jpg

So I suppose I'll vote for lines. You can make a circle out of lines. You can't make a line out of circle. And that's a lot like human society, if you think about it. (c) Thomas Friedman 2025.

Googling "1980s triangles" has led me down a rabbit hole of early-80s geometric knitting patterns, including:
https://i.pinimg.com/736x/5f/54/2e/5f542e70a0d76794132c527eae68ac6b.jpg
https://i.ebayimg.com/images/g/0XIAAMXQYwFRf2bQ/s-l400.jpg
https://i.etsystatic.com/12782535/r/il/a1173f/1149008636/il_570xN.1149008636_rt4g.jpg

That’s Agnes Varda? I think your triangles may have thrown you for a loop.

Gonna need a different shape primitives poll if we're gonna let triangles up in here

No shade if someone likes triangles but there’s no way they’re winning this

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

Lines y'all

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nkVNH57A4l4

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=41YqzHoCgk4

im not sure a line is necessarily infinite but i missed a lot of maths classes so

well depends how long it is right?

both are great

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

rong

So, lines it is. I used to think that Ilxor was packed full of liberal arts graduates and creative types. Emotional people. People who cry when they hear the end music from The Sweeney. But no. We are in fact hard-hearted cryptofascists masquerading as regular people. We crave lines. Circles are wrong.

In the words of Charlie Chaplin, we're all machine men with machine minds and machine hearts. Our cleverness has made us hard and unkind. We worship the locomotive and the aeroplane. Brutal engines of speed, powered by fire, driven down lines of metal. Whilst simultaneously spurning the football and hedgehogs, which are circular. And rugby balls, which are circles and lines at the same time.

whatever, sounds like the talk of someone who has never drawn a curved line

the universe is tubes and that is the problem with having to choose here

And one of those tubes is the Circle Line.

#oneshape