I just got a 3D printer, and now I need to understand the Z-axis. After years of working with 2D printing, I am now exploring this new possibility and trying to take advantage of this “third dimension” in printing. It’s a completely different world.
The notion of a country as an isolated nation, defined by lines (borders), names (cities, regions, states), and colors (mountains, plains, forests), attempts to illustrate a primitive reality. It is a flat representation of something far more complex.
The new U.S. administration is reinforcing this two-dimensional reality with its “America First” rhetoric. But this concept isn’t unique to the U.S. One of the most shocking events in recent history, for example, was the was Brexit vote in the UK.
Nationalism isn’t just a political strategy—it’s a widespread identity crisis shared by billions of people. There is comfort in belonging to a country, waving its flag, and trusting in a strong political figure who represents it. The media amplify this worldview, constantly showcasing leaders like Trump, Xi Jinping, Lula, Putin, Milei, and Erdoğan as the individuals in charge. The stronger the leadership, the stronger the nation—at least in this flat, picture-perfect, Instagram-friendly version of reality.
But the world isn’t flat. There is nothing flat about you, your neighbor, or anything around you. Everything has volume and dimension, history and future. We need to understand our reality from a deeper, more global perspective. We need to think in terms of the Z-axis.
What is required is a morphological transformation of our systems, and an expansion of our thinking, feeling, and actions in a new dimension. What would your life look like if you added a new dimension to it? What would our economic system become if we incorporated a human Z-axis?
Thinking in 3D is not easy. Architects, for example, have experience with three-dimensional design, but do they fully take advantage of it? Many houses still follow a fundamentally 2D logic, simply stacking flat structures on top of each other rather than truly integrating volume and space in a new way.
Progressive thinkers today must embrace the Z-axis. Climate change, for example, is not a 2D issue—it is a multi-dimensional crisis. The growing disparity in wealth cannot be resolved if looked at only as an economic issue. We need to address these challenges with a deeper, more expansive perspective. We need to develop proposals that take full advantage of all the dimensions available to us.
