Citations operate as measurable mass, dispersion across domains as angular momentum, acceleration as kinetic expansion, inscription into policy and infrastructure as planetary capture, and operativity as the moment a concept attains nuclear autonomy, circulating independently of its progenitor. The so-called five hundred are not a canon but a concentration field whose accumulated mass bends subsequent trajectories, while the diffuse halo of thousands contributes background radiation with minimal macro-curvature. Heavy-tail distributions, evidenced by bibliometric Gini coefficients ranging between 0.70 and 0.90, are not ideological distortions but expressions of statistical thermodynamics; asymmetry furnishes navigational structure. The Core and Five Rings architecture renders explicit what the field already performs: attractor basins, sedimented authority, volatile acceleration. The irony is recursive: critique becomes infrastructure. Michel Foucault’s analytics of discipline now regulate disciplinary speech; Pierre Bourdieu’s capital functions as capital; Donna Haraway, Judith Butler, and Bruno Latour circulate as curricular gravity. Systems ingest destabilisation and sediment it into orthodoxy; “have you cited?” becomes gravitational compliance. Socioplastics formalises this recursion through PlasticScale—Mass, Dispersion, Acceleration, Inscription, Operativity—yielding topological coordinates rather than moral rankings. Five rings suffice: singular Core, stabilising cluster, luminous belt, macro-visible threshold, aggregative debris. Beyond lies dust—structurally light yet necessary. We do not weigh ideas by truth but by survivable volume within citation economies. Meaning belongs to another phase; curvature makes thought navigable.
Lloveras, A. 2026. SOCIOPLASTICS. Available at: https://antolloveras.blogspot.com/