natesilver.net
I thought this was an interesting framing of political discourse, but hadn't seen it referenced elsewhere. So, now I'm referencing it elsewhere.
Silver creates a Socialism-Conservatism-Liberalism triangle, proposing that this three-axis (yet still two dimensional) dynamic describes much of political discourse. He doesn't make a direct contrast to the traditional political compass, but their respective merits seems like a good question.
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Notes -
Ah, there it is again. I was trying to remember where my triple-axis political compass went but couldn't find it.
Anyway, I think there's a better labelling Nate doesn't just come out and say for some reason: "socialism" is "progressivism", "conservatism" is "traditionalism", and liberalism is [classical] liberalism. The top of the triangle (where the traditionalist/progressives are) is best characterized by master morality/conflict theory whereas the bottom one is more dominated by slave morality/mistake theory (which is what "may the best idea win" fundamentally is).
The problem with calling it "socialists" or "conservatives" is that it isn't cutting cleanly enough across these axes because classical liberalism is currently a conservative position. Trying to conflate that and traditionalism really doesn't work all that well because the liberals are just as much at odds with the traditionalists as they are with the progressives if and when the winds change. Take the example of "there's porn in schools": the traditionalist answer is to remove everything that could excite a young woman, the progressive answer is to remove everything that could excite a young man, and the liberal answer is to notice that there's a steep decline in the rate of youth sex and the fact neither side can write good porn probably has something to do with it.
It's still a different rephrasing of horseshoe theory at its core, though.
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