Which is more reliable?
The earth rotates around its geographic north and south pole very reliably. Yes, we sometimes have to adjust the length of a year by one second: but only after a few years. How reliable! Our Earth also has a south pole and a magnetic north which is where compasses point. The magnetic pole is not a sharp pinpoint, but a region about 20 km across.
Even at the magnetic pole, compass needles point down into the earth and not reliably towards true north. Is the magnetic north stable? It isn’t. It moves. Expeditions early in the 1900’s showed it lurked in the Canadian Arctic but since then it has shifted northwest at a fast rate, and gone fairly near the True North Pole. It is now heading south towards Siberia at about 50 km a year and may reach it about 2040 unless it slows down. This speed is about 6 meters an hour – 136 m a day – the same as shifting next door from your house! How shifty compared with the Earth’s geographic pole!
Scientific work shows that over a long period of time the magnetic pole has bounced between Siberia and the Canadian Arctic many times.
According to the magnetism experts, technically the actual north magnetic pole is in the southern hemisphere, and vice versa. Worse, it does a sudden flip from time to time, and south becomes north and vice versa.
The picture is contrasting and confusing. Although magnetic north is still somewhat useful for most of us, it is not reliable. GPS, or the various similar Global Positioning Systems which rely on exact position relative to the earth, hence its geographic pole, typically can fix your position to about 6 meters and with specialist equipment for scientific work can fix your position to a few millimeters. Far better!
I cannot resist making this into a parable. What are you attracted to? The stability of a heavenly axis or the instability of something magnetic and alluring but which points down into the earth to the infernal regions? Something which is continuously shifting and is exiling you to some kind of Siberia? To be even more fanciful the attractions ping-pong between a socialist and capitalist ideal, neither of which is stable.
True North is the true and stable attraction. Who might that be?