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Where do you fall on the Political Compass?


Goldengirl

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It's been some time since the last time we had this question go around. Also, with the new school term being in session for a while now, we've started to plot our opinions on political metrics like this one. Finally, I've refined my political philosophy to better be able to answer key questions, such that my answers have changed.

 

Nothing, of course, beats the real deal: the Political Compass.

 

Economic Left/Right: -6.12

Social Libertarian/Authoritarian: -7.18

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It's been years since I actually took the test. I'm now -7/-7.54. I've previously been somewhere around -6/-8, so I think things haven't changed too much.

 

—Alorael, who thinks his biggest shifts have been economic, and his economic shifts have been recession-motivated. No, inflation is not a concern.

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Economic Left/Right: -7.25

Social Libertarian/Authoritarian: -5.08

 

Thank you, Goldenking, for giving us a compelling reason to retake the test! I'd been wanting to take it to see whether my views had changed significantly in the intervening five or six years since I'd taken it last.

 

I have accessed the last political compass thread I participated in, from December 2005, to remind myself of where I stood back then. My scores were -7.50 and -0.26, respectively. So, while I was and remain quite liberal on economic issue, I have grown significantly more socially liberal. That is about what I would have expected.

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If I recall correctly, last time I took the test I was within one point on either axis from the origin. Now I'm (-1.88, -2.56). But there are so many questions where I throw up my hands and go "ehhh, it depends". Also, it takes a lot for me to put strongly agree/disagree; don't know if that's the case with others.

 

Aran: Where did you keep the compass history?

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I wonder how much the results would differ if instead of using obvious core beliefs of liberal and conservative ideologies they went with less obvious decisions. I think some of us might be less hardcore than we think we are in our beliefs.

 

—Alorael, who in particular suspects that his real economic views are not as far left as the compass puts them. Or, perhaps, there should be more room for more extreme economics.

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I've mellowed a bit, apparently.

 

Economic Left/Right: -7.38

Social Libertarian/Authoritarian: -8.26

 

I have archived several threads dating up to 2007. Unfortunately, the last two threads that I added to my statistics (October and December 2008) fall in the lost period after PPP4.

 

 

2003-06-07 http://pied-piper.ermarian.net/topic/1/948 Alec

2004-01-08 http://pied-piper.ermarian.net/topic/1/1492 Drakey

2005-06-24 http://pied-piper.ermarian.net/topic/1/2586 Stug

2005-12-09 http://pied-piper.ermarian.net/topic/1/3038 Aran

2006-11-01 http://pied-piper.ermarian.net/topic/1/3867 Salmon

2007-10-11 http://pied-piper.ermarian.net/topic/1/4515 Salmon

 

While the discussions are gone, I recorded the data from both topics.

 

http://ermarian.net/services/statistics/compass/map/

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By and large, the vast majority of posters on these forums appear to hold very similar views. I wonder why that is. Is there some correlation between people who hold those views and playing Jeff's games? Or is just those who become "regular" forum posters?

 

I don't recall the numbers, but each time I've done this test, it puts me in the upper-right quadrant.

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Economic Left/Right: -0.62

Social Libertarian/Authoritarian: -3.64

 

I seem to be in the majority quadrant, but more on the fence economically. It seems the more I learn about and observe the practice of economics, the more I realise there are no simple answers, so I fairly well disagreed with all the statements on the test. Oh well.

 

Edit: Even so, based on the chart on the results page, -0.62 puts me to the left of mainstream politicians. Which makes sense given my voting record.

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@Aran: Thanks yet again for the archives.

 

Economic Left/Right: -1.62

Social Libertarian/Authoritarian: 0.92

 

Still hovering around the center, though a little less communist than normal.

Ah, the woes of being a free-market socialist tongue

 

 

Originally Posted By: Sylae

Honestly though, I think political tests like these aren't very much use. Maybe they need a z-axis or something tongue

 

They haven't clarified any of those heavily-nuanced-issue questions, so a good portion of our results still rely on what kind of mood one is in, and how each of us chooses to interpret things at the time. (The enemy of my enemy is not always my friend. Sometimes, they're both equally wrong. And sometimes, you don't trust them enough to make an alliance.)

I guess I'm feeling a little less charitable than normal. tongue

 

Thing is, I tend to disagree with both ends of the given spectra, for different, conditional reasons that vary upon different, conditional circumstances. That, and yes, it needs a Z axis. If general economic tendency and overall breadth of the state's reach were the only two issues to consider in any vote, then there would never be any difficulty in selecting a candidate.

 

The difficulty, of course, is in finding and agreeing upon the criteria for a third set of parameters.

_________________________

The Silent Assassin's Economic Left/Right score oscillates between -4.8 and 7.2, depending on the party alignment of holders of public office at the time of testing. Today, it stands at 3.26.

The Social Libertarian/Authoritarian always remains a solid 10.

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Looking at the last test that we have records for, I've become more extreme in both sections. I'd peg this to my more liberal use of the "strongly agree" and "strongly disagree" choices.

 

Originally Posted By: Lt. Sullust
Edit: It's a shame this test doesn't ask how I feel about senior citizens...

 

Consider this a test. How do you feel about senior citizens?

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Dintiradan

Funny story: I just retook the test, trying to score as far in the upper right quadrant as possible... and the browser crashed. It literally does not compute.

There's an undocumented feature to show individual histories instead of community clusters, and it appears we're slowly approaching each other. Though you're moving far more rapidly. :p?name=Dintiradan,Arancaytar&img=1

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Originally Posted By: Arancaytar
There's an undocumented feature to show individual histories instead of community clusters, and it appears we're slowly approaching each other. Though you're moving far more rapidly. tongue

Does this mean you'll stop calling me fascist now? Anyway, the only reason you're not moving as quickly is because you don't have anywhere to move to. You pinko commie you.

Seriously though, a question for everyone: are you answering the quiz based on your personal opinions, or on the policies your ideal government would have? I think I did the former when I first started doing the quiz, and I was definitely doing the latter this time around.
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Dintiradan
Arancaytar

There's an undocumented feature to show individual histories instead of community clusters, and it appears we're slowly approaching each other. Though you're moving far more rapidly.

:p?name=Dintiradan,Arancaytar&img=1

Does this mean you'll stop calling me

fascist now? Anyway, the only reason you're not moving as quickly is because you don't have anywhere to move to. You pinko commie you.

Seriously though, a question for everyone: are you answering the quiz based on your personal opinions, or on the policies your ideal government would have? I think I did the former when I first started doing the quiz, and I was definitely doing the latter this time around.

That back then was a joke, albeit arguably in poor taste.

:p

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Originally Posted By: Archmagus Micael
Personal, though many of the questions are very ambiguous with regards to interpretation. Though surely your ideal Government would roughly follow the same principles you hold dear?
My ideal government has an opinion on as few things as possible. Also, there are a lot of questions of the form "A is better than B", which I responded with "Disagree", because the statement isn't always true. But if the statement said "B is better than A", I would still respond with "Disagree".

Originally Posted By: Arancaytar
Originally Posted By: Dintiradan
Originally Posted By: Arancaytar
There's an undocumented feature to show individual histories instead of community clusters, and it appears we're slowly approaching each other. Though you're moving far more rapidly. tongue

Does this mean you'll stop calling me fascist now? Anyway, the only reason you're not moving as quickly is because you don't have anywhere to move to. You pinko commie you.

Seriously though, a question for everyone: are you answering the quiz based on your personal opinions, or on the policies your ideal government would have? I think I did the former when I first started doing the quiz, and I was definitely doing the latter this time around.


That back then was a joke, albeit arguably in poor taste. tongue
Oh, I see. And here I was, thinking that you actually thought that I was a fascist for being (2, 2).

This is my serious face helmet.
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Okay, fine, I retook it. [6.971, 1.55] for me (in polar coordinates, of course).

 

I think that the best choice for a z-axis would be religion. I mean, most hardcore free-markets worship at Rand's feet, but there' probably a pretty huge gulf between her and her fans in that she was atheist and they are, for the most part, not. It would certainly bump my score up and to the right a bit, and give me the extra bonus of having an entire octant to myself (atheist, free-market, authoritarian).

 

Speaking of having regions to myself, here's the unified plot of all Spiderweb members who have posted thus far. It's a bit messy, if only because apparently everyone here has virtually identical political ideals:

 

2ith4ew.png

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I would imagine if you added a religion axis you would still have a rather crowded octant.

 

Originally Posted By: Flame Fiend
Originally Posted By: Dantius
map
*Looks at Excalibur in the bottom-right corner*

 

Do you sit by yourself at lunch? tongue

I don't have lunch, unless you count coffee as lunch.

 

Quite frankly, being in that position means I can agree with almost anybody on at least a few political issues. I'm not sure why you would equate that with being a social outcast.

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Originally Posted By: Dintiradan
Seriously though, a question for everyone: are you answering the quiz based on your personal opinions, or on the policies your ideal government would have?

I answered based on ideal government. Although there are definitely some questions that have to be based on personal opinion.

Originally Posted By: Excalibur
I don't have lunch,

Fascist!

Dikiyoba.
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It seems as though I am late to the party.

 

Economic Left/Right: -3.62

Social Libertarian/Authoritarian: -3.85

 

Not really a surprise for me. Like some others, I hesitate to go with the "very" options and thus tended to be closer to the origin.

 

Originally Posted By: Dantius
Okay, fine, I retook it. [6.971, 1.55] for me (in polar coordinates, of course).

Do you prefer cylindrical or spherical coordinates for your three-dimensional map?

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Originally Posted By: Master1
Originally Posted By: Dantius
Okay, fine, I retook it. [6.971, 1.55] for me (in polar coordinates, of course).

Do you prefer cylindrical or spherical coordinates for your three-dimensional map?


Spherical, since the "r" value for a 2-D plane could be interpreted as the level of political "extremism" (for lack of a better word), so since it's a useful metric it should be preserved into 3 dimensions as well- which cylindrical would not do.

And on an unrelated note, what on earth is the "cheerful things" question supposed to measure? I don't understand what that has to do with political orientation at all...
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Originally Posted By: Dantius
And on an unrelated note, what on earth is the "cheerful things" question supposed to measure? I don't understand what that has to do with political orientation at all...
I interpreted it as whether or not you think depressed people can/should be able to "pull themselves together" without outside support. I suppose it measures how you feel about social work in general, but it's a stretch.

But yeah, half the questions are "ehhh, it depends" and the other half are "well, duh". All those questions about multiculturalism as basically asking "Are you Hitler?" That said, the Compass still has a long ways to go before it's as blatant as this quiz.
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I guess an authoritarian regime would expect you to adopt that kind of thinking so you're more likely to forget all the negative aspects of said regime. I'm not sure if that's what they're getting at, but I'm pretty sure it affects your authoritarian/libertarian score.

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Originally Posted By: Dintiradan
But yeah, half the questions are "ehhh, it depends" and the other half are "well, duh". All those questions about multiculturalism as basically asking "Are you Hitler?" That said, the Compass still has a long ways to go before it's as blatant as this quiz.


I purposely pick out the Hitler questions and take the "Yes, I am in fact Hitler" options on them in order to counterbalance the shift down the y axis that results from answering all the religious questions with "No, that's stupid". It averages out to a close approximation of my views in the end.
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