The Political Compass (Armed and Dangerous)

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AuthorTopic: The Political Compass (Armed and Dangerous)
Warrior
Member # 6923
Profile Homepage #25
Economic Left/Right: -6.12
Social Libertarian/Authoritarian: -7.13

IMAGE(http://www.politicalcompass.org/facebook/pcgraphpng.php?ec=-6.12&soc=-7.13)

Happy fun time is over. Let the acrimonious debating begin.

[ Thursday, October 11, 2007 22:03: Message edited by: Kryten ]

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"There are no turtles anywhere" Ponder Stibbons
One, Two, Three, Pfhor, Five…
Avernum 2 AM Status
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I lick this mage
Posts: 74 | Registered: Friday, March 17 2006 08:00
Guardian
Member # 6670
Profile Homepage #26
All the people not in the top right are stinky unsightly mouth breathers. Nyah nyah nyah-nyah nyah!

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For mad scientists who keep brains in jars, here's a tip: Why not add a slice of lemon to each jar, for freshness?
- Jack Handey
Posts: 1509 | Registered: Tuesday, January 10 2006 08:00
Infiltrator
Member # 4784
Profile Homepage #27
quote:
Originally written by Dintiradan:

Did anyone else find an abundance of loaded questions, by the way?
Extremely loaded. It stated - one specific thing as the most important thing for something - more than once. I had to disagree even though the issues were still important. I don't hold my results as completely valid.

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Forever Always on Past the End

TrueSite for Blades - Blades Walkthroughs
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Posts: 563 | Registered: Tuesday, July 27 2004 07:00
Warrior
Member # 10234
Profile #28
Yes to the loaded questions. Felt like a college student at Berkeley wrote them. It came out as I expected though because I rejected the loaded questions and I came out as a slightly right leaning of center Libertarian. While I might have an "extreme" view or two - like Strongly Agree to "Eye for and Eye", most of my votes balance me out on the whole leaving me close to Neutral.

IMAGE(http://www.politicalcompass.org/facebook/pcgraphpng.php?ec=0.38&soc=-2.10)

I'm also apparently not fit to be a leader.

IMAGE(http://www.politicalcompass.org/images/internationalchart.gif)

[ Friday, October 12, 2007 05:57: Message edited by: Ming ]
Posts: 102 | Registered: Monday, September 3 2007 07:00
? Man, ? Amazing
Member # 5755
Profile #29
It seems that most people couldn't handle the ethical or moral dilemma posed when two equally important things were compared. I'm not really surprised at that weakness, but that you display it so readily? I find that indicative of poor breeding and poor character development.

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Vogel - "10% off on all of [our] products for the month of October. ... this discount applies to games, CDs, bundles, and even already discounted products."

Synergy, et al - "I don't get it."

Thralni - "a lot of people are ... too weird to be trusted"
Posts: 4114 | Registered: Monday, April 25 2005 07:00
Warrior
Member # 10234
Profile #30
quote:
I find that indicative of poor breeding and poor character development.
As I find the inability to see beyond one's own limited view of the world. Though I would not be so arrogant to question others "breeding" from the results of a poll.

People exposed primarily to one religion or culture or who have spent their lives in only one region of the world can quickly jump to such conclusions and make sharp judgements without considering a range of possibilities for each answer.

The idea that one must take a hard, unflinching stance on any of these issues without contemplating the value of the other side's argument is ludicrous. "Breeding" indeed.

Besides, many of these issues that are so "important" are really just so much ado about nothing to anyone who's been forced to live outside of their comfy ideological shell for any period of time. Try living in an apartment in Tokyo for 10 years, separated from friends and family back home, where Christianity is less than 1% of the population (not that I was/am an X-ian anyway), where "Republicans" and "Democrats" debates seem a distant memory and a multi party system dominated by Socially Conservative and Fiscally Liberal "LDP" reigns (well, in deeds if not in words not so different from today's Republicans perhaps). You are an outsider no matter how hard you might strive to learn the culture, but you love it just the same.

Because (among other things) it has taken you out of that world of self-important "Liberals" ranting wildly at the Daily KOS and "Conservatives" Lapping up Rush Limbaugh and given you a whole new way to look at things - a more balanced and even-handed view - something that is apparenly discouraged by the intellectual "elite" in their think-tanks in the United States. As Rush would say "If you're in the middle of the road, you get run over".

To quote Carl Sagan (since he's on my mind today):

quote:
We succeeded in taking that picture [from deep space], and, if you look at it, you see a dot. That's here. That's home. That's us. On it, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever lived, lived out their lives. The aggregate of all our joys and sufferings, thousands of confident religions, ideologies and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilizations, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every hopeful child, every mother and father, every inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every superstar, every supreme leader, every saint and sinner in the history of our species, lived there on a mote of dust, suspended in a sunbeam.

The earth is a very small stage in a vast cosmic arena. Think of the rivers of blood spilled by all those generals and emperors so that in glory and in triumph they could become the momentary masters of a fraction of a dot. Think of the endless cruelties visited by the inhabitants of one corner of the dot on scarcely distinguishable inhabitants of some other corner of the dot. How frequent their misunderstandings, how eager they are to kill one another, how fervent their hatreds. Our posturings, our imagined self-importance, the delusion that we have some privileged position in the universe, are challenged by this point of pale light.

Our planet is a lonely speck in the great enveloping cosmic dark. In our obscurity -- in all this vastness -- there is no hint that help will come from elsewhere to save us from ourselves. It is up to us. It's been said that astronomy is a humbling, and I might add, a character-building experience. To my mind, there is perhaps no better demonstration of the folly of human conceits than this distant image of our tiny world. To me, it underscores our responsibility to deal more kindly and compassionately with one another and to preserve and cherish that pale blue dot, the only home we've ever known.



[ Friday, October 12, 2007 13:08: Message edited by: Ming ]
Posts: 102 | Registered: Monday, September 3 2007 07:00
Shaper
Member # 6292
Profile #31
So, Salmon...what's it like to so often be taken seriously, when it should be clear by now how often you are to be taken unseriously?

You'd think the googly-eyed grin Message Icon would be a tip-off. I recommend the additional use of eight Graemlins to prevent further misinterpretation.

-S- :rolleyes: :rolleyes: :rolleyes: :rolleyes: :rolleyes: :rolleyes: :rolleyes: :rolleyes:

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A4 ItemsA4 SingletonG4 ItemsG4 ForgingG4 Infiltrator NR Items The Lonely Celt
Posts: 2009 | Registered: Monday, September 12 2005 07:00
? Man, ? Amazing
Member # 5755
Profile #32
quote:
Originally written by Synergy:

So, Salmon...what's it like to so often be taken seriously, when it should be clear by now how often you are to be taken unseriously?

You'd think the googly-eyed grin Message Icon would be a tip-off. I recommend the additional use of eight Graemlins to prevent further misinterpretation.

-S- :rolleyes: :rolleyes: :rolleyes: :rolleyes: :rolleyes: :rolleyes: :rolleyes: :rolleyes:

Oh, I see how it is. Now you just rooolllll your eyes at me instead of actually dealing with this rather important discussion in a professional and adult manner.

...

Jerk.

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Vogel - "10% off on all of [our] products for the month of October. ... this discount applies to games, CDs, bundles, and even already discounted products."

Synergy, et al - "I don't get it."

Thralni - "a lot of people are ... too weird to be trusted"
Posts: 4114 | Registered: Monday, April 25 2005 07:00
Agent
Member # 27
Profile #33
Economic Left/Right: -3.38
Social Libertarian/Authoritarian: -1.64

It makes sense that I'm more towards the center than I used to be, but I think there were a lot of loaded questions in that test. I'm not as liberal as this score shows.

Edit: Ha Salmon, I just noticed that our scores are nearly identical. You must be so proud.

[ Friday, October 12, 2007 16:18: Message edited by: Enraged Slith ]

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Enraged Slith's Blades of Avernum Website

Look out, there's a three-headed monkey behind you!
Posts: 1233 | Registered: Wednesday, October 3 2001 07:00
Infiltrator
Member # 4826
Profile #34
quote:
We succeeded in taking that picture [from deep space], and, if you look at it, you see a dot. That's here. That's home. That's us. On it, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever lived, lived out their lives. The aggregate of all our joys and sufferings, thousands of confident religions, ideologies and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilizations, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every hopeful child, every mother and father, every inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every superstar, every supreme leader, every saint and sinner in the history of our species, lived there on a mote of dust, suspended in a sunbeam.

The earth is a very small stage in a vast cosmic arena. Think of the rivers of blood spilled by all those generals and emperors so that in glory and in triumph they could become the momentary masters of a fraction of a dot. Think of the endless cruelties visited by the inhabitants of one corner of the dot on scarcely distinguishable inhabitants of some other corner of the dot. How frequent their misunderstandings, how eager they are to kill one another, how fervent their hatreds. Our posturings, our imagined self-importance, the delusion that we have some privileged position in the universe, are challenged by this point of pale light.

Our planet is a lonely speck in the great enveloping cosmic dark. In our obscurity -- in all this vastness -- there is no hint that help will come from elsewhere to save us from ourselves. It is up to us. It's been said that astronomy is a humbling, and I might add, a character-building experience. To my mind, there is perhaps no better demonstration of the folly of human conceits than this distant image of our tiny world. To me, it underscores our responsibility to deal more kindly and compassionately with one another and to preserve and cherish that pale blue dot, the only home we've ever known.

Come on. My friend across town is a speck to me whenever he's in his house. Does that change MY opinion of him? Pfft.

(I'm kidding. I wish I was Salmon so I didn't have to say that. Written jokes suck.)

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"Of course, not all technology is good. Some is exactly the opposite (bad)." — Dave Barry
Posts: 458 | Registered: Friday, August 6 2004 07:00
Councilor
Member # 6600
Profile Homepage #35
Hmm. Choosing to strongly disagree with every question results in (0.00, -4.36) while choosing to stongly agree with every question results in (0.00, 4.36). Disagreeing with everything results in (-0.25, -2.41) while agreeing with everything results in (0.38, 2.41).

Yes, Dikiyoba was bored.

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Episode 4: Spiderweb Reloaded
Posts: 4346 | Registered: Friday, December 23 2005 08:00
Agent
Member # 2210
Profile #36
I think you would have to be brainwashed to accept more than half of these questions on this test. A lot of the questions are rhetorical questions based on outmoded ideas. This is the kind of test where I would ask them to rewrite the majority of the questions so they could be answered in a clearer manner.

You can put several dots outside the box for me meaning independence of thought. Also independence of vote. I am sure there are a few who think like this when offered these kinds of questions.

I found that I could honestly give a different answer than the one available on this test quite a bit of the time.

[ Friday, October 12, 2007 16:43: Message edited by: I'll Steal Your Toast ]

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Wasting your time and mine looking for a good laugh.

Star Bright, Star Light, Oh I Wish I May, I Wish Might, Wish For One Star Tonight.
Posts: 1084 | Registered: Thursday, November 7 2002 08:00
? Man, ? Amazing
Member # 5755
Profile #37
Honestly though. How can you not be able to evaluate a specific sentence and get some sense of how you feel about that situation. It's not as if these are ambiguous, they come right out and make statements. I can understand wanting to be neutral on some questions, but the point of the test is to force you into a decision. The degree to which the question seems ... odd may just be an attempt by the test makers to force a neutral answer out of the decision making process.

I said, for example, that I agreed that our race has superior qualities to other races. The most obvious is that there are NO experience point penalties.

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Vogel - "10% off on all of [our] products for the month of October. ... this discount applies to games, CDs, bundles, and even already discounted products."

Synergy, et al - "I don't get it."

Thralni - "a lot of people are ... too weird to be trusted"
Posts: 4114 | Registered: Monday, April 25 2005 07:00
Agent
Member # 4574
Profile #38
It is my feeling that (Jihad Iraq) the Federal Republic (Suicide Bombing) is taking excessive (Pakistani Cave Coca-Cola*) actions in the War on Terrorism. Such as torture, which is constantly exaggerated, our continued presence in Iraq**, and (Taliban Afghanistan) restrictions on Freedom of Speech (New York GWB) which this post will probably highlight.

*It's well known that Coca-Cola is much worse then it's superior counterpart Pepsi-Cola.
**I personally think pulling all troops out except for those in Baghdad and letting the people vote with their guns is the only way to keep this anarchy under some sort of control. Keep forces in Kuwait to intervene in case of problems and send the rest home or to Afghanistan to do some real good.

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"This is the King of the Knob Goblins. All Knob Goblins everywhere bow to his rule! Which would be impressive, if there were Knob Goblins anywhere except Cobb's Knob."
Posts: 1186 | Registered: Friday, June 18 2004 07:00
? Man, ? Amazing
Member # 5755
Profile #39
Have you even bothered to try Pakistani Cave Coca-cola? I think you are just painting with that broad stereotyping brush and have lumped a superior beverage in with that lesser stateside drink which shares the name.

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Vogel - "10% off on all of [our] products for the month of October. ... this discount applies to games, CDs, bundles, and even already discounted products."

Synergy, et al - "I don't get it."

Thralni - "a lot of people are ... too weird to be trusted"
Posts: 4114 | Registered: Monday, April 25 2005 07:00
Agent
Member # 4574
Profile #40
I would detail why Coca-Cola is inferior, but two large men from the CIA are approaching rapidly. It's time for a last stand, eh?

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"This is the King of the Knob Goblins. All Knob Goblins everywhere bow to his rule! Which would be impressive, if there were Knob Goblins anywhere except Cobb's Knob."
Posts: 1186 | Registered: Friday, June 18 2004 07:00
Agent
Member # 2210
Profile #41
I don't feel particularly powerfully affected by these statements. My mind is not part of Oceania, the wonderful place where 2+2=5 .
Why should I feel for someone who wants me to make definitive statements about what I believe so he can put me in a funny little graph.

Our race has many superior qualities, compared with other races.
Our face has many superior qualities compared with many other faces

There is now a worrying fusion of information and entertainment.
Information and entertainment have always been fused together.

Controlling inflation is more important than controlling unemployment.
Smoke and mirrors is more important mirrors and smoke.

All authority should be questioned.
Question authority.

All people have their rights, but it is better for all of us that different sorts of people should keep to their own kind.
All gobs have thugs, but gobs should stick with gobs.

There are no savage and civilised peoples; there are only different cultures
People are not savage or civilized, there are only societies.

Although the electronic age makes official surveillance easier, only wrongdoers need to be worried.
Because surveillance is easier to do, only evil people should worry about it....

The businessperson and the manufacturer are more important than the writer and the artist.
The ticket salesman and the t-shirt maker are more important than the journalist or the sign painter.

Charity is better than social security as a means of helping the genuinely disadvantaged.
Charity and social security both suck to live on.

Pornography, depicting consenting adults, should be legal for the adult population.
Pornography= I'll know it when I see it.

[ Friday, October 12, 2007 19:08: Message edited by: I'll Steal Your Toast ]

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Wasting your time and mine looking for a good laugh.

Star Bright, Star Light, Oh I Wish I May, I Wish Might, Wish For One Star Tonight.
Posts: 1084 | Registered: Thursday, November 7 2002 08:00
...b10010b...
Member # 869
Profile Homepage #42
quote:
Originally written by I'll Steal Your Toast:

I would like to take the test with these questions thrown out...
I agree some of the questions seem a little extreme, but I don't see a problem with all of the ones you listed. (Besides, how can you distinguish an extremist from a moderate except by asking a few extreme questions?)

quote:
There is now a worrying fusion of information and entertainment.
Well, the question is whether it's worrying. If making information entertaining means people are inspired to learn more, isn't that a good thing?

quote:
All people have their rights, but it is better for all of us that different sorts of people should keep to their own kind.
Take a straw poll of your neighbourhood and I wouldn't be surprised if a majority of people answered "yes" to this.

quote:
The businessperson and the manufacturer are more important than the writer and the artist.
What's wrong with this question? I had to think for a little while before deciding how to answer it. (I ended up disagreeing, for much the same reason you did.)

quote:
Charity is better than social security as a means of helping the genuinely disadvantaged.
There are plenty of conservatives who believe this, even if you and I don't.

quote:
Pornography, depicting consenting adults, should be legal for the adult population.
Again, plenty of people disagree with this -- especially if you make the reasonable interpretation that it's asking whether you think all pornography depicting consenting adults should be legal. (Quite a lot of it isn't in most countries.)

[ Friday, October 12, 2007 21:21: Message edited by: Thuryl ]

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The Empire Always Loses: This Time For Sure!
Posts: 9973 | Registered: Saturday, March 30 2002 08:00
Infiltrator
Member # 4826
Profile #43
quote:
Originally written by Thuryl:

quote:
Why should I feel for someone who wants me to make definitive statements about what I believe so he can put me in a funny little graph.
It sounds as if you're objecting here to the very concept of a political compass, in which case the individual questions are somewhat beside the point.

Then why did you go over all the questions first?

[ Friday, October 12, 2007 21:31: Message edited by: Shard of Fire ]

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"Of course, not all technology is good. Some is exactly the opposite (bad)." — Dave Barry
Posts: 458 | Registered: Friday, August 6 2004 07:00
...b10010b...
Member # 869
Profile Homepage #44
Because I didn't see his second post when I first replied.

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The Empire Always Loses: This Time For Sure!
Posts: 9973 | Registered: Saturday, March 30 2002 08:00
Law Bringer
Member # 335
Profile Homepage #45
Thuryl beat me to the point by point, but I agree that obvious answers are often not obvious to many others, or even oppositely obvious. Dikiyoba's results do show some minor bias based on preference for agreement or disagreement (and an odd imbalance...), but for the most part the questions seem reasonable.

—Alorael, who agrees that most people are unlikely to end up in the far upper right. That's fine. A scale of (-10, -10) to (3, 3) still gives information.
Posts: 14579 | Registered: Saturday, December 1 2001 08:00
? Man, ? Amazing
Member # 5755
Profile #46
We can't all be Maggie Thatchers.

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Vogel - "10% off on all of [our] products for the month of October. ... this discount applies to games, CDs, bundles, and even already discounted products."

Synergy, et al - "I don't get it."

Thralni - "a lot of people are ... too weird to be trusted"
Posts: 4114 | Registered: Monday, April 25 2005 07:00
Infiltrator
Member # 10578
Profile Homepage #47
Authoritarian left? Hardly what I expected. Hm.

Economic Left/Right: -1.50
Social Libertarian/Authoritarian: 5.33
IMAGE(http://www.politicalcompass.org/facebook/pcgraphpng.php?ec=-1.50&soc=5.33)

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"We were meant to live for so much more. Have we lost ourselves?" - Switchfoot
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My poetry
Posts: 432 | Registered: Tuesday, September 18 2007 07:00
Electric Sheep One
Member # 3431
Profile #48
Is the compass's normalization really so trivial? The shifting of the so-called political center is usually the real story of political history. And since political views do sometimes influence what happens in the world, political opinions do matter on an absolute as well as a relative scale.

Also, a good part of political opinion is really self-image. Whether or not a view is labelled 'progressive' is a factor that tempts many people to hold or oppose it, regardless of its content. So for instance I rather suspect that some of this test's leftward bias is really overcompensation for a rightward shift of the center: we're all capitalists now. Lots of people want to think of themselves as leftist, but can't really deny the many advantages of free markets. By relabeling slight reservations against strict laissez faire as radical communism, by means of a lot of 'always' and 'every' propositions that only zealots could accept, everyone gets to have their cake and eat it too.

The result is that the left wins in appearance, and the right wins in reality. And that can make an actual difference in the world, for good or ill or both.

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We're not doing cool. We're doing pretty.
Posts: 3335 | Registered: Thursday, September 4 2003 07:00
Agent
Member # 2210
Profile #49
I'm objecting to the safe box design for political opinion. Every interpretation automatically leans to an accepted radical or otherwise opinion. Authoritarian, Libertarian, Capitalism, or Communism are pretty well drawn ideas of political thought. There is nothing particularly thoughtful about the positions.

These are the de facto expected positions on the political spectrum. Evil communist, good capitalist, evil authoritarian, good libertarian. It is a caricature of political thought. A rather amusing one at that.

The multiple choice is even more ludicrous. You give exactly four answers each supposedly tied to a particular quadrant in the test. Somewhere there is a graph which shows what each is supposed to believe in a particular quadrant on average if you are a communist, capitalist, authoritarian, or libertarian.


Statistical measurement of peoples beliefs is a way to control ideas and limit peoples originality of thought. And you wonder why there haven't been many new political systems that have been created or designed recently based on an ideal. It is precisely because of this kind of boxlike control.

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Wasting your time and mine looking for a good laugh.

Star Bright, Star Light, Oh I Wish I May, I Wish Might, Wish For One Star Tonight.
Posts: 1084 | Registered: Thursday, November 7 2002 08:00

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