Political Compass

[bu villain]

Btw on Sinflix's test I got:

Left: 1.26, Libertarian: 5.34

Compared to my score on the test I posted:

Economic Left/Right: -3.38
Social Libertarian/Authoritarian: -5.33

Which puts me in the same quadrant in either test but appear to be twice as much to the left on the one I posted. Does that mean the test I posted has a left bias? maybe, but it doesn't really matter. No one is gonna say, oh I didn't know I was a leftie, I guess I better get behind socialism and gay marriage now.

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The other one wasnt more "left", the other one had less parameters to choose from. The 2nd one would give you a better result because you have extra options to choose from, like "neutral" and "how much does this matter to you"

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Even the labels "economic left/right" don't have concrete meanings..

Fiscal Liberalism/Keynesism--Fiscal Conservatism/Neoclassicalism.

[bu villain]

Fiscal Liberalism/Keynesism--Fiscal Conservatism/Neoclassicalism.

It's still just an aggregate number and not particularly descriptive. A person could believe in some Keynesian ideas but not in others. The weighting is then what becomes important. It's also not predictive. If a person scored 1.25 towards the fiscal left side, doesn't mean you know if they would vote for a tax increase or not or whether they want to reduce welfare benefits. I'm not saying the categorization is completely meaningless, just that it is far to imprecise and nebulous to take it too seriously. The questions are consistent from person to person so the value is more in seeing how people score relative to each other than from a questionably calibrated center point.

[Vteckidd]

I didn't intend for this survey to be taken seriously. Of course a 30 question internet survey with a very limited choice set can not accurately describe most people's beliefs. Even the labels "economic left/right" don't have concrete meanings. As Vteckidd pointed out in the post above, a lot of it depends on how you interpret questions and how you answer when the details matter but are not given. It seems some people are caught up on what their number is relative to 0 but I was more interested how we scored relative to each other.

wasnt bashing you per se, just pointing out the obvious problem with "surveys".

They did this when healthcare was being debated.

"Do you think everyone should have access to affordable healthcare regardless of income"- WELL, YEAH, THAT WOULD BE GREAT
"Do you think we should cover people with life threatening illnesses and not let them die in the street?"- WELL, YEAH, DUH

Queue News Report
"An overwhelming majority is in favor of Obamacare".....................

Thats like asking, "do you like football?" -YES

WELL YOU MUST BE A PATRIOTS FAN THEN, because you like football, so therefore, Patriots are a football team, so you like the Patriots.

[BanginJimmy]

This still goes back to what I said, the test is only as accurate as the answers you give it. Output = Input. Based on the answers given by any given figure, and using whatever metric they're using, I can figure out of they're left or right of center. Same goes with you. You can manipulate the test if you want, but you're gonna get a manipulated answer. If you answer the questions honestly, based on what you actually think about the answer, you'll get an honest result.

With the test posted by Bu Villain this is not true. Several of the questions were worded in a way that dictated what any sane person would answer.


Some good examples:

"The only social responsibility of a company should be to deliver a profit to its shareholders." ANY sane person not trying to manipulate their score is going to disagree with this.

"A genuine free market requires restrictions on the ability of predator multinationals to create monopolies" ANY sane person, regardless of political affiliation is going to agree with this. No context to define predator?

"No broadcasting institution, however independent its content, should receive public funding." Obviously hinting at NPR, which is FAR from independent in its political content.

"Multinational companies are unethically exploiting the plant genetic resources of developing countries" More missing context.


I could go on, and I skipped MANY more leading questions, these were some of the worst though.

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With the test posted by Bu Villain this is not true. Several of the questions were worded in a way that dictated what any sane person would answer.

It's still true. What are you unclear about?

[BanginJimmy]

It's still true. What are you unclear about?

I am unclear about nothing. The survey does not give an accurate picture because of the wording of the questions.

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The flaw is not in the wording if the question. Lol

[Sinfix_15]

The flaw is not in the wording if the question. Lol

The first quiz had two left feet.