Political Compass - Machine Nation

Hermes wrote:

ibis wrote:

evercloserunion wrote:

Also, I think the MN graph should definitely go on the portal.

Hmm. I don't know how easy that would be - it's possible, of course, but would probably involve either taking an occasional snapshot or else some complex messing about with iframes and/or javascript.

Excluding Edo, we are indeed a little to the left of p.ie.

Might be easier to add to the profile descriptions of users.

(Sorry, I spotted this emoticon and had to try it out.)

An emoticon who has just lost his virginity, what type of post would that re-inforce?

Economic Left/Right: -2.25
Social Libertarian/Authoritarian: -3.44

It is ironic that the test chides against left/right and then buys into them.

The questions along the lines of "is it ok for corporations to slaughter babies or are you against human suffering" were a bit stupid. A corporation is an abstract legal construct. To accuse them of moral wrongs is nonsense.

I really didn't like the test and didn't like the results either.

One of the questions was "should going to school be compulsory" and another was on abortion - "in the scenario where the mother's life is not in danger should abortion be illegal". I don't think those questions deserve one of the four answers on offer. And "illegal" is a very extreme position to start from anyway.

Edo is taking the Mickey, he must be

http://ibis.100webspace.net/index.php

I did the test here (never took it on That Other Place) and came out at -5.88 on economic left /right, and -6.46 on libertarian/authoritarian. Embarrassingly close to the Dalai Lama it appears (but not an outlier like EDO who has to have been kidding whatever the issues with the questions ).

Fun rather than science I suspect - like enneagrams; great for after-dinner banter.

Well, it seems we are, on average, rather the to the left of p.ie. I'm not sure the guys at boards.ie get it at all, though.

Looking at your graphs it is clear that the centre is not in the centre, ergo perhaps we are more to the centre than the test gives us credit for. Either the interpretation of the results is wrong or, as I would see it, the questions are loaded in favour of generating a left/lib result.

Zhou_Enlai wrote:

Looking at your graphs it is clear that the centre is not in the centre, ergo perhaps we are more to the centre than the test gives us credit for. Either the interpretation of the results is wrong or, as I would see it, the questions are loaded in favour of generating a left/lib result.

It's a US-based test. Their centre would be at the very least centre-right from a European perspective. I'd say there's a decent chance that the Irish centre would be at about -2/-2 or somewhere like that.

What I do find interesting is there's a sort of main trend line on the p.ie graph and ours - and then there's almost a second trend line to the economic right of that running from Pidge to Cookiemonster.

ibis, any chance you could make the Machine Nation graph title a link to this thread ?

ibis wrote:

Zhou_Enlai wrote:

Looking at your graphs it is clear that the centre is not in the centre, ergo perhaps we are more to the centre than the test gives us credit for. Either the interpretation of the results is wrong or, as I would see it, the questions are loaded in favour of generating a left/lib result.

It's a US-based test. Their centre would be at the very least centre-right from a European perspective. I'd say there's a decent chance that the Irish centre would be at about -2/-2 or somewhere like that.

What I do find interesting is there's a sort of main trend line on the p.ie graph and ours - and then there's almost a second trend line to the economic right of that running from Pidge to Cookiemonster.

Can we assume that? Not everyone in the States is J.R. Ewing.

Ibis is correct... Obama, the great left winger of America, isn't exactly left wing in a European context.

cactus flower wrote:

ibis wrote:

Zhou_Enlai wrote:

Looking at your graphs it is clear that the centre is not in the centre, ergo perhaps we are more to the centre than the test gives us credit for. Either the interpretation of the results is wrong or, as I would see it, the questions are loaded in favour of generating a left/lib result.

It's a US-based test. Their centre would be at the very least centre-right from a European perspective. I'd say there's a decent chance that the Irish centre would be at about -2/-2 or somewhere like that.

What I do find interesting is there's a sort of main trend line on the p.ie graph and ours - and then there's almost a second trend line to the economic right of that running from Pidge to Cookiemonster.

Can we assume that? Not everyone in the States is J.R. Ewing.

I think so - the centre in US politics really is a long way to the right of ours.

ibis wrote:

Zhou_Enlai wrote:

Looking at your graphs it is clear that the centre is not in the centre, ergo perhaps we are more to the centre than the test gives us credit for. Either the interpretation of the results is wrong or, as I would see it, the questions are loaded in favour of generating a left/lib result.

It's a US-based test. Their centre would be at the very least centre-right from a European perspective. I'd say there's a decent chance that the Irish centre would be at about -2/-2 or somewhere like that.

As i thought. So someone on 0/0 would be quite right wing by our standards. On that count Cactus Flower is probably a little bit too right wing for FG.

Absolutely, cactus is probably further to the right of the PDs as well... isn't that right cactus?

Hmm, I did this test a while ago and came in on the left. It seems my devotion to publicly-funded museums and public broadcasters alongside a generally liberal outlook drags down my commitment to free markets, free trade and private enterprise. That said, I have drifted right-ward over the past year or so. I can't believe Edo's result, he has to have been taking the piss.

That said, it seems like I'm very right-wing in the context of the Machine Nation.

Ard-Taoiseach wrote:

That said, it seems like I'm very right-wing in the context of the Machine Nation.

Though Edo takes the biscuit in this survey!

I have somehow managed to come out as the furthest left and furthest down, though I don't consider myself an extremist by any manner of means and did not fill in joke answers to try and construct some sort of anti-Edo. Maybe Edo wasn't joking either? Yikes!

The test is unreliable if the results are so different from test to re-test. Though not if there is a lapse of time to allow for the drift Árd Taoiseach mentions (is that not growth? ) Ibis is undoubtedly right about where the centre should lie and that would give more cases in the upper right quadrant though I am not sure there are enough cases yet for MN to draw conclusions. Should it be surprising that the distribution at That Other Place is different? Are we not a self-selected group here in some way?

The most important issue though is whether the test is measuring something real and posts have referred to problems in the design and wording. (Are Left and Right still useful terms? Is authoritarian/libertarian a valid way of differentiating among us?) Just two axes makes for a nice understandable compass and food for thought, but maybe there other instruments out there. What does the ESRI use for those Values and Attitudes surveys they do with EU partners?

Maybe a three dimensional space, with the z-axis measuring the spectrum from 'sound' to 'asshole' could be added?



(of course it goes without saying that no-one posting on machine nation would register in any of the 'asshole' octants!)

coc wrote:

Maybe a three dimensional space, with the z-axis measuring the spectrum from 'sound' to 'asshole' could be added?

I was thinking of adding a green dimension, and using triangular plots. Still thinking of questions to ask, though. Of course, one could simply ask "what priority would you assign to people:environment:business", but the problem there is that you wind up measuring what people think they think.

This is how it should be done... The latter two images are the self placements by members of the political parties themselves following completing of surveys in 2002. Obviously all of them are out of date now, particularly the references to Northern Ireland which are not as pressing these days as political issues. They are interesting though. They does indicate how these things are actually studied and how the simple left/right idea isn't really satisfactory. These are from my Politics Undergraduate courses with Prof Richard Sinnott.

But is there a Green-notGreen (orange!) axis or is that not just another manifestation of a mix of authoritarianism vs libertarianism and economically left vs economically right. I mean, how is state intervention to promote greenism qualitatively different from state intervention to prohibit abortion. Is it not just another use of the state to push a particular economic/social agenda? With enough of a sample size I could imagine people filling all four quadrants of the current plane. I'm not sure a third axis would produce a similarly even spread throughout the space. Is there even such a thing as an economically conservative and fascist environmentalist?

coc wrote:

Maybe a three dimensional space, with the z-axis measuring the spectrum from 'sound' to 'asshole' could be added?



(of course it goes without saying that no-one posting on machine nation would register in any of the 'asshole' octants!)

Ah nuts...........and I've been trying so hard

coc wrote:

But is there a Green-notGreen (orange!) axis or is that not just another manifestation of a mix of authoritarianism vs libertarianism and economically left vs economically right. I mean, how is state intervention to promote greenism qualitatively different from state intervention to prohibit abortion. Is it not just another use of the state to push a particular economic/social agenda? With enough of a sample size I could imagine people filling all four quadrants of the current plane. I'm not sure a third axis would produce a similarly even spread throughout the space. Is there even such a thing as an economically conservative and fascist environmentalist?

Hitler was fairly green, if it comes to it. Authoritarian Green isn't theoretically unlikely at all. Economically liberal greens are rarer, but Qtman springs to mind, and I'm not that far off that myself - I prefer market mechanisms to regulatory mechanisms in solving environmental issues.

Overall, it's a question of how important you think the environment is. A socialist would see environmental protection as secondary to the needs of the people. A capitalist would see environmental protection as secondary to the needs of business.

ibis wrote:

coc wrote:

But is there a Green-notGreen (orange!) axis or is that not just another manifestation of a mix of authoritarianism vs libertarianism and economically left vs economically right. I mean, how is state intervention to promote greenism qualitatively different from state intervention to prohibit abortion. Is it not just another use of the state to push a particular economic/social agenda? With enough of a sample size I could imagine people filling all four quadrants of the current plane. I'm not sure a third axis would produce a similarly even spread throughout the space. Is there even such a thing as an economically conservative and fascist environmentalist?

Hitler was fairly green, if it comes to it. Authoritarian Green isn't theoretically unlikely at all. Economically liberal greens are rarer, but Qtman springs to mind, and I'm not that far off that myself - I prefer market mechanisms to regulatory mechanisms in solving environmental issues.

Overall, it's a question of how important you think the environment is. A socialist would see environmental protection as secondary to the needs of the people. A capitalist would see environmental protection as secondary to the needs of business.

It seems to be Goldsmith week - another example of a right wing environmentalist.
And what about Garland? and Gormley and Ryan?