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Journal capoccia's Journal: Political Compass 9

For the last few hundred years, political orientation has been measured with one dimention: left to right. A British group, The Political Compass (keep an eye out for where the British and American spellings differ), was the first to propose a two-dimensional system. They have retained the left-right (economic) axis and added an orthogonal social axis with libertarians on one side and authoritarians on the other.

Where do you think you fit on such a plane? Political Compass has organized a survey to test your views on a variety of subjects and see where you really line up.

There have been some who are concerened that Political Compass' results are slanted. Political Compass has essentially ignored requests for more openness into how they score the questions and develop the results. Political Compass says it generates its income from sponsorship and seminars and cannot release this information without compromising its viability.

Chris Lightfoot didn't like this situation, so he designed his own, similar political survey. Unlike Political Compass, he shows all of his linear algebra methodology. He also shows all the statements he uses in their positive and contrapositive forms.

I would strongly recommend you not look at either the eigenvectors or the statement list pages until after you have taken the survey.

Chris' survey consists of 75 questions; Political Compass' has a few less. Both are split into 6 pages worth of survey. Both are similar in the sense that they make statements and ask whether you agree or disagree.

Where do you stack up against political celebrities like Adolf Hitler or Tony Blair? Political Compass has slightly different results on their analysis page (remember the comment about skewed results?). Another interesting comparison is the mapping of the 2004 US Presidential Primary Candidates.

My Results: I took Chris Lightfoot's survey twice. For some of the questions, my position allowed the question to be answered more than one way. I added the blue dot to represent the region where I think similar surveys should place me. Political Compass' survey placed me a little more to the left than Lightfoot's.

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Political Compass

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  • This is not that new, sounds similar to that wacky circle thing (the STUPID name escapes me) where Left meets Right.

    All I know is all of you Lefties keep wanting to make new names for yourself. Go ahead I don't care [slashdot.org] :-)
    • Great rant in the link... Go take the test, and see where you fall! I'm apparently a bit of a leftist, so I need to know where you are so I can tell you why you are so wrong. Or something.

      My results:
      Economic Left/Right: -5.38
      Libertarian/Authoritarian: -0.77
    • What a dickhead you are GM

      Here I took the test on your behalf [f2s.com], since the exercise of introspection (as opposed to quoting the Brownshirt line) is obviously beneath you...
    • that wacky circle thing
      does anyone know what this is? or did GMontag just make this up?
      • Supposedly on this circle, Communism and Fascism meet because of their extreme totalitarianism. I think the Political Compass chart is a lot better. Aparently your linked quiz is a "Nolan Chart." (props to Google). I couldn't find an image in the scant minutes I have but here is an article [wikipedia.org] that mentions it.

        The funny thing is that he dismisses this altogether. From his feebleminded perspective, there are only two political outlooks: "right" and "wrong."

        Actually, GMontag seems like a more intelligent guy
  • economic l/r: -5.12
    libertarian/authoritarian: -2.51
  • Economic Left/Right: -4.62
    Libertarian/Authoritarian: -4.15
    Graph [f2s.com]
    Reference [f2s.com]


  • All you Fascist Authorian bastards beware:

    Economic Left/Right: -6.50
    Libertarian/Authoritarian: -5.95

    lol :)

    I think I even surpassed The Dalai Lama, Ghandi and Nelson Mandela.

  • These were kind of amusing like taking those silly tests in YM and Seventeen with your girlfriend. Mainly because they are riduculous.

    The first test I thought had a more liberal slant on it. The seemed to be trying to emotionally stimulate a response more often than the second test. Also, from the second test I think they did the normal as 1/2 the questions in a positive fashion and then 1/2 in a negative fashion. Pretty standard for these kinds of tests. The granularity on most of the questions was t

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