Political Survey

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Has anyone ever done this quiz? I think its pretty accurate, and gives comparison to public figures that most people can recognize. I did it the other day, and can't quite remember my score, but it was something like [-7, -2]. If not -2 it was marginally close.

http://politics.beasts.org/scripts/survey

 

I tried it (http://politics.beasts.org/scripts/results?surveyid=1035162799), but I'm rather suspicious of its methodology. I mean, did you just see the table with sample historical figures on it? It looks rather weird when you place Joseph Stalin right of the center - though he had some rather radical ideas about dealing with unemployment, he wasn't exactly traditionally conservative or a pro-market kind of guy if I remember correctly.

 

Well, for what it's worth, here's my score:

1 left/right +2.6646 (+0.1604)
2 pragmatism -1.8095 (-0.1089)


Please note that my score lies directly on top of Joseph Stalin. As The Shaman notes, this makes me question at least the validity of where they've placed those names. I'm a stong conservative/mild libertarian (i.e. limited government, etc.), so that would definitely place me away from Stalin on at least one of those axes!

 

Hmm... Stalin does seem off place haha if not extremely... Maybe a mistake in terms of design, or dependant on whether the scale is focused fiscally or morally.


Another test I've taken part in is this: http://politcalcompass.org/test

(Apparently this is all I do with my time)

This one almost seems a little more accurate, in terms of Stalin anyways...

My score: Economic Left/Right: -6.75
Social Libertarian/Authoritarian: -5.85

This puts me somewhere between Nelson Mandela and The Dalai Lama... I love comparing my views haha.



PS. None of the American Candidates even touch me haha..POLAR opposites.

 

First Test (can't get the second one to work):

1 left/right -9.7083 (-0.5844)
2 pragmatism -0.9282 (-0.0559)

I ended up left of EVERYONE on that chart.

 

1 left/right +0.0028 (+0.0002)
2 pragmatism +0.7818 (+0.0471)

Closest to Tony Blair, seems about accurate. I avoided using the "strongly agree" and "strongly disagree" quite a lot though which probably held me close to the center. I found the test to be horribly lacking though and to be honest quite poorly made, and probably primarily made for Americans. Some of the questions were almost stupid enough to make me stop making the test and caused me to put "no opinion" on them.

EDIT: Granted, making this sort of surveys is in general quite difficult and requires a whole deal of generalisations but I've seen better of the same type in the past.

 

My results suprsed me slightly:
1 left/right +1.5731 (+0.0947)
2 pragmatism +1.5773 (+0.0949)

Always thought i leaned to the left slightly...

 

This quiz has some weird questions:
'correct grammar doesn't matter' - well, in what context? Correct grammar doesn't matter in text messages or something, but it matters if you're going to right a book or give a political speech. WTF does it have to do with politics? :-/

I'm also finding it hard to answer some questions except in a 'next best way' kind of thing. It's a little more complicated than agree/disagree/no opinion...

Ultimately, this test fails, because I get the results:
1 left/right -8.5236 (-0.5131)
2 pragmatism +1.9583 (+0.1179)

Which is crap, because most of my political views are staight-out based in idealism, with the pragmatic details being secondary (important, yes - don't misconstrue this. But secondary).

 

I think a few of the questions were repeated, too. Wasn't one of the last in the 16-30 range as well?

 

Here are my results:
1 left/right +3.2453 (+0.1953)
2 pragmatism -0.6059 (-0.0365)
And yes, some of the questions were repeated in opposite form (Alcohol is worse than Marajuana, Marajuana is worse than Alcohol) to help eliminate bias in the survey process. In a survey like this, there is inherrant bias in most of the questions, but by asking the opposite question, you balance that bias out with it's counter.

 

1 left/right -5.0340 (-0.3030)
2 pragmatism +1.2962 (+0.0780)

so leftish for me, doesn't surprise me really, not too sure how to interpret the pragmatism one though, they didn't really define term in context or the opposite. The names seem a bit off base really.

 

I assumed that they meant the terms to be interpreted literally. In other words, a positive score would be indicative of someone who favors a practical solution to problems, whereas a negative score would be indicative of someone who favor an idealistic solution.

I scored slightly to the left, and slightly pragmatic, which doesn't really surprise me, as I am pretty moderate in most of my views.

 

1 left/right -5.7349 (-0.3452)
2 pragmatism -0.6333 (-0.0381)
Nearest was Charles Kennedy. I thought I was a bit more idealistic than this.

 

1 left/right -4.1004 (-0.2468)
2 pragmatism +3.5722 (+0.2150)

The http://www.politicalcompass.org/ (which I assume is the one Halasz is refering to, cna't get his link to work), I tend to score around +1 for Economic Left/Right and about -6 for Social Libertarian/Authoritarian scale, which I think more accurately reflects me.

 

1 left/right -2.6507 (-0.1596)
2 pragmatism +0.3766 (+0.0227)

About Half-way between Tony Blair and Charles Kennedy.

 

left/right +2.3263 (+0.1400)
pragmatism +2.9130 (+0.1753)

What do left and right mean anyway? Whatever happened to the axis's of freedom of property(jussives) and personal freedom(imperatives)?

For RotKu's test:
Economic Left/Right: 6.38
Social Libertarian/Authoritarian: -3.74

And the best part: no mass murderers/oppressors/thieves or other evildoers on my side of the chart

 

1 left/right +1.0039 (+0.0604)
2 pragmatism +0.1992 (+0.0120)


Very interesting. I thought the variations would be higher.

 

1 left/right -0.3393 (-0.0204)
2 pragmatism +0.2748 (+0.0165)

After 70 questions I barely moved from the starting point. Closest to Tony Blair by far and that to me sounds right. I don't think I'd generally describe myself as a centrist though. I'd certainly be right-wing from an economic viewpoint.

I took the political compass (second) one about a year ago when the Irish election was on. Can't remember my exact results but I was firmly in the bottom-left corner and I remember many other Irish saying the same. The Irish government, however, is plotted in the top-right corner in their example. I think the questions asked were of a very absolute nature, not allowing for the possibilty of exceptions. The first survey suffered from this a bit but not as much as the second I thought.

I found these tests interesting to take but I'm not convinced the results reflect my beliefs. I do think the two way axis is a good way of presenting it but feel the questions should be more nuanced between the two extremes. To be fair though Ireland probably is a very centrist country so maybe it works better for people in more politically diverse nations.

 

Left/right - -3.8133
Pragmatism - +0.0011

Not entirely surprising for me, although I didn't think I was quite so much of a lefty any more. Must be the ten years under John Howard's government and working for a state government agency (under Labor) that pushed me further into the red. Like a few others, I tend left on social issues and right on economic ones - oh, the horror of losing one's youthful socialist conscience!

All up, I thought I'd rank higher on pragmatism - then again, I was doing this test on a day off from work. I spotted the repeat questions towards the end, which is probably just a balance check (rather than unnecessarily putting a bias on the outcomes).