8 questions A new politcal test (results and discussion)

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sorry raven this one is done for data

lol funny thing is, it is pretty much left to right from top to bottom.

grrr...that would make me the farthest right

Jakob... is top to bottom left and right? what about side-to-side...

The top left node seems to include traditional leftists, the top right node propertarian individualists with very liberal opinions on social issues, the central cluster moderates, and the bottom node seems to encompass rightwing indvidualists.

I assume Master Pendant is none other than the lovable Canadian social democrat Master_Pedant.

I honestly didn't know pedant was even a real word until it occurred to me that it looked strangely similar to "pedantic". Then I noticed you have a big vocab and I put 2 and 2 together, but checked it on google to be safe.

Well you're no outlier, so welcome to the fascist club

Although I am sometimes accused of being a liberal, I swear that according to a lengthy detailed test I took during the 2008 election, I am a moderate centrist, just left of center. This diagram seems to support that result.

This is, in fact, a major defect in the analysis and why I haven't answered it.

The other major defect, now, is that the graphic does not have meaningful axes. A principal components analysis would be better.

To the contrary, sharing an edge with Master_Pendant, whoever he is, indicates that you're close to the extreme left.

I may have shifted further left the past couple years. I should retake that original test and see if the results differ from 2008.

1. Abortion is ______ wrong. Sometimes
2. War is _____ wrong. Sometimes
3 The Market is _______ wrong. Sometimes
4 Government Intervention is _______ wrong. Often
5 Coercion is _______ wrong. Almost always
6 The Police are _________ wrong. Often
7 The Right is _______ wrong. Often
8 The Left is ________ wrong. Very Often



ruveyn

sorry about the typo, reading it nodaly is the correct way to read it.
the graph only gives relationships to other test takers not left right leaning.
the axis are meaningless

1) you are predicting the polling weight when the real metric is distance.
you are appling the wrong maths
but you are bring light to a real problem , clarity
I would have been better to have said a continous scale between 1 and 5 (or 0 and 1 or -1 and 1 or e and pi)
with one end meaning never and the other meaning always. (note taken for mark II)

2) relations do not have axes.
in this case it is a way of flattening 8-dimensional space.
so I guess you could say there are 8 axes coresponding with the 8 questions.
but really I was only interested in the question of reachablity.
and it seems excluding the singletons there is a sort of continuity of views on this board.
belying the idea that we are sharply divided between left and right

1. almost never
2. almost always
3. often
4. often
5. often
6. often
7. almost always
8. almost never

2,4,3,3,3,3,4,2

I am reminded of my [and others'] attempts to turn lexicostatistical data [variously weighted] into meaningful / useful diagrams. The problem there, here, and always, is that the data really want more than two dimensions, and Mercatorizing the output always results in distortion. [a friend said that a chart representing the verbal system of one of his languages would need about 15 dimensions].

In this experiment we have at least the factors of polarization [my unwillingness to use "always" versus others' freedom to throw it out], alignment with one of the menu stances [traditional liberals versus eclectic individualism], and at least judgemental versus tolerance among personality traits.

Have you tried figuring the data in three dimensions?

Palindrome! Not 'Palin drone' (that would be terrible), but palindrome.

Are you doing left and right classification? I would be interested to see them if you are. I thought I might show up in a weird place because of historical shifts and other factors.

No. I'm saying your assigned adjectives distort the distances - some units are "worth more" than others. By placing an adjective for "3" closer to that for "4" than to that for "2", the unit between 3 and 4 represents less distance than the unit between 2 and 3.


Yes, that would fix the problem. If you actually do it, I'd suggest a 0 to 10 scale; people can easily figure out 5 is the midpoint, and associate it with whatever adjective they normally associate with the mid point.


It is indeed an 8 dimensional space of data.

Your graph is a reasonable way of representing reachability, as you say. I do wonder what would happen if you chose a smaller distance for a link - or, say, figured out the smallest distance that was needed to prevent fragmentation.

However, the interpretation of the graph as a "flattening" of the 8 dimensional space which some people are trying to use is not correct. The only meaningful representation of distance on your graph is a single link. People who are 4 links apart might actual be 4 times as far apart in distance - or they might only be 2 times as far apart. Distances beyond 1 link are not meaningful. This isn't a problem with your graph, it's just people trying to use your graph for a use for which it's not intended.

I've set up a spreadsheet to extract principle components, which actually is a flattening of the graph. Specifically, it will be a flattening of the graph that represents as much of the distance information as is possible in two dimensions - which I note will not be all of it, but may be about 2/3 or so.

I'll give my results in adjectives, to avoid my problem with what I view as an incorrect adjective assignment for 3.

Abortion is almost never wrong.
War is almost always wrong.
The Market is almost never wrong.
Government Intervention is almost always wrong.
Coercion is almost always wrong.
The Police are sometimes wrong.
The Right is sometimes wrong.
The Left is almost always wrong.