Political Compass team's assessment of candidates - creepy.

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I saw this brought up by Bret and Heather on the DarkHorse podcast and it's on The Political Compass website:




Political compass website:

https://www.politicalcompass.org/uselection2020

15 minute clip of Bret and Heather's interpretation of these results (ie. proposed systemic self-selection):

The team did not ask the political candidates themselves to take the test, so I find the validity of the assessment to be highly suspect.

I also believe that the questions in the test are hopelessly outdated now, and several fail to meet commonly accepted standards for survey research as they are too ambiguous in their wording.

Anyway, my latest score:

My results .. I am to the left of Biden.

Economic Left/Right: 5.63
Social Libertarian/Authoritarian: -2.26

I just took it again to refamiliarize myself with the questions:



I didn't think the questions were particularly out of touch, they focused on a lot of scattered details and there were at least a few where I was dead neutral on where I'd rather have had a 'no preference' than being forced to take agree or disagree.

If anything some of the questions are a bit leading where if I took them on first blush I'd answer differently than if I considered the caveats. Like 'making peace with the establishment' I'd say agree because you have to be willing to work within it to carry it forward but do so without pretending it's perfect, or 'It is a waste of time to try to rehabilitate some criminals.' I'd agree because - the operative word 'sometimes' it is.

An interesting quiz...

No doubt the result I got may not be what people would have expected, considering the responces I normally receive to my posts:

Having a "neutral" option would have been nice, as a few I had to consider regarding whether my neutrality was marginally in one direction or the other. Personally, a sliding scale of "agreement" rather than the 4 options supplied would have been preferable.

Similarly, the vagueness of some questions implies they are meant to be seen in a vaccuum, seperated from the conditions of the person answering, yet they would be likely scored around the "understanding" of the person(s) who created the quiz, and the conditions under which they lived (Objective questioning versus subjective answers and interpretation).

As far as the "candidates" graph: Without the people listed having provided their own answers, it is meaningless. The person who generated this has no way to know the feelings\opinions of the candidate, and how much they are emphasisng\camouflaging thier thoughts\opinions in order to gain support. It is entirely possible for a candidate to have no opinion\be neutral on a topic, yet still put forward policies which encourage\discourage support for the topic. Similarly, a candidate may have a low level of agreement\disagreement over a given area, but it is not something to which they have strong feelings, and so may be willing to compromise on it in order to gain support for a different area in which they have a much great level of belief\agreement.

I think Americans don't see how Right wing their politics are compared to those around the world.

Going by that test I am apparently pretty extreme, like big even compared to their idea of Sanders.


Kind of wonder if especially some of the later issues that I strongly agree on or disagree with created such a large difference.

In general I do like to think that I have healthy respect for institutions and an interest of the business sides of things as answers if they are well regulated. Kind of reminds me of a recent game I played which had the alignment system, where generally I would think that I would fit into Lawful Good, but in practice I tend to go for Chaotic Good with occasional NG.

Your results, objectively, were not all that surprising (actually, I might have expected a somewhat higher "Y" axis value, had I been asked to guess the result). These sorts of questionaires can be useful to help to see oneself as other's do, rather than as we wish to be seen, or as we see ourselves.

The important thing now is to be able to keep this result in mind when considering other's views\opinions, in order to appropriate assess them from this basis, rather than on an assumption that one's views are "neutral" and using this as the basis which would lead to faulty analysis.

No surprises here

Your Political Compass
Economic Left/Right: -8.88
Social Libertarian/Authoritarian: -6.92

We are on the right side of the plot Blabs

yup btw i dare anybody to truthfully score to the lower left of me.

I doubt anyone would want to...

You do realise that this result would put you at the "left's" equivalent of the "alt-right"\"far-right" on the spectrum, likely making your views appear equally extreme\outlandish\unpalatable to the majority of the population?

So what, the centrist point of view is the best one, just hit a neutral response on everything?

Maybe or maybe not people can be naturally gay? Maybe or maybe not you should always support your country regardless of its actions? Maybe or maybe not racism is good? Maybe or Maybe not corporations should do anything they want?

Just being in almost the center of every issue doesn't make one some moral superiority. People being called an "enlightened centrist" is hardly a complement rather than sarcasm of taking a stance that both sides are evil; that hippies are just as bad as Nazis.

Creepy is correct. No surprises with T, but the others being so far right is a bit of a shock.

I did the test and can’t get the chart to post, but my numbers are:

Your Political Compass

Economic Left/Right: -9.5
Social Libertarian/Authoritarian: -5.49

I didn’t try to be, but it looks like I am further left of blabs. I honestly don’t see myself as left or right, but this test if valid has put me in that corner.

Why? Some people with extreme views are highly respected. I wonder where Jesus would score, for example.