A mild Smogon sociopolitical experiment (ignore the op do the compass instead)

[Brap]

I'm just glad he changed his name back from gookie.

Same here Cheesy Poofs

 

[dwarfstar]

An aside: that was never cookie. The user named gookie is still there; based on the sig, I think it was Poppy.

 

[yoshinite]

DISCLAIMER: I'm 14, and most likely have no idea what I'm talking about.

Post-Moderns
13% OF THE PUBLIC

What They Believe

• Generally supportive of government, though more conservative on race policies and the safety net CHECK

• Strongly supportive of regulation and environmental protection CHECK
• Most (56%) say Wall Street helps the economy more than it hurts ???
• Very liberal on social issues, including same-sex marriage CHECK
• One of the least religious groups: nearly a third are unaffiliated with any religious tradition NOPE
• Favor the use of diplomacy rather than force CHECK

Who They Are

• The youngest of the typology groups: 32% under age 30 CHECK
• A majority are non-Hispanic white and have at least some college experience NO IM HISPANIC
• Half live in either the Northeast or the West CHECK
• A majority (58%) live in the suburbs NOPE
• 63% use social networking CHECK
• One-in-five regularly listen to NPR; 14% regularly watch The Daily Show NOPE

Looks like this quiz might actually be right about myself; however I still have no idea what I'm talking about.

 

[youngjake93]

There was a site like this going around before the last presedential election with several million participants. Iirc Gary Johnson had the most people agree with his platform, then Obama at a VERY close second even with way different views, then Jill Stein, then Rocky Anderson, then Virgil Goode with Romney like in last place.
Millions of conservatives refused to vote for Romney(especially after Ron Paul said that he might as well be worse than Obama) in that election lol so it seemed accurate.

Btw I am Libertarian.

 

[Jellicent]

gdi i got disaffecteds

i'm officially poor ;-;

 

[Zlatant]

I don't made the poll because it was just for only US, but i made the second one that someone posted http://www.politicalcompass.org/index

And i was a center-left not extreme Anarchist, and i think it was pretty accurate for a 19 year old Mexican student guy

 

[Valgaror]

I got "disaffected" - while a lot of it is technically accurate, I didn't realize that "broke and cynical" was a political standpoint...

 

[Trax]

" though more conservative on race policies" "Very liberal on social issues"
am i the only one struggling to reconcile these...?

I'll translate for you.

Very liberal on social issues: Supports LGBT rights, assistance for the poor getting educated, equal pay for women, etc etc.
More conservative on race policies: Doesn't support affirmative action.


It's a completely rational position really; a policy like Affirmative Action shouldn't last forever -- if Affirmative Action needs to last more than a couple of generations, Affirmative Action has failed to do what it set out to.

 

[Shiruba]

Not a United Statesian, but since it's geared toward them and Canada is similar enough, I answered more to what I think about the US.

What They Believe

• Generally supportive of government, though more conservative on race policies and the safety net -[ yeah, though the race one is tricky for me; for black people in general I think that any racism is more on a personal than federal level and there's not much you can do about that, but for ghettoes and whatnot, that's more an issue of poverty than that of race. I may not be terribly knowledgeable in this way due to having never lived in a true "ghetto," though. Furthermore, I don't support the idea of measurably lesser-skilled individuals being accepted due to representing a "minority" - that's horse shit. I want the best of the best to be saving me from a fire, to be operating on my heart, to be teaching the children of my society. If they're just as qualified as the others and happen to be a minority, of course let them in if you can, maybe give them slightly higher priority, but they shouldn't get in with less work just because they happened to be born with a vagina or darker skin, for example. I definitely support the safety net, but perhaps my seeing people like my bro's girlfriend use her government money to buy NeoCash and Pikachu DSes [this is a joke for us, now, with unemployed folks "buying beer, drugs, and Pikachu DSes," instead of helping her mum who works in a kitchen cutting onions all day so they can squeeze by for another month. She {the girlfriend} is 21 btw] is what makes me rather cynical for doing much more than providing basic living essentials, as well as just being realistic here - I'm not gonna give the same amount to people who work hard as opposed to people who don't. Luck plays a key role here, but I'd like to minimize the effects of bad luck if at all possible.
• Strongly supportive of regulation and environmental protection -[ yes
• Most (56%) say Wall Street helps the economy more than it hurts -[ not for the people they fuck over in other countries.
• Very liberal on social issues, including same-sex marriage -[ yes
• One of the least religious groups: nearly a third are unaffiliated with any religious tradition -[agnostic
• Favor the use of diplomacy rather than force -[ almost always the better option

Who They Are

• The youngest of the typology groups: 32% under age 30 -[ yes
• A majority are non-Hispanic white and have at least some college experience -[i've... been inside a college... But I am white. I'm also sixteen, so not really old enough to college.
• Half live in either the Northeast or the West -[ of the States? well Canada so I guess "north" applies
• A majority (58%) live in the suburbs -[ yes
• 63% use social networking -[ not facebook or anything, but this site, yes
• One-in-five regularly listen to NPR; 14% regularly watch The Daily Show -[ i don't know what these are

• The U.S. stands above all other countries in the world

do people actually believe this lol

For the other test:

Apparently similar to Gandhi. This seems about right for me.

What I found really interesting, though, is this:

It's quite interesting to see that the "liberal" US president and the "Conservative" Canadian one are on the same plane. Apparently this was done in 2012, so things might have changed, but any thoughts or disagreements about this? I don't get the Pope being a leftist; how can he be, being leader of the Catholic Church? Maybe I'm missing something important here. The site's definition of left would be collectivism - which I see, after all, "we are all servants of the Lord and we will follow His work," while the totalitarian control I see due to the comparatively narrow guidelines set by Catholicism, but where does "social liberalism" come into play here? The "Libertarian" part, maybe? The disparity between popular opinion of "the left" and this source's are intriguing.

 

[dwarfstar]

• Most (56%) say Wall Street helps the economy more than it hurts -[ yes read this incorrectly initially, not sure what it means

"Wall Street" collectively refers to a lot of banks, investment firms, etc.; the name comes from the fact that a lot of their headquarters are clustered on Wall Street in New York City. The perspective the site outlines is that the machinations of capital have a net positive effect on the economic status of the average person.

It's quite interesting to see that the "liberal" US president and the "Conservative" Canadian one are on the same plane.

A note on that: In the US, "liberal" is often used as a synonym for someone who throws their lot in with the Democratic Party, and "conservative" for one who throws their lot in with the Republican Party. Both terms have lost their meaning to some extent here, but "liberal" suffers from that a lot more. Obama is all about neoliberal (read: very pro-market) economics and an authoritarian security state; he's by no means a leftist. If you look at his policies, he's basically Nixon without the racism and homophobia.

I don't get the Pope being a leftist; how can he be, being leader of the Catholic Church? Maybe I'm missing something important here. The site's definition of left would be collectivism - which I see, after all, "we are all servants of the Lord and we will follow His work," while the totalitarian control I see due to the comparatively narrow guidelines set by Catholicism, but where does "social liberalism" come into play here? The "Libertarian" part, maybe? The disparity between popular opinion of "the left" and this source's are intriguing.

Apparently, the site bases Pope Benedict's placement on the economic axis more on rhetoric than on practice; he talked a good game about giving to the poor and all that, but you didn't see him giving up the golden throne and whatnot. Much like a lot of the more well-off "liberals" in the US, if you think about it - "Sure, give the poor a helping hand, so long as it's not coming out of my pocket". Francis is better than Benedict in that regard, but he's still got a host of problems. I'm getting off track, though.


The Political Compass quiz is much more accurate than the one in the OP. For what it's worth, here's my result:

Economic left/right: -9.50 (This is consistent with my own self-analysis.)
Social libertarian/authoritarian: -7.59 (I'm surprised by the relatively low magnitude of this result, since I identify as an anarchist.)

 

[Shiruba]

While I shouldn't generalize, larger businesses do tend to engage in rather unscrupulous practices, particularly for the pursuit of more capital. "Money makes the world go round," right? Edited, thank you.

...Interesting. Yet another thing I hadn't noticed. I hadn't seen that he's socially "conservative" overall, though; he's cool with gays and doesn't appear to be a racist, which are the two "big" US issues these days. Why's he still so high up? Sexual prude or something? I know that Harper's a fucking moron who doesn't even believe in Global Warming, let alone social progress, but Obama doesn't seem to be that way.

Yeah, they mentioned what he condones due to what he's actually saying, not necessarily contradicting due to any hypocrisy. Benedict seemed like kind of an ass, though - so "humble" for the servant of God, eh?
He kinda looks like the emperor

• (I'm surprised by the relatively low magnitude of this result, since I identify as an anarchist.)

No one is free till all are free. Will you keep living on your knees?

ahh, i'd been wondering about that. does that come from anything in particular? shouldn't anarchy also place you on the farthest right at the bottom due to the idea of a government going entirely against the anarchist ideal of a classless society with no overseer to force wealth to equalize, while the "left" side is more about "sharing the wealth" in an increasingly more equal way, or am i missing something crucial here?

 

[dwarfstar]

Shiruba Pope Benedict isn't the one who's semi-OK with gays. That's the new one, Pope Francis (he just excommunicated an Australian priest for publicly supporting ordaining women as priests, though, so he can't be called progressive). And yes, Benedict does look like Emperor Palpatine.

As for anarchism, that sociopolitical philosophy is actually hard-left, just in a different direction than you're thinking of. See, anarchism is geared toward erasing class divisions such that it's impossible for one individual or element of society to hold long-lived coercive power over another; said coercive power necessarily limits the fundamental liberties of the oppressed individual/class. Capitalism and coercive power are inextricably intertwined in that the laborer is forced to do the bidding of the boss in order to secure the resources needed to stay alive, whether or not said actions are in the interests of the laborer (or anyone else except the boss and his ilk, for that matter). As such, ideologically pure anarchism is by definition communist; the means of production are democratically owned by the working class in an anarchist society, not by an individual or a small subsection of society. Collective self-governance, rather than a central government, is necessary for that to be feasible.
A common misconception about communism is that it means ownership of property/the means of production by the state; this actually flies in the face of Marxist ideals. A lot of communists-in-name-only paid lip service to real communism and then concentrated power and wealth in the hands of the small class in control of the state, which is just as repulsive to a real communist as capitalism is. (In fact, the Russo-Chinese model of Communism is actually a form of state-capitalism, as opposed to the market-capitalism more prominent in the West.) Add that to the crimes and megalomania of madmen like Stalin and Mao, and it's fair to say they did more damage to our cause than ten thousand capitalists ever could, since the bourgeoisie in countries with market-capitalist economic systems can point a finger and say "See, communism is oppressive, a road to starvation and state control!".

 

[Shiruba]

Nooo, I meant that Obama's okay with gays - was fully aware that Benedict wasn't.
And yeah, I know, but honestly, it's a religion that's thousands of years old, it's not gonna pop on its head overnight, you know?

I know that there are many different versions of communism, including Stalinism, Maoism, Trotskyism, etc, all of which possess different ideologies. "Pure Marxism" having a classless structure is correct, and from what I've seen, the biggest difference is the fact that Marxism features a transition period in which the state exists and sets up its ideal society, where anarchism does not typically seem to find that necessary.

Yes, generally "communism" is associated with Stalin and his bullocks, and it's assumed that they're all the same, which is destructive in leading to more open-minded thinking; this doesn't just apply to politics, either, false conclusions and "facts" that are just flat-out wrong or misguided are used to form the basis of an argument on a regular basis, and a building with a broken foundation can't hope to stand for long. I suppose I thought "state control" and "redistribution of wealth" are tied together necessarily - but, you could also argue that they are. With no real method of force and no real "law" due to no organized government force with which to interpret and apply the law [nobody is above anyone else, after all, and therefore cannot order them to suffer a punishment such as jail time as this would imply that the judicial system has the right to decide the fate of another human being against their consent, yes?], who's to say that they could not simply be exploitative "under the radar" or even otherwise, if they can amass a force great enough for nobody to want to oppose the person in question or take their taxes?That stuff's pretty much already happening, with government being persuaded in ways of money, donations and grants to pursue [or to not pursue] a particular referendum due to its conflicting with the interests of the paying party.

you can kinda tell why i feel a bit hopeless.

Feel free to set me straight if this is bullshit, though, because it very well could be.

 

[dwarfstar]

Regarding the redistribution of wealth, you're halfway correct - it doesn't necessitate state control, but it does necessitate conflict that may end in violence. Assume for the moment that we (i.e. anarcho-communists) have succeeded in educating the rest of the proletariat on the principles of self-government and we've united as a revolutionary force. The bourgeoisie is then left with a choice: capitulate and voluntarily accept the breakdown of the hierarchy they reign over, or instigate armed conflict using their own resources and the military and police forces who work for them. It's very likely that we'd end up with the latter, as they'd be loath to give up their wealth and power. Assuming we won the fight (or they surrendered before there was one), resources would have to be managed in a democratic fashion in order for the revolution to be successful, both from a practical and an ideological standpoint. Given that consensus is often tough to build even among relatively small groups, we'd have to come up with some means of making executive decisions that does not lend power to one group over another in any permanent or semi-permanent fashion (or in anything other than the short term, really).
To be honest, we don't have one concrete answer to that problem. There's a fair bit of debate among anarchists as to how we'd do it. One idea that seems to me like it would work from a practical standpoint is rotating workers' councils. By "rotating", I mean that a given member would not stay in office very long (a year at the maximum, to my thinking, but if a case could logically be made for a longer term, I might not oppose it). Furthermore, the council could be recalled and a new one elected (or randomly selected once everybody's adequately educated, to prevent influence peddling) at any time if the public at large deemed the council's actions detrimental to the well-being of the masses. The education of the public on all issues even tangentially related to managing affairs is key in a truly democratic society, as much so as education on scientific principles and other things you'd assume to be essential learning for the modern world, because ignorance and apathy allow the unscrupulous to gain and abuse power without significant opposition, and then everything we sacrifice is all for nothing. This "transitional state" would thus not have much intransient power, and as proper education shifts the culture away from the short-sighted selfishness that dominates the current one, it's a relatively simple matter to break it down and achieve the end goal.
I recognize I only gave a very basic outline; I must admit that's all I have right now. I hope it's a satisfactory answer.

EDIT: Forgot to mention that the workers' council idea is for the large-scale, say on the size of a country or something. Within individual communities, there's not even really a need for that.

 

[awesomesocks42]

I feel that being given a choice of 2 statements means that I was always getting forced too far from my views. I don't put a lot of faith in this quiz... (For the record, I came out as Post Modern)

 

[awesomesocks42]

With no real method of force and no real "law" due to no organized government force with which to interpret and apply the law [nobody is above anyone else, after all, and therefore cannot order them to suffer a punishment such as jail time as this would imply that the judicial system has the right to decide the fate of another human being against their consent, yes?], who's to say that they could not simply be exploitative "under the radar" or even otherwise, if they can amass a force great enough for nobody to want to oppose the person in question or take their taxes?

I completely agree with most of what you're saying, but I would like to point out that the flaws in Communism that you have identified only apply to coercive communism as opposed to voluntary communism. Coercive communism is where people have a communist society imposed upon them, but in a voluntary communist society (which could be constructed on a large scale given enough free land and a good way to ask people whether they wish to join a new communist society), these problems do not occur as everyone is working towards a common goal voluntarily, rather than being forced to. Voluntary communism has never really been tested on a large scale at all, only on a small scale (such as in monasteries, where monks run a micro society perfectly well), and personally, I think it would work extremely well if it was handled right.

 

[whistle]

Smogon political compass from 1/2/2011:

Would be kinda interesting if everyone who took that test took it again, to see if there is a pattern to the shift in political position over the past two years. But that's not gonna happen.

 

[Calm_Mind_Latias]

My political compass is usually in the -7 to -8 range on the left-right axis and -2 to -4 on the libertarian to authoritarian axis. I still do not think it could describe most of my rather latent political views since I was/am a Marxist-Leninist. But my range seems to be consistent with Marxism-Leninism. In any given room, such as in a supermarket, among parishioners, or in a young adult group, I am most likely the most leftist person in the room, although I do not discuss contemporary politics with other people, since I have no attachment to the Democrat or Republican parties. My concern with politics is largely more philosophical and historical, and I do not want to discuss issues such as "big government", "big business", or "the nanny state" with others.

I am a Marxist-Leninist, and I used to have contempt for other leftists, such as left communists and Trotskists in addition to more moderate social liberals, although I do retain respect for left anarchists.

====

Interesting heteroscedasticity on the graph... I used that word :-p !!

 

[megacrazyhand]

So anyways, landed with solid liberal. Really no surprise there and the "who they are" was more like a check list to me. That said, whats the geography of Smogon users because the number of Solid Liberals seems a bit high here.

 

[Trax]

Would be kinda interesting if everyone who took that test took it again, to see if there is a pattern to the shift in political position over the past two years. But that's not gonna happen.

Actually did it again and landed in the same place, putting me as one of the further left posters on Smogon in a move that will probably make the people in the Australian Election 2013 thread spit their beverages out.

 

[Da Letter El]

I'm apparently a strong liberal now even though I leaned right 2 years ago. That's cool.

-2.88; -3.74 on the political compass too. Not surprised.

 

[billymills]

thats what college does to you.

Moved a point and a half right from last time, to (-1.62, -6.36). Sounds about right cause I've never really considered myself leftist on economic policy.

 

[Minwu]

 

[Ajwf]

I know for a fact I'm liberal, so I'm not even going to bother...

However, Darth Missingno,, I'm not sure I fully understand the definition of Anarchism you're using, when it seems much closer to Marxism, and those two groups (while similar) were also very different so recently as the mid-1930s (Before the corruption of the words, during the Spanish Civil War).

What you say sounds like a hybrid of Democracy/Marxism over anarchy, which, to my understanding, was to eliminate government, not classes. While I believe that the lack of any government/social structure (not class structure, social structure) is pure insanity, I'm still not convinced that 'anarchism' is a system that aims to establish some form of government.

While a rotating council w/randomly selected people would make for a more honest demographic representation, it would not lead to a more fair/effective government and more than likely the system to remove the officials unpopular/outspoken would be seriously abused. If using a voting system similar to the house/congress (bill introduced/voted on), a group of 'educated' officials are going to do the same thing that our current congress does: Go help their own needs. Being randomly selected, I would pay attention to my own district and care less about any other area that is not my own. Perhaps in smaller countries, this wouldn't matter, but in America with over 300mil people, the attention to even a quarter of a state as a district and even with 100 selected councilors, only half the country would have proper representation. Even maintaining the ideas that we could use a large amount (such as congress' 435+), you'd just run into more gridlock by conflicting ideas and end up having to re-select like-minded people.

And like-minded people would cause an imbalance of representation of ideas.

 

[Ampharos]

As the one who originally posted the terrible first quiz, I figured I'd give the compass a shot.

Pretty damn close to center. Then again, at 17 I don't have any actual experience in the real world, so this is probably gonna change over the next few years.