American vs Rest of World in Political Spectrums and stuff

[Dachs]

On that note, what would people propose as a third dimension for the political compass? I suggest Centralization-Localization.

Clearly Authoritarian-Libertarian.

Nah, centralized states aren't inherently authoritarian to anybody except libertarians.

I think it is fair to say that a real political test needs to have more than 2 axis. Possibly more than 4 axis. And people would still complain about the limits of the test

Yep. Tests like these aren't that great.

 

[Arwon]

I think 2 dimensions is fine. You aren't all beautiful uncategorisable unique little snowflakes.

 

[ParkCungHee]

I think 2 dimensions is fine. You aren't all beautiful uncategorisable unique little snowflakes.

Who's talking about us? Theres plenty of major political disagreements not possible to be placed coherently on the two axis.

For example, which is further to the left/right: The Tokugawa Shogunate, or the Japanese Military Governments of the 1930s?

 

[Arwon]

Certainly, but neither of them are modern developed-world internet users. We ain't that diverse.

Also left-right is 1-dimensional, not 2-dimensional.

 

[ParkCungHee]

Certainly, but neither of them are modern developed-world internet users. We ain't that diverse.

Also left-right is 1-dimensional, not 2-dimensional.

But there are people on the internet who will defend both systems, in fact, there are people on the internet who subscribe to just about any political philosophy imaginable.

 

[amadeus]

A friend of mine here and I were discussing this and I like what he came up with.

                            Democrats ->
                                |
Freedom -------------------------------------- Totalitarianism
                                |
                          Republicans ->

The point is that no matter who we vote for, we're constantly moving in the direction of more government control of our lives, just in different aspects. (And sometimes the same -- look at the bailout packages!)

 

[Arwon]

But there are people on the internet who will defend both systems, in fact, there are people on the internet who subscribe to just about any political philosophy imaginable.

Who cares about a few kooks? The two-dimensional compass approach is reasonably effective at describing, in simplified and abstracted terms, the broad sweep of most peoples' politics. Without getting too complex and descriptive, which is not the point.

Such simplifications have a valid and useful purpose, and all these people going "ooooh X doesn't fit" are missing the point. You can find exceptions and curious cases and contradictions and that's lovely and interesting, but we need labels and short-hand to have a workable political discourse at all.

 

[ParkCungHee]

Such simplifications have a valid and useful purpose, and all these people going "ooooh X doesn't fit" are missing the point. You can find exceptions and curious cases and contradictions and that's lovely and interesting, but we need labels and short-hand to have a workable political discourse at all.

But there are very major real cases where the system breaks down. I've found "left" and "right" almost useless in describing East Asian Politics, Irish Politics, not to mention differentiations within left and right within the system it's designed for. It very rarely actually elucidates anything, and if someone has an understanding of the component elements of the "left" and the "right" they've already surpassed the use of it.

 

[Huayna Capac357]

I think 2 dimensions is fine. You aren't all beautiful uncategorisable unique little snowflakes.

True. Where's this going to stop? How about 1,000 axes!

I think the Political Compass is definitely adequate, so stop yer whining.

 

[Phlegmak]

Nevermind. Ignore this.

 

[Mise]

The typical 2-dimensional chart still leaves the vast majority of people stratified along diagonals. This tells me you only need to know (1) distance from centre, and (2) which quadrant you're in, in order to categorise people.

Far from needing yet more dimensions, you actually need maybe 5 different categories: top right, bottom right, bottom left, top left, and centre.

 

[ParadigmShifter]

I'm all for a political tesseract.

 

[holy king]

there is no left and right, it's all the same, just like cats and dogs are the same, and tea and coffee and murder and neck rubbing, because everything is just part of the same big universe and can be called love.

 

[ParadigmShifter]

I'm in cell#7 of the political tesseract anyway, see if you can spot it

EDIT: You get better look at cell#7 in this image

 

[Cutlass]

True. Where's this going to stop? How about 1,000 axes!

I think the Political Compass is definitely adequate, so stop yer whining.

What got me thinking of the multiple axis idea was this post in the Political Compass thread:

What do you think of this 2D political compass (unfortunately without a test)?

Now leaving aside the other things that people said to shoot down the idea in that thread, there are some obvious problems with the picture. When claiming Republicans are closer, and Democrats further, from liberty, the creator of that picture was clearly using a very narrow definition of economic liberty like laisez faire. But not considering social or political liberty. So that graph would need at least a 3rd axis for social liberty. Of course then displaying it on the pc would become difficult. And if you added more axis, pretty well impossible.

 

[Integral]

The typical 2-dimensional chart still leaves the vast majority of people stratified along diagonals. This tells me you only need to know (1) distance from centre, and (2) which quadrant you're in, in order to categorise people.

Far from needing yet more dimensions, you actually need maybe 5 different categories: top right, bottom right, bottom left, top left, and centre.

Does it? That's a good empirical question. For CFC, we have the following from March 2009:

.
(Blue lines are CFC mean values.)
There is a trend towards linearity in the third quadrant, but for the others we don't really have enough data to make that inference.

I'd love to have a few more samples, but it wouldn't be cost-effective to gather all the data...

(Easy way: google 'political compass forum'. Counterpoint: none of them have already aggregated the data. edit: Counter-counterpoint: surely Facebook has a group for this with a large sample?)

 

[Bill3000]

There is a trend towards linearity in the third quadrant, but for the others we don't really have enough data to make that inference.

I'd love to have a few more samples, but it wouldn't be cost-effective to gather all the data...

They're self-selected and I'd like to remind you that this is a forum populated with young people which will inevitably be correlated with non-authoritarianism; that certainly doesn't say much for the population as a whole.

 

[Integral]

They're self-selected and I'd like to remind you that this is a forum populated with young people which will inevitably be correlated with non-authoritarianism; that certainly doesn't say much for the population as a whole.

There are a host of selection issues to be sure; anything I said about inference in the last post should be interpreted to apply to the population of CFC (OT?) at most, and even then results should be interpreted with caution.

 

[Mise]

It's not so much which quadrant they're in, but whether there's a linear correlation. When it was first explained to me in "high school", it seemed obvious to me that people would be stratified along diagonals (which was bad because it meant that I missed the point of what I was being told about government...), so maybe I've been seeing my own bias in the dots all these years. But I still think it's obvious!

 

[amadeus]

They're self-selected and I'd like to remind you that this is a forum populated with young people which will inevitably be correlated with non-authoritarianism; that certainly doesn't say much for the population as a whole.

A lot of the people here aren't non-authoritarian, they're just a different type of authoritarian.