The political compass is a 2-D visual device that represents political view in a slightly more sophisticated way than the traditional 1-D left/right arrangement. The horizontal axis represents economic policies from centrally planned state controlled through to rampant unfettered capitalism. The vertical axis encompasses social policy from libertarian at the bottom to strictly controlled authoritarian at the top. Though General Pinochet and Stalin were both cruel authoritarian rulers, on the management of the economy they are on opposite ends of the scale. Equally, one may be liberal on social issues with the freedom to be on the left or right on economic ones.
I thought it would be interesting to discover the political orientation of E2 noders. Are we all a bunch of left leaning liberals of the No Logo generation or is there a wide range of political inclination with healthy sprinklings of conservatives, anarcho-syndicalists, Stalinists, and neo-fascists? Over one hundred of you took the test at politicalcompass.org. Thank you. Everyone's result has been included in the compass shown below. Some have complained that the test is inaccurate. It has been suggested that the questions in the test are loaded to favour a left-leaning liberatarian result. Notwithstanding these problems the test at least it gives some indication of noder political bent. If the inaccuracy or bias is consistent, at least the relative difference between noders will be apparent. Here are the results. 130 noder votes have been served. Kudos to m_turner for help with the plot.
Sorry, I'm not adding any more noders to the compass.
The Compass
Authoritarian
10 L+---------------------+----------------------+--------L-------------+---------------------++
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Left 0 ++ L • ++ Right
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-5 ++ • • • • • • • ++
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-10 -5 0 5 10
libertarian
Key:
L world leaders/political thinkers
• noders
A cursory glance at the plot suggests that left liberals are in the overwhelming majority among noders.
Source
politicalcompass.org
m_turner and gnuplot