The Political Compass

[Keelan]

Hmmmm. I tried Keelan's second test and here's what I got:

https://sapplyvalues.github.io/results.html?right=-1.33&auth=1.33&prog=3.13

So, now I'm almost perfectly in the centre, with slight tendency for the left and for authorianism (huh?). Also, somewhat progressive.

Not sure I agree? That test is a bit weird, I had trouble answering some questions. Maybe that skewed my results somewhat...

Interesting, but also matches up with with the general trend of the 1st test result leaning Libertarian-Left compared to the 2nd test I and others did. Of the now 5 people who have taken both and whom their 1st test had them showing significantly libertarian, all but 1 (TheGlyphstone as listed above) did a full flip from Libertarian to some degree of Authoritarian-leaning.

TheGlyphstone's retake of their test above also fits it, even when they noted to me that their retest of tests 1 and 2 this time around were both less Libertarian and less Left than the first round. Of note however, test 2 and 3 are basically identical again, matching the trend of the other 2 of us who took both of them. Wording is again pointed out and is definitely an important factor between tests, as myself and others have noted.

Also side note: that 2nd chart result for them is some true marksmanship material :3

Human Scribe and others have also noted potential for selection bias and self-selection bias: we're on a ERP site and only those who even come to this section of the site (which I normally avoid like the plague, no offense to the people here) are likely to participate, and of those those with more right-leaning results (mind you, this is economic right, not social-issue right being measured supposedly) may be hesitant to reveal such. That is why I decided to scroll through that subreddit I linked before, starting with Newest. First thing I noticed is that most seem to prefer using the 2nd test I linked and the 8-Values test also located on the same page as the 2nd test, or a derivative of the 8-values as a 9-values test that I'll try and track down later. Second thing I noticed, is that the overwhelming majority of people who took the original test linked here, ended up being Lib-Left. Some popped lib-right, some popped auth-right, a solid 1 person popped BARELY auth-left. However, on casual observation, it seems that there are FAR more variety in results on those that took the 2nd test on that subreddit, and in fact on one comparison between the 2 that I saw, I saw ANOTHER flip from lib-Left to Auth-left, much like we've been seeing here (though their 2nd test actually shifted more Left, bucking the trend observed and noted in this thread of moving up and right).

I'm thinking that - in light of Chulanowa's insight about who developed the original test, and assuming that the 1st test at the start of this is modeled on the original test more closely - this first test might be skewed to promote Libertarian AND Left results, while also seeming to avoid giving Auth-Left results in particular. My working theory is that if this is in fact more of a propaganda tool than attempting to make an accurate assessment, 'Authoritarian' has always seemed to me to have a certain stigma to it (I say that as someone who is rather anti-authoritarian myself I admit, but not because I'm hung up on the word itself), so if your goal is to persuade someone, you'd want to avoid giving them a result that might be 'distasteful', and really would you rather be in the same quadrant as Mao, Stalin, and Lenin, or would you prefer to be in the same quadrant as Ghandi if you're left-leaning? See Below for what I mean, pulled from the website for the first test located here:



Also, out of curiosity: I'd love to hear more detail on your perception of the test results Beorning, specifically what you felt was weird, if you feel like sharing a bit more? :3

[TheHangedOne]

I was also one of Keelan's willing test subjects.  The problem I keep running into with these tests is a lack of information. The tests, to me, feel like they assume that I will know precisely what the test maker intended with their questions. I'm taking that third test now, and here's an example question, to prove my point:

"Moral degeneracy is a rising issue within our society that needs to be fixed."

How are we defining "moral degeneracy?" Do these millionaire televangelists count? Is this question aimed at non-hetero-normative individuals (given how people continue to do things like "scared straight camps")? If I say I agree that moral degeneracy is an issue to fix, what does the test assume I am saying? Is the test going to assume that I don't want people building Secret Hitler Shrines in their basement (accurate), or is the test going to assume that I want to commit genocide against ethnic, religious, etc., groups (inaccurate)?

Without knowing the intent of the question, how can I provide an accurate answer?

Another example:
" "Patriarchy" as the left refers to it is really a desirable trait." I dunno, dude, which definition of it are we using?



Ultimately, the only way I think we could ever make an accurate test would be to have hover over text that gives us definition, so we understand what they're actually asking.

[Beorning]

Also, out of curiosity: I'd love to hear more detail on your perception of the test results Beorning, specifically what you felt was weird, if you feel like sharing a bit more? :3

Well, I definitely wasn't surprised to see myself being put slightly to the left. That's what I've long been saying I am when it comes to economy: not averse to private business, people getting wealthy etc., but with some leftist sensibilities and in favour of ethical and social safety rails in place. I.e. I don't believe that fully free public health service is feasible, at least not in all countries (sadly) - still, providing some basic free health service *is* a moral responsibility of the state. Also, I am not necessarily in favour of taxing the rich in some extreme way, but I think a moderate progression of tax rates is a sensible idea. If you have more money, you have bigger responsibilities toward other people. Etc.

What I was surprised to see was me being put slightly closer to the authoritarian side. I know I'm not a libertarian or an anarchist, but I consider myself strongly in favour of civil liberties and progressive values. So, I'm not sure where this supposed authoritarian leaning came from...

Also, I agree with TheHangedMan's opinion that some of the questions just are unclear. One of the tests had a question about "victimless crimes". But what *are* the victimless crimes according to the test? How about a definition?

Finally, some questions are really context-dependent. Test 2 (IIRC) had a question whether the current level of welfare was satisfactory or not. Great, but are we talking about welfare in the US or in my own country? Because these are two different things...

[Keelan]

Thank you for the additional feedback! Also yes, I've been getting feedback particularly for the latter 2 tests - some of which you can see in above posts - that the phrasing and language without explicitly defining terms and specifying WHICH country's policies are both confounding variables. I generally assumed it was talking about the US because it seems this type of stuff is almost ALWAYS geared to the US, but that didn't necessarily make it so. For the former, yeah, especially for the 3rd test this is a confound, as it assumes that the people taking it are rather informed about politics but doesn't specify certain terms. By itself not necessarily a problem if the assessment is designed to account for not everyone approaching the term from the same way, but... well, it's a test on the internet so I doubt it.

And yeah, I figured the authoritarian part was the surprise. It's worth noting though that it did reflect more progressive vs conservative views off of that axis on the side though, so I don't think it was capturing that. However, as I noted that test is tied to the 8-values test, i looked at the 8-values and it describes Authority/Liberty as:

Liberty (State)
Those with higher Liberty scores believe in strong civil liberties. They tend to support democracy and oppose state intervention in personal lives. Note that this refers to civil liberties, not economic liberties.

Authority (State)
Those with higher Authority scores believe in strong state power. They tend to support state intervention in personal lives, government surveillance, and at high values, censorship or autocracy.

Perhaps it's more heavily weighted along the 'intervention' lines, which overlaps somewhat with Left Economic policy which inherently involves more regulation/involvement than market or laissez-faire capitalism on the opposite side? That, combined with the fact that in the first test there's no Progressive-Conservative measure so they might be factored into Auth/Lib, which might drive the score up or down... not really sure, but yeah it could be that test 2 and 3 may have weighting issues, yet even so I've observed a greater variety of scores of those tests than the first one, which doesn't mean it's perfect but compared to a 4-sided die that keeps rolling a 1 7 out of 7 times, well...

[Lux12]

I got the following:

Left/Right: -8
Social Libertarian/Authoritarian: -8.51

Or on the certificate around where the caricature style picture of Emma Goldman is. This is honestly what I expected. Honestly, the only reason it doesn't show me as more radical in that regard is that I am a profoundly religious person...Who oddly enough has many of these political view points because of his religion. I'm actually a Wiccan priest, though I describe myself as more of a general neo-pagan. I'm also a red anarchist so to speak. I don't like to call myself a specific branch of it as I don't know if I fit neatly into one particular form. I also see capitalism as only part of the problem, not the whole of it as some do.

One of my main concerns is that I don't think they really accurately consider how rigidly conservative and even capitalistic many of those put on the "authoritarian left" are. I honestly don't even consider authoritarianism capable of being leftist as I see it as counter to the liberation aspect common to left wing movements. This is just my view however. But personal opinions and biases aside....

I found the answer choices to be a bit lacking... You can say whether or not you agree with a statement, but that doesn't always give a full picture of what you mean and different people might read those questions in opposing ways depending on how they interpret the exact words. For example, the question about whether or not you think extremely recent immigrants can be successfully integrated into their new country's society. What do you mean by that? Do you mean assimilated or just able to live harmoniously with other people in that country? Because the answer to that is more complicated than I disagree or I agree. You can be of the opinion that they might not assimilate, but that doesn't mean they can't still get along with everyone else and have a harmonious existence. The answer could vary drastically depending on how you interpret those words.

[Bibliophilia]

I really dislike how, well, not-at-all-nuanced many of the questions are, and totally would never base any of my personal beliefs about myself on the results.  But...here's my score.  I'm not surprised.

Economic Left/Right: -8.5
Social Libertarian/Authoritarian: -9.03

[TheGlyphstone]

I think it's pretty evident by now that Test #1 is drastically pushing people down and to the left.

Which, in modern retrospect is a bit odd if it was meant as a recruiting/propaganda tool for the U.S Libertarian party, because these days Libertarians are more of an appendage to the far-right Republicans than an independent party of actual consequence.

[Iniquitous]

So, I did all three just to see.

#1:


#2:


#3:



I am still left, but 2 and 3 put me closer to authoritarian (which I wasn't expecting).

[Keelan]

Reading up on it (Wikipedia... shut up this isn't an academic paper: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nolan_Chart ), the original looked something like this:



Then it got simplified to this (Invert it for the purposes of mapping it along the Political Compass tests provided):



Reading through the original definitions, it's purely a measure of Economic Freedom (Left/Right, mapping Total State Control to Laissez-Faire Capitalism), and Personal Freedom (Total State Control over Your Everyday Life vs No Intervention At ALL in Day-to-Day Life, the examples of here would be drug laws, mandatory draft, and I assume prostitution).

To that end, if those are the ONLY things being measured, then I would argue that yes, you CAN have an Authoritarian Left, and it would match up with things like Stalinist and Maoist communism as opposed to traditional Marxist theory and democratic socialism. All four involve some form of collectivization/consolidation/regulation of economic forces, but the first two also involve stark control over people's lives as we saw play out with the suppression and deaths of millions, in stark contrast to the more utopic views and/or emphasis on individual freedom of the latter two. Similar to how you can have an Auth Right and Lib Right, being Fascism and Libertarianism respectively.

To that end, I think a big issue with ALL of the tests is that it doesn't really convey that properly. As for the 2nd and third tests, I went back through the 2nd one and a particular question popped out:

The police was not made to protect the people, but to uphold the status-quo by force.

Now, on it's face this SEEMS like a question that if you agree wit it it would swing you Liberal/Left yeah? But then I got to thinking about it, and... well... what if this is actually a question saying 'I agree, the Police are their to enfroce the will of the state', which would actually move you in the direction of Authoritative? There were a couple others that if you read it from the perspective of someone on libertarian/left/liberal, it meant 'yes I agree the state is an oppressive piece of shit' but if you read it from the authoritative/right it's 'yes I agree the state needs to enforce law and order', and it's perhaps weighted to be more the latter than the former...

Also, a noteworthy critique of all 3 tests after seeing the original above: THEY LABELED THE AXES AS IF THEY WERE THE QUADRANTS ON THE GODDAMN DIAMOND MODEL!!!

What SHOULD have happened is this:



I'm legitimately upset by this, which makes me more upset because I know it's just some dumbass little test on the internet that I should not be getting so upset at. Not mapping the quadrants/axes correctly by combining the original and simplified test calls into question if ANYTHING these things are attempting to measure are ACTUALLY what they're attempting to measure, ESPECIALLY for test 1 which basically overlays the terms basically EXACTLY (the other two at least say 'Authority' vs 'Liberty' for the vertical axis).

[Chulanowa]

I think it's pretty evident by now that Test #1 is drastically pushing people down and to the left.

Which, in modern retrospect is a bit odd if it was meant as a recruiting/propaganda tool for the U.S Libertarian party, because these days Libertarians are more of an appendage to the far-right Republicans than an independent party of actual consequence.

Well, as I said, it was first made in 1969. The Libertarian Party back then was quite different than it is today. Its foundational principles were being anti-Nixon, anti-Vietnam, and anti-fiat currency. In the years since, it's been heavily colonized by Austrian Economics and people whose ideology amounts to politicized selfishness. Throw in several decades of only really existing in internet form and you collect all the Neckbeard detritus that 4chan and reddit has to offer.

But hey they probably cost Trump the election, so whatever I guess.

I'm thinking that - in light of Chulanowa's insight about who developed the original test, and assuming that the 1st test at the start of this is modeled on the original test more closely - this first test might be skewed to promote Libertarian AND Left results, while also seeming to avoid giving Auth-Left results in particular. My working theory is that if this is in fact more of a propaganda tool than attempting to make an accurate assessment

First part, methodology. I went through the first test and "strongly disagreed" with every statement (this gives you a perfect centrist-Libertarian position, by the way). I then did the test again, doing the same thing, except for this one statement, which I "strongly agreed" with:
"The death penalty should be an option for the most serious crimes."
It kept me perfectly centrist, but did move me by a single square up towards authoritarian. So the question definitely has no weighting towards right or left. Doing the same thing but instead "strongly agreeing" with "In a civilized society, one must always have people above to be obeyed and people below to be commanded." This actually moved me very slightly further "north" than the death penalty question did, still without right or left movement. So it seems that different questions are solely keyed to north / south or right / left, and different questions have different values.

Now the funny thing? I actually do strongly agree with the death penalty statement. Some crimes absolutely do deserve the death penalty. Specifically, IMO? Crimes where people in positions of authority abuse their position to cause harm to those they have authority over - not like, fiscal corruption, I'm talking things like police departments who use their badges as shields when murdering people who criticize them, or leaders who engage in war crimes. So, due to my desire to see people in authority harshly punished for misusing that authority, I am more authoritarian.

Like Bibliophilia says, the test lacks nuance of any sort. Another question states something like "All people have their rights, but it's best for different kinds of people to be separate from one another." Clearly a pro/anti segregation question (I did not test the weighting, I suspect it's another north / south.) Buuut if you throw this one at a deep bigot, who does not believe that other people should have rights, he would disagree the same as someone opposes segregation.

'Authoritarian' has always seemed to me to have a certain stigma to it (I say that as someone who is rather anti-authoritarian myself I admit, but not because I'm hung up on the word itself), so if your goal is to persuade someone, you'd want to avoid giving them a result that might be 'distasteful', and really would you rather be in the same quadrant as Mao, Stalin, and Lenin, or would you prefer to be in the same quadrant as Ghandi if you're left-leaning? See Below for what I mean, pulled from the website for the first test located

here:



Also, out of curiosity: I'd love to hear more detail on your perception of the test results Beorning, specifically what you felt was weird, if you feel like sharing a bit more? :3

Questions like these show an inherent bias, where 'authority" is equated to "oppression." "Authority" and "Liberty" are given clear moral values in the test where one is clearly bad and the other clearly good. The thing is, these are both neutral concepts. In fact, authority is necessary to protect things like freedom, civil rights, and the like. Lack of authority can definitely be used as a means of oppression as well. We see this when the cops refuse to engage white nationalist rioters, a trend which culminated in the Hot Pockets Riot on Jan. 6 2021.

As for that graphic, notice something in common with the points in the northern hemisphere over points in the southern?

Every point in the Northern hemisphere is either a head of state or a nation. In the southern hemisphere, only Washington and Jefferson were ever heads of state (and I severely question the notion of a slave-owner who used the United States Army to put down a tax protest and try its organizers for treason being considered "non-authoritarian.")

For an example, let's look at Stalin. You see him way up in the far north-northwest of the chart. But there's Marxism, there in the west-southwest, right? So you maybe think, "Well, Stalin was terribly divergent from real Marxism! Stalin betrayed the ideals of socialism! The USSR wasn't true communism!" This is a thread of commentary I see plenty from fellow leftists, so prevalent that the right makes fun of it; "It'S nOt ReAlLy CoMmUnIsM!!!"

But the thing is... Stalin's USSR really WASN'T that divergent from Marx. There were some big differences (Stalin's abandonment of internationalism, for example) but by and large, Stalin (and Lenin before him) stayed in the same neighborhood. So why the big divergence in positions? Well, if we assume accuracy (which given Washington's position, I'm dubious of, but let's to it anyway) then the easiest solution is this; Marxism advocates achieving a classless, stateless society as its end goal. it is not a total abandonment of all forms of authority (it is after all, a philosophy about people as they exist) but it is ultimately about achieving as perfect an egalitarian status as humanly possible. So that's how it ends up in the southwest.

But what's missing from its final position is that Marxism acknowledges the need for various stages of strong authority, to quell reaction, to secure gains, to create organizations, etc. Marxist theory holds that egalitarianism doesn't - can't - "just happen," it's only achieved through heavily restructuring an anti-egalitarian society, and recognizes that such a change will likely necessitate some degree of force, since the bourgeoisie aren't likely to voluntarily shed their wealth and privilege.

When you take this into consideration, Stalin's (and Lenin's) "divergence" from Marxism's place on the compass states to make more sense. And then when you consider that these dudes were heads of state - and that state is specifically early 20th-century Russia - things start to make even more sense. Even before we consider the Nazi invasion and the Cold War.

Of course absolutely none of this is taken into account with hte test - nor can it be really, because hey,. turns out politics in two dimensions isn't any more useful than politics in one dimension.

[Chulanowa]

...I understand why editing isn't allowed in RPOC, but man. MAN, I want to fix that screwed-up quote tag so much 

[Keelan]

...I understand why editing isn't allowed in RPOC, but man. MAN, I want to fix that screwed-up quote tag so much 

Yeah, I hear you there; that's a bit of a whacky formatting that would be nice to clean up...

You do make a good point on the various communist state placement vs the marxism placement. I'm not an expert on marxism/communism/socialism, really most familiar with the historical examples that don't paint too great a picture of their viability, so it's nice to have that pointed out.

Hmmm... I wonder if I can find a test that is a little more functional. I mentioned that 8-values and derivative tests before, I might go give those a look-see and see if things are a bit better when you're assessing on more than 2-2.5 axes...

[Chulanowa]

Well... I am a communist, though dunno if I'd say "expert." Communist states past and present certainly aren't models of perfection... but it does seem a little weird to have that level of expectation. Especially given how hypocritical it usually is. Anyway, not really what the thread's about I suppose 

Hmmm... I wonder if I can find a test that is a little more functional. I mentioned that 8-values and derivative tests before, I might go give those a look-see and see if things are a bit better when you're assessing on more than 2-2.5 axes...

IMO, no matter the variation you find, all of these things have the same validity as a "Which Disney Princess Are you?" test one might find on facebook (I'm Eilonwy because nobody loves me  ) They can be kinda fun just to eat some time, but are just memes. They have no basis in political theory beyond borrowing a bit of jargon. if a person genuinely wants to know what their own political persuasion is... Well, browsing wikipedia, for all its flaws, is still going to be more useful than this test. Really hte best way to understand politics is to take the effort to learn about it.

[Keelan]

Well... I am a communist, though dunno if I'd say "expert." Communist states past and present certainly aren't models of perfection... but it does seem a little weird to have that level of expectation. Especially given how hypocritical it usually is. Anyway, not really what the thread's about I suppose 

To continue the side-tangent a bit longer without derailing: while I myself am obviously not a communist, I do actually agree that it's odd and a tad-to-extremely hypocritical to expect perfection out of any applied form of communism that we manage to put into place. I would however extend that to most forms of governance and economic modeling, as I think there are several that essentially sound great on paper, but royally suck ass when applied and maintained overtime. Obviously I'd have go to into WAY more detail if I wanted to not derail this, but just thought I'd mention I do share that sentiment in a way :3

IMO, no matter the variation you find, all of these things have the same validity as a "Which Disney Princess Are you?" test one might find on facebook (I'm Eilonwy because nobody loves me  ) They can be kinda fun just to eat some time, but are just memes. They have no basis in political theory beyond borrowing a bit of jargon. if a person genuinely wants to know what their own political persuasion is... Well, browsing wikipedia, for all its flaws, is still going to be more useful than this test. Really hte best way to understand politics is to take the effort to learn about it.

I know this; it's a dinky little test for shits and giggles on the internet AT BEST. Some are better than others however, and this is actually enjoyable for me now that I don't have to do it either at the behest of a PhD, or in an attempt to find or develop a valid psychometric tool to conduct research I really don't care about because I just wanna work with patients... likely to keep messing with it to kill time :3

...also apparently I'm Vanellope von Schweetz... had to look her up haven't seen that movie. Not sure if accurate?

[Beorning]

Okay, so if we agree that Political Compass is a mess, how about the 8 Values test?

https://8values.github.io/

BTW. Where can I take the Disney Princess test?

[Mechelle]

I hadn't seen that 8 values test before, but it says I am a democratic socialist.
Again, some of the questions were fairly obvious in what they intended, but some did require a bit of thought. The neutral option is very different to the other test so can be an easy choice - I have a suspicion this might lead to more centrist results, but I don't really think one is better than the other.

My axes:
Economic: Socialist (Equality 80.8%)
Diplomatic: Peaceful (World 66.7%)
Civil: Liberal (Liberty 62.7%)
Societal: Progressive (Progress 72.9%)

[Blythe]

I'm not sure the 8 values test is necessarily any better; I took it with the same mindset at the other test (with the goal to take it quickly) and I feel like the same biases were present in the questions, just with slightly better crafted statements overall & a neutral option. Interestingly, I actually picked 'neutral' on several things in statements related to more than one category, but I definitely showcase a clear slant politically.

It's neat the way the other one is neat though, I'll give it that.

My Results

[Humble Scribe]

Once again, I suspect selection bias, but needless to say I'm a goddamn bleeding heart liberal...

[Beorning]

I don't know how to post the image from 8 Values :\

Economic Axis: Social (60.9%)
Diplomatic Axis: Internationalist (81.7%)
Civil Axis: Liberal (63.9%)
Societal Axis: Progressive (72.9%)

Political Match: Social Democracy

Quite accurate, I think.

[Keelan]

Good question! I'll start/I'll go second because someone beat me to it!/I'll go third because dammit I'm slow/goddammit why do I even try?/I SWEAR TO GOD PEOPLE BETWEEN YOU AND MY JOB!!! >.< :

Test 1: Social Liberalism

Economic Axis: Centrist
-Equality - 57.7%
-Markets - 42.3%

Diplomatic Axis: Balanced
-Nation - 43.9%
-World - 56.1%

Civil Axis: Liberal
-Liberty - 63.1%
-Authority - 36.9%

Societal Axis: Progressive
-Tradition - 32.7%
-Progress - 67.3%

Closest Match: Social Liberalism

I had another inkling of something taking it, so I retook it and:

Test 2: Liberalism

Economic Axis: Centrist
-Equality - 55.8%
-Markets - 44.2%

Diplomatic Axis: Balanced
-Nation - 45.6%
-World - 54.4%

Civil Axis: Liberal
-Liberty - 65.9%
-Authority - 34.1%

Societal Axis: Progressive
-Tradition - 34.4%
-Progress - 65.6%

Closest Match: Liberalism

I'm not sure about the matching (website notes it's something of a WIP) for the former compared to the 2nd one, BUT the axes seem alright enough. Overall the wording was similar to test 2 which makes sense as it was based on this test to some degree, but the additional 2 axes make it work out a lot better I think. Interestingly enough, still the furthest 'right' person here...

[Beorning]

Interestingly enough, still the furthest 'right' person here...

Hey, no worries - you and I seem close enough

BTW. I'm curious how my results would map onto the US political scene? With these view, should I be supporting Biden and Harris? Obama? Ocasio-Cortez? Someone else?

[Chulanowa]

Okay, so if we agree that Political Compass is a mess, how about the 8 Values test?

https://8values.github.io/

BTW. Where can I take the Disney Princess test?

Anything that measures more than two metrics will be better than a test that measures just two metrics. Still, "more thorough" doesn't really solve the problem of the concept.

Anyway it classed me as a "Libertarian socialist" which just reminded me of this video:

The channel that was linked is one that espouses genocide denial.  The link has been removed.  - Staff

[Lux12]

Okay, so if we agree that Political Compass is a mess, how about the 8 Values test?

https://8values.github.io/

BTW. Where can I take the Disney Princess test?

This one is better for showing some of the nuances of political ideologies, though the ideological matchmaking portion is still a bit of a mess, the actual measurements seem pretty spot on for me.

My scores were

Economic axis: 91% equality,  Communist

Diplomatic axis: 93.3% world, cosmopolitan

Civil axis: 96% liberty, anarchist

Societal axis: 88% progress, very progressive

That last one is probably so low compared to the others because I don't see tradition as inherently bad in and of itself and there are traditions I am very much in favor of restoring or preserving (traditional music, various martial arts, traditional religions such as those practiced by indigenous peoples, traditional art forms in general, and a number of customs I see as generally quite harmless for example), but there's a number of traditions I also wish to see discarded, which I mostly consider tied into the above. This is kind of where while I am opposed to nationalism and nation states, I don't think either of those are required for people to preserve or show appreciation for their peoples cultural treasures and that these are part of the beautiful diversity of humanity. I simply don't see a reason to squabble over imaginary lines in the dirt or be dicks to each other over it or why we can't appreciate them all as equally beautiful.

[Chulanowa]

Hey, no worries - you and I seem close enough

BTW. I'm curious how my results would map onto the US political scene? With these view, should I be supporting Biden and Harris? Obama? Ocasio-Cortez? Someone else?

"Social democracy" would lean you more towards Bernie sanders, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, and others of their leaning in the Democratic Party; "The Squad[/i]" as they're called (Plus Bernie) are the party's main group of social democrats / reform liberals ("progressives"). Joe Biden, Kamala Harris, and Barack Obama are all neoliberals, which is a pretty different impulse, and also the generally dominant one in the Democratic party (most of the arguing in hte party and among its supporters is over this tension, of a conservative / neoliberal "old guard" facing challenges from a reformist / social democrat new generation)

However US politics is kind of uhhhhh stupid, in the whole "whoever wins 50.01% of the vote gets 100% of the election," so most Democrats (and Republicans for that matter) end up "supporting" whoever ends up on top of their party's ticket, even if that person in no way, shape, or form represents their own political ideals, simply to keep 'the other guy" from winning.

[Keelan]

Hey, no worries - you and I seem close enough

BTW. I'm curious how my results would map onto the US political scene? With these view, should I be supporting Biden and Harris? Obama? Ocasio-Cortez? Someone else?

Well hell, I'm American and *I* don't even know for sure where *I* map on our political scene. I might have voted Tulsi Gabbard or Andrew Yang this last time around, but hell I don't know...

That said, I was going to suggest Bernie Sanders (who I remember reading something akin to 'despite proclaiming he's a democratic socialist, his positions more closely resemble Nordic-model social democracy'), but Chulanowa does a better job answering than I could have.