Political Compass ILX Fight Club AKA Narcissism of Small Differences Thread

So let's try to figure out where ILX political fault lines are using the test being discussed in another political compass thread

I figure I'll throw a page up at a time and see if consensus rapidly forms or if there is disagreement. Once we've parsed that we can move onto the next thing. I expect all my favorite ilx clusterfuckers to participate.

First bunch of questions:

If economic globalisation is inevitable, it should primarily serve humanity rather than the interests of trans-national corporations.

I'd always support my country, whether it was right or wrong.

No one chooses his or her country of birth, so it's foolish to be proud of it.

Our race has many superior qualities, compared with other races.

The enemy of my enemy is my friend.

Military action that defies international law is sometimes justified.

There is now a worrying fusion of information and entertainment.

man you didn't even give us any time/space for 100 posts of "we already have a 2012 primary thread" jokes

Globalisation - slightly agree
My country - strongly disagree
Country of birth - slightly agree
Our race - strongly disagree
Enemy - slightly disagree
Military action - slightly disagree
Infotainment - slightly disagree

If economic globalisation is inevitable, it should primarily serve humanity rather than the interests of trans-national corporations.

Who in their right mind wouldn't agree? But it's not realistic, so kinda pointless.

I'd always support my country, whether it was right or wrong.

Does this mean I'll always stand by my country, even when it screws up, or that I'll never admit that my country did something wrong? Another clumsily worded question. I disagreed cuz you gotta own your warts, and critique your homeland when they fuck up.

No one chooses his or her country of birth, so it's foolish to be proud of it.

I voted agree but with a caveat. I don't think 'nationalism' is a bad thing except it quickly becomes 'blind homer patriotism' so that's why I agreed.

Our race has many superior qualities, compared with other races.

Lol gtfo

The enemy of my enemy is my friend.

Fuck no. Two turds don't make a sandwich.

Military action that defies international law is sometimes justified.

USA living on this credo for several decades now amirite

There is now a worrying fusion of information and entertainment.

Disagree. what's 'worrying' about it?

I strongly agree that economic globalization should serve humanity rather than the interests of trans-national corporations.

I disagree that I would always support my country, whether it was right or wrong (but not strongly because I'm always sad + disheartened when I can't support my country and strongly seemed to imply some sort of glee to me).

I disagree that it's foolish to proud of your country of birth, though I do agree that no one chooses it. I think being proud about where you came from is a good thing, and can lead to very positive results -- like expecting more of your country and asking more from it. I also believe in being gracious for the opportunities you have, especially if they are the result of an accident of fate that you were born in one country and not another.

The enemy of my enemy question is kinda inane...

I agree (though not strongly) that military action that defies international law is sometimes justified.

I am not worried about the fusion of information and entertainment. I suspect any belief that it is newly 'now' is just bullshit nostalgia.

I'm basing the above replies on how I recollect answering them on the quiz xpost

If economic globalisation is inevitable, it should primarily serve humanity rather than the interests of trans-national corporations.

strongly agree

I'd always support my country, whether it was right or wrong.

slightly disagree

No one chooses his or her country of birth, so it's foolish to be proud of it.

slightly disagree

Our race has many superior qualities, compared with other races.

strongly disagree

The enemy of my enemy is my friend.

slightly disagree

Military action that defies international law is sometimes justified.

slightly agree

There is now a worrying fusion of information and entertainment.

slightly agree

really: economic globalisation is worth its own thread. such a hodge podge question.

the inevitability of economic globalisation has been happening for what, 4000 years, 5000 years? "Should" serve "humanity" - great, morality and humanism in one ugly lump, then a false dichotomy because apparently trans-national corporations are some kind of non-human interlopers that hoover money off the planet for their own nefarious ends.

i mean who wrote this thing, a 5th grader?

Can anyone parse what the subtext of the enemy of my enemy question is?

even many of the things I agreed with I wanted to eyeroll at. too many of them had an aire of "back in the day..."

(xpost)

If economic globalisation is inevitable, it should primarily serve humanity rather than the interests of trans-national corporations.

yeah as soon as I saw this question I stopped taking the test. how can you answer this? what does "serve humanity" mean?

I'd always support my country, whether it was right or wrong.

no

No one chooses his or her country of birth, so it's foolish to be proud of it.

yes

Our race has many superior qualities, compared with other races.

no

The enemy of my enemy is my friend.

who cares

Military action that defies international law is sometimes justified.

in 2012, yeah, mostly cause 'international law' is too fuzzy a concept.

There is now a worrying fusion of information and entertainment.

yes

I think the military action question is a huge potential point of disagreement for ilx.

possibly globalisation

would any ilxor say that corporations should not "serve humanity" whatever that means?

is System an ilxor

i don't think we have any believers in the 'pursuit of profits will alone be a net benefit to humanity' school of free market thought around here

where's don weiner these days?

Can anyone parse what the subtext of the enemy of my enemy question is?

realpolitik vs idk, head-in-clouds liberal ideology?

i think that military action that defies international law is problematic because it undermines the concept of international law, which is sketchy enough already.

i can understand a desire to be pragmatic about it or to acknowledge limited successes but i think ignoring international law is a bad thing in itself, so i had to go with slightly disagree

even the question about military international law is loaded. I mean there's a big diff between carpet bombing a country and committing a minor infraction.

I took it in context of the Iraq invasion and voted disagree

well it's talking about "military action" which is reasonably clear and there are plenty of recent examples

the subtext of "enemy of my enemy" is the old Onion "Good Dictators vs Bad Dictators" chart, obv

seems to me like the enemy of my enemy could also be an enemy of mine who sometimes tweaks my other enemy in ways i find productive

but that doesn't make him a friend!

we should do this with a less ridiculous test

well a lot of this is gonna come down to semantic critique rather than debate but not all of the questions are completely terrible

i just got very bored w/ this idea so i'm up for any innovation that makes it interesting again

Our race has many superior qualities, compared with other races.

agree

If economic globalisation is inevitable, it should primarily serve humanity rather than the interests of trans-national corporations.

ticked "agree" but it's a meaninglessly phrased question. by what means should this be ensured, etc.

I'd always support my country, whether it was right or wrong.

strongly disagree

No one chooses his or her country of birth, so it's foolish to be proud of it.

hmmm more complicated than that, i kind of agree but cultural pride is too strong a force to just be written off with an appeal to rationality

Our race has many superior qualities, compared with other races.

lol, being able to disagree w/this sort of statement is the kind of thing people bring up as evidence that They're Not Racist (But).

The enemy of my enemy is my friend.

what? no. strategic alliances can be useful though.

Military action that defies international law is sometimes justified.

slightly agree

There is now a worrying fusion of information and entertainment.

not sure it's fusion so much as profusion, but i don't find it worrying in any case

we should do this with a less ridiculous test

― iatee, Monday, January 9, 2012 4:01 PM (3 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

that having been said i'm pretty sure i've taken most of such tests that exist for free on the internet and none of them are """really insightful"""

If economic globalisation is inevitable, it should primarily serve humanity rather than the interests of trans-national corporations - Strongly agree, fuck a corporation; read "serving humanity" to mean addressing basic human needs rather delivering profits to a priviledged few

I'd always support my country, whether it was right or wrong - Strongly disagree

No one chooses his or her country of birth, so it's foolish to be proud of it - Slightly disagree, we live in and participate in democracies and think we should be proud of positive changes we make as a nation

Our race has many superior qualities, compared with other races - strongly disagree; "our race" wtf?

The enemy of my enemy is my friend - strongly disagree, that statement is not logically true

Military action that defies international law is sometimes justified - strongly disagree; international law should be paramount or else it becomes increasingly meaningless and weak

There is now a worrying fusion of information and entertainment - slightly disagree; I dig fusion, doesn't worry me at all

i forget how i answered these for that other thread, but here's what i think about them right now

If economic globalisation is inevitable, it should primarily serve humanity rather than the interests of trans-national corporations.

that's a pretty strange "if" at the beginning of this question! there are various right-wing ways to answer this, like: "serving corporations" does serve humanity, or, "humanity" is a worthless if not tyrannical concept anyway. this reads like a simpleminded version of a lefty thing to say about globalization. i'll slightly agree, if only because the question of what "serving humanity" means and how globalization is supposed to be made to do that are left a little fuzzy here. there's also no true way and anti-globalization answer can be put in here.

I'd always support my country, whether it was right or wrong.

oh come on this is a parody of a right-winger. nationalism is gross tho so strongly disagree.

No one chooses his or her country of birth, so it's foolish to be proud of it.

this is a softer version of the last question but different enough to have a different answer. for "foolish" read "inevitable" and for "proud" read "attached" and you have a trickier question. read Imagined Communities. in the end i'd say slightly disagree to this one. it's not that foolish. dangerous, maybe, but so is anything. the national community is an important political concept that isn't going anywhere, and using it for "good" ends instead of cheap jingoism is an important part of the political toolkit.

Our race has many superior qualities, compared with other races.

oh lord, strongly disagree

The enemy of my enemy is my friend.

slightly disagree, if only because that doesn't really illuminate anything on what the right thing to do is in any geopolitical sense.

Military action that defies international law is sometimes justified.

sometimes? like, what exactly is the justification? i gather this is supposed to be about bush doctrine/iraq, so let's say Don't Do That in the meantime

There is now a worrying fusion of information and entertainment.

what do you mean, "now"? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Randolph_Hearst

Globalisation - slightly disagree
My country - strongly disagree
Country of birth - strongly agree
Our race - strongly disagree
Enemy - slightly disagree
Military action - slightly agree
Infotainment - slightly disagree

interesting that everyone read the international law question in the context of the Bush Doctrine; I read it in the context of killing Osama bin Laden

i read it in the context of drone strikes

If economic globalisation is inevitable, it should primarily serve humanity rather than the interests of trans-national corporations.

Agree.

I'd always support my country, whether it was right or wrong.

Strongly disagree.

Country of birth - Slightly agree.

Our race - strongly disagree

Enemy - slightly disagree

Military action - slightly disagree

Infotainment - strongly disagree

If economic globalisation is inevitable, it should primarily serve humanity rather than the interests of trans-national corporations.

Oh a question that starts with IF, so we have to assume the presupposition is true... I hate these kind of questions.

I'd always support my country, whether it was right or wrong.

Pffft. Strongly disagre.

No one chooses his or her country of birth, so it's foolish to be proud of it.

Well some counties are just better off than others. I wouldn't be proud but you would be foolish not to recognize your privilege.

Our race has many superior qualities, compared with other races.

This question was a LOLocaust... Strongly disagree.

The enemy of my enemy is my friend.

Strongly disagree, this type of thinking has kept the US trapped in a foreign policy of perpetual war. Or maybe that's just what "the man" wants!

Military action that defies international law is sometimes justified.

Nope. Strongly disagree. If you check out international law you will realize that a "legitimate" military action is not difficult to come up with so if you're breaking the rules you are A) an idiot or B) in the wrong and not justified or C) both.

There is now a worrying fusion of information and entertainment.

Slightly agree, but this can easily be compensated for if you actually care - ya know, get your news from somewhere other than the cable stations and USA Today.

i wasn't sure if race meant "whatever race you are" or "humanity". although lol it's just the difference between strongly disagree and disagree.

interesting that everyone read the international law question in the context of the Bush Doctrine; I read it in the context of killing Osama bin Laden

― Bam! Orgasm explosion in your facehole. (DJP), Monday, January 9, 2012 8:42 AM (14 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

me too

I read the "infotainment" question as "lol old people" bait.

Globalisation - strongly agree
My country - strongly disagree
Country of birth - slightly agree
Our race - strongly disagree
Enemy - slightly agree
Military action - strongly agree
Infotainment - strongly agree

I think I'm revising a coupla my answers from the original compass.

globalization/humanity - strongly agree
my country, right or wrong - strongly disagree
country of birth - agree
race - strongly disagree
enemy of my enemy - disagree
military action - strongly disagree
entertainment/info - agree

exactly as nickb said, and p much exactly why

There is now a worrying fusion of information and entertainment.

^^call this the "clemenza question"

I think it's prob the most interesting question? I don't think it's crazy to suggest that the 'average american' gets a stream of shitty information

far too much information in my entertainment tbh

on tmi

Its kind of a trick because it asks you to assume that the trend is recent and not a built-in "feature" of mass-media. That said, I think 'infotainment' has certainly gotten more prevalent since I became aware of what the media was doing... I can't speak to the decades before I was alive and conscious but I think a high-water mark for this was the AOL-Time-Warner merger.

Globalisation - strongly agree
My country - strongly disagree
Country of birth - slightly agree
Our race - strongly disagree
Enemy - slightly disagree unless it's about football in which case it depends which enemy
Military action - slightly agree
Infotainment - slightly disagree

y'all some patriotic mf'ers wtf

ILE is the last resort of a scoundrel.

might not be 'new' but newspapers used to be more widely read and more reliable and tv news was slightly less shitty. I don't think you have to be angryoldmanyellsatcloud to think this either!

xp

I meant to put slightly disagree for the country one

oh I don't know tbh - I did this thing a couple of weeks back and my biggest problem was with the wording of the questions, especially when it got to crime and punishment

kind of a waste of time to include "Our race has many superior qualities, compared with other races" in this survey because we know every single person on ILX put "strongly disagree"

"Our race has many superior melodies, compared with other races"

If economic globalisation is inevitable, it should primarily serve humanity rather than the interests of trans-national corporations.

Strongly agree

I'd always support my country, whether it was right or wrong.

Strongly disagree

No one chooses his or her country of birth, so it's foolish to be proud of it.

strongly agree

Our race has many superior qualities, compared with other races.

this is downright fucking stupid

The enemy of my enemy is my friend.

it depends

Military action that defies international law is sometimes justified.

'sometimes' as in 0.1% of it

There is now a worrying fusion of information and entertainment.

i agree but i don't get the 'worrying' part of this

Globalisation - strongly agree
My country - strongly disagree
Country of birth - strongly agree
Our race - strongly disagree
Enemy - slightly disagree (depends on said enemy and said enemy of my enemy tbh)
Military action - strongly disagree
Infotainment - slightly disagree

where are we getting "slightly" from? it makes it hard to scan ppls answers quickly

...

it seems everyone pulled it from their collective asses

it seems everyone pulled it from their collective asses

Bam! Orgasm explosion in your facehole

Globalisation - strongly agree, but it's interesting to imagine what an actual defense of 'strongly disagree' would be like -- i.e., milton friedman arguing that the 'social responsibility' of corporations is to make money
My country - strongly disagree
Country of birth - slightly disagree; patriotism can be separated from nationalism
Our race - strongly disagree
Enemy - slightly disagree
Military action - strongly disagree because i can't think of any actual examples of this being justified
Infotainment - slightly disagree

lol i forget what the wording on the site was. moderately?

it was strongly agree/agree/disagree/strongly disagree

"don't quote me on this, but i'll say i agree"

i'm really tempted to go through this whole thing and rewrite the questions to get at the key issue more clearly and fairly. i have idea what the astrology one is trying to get at, tho. the validity of 'alternative spirituality' or something?

Oh, I thought the two graduations were slightly/strongly.

Strike slightly from mine, then

xp do it!

If economic globalisation is inevitable, it should primarily serve humanity rather than the interests of trans-national corporations.

"Globalization, defined as the free movement of goods, services, investment capital, ideas and people, across national boundaries, has been a net benefit for humanity."

I'd always support my country, whether it was right or wrong.

"I feel it's important to support my county even if I believe its government is doing or has done the wrong thing"

No one chooses his or her country of birth, so it's foolish to be proud of it.

"There are characteristics unique to people of my nation, and I am proud of those characteristics in myself.

Our race has many superior qualities, compared with other races.

"WHITE POWER y/n?"

The enemy of my enemy is my friend.

"In a conflict it is permissible to help, and receive help from, people who I otherwise consider immoral, if some advantage is gained by my side"

Military action that defies international law is sometimes justified.

eh this one's fine.

There is now a worrying fusion of information and entertainment.

"The media should always be clear in separating entertainment and news content."

(or if the intent of this one is different: "The media, in general, are much worse in terms of mixing news and entertainment content than they were in previous years")

race one could also be framed as 'unique characteristics' kind of thing i suppose?

i think the "superior" and "comparison" word choices kind of give that one away tho

could also be framed as "I have an orgasm every time I see a swastika"

i think, tbh, those could be left out if we're looking for a more useful sounding

SPLATStika

"I am proud of the unique qualities that my race has that distinguishes it from other races." -- might get to something about group affiliation/pride without loading it up with quite as much racial baggage (tho really once you're talking about race it's all bagged up so there's not some major way to rephrase this to get away from those problems).

"Carlos Mencia is hilarious"

loooooooooool

what if you don't know your race
is jewish a race
i prefer the human race to sharks
seriously what is my race

sesame st themes that didn't make the cut

what if you don't know your race
is jewish a race
i prefer the human race to sharks
seriously what is my race

this is like a lost Blink-182 song

remy are you a sharkist?

shit maybe, i never thought about it before

http://www.vakthaa.tv/uploads/thumbs/u6gmxfu3fdt5vfrb.jpg

http://www.celluloidheroreviews.com/images/dog_day_afternoon.jpg

SHARKIST! SHARKIST!

minute i saw him giving a talk on the great white i knew he was trouble

jaws: the great white lamnidae