# How's your political compass read? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [June 27, 2002, 11:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hows-your-political-compass-read/116207 "2002-06-27T11:17:40Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 14\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![TVGuy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/82dd89/32.png) [@TVGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TVGuy)\ **Post date:** [July 7, 2002, 4:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hows-your-political-compass-read/116207/61 "2002-07-07T04:18:37Z")
Economic Left/Right: -2.38 Authoritarian/Libertarian: -6.67 I’ve suspected for a long time that I’m more conservative economically than socially… ---
**Author:** ![Weird\_AL\_Einstein](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/c67d28/32.png) [@Weird\_AL\_Einstein](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Weird_AL_Einstein)\ **Post date:** [July 7, 2002, 5:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hows-your-political-compass-read/116207/62 "2002-07-07T05:07:19Z")
On the test submitted by Sam, I scored 90 90, firmly in the libertarian quadrant. Although I seem to recall taking a version of that test with more questions on it, and scoring a bit lower. Or was I just imagining it… ---
**Author:** ![Philosophocles](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/b38774/32.png) [@Philosophocles](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Philosophocles)\ **Post date:** [July 7, 2002, 5:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hows-your-political-compass-read/116207/63 "2002-07-07T05:36:15Z")
Just curious: what was the point of the astrology question? Was the idea that people who are more proned to cling to superstitions would be more likely to accept an authoritarian regime? Or was the question intended to monitor tolerance toward spiritual beliefs that might be seen as somewhat out of the mainstream? Or perhaps an excessively rigid adherence to belief in the scientific method? (I can envision leftie peacenik hippies listening to the Fifth Dimension tune “Age of Aquarius/Let the Sun Shine In”…then again, it occurs to me that Himmler and some of the Nazis were quite interested in astrology too, so what then would be the ideological significance of astrology?) For what it’s worth, I don’t think astrology is a real science. There are good people who believe in it; there are bad people who believe it. But I simply haven’t seen any evidence that astrology explains the way things are, the way things will be, or the way things ought to be. It seems to me that positive or negative views of astrology are more essentially rooted in epistemology than in ideology. ---
**Author:** ![Osakadave](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/f07891/32.png) [@Osakadave](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Osakadave)\ **Post date:** [July 14, 2002, 12:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hows-your-political-compass-read/116207/64 "2002-07-14T12:43:42Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Weird\_AL\_Einstein \* > \*\* > > The winnuh and still champeen :D. I think I would have scored a bit lower on authoritarian/libertarian if it hadn’t been for the test bias (according to them, Hitler and Stalin were just _slightly_ more authoritarian than Margaret Thatcher :rolleyes: ) , but I still likely wouldn’t have beaten **Philosophocles**. \*\* Got you beat. Economic Left/Right: 5.88 Authoritarian/Libertarian: -2.46 I have to say that was a very biased test. ---
**Author:** ![Mephisto](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/48db29/32.png) [@Mephisto](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mephisto)\ **Post date:** [July 14, 2002, 6:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hows-your-political-compass-read/116207/65 "2002-07-14T18:09:01Z")
Economic Left/Right: -3.50 Authoritarian/Libertarian: -5.90 ---
**Author:** ![cainxinth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/7bcc69/32.png) [@cainxinth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cainxinth)\ **Post date:** [July 14, 2002, 8:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hows-your-political-compass-read/116207/66 "2002-07-14T20:47:17Z")
Economic Left/Right: -3.25 Authoritarian/Libertarian: -4.41 ---
**Author:** ![p\_cific\_812](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/13edae/32.png) [@p\_cific\_812](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/p_cific_812)\ **Post date:** [July 14, 2002, 8:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hows-your-political-compass-read/116207/67 "2002-07-14T20:52:18Z")
**Economic Left/Right:** -3.25 **Authoritarian/Libertarian:** -2.92 _I will post until everything stops!_ 😃 ---
**Author:** ![Michael\_Ellis](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/977dab/32.png) [@Michael\_Ellis](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Michael_Ellis)\ **Post date:** [July 14, 2002, 8:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hows-your-political-compass-read/116207/68 "2002-07-14T20:58:42Z")
Economic Left/Right: 1.25 Authoritarian/Libertarian: -2.82 ---
**Author:** ![Erika](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/47e85d/32.png) [@Erika](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Erika)\ **Post date:** [July 15, 2002, 1:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hows-your-political-compass-read/116207/69 "2002-07-15T01:26:20Z")
Economic Left/Right: 2.38 Authoritarian/Libertarian: -6.10 ---
**Author:** ![Angel\_of\_the\_Lord](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/angel_of_the_lord/32/2949_2.png) [@Angel\_of\_the\_Lord](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Angel_of_the_Lord)\ **Post date:** [July 15, 2002, 5:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hows-your-political-compass-read/116207/70 "2002-07-15T05:45:02Z")
Economic Left/Right: -4.88 Authoritarian/Libertarian: -7.69 Which is about what I thought I’d be. Go figure. ---
**Author:** ![bernse](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/a9a28c/32.png) [@bernse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bernse)\ **Post date:** [July 15, 2002, 1:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hows-your-political-compass-read/116207/71 "2002-07-15T13:47:14Z")
Economic Left/Right: 2.00 Authoritarian/Libertarian: 1.03 ---
**Author:** ![RickJay](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/bb73d2/32.png) [@RickJay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RickJay)\ **Post date:** [July 15, 2002, 1:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hows-your-political-compass-read/116207/72 "2002-07-15T13:58:26Z")
I agree with Sam. What I find suspicious about the test is the sheer number of extreme scores. If people on the SDMB were actually that far off political center I think we would have noticed by now, because it’s just about the only thing we’d discuss. The test questions are just brutal, frankly. They’re heavily biased towards a sort-of-liberal slant on the latest campus-newspaper fad issues. ---
**Author:** ![IzzyR](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/2acd7d/32.png) [@IzzyR](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/IzzyR)\ **Post date:** [July 15, 2002, 9:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hows-your-political-compass-read/116207/73 "2002-07-15T21:19:24Z")
Economic Left/Right: -1.13 Authoritarian/Libertarian: 0.21 A moderate leftist score, for one of the most right-wing right-wingers on this board. I don’t think so - the test is skewed. (Specifically, I think many of the questions are simplistic, so I disagreed with many of the positions that they were presumably trying to associate with the Right). ---
**Author:** ![Netbrian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/71e660/32.png) [@Netbrian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Netbrian)\ **Post date:** [July 16, 2002, 3:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hows-your-political-compass-read/116207/74 "2002-07-16T03:01:07Z")
Suprising myself even, I’ll agree with Sam Stone. This test has several questions making the left-wing position seem to be the default. Accuracy would be much improved if it either added questions biased in all directions, or tried to keep it as neutral as possible. But it is still fun. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hows-your-political-compass-read/116207.md?page=3)