The Political Compass Test Explained: What Was TLDR News' Results? - TLDR News
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 4 ต.ค. 2024
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The political compass test is one of the most popular political metrics online, with it showing you where your views align you on the political spectrum. So we thought we'd have a go and ask our audience to submit their results. So in this video, we explain the test, share our results & then tell you why some people hate the political compass.
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Your taste in art is an important political question, especially for a certain Austrian with a funny mustache.
YES
Based taste
And an old Russian who enjoyed kissing
Valid
@@pedroarsousa also valid
Something that is often missed is that being on the left or right is relative to where you are globally.
Healthcare and gun control are decisive issues in America but over in Europe everyone is more or less in agreement. It doesnt mean Europe is a leftist haven, just that left and right have different meanings over here.
I would have thought gun control is an authoritarian libertarian issue not a left right issue. But then I am looking at it from the European side of the Atlantic.
Yeah, it feels like it has an American audience in mind. It shoud be phrased differently for other regions.
This, comparatively speaking they would have different baseline. US being Right, UK being Centre, and EUR being left. Health Care would be a norm and not considered as left in UK or EUR, ( Or vast majority of the world ) but US will put ads and have a field day about its socialism ideal.
Most europeans would say the US doesn't have a leftist party. The Democrats would be left-leaning centrists at best. Which implies the USA is a right wing haven, as opposed to the EU being a leftist haven, but I guess that's just a way of framing.
Yeah. Most people identifieing as right in Sweden would be considered left in the US or more conservative european countries.
Test: "Are you proud of your country?"
Me: "Yes"
Test: "Well well well, we got ourselves a Hitler over here."
Hahahah
But as long as you then say you believe in human rights your a hard left lib
r/PCM be like
Test: Nationalism y/n
My West African/Irish sympathies: ....yes
From a purely statistical perspective: Hitler was a nationalist (as far as all evidence points to), so giving a nationalist response makes you closer to Hitler is just a simple logical deduction. But that alone is just a meaningless statement. I drink water and breathe air like Josef Stalin, but does that make me Stalin?
Hopefully I conveyed my meaning alright here, but in case I didn't - TL;DR is as follows:
Similarities and shared characteristics do not mean equivalency.
Me: says something slightly libertarian
The test: woah looks like we got an anarchist here
Says something that isn't fascist: whoa whoa whoa, slow down there commie
I often find myself being very unhappy about the phrasings of those questions. For example, the question "A significant advantage of a one-party state is that it avoids all the arguments that delay progress in a democratic political system." I think the intention is to find out whether the questioned person supports one-party states, but that can't be concluded from this question. I mean I could say "A significant advantage of robbing people at gunpoint is that one gets a lot of money in a short amount of time" and that's true independent of my moral stance towards robbing people.
I thought that too. But I decided to answer it honesty i.e. I said I agreed with it.
Just like everyone else, I still came out with a heavily left/libertarian score...
Ok tankie
@@sirnikkel6746 ahahahahah
I think it's just not an advantage...
Literally the preface of the test:
"Before taking the test: Please note that this isn’t a survey, and these aren’t questions. They’re propositions. To question the logic of individual ones that irritate you is to miss the point. Some propositions are extreme, and some are moderate. That’s how we can show you whether you lean towards extremism or moderation on the Compass. Your responses should not be overthought. Some of them are intentionally vague. Their purpose is to trigger reactions in the mind, measuring feelings and prejudices rather than detailed opinions on policy."
8 values I felt had a better set of questions and better represented my views, still not perfect but better.
have you tried 9axes? its SOOO much more detailed and even longer
@@cs3819 Problem is they wouldn't know what to do with all the "it depends" answers. That's why questionnaires typically don't have such options.
The only thing I didnt like was that it gives you a political position at the end. I'm left libertarian (Soc Dem) and it gave me libertarian socialist...I believe in regulated capitalism, that description doesnt make sense. Having the sliding scale on the political compass test is better imo
When I take the 8-values test I tend to choose the positions that are off-centre but not at the far ends. I feel that represents a sufficient level of commitment to a given policy alternative. However a lot of my friends choose the far ends and I suspect that is because of a degree of _passion_ rather than a substantive difference in political opinion. And yet that is all it takes to get labelled differently. In this sense, I feel that the 8-values test might be fairer as regards left-right but not as regards centre-periphery.
Yeah it has better questions, and the more axis the better
I usually hate it when a questionnaire has 'don't know' in it, 'neither' should have been placed there as some questions definitely divided me.
With the 8Values test, I ended up either taking a weak or neutral position precisely because on a lot of questions, I can see both sides and agree partially with both.
There should be a "Neither" and a "Neutral". Cuz on many cases, I am neutral. By neutral, I often mean like, "in these cases, yes, in those cases, no" Basically depending on situations.
Like should there be government surveillance.
Well, yes, for shady or high crime areas and maybe some in roads to check for traffic crimes, but no, for not everywhere, I wouldn't want one in front of my door, like China has.
I thought some of the wording was hard to fully agree or disagree with.
Like the one "one should always side with their country" I can't remember the question exactly but it didn't make the distinction between a country and a government. I'm very proud to be British but I'm not necessarily proud of the current or past governments
I have no strong opinion about your comment whatsoever.
On the other hand.....
Generally agreed, the test deals in ultimatums and absolutes - and so is therefore unable to properly grade or account for tempered/moderate/centrist perspectives.
How to be the true centrist? Say:
“I can neither confirm nor deny.”
Unfortunately, they did not give this option which is unrealistic as there will always be topics people just don't care about enough.
No. Not really. Just be balanced. Understanding that not all liberal polices are good and not all conservative policies are good. Centrists usually don't treat people as groups. They treat them as individuals.
@@chudchadanstud as a centrist i just realised i actually treat mostly everyone as an individual.
@@billylauwda9178 As opposed to what?
Mostly the authoritarians (the CIA) and militant libertarians answer that way
given the sample size, this may be worth trying to publish in a peer reviewed journal. Most politics and psychology studies barely break 300 participants, and this would have social appeal.
While true, the way they got people to participate could easily create enough bias that the data wouldn't be worth much. And I say this as someone who believes that TL;DR tries to be impartial and succeeds at that quite a bit better than most.
The problem is they can't normalize the population. This sample size might not be representative of the general populace.
@@itamargal-yam5771 generalizability is not a concern and may even be a benefit as they were attempting to demonstrate a bias in the test. arguably the individuals which tend to take such tests may already be very polarized and are seeking validation; if they show the test does not accurately represent their views it is a valid point to raise. Their simulation of results is also relevant here, which i would extend and use proportions analyses to see how likely it is that you would be classified as left-liberal based on different combination of answers.
@@MalloonTarka since when do social scientiest care about bias? all feminsit/sjw BS is full of biased questioning, biased ways they got ppl invovled etc..
Gard, showing bias in your rant about other’s showing bias😂
Agreed that “8 Values” is a lot more helpful.
Yeah fits me better,even more with 9 axis 216 questions
@@KutyKatts Not as good as jreg's 100 axis political compass
yeah but because it doesn't put you on a compass or graph it's a little bit less intuitive I guess
@@ander4163 They can all put you on a graph, it's just beyond 3d lmao
The real question is...who got authoritarian right DESPITE the test moving you to left libertarian LOL
I guess some people just really want an ethno state?
QAnon followers I guess
The folks who hate abstract art.
@@MrBrockHeinz I don't hate abstract art, but I find it lame compared to works by the renaissance master's.
I did. I got 1 square to the right and 3 squares towards authoritarian. I would describe myself as a national-conservative politically and a European nationalist (I believe that all Europeans are brothers and in the union of all Europeans in a single state to form a superpower and counterbalance American, Russian or Chinese influence, no more "spheres of influence").
Test: Do you believe in Human rights?
Me: Yeah
Test: Ok you’re lib left
In the UK, the right wing Tory party want to get rid of the human rights act and some right wing people I know agree with that. No left wing people I know agree with removing it. Also could be considered a lib left ideology as it tells businesses how to operate (left economic) in order to give individuals more safety and freedom (left social).
@@davespace just asking because I'm curious, what human rights do Tories want to remove & what are your sources?
@@CheekyGal301
The Human Rights Act is a bit of legislation that doesn't actually do what it's supposed to and is pretty redundant but because it's got a snappy title people lose their shit over it being repealed... which is why these sorts of bills are named shit like 'The Patriot Act' or 'Citizens United', etc.
Anyone with a keen eye on the UK in recent years knows we don't have any specific protections for our human rights even with the broken bill.
@@Bushflare thank you for clarifying!
There are some valid reasons for someone to want to remove or at least reform the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. I personally find it stupid how all human rights have equal weight and are always inalienable. When clearly some rights are more important than others (Articles 3 or Article 4 vs Article 24 for example) and sometimes there exist extenuating circumstances that make violating some of them a necessity.
Quarantines, for example, are in clear violation of Article 13. which states that _"Everyone has the right to freedom of movement and residence within the borders of each state"_ , that should require no explanation. And also a violation of Article 23. _"1. Everyone has the right to work, to free choice of employment, to just and favourable conditions of work and to protection against unemployment."_ , as the quarantine prevents many people from working. And Article 20. _"1. Everyone has the right to freedom of peaceful assembly and association."_ , violated by those countries that also instituted a ban on public gatherings. Closing down schools, a usual aspect of most quarantines, is arguably also a violation of Article 26 _"1. Everyone has the right to education(...)"_ , because you're effectively denying their education to those without the means to reliably access the internet and/or lacking a good study environment in their homes, etc. you get the point.
Now there exist valid arguments against quarantines, and one could even make a reasonable case in favour of the idea that protecting our basic rights is in aggregate more important than minimizing the number of COVID deaths, but I'd hope we could all agree that striking the very idea of quarantines as illegal and violating human rights is irrationally imbecilic and an unnecessary constraint on what options we have to deal with the current crisis.
Especially when it's also possible to argue that a country with a high number of COVID cases not instituting a quarantine would be violating Article 3 _"Everyone has a right to life ..."_ . Meaning that under such circumstances a country violates Human Rights no matter what they do.
I thought that you would plot the average result of each countries, because you asked for nationality in the survey. It would be interesting to see which one is the most extreme in each quadrants, despite the test being inaccurate.
i'm ok to not being exposed to bad data, using it for any purpose would somewhat validate its use and that's against what would be proper. I'm ok for a proper comparison once we have the 8 values test, referred by most as "more fair"... from what i'm told :P
I don't think it would be meaningful. So many people ended up in the left-libertarian quadrant, almost all countries would be there also. The differences would be caused by chance mostly.
i would to see that too
Indeed, what we consider a right-wing (but still democratic) politician here in Germany would be considered a leftist in the USA. I sorta expected to end up in the lower left corner, but I strongly disagree with how much on the left this turned out to be according to the test.
So, in conclusion, this "test" simply doesn't test what it says it does, and the result should be ignored. :-P
I think that one is more meant as a tool to gather more personal information that can be sold later lol
But yeah agreed, more civilized nations norm the center somewhere different compared to less civilized like Iran and the USA.
More like the “you’re either anarchist or centrist-conservative test”
Except it shifts you towards lib left unless you don’t like abstract art in which case you are a fascist
Dude not all of lib left is anarchist tho
@Kerbal Miles r/wooossshhhh
@Kerbal Miles it is
@Kerbal Miles Tell that to fascists, who seem hell-bent in destroying all art that has a message.
Some fairly extreme questions like "How often do you beat your infant baby?" "How would you rate Boris Johnson on a scale of Tory PMs?" But I guess the result was fairly accurate
What a coincidence, the answer for both is 7
'"How would you rate Boris Johnson on a scale of Tory PMs?"
Worst Dilf since Thatcher.
Almost started a war with the EU/10.
2
@@socialistrepublicofvietnam1500twice is too many times.
I would’ve liked it where the average danish/Swedish/English etc person placed. Because we had to fill in nationality too.
Nationality is a difficult one. I’m British (English, to be specific) but I’ve lived in Canada for the last 10 years. And Britain has changed dramatically in that time, to the extent that I am currently questioning whether I want to return. When I fill in “nationality” now, I hesitate to say British. I haven’t changed my beliefs or my world views, but “my nation” has.
the problem is when 80% land in the same quadrant, it's hard to distinguish which country answers diffently
Haven't you seen that almost everyone was a socialist acording to the test, making the results questionable? So why bother?
But it's garbage in, garbage out, so it's totally meaningless.
@@robwhythe793 I live in right wing Tory Britain. My advice, don't come back till Boris has been kicked out.
Main problem is we ate still finding problems with trade that the Tories never even considered resulting in a massive drop in exports and financial services.
as I understand it you get way more respondents than the average yougov poll
But lets representative of the general populace
YouGov (and other polling agencies) have to randomly contact people to ensure that their sample is representative, and they do many polls each month, whereas this is just a one-off survey that the TLDR channel could send to their entire base of followers. It's simply not practical for YouGov to interview 10,000 people every time (nor is it statistically necessary or useful).
Yeah, you might read up a bit on representative polling. Numbers don't matter that much (after a certain threshold) as long as you can somewhat reliably scale them up because your sample is random but representative of the whole population.
@@varana Ummmm..... how can I put this politely - that is utter blimmin nonsense = the variance in scaling up from these numbers to national populations is immense: a even a perfectly random sample from a population tens of thousands times it size as is sometimes the case with yougov polls is extremely unlikely to be representative. Luckily TLDR are not presenting in any way that there's is - which is the first thing that anyone with any expertise in statistics would notice.
@@haydent4461see my response to varana
For the 8 values test I got:
- 84% Equality (Socialist)
- 75% World (Peacful)
- 64% Liberty (Liberal)
- 87% Progress (Very Progressive)
Making me a Libatarian Socialist.
Even if the term libertarian socialism is quite contradictory
But I get what you mean lol
@@Yes-gu2wn not really. I belive that the government should regulate corporations but not people.
@@magnuspeacock5857 Aye, but the term socialism would have the state control the economy, including what an individual owns. But libertarianism would advocate that its not the states place to say what you can/cannot own.
Thats why the term is a contradiction lol, I fully get what you mean by it and your actual stance isnt contradictory
@@Yes-gu2wn Socialism doesn't necessarily mean the state controls the economy, it's just that most socialist states in the past have been more authoritarian so that has generally been the case. A lot of libertarian socialists such as myself believe the economy should primarily consist of worker cooperatives and have lots of unions, and we don't think huge corporations/monopolies should exist (that includes state-owned ones). A lot of the early libertarians were socialists actually, it's quite interesting as it's thought of as a contradiction by many people today.
@@GizmoFTW It kinda does though. Even with smaller coop groups or unions, what you as an individual can own,spend,buy etc is still being controlled by other people.
It being an OSS, I hold the 8values test in a rather high regard. I believe it's a good balance of simplicity and insightful data.
By chance, I have been saving my results for each year since 2017 (when the test was made) and each time after doing a double-pass. It was very interesting to see how, even though my values varied slightly, generally my views remained in roughly the same perimeters even though the questions changed and I've learned so much more about how the world functions.
Just thought I'd share my thoughts on the 8values test: literally the first question in the test has the same issue as many in the politicalcompass test - "Oppression by corporations is more of a concern than oppression by governments". As someone who is equally concerned by both, I feel I should respond with "Disagree", but this will probably be interpreted as me saying that I'm more concerned with oppression by governments and don't care much about oppression by corporations, perhaps moving me to the right on the liberty scale. It doesn't seem as overt as the politicalcompass questions but it is still a problem I feel.
What does 'oppression by corporations' even mean in a free, Western society? I am not forced to use or buy any specific product or service from.any specific company...
@@akumabito2008 I suppose it makes more sense in the american context with monopolies all around you and many employees being paid bare minimum wage and no benefits
@@akumabito2008 Workforce exploitation, lobbying against health, safety and environmental standards or, more recently, mass manipulation using algorithmic techniques. They don't have to beat you with a stick to impact your life.
Yeah, that annoyed me too. I went with neutral, but if I had been able to give an answer, I would have put down that that varies by country and time period, and what about corporations _using_ government in order to oppress? How would that be counted?
@@akumabito2008 well its clear you're rightwing with that opinion. capitalism and "free market" do not equal freedom, they just mean corporations are free to exploit people. (I am a socialist I am open about this)
This test does not account for people with nuanced opinions, I could feel it when I was doing it.
Nuance, bro?
That's a problem with most tests - including the 8 values test. There's always a "yes, but..."
tbf by definition, anything standardised would erode nuance
@@triton62674 sure, I just want to put accent on that sharing results of this test can be misleading or even adversarial. I will never share my results publicly because the test is sketchy. If anybody asks me to give detailed answer to any question stated in that test I am willing to do it but digesting all my opinions into [x ,y] is harrmful for human communications.
Mine basically said “you’re the woke warrior everyone has been talking about”
that means you’re based as fuck my guy, I’m with ya
@@TakenBacon1 being woke isn't based. You don't say what you want without caring what people think. The woke are busy managing feelings and attacking those who are based. Only the right is based.
So you ended up in the authoritarian left?
@@blahdelablah nah libertarian left, far libertarian left.
@@TakenBacon1 you’re getting fire, based my man let’s go
This also fails to address the Overton window i.e. the common definition of where the centre is and how far you can move before being extreme. This varies with both time and place.
Ah yes, like fishhook and horseshoe theory
@@alfonzom6 Which are both shite
Every test defines you by its own 'overton window'
This site dont has the extreme possible thing as the only possible extremes. So the leftmost thing will always be the leftmost ever thing possible to exist and wont change according to time.
Don’t be judged or persuaded by categories. Believe and peruse your own route. To be pidgins holed into a group may lead you to fight for believes of that group rather than your core value believes as an individual .
While it is important to keep in mind that one's individual identity is ultimately more important than one's group identities, there *is* such a thing as a group identity, and there is nothing wrong with fighting for the beliefs of one or another group. The problem is when a group identity subsumes the individual one and you are led to think that you must do something you would otherwise balk at merely for the good of the group. Pigeon-holing is sometimes inevitable.
@@wtrmute Agreed.
I think Ross was the purple outlier.
Interesting, I'm not sure who it could be myself!
@@flappetyflippers Not really
@@GreenGocco what?
@@GreenGocco what? I was just saying that I wouldnt know... excuse me? I'm confused..
Forever the Ross fan 😉
Yeeeaaaaaaaah the political compass test is kind of a meme.
Agree! When I took the test I felt it was pulling me down and to the left.
A lot people think that
You should take 8values test, it’s more accurate
@@JasperShoes I got liberalism thanks for the test
@@alloncipriani7633 no problem 😉
@@alloncipriani7633 I got liberalism too, in 8 values
There was an interesting survey that asked people who self-identified as liberal to answer a poll as if they were conservative, and asked conservatives to do the same as if they were liberal.
What the survey found was that liberals tended to be much worse at understanding how a conservative would answer a poll, while conservatives were actually quite good at answering a poll as if they were a liberal.
The questions in this poll make me think of that survey. The idea that the poll creators think a conservative would answer that business is more important than people, or that any significant percentage of western respondants would respond that they think their race is superior sound like the sort of answers a somewhat naive university liberal thinks conservatives would respond favorably to.
> What the survey found was that liberals tended to be much worse at understanding how a conservative would answer a poll, while conservatives were actually quite good at answering a poll as if they were a liberal.
That could mean a lot of things:
- It _could_ mean that conservatives are more empathetic and better at imagining how others think (what a conservative probably would think is the reason)
- or it could also mean that the "liberal" stance in this case is a self consistent set of policies logically following from a set of base values; while the "conservative" stance is a confused mess of logically inconsistent policies that doesn't logically follow from a consistent set of base values making it impossible to mentally model (what a liberal probably would think is the reason).
- or it could also just be an imbalance of media coverage, that conservatives is simply better informed about the leftist oppinion than the other way around
- or it could be random chance in the selection of participants in this survey.
This survey alone cannot tell what is the true reason.
It could just mean that conservatives are bad about reporting their true opinion
This is a fascinating discussion. (unironically)
Regardless of the reason, it makes sense to test pollmakers if they are well versed in all political opinions. The best polls come from pollmakers who understand all positions really well. So I would be interested to see wether pollmakers have anything to improve in any political direction.
Heck, maybe we would learns stuff from it as well.
"1 in 4 people on the right are actually left wing and don't know it" Sounds accurate to be honest.
More people are economic Left leaning but conservative leaning socially or culturally than is realized.
@@Jaylio thats a clear strawman and an exaggeration.
@@Jaylio bruh literally 90% of the world is nazbol then.
One way to deal with the misleading questions is to move the chart's origin point closer where the average answer is. It's much more more meaningful to see how the answers are compare to people around you instead of being compared to some arbitrary reference point.
it would have been interesting to see how my answers comapre to rest of the TLDR's audience, if the answers were normalized.
Oh that's an interesting idea.
Good idea
That would only slightly solve problem 1 with biased questions though. Slightly because you very quickly loose resolution with only two agree answers. And not at all solve, for example, the art question which causes people to be misplaced. Together with the loosened resolution of only two answers in many questions it might actually make the placement worse as you get others to compare yourself to and you can see how wrong you were placed compared to others. Now you just see how broken the test is for everyone.
The funny thing is that the test provided a very nice data and it was highly correct.
The thing is that these TLDR videos leave out sooooooo much when talking about political stuff that makes their videos biased many times. Like this one.
The viewers of this channel are mainly young adults. 18-35 years old. And for them receiving this data is perfectly normal. Considering that these videos want to be neutral so the people with extreme political views are not likely to follow the channel.
Plus they entirely miss out on how the difference between people who think what they are and what they actually think is huuuuge. Like in my country where the people claiming themselves politically right tends to show politically leftist opinions just they don't know it. And here is another issue: People are stupid.
Which is more probable? The test based on the original political ideas is wrong or people don't really know the actual political ideas just claim to be one for some reason meanwhile showing entirely different opinion? Yeah...
In the end we will see that the test may not be 100% correct but most of the incorrect results come from: biased answers on the person side, being stupid, not knowing political ideas and agendas and government controlled opinions and media. Yep.
Jreg gang incoming!
Is this his second chanal
EVERY EXTREME IS ON THE SAME TEAM
@@your_averageboi9083 (EXCEPT IN THE WAY THAT PROVES HORSESHOE THERY)
I'm a horseshoe theorist so the way I see it there is literally no difference between me taking the political compass test and not taking the political compass test.
NAZBOL GANG
Hi! Have never been on a Patreon early access before, feels pretty good ngl! Nice video btw, I did the survey!
what feels good?
@@london_james uh having early access to a video due to patreon idk dumb thing but it felt good lol
@@flappetyflippers if it makes you happy 😁👍
@@london_james lol
These criticisms all seem like things that can be overcome. Next: the TL;DR political compass test??
I think based on the results we kinda know how that goes lol
My problem with the compass model is, it needs one more axis.
Economic
Authoritarian-Libertarian
Cultural: Progressive-Conservative-Regressive
I took this test a few months ago (as well as a related one), and I definitely saw the problem with the test. It was frustrating as I came to the test with an intention to see if I could get it (even trick it) into label me a dead-center moderate, and it really had me struggle to make that happen. In the end it labeled me as being right in the middle of that lower left quadrant. Funny how you're now pointing out that this is what happened for the majority of respondents.
"I think my race is better, but art without meaning is art"
=
"Everyone is equal, but that painting is stupid and is not art"
this video more than anything else highlights the integrity of the TLDR team
Lol, sure you lefty
Really? They scored left wing and spent the rest of the video making out the test is a fallacy.
What they should of done is told us how many of them identify as left and right....... but no
@@gartut200 doesnt matter what side of the fence you are on as long as you are prepared to change and question the narratives.
You definitely have a point about all of this. My father refused to answer more than the first few question, because he thought they'd be nonsensical. Nice job pointing these things out.
I remember 1 question: "Astrology accurately explains many things" - literally nothing to do with politics. Where would that even put you on the compass?
Great video! I still think TLDR is very central and unbiased, hence why it is now one of my main news sources
I still think its left wing but they obviously make an effort to be as unbiased as possible.
They are biased towards a centre left liberal position, the compass still is somewhat accurate for them, even if you adjust for the compass' failings.
The reason why you think that they are unbiased is that they do a reasonable job at presenting both sides of the argument and tend to use neutral language over partisan rhetoric, nor do they tend to express their own opinions.
That is not the same thing as being unbiased, as even with the best will in the world, they cannot restrain their bias all of the time, but it is the best that we can expect from a human.
@@Capt.Thunder well said
@@downsideupgoesgroar to be fair I started watching after that mess
@@downsideupgoesgroar Not really, they showed both sides of the argument, and they gave the facts. It's just that on the pro-brexit side there was a lot more misinformation and blatant lies that could be pointed out. But we are at a point where pointing out misinformation has become left wing I guess.
Some of the statements in the test are for sure questionable and this video raises some good points. I believe a major point has been left out though. The political compass test looks at global politics whereas western European politics (including the UK) tend to be very left-winged in general, even for political parties that identify themselves as right-winged. I think it's matter of scale.
For instance, parties in the USA are probably way more positioned to the right than the Tories from the UK. To me, it explains why so many people end up on the bottom-left part of the political compass.
The results would probably be different if the TLDR audience was from a different part of the world.
Heads up: The wording of the questions on the 8values survey might need adjusting. The questions ask for scores related to each axis, but only names one side of the axis. For example, one question asks you for your Nation score, in my case I got 95.6 % but specifically, I got 95.6% WORLD, which actually means I got 4.4% Nation. The survey does not provide both numbers. As such, two respondents might see your question "Nation score (orange)", look for the number next to the orange question, and give the same number, despite landing on opposite sides of the axis.
yeah I was confused as well, I just put the terms like socialist, peaceful, liberal and very progressive.
I feel like a big-headed asshole for noticing that and thinking 'oh no, most people are going to fuck this bit up and not do the subtraction.' But that is exactly what I expect XD
I just managed to stumble into this test, and was immediately questioning the logic behind some of the questions. Was surprised it was bad enough you made a video about it. Lol
I really like TLDR news; as a right-winger TLDR news feels like one of the more fair and balanced networks.
As a left-winger I feel the same; we need more news like this.
I ended up in the libertarian left section, far to the left of Bernie Sanders. I've done similar tests before and they all categorized me as a Democratic Socialist, which did not surprise me at all where economics are concerned, though my sociocultural values are more conservative than the Democratic Socialist label would suggest. What I most missed in this test is the option of "neither agree nor disagree," as I can imagine many people are not comfortable with being forced to take a partisan stance on all questions, especially if they don't have all the details yet.
Same for me, I expected myself to fall in the upper left corner due to some traditionalist views, but social-democratic economic beliefs, but I haven't even made it above the line. You really have to have some radical ideas to qualify as "conservative".
Qif I remember rightly, the lack of ability to pick a neutral option was very much intentional, as people will generally do so to the point of rendering analysis impossible if it is present. Something like that at least, It was many years ago that I last read about it.
@@laurencefraser I think you can usually fix that by just having many questions, rendering the overall impact of someone not answering a couple of them negligible.
I don't think that sort of sentiment is too uncommon. You can find a lot of people who support an expanded welfare state and increased corporate taxes but aren't too happy with the some of the current social positions of the left particularly around issues such as identity politics. Comedians like Bill Maher and Jonathan Pie seem to echo that sort of sentiment.
@@laurencefraser I have heard such statements as well.
On the other hand, I have heard somewhere that most people don't have fleshed out opinions on most issues, or even consistent opinions on similar issues. Most peoples opinions are simply weird. And should you want a test that accurately capture that feeling over a test that forces data that you could analyse.
Disclosure: I said 'I heard somewhere' on purpose. Yes that means I could be wrong. That's why I said it that way.
I’d love to hear TLDR’s take on the new Scottish independence party.
Ew
@@jacobchristie497 you're ew
What would be interesting if its on your budget at all, would be to get a programmer to design something to select random options through the test and complete it a few thousand times and observe the average result. Think that might clear most of your queries.
Took the test, had exactly the same criticism! Thanks guys!
I like how we couldn't get where you stand before this
The solution is a lot simpler:
The compass was designed for a USA perspective, where even the fairly right-wing UK populace would be mostly viewed as left-wing.
This makes sense, everything is relative, although I think it would be the opposite of the results in America, 80% would be top right
im very left wing and was only just left of centre on this oddly.
Could we test this at TLDR somehow?
I love this scientific approach that TLDR is doing here as a news site, and I think it would be fun to see them do a series like this, where we scrutinise everything people come up with to see how things work out.
Your attention to detail is commendable - "If this were true..." The subjunctive tense!
Apologies for the pedantry but the subjunctive is a mood or 'voice'. In this instance it expresses a counterfactual conditional, i.e. something that isn't true but which we can still talk about. I definitely share your pleasure at seeing it used correctly though. Anyone remember the catchphrase "would that it were" ?
@@obdev9473 the comments section here make me realise I subscribe to the correct channel. Or should that be “makes me realise”?
@@IslandlifeIoW I tend to find reddit to be a kinder, less brutal place than youtube but you've restored my faith !
@@obdev9473 try Vimeo. Less toxic than YT.
A post on the subjunctive when 95% of TH-camrs can't differentiate between their, there and they're. Don't know the difference between your and you're, use 'should of' 'must of' etc instead of have, and think that the past and past participle versions of the verb 'to lead' are 'lead' (pronounced led). What happened to the education system?
Political compass put me in the 3% part of the grid but quite close to the center. While 8 values was centrist. Small discrepancy but that's pretty much what I was expecting. Curious to see the community results on 8values now :)
it placed me as a libertarian socialist.
So to conclude: TLDR isn't bias, the political compass is...
They've given us reason to believe that so, yes. Tomorrow, someone else might give us reason to believe TLDR has bias a well. Until that time, though, 'the test being the biased one' is the 'truth' favored by the evidence I have.
Yes, I don't have a definitive answer. You can never have any definitive answers.
(I know it’s an old video, but) To be completely honest, i’m a traditionalist right-winger, but still, i think TLDR (despite my opinion that it’s a left leaning channel) brings a level of objectiveness and balance to today’s polarized society, that is under appreciated.
Oh yeah! I remember this test having a lot of religious questions. Specifically about enforcing or agreeing with Judeo-christian beliefs. So any non-strong believer is bound to end up on the left/libertarian side
Good point. I'm Pagan and strong in my beliefs, but I don't impose them on others. We all have a choice.
@@One-Goth what do you mean by pagan, isn't that a term to describe all un-organized religions?
@@Jay_Johnson I'm a Witch. Though the term pagan has a varied history as you will see above. Generally, we worship nature and the old Goddess and God's. Generally, the Goddess is worshiped and the God is a bit of an add on. In other words, the Goddess lives all year and the God dies and is reborn. Pagans can be Witches, Druids, Heathens, Wiccans, Vikings/Nordic etc.
@@One-Goth New arrived to druidism here.
@@Jay_Johnson Pagan was originally an insult to refer to those not converted to Christianism in Europe. That refered to mainly to celtic/germanic religions and the original classical paganism (the pantheon of Zeus/Jupiter). Current pagans follow a phylosophy of using pre-Christian deities to represent the divinity of nature. The pantheon you choose is the one that would color your practices, but the core beliefs are essentially the same: respect for nature, freedom and other life forms.
It's just some kids linear algebra homework that got way out of hand.
I consider myself a lot more libertarian than the test put me as, but I feel many of the questions asked me “do you recognise things that do not exist?” as oppose to “do you think people should be the way they want to be?” But I am a moderate right, both in self belief and test results.
Just did my 8axis test. It is evident that it is very US-centric. I am neighter a Nationalist nor Militarist, but I support my counties military actions. Because they are all Peacekeaping missions. ✌🇦🇹
Nothing can make me believe abstract art is art. The question doesn't tell anyone that I am a leftist or a libertarian
I knew this test was rubbish, but it's good to have a video like this that clearly explains it - kudos TLDR
I was having similar thoughts after taking the test. It surprised me how far to the left and libertarian I was ranked.
Looking forward to the next video
@@your_averageboi9083 I'm a Libertarian right
Great job guys
The test throughout time has placed me exactly on the border between AutRight & LibRight, then a few years later in LibRight, then most recently in LibLeft. I’ve never strayed further than 4 points from the centre in any way. So, as a centre-identifier I think it’s been alright at placing me.
The problem is not the compass itself, but the questions on the tests. The compass is a good idea because a straight line is black and white.
Political Compass: Do you believe in astronomy?
Me: No
Political Compass: Ah, this tells me a lot about your politics
Most impressed that you guys questioned the survey questions, how about producing your own "corrected" version?
I recall quite a lot of people in the comments questioning the surveys reliability when they first posted it. To the point where they actually had to come clean in the next post that they were testing the validity of the test itself and not trying to gauge the position of their audience.
Sapply political test
When I took the political compass test many years ago it placed me pretty much where I expected. I got put in the same camp in the 8 values test I took just now. So for me either the 8 values test has the same flaws as political compass, or they are both equally valid. Of course that's only a sample size of 1.
This test doesn't represent my Anti-Centrist views properly
wasn't expecting a video on the political compass! thank you, this was interesting. unfortunately i missed the survey.
i never realized the test was 'biased'. what i have noticed, having taken the test a few times over the years and saved the results, is that i've been moving further to the left 😄
took the 8values test & submitted my results this time :)
This is a pretty good explanation of the political compass’ issues
I am a EPIC centerist griller
is that second video ever coming?
I'm also wondering
Since you ask for where we are from when posting our answers, I think it would be great if you could also show us what results you got from each country.
If you took the heat map of average responses and deconvolved an individual's end position by the average response position weightings you could get a "true" axis position. That's the power of matrices!
The political compass boils down to “are you evil”
I like to call the test "how I found out I was a fascist test"
I was surprised how much more extreme these questions were compared to the same test here in Finland. Stuff like people with disabilities should not be allowed to have children really took me of guard and i can easily see how those extreme examples would force people to the "left". I mean this test will always have issues, but doing this one made me appreciate the one we have a bit more.
Well, racism and things like that are commonly associated with nazism, which is associated in some degree to fascism, which part of the right-wing.
Obviously they got it wrong but I can see the line of thought.
It took me off guard too. The fact that some people really think people should be allowed to pass on their own pain to their children through disability.
I just opened it and the 6th question is: "There is now a worrying fusion of information and entertainment. " Any idea how that maps to political beliefs...?
hard libertarians don't worry about anything (or refuse to, on principle)
@@fuchsiafreud So neoliberalism?
first, apologies for the less-than-succinct answer.
'neoliberalism' has a billion definitions, none of which are very useful without taking the time of going into specifics; half the time it's used simply as a slur.
neoliberals, as a group you'll find out there (usually on twitter, mind you), are people who are mostly characterised by militant humanist-liberal principles coupled with a hardcore utilitarian approach (there's an obvious tension there, of course). neoliberals worry about all sorts of things & will often advocate all sorts of welfare system policies, thought usually on the basis of pragmatic, utilitarian considerations.
(hard) libertarians, in contrast, usually argue not from utility as much as from principle, that principle usually being the classically liberal one of restriction of the state (power). eg. fusing entertainment with news might be bad but regulating it would entail bureaucracy & coercion from the state, which is in principle bad/worse.
*tl;dr:* hard libertarians differ from neoliberals in that they are not utilitarians - they argue from principle over utility; in practice, however, they'll often advocate the same things even if the arguments posited will differ greatly in structure & reasoning.
eg. neoliberals tend towards positive social liberal advocacy, whereas libertarians only support social liberalism because clamping down on it would be incommensurable with the rights of personal liberty.
@@fuchsiafreud Yeah, I know the difference :) I meant that on the compass the statement would supposedly map to "pro-free-market" or "right" axis in your opinion?
on the test it's not framed as an economic question
Advice: there's a similar test called "SapplyValues" which was made in response to all these problems with the compass, it now asks more relevant questions and has an extra axis of progressive Vs conservative.
Do the Sapply Values test. It’s better than the Political Compass test.
You should release the raw data for surveys like this, stripped from potentially personally identifiable data if there is any :)
I took this test in high school. Made my dad take it too. Funnily enough my dad was firmly in the red box
If you didn’t strongly disagree with the race question, you’re a monster.
Ngl i stopped the test after that question bc i just got so frustrated that that was an actual question human beings were being asked lol. Scary world
@@maxketley681 the fact that you stopped the test just because you read that question shows what’s wrong with society.
@@maxketley681 if you cannot handle an “idea”, your education system has failed you
I didn't. I actually agreed with it, not strongly. But I guess it depends on how you interpret the question. My interpretation was "are white countries doing better than non-white ones" and the answer is on average yes. Western white countries are more prosperous. The "superior qualities" part is about mentality, Western countries are more aggressive in pursuing money, not about being magical beings because of skin colour. So... I agreed, but not strongly.
@@octavianpopescu4776 You're ignoring prosperity in the West being fueled by colonialist extraction in the last few centuries, environmental factors that aid or hinder agriculture and the transference of technology, and the fact that at different times in our history non-Western parts of the world (the Middle East, China, etc.) have been the most developed areas. The question specifically asked about race, and the fact that you decided to "interpret" it differently says a lot more about you than about the question.
I'm taking the 8values test but it's so America centric just like the last one. There needs to be a test that assumes you're from anywhere in the world
3:33 That's my favorite Death Grips album!
SapplyValues is a much better test. it makes 8values represented in a quadrant
I wonder how Farage would score on the test, lol. Would you think he shows up as a leftie?
He would be out of scale to the right.
Farage doesnt actually hold any positions, just what's convenient at the time to gain favour for his party :^)
Probably, he's either in denial. Or does a mixture of socially conservative leftie in public, and a socially conservative rightie to party donors and business pals.
@@minimodecimomeridio4534 Farage would be a moderate right (5.0 to 8.0) and fairly authoritarian (2.0 to 4.0) I'd say
@@TheRealUSArmy No way. Farage is quite left wing on social issues. The only right wing position he has is on immigration.
Finally, someone who breaks down this awful poll. The bias questions are honestly painfully obvious not to mention poorly worded.
Shout out to the libertarian right who have nobody to vote for in the UK!
I hate to admit it, because I have been Labour all my life, but this is getting beyond a joke now. If the greens were a stronger party...
@@One-Goth I wouldn’t exactly class the greens libertarian right
@@addictiontocars neither is Labour right now.
@@One-Goth well neither of them are trying to be, the nearest should be the Liberal Democrat’s really but they are very uninspired at the moment and not really liberal
@@addictiontocars Ed Davey is far too weak as a leader. The whole political system needs a shake up, but with an 80 seat majority, that will be impossible. The Tory's can do whatever they like.
So - despite the survey bias - if you are *STILL IN THE TOP RIGHT*, your walls must sport a few historical memorabilia.
FYI, its the statist axis, not the social axis
Will there be a new video based on the 8values results anytime soon?
I've been tracking myself on the 8 values test for the past two years,
and I've been consistently:
Equality ~70%
Internationalist ~80%
Liberty ~70%
Progress ~ 80%
In which the numbers are quite amusingly tidy XD
Yo those are some based scores. I consistently get like 85% to 95% percent in the same directions ^_^
Stop defining Socialism as „the government intervenes in the economy“ that‘s simply not true. Government intervention is an authoritarian/libertarian issue. Most socialists today define Socialism/Capitalism as whether a business is owned by the workers or a capitalist.
"Socialism is when the government does stuff" -TLDR
Thank you! I was about to comment this, I'm so tired of people getting this wrong...
God thanks for clarifying it. So many people get it wrong and I myself didn’t understand it for ages because of how much conflicting information there is. And now I’m a socialist lol.
Is taxation a theft? Should the government (or any other central body with same function and authority) redistribute money to maintain the public infrastructure and social security network in this society with worker owned businesses?
Socialism has nothing to do with workers nor any specific group of people. Socialism is an economic system where the collective (such as workers, guilds, the government etc.) either directly own or control the buildings and tools that make goods and services like farms and factories. This can be achieved through decentralized and direct worker-ownership, or through centralized state-ownership or control of the means of production.
I really like the idea of a news source doing one of these tests though - super cool, very forthcoming
Big fan :)
I took the test when you sent it out so I'm one of those 10k. I always land center right libertarian when I take this test. So even when skewing I still end up where I actually view myself, slightly right wing libertarian.
I would have liked to have known more about who is involved in making this test and why it skews people towards left lib. What's the point in skewing the results like this?
I think another issue with the test is that there is no neutral option, some of the questions I find myself neither agreeing nor disagreeing with and that makes them hard to answer when this is not an option.
This was interesting. I was one of the people who took the test for your data, I definitely do feel that the test has serious problems and I agree that it tends to give me a result that pulls me further left and more libertarian than I would say I am (though not too drastically as I’m definitely in the green quadrant).
the question about race is dumb, all humans belong to the same race no matter the colour of your skin or place of birth, homo sapiens, and yes, homo sapiens is superior to dogs in brain capacity, and so on. This test is bullcrap tbh and shouldnt be used as a meaningful way of determening you stance on political issues.
Interpreting race in this way gives a little bit away about your views. Enough to put you in a box?, Probably not!. But there are plenty of people who don't see race this was (as defined by biology I mean).
There are people who see race as a label of ethnicity (as defined by their own idea of what that means), and don't think any further about it before judging the question with their gut feelings. You are not such a person.
I took the test and very early I noticed how loaded most of the questions are.
Another BIG issue with the test is the absolute decisiveness it demands. If there's any topic I'm split apart or take neither side there's no middle ground.
I'm either towards left or towards right. But never remain stagnant on a certain topic.
If I remember right there is a question whether police should have more power. The only police I personally experienced is pretty much fine to me just how they are, so I would pick the neutral option.
I got annoyed with the questions in the test and I'm really glad you guys raised this problem. I got Left-Libertarian and was surprised. Hopefully this new test you're doing should be better at accurately pinpointing where each person is on the political spectrum.
Hm. Thumbs up. I'm kinda shocked here, for I haven't done so in a while.
As for your followers, I can tell you right now, a lot of them are rather authoritarian. 😕
Aye, they don't realise it though.
@@Bushflare I often find there's an incredible lack of understanding out there when it comes to, authority and discipline. This includes the test examples used in this video too, I'm glad they're pointing it out in some way.
What's the point in progress if we nuke each other. ;(
@@Bushflare Oh and also... I keep wondering what the smeg happened to anarchy?