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[Lillith Blackheart]

I don't believe in corporate bailouts or subsidies or any of that rot either. GM should have filed bankruptcy, same with AIG.

[Vikarion]

I don't believe in corporate bailouts or subsidies or any of that rot either. GM should have filed bankruptcy, same with AIG.

I agree with this, certainly. Just as I admire good businessmen and businesses, I think incompetently managed ones should be allowed to fail.

[Merdaneth]

Which shouldn't surprise anyone I hope.  

In any case, as an Anarchist I stand unbeaten yet!

[Kamiko Hautala]

I don't believe in corporate bailouts or subsidies or any of that rot either. GM should have filed bankruptcy, same with AIG.

I agree with this, certainly. Just as I admire good businessmen and businesses, I think incompetently managed ones should be allowed to fail.

It's a lose-lose situation: If you give large corporations bailouts, it makes the taxpayer angry, and if you let the company fail, thousands of jobs are lost and the economy is weaker. If Microsoft was doing horrible, and they just failed completely, the global economy would be significantly weaker, and managers would have to acquire new technology to keep their businesses working.

[Lillith Blackheart]

I don't believe in corporate bailouts or subsidies or any of that rot either. GM should have filed bankruptcy, same with AIG.

I agree with this, certainly. Just as I admire good businessmen and businesses, I think incompetently managed ones should be allowed to fail.

It's a lose-lose situation: If you give large corporations bailouts, it makes the taxpayer angry, and if you let the company fail, thousands of jobs are lost and the economy is weaker. If Microsoft was doing horrible, and they just failed completely, the global economy would be significantly weaker, and managers would have to acquire new technology to keep their businesses working.

The economy weakened anyway, also if they filed for bankruptcy it wouldn't have hit them as badly as they and their interests let on. Their debtors would have taken a hit for it, but they wouldn't have. That's sort of the point of Chapter 11 protection.

To give an example, one of the local hospitals here filed bankruptcy three years ago, and as of last month they had just made a fifth equipment order, paid off their remaining unsecured debt, and are making two expansions due to the rather sizeable amount of profit they're making due to it.

Bankruptcy protection for businesses doesn't work quite the way it does for people.

[Shae Tiann]

I consider myself socialist. I know full well that humans are greedy, selfish prigs and pure-form socialism will never work; however, I see no reason not to hold it as an ideal.

[Casiella]

Hm. I would have thought of a socialist further up in the reddish (magenta?) area.

[Shae Tiann]

Alas, the grid really ought to be a 3-dimensional cube to work properly. As it is, there are questions which, while I don't agree with the sentiment, I understand the necessity for it, which skews the results. Call me moderate; I find the Libertarian label offensive because most people don't actually know what it means :p

[scagga]

Could I request that the OP kindly take the time to compile the various results into the first post, to make the thread easier to read/compare? Would be greatly appreciated 

[Kamiko Hautala]

Could I request that the OP kindly take the time to compile the various results into the first post, to make the thread easier to read/compare? Would be greatly appreciated 

Do you mean making different lists of names and grouping them with political groups? I do have a poll that people should answer, so if you could be a bit more specific please. 

[scagga]

Could I request that the OP kindly take the time to compile the various results into the first post, to make the thread easier to read/compare? Would be greatly appreciated 

Do you mean making different lists of names and grouping them with political groups? I do have a poll that people should answer, so if you could be a bit more specific please. 

I haven't answered the poll, but the political compass results (the grids) are a bit broader in my opinion. What I mean is, could you put the names of the respondents to the political compass quiz in a list, with their corresponding 'grid' coordinates placed adjacently? You can ascertain the coordinates by quoting the post and observing the numbers in the image.

[John Tanashima]

I hate this quizz, a mix of 'Big L' Libertarian propaganda, and old fashionned 'nazi detection' tests from the 50's...

Biased questions, biased interpretation and too simple and caricatured axes; On the other hand, it is a very good opening line to catch new young, unemployed and passionate campaign helpers to paste libertarian stickers everywhere



I'm a self described paleolibertarian, mostly Rothbardian ⁽¹⁾ but with the knowledge that methodological individualism is basically a flawed moral tool, even if it's the best we have.

Like with every political idealist not blinded by ego, age has both honed and deepened my conviction... and cured me of any innocence about the purity of simple solutions and revolutionary fervor.


⁽¹⁾ The 'end of career' Rothbard, not the 'let's get cosy with pinkos hippies, after all they hate the war too !' Rothbard...

[Ashar Kor-Azor]

I am a Goddamned transhumanist.

I shit you not.

When I grow up I want to be of use to the Lifeboat Foundation. My goals in terms of altering the human condition through political means taper with theirs insofar as they can be called such.

Aside from that I'm liberal in a lot of areas, and progressive in a lot of areas. I guess I do the technocrat thing once in a while? That means I'm a bit of a socialist, maybe.

[Lillith Blackheart]

I am a Goddamned transhumanist

See, I have never understood that. Well, no that's not true. I understand it, I just find myself curious how trans- or post- humanists come to the conclusion that we will be anything other than human simply because we have cybernetically or genetically altered out physical forms.

I don't see that that would separate us from the Human Condition, and even if it were to do so, it wouldn't so much separate us from it as it would alter what the Human Condition was.

[Ashar Kor-Azor]

I am a Goddamned transhumanist

See, I have never understood that. Well, no that's not true. I understand it, I just find myself curious how trans- or post- humanists come to the conclusion that we will be anything other than human simply because we have cybernetically or genetically altered out physical forms.

That's the word-fuckery aspect of the thing (you know, what someone else might call semantics), and I generally say that while there'll be significant additions to how we function in the next couple of decades, your humanity will largely be intact.

The goals of a political transhumanist as I see them include things like getting ethical law where it needs to be to legalize sane life-extension research, create a legal framework for the possibilities of artificial life (they keep pegging the advanced general intelligence maturation point at somewhere just this side of twenty years from now), creating another such framework for the possibility of nanotech (ditto on the maturation point thing), and working to research a way to shield the populace from the negative effects of either one going awry (no, it won't likely be like anything Hollywood churns out, go look up the Lifeboat Foundation).

There's also the PR game people like Michael Anissimov play to bring as realistic a view of transhumanist aims and efforts to the wider world as possible while making sure everyone gets the really nice bits through their heads (google him if you like, I don't want to post a link). They do things like saying 'we're not here to play up your fear of death or read science fiction to you, we're here to underscore that a lot of people like the idea of living longer because more life is good. And yes, there are significant risks in perusing these new technologies, but between the lack of feasibility of relinquishment of this whole march of progress thing - I mean, YOU convince everyone to stop researching ANYTHING - and the attempts on our part to set up safeguards, we feel we're making a half-decent choice.'

Which leads me to mention that there's also efforts to cobble together ideas for whatever economic structures need to arise to enable more people to live longer with a higher standard of sustainability (as well as a higher standard of living).

The rest, I really can't speak to.

I don't see that that would separate us from the Human Condition, and even if it were to do so, it wouldn't so much separate us from it as it would alter what the Human Condition was.

Hence my own use of the word 'alter.' There's nothing wrong with your reasoning there.