The PPPC

[Pandemoniak]

The Planetarian Project for Political Compass

I have been thinking about that before, but now, Im on my way to do it. First, Id like to ask everyone if they are interested to help me. The objective is to provide something like a quizz which could give an overview of someone's position in a political compass, in the universe of SMAC.

Maybe it would be helpful to let me know if you're just ready to help, or really willing to work on it. Most of the work will be made by e-mails or conference chat on yahoo.

The first problem to solve is how the compasa will be made : I though about giving two kinds of "results" to the test :
- first a position in the compass,
- second the two or three closest faction according to the tester ideology.

The compass could be delimited by the social engineering choices, making something like that :
Democracy is opposed to Police State
Fundamentalism is opposed to Knowledge
Free Market is opposed to Planned
Power is opposed to Wealth
Eudaimonia is opposed to Thought Control,

which leaves Cybernetic opposed to Green : this is quite coherent if we consider cybernetic opposed to nature, but not coherent if we take it like it was meant to be, with the +2 Planet Rating for Cybernetic, leaving Planet unharmed.
As well, the Planned economics could be opposed to green, since Domai cant switch green -that sounds unnatural to me, you can be marxist and green, im the proof.
AS well, the free market could be opposed to green, seeing its ruins trhe environment, thus planned would have to be opposed to cybernetic, which is not very coherent either...

I also though about simply ignoring Cybernetics and Green.

Feedbacks and sign in welcome.

[FrustratedPoet]

Am I the only person completely baffled by that post?

[Alex]

You're not the only one, FP...

[Pandemoniak]

Well, let me explain better then : I am looking for persons willing to develop a test to determine the tester position in a political compass in the Alpha Centauri universe.
Any other questions ?

[Alex]

It's an interesting idea. Don't you think you could get more volunteers if you posted this in the AC forum?

[Pandemoniak]

I did it in the SMAC DG, and I repeated it, cause I thought some people from the Poly community, not necessarly playing the DG but knowing SMAC could be interested.

[DrSpike]

I would question those criteria for a political compass. Far more flexible is allowing the individual to vary along 2 more fundamental dimensions, such as personal and economic freedom. All main political positions can then be found in different segments of the diamond that is created by the 2-dimensional heterogeneity.

[DarkCloud]

I suppose I'd be glad to hope- but before you start- perhaps you should create a limit on # of questions...

For example- in the Fundamentalism set- create 10 questions that determine a persons place on that scale... but some can overlap with questions on the other scales... then if each has ten questions each evaluated; you can create a ten by ten graph; 100 possible squares- or probably 96... I'm not sure... maybe 1000? Oh well, someone else will have to do the math... then people can be ranked in the areas....

The other problem is how to arrange the 5 categories- one possibility would be a pentagon... but somehow, I think that is hard to center... maybe there is a better way?

Good luck!

[DrSpike]

You can't do the pentagon, that would be hard to interpret even if you could construct it. All of the facets of philosophy you want to analyse work within the diamond......if I have time later I will arrange the 7 factions as I think appropriate.

[Buck Birdseed]

Originally posted by DrSpike
I would question those criteria for a political compass. Far more flexible is allowing the individual to vary along 2 more fundamental dimensions, such as personal and economic freedom. All main political positions can then be found in different segments of the diamond that is created by the 2-dimensional heterogeneity.

Bollocks.

There's absolutely no room for a definition of freedom that's not inidvidualist or collectivist. There's no room for feminism, environmentalism, civic republicanism... It expresses an extremely primitive liberal view of the world.

My system works using a triangle (the extremes being "Conservative", "Libertarian" and "Radical", with no economic dimention, only power-based ones). I'm determined to show it in action some time, I was going to do it earlier this term but decided against it. Maybe it'll be my christmas project this year...

[DrSpike]

Didn't you say you were on course to fail your degree? Perhaps you should spend some time on that instead.

[Dauphin]

That was b*tchy or honest, not sure which

Anyway, the more dimensions the better, but I have trouble visualising above 3 dimensions, and can't visualise more than 5.

Using triangles or tetrahedrons gives an extra-dimension to visualise in, but can reduce clarity.

[Pandemoniak]

For any other discussion about this, please follow the link in my signature.

Thanx to all of you for your help and your interest.

[DrSpike]

Can't we discuss it here as well? Not considering the inflammatory nature with which he started his post, Buck's contribution intrigues me. It cannot be a triangle, unless I am missing something. It must be a tetrahedron, as SD noted. I'm not sure what it buys you over and above the diamond structure, but it is interesting.

[Dauphin]

Top: Fascism
Bottom Left: Democracy
Bottom Right: Communism.

(Say), you can replace with whatever markers you want.

As you go left to right you become more Communist, less Democratic, but remain constant in your Fascist nature.

As you move diagonally up-left you become more Fascist, less Communist but constant in your Democratic tendency.

As you move diagonally up-right you become more Fascist, less Democratic but constant in your Fascist tendency.

The model makes a 3-D map in 2-D space. The tetrahedron allows another dimension to be added. Fundamental Theocracy, say.