[ExI] Political Relativism (was very informative)

[William Flynn Wallace]

Anton, if I am reading this right, you are a right wing authoritarian.

This is a very different test than the one I took many (?) years ago.  My
scores:  -2.63   -7.74  modestly liberal, very libertarian

I wish they had separated the economic and social scores.  My social scores
would be very libertarian.  My economic scores would be a question - I know
little of economics and don't know how certain policies relate to my
values.  But the test would not let me omit a question.  Free market, yes,
but in some cases highly regulated, like the businesses that deal with food
or drugs, for safety's sake.  Others need regulation for pollution
problems.  In other words, a corporation should not be allowed to endanger
anyone, and they will if you let them.  I don't trust people to put their
net profits aside and do good for humanity.  If they had a test for
skepticism I would blow the top out of it.  Sad to say, but my knowledge of
psychology has strongly affected my view of the common man - all too
common.  bill w

On Wed, Dec 30, 2020 at 6:03 PM Anton Sherwood via extropy-chat <
extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote:

> > On 2020-12-30 08:12, Dave Sill via extropy-chat wrote:
> >   > ... I found politicalcompass.org to be harder to answer. There were
> >   > too many questions that I could have answered "strongly disagree" or
> >   > "strongly agree". E.g., the first question:
> >   >
> >   >   If economic globalisation is inevitable, it should primarily
> >   >   serve humanity rather than the interests of trans-national
> >   >   corporations.
> >   >
> >   > I think serving humanity can, and should, be consistent with the
> >   > interests of trans-national corporations.
>
> On 2020-12-30 10:10, Anton Sherwood via extropy-chat wrote:
> > The question seems to assume that globalisation is inevitably managed by
> > regulators, who are either Progressive or corrupt.  Lots of blind spots
> > like that.
>
> Libertarians (especially leftish ones like Roderick Long) often point
> out that regulation creates economies of scale, even when it does not
> actively discourage competition, so corporations would likely be much
> smaller without it.  So a libertarian can agree without much qualm.
>
> I see that I blogged in 2003 (https://bendwavy.org/wp/?p=1162),
> "I suspect I’d be further left if some of the questions were worded
> differently."  Examples:
>
>         It is regrettable that many personal fortunes are made by
>         people who simply manipulate money and contribute nothing
>         to their society.
>
> Speculators in commodities serve society by making prices more
> predictable; they consume fluctuations, not cause them.  On the other
> hand, political distortion of the financial system creates artificial
> opportunities for profit; which part of this picture deserves the focus
> of regret?
>
>         A genuine free market requires restrictions on the
>         ability of predator multinationals to create monopolies.
>
> A genuine free market *is* a restriction on that ability.  So, agree or
> disagree?
>
>         The businessperson and the manufacturer are more
>         important than the writer and the artist.
>
> Unless we're discussing subsidies, who cares?
>
>         Multinational companies are unethically exploiting
>         the plant genetic resources of developing countries.
>
> Are we talking about use, or patents?
>
> My score on this quiz in 2006 was Economic Right 4.63, Social Lib 5.85;
> today it's Right 3.13, Lib 6.97.
>
> See also https://bendwavy.org/wp/?p=1447
>
> --
> *\\*  Anton Sherwood  *\\*  www.bendwavy.org
>
>
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