2-HeadedGiraffe: Politics, from "poly" meaning many, and "ticks" which are blood-sucking arachnids
The quiz Fuzmeister linked to and just about everyone seems to have taken now was fairly short, not extremely detailed in any way, and led to results which many of those who have taken it consider questionable, at best. In order to accurately guage someone's political viewpoints, you could use a much longer test, or perhaps some other method altogether.
That being said, I'm definately in favor of something like this. In fact, I've suggested (partially seriously, at times) using a system not unlike this to replace voting. See, my problem with voting is that you get a large number of people who don't understand the issues, don't really know much about the candidates, but are swayed by the more expensive or persuasive smear campaign (side note: it would be interesting to see how often the more expensive does win. I don't know). Letting anyone vote is like asking everyone in the country for advice. You wouldn't ask someone who knows nothing about cars for advice on your vehicle. Why are we asking people who know nothing about government to make crucial decisions about it?
So my proposal is this: you go to the polls, you take a survey to determine where you stand on the key issues, and the system automatically votes for the candidate that's the best match for you. The questions would ask how you feel about different things, as well as how important they are to you, so that the biggest issues for you could be weighted more heavily when it casts your vote. Where your vote goes could probably be determined by simply matching your results against those of the candidates themselves, almost like some sort of political dating service. In this way, the people would still pick their own leaders, but it would circumvent the problem of voter ignorance.
Yes, I'm sure this system would have its own problems, and purists will probably say it's not democratic, but come on people! Try a little something new.
Mood: Fine, I suppose
Music: The click of keys and the hum of the laptop's fan
Etc: My Lexar jumpdrive
The quiz Fuzmeister linked to and just about everyone seems to have taken now was fairly short, not extremely detailed in any way, and led to results which many of those who have taken it consider questionable, at best. In order to accurately guage someone's political viewpoints, you could use a much longer test, or perhaps some other method altogether.
That being said, I'm definately in favor of something like this. In fact, I've suggested (partially seriously, at times) using a system not unlike this to replace voting. See, my problem with voting is that you get a large number of people who don't understand the issues, don't really know much about the candidates, but are swayed by the more expensive or persuasive smear campaign (side note: it would be interesting to see how often the more expensive does win. I don't know). Letting anyone vote is like asking everyone in the country for advice. You wouldn't ask someone who knows nothing about cars for advice on your vehicle. Why are we asking people who know nothing about government to make crucial decisions about it?
So my proposal is this: you go to the polls, you take a survey to determine where you stand on the key issues, and the system automatically votes for the candidate that's the best match for you. The questions would ask how you feel about different things, as well as how important they are to you, so that the biggest issues for you could be weighted more heavily when it casts your vote. Where your vote goes could probably be determined by simply matching your results against those of the candidates themselves, almost like some sort of political dating service. In this way, the people would still pick their own leaders, but it would circumvent the problem of voter ignorance.
Yes, I'm sure this system would have its own problems, and purists will probably say it's not democratic, but come on people! Try a little something new.
Mood: Fine, I suppose
Music: The click of keys and the hum of the laptop's fan
Etc: My Lexar jumpdrive
![[Valid RSS]](themes/test2/valid-rss.png "Validate my RSS feed")