Politics in AGS

[Igor Hardy]

That's all very well, but in that capitalist's view the company is still (even if indirectly) responsible for the welfare of the employers. In fact, he argues that the employers benefit strongly from the company's behavior and that it's a good and moral thing in every possible way. So he can't then go on to say: "The only social responsibility of a company should be to deliver a profit to its shareholders."

I'm only questioning the logic of that sentence in the context of a "caring capitalist", not the soundness of some specific social/economical strategies when applied in practice.

[Anian]

Giving jobs to people is ok, a few things that are wrong are:
- often children work
- often working conditions are not appropriate
- they pay change to the workers -> small price of manufacturing -> they pay a marketing firm, a celebrity for promotion etc.

If the only social responsibility is profit, then why not blow up a competitor's factory, why not have slaves instead of workers...

[LRH]

Giving jobs to people is ok, a few things that are wrong are:
- often children work
- often working conditions are not appropriate
- they pay change to the workers -> small price of manufacturing -> they pay a marketing firm, a celebrity for promotion etc.

If the only social responsibility is profit, then why not blow up a competitor's factory, why not have slaves instead of workers...

Well, at the very least, because they adhere to the laws of the land. It may be legal to pay next to nothing, but it isn't legal to hold slaves or commit arson, and if they did, they would get into legal trouble...therefore bad for the company as a whole, etc etc.

EDIT:
Also I think an update is in order.

[Baron]

Well, I guess I'll be hanging out with Bicilotti and RickJ.....



Economic 5.75 (right), Social  -0.31 (libertarian)

Like RickJ I thought all that "Multi-national Corporation" bogeyman nonsense added a laughable degree of bias to the survey.  Still, I ended up more or less where I expected economically.   I figured (also like RickJ) that I'd be more of a libertarian, but I guess deep down I'm cool with wrong-doers getting their ass kicked.  Still, that must have cancelled out some equally libertarian radicalism to land me back in the centre....

      Of all the hippy ranting I've read so far I thought Leafshade's theory of the right trusting the electorate and the left trusting the establishment was the most insightful.  I agree with him that the electorate is basically selfish and stupid, but he loses me arguing for more control for the "establishment".  Surely the "establishment" is as culpable, if not more so, for the pre-existing ills that they (supposedly) are so valiantly striving to remedy?  To my mind, laws govern real people, so real people can provide the best feedback as to whether those laws are desirable or not.  Are real people an inconvenience in utopia-building?  You bet!  But if your hippy climate-change legislation gets shot down because doubling gas-prices will sink a couple million voting citizens financially I don't see how your "value all humans" agenda is forwarded.  Suddenly their kids aren't eating.  I know!  Let's regulate a school lunch program paid out of taxes!  Oh, wait, we just lost 50% of tax revenue by beaming the economy back to the mid-twentieth century.  Well, heck, let's borrow!  Oh wait.... is there anyone from Ireland in the house?  Greece?  Britain?  Having fun with that deficit reduction thing yet?
       If these ideas like stopping climate change aren't moving forward consider that there is a reason, and it is that real people will be adversely impacted in a serious way.  The trick is to make these changes more palatable, easing folk into lifestyle changes rather than setting their living standard back 60 years with some "establishment" regulation regime that will save the world.  Don't fight the market, baby, use it.

      I guess I've said my piece.  Go on, vilify me.  I said VILIFY!

[GarageGothic]

There, fixed it for you:

Well, I guess I'll be hanged with Bicilotti and RickJ.....

Viva La Revolución! 

[Baron]

Well, I guess I'll be hanged with Bicilotti and RickJ.....

Hey, that's a misquote!  Are you getting all multinational-corporation-misinformation-disseminating on my ass?

[Barricus]

Well, I guess I'll be hanged with Bicilotti and RickJ.....

Hey, that's a misquote!  Are you getting all multinational-corporation-misinformation-disseminating on my ass?

Don't listen to him, he's part of the bourgeois aristocracy!    Anyhoo, I got:
Economic Left/Right: -1.75
Social Libertarian/Authoritarian: -6.21 

Once again, a test shows that I'm a Left leaning Libertarian and I'm never surprised.  I had a friend who got in the Upper Right corner under Facist. 

[Khris]

I don't get why some complain about the questions; I don't think the explanation they gave in the FAQ is a lame excuse for being caught trying to push people to the left/right (both? oh, wait).

Say there's a test that had only one question: "Is it OK to shoot people you don't like in the head?" As long as the creator of the test doesn't claim it is a perfect tool for finding out whether someone is a psychopath, why even bother saying things like "the test is bad because...".
So until you find out that the evaluation is completely messed up, please just do the test and find out where you stand relative to others that took the test.

[Bulbapuck]

Ended up in the cluster, can't even see myself on the crowd chart

Economic: -4.25 (left), Social: -6.15 (libertarian)

[Snarky]

Well, it's pretty obviously biased. Their assertion that "some right-wingers" claim it has a leftish biased and "some left-wingers" claim it's biased the other way--and that implicitly, this means it must be balanced--strikes me as a pretty dishonest way of obscuring that issue. They're poisoning the well by painting their critics as extremists, and I highly doubt that the two stacks of complaints are comparable in size. I consider myself on the left/anti-authoritarian side (and their test places me in that quadrant, so they're not in a position to disagree), not a right-winger by any stretch, but I would still say that it's ludicrously biased to the left.

Also, if you read the FAQ and the other articles on the site, you can see that the assumptions are consistently left-leaning, and that the site has a clear agenda: showing that you are to the left of the politicians you admire and vote for. That's why I think the placing of the politicians is the most objectionable part of the test: they're clearly positioned based on the authors' cherry-picking of particular decisions, instead of their overall philosophy (or, you know, actual answers to the questions). This creates a completely opposite bias for politicians, which is in my opinion the main reason why they form a separate cluster in the top right. Like I mentioned earlier, when I simulated George W. Bush taking the test, he ended up much closer to the middle (which is reasonable, since he is not among the most conservative politicians even in his party).

[Dualnames]

It seems to me, that I'm joining InCreator. I found the test rather dumb really.


LINK TO ADD YOURSELF

[Gudforby]

I took Gandhis place 

Oh, what a good man I am...

[GarageGothic]

Well, it's pretty obviously biased. Their assertion that "some right-wingers" claim it has a leftish biased and "some left-wingers" claim it's biased the other way--and that implicitly, this means it must be balanced--strikes me as a pretty dishonest way of obscuring that issue.

You're missing the point. They never claimed it was "balanced" because both right- and left-wingers have found it biased, it's not about being "equally" slanted in either direction. Their point was simply that yes, the statements are written as response triggers and people from both ends of the spectrum were pointing this out to them.

[InCreator]

If the only social responsibility is profit, then why not blow up a competitor's factory, why not have slaves instead of workers...

In capitalist system, workers are slaves pretty much.
Just compare profits and wages.

[Shane 'ProgZmax' Stevens]

I added myself yesterday but didn't realize the chart doesn't actually save the info so I went ahead and re-added myself again..

I also agree that several of these questions are loaded in the sense that they already presume conditions and then force choices on you when those conditions aren't necessarily something you'd agree with in the first place.  




BLARGH THIS URL IS BIG

[m0ds]

Well bicilotti, after last nights discussion, I did it  : You were right, 15 mins!

Economic Left/Right: -2.88
Social Libertarian/Authoritarian: -2.36

I found the test rather dumb really.

Same

[Gudforby]

I added myself yesterday but didn't realize the chart doesn't actually save the info so I went ahead and re-added myself again..

Same here...




The new URL

[Bulbapuck]

Huh? it doesn't?

Added myself:

[Atelier]

I'm sticking out like a sore thumb up there.

[Ponch]

I'm sticking out like a sore thumb up there.

Boom! Reinforcements have arrived!

Also, I'd like to point out that the AGS community is full of damn dirty hippies. Get a haircut and get a job you hippies!

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Edit: Because ProgZ told me to