The Six-Triangle Test of Political Philosophy

Even if these things are simply click-bait, I can’t resist taking online tests and quizzes that ostensibly reveal a person’s philosophical outlook.

• The Political Compass test (I’m a “right libertarian”).
• The Definitive Political Orientation Test (Once again, I’m a “right libertarian”).
• The Circle Test (I’m a “minarchist”).
• The Libertarian Purity test (I’m a “hard-core libertarian”).
• The 8 Values test (I’m a “libertarian capitalist”).
• The World’s Smallest Political Quiz (I’m a “100-percent libertarian”).
• The 5-Dimensional quiz (I’m a “conservative libertarian total-isolationist nationalist traditionalist”).
• The Political Sextant Quiz (I’m 92 percent for “minarchism”)
• The Communism Test (thankfully, with a score of 6 percent, I’m “not communist”).

Today, I’m writing about another version. It’s called the Six-Triangle Test and it’s supposedly special because you get three-dimensional analyses of your approach to various issues.

You can take a 72-question test or a 144-question test, depending on how much time you have (or your tolerance level).

As is often the case, I think some of the questions are poorly worded. For instance, there are people in Bangladesh who presumably work much harder than any of us, yet they don’t make much money because what actually matters is productivity per hour worked. So this question left me with mixed feelings. I assume I should answer “strongly agree,” but that’s not technically accurate.

Likewise, I wanted to answer “strongly disagree” on this next statement because I assume that would be the most pro-free market answer. That being said, while I view capitalism as a system that generates mass prosperity, doesn’t the existence of “public goods” suggest that it’s not the answer to everything?

I also wasn’t sure how to respond to this statement about international cooperation. Does that mean open trade? If so, my response is “strongly agree.” But if cooperation means a global tax cartel, my answer is “strongly disagree.”

Here’s one more example. Does free education mean dumping kids into sub-par government schools? Or does it mean comprehensive school choice? Needless to say, there are wildly different answers depending on how the statement is interpreted (for what it’s worth, I’m assuming “strongly agree” is interpreted as a left-wing answer).

I realize that I’m being somewhat pedantic, but I figure I should share my concerns.

In any event, before giving my results, I want to nit-pick one other aspect of the test.

It’s designed to measure your ideology on six different issues – economics, personal freedom, culture, equality, government, and foreign policy. And it uses three different ways of measuring those six issues.

In many cases, such as the approach to economics, I think this makes a lot of sense. Your answers determine whether you want socialism (“control”), laissez-faire (“markets”), or a mixed approach (“regulation”).

That being said, I don’t like how they measure responses to equality. More specifically, “burden” implies that if you oppose redistribution, then you somehow don’t want others to succeed.

At the risk of stating the obvious, redistribution tends to trap people in poverty and dependency. At the very least, the description is misguided.

With that final bit of grousing out of the way, here are my results.

But that doesn’t tell you much unless you know what the symbols mean.

So here are my results for each category, based on the three variables.

Other than my already-discussed qualms about the way equality is measured, I’m happy with the results. I am a fanatic for markets over government, I have a minarchist view of government as opposed to statism (or anarcho-capitalism), and otherwise believe in freedom.

Regarding the results for equality, I am pleased that I got 0% for equality of outcomes. In other words, nobody can accuse me of having Kamala Harris’ warped point of view.

P.S. Here’s the link again to the test if you want to take it. Feel free to share your results in the comments section, along with any analysis.

P.P.S. I don’t object to “moderate isolationism” as a summary of my views on foreign policy, but don’t understand why I got 31.3 percent for “imperialism” and also wonder whether they use the right definition of globalism (i.e., globalization rather than global governance).