Fun Ways To Waste Time

There are many ways to waste time on the internet. Now before "the web" internet porn was not really one of the ways to waste time. I am sure it was there, but it was not as easy to get to. Before the web everything was IRC (chat), FTP (files), or this silly thing called "Gopher" - which was like a text only version of the web without things like Google and stuff. The map of the entire internet would fit on a wall.

And yet, people still found ways to make do. In 1992 when I was at UF the big thing was "the purity test". If you Google for it you will probably find a bunch of versions. The test was something like 100 questions about all manners of deviant things, which you would rate yourself in a 1 to 5 scale type deal. Then you would do some math to come up with your pervert or holy score, depending on which way you wanted to go. You had to do the math because the test on the computer was text only. The higher your score the more pure you were.

When some fool brought this into the dorm I got past maybe 10 questions before the ADD kicked in and I lost all interest. 100 questions? Are you for real?

My preferred method of wasting time was playing Scorched Earth, a game which can still be found to this day! It was that good. Simple, yet destructive.

Today there are a billion similar tests. And many web based games. And of course, porn. The internet has become a vast sea of smut, with islands here and there that are not porn related. My little island is more like an Atoll - only above the mean water level at low tide. but my civil engineers are working on some sort of flood control device.

Anyway, this test keeps popping up on blogs and stuff.

YES! A political test. Click the graph to take it yourself. It is only 10 questions, and each question has but three choices. Yes, no, maybe. Pretty simple. And not too many questions so that people like me get bored.

With only 10 questions, and only three answers for each question, my chart came out fairly accurately. For me at least. I would have charted myself very closely to what the test came up with.

Now the really cool part is the statistics. Almost 9 million have taken the test. Now even if you take the test more than once "just to see what happens" if you answer yes or no to all the questions, or try to manipulate your answers so that a particular result comes up - 9 million is still a large sample.

Centrist 33.39 %

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Right (Conservative) 8.84 %

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Libertarian 32.66 %

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Left (Liberal) 17.22 %

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Statist (Big Government) 7.89 %

This is how people have scored so far. As can be expected, most respondents are centrists. And what is a centrist?

Middle of the road people. Depending on the issue, you may support either a more conservative or more liberal view.

But look at the numbers for conservatives! 8.84%. And yet, conservatives account for nearly HALF the power base. "Liberals" account for only 17.22%, not a majority of respondents but by far more common than those on the right. Statists account for the least common result.

But what about Libertarian? They are the second most common result, only slightly behind centrists. So why do they have no representation on the federal level?

The answer lies a little bit deeper. You have to fool with the test. If you agree with all the questions, you score 100% on both economic and social issues. If you disagree with them all you score 0% on both economic and social issues. A score of 100% on both charts you as a super duper libertarian. A score of 0% charts you as a super duper statist.

Now scoring 100% on economic issues suggests that you answered all the questions "correctly". Scoring 0% implies you got them all wrong. According to this test, the "correct" answer leads you to libertarian! Answering wrong sends you to the statist side, and a mix of correct and incorrect makes you everything else.

Statist bad, Libertarian good. By this test anyway. If I had to guess, I would bet my money that whoever made this test votes Libertarian. But that is just a guess.