[PLUG-TALK] Rate Your Position on the Political Compass

Rich Shepard rshepard at appl-ecosys.com
Sun Jan 8 03:41:04 UTC 2006


On Sat, 7 Jan 2006, Keith Lofstrom wrote:

> Rich, you are a good friend and often bring us cool stuff, but this time I
> feel like a doting cat owner when Fluffy proudly presents a dead mouse.
> Unlike Fluffy, you are wise enough to see why some of us might not enjoy
> the dead mouse (except in a twisted watch-the-train-wreck sense), so I am
> risking this posting in anticipation of your forbearance.

Keith,

   Are you sure it's a mouse and not a vole? If you were storing hay you'd
probably like to see a collection of dead herbivores each day. You might
consider buying a copy of the "Road-Kill Cookbook." Great dinner ideas. :-)

   I have no particular interests one way or another on how folks view that
particular test. Yes, there are multiple aspects of each question, and most
can be answer with, "well, it depends on the situation." However, I did not
find it difficult to take a broad view and agree or disagree (mildly or
strongly) with each question.

   What your comments reveal, Keith, is that you are in the category of people
who see not only the trees rather than the whole forest, but focus on the
twigs on the trees. Don't get me wrong: no particular perspective is "good"
or "bad", "better" or "worse." They are just different.

   I learned a very long time ago that while I can deal with detail, I prefer
the broader landscape. I had a terrible time in my 'ology' courses
(especially Comparative Anatomy --  which involved memorizing hundreds of bones,
muscles, and organs -- and Organic Chemistry -- which involved memorizing
hundreds of chemical reactions) because they were all detail and no larger
context. I guess that's why I like Ecology so much: I also discovered that
I'm a synthesizer, able to take disparate pieces and see how they fit
together to make a functioning whole. It just comes naturally to me. So, I
try to work at that level because that's what I do best.

   The world needs all kinds of people: the synthesizers, the detail oriented
folks who are so intent on the intricacies of the gears that they don't see
that it's a watch when you stand back a bit.

   You and Jeme are welcome to poo-poo the political compass test to your
collective hearts' delights. When dealing with belief systems and values one
can always find holes and exceptions to any set of questions or attempts at
classification. That's why the news media (what's left of journalism, anyway)
pushes oversimplified concepts such as "red states" and "blue states". There
are no such things, but it's easier than trying to explain the complexity of
political reality when you have only a little space to fill between the ads.

Rich

-- 
Richard B. Shepard, Ph.D.               |   Author of "Quantifying Environmental
Applied Ecosystem Services, Inc. (TM)   |  Impact Assessments Using Fuzzy Logic"
<http://www.appl-ecosys.com>     Voice: 503-667-4517         Fax: 503-667-8863



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