herrcaptain ,

That's not a bad idea to take it separately for both my frames of mind.

I hear you on being a "radical moderate". Maybe 7-10 years ago I had a period where I thought of myself as a centrist because, despite being generally quite left-leaning, in certain areas I sit more toward the middle. I've since refrained from referring to myself in that way as the Overton window has shifted do far right that I no longer feel it's correct. Furthermore, I see centrism these days (and in retrospect, back then too) as the domain of fence-sitters.

Philosophically I've "identified" as an anarchist since my teens and many years later that still forms the core of my beliefs. However, I'm also rather pessimistic about people as a whole and believe humanity hasn't reached a point where that's feasible outside of small dedicated groups of like-minded people (like communes or worker's co-ops). In my opinion, the average individual is either too self-interested or naive at this stage of our social development. Thus, if anarchism were suddenly attempted on a national scale it would inevitably devolve into strongmen rising up and returning us to something like feudalism. (The same direction I feel we're heading under unfettered capitalism.)

However, I also don't trust the state to have too much power and am thus not explicitly a socialist (outside of my philosophical belief in libertarian socialism as an anarchist). As such I find a market-based economy acceptable so long as it's very-well regulated to protect people from the whims of corporations (who I trust least of all), and with an extensive social safety net (or better yet, UBI) to go with it. Functionally, in practice, I'm on the left side of social democracy with a touch of Marxism thrown in, but in a few very specific economic areas I lean more to the right. There's way more to it than that, but as you can see I'm all over the place and as much as I find political tests fun, none can ever properly place me on their spectrum. I suspect I'm not alone - people who give this stuff a reasonable degree of thought are unlikely to be so easily packaged up into neat little boxes.

Anyway, thank you for posting this quiz, and I genuinely appreciate the conversation. I have a degree in political science but don't get to discuss it as much as I'd like these days other than the few times a year I get together with friends. (Or with friendly strangers online.)

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