Talk:Pournelle chart

message: Is it indeed similar to the Nolan Chart?  The only similarity I see is that they are both two dimensional.
: That is the only similarity.  That part needs to be revised.  Harvestdancer 22:33, 14 Dec 2004 (UTC)
thread_title: Similar to the Nolan Chart?

message: With a heavy heart I put this article on the "Votes for Deletion" page, because it is non-unique.  All the information on this page is on the page Political Spectrum Harvestdancer 16:00, 19 May 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: This page was up for VFD.  I'm the one who nominated it.  I'm glad to see it survived though. Harvestdancer 14:55, 31 May 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Vote for deletion

message: This page is in dire need of a criticism section. I'm sure at least leftist anarchists would feel insulted by the chart deeming their ideology "irrational" (many of whom would probably label rightist libertarianism irrational). It would seem that the chart is little more than propaganda for the right libertarian agenda. ——Quirk 13:09, 2 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I think you misunderstood the word "irrational" in this article.  It doesn't mean that a political view of this sort is irrational, but that the people with these views do not believe that human rationality can turn society into a perfect world.  Pournelle himself is towards the "irrational" end of this spectrum, so it certainly isn't meant as pejorative.  I've edited it a bit to make this more clear. Lawrence King 05:28, 15 February 2006 (UTC)

text: The general policy should be discussed at the talk page of WP:PRIMARY. AnonMoos (talk) 14:57, 19 March 2017 (UTC)
thread_title:  Criticism 

message: "This article relies too much on references to primary sources. Please improve this by adding secondary or tertiary sources" This is without doubt the stupidest criticism I have ever read. The notion that secondary or tertiary sources improve an article is ridiculous. It is like saying that 'To Kill a Mockingbird' was improved by The New York Times review of it. 
Now that my spleen is vented, I think Pournelle's Axes lacks secondary material because it is not currently fashionable among political scientists, so no one writes about it. That's a pity. I find it useful. That is, I find it distinguishes political positions better than the Left-Right labels that came from the French Revolution.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 180.229.94.66 (talk) 05:59, 8 March 2017 (UTC)
replies: text: The general policy should be discussed at the talk page of WP:PRIMARY. AnonMoos (talk) 14:57, 19 March 2017 (UTC)
thread_title: 2017

message: Based on Jerry Pournelle's comments, how can we improve the article? I think that it's inconsistent to move his initial comments to Discussion, but then to insert his latest comments in the article. That does even less to improve the article than his initial comments, so can we now start looking to improve the article, and drop the negativity? I've suggested to J.E.P. that he put up a web page with his definitive version, but he is busy and currently (as he says) does not pay any attention to Wikipedia. Can we improve the article and (respectfully) improve his attitude? Stereoroid 17:59, 15 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I've left a note for the editor who created the chart with the term "irrational" in it. The other criticism is harder to address. We refer to "lefist idealogies", but only to indicate where they fit on the chart. The "criticisms" section is unsourced and I wouldn't mind seeing it removed entirely. -Will Beback · † · 19:42, 15 November 2006 (UTC)

text: JP claims that his two variables are a particularly good choice because they are, he says, uncorrelated. He provides no proof for that position. Mulling over the weirdness of this all, it occurs to me that he is using uncorrelated in a rather loose sense, and all he really wanted to say is that positions everywhere in his diagram are tenable and in fact taken by some group or other. It is all very weak sauce with this fellow. 2A01:CB0C:CD:D800:F41D:502F:BDE9:C7BD (talk) 16:00, 12 September 2023 (UTC)
thread_title:  Suggestions for improvement? 

message: :JP claims that his two variables are a particularly good choice because they are, he says, uncorrelated. He provides no proof for that position. Mulling over the weirdness of this all, it occurs to me that he is using uncorrelated in a rather loose sense, and all he really wanted to say is that positions everywhere in his diagram are tenable and in fact taken by some group or other. It is all very weak sauce with this fellow. 2A01:CB0C:CD:D800:F41D:502F:BDE9:C7BD (talk) 16:00, 12 September 2023 (UTC)
thread_title: 2023

message: It´s Max Stirner, not Max Stiner. Would someone fix it?
:I just noticed that myself. How can it be fixed? --RayBirks (talk) 05:15, 4 May 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: I was just about to mention this, but I see that others noticed first. You need someone who can edit the image. I'm StillStanding (24/7) (talk) 02:58, 18 September 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  Max StiRner misspelled in the chart 

message: I hope it doesn't upset anyone, but this page needs some sort of overhaul in terms of POV and/or accuracy.  Just reading the article and judging by the discussion on this talk page, there is some disagreement over the wording of the chart--apparently with Jerry Pournelle himself?  The criticism section in particular needs work--it seems at present to be more of an apology for misleading wording in the chart (specifically "irrational") rather than a clear explanation of what was meant by it or a good summary of notable criticisms of Pournelle's typology.--Pariah (talk) 02:01, 30 April 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  NPOV tag 

message: here are a couple of pretty "utopian", if you will, things that they planned and more or less carried out: massacre and/or sterilization of the mentally ill, encouragement of migration of urban youth to rural areas (to escape "corrupting" influence of cities), massive road building campaign, anti-smoking propaganda campaign, pro-natalist program of an intensity unseen before or since, large scale population transfers (especially in Poland). Where do you see any belief in "irrationality" of social planning here? They were no less activist in terms of planning and social engineering than contemporary Socialists and Communists. It's just that their activism was in a somewhat different direction.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.24.104.52 (talk) 06:00, 27 April 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: I was just reading this page and thought the exact same thing, the Nazi's were the ultimate rationalists. They were also classic utopian's at least in the beginning - things like the final solution were actually designed/intended to clear the world to make it ready for their future utopia. Although they were 'anti-communist' this largely stems from political rivalry, the two ideologies were really very similar in many ways. Nazi is a contraction of National Socialist - they called themselves socialists because they were socialists. Of course they do also belong on the bottom of the chart - they were fascists. It doesn't really affect the article but like all such models I guess this one kind of breaks down here. Lucien86 (talk) 12:49, 9 June 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: The Nazis were socialists like the Democratic People's Republic of Korea is a democratic republic of the people. The rhetoric of socialism has been used from the beginning by authoritarians seeking approval from the people. If I want to sell you a bill of goods, I'll learn to speak your language and tell you what you want to hear. That doesn't mean I actually give a flip about you, or want what's best for you, or believe anything I'm telling you. Socialism, above all else, means worker control of the means of production. Any ideology that doesn't entail that critical ideological nugget can be called whatever its proponents wish to call it, but it isn't socialism. Since the ideological nugget of Nazism (and all other strains of fascism) is authoritarianism, it isn't socialism, no matter what it's called.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.241.218.107 (talk) 05:37, 13 July 2009 (UTC)
replies: text:  You can define "socialism" any way you want to define it, comrade, no skin off my back. However, as you might have noticed, I am not arguing here that Nazis were or were not socialists. I am arguing that they were UTOPIAN and believed in SOCIAL ENGINEERING. See my point, Mr. worker controlled means of production?  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.24.104.52 (talk) 01:23, 10 October 2009 (UTC)

text:  I like Roderick Long's argument that capitalism is an anti-concept because it means two incompatible things simultaneously, and socialism is also an anti-concept because it mostly is defined as the opposite of capitalism.  I don't know where that leaves fascism! —Tamfang (talk) 21:27, 13 July 2012 (UTC)

text: I don't think "Intuitive" or "Emotive" are appropriate descriptors at all. This is not an issue of one extreme being more or less rational, or more or less scientific, or more or less meticulous in their experimentation and peer review. "Irrational" thinking simply means that the (still rational) individual SEES progress as an INHERENTLY irrational or chaotic process, one that cannot be engineered or planned. These people wouldn't necessarily be any less strict about critical and empirical examination, but they would likely design their strategies around a chaotic model. For the Nazi example, they might have strategically chosen to manipulate demographics and exterminate people in order to limit negative chaotic effects, or something like that. The fact that they enacted social policies doesn't mean they believed in rationally planned social progress (social engineering does NOT mean "progress" engineering), they could have just believed in eliminating obstacles that made natural progress more difficult for (gentile) citizens. I would propose labeling the two ends "Progress is Rational" and "Progress is Chaotic/Irrational" to make this clearer.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 72.230.232.184 (talk) 07:29, 21 October 2009 (UTC)

text: You're using the word 'rational' as a synonym for 'sane', or some such, which is NOT the sense meant by 'rational' in Pournelle's article, nor this article (q.v.), nor the previous comments. —Tamfang (talk) 23:24, 2 June 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: I'm not and I'm sorry if I gave that impression.  How might I clarify my words? Hga (talk) 14:27, 3 June 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  The Nazis didn't believe in utopian social planning? Are you kidding me? 

message: Has there been reliable 3rd party analysis of this chart in political science? Apart from Wikipedia mirrors and some bloggers, who seem to have largely based their understanding on this article, I see no significant results in any form of Google search. The first external link is an appendix by Pournelle in one of his sci-fi novels, the second is a 404 blog post. The AFD debate says it should be expanded as its own topic. That's tricky when you can't find sources. —Mrwojo (talk) 17:20, 25 February 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: I can not find any NPOV third-party political science analysis of this chart as of July 13, 2012. But, keep it anyway. Geraldshields11 (talk) 14:34, 13 July 2012 (UTC)
thread_title: Sources

message: # I changed “Stiner” to “Stirner” in :File:Pournelle chart color.gif. I do not know which font settings the original creator has used, but hope it looks fitting.
# While Pournelle commented “I do not believe I have used the word "irrational" in any discussion of this model”, the chart appeared with the word irrational in Destinies (vol. 2, no. 2) (see also here), though I do not know whether it was designed this way by him (maybe it was the editor Jim Baen?). We could write antirational instead.
# The article says “in his 1963 political science Ph.D. dissertation”, but here (UW Libraries Search) the publication date of the thesis (The American political continuum; an examination of the validity of the left-right model as an instrument for studying contemporary American political "isms.") is given as 1964.
-- IvanP (talk) 01:25, 5 February 2018 (UTC)
thread_title:  1963? 

message: Has anybody else noticed that you could flip this chart left-for-right and have an alignment chart for AD&D?2602:30A:2CFA:6360:A5A6:AC2A:1D91:951 (talk) 19:40, 18 April 2018 (UTC)
thread_title:  Curious thing