Who Are You?
I want to get an idea of who my readers are. I have a fair idea of where I get my readers, thanks to the WordPress stats, but I’d to know some things that they don’t tell me. I’d like all readers, including lurkers and occasional readers, to please answer the ALL the following polls. This should be completely anonymous, but feel free to add whatever info you want in the comments.
I want to get an idea of your racial/ethnic background. Multiple choices are permitted on this question. Use the map to the right as a guide for inside Hajnal line area:
I want to get an idea of my readers’ political views. A simple one-dimensional scale isn’t the best representation of political views, so I will use two, social views (e.g., sex, drugs, rock ‘n roll, religion, personal liberties, etc.) and economic views (e.g, free market, regulation, taxation/redistribution, etc.). Left-wing = liberal; right-wing = conservative.
If you’re from North America (i.e., U.S., Canada, and northern Mexico), I’d like to know what region you’re from. Otherwise, please skip. Use this map as a guide (note, Los Angeles County, CA = El Norte; Sacramento County, CA = The Far West; Fulton County, GA [Atlanta] = The Deep South; most of Suffolk County, NY, esp. the east = Yankeedom) Edit: I’ve added Newfoundland:
Results will be shown after a week (i.e., 6/20/14). Again I want all readers, even the occasionally stumblers here, to please answer all the applicable questions. Thank you. I look forward to knowing who I’m reaching!
JayMan's Blog 
I live literally right on the Hajnal line, so I picked “inside” since that’s what my 23andme results suggest.
Thanks for making the survey a) anonymous and b) extremely easy and quick for the lazy like myself to complete. One suggestion – if it’s possible to put multiple questions in one poll, that would give you a better idea of how many people, for example, live in region “A” *and* have political views “B”, instead of just aggregate numbers in each category. Just a thought.
(Alternately, if the poll tracks IP #s to prevent double votes, perhaps you could use that info.)
@pwyll:
I thought about that. Unfortunately, it doesn’t appear that there is a simple method of doing that, other than doing some sort of extremely long single item poll consisting of all permutations.
A two dimensional poll (region vs. politics) or three dimensional (region vs economic vs social) would be ideal, but not available, it seems… 😦
OT, Jayman, but I saw your tweet to George Takei. It made me wonder: if the gay germ hypothesis becomes known to more people outside of science, is that good or bad? Might not activists do their thing and see to it researchers never touch it, never get money? They’ve already tried when Martina Navratilova attacked Chuck Roselli and his studies of sheep, but MN and her group are hardly in the major leagues of activism. They’ve already, IMO, had an effect on the way Roselli and guys like Sanders and Bailey pick and choose their words when discussing the subject. For all we know, they may have already had an effect greater than that.
(BTW, couldn’t help but laugh at Takei’s tweet: did he think he was being profound or something?)
@gfb:
Good question. One might think that the very prospect of a literal disease being behind homosexuality would undo much of the progress that LGBT advocates have achieved on gay rights, especially with the “born that way” model (which I don’t hear repeated explicitly as much, it seems). So they may be quite motivated to put the kibosh on any sort of research.
Note, in the future, please see my Open Discussion Thread for off-topic questions and discussion, thanks!
Jayman, a “Troublemaker in Search of Truth” or a “A Troublemaker for Untruths/Lies/Falsehoods/Liars” (whatever) make more sense than “A Troublemaker for the Truth.” The latter says you’re a guy making trouble for the truth. Just sayin’….
Just wanted to add, it’s one of those ambiguous English uses of “for” that causes the problem. You’re using to mean “on behalf of” but the other common meaning is “concerning, with respect to.”
Okay, I’ve decided maybe I’ve gotten too picky.
I am very interested in seeing how the stats turn out. I am going to go out on a ledge here (not literally of course) and say most of your respondents will be from NE and the Left Coast along with a smattering of other large east coast cities. When are you going to publish the results?
About Sulu’s Tweet, we know from the fate of chromosomally intersex babies in places like Denmark what will happen when the gay gene can be screened for during pregnancy – a holocaust. No one cares about the implications of the gay germ theory, whether or not it is true it brings no new moral or social implications.
Sex – sexual curiosity is normal but irresponsible attitudes in the media are not, so depoliticise sex education
Drugs – legalise ‘soft’ substances and fight toxic drink culture
Religion – I have no strong opinion
Personal liberties – restrict harmful things like abortion and NRTs, save animals, violent realism in games and misogyny in rap lyrics need curtailing, save free speech for reasoned arguments but ban well-funded pressure groups
Economic views – fight usury and corporate monopolies, enforce economic protectionism and curb immigration, regulate the economy, save state benefits for the native disadvantaged (but not counting the obese, drunks or druggies)
I don’t read you regularly. I am an immigrant from East Europe living in the Midwest (but your map assigns it to a “Yankeedom”.) Over the past 15 years grew into a convinced paleocon. Very much an atheist. Drugs: I would legalize everything that’s not more addictive than alcohol.
You could add an “outside US” option to the American nations poll. I bet you have a bunch of non-US readers. German here.
fwiw, the nations question could maybe cause some skewing. i myself was born and raised in the Far West but now live on the left coast. Went with Far West though cause it shapes my views a lot more than left coast has
I was born in the Midlands, but moved to the Left Coast (before it really was left coast) as a kid. I put down Left Coast even though my views are pretty much outliers for the area.
I had a little bit of trouble figuring out how to interpret the question about economic views. I wasn’t sure if “liberal” meant liberal in the American sense or the European/Classical sense, so I had to guess. It might have been clearer if the choices had said something like extremely progressive to extremely liberal, or extremely left-wing to extremely right-wing. And I wonder why you didn’t ask about views on border control and foreign, especially military, policy (which don’t fall neatly into economic or social policies), since I would assume that would seem to be much more relevant to the interests of the people reading your blog.
Lastly, I wanted to comment that I think there’s a big personality difference between the Far West west of the Continental divide and the Far West east of the continental divide. My opinion is that the farther west people moved, the less important (and blurry) the American nations become in comparison to selective effects, and the Rocky Mountains were a pretty important population sieve. For the record, I’m from the west side of the Far West, open-minded and disagreeable.
Left coast. I spent more time in the east though and identify with Yankee-dom more.
Oops, forgot my views:
sex, drugs, religion, personal liberties, etc.) and economic views (e.g, free market, regulation, taxation/redistribution, etc.)
sex – old school, wait for a solid relationship
drugs – no
religion – Christianity has been good for the world, but am atheist
personal liberties – what could be more important?
free market – good, but have govt. weed out scammers & fund basic research if necessary
regulation – good, in general
redistribution – keep govt < 20% or so? (right now it's at 42% – amazing). Like the racist I am, I'm liberal toward my own kind, social darwinist to outsiders.
Just a question about the American Nations here. Do you consider the island of Newfoundland to be part of Yankeedom? Being a clannish native I’d argue we’re our own entity, but I’d like to hear your opinion.
@Anonymous:
And you would be right. I’m sorry, I dropped the ball on that one, and should have added Newfoundland to the polls. Will change it now!
Thanks for the survey; while I don’t share most of your political/economic views, I think your analysis and writing are quite superb.
i’d have prefered two options for “where I’m from”
The Far West including Alaska and certain parts of Canada holds 4% of the population but occupies 25% of the Land Area so you could call it The Empty Quarter if you wished.
@Tommy O’Brien:
You mean in the style of The Nine Nations of North America? That book is, in my view, inferior to Woodard’s. Where any of Garreau’s nations have any validity, it is because they copy (to some extent) Woodard’s. Garreau’s “Empty Quarter” is merely Woodard’s “Far West” + “First Nation”.