Anonymouswizard's Random Banter #227 and Free Cup of Tea

[Aedilred]

easydamus.com/alignmenttest.html



Yes, it took me many tries in the past which I got Lawful Good and Neutral Good. So I got the right question which the results are Chaotic Neutral.

I've seen this test a few times and almost started filling it in again before I remembered that it annoyed me so much that to complain about it here would be a better use of my time than completing it.

Let's start with question 1. 1. Family elders are expressing disapproval of you to the rest of the family. Do you:

Who are these "family elders"? What is the extent of their disapproval? Is what they are saying true? How large is this family and how influential is it to my life? Do you mean "my grandparents"? Or is this more of a clan situation where the family elders are more like an informal government? In which case how am I supposed to relate to that?

Bringing it back to my own experience, the "elders" of my own family (my grandparents) expressed disapproval of me to other members, and to my face, fairly regularly. What I actually did was ignore it. That option is not available.

2. Would you give up a promising career to aid the family in time of need?

Again, "the family". Am I a member of the cosa nostra? Is this some sort of Waco situation? Are we talking about the Manson family? What is this need and who needs my help? Is it a particular member of the family, or just "the family" in general? How much do they need my help: is it essential, or just nice to have? If we're talking about "the family" as a whole, wouldn't the best thing to help their interests to be to continue with my career and use that to promote their interests, or pass on the money I make?

If it's a member of the family, which member? A sibling? My parents? My child? A distant cousin? The weird pervy uncle I've never liked?

Let's leave aside "The Family" because that's obviously causing problems, and move on to the next series of questions about friends.

7. A powerful but corrupt judge offers you wealth if you'll testify against your friend. Do you:

What is my friend accused of? Do I think he's guilty? Surely these are the key questions? Is this a case where he is guilty but the prosecution will fail unless I testify? Or is he innocent and the judge wants me to set him up? Is he on trial for his life, for scrumping apples, or is it a question of a two-week deferred commuity service program after burning down an orphanage?

It's a question where the right thing to do is completely dependent on the context. Obviously, you shouldn't take the money, but everything else is up in the air. And why does it matter that he's my friend anyway? Surely the right thing to do is the right thing to do even if I don't know him from Adam?

8. Do you become close to friends, or hold most people at a safe distance?

These two things are not mutually exclusive.

9. Have you ever betrayed a friend?

What do we mean by "betrayal" here? Have I lied to a friend? Yes. Have I passed on information told to me in confidence? Yes, occasionally. Have I stolen from a friend? No.

Have I done things which friends have considered a betrayal even though I didn't and don't? Almost certainly.

It's too subjective. We need specificity.

10. How do you view lifelong commitment to a single romantic partner?

Here it's not the question that's the problem, it's the answers. They're too strongly worded, and make no real allowance for people who aren't interested in romance at all. The second one is the closest to a neutral response but there's still no middle ground between "really want that romantic ideal but am prepared to be realistic" and "want to sleep around", and I suspect that middle ground is probably where most people actually fall.

11. Do you insist on repayment when lending money to friends?

OK, this one is a bit better. It would still be useful to know how much money we're talking about. If I'm going to lend a friend £10,000, I'm probably going to treat that a bit more seriously than buying them a kebab when they've forgotten their wallet. Still though there's no option to just "forget about it"; even the "nicest" option is to say they just owe me a favour, whereas for small debts, forgetting about it might genuinely be the norm. I suppose we are talking specifically about loans rather than gifts, and there is more nuance than usual, but there is still a problem of context.

And it goes on like this.

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I think what bothers me most is that the way the questions are devised encourages you to think about what alignment you think you are, and then pick the option that seems most likely to correspond with it, rather than answering the question in isolation and then discovering the answer at the end. It doesn't provide any useful output. At best, it provides some prompts to think about what alignment you're really in.

Which makes it doubly curious that it took BMH several goes to get the "right" answer...