General Election 2024

Skimming through the posts about political compass tests and all, reminded me of a online questionnaire to help voters on the water elections in the Netherlands. It's the only elections I could vote in when I moved here, so I took a look to see which of the 427 parties aligned most with my views.

The thing is, the questionnaire was hard. I only remember a few bits of it, but it had stuff like:

• there are loads of water rats. Nothing wrong with them per se, but it costs us a bit to manage our infrastructure because they do eat through stuff. Would you rather let them be and pay up (yes, it's nature, let's go) or use some resources to control the population and have extra funds for other stuff (yes I guess that could be ok too, dunno?)
  
• do you think all waters should be swimmable? Like, yeah, sure. I mean, all of them? Erm, dunno. If not all, should it be closer to urban centres (yay, clean water for people) or remote (yay, clean water for animals)
  
• in times of scarcity, should water access be prioritised for human consumption (of course), food production (of course), or animals (oh, of course)
  
  

What was interesting is the way that each question had consequences to it, implied or explicit. Like, to do X will require Y, so pretty soon you get the sense that uh oh I'm not sure ALL of it can be done, so what is actually important to me, and what do I need to be comfortable with my choices? Framing choice from a pov of scarcity was useful, particularly when each question had an explanation of how each party positioned themselves in that issue, and why.

It seemed so adult. Of course political discourse seems to be going to shit here like everywhere else because humans suck, but anyway, just thought I'd share.