Young people are flocking to astrology • Hacker News Board

Re: Young people are flocking to astrology

#121

Post by mise_en_place » Mon, Jul 24, 2023, 6:10 AM UTC

2Gkashmiri wrote: post #98

mise_en_place wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Indians often do this with marriages, by checking the astrological compatibility. All of it honestly seemed like bs to me, if anything it’s job security for so-called soothsayers and astrologers, who have been grifting generations of families

Many Indian "Hindus" do that.... There are many many people who don't. The problem is, it doesn't actually solve anything and as you said, its just securing work for the incumbents. I live up north, in the valley of Kashmir which has historically been shielded from mainland Indian traditions and culture. https://upcomingkoshurmahraz.wordpress.com/ I started writing about my own efforts to get married so you can read…

Thanks for the link, always curious to hear other experiences from India. Stateside we don’t get much perspective outside of what NRIs do and the mainstream media which leads to a bubble of sorts.

Re: Young people are flocking to astrology

#122

Post by Thorrez » Mon, Jul 24, 2023, 6:12 AM UTC

gedy wrote: post #112

whakim wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While I agree that astrology is complete nonsense, you're not likely to win many people over when you treat stereotyping (which you've described here) and racism as equivalent.

> when you treat stereotyping (which you've described here) and racism as equivalent. But that's literally what people now call stereotyping: "that's racist"

Some stereotyping is racist, but not all.

Re: Young people are flocking to astrology

#123

Post by f6v » Mon, Jul 24, 2023, 6:13 AM UTC

exabrial wrote: post #27

Correlated with decline in critical thinking skills unfortunately.

I don’t think there’s a decline, it’s just social media makes the existence of such people more apparent.

Re: Young people are flocking to astrology

#124

Post by jahewson » Mon, Jul 24, 2023, 6:15 AM UTC

RodgerTheGreat wrote: post #70

Mental health therapy carries significant social stigma and is not affordable to many people who need or want it. Having regular conversations with an astrologer is a cheaper, more accessible, and more socially acceptable alternative, even if it isn't as effective (or at all effective). The same principle applies to most forms of "alternative medicine"; people cope with what they have.

This would imply that wealthier Americans holder fewer such beliefs but my experience has been the opposite.

Re: Young people are flocking to astrology

#125

Post by f6v » Mon, Jul 24, 2023, 6:15 AM UTC

giraffe_lady wrote: post #6

CharlesW wrote: post #5

> “We need to take people who use astrology seriously, in order to understand how people live in the world, either in the past or in the present,” Kassell said. We definitely need to take them at least as seriously as people who believe in ghosts, crystals, and/or their ability to change the world through scents sold exclusively via MLMs.

Astrology more than those things seems to be used as a sideways tool for introspection and self-knowledge. And is clearly an attempt to connect to the transcendental, the divine, the unknowable, why are we here and what am I meant to do with myself, etc. Both of those pursuits are worthy of curiosity and respect. And astrology itself is an ancient practice, few traditions are that long-lived at all and certainly not…

> Both of those pursuits are worthy of curiosity and respect. And astrology itself is an ancient practice

Yeah well people tried to connect to divine since the day they got that big brain. But you’d expect the humanity to have better methods in 2023. And we do, it’s called philosophy and (other) science(s).

Re: Young people are flocking to astrology

#126

Post by squirtlebonflow » Mon, Jul 24, 2023, 6:16 AM UTC

Given_47 wrote: post #78

bnralt wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't even think it's just metaphysics. People in general like to find patterns in the world even where none exist. The LessWrong community is somewhat infamous for abusing statistics. Political predictions sites like 538 have put out stuff that's not much better than astrology (specifically the granular primary predictions they did), but they make a lot of money feeding people who don't know better. A sense of ord…

Yea the 538 stuff (at least that audience) is a prime example of the McNamara fallacy[0]. It’s easy for people to find comfort in what can/is being measured and appoint it as objective truth, and consequently disregard anything that can’t be easily quantified. Like u alluded to, people like to at least feel in control. And in the case of astrology it manifests in being able to have a simple explanation for things. An…

Because nothing really ever happens because of random chance. Everything has a reason, and to pretend it happened because of random chance is to say you don't care enough what the reason was to try to figure it out.

Re: Young people are flocking to astrology

#127

Post by andsoitis » Mon, Jul 24, 2023, 6:16 AM UTC

ZainRiz wrote: post #118

Err_Eek wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

(As an atheist who found The God Delusion to be one of the most important books I've ever read, as it gave me a solid framework of arguing in what I already considered to be true) It's okay to read more digestible books, and not serious academic studies. In fact it's more than okay -- in order to understand an academic study you likely need to do a lot of reading on the topic before hand. A pop sci/culture book is ve…

The challenge with books like The God Delusion is that it's barely one step above strawman arguments. It attacks claims made by some simple lay people, based on their half-baked understanding of their own faiths (which they never really dug into). However, people well versed in the religion don't actually make any such claims. The arguments being debunked are ones that religious scholars themselves would have disagre…

> people well versed in the religion don't actually make any such claims

What is a good example?

Re: Young people are flocking to astrology

#128

Post by 1659447091 » Mon, Jul 24, 2023, 6:17 AM UTC

steve_adams_86 wrote: post #93

luc4sdreyer wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've experienced similar things many times. Maybe in the future I should propose a $10 bet, where they get three guesses.

Only a pisces would say that!

No, pretty obviously a capricorn

Re: Young people are flocking to astrology

#129

Post by XorNot » Mon, Jul 24, 2023, 6:19 AM UTC

luc4sdreyer wrote: post #77

keiferski wrote: post #56

One of my favorite philosophy books is A Secular Age by Charles Taylor. It has a lot of interesting ideas, but a key one is that the “subtraction thesis” of secularity is wrong. By this, he means the narrative that secular society today simply “subtracted” religious beliefs and behaviors of yesteryear. Instead, these things have just morphed into different forms, with astrology being a prime example. It can be unders…

I don't want to support this idea because it goes against my worldview as an atheist from a very conservative society. I grew up on Hitchens and Dawkins. But the YouGov poll [1] that the WaPo article is based seems to support this idea: 30% of Agnostics answered yes to the following question: "Do you believe in astrology, or that the position of the stars and planets influence people’s lives?" [1]: https://today.youg…

Agnostic isn't a consistent belief position though: if you claim you don't know if a higher power exists, the question is which one and how is the impact of this different to being an atheist.

So that bucket collecting random other beliefs isn't too surprising.

Re: Young people are flocking to astrology

#130

Post by keiferski » Mon, Jul 24, 2023, 6:19 AM UTC

andsoitis wrote: post #127

ZainRiz wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The challenge with books like The God Delusion is that it's barely one step above strawman arguments. It attacks claims made by some simple lay people, based on their half-baked understanding of their own faiths (which they never really dug into). However, people well versed in the religion don't actually make any such claims. The arguments being debunked are ones that religious scholars themselves would have disagre…

> people well versed in the religion don't actually make any such claims What is a good example?

This is a decent book and the reviews highlight a few examples of what you’re looking for:

https://www.amazon.com/God-New-Atheism-Critical-Response/dp/...