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Young people are flocking to astrology

washingtonpost.com

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Re: Young people are flocking to astrology

#351

Post by jacquesm »

akomtu wrote: post #338
BiteCode_dev wrote: post #171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I worked in various "alternative" industries in my youth. One day I was having an informal diner with people that, in another context, could have been business partners. One guy was making a killing with an astrology service by phone. He started with those text message based games, that were popular in the 2000'. Remember? "Send 'love' to this number to know if he loves you". And eventually created a full phone call…

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> That's probably because men tend to use rational thinking, and women tend to use magical or intuitive thinking.

Seriously?

Re: Young people are flocking to astrology

#352

Post by rsynnott »

SapporoChris wrote: post #137
luc4sdreyer wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Please remember that polls are often inaccurate. Internet polls are especially inaccurate. YouGov is a British international Internet-based market research and data analytics firm. https://www.pewresearch.org/2010/12/29/how-accurate-are-onli...

_Good quality_ internet polls these days are fairly comparable in accuracy to high quality traditional polling. This isn't the CEO of Yougov posting a twitter poll; there's a process.

Re: Young people are flocking to astrology

#353

Post by ur-whale »

nprateem wrote: post #66

I had an argument with a girl the other day who was adamant she wanted to know my star sign. I said "you tell me" and after 10 guesses I finally told her. She then went on to tell me what I must like etc - most of which was complete bollocks obviously. I told her her beliefs were akin to racism. Just because of when I was born she thought it was acceptable not to bother to treat me as an individual but as automatical…

> I told her her beliefs were akin to racism.

Very nice argument against the BS that is astrology.

Thanks, will add it to my arsenal.

Re: Young people are flocking to astrology

#354

Post by ndsipa_pomu »

varjag wrote: post #345
machina_ex_deus wrote: post #303

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Speaking of stereotypes, if anyone takes astrology seriously, I automatically assume they are not intelligent, irrational, and I find it impossible to take them seriously. I consider them beyond reason so I don't even try. If a person's logic and epistemology lead to him believing in astrology, it shows a deeper problem and I don't hope to have an intelligent discussion with them any more than I expect to have an int…

There is no qualitative difference between belief in astrology and any of the world's religions. Not saying you're not entitled in disregarding astrology believers but the cut-off point is completely arbitrary and dare I say irrational.

I would argue that astrology is in principle testable and it should be able to make concrete predictions. Obviously, popular astrology uses such woolly terms that all of the predictions can be interpreted as accurate to the believer.

However, the few times that anyone has tried to verify astrological predictions, it's turned out to be false.

https://psycnet.apa.org/record/1986-30007-001

Re: Young people are flocking to astrology

#355

Post by Hendrikto »

onecommentman wrote: post #175
nprateem wrote: post #66

I had an argument with a girl the other day who was adamant she wanted to know my star sign. I said "you tell me" and after 10 guesses I finally told her. She then went on to tell me what I must like etc - most of which was complete bollocks obviously. I told her her beliefs were akin to racism. Just because of when I was born she thought it was acceptable not to bother to treat me as an individual but as automatical…

A few decades ago, when astrology was last really popular, I was in a high school class and a few kids knew that I could actually cast a full natal horoscope. So they asked me to guess their (Sun) sign. I stopped when I was ahead, but had gotten four out of four right on the first guess and had a legitimate (?) reason for each. Don’t know how my reputation changed as a result…I was way more pocket-protector nerd than…

> mostly natal astrology is a cute neutral way to get people to talk about themselves

It‘s a way for people to excuse their shitty behavior, and take no responsibility for it. "Haha, I can‘t help it, I‘m an X."

It‘s a way for people to harshly judge others, without knowing anything about them.

Re: Young people are flocking to astrology

#356

Post by rsynnott »

LargeTomato wrote: post #37

My girlfriend is in the middle of her PhD program and is very intelligent but she's really into this stuff. She makes comments about it in public and I cringe. But the worst part is that half my female friends and all my gay friends love astrology. It's very weird.

Straight men, of course, prefer MBTI. Personality divination magic is somewhat gender-coded.

(I'm gay and haven't noticed astrology being particularly popular with gay men, though it may be regional.)

Re: Young people are flocking to astrology

#357

Post by MontyCarloHall »

ChrisMarshallNY wrote: post #244
nprateem wrote: post #66

I had an argument with a girl the other day who was adamant she wanted to know my star sign. I said "you tell me" and after 10 guesses I finally told her. She then went on to tell me what I must like etc - most of which was complete bollocks obviously. I told her her beliefs were akin to racism. Just because of when I was born she thought it was acceptable not to bother to treat me as an individual but as automatical…

I’m a 61-year-old software developer. It’s been interesting (and infuriating), experiencing some of the conclusions that younger techs have reached about me, due to my gray hair. I’m also a developer of Apple device software. That has resulted in even more abuse. There’s serious hate for Apple amongst techs. Human nature likes pigeonholing other people into simple “sort buckets,” and we have many ways to do that. It…

>There’s serious hate for Apple amongst techs.

According to the StackOverflow developer survey, 33% of developers use macOS [0], which is approximately double its overall market share of ~15% [1].

In my experience, every tech company office I’ve ever been to has been a sea of MacBooks.

[0] https://survey.stackoverflow.co/2023/

[1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Usage_share_of_operating_sys....

Re: Young people are flocking to astrology

#358

Post by amanaplanacanal »

YurgenJurgensen wrote: post #211
giraffe_lady wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You ever flip a coin to decide something for yourself, then do the opposite of how it fell? In tossing the coin you learn something about what you actually want to do. Was there value in flipping the coin? A very complex version of this is basically how I view astrology.

That coin cost you one penny. Astrology props up an entire industry of grifters.

Those grifters are providing entertainment for the believers. Not sure how it’s that much different from video games or musicians.

Re: Young people are flocking to astrology

#359

Post by ChrisMarshallNY »

lrvick wrote: post #270
ChrisMarshallNY wrote: post #244

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m a 61-year-old software developer. It’s been interesting (and infuriating), experiencing some of the conclusions that younger techs have reached about me, due to my gray hair. I’m also a developer of Apple device software. That has resulted in even more abuse. There’s serious hate for Apple amongst techs. Human nature likes pigeonholing other people into simple “sort buckets,” and we have many ways to do that. It…

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case->rest()

Re: Young people are flocking to astrology

#360

Post by bowsamic »

anon-3988 wrote: post #269
idoubtit wrote: post #187

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's the point if this mysticism doesn't make "better" people than any random superstition or religion? I fear it's more dangerous than most basic superstitions. I mean, these "self-introspection, consciousness-obsessed cultures like Hindu and Buddhism" are a source of hatred and violence. The Hindu majority is India is on this brutal trend. And in Burma-Birmania-Myanmar, the Buddhist population was almost unanimou…

> I mean, these "self-introspection, consciousness-obsessed cultures like Hindu and Buddhism" are a source of hatred and violence. The Hindu majority is India is on this brutal trend. And in Burma-Birmania-Myanmar, the Buddhist population was almost unanimous in supporting the discrimination against muslims and the ethnic cleansing of Rohingya. People feel they belong to a religion and that those who do not are unenl…

The problem with this is that you as a non practitioner think you can look in and decide which parts of the religion are fluff and which are true. You really can’t, and that’s one of the biggest failures of secular Buddhism. Without significant training on the path there is no way for you to tell what is bs and what is the true deep stuff. I don’t really get this pattern of random westerners coming into Buddhism and thinking they immediately know exactly which things the Buddha made up and which he didn’t
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