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Young people are flocking to astrology

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Re: Young people are flocking to astrology

#831

Post by evandale »

Brendinooo wrote: post #813
evandale wrote: post #546

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is checking your horoscope considered believing in astrology? I ask because I check mine, but mostly for morning reminders and put my head on straight. Today mine starts with "The universe may deliver an ego bruise or two today, dear Virgo, as brooding Pluto squares off with the Nodes of Fate" and while I don't believe they're predicting a specific event it's nice to have that in the back of my mind today. Coincident…

> Is checking your horoscope considered believing in astrology? I don't think this is something that I can answer, but at the very least it says that you're neutral enough toward it to allow it to speak into your life.

That's why I think of it as more of reading a motivational quote that will inspire me to do something that day. I try not to take it too seriously, but my conflict with astrology is that I don't want to believe it, but I can't shake the fact that the moon affects the tides on Earth from my brain.

That makes me question if the moon can affect humans. The whole personality prediction and things like that I'm not a believer at all, but the moon affecting our mood? I can buy it.

We are made up of a lot of water, especially our brains, and I'm not confident enough to say it's impossible the moon can affect us. Mars and Venus are a lot more kooky, because even though we don't know how gravity works we're pretty certain it doesn't have a strong effect for small masses over long distances.

I will admit I'm more willing to say astrology is a "maybe, who knows" compared to the existence of God. For me the existence of God is a firm no and I'm pretty confident in that.

Re: Young people are flocking to astrology

#832

Post by f6v »

constantcrying wrote: post #152
f6v wrote: post #110

What should be really scary is that people who believe in any kind of magic(celestial bodies governing your life, wizard man in the sky) will believe anything, because trusting something with zero proof is so familiar to them.

>celestial bodies governing your life Celestial bodies are governing your life. >will believe anything, because trusting something with zero proof is so familiar to them This seems utterly ridicolous and false. Especiall since many of those beliefs directly disavow each other.

> Especiall since many of those beliefs directly disavow each other.

There was no problem with that in the past. Like, “Jesus loves everyone, except if you’re gay”. Or “don’t kill, except when taking the wholy city from muslims”. I bet if we dig deeper we can find more examples.

Re: Young people are flocking to astrology

#833

Post by westmeal »

pierat wrote: post #821
Daishiman wrote: post #778

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's as fun as always to subscribe to these narratives but I don't buy it. In the span of time that astrology has taken hold we have seen a dramatic loss in adepts to Christianity as well as its irrational beliefs like creationism. It's clear that a portion of society has a need for this type of beliefs, and they have merely supplanted Christianity with astrology and woo.

Christians believe in cannibalizing a human/god chimera, for the sole fact of trying to get rid of sin that you got when you were born.... And astrologers are weird? The basis of astrology is the teachings of Hermes Trismegistus, and "as above, so below". And the teaching was that everything is connected, even if appearing distant or not connected. Earlier astrology was more concerned with timings and when the esoter…

No idea why people are downvoting you but the God wafers are not actually anywhere in the bible. Catholics just made it up like most things in doctrine. Not even a christian but just wanted to point out Christianity is a huge tree of branching religions and cults.

Re: Young people are flocking to astrology

#834

Post by stcroixx »

nirui wrote: post #381
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…

Well, I also do similar kind of judgement. I.e. if someone is seriously religious, flat earth believing or ghost worshiping etc, then I would just assume they... have many things to left learn. But often as I encountered it, some individual is also too cute to be treated rudely. This is a bit of dilemma, really. Because if you share what you've learned, then no matter how respectful you tried to make it look, they mi…

I’d laugh and say ‘seriously’? And if she was really serious I’d say I don’t believe in any of that. My MIL is into this nonsense - she alone and broke and I think a great example of where crazy beliefs like this lead if you hold them long enough. It’s an enormous red flag for me.

Re: Young people are flocking to astrology

#835

Post by mikeiz404 »

Are young people "flocking" to astrology?

The article provides evidence that the market is growing but as far as specific support for "young people" I saw about two. The first is the quote "The astrology field is booming — a trend that has been driven by younger generations, experts say, ..." and the second is from a YouGov poll. In that poll 37% of 18-29 year olds believe, and 33% of 30-44 year olds believe, and then there is a large drop to 22% for 45-64 year olds and 16% for 65+ year olds [1] where 3472 people were surveyed [2]. The polling has a stated margin of error of 4% [3].

It seems more accurate to say the 18-44 year old range has a much higher likelihood of believing in astrology than those in an older age group.

Was there something I missed?

1: https://today.yougov.com/topics/entertainment/articles-repor...

2: https://today.yougov.com/topics/lifestyle/survey-results/dai...

3: https://today.yougov.com/about/panel-methodology/

Re: Young people are flocking to astrology

#836

Post by RichardCA »

WorldMaker wrote: post #819
RichardCA wrote: post #808

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Astrology is important to the extent that it represents the history of Astronomy. If someone can correctly explain the difference between the Tropical and Sidereal Zodiac, that requires a certain level of knowledge and skill. I've been to planetarium shows where the presenter goes out of their way to debunk Astrology and it's usually the argument that the constellations don't line up with the Zodiac. But that lecture…

That lecturer may not even need to know or care about the Ptolemaic Model. It is interesting history, but it isn't relevant to modern day science. It's a bit like being angry at a chemistry lecturer for not wanting to discuss any old Phlogiston Model or use the alchemical signs for Oxygen or Mercury when he has a perfectly nice, modern and up-to-date Periodic Table right next to him. Which is also a fun comparison to…

I grew up watching the Project Universe show on PBS. It was hosted by Ed Krupp, no one is a more tireless Astronomy educator than he is, and he knew a lot about Archeoastronomy (to the point of writing books that are primary references). There is nothing weird in it.

It's still available but all that's left are VHS transfers: https://youtu.be/EoBEruyOnSo

I guess what I'm really "on" about is how someone can visit a place like Stonehenge, and appreciate the precision of the ancient calendar systems, without being accused of supporting Bronze Age Druidism. But for some reason Astrology is held in a different category, subject to a special kind of opprobrium. I find that interesting in itself.

Also - Full Disclosure - I used to have fun with the "Astrolog" software for Linux and even wrote an XScreenSaver integration for it. It was just a way to have fun and break the ice with people. It's a well maintained project that's been around since the Web 1.0 days. You know, when it was easier to have quirky interests without being called out to explain yourself. Cheers. :)

https://www.astrolog.org/astrolog.htm

https://github.com/CruiserOne/Astrolog

Re: Young people are flocking to astrology

#837

Post by DriverDaily »

dooraven wrote: post #651
DriverDaily wrote: post #630

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As far as I know the Five Factor Model is a far more scientific measure than MBTI. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Five_personality_traits - Repeatability - Not based on Jungian pseudoscience - Peer acceptance

Big 5 is accurate but hard to explain. MBTI is fairly easy to explain and honestly it's not like astrology where it is random, an INTP does act very differently than an ENFJ

Each letter is binary, whereas personality is not.

If someone is barely extroverted you’re assigning them a full E anyways. That’s a poor predictor.

Re: Young people are flocking to astrology

#838

Post by DriverDaily »

feanaro wrote: post #666
DriverDaily wrote: post #630

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As far as I know the Five Factor Model is a far more scientific measure than MBTI. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Five_personality_traits - Repeatability - Not based on Jungian pseudoscience - Peer acceptance

It's notable that MBTI is fairly correlated with the FFM: https://psychology.stackexchange.com/questions/13460/what-co...

Few of those r-values are actually notable

> To further examine the universality of the Five-Factor Model, they examined how the MBTI dimensional raw scores related to the FFM/Big5 scores. They showed that FFM-Extroversion was highly correlated to MBTI-Introversion (r = -.74), FFM-Neuroticism was weakly correlated to MBTI-Introversion (r = .16), FFM-Openness was correlated to MBTI-Intuition (r = .72), and to MBTI-Perception (r = .30), FFM-Agreeableness was correlated to MBTI-Feeling (r = .44), FFM-Contentiousness correlated to MBTI-Perception (r = .49).

Re: Young people are flocking to astrology

#839

Post by heisenzombie »

TSiege wrote: post #792
Enginerrrd wrote: post #769

I can't help but feel astonished how salient the classic Carl Sagan quote is here: "I have a foreboding of an America in my children's or grandchildren's time -- when the United States is a service and information economy; when nearly all the manufacturing industries have slipped away to other countries; when awesome technological powers are in the hands of a very few, and no one representing the public interest can…

I deeply dislike the argument that logic and reason should be the only part of how a person relates to the world. That we should all be logical and be free of spiritual beliefs. I don't think being an astrologist and an astronomer are antithetical. I don't know many people who are into astrology as means of predicting the future, but rather as a means of describing types of people and how they might interact and thei…

I agree. As a physicist, I am very comfortable with the idea that all models of reality are wrong^1, but some models are useful for some things. For example: If you want to get a rocket into space, Newton’s laws are useful (despite being “wrong” in a very real way). But Newton’s laws are not useful if you’re designing GPS (you need relativity for that) and likewise they’re not useful if you are deciding whether to ask Susie on a date.

My observation is that many traditional belief systems do encode useful beliefs and behaviours. Practicing yoga is healthful, despite Qi being “wrong”. I do hope your surgeon isn’t using the Qi model to do open heart surgery of course — though many of the surgeon’s beliefs about the human body are “wrong”, he’ll get better outcomes with them than with Qi.

I therefore, like you, see no contradiction between learning astrology and using it to bond and communicate with friends about social situations, and going off to work in the morning as a particle physicist or something.

As far as I’m concerned, the /real/ problem is this creeping “scientism” which asserts that the only acceptable knowledge is that which comes dressed in the robes and language of Science. Scientism is corrosive to the pursuit of actual science, and to society’s relationship with science.

I am therefore much more concerned with someone saying “Scienty science words and therefore politics” or even ”scienty science words and therefore Everything You Know About Relationships Is Wrong“ — than I am about people practicing traditional astrology.

^1 “Wrong” being a loosely defined word for a slippery concept here. Perhaps replace with “not big-T True”

Re: Young people are flocking to astrology

#840

Post by donatj »

permo-w wrote: post #708
donatj wrote: post #558

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> you say this as if this is different to any other idea or meme or brand I mean it is different, in that it flies entirely in the face of reason. What concerns me is that I've seen otherwise reasonable people fall for this.

perfectly reasonable people eat at McDonalds and buy crisps and support a football team. if you sit down and think about them, they all fly in the face of reason too

Thinking rocks have magical powers and eating food with too many calories are not even remotely the same thing.
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