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Young people are flocking to astrology

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Re: Young people are flocking to astrology

#911

Post by wilg »

whakim wrote: post #803
wilg wrote: post #795

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He's describing prejudice, and often people mean "racial prejudice" when they talk about "racism" (sometimes they mean "structural racial disadvantage" instead). IMO, this is a fair comparison. Comparing things does not create an equivalence, that's a silly straw man.

But stereotype and prejudice don't mean the same thing, even though they're related. Without getting too far into the weeds, stereotypes are (positive or negative) beliefs about characteristics of groups of people, whereas prejudices are internalized negative feelings towards groups of people, often formed on the basis of (usually negative) stereotypes. "what I must like etc [on the basis of star sign]" (quote from O…

A more complex definition of "racism" is unhelpful here. I'm not arguing there aren't additional aspects worthy of discussion. But "racial prejudice" is a perfectly acceptable way to use it, and it is also the dictionary definition. This isn't a teachable moment to explore the nuances of racism, it's simply a metaphor.

I think stereotypes are a kind of prejudice, again, using plain definitions. A stereotype is an oversimplified image of a class of people. That's a mechanism by which you might "pre-judge" someone.

Re: Young people are flocking to astrology

#912

Post by ImPostingOnHN »

commonlisp94 wrote: post #907
ImPostingOnHN wrote: post #854

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I have only met a few "true atheists" -- people who do not deeply believe in some narrative that provides meaning and exists outside of the material world you mean, people who don't believe there's a god (theism is a belief in a god, not just any belief or even any religion) that's what an atheist is (which is the same thing as a "true atheist" , as long as we're making up phrases) a good example of an atheistic be…

> that's what an atheist is Generally atheists claim to be skeptical of all religion and mysticism regardless of whether it claims a "creator god". If you want to be pedantic and say someone who believes in ghosts, but not God is still be an atheist, well ok. My point is that almost all people hold unexamined beliefs as non-material and unscientific as any religion. Hence they are not inherently more rational. > be e…

> Generally atheists claim to be skeptical of all religion and mysticism regardless of whether it claims a "creator god".

Is it true, though, that that's what atheism means? As an atheist myself, I'm not sure it is. Certainly doesn't seem true - seems like someone who is atheist is simply more likely to also be areligious and aspiritual, possibly as a result of rationality. But if you want to be pedantic, you can try making a case to redefine the term.

In fact, I've found that self-described "theists" and "atheists" are both smart enough to know that theism involves a god, not just any religion or spiritualism or mysticism or belief. Indeed, ask any layperson on the street what it means for someone to be atheist, and most answers will say that it means "they don't believe in god".

> My point is that almost all people hold unexamined beliefs

Maybe, but certainly not all as irrational as theism. Your post tried to conflate concepts like humanism (essentially, "be excellent to each other", hardly an "unexamined belief"), which don't require magic, to the belief of theism, which does - this conflation didn't work for the reasons described above: both may involve principles of one form or another, but only the latter is magical and supernatural, and thus less rational to believe true.

If we're both on the same page there, we can move onto other topics, like:

> I think the rule you are describing is not well defined at all.

Re: Young people are flocking to astrology

#913

Post by EspressoGPT »

shortrounddev2 wrote: post #531
EspressoGPT wrote: post #455

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

They're right, you know

No, they are dogmatic, zealos, and emotional about a ... computer.

I want a Unix system because I prefer that for programming, I want a laptop because I want to change between offices, and I want to get started asap and get my work done without having to worry about hardware compatibility too much, so I prefer macOS over Linux. Simple as that.

Yes, Apple is expensive, but my company pays that MacBook so I don't care about that either. I get a well-functioning Unix with great usability and nice specs, with hardware and software from the same manufacturer. It works for me, so it's ok for me.

Re: Young people are flocking to astrology

#914

Post by whakim »

wilg wrote: post #911
whakim wrote: post #803

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But stereotype and prejudice don't mean the same thing, even though they're related. Without getting too far into the weeds, stereotypes are (positive or negative) beliefs about characteristics of groups of people, whereas prejudices are internalized negative feelings towards groups of people, often formed on the basis of (usually negative) stereotypes. "what I must like etc [on the basis of star sign]" (quote from O…

A more complex definition of "racism" is unhelpful here. I'm not arguing there aren't additional aspects worthy of discussion. But "racial prejudice" is a perfectly acceptable way to use it, and it is also the dictionary definition. This isn't a teachable moment to explore the nuances of racism, it's simply a metaphor. I think stereotypes are a kind of prejudice, again, using plain definitions. A stereotype is an ove…

> "racial prejudice" is a perfectly acceptable way to use it

Racial prejudice. Which adds a boatload of social and historical context to "prejudice" alone. Not to mention that no one talks about racial prejudice without (at least) an awareness of the discrimination and oppression that such prejudice often gives rise to.

> This isn't a teachable moment to explore the nuances of racism, it's simply a metaphor.

"Tell[ing] me what I must like [on the basis of star sign]...is akin to racism" (OP's words) isn't a metaphor. It's simply stating that one thing is analogous to another. I realize this all seems totally pedantic, but making a false equivalence between an astrological stereotype and racism trivializes the experiences of people who are on the receiving end of racial discrimination.

> I think stereotypes are a kind of prejudice, again, using plain definitions.

If we're simply looking up dictionary definitions, I'm happy to point you to the dictionary-defined distinction between stereotype (beliefs about characteristics of groups)[1] and prejudice (negative feelings towards groups)[2]. That being said, you did just repeat my point that stereotypes often form the basis of prejudices :).

[1] https://www.oed.com/search/dictionary/?scope=Entries&q=preju...

[2] https://www.oed.com/search/dictionary/?scope=Entries&q=stere...

Re: Young people are flocking to astrology

#915

Post by drekipus »

varjag wrote: post #398
machina_ex_deus wrote: post #377

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To me there is an a huge difference. I can accept religions, which are adding axioms that aren't falsifiable, and that are usually taught to a person when he is a child. And religions had their roles in shaping society for good. I can accept conspiracy theories and disbelieving the known consensus. I just can't accept a person who, in the age where we know exactly how planets move and what they are, decided to believ…

I feel it's more of a personal background issue. Do you really have objection with planets effects on personality but at the same time feel turning water into wine is plausible in the slightest? To a raised atheist all religions are not far removed from belief in Santa Claus. But to someone with religious people in the family cutting them off may come not as natural as of strangers with astrology brain.

> turning water into wine is plausible in the slightest?

If you drop hallucinogens into water, it could be perceived to others that people would be getting drunk off water, which would be, in effect, turning water into wine. The story could have come from this, easily plausible.

When people say they "literally did so and so" do you freak out about calculating the possibilities of their specific mention or do you sit back and understand what parables, allegory, and stories are?

Besides, If you don't believe it really happened, what's the point of picking apart the story?

Re: Young people are flocking to astrology

#916

Post by drekipus »

red-iron-pine wrote: post #827
varjag wrote: post #398

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I feel it's more of a personal background issue. Do you really have objection with planets effects on personality but at the same time feel turning water into wine is plausible in the slightest? To a raised atheist all religions are not far removed from belief in Santa Claus. But to someone with religious people in the family cutting them off may come not as natural as of strangers with astrology brain.

water into wine is a fun story but pointless. but plenty of Luke and Matthew underpin Christian ethics, and have been the justification for building schools, charities, hospitals, etc. for centuries. people will hear what they want to hear, e.g. Loaves and Fishes vs. Angry Revaluation Jesus, but at least there is an attempt at altruism there. Astrology has all of the woo woo mythology without attempting any sort of a…

I feel like it's a "part" or incomplete religion. I'm not sure where it came from but I could easily believe it was a part of a larger set of beliefs.

Re: Young people are flocking to astrology

#917

Post by drekipus »

jasonlotito wrote: post #662
machina_ex_deus wrote: post #377

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To me there is an a huge difference. I can accept religions, which are adding axioms that aren't falsifiable, and that are usually taught to a person when he is a child. And religions had their roles in shaping society for good. I can accept conspiracy theories and disbelieving the known consensus. I just can't accept a person who, in the age where we know exactly how planets move and what they are, decided to believ…

> I just can't accept a person who, in the age where we know exactly how planets move and what they are, decided to believe they have correlation with psychology. The irony of you letting that affect your mind is amusing.

This is a really good comment, I'm sorry you're getting downvoted.

This is literally the underlying context of the discussion

Re: Young people are flocking to astrology

#918

Post by gsky »

lawn wrote: post #324
gsky wrote: post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe you are right. I still belive in science but stopped trusting anything experts say unless majority have the same opinion. Politics ruining scientific community I belive

I hope you mean a majority of experts, not majority in general.

Yes, I have meant majority of experts

Re: Young people are flocking to astrology

#919

Post by seer »

rsynnott wrote: post #290
seer wrote: post #164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As the saying goes, “all models are wrong, some models are useful” While the astrology “model” is obviously wrong, it must have been useful to someone at sometime for it to have gained such a popularity. Like the “flat earth model” is actually extremely useful if you don’t intend (can’t) travel significant distances - gives you a coordinate system, maps and ways to predict where you’re going to be tomorrow if you tra…

> While the astrology “model” is obviously wrong, it must have been useful to someone at sometime for it to have gained such a popularity. I mean, this seems like a weird conclusion. People like believing in stuff, so they believe in stuff; arguably the nature of the stuff is irrelevant. Astrology is just one of thousands of religious/pseudo-religious systems. Romans preferred to do their divination through the study…

The thing I was trying to say is that models can be useful without being accurate, in fact you might argue none of our models are accurate, if you drill down enough.

Was newtonian physics a bad model? Yes it was inaccurate but it lead to soo many discoveries.

I kinda got into this rabbit whole of thinking myself when I was practicing some martial arts and the instructor was kinda into eastern spiritualism. Talking about channels and energies and all that kind of nonsense. But at some point I realized that I didn’t need to believe in the model for it to be useful, following the movements, practices and meditation did help me enormously and get me into better shape. And some of the explanations did have predictive power, even if I knew they were totally made up things.

Knowing lorents transformation and quantum mechanics does not invalidate the predictive power of newtonian physics for solving common everyday tasks, you just know that if you want to get deeper, you need a more accurate model.

Same with astrology, its a model, as others have said its value might not stem from its absolute predictive power, but the social interactions it generates.

People want to talk about personalities and astrology does offer a fun and whimsical way if going about it.

I’ve actually listened in to recordings of people going to see astrology “pros” and it’s remarkable how close what they were trying to do was to psychiatrists, just using different tools.

“Oh, you’re a bit self obsessed and have trouble from your childhood interaction with you parents! This is probably because of this planet doing this”

To laypeople who don’t understand psychology that might sound exactly the same as some scientific term / explanation…

Not saying its the same by any means, just that there is “some” value in the exchange for people, and calling things stupid and nonsense knida misses a lot of nuance.

Re: Young people are flocking to astrology

#920

Post by executesorder66 »

nmilo wrote: post #828
executesorder66 wrote: post #588

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> shouldn't, try to change people's minds. Yeah the abolition of slavery was a mistake. We shouldn't have tried to change people's minds about that. We also should never have changed people's minds about smoking not being bad. Just let people believe what they want to believe. Live and let live. Fully agree with you.

Slavery wasn't abolished by changing people's minds via rational debate. Did you forget we had to literally send people with guns to shoot and kill the people that held that belief. They only changed their beliefs after decades under new laws and culture. The research is out on changing people's beliefs, for most it usually causes them to dig their heels in and hate the other side even more. If you encounter a racist…

> Slavery wasn't abolished by changing people's minds via rational debate.

I didn't say it had to be done via rational debate.

> They only changed their beliefs after decades under new laws and culture.

So they did do it after all.

> The research is out on changing people's beliefs, for most it usually causes them to dig their heels in and hate the other side even more. If you encounter a racist person or a Nazi in real life, you will not change their beliefs with rational debate, so don't even try. Just avoid them because they are unpleasant people. You will be happier if you stop fighting this futile moral crusade.

Look at you trying to change my beliefs via rational debate. What a hypocrite.

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