Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Young people are flocking to astrology

washingtonpost.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

491–500 of 972 posts

Re: Young people are flocking to astrology

#491

Post by mettamage »

BSEdlMMldESB wrote: post #466
xwdv wrote: post #454

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sorry, but I don’t see where it says he has to respond to a woman’s nonsense flirtatious mysticism by lowering his own standard for discourse down to her level. He does not have to tolerate her magical thinking. I think he drew an interesting correlation between racism and her astrological beliefs that she likely has never heard before, and perhaps will give her some much needed introspection. That is a far more mean…

I agree with you, I think "just be yourself" or else get comfortable acting on the other hand, it's also important to 'go with the flow' sometimes, specially around things you don't consider too important; whichever those may be (I've noticed that what is important is even affected by my mood).

I studied and believed astrology between the ages of 12 and 16. At 16, I found a few ways to strongly falsify it. The problem is that the readings always end up being somewhat true and people become enthusiastic about the readings. All I did was follow a particular book, but yea that was tough to falsify for me at that age.

In any case, it depends on what you value. If you don't care that someone is into astrology, then go with the flow. If you deeply believe in science and it's one of your core values that people close to you believe in that as well then a short and polite conversation is all I see happening. I'm of the latter kind. I'd have never made such a strong comment though as it is my experience that people aren't really open to change their minds on this (having done readings on a few dozen people as a kid). So why waste the time?

Re: Young people are flocking to astrology

#492

Post by kykeonaut »

What interests me about the article is the fallout between astronomy and astrology, akin to the fallout between medicine and magic.

Western scientific culture is so obsessed with the tangible that we minimize (and to some point ridicule) spirituality, although science and spirituality at some point were once one and the same.

Human beings need spiritual experiences, and "young" people flocking to astrology seems like a response to this evident lack of spirituality in Western culture.

Re: Young people are flocking to astrology

#493

Post by sacado2 »

machina_ex_deus wrote: post #377
varjag wrote: post #345

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

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…

Yet religions have a vision of the workings of planets (and the solar system in general) that is much further removed from reality than astrology.

Yes, you could say it's a metaphor, a symbolic vision or something else rather than something to be taken literally in religion, but the same could be said of astrology.

Re: Young people are flocking to astrology

#494

Post by nicbou »

joshstrange wrote: post #264

At this point I assume all articles saying “young people are doing X” to be total bollocks. Like the articles we’ve seen here about paper maps making a comeback for young people (a small handful of people were using them as art) or the “young people trading their smartphones for dumb phones” which had a tiny sample size and sounded like bullshit. Nowadays you find 1-2 tweets (or similar), call it a trend, and move on…

I always swap the subject with "a dozen people on twitter".

Re: Young people are flocking to astrology

#495

Post by atq2119 »

anon-3988 wrote: post #155
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…

This is why I think that it is perhaps beneficial to not completely remove religion, but replace it with something that is more aligned to the 21st century. Let's be honest, humans are very flawed and prone to succumb to religious thinking; regardless of how smart/dumb you are. Superstitious thinking can arise from simple day to day observation. So it is much better to fill in the void with something dull like "do go…

To put it succinctly: Culture abhors a vacuum.

Re: Young people are flocking to astrology

#496

Post by commonlisp94 »

JackMorgan wrote: post #473
SnowHill9902 wrote: post #465

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You think that by studying engineering you see the world as it is?

More like I'm faced with realities when other people see magic. When the WiFi signal is spotty, the reality of the situation forces me to understand at least the basics of how it works and how the signal is getting blocked. When my database is acting slow, I can't just say "well the moon is half so..." I have to instrument and figure out what's happening and fix it. That at least pulls away a lot of the mystery.

When you're responsible for something you have to understand it better (or at least get good at making justifications). All people do this, they just typically aren't responsible for keeping an object or program working.

I don't see why you would have a superior mental model about subjects you are not intimately familiar with the details of.

Re: Young people are flocking to astrology

#497

Post by zzzeek »

VoodooJuJu wrote: post #440
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…

Dude, lighten up. She was playing a game with you, probably flirting. And you didn't play the game very well. Mysticism is fun, aesthetic, and filled with more questions than answers. Play the game some time, you might enjoy it. I also can't believe you actually found a way to weasel racism into the conversation. It's all so tiresome.

She was definitely flirting and astrology rescued this woman from having to date someone alarmingly rigid and humorless in their thinking . Score one for astrology

Re: Young people are flocking to astrology

#498

Post by throw0101a »

rcme wrote: post #427
varjag wrote: post #345

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

How is believing in religion rational?

> How is believing in religion rational?

By having personal experience(s) of things that cannot be explained in any other way?

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miracle_of_the_Sun

By employing one's sense of logic?

* https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/35592365-five-proofs-of-...

Re: Young people are flocking to astrology

#499

Post by atq2119 »

keiferski wrote: post #149
rapsacnz wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The more the nuanced the take, the less people will be drawn to it. Hence the popularity of the Bible and the Koran etc.

The Bible has over fifty books and is perhaps one of the most nuanced works of all time, hence the wide variety of Christian denominations. I'm not familiar enough with the Qur'an to comment on it.

The Bible isn't nuanced because it's not even coherent. It's pretty much all over the place.

This is a feature for its followers, because they can and do pick and choose the parts they like and ignore the rest.

Re: Young people are flocking to astrology

#500

Post by kybernetikos »

pfannkuchen wrote: post #166
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.

I don’t think astrology is stereotyping, it’s completely made up, not just an oversimplification or over generalization.

A stereotype is a generalized belief about a category of people, I don't think there has to be any seed of accuracy to the categorisation in order for it to considered a stereotype.

Someone who believes in horoscopes has a stereotype for people born in the first part of April. I have a stereotype for first children. Whether or not they capture anything real, they still count as stereotypes.

Post reply on HN