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Young people are flocking to astrology

washingtonpost.com

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Re: Young people are flocking to astrology

#871

Post by xormapmap »

tsukikage wrote: post #508
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…

> respond to a woman’s nonsense flirtatious mysticism by lowering his own standard for discourse Flirting is an informal process for obtaining answers to questions about a potential partner in advance of any significant commitment or risk and without having to deal with matters of any particular importance; questions such as "how well do we communicate?", "do I enjoy spending time with this person?", "how do they per…

> Reacting to these situations with denigration and hostility is very unlikely to leave a good impression

Why would I care if I left a good impression on a person using astrology to judge me? I wouldn't expect nor want things to go any further.

Re: Young people are flocking to astrology

#872

Post by subjectsigma »

Biganon wrote: post #776
subjectsigma wrote: post #682

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> describing both the best aspects of an optimal religion Nearly every major religion ever was primarily a function of community and culture. Religion mostly just brings people together and makes them talk. What they do afterwards is when things can go really well or really bad. It’s not “dishonest” to describe religion this way, it’s the main point of having a religion By contrast astrology is all about you, your fe…

I'm just someone who cherishes the quality of discussion on HN, something you obviously don't, since you've decided to take my remark personally and answer with a pathetic attempt at a personal attack, another mechanism that's frowned upon here (but very appreciated on reddit, maybe you could try going there instead?)

If people like me stopped posting on HN, the only people left would be people like you, and this place would be even more insufferable. So you’ll just have to deal with me. Tell yourself it builds character or something

Re: Young people are flocking to astrology

#873

Post by photon_lines »

Thanks for this. I actually re-wrote the content but replaced the word 'astrology' with 'bullshit' and it actually makes a lot more sense in the translated context than the original. You can find the other version here:

https://photonlines.substack.com/p/young-people-are-flocking...

Re: Young people are flocking to astrology

#874

Post by machina_ex_deus »

glimshe wrote: post #477
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…

You can "tolerate" aliens? Alien life has a very high chance of existing - according to many scientists, more likely than it not existing. Alien intelligence less so, but still quite likely to exist. I find your take on people who believe in Astrology condescending. I know intelligent and accomplished people who believe in Astrology. The explanation is very simple: they simply didn't think it through and keep checkin…

The current state with aliens is that we don't know. Some give 100% prior, some give 0% prior, and I can have an intelligent discussion about it. Regardless of our discussion, in the end, we still don't know and can't know (yet?). But I can tolerate people who have strong conviction either way.

I put it as opposed to astrology where we clearly know it's wrong, and the even worse part is that we had no reason to think it was true in the first place. It's just nonsense that came out of nothing, without even an attempt to ground itself with a reasonable connection to reality.

And yes, I am condenscending. If you go around believing random stuff and "simply doesn't think it through", that is precisely my problem with you. I'd rather a person who tries thinking and reaches the wrong conclusion than someone who "doesn't think it through". Such a person who doesn't even think should be more ashamed of himself than even the person who thinks wrongly.

Re: Young people are flocking to astrology

#875

Post by vacuity »

rcme wrote: post #869
vacuity wrote: post #636

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'll subvert this and say that any religion and atheism aren't rational. Ignoring the case of supernatural compulsion, a given person has ingrained beliefs/values, as well as a personality, that drive what they accept and don't accept. Strictly trying to achieve rationality embodies the scientific method, but science can't prove or disprove anything, ultimately. Beliefs that fill the void there are beyond rationality…

> but science can't prove or disprove anything, ultimately. What? From where do we derive our knowledge of the natural world and universe? How do we know, for instance, that the Earth revolves around the sun and not vice versa? Are you implying that we don’t know that, or are you implying our knowledge of this fact is a divine gift?

Prove is a very strong word. Science is empirical, an endless journey of testing hypotheses, gathering data, forming theories, and examining gaps in understanding. We do have more or less incontrovertible evidence for the Earth revolving around the Sun, so it's not a problem to take that as fact. However, there are many things that we are much less certain of, such as the nature of dark matter. The closest to complete understanding would be having no evidence to dispute our theories. The separation of this state and the ability to prove things may seem inconsequential as I've described it, but concepts such as the existence of God and the basis of human rights aren't touchable by science.

Re: Young people are flocking to astrology

#876

Post by aslfjiasf »

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…

Ha! Typical Scorpio thinking.

Re: Young people are flocking to astrology

#877

Post by zen_1 »

read_if_gay_ wrote: post #186
zen_1 wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

God is dead, and his faithful have replaced him with shiny trinkets and wafty nonsense. Fitting.

it also fits the smug atheist stereotype that you seem to believe you’re above it all

Hey! My nonsense is depressing, not wafty!

Re: Young people are flocking to astrology

#878

Post by rcme »

vacuity wrote: post #875
rcme wrote: post #869

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> but science can't prove or disprove anything, ultimately. What? From where do we derive our knowledge of the natural world and universe? How do we know, for instance, that the Earth revolves around the sun and not vice versa? Are you implying that we don’t know that, or are you implying our knowledge of this fact is a divine gift?

Prove is a very strong word. Science is empirical, an endless journey of testing hypotheses, gathering data, forming theories, and examining gaps in understanding. We do have more or less incontrovertible evidence for the Earth revolving around the Sun, so it's not a problem to take that as fact. However, there are many things that we are much less certain of, such as the nature of dark matter. The closest to complet…

So your argument is that science can’t prove anything because it can’t prove everything? Also you said science can’t prove or disprove, but it seems trivially easy to construct many things science could disprove. E.g. you could disprove that 5 N of force is not enough to accelerate a 1 kg sphere to exit velocity on Earth.

Re: Young people are flocking to astrology

#879

Post by vacuity »

rcme wrote: post #878
vacuity wrote: post #875

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Prove is a very strong word. Science is empirical, an endless journey of testing hypotheses, gathering data, forming theories, and examining gaps in understanding. We do have more or less incontrovertible evidence for the Earth revolving around the Sun, so it's not a problem to take that as fact. However, there are many things that we are much less certain of, such as the nature of dark matter. The closest to complet…

So your argument is that science can’t prove anything because it can’t prove everything? Also you said science can’t prove or disprove , but it seems trivially easy to construct many things science could disprove. E.g. you could disprove that 5 N of force is not enough to accelerate a 1 kg sphere to exit velocity on Earth.

If we're to be exact, we can't prove that if I throw an object upwards with 5 N of force right now, the gravitational field won't suddenly shift (for some reason) and send it out of the atmosphere. If you reduce it to a mathematical construct (Newton's laws, the gravitational field stays within a margin of 0.00001, blah blah) then sure, you can prove that it's not possible. Of course, I would bet a million dollars that it won't happen when I try it, if I'm sure it's not a scam, but I can't be sure that everything will work out like some simulation. Science is based on observations. Some things we have observed and reasoned about enough that we feel really confident. Great! Some things we're less certain about. Some things are really hard to observe (social "sciences") in a controlled way. And some things are simply far beyond the purview of observation.

Re: Young people are flocking to astrology

#880

Post by DriverDaily »

jncfhnb wrote: post #857
DriverDaily wrote: post #838

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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-Per…

They’re not supposed to be the same thing. You would not expect them to have super high correlations Even if the tests were perfect.

I was repsonding to this

> It's notable that MBTI is fairly correlated with the FFM

Sounds like we agree this statement is false

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