On The Cusp

[BlackAndRed]

So, I'm visiting a friend in Seattle. Two of her roommates are intelligent people, college graduates, probably from educated backgrounds. Very nice people.

I'm having a conversation with them, and out of the blue comes astrology. What sign am I? Oh, clearly I'm stubborn because I'm a Taurus. I'm a lot like their friend Joe, except he's on the cusp, so he's obviously more outgoing. They were 100% serious.

How on Earth do educated people believe this junk? And how does one continue to take them seriously after they spew this nonsense out? And what's more dignified behavior - to smile and nod, while secretly laughing; or to say what one believes, and be seen as attacking someone's worldview?

On the bright side, this level of ignorance is what makes poker such a profitable endeavor.

[peritonlogon]

You tell them you're a sagittarius, and the you say
"I think it's all a bunch of bull [censored]."

[vhawk01]

This is entirely dependent on what they look like. They are obviously gullible and malleable, so if they are good looking, your play here is obvious.

[arahant]

No doubt. Just explain to them (very slowly) that the bible doesn't mention birth sign at all.

[hmkpoker]

I used to be a total astrology geek in college, was actually considering delineating horoscopes professionally for a while. I think it's crap now, but it's very seductive to a less-than-very-skeptical mind.

Here's why: when you construct a natal horoscope, you're actually accounting for a lot of variables, specific to the date, time and place of the person's birth. So it's not like there's one horoscope for all the Leos and one for all the Scorpios, instead you come up with a very precise person-specific graph complete with different degrees of planetary positions, ascendants, conjunction degrees and house placements, and a whole hose of cryptic symbols and numbers that ends up looking like borodog's dissertations. It looks WAY more scientific than, say, tarot cards.

Now couple this with people's natural inclination to think that certain things that are incredibly general are actually specific to them. There was a psychological study (can't remember who did it) where the experimenters asked the participants a series of personal questions, then produced a unique interpretation and asked them to guage how accurate it was. What they didn't know was that they didn't do anything with the questions at all; they just gave everyone the same fortune cookie paragraph that said something to the effect of "you feel conflicted because most of your friends don't know the real you, you think that the you that others see is a poor representation and you yearn to have a representation that aligns more with how you percieve yourself," blah blah blah somehting like that. They found that most of the participants were very, very impressed by how amazingly specific the results were.

Now multiply this effect by a dozen, and you get astrology. There's a vague, nebulous interpretation for everything; x planet in y house, this planet in conjunction with the moon, this planet in this house, this degree of that ascendant. Enough to fill books. It can be randomly produced crap, but every time someone researches their own horoscope, they find that it fits them like a glove; and when it doesn't, they're inclined to make it fit like a glove by reinterpretting it to their liking. Couple this with some urban legends of so-and-so having a mystically inclined daughter that can see people's futures or visits to some Peruvian oracle that fortold where someone's stock would close, and the fact that astrology is cool and boom, you can make a gullible idiot believer out of otherwise reasonable people.

If you think that's bad, look at how many people believe in God.

[BruceZ]

[ QUOTE ]
You tell them you're a Taurus, and the you say
"I think it's all a bunch of bull [censored]."

[/ QUOTE ]

FYP /images/graemlins/grin.gif

[ChrisV]

[ QUOTE ]
How on Earth do educated people believe this junk? And how does one continue to take them seriously after they spew this nonsense out? And what's more dignified behavior - to smile and nod, while secretly laughing; or to say what one believes, and be seen as attacking someone's worldview?

[/ QUOTE ]

Nod and smile FTW. It's extremely hard to convince someone who believes in astrology that it's rubbish. I mean it can be done, but mostly they're not interested in hearing it.

Most people, even educated people, have an irrational belief or two. Astrology isn't as bad as religion, at least people don't try to boss people around because of their astrological beliefs.

If you're in the mood for an argument, then the next time this happens, rather than attacking them AFTER the exchange above, simply lie about your star sign. Pick one that is largely opposite to Taurus (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taurus_%28astrology%29); good choices might be Cancer (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cancer_%28astrology%29), Libra (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Libra_%28astrology%29) or Pisces (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pisces_%28astrology%29). Say you pick Cancer. Wait for them to make up a whole bunch of crap about your traits making sense for a Cancer. Play along and ask them if they think you're a "classic Cancer". After you think you've got as much of this kind of drivel out of them as you can, tell them you're actually a Taurus, proving it with your driver's license if necessary. Then say you think astrology is all rubbish, but don't hammer the point home, since if the above all worked well, your point should be made already. You'll get better results doing this, and there will be less unpleasantness, than if you mount a frontal assault on their beliefs.

[hmkpoker]

[ QUOTE ]


If you're in the mood for an argument, then the next time this happens, rather than attacking them AFTER the exchange above, simply lie about your star sign. Pick one that is largely opposite to Taurus; good choices might be Cancer, Libra or Pisces. Say you pick Cancer. Wait for them to make up a whole bunch of crap about your traits making sense for a Cancer. Play along and ask them if they think you're a "classic Cancer". After you think you've got as much of this kind of drivel out of them as you can, tell them you're actually a Taurus, proving it with your driver's license if necessary. Then say you think astrology is all rubbish, but don't hammer the point home, since if the above all worked well, your point should be made already. You'll get better results doing this, and there will be less unpleasantness, than if you mount a frontal assault on their beliefs.

[/ QUOTE ]

Better yet, shift one sign up or down. The zodiac is structured such that signs that are an odd number of signs away are dissimilar while signs that are an even number of signs away are similar. If you're Aries go Taurus, if you're Scorpio go Saggitarius, etc. Also, remember that anyone that you're demonstrating this to is not going to ask you for your sign, but for your birthday, so just move one month up. If you're born March 16, tell her April 16. Then pull out your ID to rip her a new one /images/graemlins/laugh.gif

[madnak]

Well, I don't understand how intelligent people can believe this stuff, but I'm a hard-headed capricorn.

Then again, I do have prominent cheekbones (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capricorn_(astrology)), and I am going to hell (http://bible.cc/matthew/25-32.htm)...

[peritonlogon]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
You tell them you're a Taurus, and the you say
"I think it's all a bunch of bull [censored]."

[/ QUOTE ]

FYP /images/graemlins/grin.gif

[/ QUOTE ]

Saggitarius worked for Jim

[surftheiop]

[ QUOTE ]
.

I'm a lot like their friend Joe, except he's on the cusp, so he's obviously more outgoing and non-differentiable

[/ QUOTE ]

[Wubbie075]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]


If you're in the mood for an argument, then the next time this happens, rather than attacking them AFTER the exchange above, simply lie about your star sign.

[/ QUOTE ]

Better yet, shift one sign up or down. The zodiac is structured such that signs that are an odd number of signs away are dissimilar while signs that are an even number of signs away are similar.

[/ QUOTE ]

IIRC nature has already done this with the procession of the earth's axis... all that dawning of the age of aquarius crap from the 60's refers to this.. all the astrological charts are actually one zodiac sign off because they are based on 3000 year old measurements... I don't recall if it is 1 sign up or 1 sign down though...