Would The World Be Better Off If-

[seemorenuts]

P.S. I'm a Feces on the cusp of Gemini (twin buttocks) with a rising moon in Aquarius (flush toilet).

How about you guys?

[seemorenuts]

Here's another take on this from me (I've posted before):

Would the world be better off if we didn't believe in Santa Claus even as adults? would we be more inclined to try and do the right thing by being good?

Do directionless people suffer from a bit of advice from a vague surrogate parents' advice?

Take this question to an unwarranted and distorted extreme--how much worse would we be in this world with 90% less literature or culture in a modern technological society?

Aren't these nostrums suited to get the masses through their day? Should we breed only more logical people?

Okay, getting to complicated ... I'll stop... others here are better at identifying and crystalizing the issues...

[Mickey Brausch]

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Though, overall, the level of consciousness and intelligence sans astrology would be raised so much, that it'd more than compensate for this small effect.

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Why do you think consciousness or intelligence would be "raised" if you took away their belief in astrology? Unless you're assuming they stop believing *because* their intelligence is raised, it doesn't follow at all. I think the people who believe in astrology now would just find other stupid (and perhaps less benign) things to believe in that bring them less utility.

[/ QUOTE ]You are correct, we need to be more specific.

Abandoning astrology for something "worse" would be obviously an undesirable outcome.

But abandoning astrology on account of abandoning belief, generally, in crap, would be obviously a desirable outcome. (Which is the scenario I had in mind in my response.)

Thanks,

Mickey Brausch

[Divad Yksnal]

"no one believed in astrology?"

Here we go again. How are you defining it? Do you believe that gravity affects the universe? Then we'll go from there, though most of you will be lost long along the way. And that can't be changed.

"What fraction of present believers would be better off (generally speaking) if they didn't believe in astrology?"

Almost all of you would be better off believing what makes you happy. The stuff beyond your comprehension will work itself out.

DY

[Albert Moulton]

100%

[SplawnDarts]

1) No. A fool and his money are soon parted. We shouldn't begrudge the system that accomplishes it, nor would you want to live in a word where fools had all that money/power. Astrologers, winning gamblers, and successful stock traders all serve the same function - they just target different fools.

2) 5%. The other 95% of them just read their horoscope and continue on. If they stopped reading it, they'd spend more time not solving the sudoku before they had to go to work. net effect: nada.

[MaxWeiss]

There's so many other silly beliefs... the world would be relatively unchanged. There would just be something else in it's place.

[ALawPoker]

No. It's a lot like marketing to me, but I dunno if I can really explain what I mean. It's wasted resources that don't actually give anything of value to its users, but it's good that it exists anyways. People need to know that they want things. You feel better about your purchase when it's presented to you well. Astrology might tell you to do something that is slightly wrong, but the joy its users get from it will outweigh the harm they do to themselves.

I'd imagine it's close to 0% for number 2. People believe in astrology because they like believing in astrology. Having an unwavering belief in something is a good thing, and often worth the loss of efficiency for some people. The people who gravitate towards astrology are the ones that are better off because of it. Things don't magically exist. Astrology exists because it resonates with some people. It's really hard to judge how many people would actually be better off because of a lack of option, but it's mostly incidental. I think it's rare that the option to accept astrology actually makes someone's life lose equity. I tend to think to the extent that you (or anyone) could look at someone and interpret them as being "better off" that it's mostly just because you have a different time preference. So in other words you have no means of interpreting how they're actually deriving pleasure. But if they willingly choose to do something, that action always carries the most equity (for them).

You can say people's lives would definitely be better off without the option to kill themselves. But it only seems like that to people who can't relate to such a time preference and overall mindset. If you can't understand the mindset that accounts for a certain action, then you can't understand what actually makes them happy. I tend to just assume that whatever an animal does willingly is probably the best thing he can do, and restricting his options is always worse than allowing them.

I don't truly mean it's 0%, but that's only because there's a lot of variance in life. So plenty of people would have (incidentally) ended up finding a different state of happiness based on their beliefs (and also maybe based on what color shirt they wore a certain day, or other arbitrary decisions). For example, if I was a passionate Christian and I got hit by a bus on my way to church, it turns out I would have been better off if I was Jewish. But it's just incidental, and not inherent to the actual beliefs.

[Platonic]

Probably not.

Maybe the chronic believers would benefit.

Certainly I wouldn't benefit, I love screwing with astrology believers.

[Dominic]

astrology is no more or no less a goofy thing to believe in than any organized religion's god.