this post was submitted on 06 Jun 2025
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Reminder that there used to be a $1,000,000 prize available for anyone who could display any sort of supernatural powers that remained unclaimed for 20 years. The challenge rules required that both parties agree upon the test setup, and several people actually tried to claim it and all failed. It astounds me that anyone still believes in this nonsense and that it seems to be becoming even more popular to believe in literal magic and other supernatural idiocy.
Everyone should read about James Randi he was a brilliant skeptic.
And he did special effects for Alice Cooper!
Also friend of Penn and Teller. Just a great guy all around.
There was that guy who could make almost anyone forget almost anything, he won the prize many times. :D
There is actually an X-Men who has this exact power.
I am at the point where if anyone, ever, for any reason, asks me what my astrological sign is, I stop communicating with them.
They always turn out to be irresponsible, narcissistic idiots every time.
An exception would be if this interaction is taking place completely within the confines of an actually defined fantasy world like a video game or ttrpg.
But real life? People who actually believe there is, or could potentially be anything to astrology?
Dangerous morons.
devil's advocate: there are people like me who don't take it seriously. like I enjoy talking to astrology people because listening to anyone talk about anything they're interested in is downright entertaining, even if I personally don't believe planetary positions have any influence on humans
Lots of people doing something for fun but not taking it seriously is just an advertisement for people that will take it seriously.
That's a fair point. The only time I've recommended/passed along business cards of those in the metaphysical entertainment industry (at least that's what it is to me), have been to others I know are already into it on some level
But I guess I could do inadvertent damage talking about it with those who aren't into it, if they also happen to be in a vulnerable state where the less honest members of that industry could really take advantage of them
That's something to think about. I'm probably going to add "don't bring up my unserious enjoyment of metaphysics to people unless they mention it first" to my personal rules
Astrology has one major and tangible benefit - it lets you easily remember when roughly are people's birthdays coming up.
We of tend play choose your horoscope at work. We gather free or paid newspaper and around a coffee we read the horoscopes and chose the best or the funnier.
I've worked as a copy editor for a small newspaper.
You wanna know how the horoscopes are written?
Lead editor pulls them out of his ass, often laughing while doing so.
They tended to be based on the plots of, or scenes in movies he'd recently seen, shows he was watching.
I'm not even kidding, this guy would also bombard me with variations of the GI Joe 'porkchop sandwiches' memes, in all likelihood was an editor by day, 4chan shit poster by night.
My wife makes a newspaper about me for my birthday every year. She makes the horoscopes too and that's one of the most entertaining parts for her.
Yeah and since we laugh reading them, we do full circle XD
Yep they are literally complete bullshit and you have to be an actual moron to take them seriously...
Also I edited in more to my original comment after you replied, did not expect you to reply so fast, haha.
He I see, yeah that what i though, their can't be science behind this. I wonder when we will start to get "AI" horoscopes.
(I am waiting to enter a music festival, nothing more to do than speak or argue with people)
There are various complex systems, calculations, tables and such that people use... but there is absolutely no actual empirical science that backs up any of any of them.
Therr are no plausible causal mechanisms.
There is also an immense wealth of scientific evidence showing how the predictions are uselessly inaccurate, as well as a bunch of other studies explaining how and why such vaguely worded predictions are convincing to certain kinds of people.
If there is any science to astrology, it is a science of being a scam artist, of psychological manipulation tactics.
As for the actual purported mechanisms of generating a horoscope, they often have psuedoscientific levels of complexity that fools rubes who cannot think critically:
Its complex, and I had to learn it, therefore it's true and worthwhile!
Nevermind that it often doesn't even make testable, falsifiable predictions, and when it does, they are not accurate, they are wrong.
Throw it out like we did with bloodletting, 'body humors', 'vitalism', trying to solve disease with sacrifices and prayer, Lamarckian evolution, etc...
Sooooo
Your sign? :)
Ophiuchus is usually my answer
What if real life is a video game?
Then astrology would be the equivalent of an entire belief system that functionally is so complex it essentially contitutes a religion...
Astrology would be that, but built on urban legend, pre-internet era myths about older video games, like Mew being in the back of a truck in Vermillion city.
It would be fake cheat codes that don't work.
Ah yes James Randi, a man I have very mixed feelings on. He was a climate skeptic who would claim to have debunked people who never signed up for his challenge. A real scum bag in general. He was also a high School drop out with no training in the sciences.
Admittedly he called himself an "Honest Liar" and was motivated not by money but out of fear that people believed he had magic back when he was a magician.
Still given his character I tend not to take JREF too seriously.
I think the case for climate skeptic is a bit overblown. In his own words:
http://archive.randi.org/site/index.php/swift-blog/806-i-am-not-qdenyingq-anything.html
The relevant quote:
Not sure what to make of the claim that he debunked people who never signed up for his challenge. There are a number of psychics and others that he has debunked that never signed up for the challenge (for example Uri Geller or Sylvia Browne) which this could be referring to, and I feel are valid debunking.