View: I'd rather my imaginary (emphasis on imaginary because I believe in Astrology) son be a heorin addict than grow up and be a guy like David and his ilk while smugly proclaiming to be the "smart" one in the room.

Social awareness, a clear open mind, empathy for other human beings their ideas and their ways of life is what my warped sense of the Stars has taught me so its easy to not trust guys like David when they are making important decisions despite their alleged superior intelligence. "You will know the Tree by its Fruit." No son of mine would handle himself the way David has. Need I say more?

Maybe we can change this up and make it a weird incel predator vs Astrology boss of a company discussion. Who would you trust more with your company? How about with your children?

this

There are many obviously wrong beliefs that sometimes make the believer happier than if they didn't have them. "In spite of my screw ups I am still superior to any black person". "The EV changes if I run it twice" are two examples. So, it clearly shouldn't be the only criteria. Because if your brain doesn't allow you to see your obvious mistake even after it has been meticulously explained to your (not something that can be done with "life after death" which doesn't have a slam dunk refutation) there is something wrong with you, either intellectually or psychologically that is lurking in the background that that may rear up at any time. Whether having this problem is even worse than being a heroin addict, I have already admitted is debatable and I should have chosen something a bit less bad as the alternative to avoid the derailment of my main point that some who did not read my admission are attempting."

I've handled myself much differently than you think. Two out of dozens of girlfriends were much younger and they both still think I'm great. But even if you were right, it has nothing to do with the terribleness of astrology belief.

But your suggestion is interesting. You could start off with this:

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/techn...rt/ar-AA11K5y3

By the way, kind of off the subject, but one other supernatural belief has been studied in a similar way as astrology. Prayer for sick people who don't know you are praying for them (to avoid the placebo effect). The results, of course was that it had no effect. In this case the religious nuts try to wiggle out of these results by claiming that God doesn't like to be tested so he will ignore the prayers if it is part of a study. (So make sure that if your loved one is sick no one praying for them signs up for one.) Do astrologers try to wiggle out in a similar way?

I’m pretty sure most people disagreeing with your premise are well aware of the point you’re trying to make re: astrology. I roll my eyes anytime someone mentions it and it makes me think a little less of someone I otherwise respect when I learn they believe in it. Kind of like when I learn someone I respect supports Trump (at the risk of derailing).

I remember once I was driving with my gf and a guy who I think is pretty smart (engineer at a top school). Anyway he and my gf started talking about astrology and he guessed that she was a Gemini. She said no, I’m a Pisces (sp?) and he immediately goes ‘Yea, that makes sense’. Wtf?

Like someone else said you were trying to be provocative with your original choice and you happened to choose an option so stupid (heroin addict) that it kinda makes me question your intelligence.

I don't remember my original post but I am pretty sure that I was thinking along the lines of someone living with his parents in an upper middle class household who did not have trouble financially supporting his habit and probably controlled that habit to the point of holding a job. I believe thousands are in that situation (as I suspect Mat would be) and many of them eventually kick the habit. Still think that is a bit less bad than a firm stubborn belief in astrology, young earth, numerology and a few other such things.

Imagine if Kurt Cobain (he had money) WASNT a heroin addict, and was an astrology believer.

Assume ceteris paribus. (I.E his career and music is not lesser, because he now does not take heroin... might actually be an unfair assumption, however for the purposes of this is completely reasonable to assume)

I think if Kurt Cobain didn't have a heroin addiction his chances of brain no longer in skull from shotgun blast would be approximately 50 percent less.

Would you wish upon Kurt Cobain to remain a heroin addict, or he becomes an astrology believer, no longer a heroin addict, but still retains the other factors contributing to his decision to shoot himself in the head with a shotgun. So he might still commit suicide, but surely decently lesser likely.


https://www.google.com/search?q=suic...client=gws-wiz

https://www.webmd.com/mental-health/...ion/heroin-use


I think your argument is:

A heroin addicts addiction, is more logical than an astrology believer's belief.

Not, I would prefer someone to be a heroin addict over astrology believer



(David mate, this is your ladder out of the hole you've dug)

At this point the only thing that interests me about this subject concerns those supposedly smart people of the present era who believe in astrology in spite of the two main objections to it (gravity arguments and statistical trials.) How do they explain those things away without clearly breaking the laws of logic and/or probability?

Good question, why do faith believers indeed have faith and the belief.

A good starting point would be biology and evolution, there must be a reason why humans are so susceptible to belief/faith even in the face of opposing evidence, or rather a lack of evidence for the faith. Human's are more results based oriented in general not from dumb luck (pun), but rather probably because it ensured us getting here over the last billions of years.

We often say a fear of the dark is silly and illogical, but there is a reasonable argument put forward that fear of the dark has huge evolutionary impacts. In cave man times or whatever, a person afraid of walking into a dark area, may have without that fear walked into the dark and then been eaten by a lion. They know lions are dangerous and to avoid, but they didn't see the lion in the dark. So the fear of the dark protects them from possible unknown threats. This is of course a trade-off situation where, walking into that dark area may have been completely safe, and might be resource bearing (there could be a piece of fruit to eat there).

A second point would be average level of general intelligence, and perhaps more importantly the average level of 'communication quality' between people.

There's tons of environmental factors too, like a subject being exposed to contradictory information in their life, or someone being deceitful towards them. In what frequency, and in what exact nature did these environmental factors occur. E.g - was the person who presented the contradictory information a person who is well respected and authoritative, or was it presented by someone not well respected.

So the question is basically why are astrologists so dumb?

I don’t know. Why do so many extremely smart business people think Trump is some sort of next level genius. I don’t know. The answer is basically that being smart in one part of your life does not correspond to being smart in other parts, which seems to be a difficult idea for some people to understand

Arguably the greatest tennis player ever has what appear to be irrational superstitious beliefs that guide his actions around the court. Obviously he thinks these beliefs are important otherwise he would not go out of his way following them. Nobody is perfect, I am sure anyone who were to be investigated would be found to follow one or more illogical or meaningless behaviors that ostensibly can only be a detriment to one's well being. That people find solace in otherwise harmless beliefs can only be answered by the individual. If these behaviors present harm to others then it becomes a different conversation.

Thats a pretty good point.

the funniest part is thinking there's a rational way to live a life and part of it is spending time itt

You are not "smart", no matter how adept you are at some special endeavor, unless you are good at spotting and understanding fallacies. Counter arguments to these weird, illogical, easily disprovable, beliefs mention the fallacies inherent in them. So, it doesn't make sense that actual smart people would fall for them as people are claiming. Not unless they are actually crazy as Godel and Bobby Fischer were.

Again, subjective 'smart'

If smart is only spotting and understanding fallacies. Such a subject could also be stymied by inaction.

If you take a person who is great at understanding fallacies, but never recognises opportunity, compared to a person who is poor at spotting fallacies but takes upon opportunities, then I would say the latter has a better chance at survival and reproduction.

What is smart? No don't answer, it's subjective.

Ehh meh, tilted soz, im outties

Soi would you rather that your son be a heroin addict than believe in the version of Islam that condones terrorism?

Hot takes:

Brunson is overrated. He won his WSOP titles by playing bad and getting lucky. His section in SS is one of the worst pieces of poker literature I have ever read.

Cobain probably would have killed himself sooner if he hadn't had heroin to ease the pain of life.

heheh i like

Some of the comments in here have to be trolls, otherwise my faith in humanity is definitely lowered lol

Just curious, how do think about someone like Ben Carson, top notch brain surgeon, 7th day Adventist believer. He doesn’t sound smart to me…

Dave Sklansky, ladies and gents

Dunno. Why do smart people engage in statutory rape or encourage young women towards suicide? Why would a smart person think drug addiction is better than superstition?

Intelligence, Knowledge, Practical Skills Ability, Critical Thinking Skills.

All four of these are separate attributes that a human being can possess.

Having any one or more of them does not necessarily mean that the person has any or all of the others.

There are many more attributes of a significant nature that a human being can possess, I just chose the ones that are germane to your point about Ben Carson, which I assume was making the point that being a brain surgeon is fact, science, logic based, whereas being religious probably isn't, at least not to the same degree.

I'm not sure that many extremely smart business people thought Trump was a next level genius, but rather they thought (correctly) that he was more likely than his Clinton/Biden opponents to promote/enact policies that would be favorable to them personally. But that's probably a bigger subject for a different thread.