Ppl who are real into astrology/conspiracies/woo beliefs *really* trigger me, but it's not because of the beliefs themselves, it's what it indicates about the person.
To me, it implies a profound lack of curiosity in checking to see if their beliefs are true. 1/
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They're drawn to woo beliefs because it feels good or serves some meaning purpose for them - which I get, I mean I was raised in religion - but there's a total absence of interest in tests to check other theories for why they might be experiencing this thing 2/
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I don't get this! How could you not be curious about other theories, when you *know* other people in the world deeply believe stuff that is clearly wrong? It *must* feel convincing to them, so "feeling convincing" to you shouldn't be sufficient criteria. 3/
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Anyway, to me woo beliefs indicate the person has a systemic lack of interest in knowing if they're wrong, and doesn't question their models of their own experience.
And this is *really bad* for interpersonal relationships. What if they're wrong about *you*? 4/
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Getting to know someone really deeply requires setting aside your own models to step into their models; it requires being really interested in being willing to be wrong about someone, in actively seeking that out. It's a delicate, careful, nuanced process. 5/
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If someone fails at something so easy as woo, I doubt they'd succeed at something as difficult as understanding another human person.
So I get triggered by ppl with real woo beliefs; I see them as not caring about something I deeply value, as incapable of understanding me. 6/6
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Do you feel the same about people who believe in god? I'm pretty sure they never checked if he really exists.
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Woo is triggering cause it's low-hanging fruit; we don't live in a culture that's astrology-dominated (like religious ppl in religious cultures are), it's very easy to think about from first principles. It's hard for even very smart people immersed in religion to leave it.
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Generalizing about the motivations of a swath of people across broad, poorly defined categories seems to me to be akin to the incuriosity that you find so perturbing.
But I’m an astrologer, what could I possibly know, right?
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Happy to be more precise here
If you believe astrology is actually predictive of personality, then you probably will score lower on IQ tests. This isn't an absolute predictor, but an average one. Similarly to how I predict heavier ppl are more likely to be tall.
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I think you'd be surprised to find most astrologers are pretty self reflective and curious about the world. I understand why you would dismiss it, but this might be a good opportunity to practice what you're saying by investigating to see if your own preconceptions are correct.
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Happy to investigate if they're correct, we could investigate if both of ours are correct by running a test that would update our beliefs! Im down to design a test with you that you find fair
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