As a side note: blows my mind there are people over the age of 9 that persist in actually believing in tarot cards or astrology.
People believe in a god who sacrificed himself to save people from himself. Tarot is downright reasonable in comparison.
I’ve seen it. Tarot is like amateur therapy, with props. It’s a whooole lot of talking back and forth, with some cards to comment on.
Yeah some people take it way too seriously, but most people just enjoy it for what it is. Like I’ve got a lucky rock that I feel off without, but I know it’s just a fetish.
Just because tarot cards aren’t real doesn’t mean there isn’t something potentially very positive about the experience of it, especially if the person doing the tarot reading is a really good people person and makes the person being read felt seen and listened to. If the person giving tarot readings is a genuinely good person who is enjoys interacting and listening with others than it really doesn’t matter if the tarot part is just some props and bullshit. Sure you can argue someone should go to normal therapy, but there is just no denying there is a huge amount of people who aren’t going to do that and will sit down for a tarot reading.
I think whether tarot reading is real or not is the least interesting perspective to look at tarot reading from. You have to see tarot reading through the lens of theater where the point is you use a bunch of pretend bullshit to positively impact the audience. If someone treats tarot readings as a way to scam people out of money ok I dont like it, but if the person is genuinely pouring their heart and soul into giving tarot readings I just don’t think you can say it is a bad thing. Hell you can probably get way more people to take a tarot reading then try out doing community theater so shrugs…
So independent of any woo-woo, tarot cards are designed to be a potent conceptual microcosm. That means that when you shuffle the cards and do a reading, with a decent understanding of what each of the cards represents, you essentially make a little randomly generated conceptual perspective through which to view the problem. Extremely helpful for shaking out of an established mindset, finding an unexpected angle which reveals connections you hadn’t considered.
I can’t really speak to astrology, but I wouldn’t be surprised if it turns out to be approximately accurate for some reason other than the stars themselves. Perhaps the changing temperatures of the seasons have a slightly noticeable effect on natal development.
Astrology is only accurate in that everything it says is vague and easily interpretable in multiple ways.
A teacher did an experiment where he handed his class custom astrology reports based on their birthdate, and asked them to rate how well they fit each of them. Everyone gave it a high rating, and said it was very accurate. He had them pass the paper to a different student, and everyone laughed because everyone got the exact same astrology report.
Certainly sometimes, not always. I was convinced to get a “proper” chart done, and the results were more specific and accurate than I expected. Certainly not vague newspaper predictions. I’m not going to claim the whole practice is authentic, but like I said I wouldn’t be surprised if it turns out to have some actual correspondence to some unknown tangible cause unrelated to the stars.
I had some friends do astrology readings for themselves that depended on the exact time they were born. I asked one of them about how they accounted for time zones and DST. (They didn’t.) I may have gotten my point across.
I’m seeing a lot of deeply unscientific arguments in these comments. This “Cult of Science” mentality is a concerning trend, where instead of thinking rationally and scientifically about something, people blindly follow whatever the contemporary consensus is. Your friends using poor methodology is not a rational argument against a field, any more than solving a math problem incorrectly invalidates math.
For what feels like the tenth time: I don’t believe any star (other than the sun) has any direct significant effect on a person. However, correlation isn’t causation. I do believe that it is possible that there might be other factors which vary over the course of the year which may have some effect, and that those variations can be coincidentally correlated to the zodiac phases as a convenient reference.
You just made an excellent argument for why tarot is inefficient given its random nature. There are healthier more logical approaches to expanding your perspectives.
Anything more and it’s less about shaking out of an established mindset and more just wanting to play pretend
Logical approaches explicitly can’t expand your perspective that way, unless you mean a different word than logic. Logic can only operate after you’ve declared your axioms. Tarot allows you to stochastically test alternative axioms. They are different tools used for different stages of the problem-solving process.
I use tarot and other divination methods (primarily the I-Ching/Book of Changes). It’s less about trying to get magical communication from some sort of magical realm or helper for me, it is more a way to organize my thoughts. Often times, the advice associated with each card is just generic good advice, and it prompts me to consider situations from other perspectives. I take some time to think about a problem facing me and use the cards as creative prompts for ways to solve that problem. No supernatural stuff involved.
Horoscopes are mostly just (hopefully!) good advice packaged in what can only be described as a crime against astronomy. They’re good to read, because they tell you what people want to be thinking about themselves.
The way that I think about these things is that it’s like flipping a coin to make a decision. It doesn’t really matter what the coin says, but if you feel happy or disappointed in the result, that tells you what you really need to know. Tarot’s like that but with a bit more depth. The value from the reading is that it encourages introspection.
it’s like flipping a coin
That’s exactly what the I Ching is (or you flip yarrow stalks). And that’s exactly what it does, and it’s what the fellow above gets from it.
My mom was a hippy and I used to do it as a kid, as a sort of punishment when I was having a freak out. It’s easier to listen to random alternate views from a book than some woo-woo-guru.
Yeah, that’s how I use it too. Like sometimes, I feel like the cards are calling me out, but it’s actually just me calling myself out.
It reminds me of how I give great advice to my friends that I may not always follow myself. Tarot feels like a way of getting distance between me, the advice giver, and me, the dumbass who desperately needs to follow the advice
How often are you really using a goddamn elaborate version of a coin flip to make your decisions?
Tarot helps you gain perspectives by randomization and chance? Sounds like a horribly illogical system. You’re actively hindering yourself just for the sake of shoehorning tarot into your decision making process lmao
Similarly if you need to read horoscopes to learn what people want to think about themselves, you have bigger problems. It’s simply not true and indefensible. Who is defined by “people” here, as if it’s a true blanket statement on all born in that month or just at all. Fucking bullshit, why force this mindless drivel into your life at all.
Everything you mention can be gained more efficiently, meaningfully and accurately (no RNG needed) via other means. Just admit you’d rather play around
Tarot cards are a tool to be used in reflection and insight. When reading for other people, they mostly provide a talking point and help make connections.
What they are not is a magic oracle that can predict the future. It’s up to the reader to interpret their meaning and consider how it may apply.
Astrology, yeah. I have no idea. It’s not my thing.
Disclaimer: I don’t believe in astrology. However, I always have this discussion with my students when we talk about pseudoscience and superstition (and this is likely an unpopular opinion here), but astrology can’t be entirely dismissed out of hand . Astrology doesn’t have much of a basis in reality, but there is some credibility and research to support the idea that some aspects of your personality can be shaped or impacted by the month in which a person is born, especially in rural/agrarian communities or areas with harsh climates.
It’s not the stars themselves and it’s not like your day-to-day life is affected by the current star sign or “mercury in retrograde,” but think about how formative experiences and your earliest memories can be influenced by the time of year. A child in the Dakotas in the 1800’s that has their first memory as a 2yo in February while the family is on the verge of starvation is going to have a very different experience than a child in the same time and geographical area that is born 6 months later whose first memory is of a harvest festival. Not to mention they are going to have very different nutrition and growth patterns, etc.
It’s purely anecdotal, but I’ve seen this occur to a small extent in my personal life. My oldest was born in January, and he learned to walk in the dead of winter in a snowy environment (so, inside at home), but my middlest was born in April and learned to walk at parks and baseball fields. Does that mean their long-term personality traits are based around that? Not necessarily, but it’s certainly plausible and early scientific research does support there being some correlation between season of birth and personality (Source 1, Source 2)
What you mean is.
A child born in winter will have a different personality than one born in summer. Because it also means they celebrate their birthday in summer or winter, which give a totally different vibe. It influences their life about as much as their name.
The part where Astrology fails is when you consider there are twins with opposing personalities.
Well Intended Leftist: I want to do something productive for society.
Tankie: I want to bash you
To be fair, the tankie in this situation said they are bashing because no one wants to plow fields. You can’t serve latte’s if no one is doing the hard work of growing and transporting the coffee.
How about working the oil rig to supply the petroleum needed to ship coffee from South America? You’ll probably lose a finger or two. Any unpaid volunteers?
If you’re talking small commune living then the onus of doing that stuff gets shared by as many people as are able and it’s hard work but it’s shared. If you’re talking greater socialist society it gets done the same way as it’s done now, but the people who do it get paid a much larger share of the value their labor creates and it is incentived to ease the burden where possible because you can’t treat the workers as disposable and cheap.
people who do it get paid a much larger share of the value their labor creates
That’s the tricky part. Without a permanent dictatorship of the proletariat, you have the masses determine value. “The state will wither.” is hand-wavy in the extreme. If the people determine value, that results in Glen Beck being worth hundreds of millions in value while school teachers get minimal just like today.
“A person is smart. People are dumb, panicky, dangerous animals and you know it.”
I’d seriously like to know a solution to how to get people to do the hard work. I just don’t have faith that enough would sign up for the hard/dangerous work. Like most, I wouldn’t balk at serving latte’s for free.
Imo, there needs to be a reward for the harder work. But that introduces recording of the value contributed which leads to capitalism again. It’s like living under feudalism, knowing it’s wrong, but not having a solution.
She sounds like a magical thinking, deluded child.
Larpers hate it when you ask them to join the shit brigade/bathroom cleaning.
fight tankies, I guess.
Where is the line here? Art, music or writing fiction? Anything that isn’t needed to keep 20 people alive? Or are we talking a society that is more than just surviving? Want to keep people tired and dirty, that’s a good way make them shut up and submit I guess. I’m making my own commune, with black jack and hookers.
Entertainment can be labor. If someone is explicit and consistent about a tarot reading being just a game of make-believe then I suppose it’s fine, but I doubt most people who would do tarot readings professionally would be about to pull it off with at least winking at their audience.
Entertainment (and the arts) would probably not have a large central component. I imagine many more people would engage with arts than today thanks to shorter work weeks. Set building and performances and the like would probably occur on a more local level.
There’s definitely something cool about seeing a blockbuster movie with special effects, or an artistic film that makes deep points while showcasing actors at peak talent.
However, humans had oral tradition and just like people in robes acting for a long time. Our brains are probably better off with some storytelling that requires a little internal imagination and thought.
I guess what I’m getting at is, on my ideal commune the arts would be hobbies for everyone to enjoy and play a part in as they wish, not a “job” that constitutes pulling one’s fair share.
That’s the beauty of communes. It’s up to the group to define what’s acceptable.
Except that you can’t just grab your stuff and leave your country to go join another country at will.
If there’s a version of communism that works, it’s definitely at the scale of a town or smaller where you can voluntarily leave whenever.
