
And God forbid my father reads this – he’s an astrologer and he’d be very heartbroken. But really, I check my monthly, weekly, sometimes even daily horoscope from multiple sources just so I can prepare for what life has in store for me and not once did they give me a warning about what’s happening […]
via I no longer believe in astrology — coronadiaries
Good points. But newspaper astrologers never publish bad news; they would lose their readership. And they do not provide long term forecasts for the same reason: they need people to read every day to make money. And you are right about those who make long term forecasts making the wrong interpretation. They need to admit that they got it wrong. I do.
See, also: (2017) “A Followup to a few Election Predictions….”
Also: “A Few Predictions that do not require astrology (2017 et seq, Presidential Politics)”
(2 out of 3, but you were right that it was a virus and not a war, at least not YET, as of April , 2020. I note that I was almost wrong about the recession, what I described as a “particularly bad ‘crash’ is facing us after a dishwater tepid ‘recovery.‘” Where it will go remains to be seen. But U.S. Presidents, as a collective, have historically entered wars after recessions.)
One other thing, “skeptics” love to shoot at astrologers and their predictions. But “experts” in more mundane channels (aka “pundits”) tend to have MISERABLE performance records. I encourage to explore beyond the boundaries of astrology to see just how bad their performances can be:
The fact of the matter is that all of these, both newspaper astrologers and “mainstream media” pundits, have to address the biases and desires of their respective audiences. If they do not write the kinds of things their audiences want to hear, then they lose money.
See, also: “Confirmation bias” and “Demand Characteristics.”
One other thing, I began re-blogging the work of other astrologers (and, later, tarot card readers, numerologists, and others) so that the READER could decide for themselves what they did, or did not, believe. No one personality dominates, not even my own.
Your article is well-written. And I do not think it is “wrong” except for this one important problem: singling out astrologers for this kind of behavior is unfair when virtually all others in the media do the same thing, albeit without interpretations of “the stars.”
One last link: “Overall, the “experts” struggled to perform better than ‘dart-throwing chimps’, and were consistently less accurate than even relatively simple statistical algorithms. This was true of liberals and conservatives, and regardless of professional credentials.” (Just in case the link breaks: Source: Harvard Business Review.)
I could write more, but I need to take a break so that I can go hunt for my dart board.
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