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Comment by figital | Hacker News Reader

There are epigenetic markers which can identify the season or perhaps even month you were born. If you might think there is a link between personality and birth order and that perhaps metaphor is useful in storytelling or group dynamics … then one could loosely link these concepts together and consider it more than something like a party trick.

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Indians often do this with marriages, by checking the astrological compatibility. All of it honestly seemed like bs to me, if anything it’s job security for so-called soothsayers and astrologers, who have been grifting generations of families

Many Indian "Hindus" do that.... There are many many people who don't.

The problem is, it doesn't actually solve anything and as you said, its just securing work for the incumbents.

I live up north, in the valley of Kashmir which has historically been shielded from mainland Indian traditions and culture.

https://upcomingkoshurmahraz.wordpress.com/

I started writing about my own efforts to get married so you can read how things happen in my town. And some of my inner ramblings on the issue

Thanks for the link, always curious to hear other experiences from India. Stateside we don’t get much perspective outside of what NRIs do and the mainstream media which leads to a bubble of sorts.

i'd be very glad if i get thoughtful responses

My mother payed two different astrologers to predict my future.

She reported two mutually exclusive predictions.

She did not see what that implied.

She has a graduate degree in statistics.

Woo is a mindkiller.

Astrologers are grifting charlatans.

Indians? This is sort of like saying "many Americans pray to Jesus". Hindus are the ones that believe in astrology-- the majority religion among dozens.

If there are such markers, the flaw in astrology is not taking into account the hemisphere. Someone born in July would be born in summer in the northern hemisphere but winter in the south, so they can't possibly have been exposed to the same environmental factors growing up.

I was not being as specific as latitude/longitude, exact time of the day, or “planetary alignments” … only the season or birth month (or perhaps week if you want to get loco). Much of the natural world runs on such a schedule (even considering lunar phases). This would be more scientific than the concept of Groundhog Day, but less “scientific” than a farmer’s almanac.

I believe that "modern" astrology takes in account the location of birth (latitude and longitude). Of course if you go back to more traditional texts (European or Middle Eastern) they did not really have any concept of this, but on the other hand they were making charts and predictions for people of their own area so it was not a big deal. For them.

When put like this it really sounds like astrology is just trying to be a tool to predict and explain someone's behavior based on external factors that have a non complex origin.

A more accurate and scientific version would be to be to examine someone's upbringing and life events while using methods from modern psychology.

Note that both methods are kind of cold and one way. You are determined to examine someone else, while the needs of the person you are examining are not important here.

The sane or pragmatic way is just to accept that a person is complex and instead let your internal model of their personality evolve through conversation and shared experiences.

Yes, thanks for this hindsight.

This is definitely another problem with Astrology as a "cure".

Tarot is a bit different, at least in the way it is used by Jodorowsky and other who were influenced by him. You turn up a card and start answering questions from the "Tarot Reader". It is more like "what do you see in there? who does this figure remind you of?"

But they're exposed to the alignment of the celestial spheres in relation to the Earth the same way. Imagine if the celestial spheres have a particular electromagnetic relationship with the Earth, this dynamic nature is a type of 'song' if you will. That song becomes imprinted. That's one way I've come to understand these views. Then you actually have some semi-modern approaches to the music of the celestial spheres and the orbital resonances being similar to musical intervals.

> Imagine if the celestial spheres have a particular electromagnetic relationship with the Earth

The kind that falls away with square of the distance, where Saturn is far enough away that light takes > hour to travel?

This is very much a [ ... ] and so astrology argument.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=98Ya3F6jVFM

No, the kind that fills up the entire universe with filaments.

Literally the universal Indra's net:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Birkeland_current

Birkeland currents flow following magnetic field lines.

The Earth's magnetosphere is shaped by solar winds, rounded on the sunside extending 6-10 x Earth radius with a longer tail opposite the sun that extends up to 1,000 x Earth radius.

The Earth's radius is very small compared to the 1 AU Earth distance from Sun and smaller again compared to the distances between planets.

So, rather than "filling the entire universe" the currents you've linked flow through a magnet field that rapidly dwindles with the inverse square of distance and neither the electric currents nor the magnetic field reach to another planet (nor vice versa).

Plasma. It's everywhere.

Not only that, but the time of year you're born probably also impacts how you develop socially since you might end up being a bit younger or older than your peers at school.

I've always had the suspicion this was partly the case.

If you're born in August or September when the sun is out for a long time and everyone's jovially enjoying social events during the first few months of your life, of course you'll be more outgoing and positive and active!

If that were true there would be a 50/50 split between extroverts/introverts. (Or shy/outgoing, however you want to define it)

But there are statistically more extroverts than introverts, so this is empirically wrong.

It could be right, if the equatorial regions are above the extrovert threshold.

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