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Comment by donatj | Hacker News Reader

The number of people in my life who have recently taken to astrology and started buying "healing" crystals is frankly disheartening.

You try to argue with them they just call you toxic.

I suspect it's a social virus.

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I carry a silicon crystal in my pocket at all times that gives me some pretty awesome powers.

Does that come along with fighting demons and being saved by mysterious masked man wearing tuxedo and a big cylinder hat?

It does after large doses of Benadryl.

Millons of nano-crystals!

It's not 1 crystal, also glass isn't a crystal, metal and plastic either.

I understand what you're saying but it's just wrong.

The other day I went with my family to an old pyrite mine which is now a tourist spot.

We were greeted by a stand with crystals with supposedly miraculous properties.

What was the only miraculous thing to me was the type of poker face the seller had when explaining the details of his products' properties.

I can't hope to ever reach this level of, ahem, professionalism.

A salesman once told me that to be good at the job requires "believing your own bullshit".

I get given the crystals as gifts sometimes. the healing element is obviously complete nonsense, but they're aesthetically pleasing.

they're also a potentially massively profitable business venture if you have easy access to a lot of credulous people, which certainly facilitates their spread

>I suspect it's a social virus

you say this as if this is different to any other idea or meme or brand

> you say this as if this is different to any other idea or meme or brand

I mean it is different, in that it flies entirely in the face of reason. What concerns me is that I've seen otherwise reasonable people fall for this.

perfectly reasonable people eat at McDonalds and buy crisps and support a football team. if you sit down and think about them, they all fly in the face of reason too

Thinking rocks have magical powers and eating food with too many calories are not even remotely the same thing.

they're not the same thing, but they're both irrational behaviours that many smart people regularly participate in

supporting a sports team is an even stronger example which I note you've ignored

On the other hand, I find fidget stones to be very soothing. I can recommend it for anyone. And the choice of stone belongs to you.

on the flip side, u may be introduced to the joy of minerals and crystal growing.

If it makes them happy what's it matter?

Like any religion, they push it on you.

I've found political agendas to be much more of an aggressive nature, liberals, conservatives, vegans, they tend to push a lot more than your religious folk. In fact I've found most religious folk to have a sense of reservation and wisdom that understands not everyone will see the same way.

I guess there's variance like any other thing.

Try being disabled. They look at you and think "easy target! Vulnerable person! Most likely lonely!"

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