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> As the saying goes, “all models are wrong, some models are useful” While the astrology “model” is obviously wrong, it must have been useful to someone at sometime for it to have gained such a popularity.

Not much of a model IMHO. You just give ultra general predictions for every sign such that everyone will go “that’s true” or “that actually happened” no matter who they are - unless they are really weird.

The value might not be in the ability of the model to correctly classify people but in it's ability to generate discussions about the classification.

"I'm a Gemini which fits because I am X but unlike most Gemini I like Y" tells you X and Y about someone.

Saying "Gemini and Aeries shouldn't date because of..." isn't necessarily a conversation about whether any given individuals should date. It may instead actually be a conversation about whether people who conform to certain sets of traits should date.

From direct observation, people who are persuaded astrology tend to know a lot of people. You could say a sort of map to observe and predict relationships across all the people you already know and all the people you will meet is useful.

Conversely, people who are very outspoken against astrology don't have as varied, dynamic and big social circles. Hence they'd not need a "social map", and they might even lack the social intelligence to realize that other people do.

"it must have been useful to someone at sometime for it to have gained such a popularity."

Cui prodest? = Who profits?

Scams are useful to the person who makes money off them, too.

Don't forget that for some people, astrology has been a profession. In history and today.

Free youtube videos are where I get my fix. Helped me in my depression a LOT. And didn't cost me a penny.

> While the astrology “model” is obviously wrong, it must have been useful to someone at sometime for it to have gained such a popularity.

I mean, this seems like a weird conclusion. People like believing in stuff, so they believe in stuff; arguably the nature of the stuff is irrelevant. Astrology is just one of thousands of religious/pseudo-religious systems. Romans preferred to do their divination through the study of entrails and birdwatching; must those also have been useful (except in the context of providing belief and ceremony)? (They did eventually kind of adopt astrology, but it was viewed as a suspect foreign practice at least until the early empire).

> Like the “flat earth model” is actually extremely useful if you don’t intend (can’t) travel significant distances - gives you a coordinate system

By the time anyone really had coordinate systems, educated people knew the world wasn't flat. There's this persistent belief that the world not being flat is a relatively new discovery (I think people confuse it with heliocentricity), but this isn't true. Modern flat-earth-ism is a creation of the 19th century, not a continuation of some traditional belief system.

> thousands of religious/pseudo-religious systems.

I'll double down. Yes, I think all of these that have been practiced by large groups of people and demographics have had some utility of some kind. Their explanations for why they work may be completely wrong.

> divination through the study of entrails and birdwatching;

Note that this poster argued the value of astrology indirectly. It's not the stars, it's the value of thinking about personality.

One explanation of this is that entrails are a kind of canvas for a Rorschach test that allows the individual to examine their thoughts. Or perhaps just making time to examine the entrails gives them time to ponder in a quiet environment.

I'll give one more example which is divination rods, demonstrated to not be able to find water in controlled experiments. However, the current explanation for their usefulness is that it gives the user an opportunity to observe natural clues that suggest where water is.

Not a lot of people are emotionally invested in divination rods. It's safe to speak poorly of them and just suggest more direction tools. But in cases where many people derive meaning from it, I think it's best not to disparage.

The thing I was trying to say is that models can be useful without being accurate, in fact you might argue none of our models are accurate, if you drill down enough.

Was newtonian physics a bad model? Yes it was inaccurate but it lead to soo many discoveries.

I kinda got into this rabbit whole of thinking myself when I was practicing some martial arts and the instructor was kinda into eastern spiritualism. Talking about channels and energies and all that kind of nonsense. But at some point I realized that I didn’t need to believe in the model for it to be useful, following the movements, practices and meditation did help me enormously and get me into better shape. And some of the explanations did have predictive power, even if I knew they were totally made up things.

Knowing lorents transformation and quantum mechanics does not invalidate the predictive power of newtonian physics for solving common everyday tasks, you just know that if you want to get deeper, you need a more accurate model.

Same with astrology, its a model, as others have said its value might not stem from its absolute predictive power, but the social interactions it generates.

People want to talk about personalities and astrology does offer a fun and whimsical way if going about it.

I’ve actually listened in to recordings of people going to see astrology “pros” and it’s remarkable how close what they were trying to do was to psychiatrists, just using different tools.

“Oh, you’re a bit self obsessed and have trouble from your childhood interaction with you parents! This is probably because of this planet doing this”

To laypeople who don’t understand psychology that might sound exactly the same as some scientific term / explanation…

Not saying its the same by any means, just that there is “some” value in the exchange for people, and calling things stupid and nonsense knida misses a lot of nuance.

>it must have been useful to someone at sometime for it to have gained such a popularity.

How about blood types?

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

When I was in high school, I have read in some magazine a variant of this "blood type personality theory".

To my amazement, that theory matched extremely well the personalities of all my colleagues from high school and of a few other friends and relatives, whose blood type I knew, unlike the predictions of personality based on astrology, which did not seem to match the known people more often than by random chance.

I have no idea which was the origin of that variant of the "blood type personality theory", but it was something very different from what is described in the Wikipedia article.

For instance people with type B blood were not classified as "spontaneous and creative" as in the Wikipedia page, but IIRC, as people who become mature in thinking at a lower age than the others, who are better at independent work, who may be stubborn and less influenceable by the opinions of others, who may be more trustworthy, but more introverted, and who may be inclined to careers in technical domains or in scientific research, or to military careers.

> As the saying goes, “all models are wrong, some models are useful” While the astrology “model” is obviously wrong, it must have been useful to someone at sometime for it to have gained such a popularity.

Yeah that’s how string theory got do popular. It’s usefulness. (Replace string theory with any subject from the entirety of metaphysics pre-scientific revolution)

Snark aside, have you considered that astrology’s “usefulness” that allowed it to propagate was swindling people out of money? There’s a swindler in every main street and in every paper - that’s why it got popular.

Usefulness can be a very subjective thing. Plenty of string theorists find it useful. Some like to go on about how the math is all so usefully aesthetic compared to alternatives. It looks nice so it feels nice to work with, there's a usefulness there. Others talk about how String Theory has been very useful in finding new questions. Sure, it has been having a rough go at finding testable, predictable answers to all the new questions, but sometimes it is still very useful just to have interesting questions to ask the next theory, because maybe that will have useful answers. (The scientific process starts from questions, hypotheses, of course.)

I won't defend astrology's usefulness, but there's certainly centuries of subjective feelings about the subject to find in many libraries, if you care to. Usefulness as a subjective quality is orthogonal to any objective criticisms about the usefulness as a model.

Yeah, in the end ask about your star sign is as consequential as asking which team is your favourite.

It can be a fun conversation starter, but if you make your life out of that, then it gets ridiculous

It's, at best, a conversation starter. Hofstadter in his Metamagical Themas had a chapter on how the predictions are worded specifically to be vague and feel good so that any of them could apply to any one.

Taken more seriously, they have serious social effects. e.g. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mangala_Dosha

I expect the interest in "new age" religions or quasi-religious practices to go up as traditional religions move out of societies. My experience is that there is a part of the human being that requires religion and spirituality and they will find outlets to satiate their needs.

We follow celestial for a great deal of predictive power and have done for God knows how many millennia, massive works have been devoted to them.

"The time of birth can also correlate loosely with personality. "

I mean it does have an effect, if you spend the first months of your life outside in the sun, or hidden inside. And the parents also behave different in summer than in winter. But to conclude that every person born in december must be like this and that .. is frustrating to deal with.

You seems like to think in the northern hemisphere and places with 4 seasons.

The point of a "useful model" in that sense is that it makes actual predictions, not that it was fun or even illuminating to think about. Aether was not a "useful model" because thinking about it led to its own repudiation. Astrology fails this test.

> it must have been useful to someone at sometime for it to have gained such a popularity.

Sure, people made money off of it.

It is an useful filter to reduce the pool of eligible candidates when dating, even if it is random.

It should also be seen in context. Certain celestial bodies (moon and the sun) have a massive impact on your life on earth. It is easy to see why people would interpolate this to other celestial bodies.

"It is an useful filter to reduce the pool of eligible candidates when dating, even if it is random."

I mean, yes, that's true.

But IMO it's not really at random. I don't think anyone would dump someone because that person is a Scorpio (unless they're absolute nuts). It's more like a conversation starter to let people open up and talk about their personality traits.

You bring up jokingly "ugh my ex was also a Leo... Leo are so dramatic yada yada" and you go "yeah I get it but I'm actually chill, maybe it's my Sagittarius ascendent" or something (I'm talking out of my ass here, dunno if those examples make sense... but then again I don't believe in it, so...).

It sure beats talking about the weather in the small talk scale.

There is little scientific evidence to suggest there is a correlation between personality and star signs. It is a good icebreaker, and to gauge common interests.

"There is little scientific evidence..."

Yep. I'd be surprised if there's any!

Still a fun icebreaker.

> useful filter

I guess it is useful to know when someone can't entertain hypotheticals, make light conversation, lacks sensitivity about other's world view, and is allergic to beliefs which are not promoted by large organizations.