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PaperclipPerfector  1d ago (text post)   1679 thread views

Small-Scale Question Sunday for September 6, 2026

Do you have a dumb question that you're kind of embarrassed to ask in the main thread? Is there something you're just not sure about?

This is your opportunity to ask questions. No question too simple or too silly.

Culture war topics are accepted, and proposals for a better intro post are appreciated.

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How did Astrology become a Thing again? Since 2020, I've encountered it more and more IRL among the general population, even in people with undergrad degrees. I checked Tinder the other week before re-un-installing, and at least 1/3rd of the profiles had birth sign front-and-center. I honestly thought this was a slain beast.

Someone talking about capricorns really riles up my inner fedora.

A few factors imo, it's resurging for largely the same reasons leftism in general is popular.

People have a desperate, deep seated need to stand out from the crowd, to be exceptional or above average in some way. For those who don't have any obvious areas of talent or excellence, they have to get inventive. This is why people turn to ideology or controversial ideas. It is very, very alluring to claim that this thing which the majority of people (rightly!) dismiss is actually true and has value, and everyone else are idiots for not seeing it. It's an extremely easy way to set oneself apart and claim to have secret knowledge. This is as true for your traditional anti-vax moms as it is for astrology adherents as it is for reflexive leftists who argue that mass immigration is great, actually, as it is for Jehovah's who think they're part of the chosen few going to be saved. Everyone wants to be part of an exclusive crowd that are just better than the plebs. Believing and defending unpopular things is a low-to-no-cost way of achieving that. Your little clubhouse gets to shore up their egos by circlejerking and looking down on those "sheeple" who don't follow your chosen ideology.

Isn't astrology fundamentally opposed to leftism because it denies the Blank Slate and asserts that the most important aspects of one's character are determined (dare I say "assigned") at birth?

Concepts are only sacred so far as they are useful; if it is more convenient to believe something else over blank slatism, then something else will be believed, at least for as long as it remains convenient to do so.

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