05 July 2010

A private amusement.

which is funny to watch.

Like "personality types" (MBTI, etc) or even criminal profiling, the problem with these things is that they're prone to a lot of affirmative biases. The information is so general, so vague, and so disconnected from the usual peaks and valleys of an actual individual that it's pretty much useless in reality. The crucial part is that they're so vague you could swap them for one another and nobody really notices the changes. You get hits because those peaks and valleys are noticed when they are right. The misses are so small that nobody cares.

With horoscopes at least, it's sort of like praying. I don't do any of it obviously, but what the hell? Knock yourself out if it seems like you're making sense of something that wasn't making sense and you're attributing that to something other than your own mind seeking its own "clarity" or perspective on an issue or a person or a job. The more amusing part to me is watching people go through them and trying to decide which parts they'll think "hit" and/or which parts become actionable behavior influenced at all by a perception of moods and impressions given off. And, of course, which parts were thrown away and largely ignored.

If there's money involved, as with "psychics" of any kind, then it's troublesome. Otherwise, it seems like a bit of harmlessness that, like people and popular culture with their incessant references to "souls", gives me a bit of pleasure tweaking their day by poking their thoughts a little and then going back to the dark shadows with the best views to people watch. If it ever gets me anything in life, the issue is less blaming a vague list of attributes and generalities for the day and more "blaming" any person who assessed that list positively with me in mind.

In the good sense of the term, apart from the potential inconsistency that they may also look upon such a thing with negativity and see what they want to see with me in mind also.

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