Venkatesh Rao, the guy behind Ribbonfarm, is trolling his rationalist followers pretty hard right no

Venkatesh Rao, the guy behind Ribbonfarm, is trolling his rationalist followers pretty hard right now. He's been tweeting things about how astrology is interesting in different ways, with the linked tweet as only the most recent example.

Rational people hate astrology. It's nonsensical to them to think that the future could be written in the stars. Or even to think that the stars could have anything to say about human affairs.

And that's a perfectly reasonable stance, but the position that Rao is taking (and the position that I would argue a lot of interesting, open-minded people take) is that whether or not the stars themselves have anything interesting to say, the tradition provides a lot of really interesting starting points for personal reflection.

A Sam Harris would argue that the kind of observations you get from an astrological or tarot reading are so open ended that they could apply to almost anyone. Maybe so! In fact, let's just go snag a random astrological reading for today. I googled "virgo horoscope today" and came up with a first result on Horoscope.com. Here's what it said:

Oct 27, 2019 - The special someone in your life might feel a little jealous of your friends now. Perhaps you've had a number of invitations that only involve you and your pals. It might be a good idea to turn down one in favor of being with your partner. Goals and projects may be blocked temporarily, which is frustrating. Let them ride for now.

Pretty open! But I would argue that these specific — yet vague — observations, may still be a better starting place for self-reflection than 'how do I feel right now?'

Personally, I think tarot does this better than astrology. In fact, tarot does it so well that any introspective person is actually crazy not to futz around with tarot some in my ever so humble opinion. There, I said it.

Rational people's insistence on the optics of rationality verges on irrational.