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Bringing social justice to the stars

In related news, they're replacing the common-area HVAC units in my building next week.

I gotta figure the gravitational waves generated by moving those big blocks of machinery around, just a few hundred feet from me, will have more influence on my life than whatever perturbations "powermonger Pluto" is getting up to out there at the far edge of the solar system.
 
Puppycow said:
Not really. It doesn't appeal to me all, but that's kinda why I'm a member of this forum and not some other one for people who are into this sort of stuff.

Astrology appeals to a certain set of people.
"Social justice" activism appeals to a certain set of people.

She's going for that niche in the Venn diagram where these two sets overlap. Is that a good enough explanation?
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Just because you are a social justice activist does not mean you cannot fall for Woo bigtime.
 
d4m10n said:
dudalb said:
Just because you are a social justice activist does not mean you cannot fall for Woo bigtime.
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Any sufficiently advanced social justice is indistinguishable from woo.
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There is no connection whatsoever between the two things. On the contrary, SQWs fall for woo all the time - or maybe you've conveniently forgotten about Reagan's astrologer (Wikipedia). According to Donald Regan, Reagan's chief of staff:

Virtually every major move and decision the Reagans made during my time as White House Chief of Staff was cleared in advance with a woman in San Francisco [Quigley] who drew up horoscopes to make certain that the planets were in a favorable alignment for the enterprise.
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That Trump has been fighting against windmills from his first day in office and is a proponent of all kinds of conspiracy theories and pseudo science makes it seem rather bizarre to pull out some random astrologer in order to prove a connection between socialists and superstition, but I guess it's not unexpected that you'd try to do so.
 
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Joe Random said:
There's also the time Orange County, CA went bankrupt because the treasurer was using astrologers and psychics for interest rate predictions . I'm sure the reason the predictions were faulty was the particular style of astrology used wasn't sufficiently intersectional.
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Are there any indications that the treasurer was some kind of social justice activist? (I haven't been able to find any.) To some people, the point of this thread seems to be to prove that there's some kind of connection between social justice activism and superstition.
 
I wish people would stop bringing up silly side issues like Jean Dixon or Trump's windmill thingy. This is supposed to be a serious discussion of weighty issues like Mars in the context of queer politics. Which, it just occurs to me, might be code for 'somewhere out there there's a lot of John Carter/Kantos Kan slash-fic'.
 
ahhell said:
If I were a progressive, it would drive me nuts.
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I find it very annoying, but there were always people like that, trying to take advantage of social movements for their own benefit. In the 1970s, university people loved to pretend to be Marxists while at the same time warning against Marxist agitation: The working class should be allowed to experience the expected financial crisis without the interference of socialist agitators. According to the order of things that would automatically make workers discover left-wing solutions to their plight.
Some people based whole university careers on this idea.
 
Joe Random said:
I wish people would stop bringing up silly side issues like Jean Dixon or Trump's windmill thingy. This is supposed to be a serious discussion of weighty issues like Mars in the context of queer politics. Which, it just occurs to me, might be code for 'somewhere out there there's a lot of John Carter/Kantos Kan slash-fic'.
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The critical question: is this lady's astrology gluten-free?
 
Joe Random said:
I wish people would stop bringing up silly side issues like Jean Dixon or Trump's windmill thingy. This is supposed to be a serious discussion of weighty issues like Mars in the context of queer politics. Which, it just occurs to me, might be code for 'somewhere out there there's a lot of John Carter/Kantos Kan slash-fic'.
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You mean like this? I had no idea that the Orange County Treasurer was queer or into queer politics. You should have mentioned it in your post.
 
dann said:
I find it very annoying, but there were always people like that, trying to take advantage of social movements for their own benefit. In the 1970s, university people loved to pretend to be Marxists while at the same time warning against Marxist agitation: The working class should be allowed to experience the expected financial crisis without the interference of socialist agitators. According to the order of things that would automatically make workers discover left-wing solutions to their plight.
Some people based whole university careers on this idea.
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I'm no expert on socialism, as I have demonstrated elsewhere on this forum however, my understanding is that there is a school of thought that requires the socio-economic conditions to reach the right state for the socialist revolution to be successful. This would explain why most socialist revolutions have turned out so badly, they were premature. This may explain the folks that are socialists but oppose socialist agitation.

That being said, I was really just thinking of the bad arguments on my side of the issue sort of thing. It really annoys the **** out of me, more than good arguments for things I disagree with.

The whole, support this great cause because of this BS.
 
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dann said:
To some people, the point of this thread seems to be to prove that there's some kind of connection between social justice activism and superstition.
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Of course there is some kind of connection, since at least one person is trying to bring social justice to astrology.

By the same token, there is some kind of connection between social justice and scientific skepticism, since there are entire websites and conferences dedicated to merging these movements together.
 
d4m10n said:
Of course there is some kind of connection, since at least one person is trying to bring social justice to astrology.
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...or bringing astrology to social justice. "Bringing to" implies they're not already together. Given that any two topics of interest may appeal to some non-empty set of people, it stands to reason that this appeal can be considered some form of connection, but only a contrived one. I like mixology. I also like programming computers. The fact that this qualifies me to write a computer program to suggest what drinks I can make with the ingredients in my cabinent -- and suggests the interest to do so -- does not really support a proposition that computer programming and mixing drinks are inherently related. I think the suspicion we're trying to allay is that there is some deeper natural connection that should be regarded as such.
 
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JayUtah said:
I think the suspicion we're trying to allay is that there is some deeper natural connection that should be regarded as such.
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I doubt there can be a natural connection between intersectionality and astrology, but there is at least a theoretical one. One theory purports to tell us how [X,Y,Z, etc.] are complexly interacting variables which act in combination to affect our lives whereas the other theory does the same thing, but for [A,B,C, etc.] instead. As a skeptic, I tend to think that one of these theories is significantly more likely to stand up to scrutiny than the other.
 
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d4m10n said:
I doubt there can be a natural connection between intersectionality and astrology, but there is at least a theoretical one. One theory purports to tell us how [X,Y,Z, etc.] are complexly interacting variables which act in combination to affect our lives whereas the other theory does the same thing, but for [A,B,C, etc.] instead.
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Okay, so both social justice and astrology proffer hypotheses for causation of an individual's social outcomes measured broadly. As you note, they propose different causes. As you imply, they infer disparate mechanisms. So you're left with the fairly abstract notion that all they have in common is proposing causation. In that taxonomy, a kooky religion would be lumped together in the same category as hard-core, evidence-based science. From your statement quoted below, I'd say you'd have to agree that the differences outweigh the similarities for any practical purpose.

In any case, the practical purpose I think dann alluded to was one that would certainly force us to look at the ABCs and XYZs and not just the fact that some letters are involved. Categorizing social justice advocacy and astrology as substantively similar runs the risk of dismissing rational efforts at social reform based on whatever rigorous observations are possible in intersectionality. That such efforts can be, and sometimes are, taken to absurd and irrational extremes does not place the advocacy in general on part with astrology, which cannot be rationally considered reliable at any level of zeal. That's what I believed dann's concern to be. He was concerned about substantive comparisons.

As a skeptic, I tend to think that one of these theories is significantly more likely to stand up to scrutiny than the other.
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Quite.
 
JayUtah said:
...the risk of dismissing rational efforts at social reform based on whatever rigorous observations are possible in intersectionality.
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I've yet to be exposed to a theory of intersectionality rooted in rigorous observation, but I'd be happy to read about it.
 
Trebuchet said:
An astounding number of smart people believe really stupid stuff. I call it the intelligent fool paradox.
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In the end most people believe stupid stuff because they find it emotionally appealing for varous reasons.And Intelligent people have emotioins like everybody else. And I don't see this stopping anytime soon; I doubt humans are evolving into Vulcans.
 
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