the pdf version has a better structured way of displaying stuff

I was born in Late August, My Zodiac Sign is Virgo. It’s also called a Star Sign.

what

According to This Article in USA Today, by Olivia Munson and Anna Kaufman

Virgo is an earth sign, symbolized by a maiden (who is occasionally seen holding wheat). Virgos are said to be analytical, detail-oriented and highly practical. This occasionally leads to perfectionism. They love to help but are fierce self-critics.

Hm? Detail Oriented and Highly Practical? Analytical too! I think these qualities match me, kind of. I think my date of birth really affects/defines my personality!

Hold on a minute, My Friend was Born in October, I want to see if he matches his Zodiac Sign, Libra. According to the same Article:

Libra is an air sign. Represented by scales, it’s no surprise that this sign loves harmony. Libras are said to be creative and idealistic. Those born under the sign can also be indecisive and often weigh their options, struggling to commit.

Hm!? Creative and Idealistic? Indecisive too! That’s definitely me, these qualities match me more than Virgo. does that mean I was a mistake? Because my Actual Star Sign is not quite representing who I am. but some different one is.

or, are we shooting our bullets in the dark, hoping that it lands somewhere.

huh

Let’s play a game.

The Following Table contains 60 Traits. Tick the ones that Associate to you.


Energetic	Impulsive	Adaptable	Stubborn	Dominant
Reliable	Intelligent	Protective	Escapist	Compassionate
Curious	Nurturing	Creative	Moody	Communicative
Emotional	Generous	Helpful	Proud	Fair-minded
Confident	Practical	Social	Critical	Resourceful
Analytical	Charming	Mysterious	Indecisive	Perfectionist
Diplomatic	Passionate	Honest	Jealous	Idiotic
Intense	Optimistic	Patient	Humanitarian	Cringe
Adventurous	Disciplined	Imaginative	Reserved	Dumb
Ambitious	Original	Philosophical	Detached	Insecure
Independent	Intuitive	Sensual	Dreamy	Low IQ

What was your score out of 60? Mine was 39

39 out of 60. that means I matched with about 65% of the Traits here. Now, Let me bring this chart up.

Zodiac	Dates	Common Traits
Aries	March 21 - April 19	Energetic, impulsive, confident, independent, passionate
Taurus	April 20 - May 20	Reliable, patient, practical, stubborn, sensual
Gemini	May 21 - June 20	Curious, intelligent, adaptable, indecisive, communicative
Cancer	June 21 - July 22	Emotional, nurturing, protective, moody, imaginative
Leo	July 23 - August 22	Confident, generous, creative, proud, dominant
Virgo	August 23 - September 22	Analytical, practical, helpful, critical, perfectionist
Libra	September 23 - October 22	Diplomatic, charming, social, indecisive, fair-minded
Scorpio	October 23 - November 21	Intense, passionate, mysterious, jealous, resourceful
Sagittarius	November 22 - December 21	Adventurous, optimistic, honest, impulsive, philosophical
Capricorn	December 22 - January 19	Ambitious, disciplined, patient, reserved, practical
Aquarius	January 20 - February 18	Independent, original, intelligent, detached, humanitarian
Pisces	February 19 - March 20	Compassionate, intuitive, imaginative, dreamy, escapist
Human	If you believe in any of this shit	Idiotic, Cringe, Dumb, Insecure, Low IQ

Understood yet? Feel something different? Statistically, out of the 12 Zodiacs, you will match your traits to each. atleast 2-3 times. And that’s how Astrology, shoots shot in dark, and leaves it up to you, to make a fool of yourself

the barnum effect

intro –>

This guy above, PT Barnum, was a showman in the US of A. He is often remembered for founding the Barnum and Bailey Circus in 1871. He has 2 movies made on him, The Greatest Show on Earth - 1952 and The Greatest Showman - 2017. He had a special thing in his show, where he would give “a little something for everybody.”

it was in 1949, when Bertram Forer, A Psychologist (the guy above on the right), studied it and named it “the fallacy of personal validation” and in 1956, it was coined as “the barnum effect” by another psychologist, Paul Meehl. And that kind of sticked around. its commonly called as Barnum-Forer effect. but yeah.

now that we’re done with the introduction, lets get into what this effect actually is

there are 5000 people attending your circus. a diverse crowd with varying ages, backgrounds, and styles.

you want to make everyone feel like they’re special, they’re connected to your show. you want to create a sense of personal connection. (~~not because you care about them, but because you want to earn money from them, and want them to return. this is capitalism baby!~~)

how do you imagine to connect all of them together? or make a statement applies to all of them. we’ve heard the saying that everyone is unique. everyone has a different set of traits.

but you don’t believe in that bullshit. you are a practical showman. you look at the audience. out of those, some are wearing black, some are wearing blue, or white, or red.

People who are wearing Black are mysterious.
People who are wearing White are Brave.
People who are wearing Blue are creative.
People with Red Clothes are dreamy.

Now, although some may disagree, because they are rational or may not associate with the trait, most would agree. Because being dreamy, being creative, being brave and mysterious is something we associate with ourselves EVERYDAY.

people would hear you and be like “Wow, that’s totally me!” but in reality these things are so general, that everyone in crowd would agree to these qualities. (the alternative wording for general here is “vague”)

this, my folks, is the barnum effect

now, as a person that changes clothes everyday (i hope you do it too, otherwise you stink, so change your clothes), I realize that this barnum effect was most probably a marketing stunt, or some kind of fallacy to convince me, I dont wear blue some day and think “HELL YEAH TODAY IM GONNA BE CREATIVE, DAVINCI HERE I COME” or wear red on the next instant and dream of improving the socio-political state of my country.

how about something you could not change? time. the day you were born.

and that’s how astrology plays on you. with the help of the barnum effect. i will quickly dip into the other psychology related things which are left

desire for certainty, confirmation bias, placebos, and ambiguity

So Remember How I was a Virgo?

with the traits of being Analytical, practical, helpful, critical, perfectionist. What does critical even mean here? critical of myself? critical of others? and Perfectionist? like do I have Impostor’s syndrome? or Perfection automatically comes to me? Analytical as in? I analyse everything before taking a step? If that’s true then I am not practical enough. and If I am Practical, I am not helpful.

Now Yeah, See how Vague they are? How many meanings I can derive of them. infact I don’t even know what they mean anymore, because I am too confused lol.

But hey, I think I am analytical, kind of practical too. “probably this thing is right, probably there has to be some sense in this stuff” the text in bold above is me reconsidering because some traits match.

that’s called confirmation bias. you tend to remember the traits of the zodiac that match your personality and ignore the parts that don’t. you’re likely to remember it as proof that astrology is accurate.

there’s also this thing we hate. the failure to know what’s coming. any second now and an undetected gamma ray burst would wipe away the planet and me and you. and we’d never know.

i’ve written on uncertainty.

Many people seek answers and certainty in an uncertain world. Astrology can offer a sense of predictability and control, WHICH IS OBVIOUSLY FAKE. THEY DONT KNOW WHATS COMING.

the next thing is placebos.

i’ve written on placebos.

but basically, placebos here mean exploiting belief. and

The Power of Belief is a strong one

Astrology basically leverages this power, to be your guiding angel. Because most of the times, Astrology could boost Optimism, Increase self esteem, and Provide a sense of purpose or direction.

If someone believes an astrological prediction, they might behave in ways that make it seem true.

and that my friends, is the power, and probably the only positive thing that comes with Astrology.

Now that would make Placebos the hero here. which would make me sad. Let me make it clear, there are better and harmless things which can guide you, unlike astrology. because believing in Placebos like Astrology does more harm than good. It can lead to, but not limited to the following:

Delayed or Prevented Proper Treatment including Health and Mental Health. You should seek adequate help, not a placebo when you’re sick, both physically and mentally.
Financial Exploitation You think your astrologer cares for you? Grow up buddy, this is an industry. It preys on you, and for it, you’re just a client, a money making scheme.
Are you really placing your trust in the right hands? Therapists are legally bound to keep your secret confidential as per the Mental Healthcare Law of 2017 in India, 2014 ACA Code of Ethics or others. Do you expect the same behaviour from these Astrologers?
Why are you believing what they are saying? We have plenty of evidence to understand that their predictions comes from nowhere. We can believe in better things, like Facts and Evidence than to believe in these exploiters
You’re getting dumber. and less rational. You’ve lost the way you used to think, you’ve lost all rationality in yourself. You can be more easily manipulated and duped now. Good Job! You are more susceptible to misinformation than ever.

This is a vicious cycle. Believing in Placebos is bad, and arguably stupid

isnt it scientific? what’s wrong with it?

Astrology proposes that information about human affairs and terrestrial events may be discerned by studying the apparent positions of celestial objects.

now think about this for a second. celestial bodies, millions - billions of kilometres away from us, influencing OUR LIFE? excuse me? you mean to say that me failing in that one english exam was due to NEPTUNE?? I KNEW IT!

nothing, in your life is planned, nothing in your life is influenced by celestial bodies far-far away from you. i mean, we just talked about uncertainty.

and think about this too. you’re a virgo, your friend is a libra. she was born 2 days after you. you both are standing at the same place. at the same time. in the same universe. the attraction of neptune on your friend is the same as you. same with mars, moon, sun or uranus (planet).

she has an entirely different horoscope than you. even when the planets apply the same gravitational force.

your another friend is a virgo too, born 22 days before you. she has the same horoscope as you. hypothetically, everything in her day should be same as you.

makes sense yet? no, right?

do you know why? because all of this is bullshit. our life is filled with uncertainties. planets dont influence us with their gravities or direct us to do something. many factors however do, like our education, our appearance, our traits. etc. etc.

what would be better is if we acknowledge our differences. and acknowledge that we can do nothing about the uncertainty. rather than accept it.

holy shit that ended in a very pessimistic tone.

🤓🤓HOLD UP MY FRIENDS !!

I am here with more discoveries!

Remember how the main point about Astrology is Gravity of Planets (Like Uranus) exerting a force on us, that influences our life? That’s a hoax.

Remember the Equation of Universal Law of Gravitation? $F = G\frac{m_{1}m_{2}}{r^2}$ F is force, G is Gravitational Constant, $m_{1}$ is mass of body 1, and $m_{2}$ is the mass of body 2. $r$ is the distance between them. The value of the gravitational constant is the same throughout the universe, that is 6.67408 × $10^{-11}$ N m2 kg-2

Now, Let’s calculate the force exerted by Uranus on me. My Weight is about 65 kg, and my mass is 6.63 which is 65 divided by 9.8 (Mass is Weight divided by Acceleration, Here 9.8 is acceleration of $g$ that is being exerted on me from Earth)

The Mass of Uranus is 8.681 × $10^{25}$ kg (damn uranus so big and heavy than me) and it is $2.6 \times 10^9$ km away from us, that’s the value of r.

putting all of them in the equation, we get: $F = 6.67 \times 10^{-11} \frac{6.63 \ \times \ 8.681 \times10^{25}}{(2.6 \times10^9)^2}$ $F = 6.67 \times 10^{-11} \frac{6.63 \ \times \ 8.681 \times10^{25}}{5.1076 \times10^{18}}$ $F = \frac{6.67\times6.63 \ \times \ 8.681 \times10^{14}}{5.1076 \times10^{18}}$ $F = \frac{6.67\times6.63 \ \times \ 8.681}{5.1076 \times10^{4}}$ $F = \frac{383.89}{5.1076 \times10^{4}}$ $F = \frac{75.16}{10^{4}} = 7.516 \times 10^{-5}$ so the force uranus exerts on me is about $7.516 \times 10^{-5}$ Newtons. and if we do a per kg comparison, we divide the force by my mass, so $1.134 \times 10^{-5} N/kg$ and that’s kg in mass! not in weight. also, earth exerts about 9.8 N/kg force on us. And it would take about 865,000 Identical Weight Uranus(s), in a 2.6 Billion km Radius around us, to exert the same Force that the Earth does.

Do me a favour, put a paper clip on your head. felt anything? like some force being exerted on you? something pressing against your head?

now break the paper clip into 133,000 parts evenly and place one on your head. that’s exactly the force that Uranus exerts on you.

I hope that was enough to visualize.

and Now you should question, how this Gravitational force exerted on us, by planets, in Astrology is affecting us, IN ANY WAY POSSIBLE.

Now, that we’ve criticized and bashed Western, or Conventional Astrology, I would also like to include the name of other types of Astrology(s), because none of them work.

Main Types of Astrology

Western Astrology: This is the most commonly known type, focusing on the twelve zodiac signs based on the sun’s position at birth. (we just criticised that)
Vedic Astrology (Jyotish): Originating from India, Vedic astrology uses a lunar-based system with Nakshatras (lunar mansions) and Vedic astrology uses the positions of stars or constellations to calculate the actual positions of planets, while Western astrology is based on the position of the Sun at the spring equinox.

(although the moon causes tides, it does not dictate how my life works. Kundali and Nakshatras are all fakes (explained ahead in synastry and natal respectively). Navgraha periods refer whether celestial bodies can bring positive or negative effects based on zodiac signs, house placements, and other aspects)

if my bathroom is in southwest position, and uranus’s negligible force is exerted on me, it does not determine whether i would remain jobless next year or not. so denied.
Chinese Astrology: Based on the twelve-year cycle of the Chinese zodiac, it incorporates elements like the five elements (wood, fire, earth, metal, water) and the Yin-Yang concept.
Numerology: While not strictly astrology, it’s often included due to its connection to numbers and their influence on life. Numerology assigns meanings to numbers based on birth dates, names, and other numerical data. 19028391283! There! I hijacked your life by entering this cheatcode! c’mon! this doesnt even make sense anymore. Numbers dictating your life? or just a placebo again!
Horary Astrology: Used to answer specific questions by casting a chart for the exact moment the question is asked. *Starts Casting a Chart about when I will get a girlfriend* (Necessary joke because i would need it in the following types)
Electional Astrology: Involves choosing the best time for important events or actions based on astrological charts. The best time for Important Events? The Most Important Event you have is now. If you want to start something big, do it NOW. NOW IS THE BEST TIME. TIME IS THE MOST IMPORTANT (BOOMER VIBES)
Natal Astrology: Focuses on interpreting birth charts to understand personality, potential, and life path. Again, your friend was born on the same day as you, does that mean she has the same personality, same potential and same life path?

Albert Einstein was born on March 14, 1879, in Ulm, Germany, around 11:30 a.m. on a Friday. 1.55 Births happened every second in 1879.

In a minute about 93 children would have been born, did all those 93 children go on to discover the theory of relativity? Left school at 15? Go to America?

(However, Otto Hahn, was born 6 days before Einstein and won the Nobel 1944 for radiothorium/actinium, He was born in Germany too. About 287 km away from Einstein!) So That’s a Crazy Co-incidence <- this could turn into a confirmation bias any second
Synastry: Compares two birth charts to assess compatibility in relationships. Update: I got a girlfriend! Oh her birthchart does not comply with me! I should’ve gotten one who was born in July! the only compatibility you need in a relationship is love. (omg luv guru) (and some compromises need to be made obv)
Progressions and Transits: These techniques analyze the movement of planets over time to predict future events and trends. I wonder why the astrologers dont invest in stocks.

Also here’s how I calculated births per second in 1879, I couldn’t find any data online so please dont call me out for being non-factual and deceptive.

**Calculation of Births per second in 1879*

Global Population in 1879: Approximately 1.4 billion people.

Estimated Annual Birth Rate: Roughly 3-4% based on historical trends.

Calculation:

Total births per year: 1.4 billion * 0.035 = 49 million

Births per day: 49 million / 365 = 134,247

Births per hour: 134,247 / 24 = 5,594

Births per minute: 5,594 / 60 = 93

Births per second: Approximately 1.55

That’s about it, we’ve bashed almost every type of common astrology now. Let’s delve deeper into How Astrology Originated. (because history is fun, and the humble beginnings of astrology aren’t that evil)

the origin

ever since the beginning, we were humans, with functional brains. and what do functional brains have in common? thought.

someone, sleeping at night under the open sky would’ve thought “wow, those little distant objects, that twinkle twinkle and appear only at night in the sky-so high, look like a diamond in the sky! most of them come together and form shapes like bear, a hunter or stuff like that. I am amazed by the space, and I wonder if that is a signal to us from gods”

Astrology is deeply rooted in ancient civilizations. It was intertwined with early attempts to understand the natural world and human existence.

People observed the regular patterns of celestial bodies—the sun, moon, and planets—and sought to find correlations between these movements and events on Earth.

Babylonian Origins: Often credited as the birthplace of astrology, Babylonian astronomers meticulously tracked celestial bodies, developing complex systems to predict astronomical events. These observations laid the groundwork for astrological interpretations.
Indian Influence: Vedic astrology, or Jyotish, is an integral part of Indian culture. It is believed to have originated around the same time as the Vedas, ancient Indian scriptures. Jyotish encompasses a vast system of knowledge, including astronomy, mathematics, philosophy, and spirituality. It was used to determine auspicious timings for rituals, marriages, and other important life events.

Early astronomers and astrologers were often the same people, as there was no clear distinction between the two disciplines. The study of the heavens was a quest for knowledge about the universe and humanity’s place within it.

the decline

those were just us being innocent, but when some are innocent, while some are knowledgeable and are considered respected in the society, you DO know AND understand what happens right?

we as humans, started selling astrology, creating fear on its name, respecting it as a ritual, rather than a process. but the thought never died, the thought to explore. the thought to conquer our curiosity.

The rise of the scientific method in the 16th and 17th centuries marked a turning point. Scientists like Copernicus, Galileo, and Kepler made groundbreaking discoveries (or earthbreaking should i say) that challenged the Flat-Earth-centered view of the universe (sun, moon and all planets revolving around flat earth) and provided a more accurate understanding of celestial mechanics.

As scientific knowledge advanced, the foundations of astrology crumbled. *The realization that celestial bodies operate under predictable physical laws, unrelated to human affairs, *undermined the core assumptions of astrology**.

The scientific method released in 1620 emphasized empirical evidence, testability, and reproducibility, criteria that astrology failed to meet.

ending note

stop believing in astrology, stop asking others to believe in astrology. its just vague statements that happen to match to you. you know its fake, you know it is unscientific. but you’re trying to be cool amongst your friends, ig? you’re trying to find a meaning to life? but trust me, astrology and daily horoscopes are not the way. grow up. be cool with science. comparatively there are better placebos. also an astrologer wont find you a date, or fetch you back your ex.

stop paying thousands to these scamsters