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PaperclipPerfector  2mo ago (text post)   28335 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of September 23, 2024

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IMHO, nearly every question that begins "Why do women....?" can be answered by "They are standard deviations more neurotic and agreeable than you."

Why do women gravitate towards woo-woo bullshit like astrology? Because it can never be wrong, and the wound of being wrong is far worse for women (due to neuroticism) than men. Of course they gravitate towards "knowledge" that is completely unfalsifiable. It's safe, it's cozy, and they can indulge in it as much as they please without ever risking the pain of being wrong about anything.

I mean I'm a pretty neurotic person and I don't have any time for astrology or other forms of woo.

Did yah call ya mothar? She gets so worried sick about you, and you nevaaaah call!

Did ya turn off the stove before you left the house?

Did yah call ya mothar?

A question which genuinely haunts me at night.

Did ya turn off the stove before you left the house?

Joke's on you, I haven't cooked all weekend.

Don't ask questions about group differences if you're going to just turn around and go "but I don't do thing".

Either we understand that we are making generalizations that aren't going to apply to everyone, or we don't.

Edit: Nevermind

I'm just not sure if "neuroticism" is a sufficient explanation, especially when there are millions of neurotic men in the world but their neuroticism seems to express itself in systematically different ways to the female variety.

Assume that only neurotic people are drawn to astrology. Why so? And why only neurotic women, but not neurotic straight men?

I'm just not sure if "neuroticism" is a sufficient explanation, especially when there are millions of neurotic men in the world but their neuroticism seems to express itself in systematically different ways to the female variety.

You see what you did here, right?

"Men and women can both be neurotic. I just think they're neurotic in different ways"

Yes. Yes that's exactly what's being said. Specifically when you pair higher than average neuroticism with nigher than average agreeableness.

Who, as a group, scores higher in neuroticism+agreeableness? Women.

Okay. So is your hypothesis that men who are both neurotic and agreeable will display the same interest in astrology as neurotic and agreeable women?

Maybe, but probably not.

I'm not sure what you're after here? There are some men who are definitely into astrology, but there are far more women and there appears to be some recent cultural impetus at play that's made more women get into astrology than before. That's what the thread is about.

I know what the thread's about - I started it because I wanted an answer to my question. I guess I'm just not persuaded that being agreeable and neurotic makes one disproportionately likely to be interested in astrology.

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