思考与写作theguardian.com
我曾是一名占星师
I was an astrologer
2019 — 2021，它一次次回到首页
黑点是上首页（≥ 50 分）的那次投稿，空心点是没冲上去的投稿，点越大分数越高。
导读
一位曾以占星为业的作者回顾自己如何为客户做解读：客户会主动参与，把模糊说法套进自己的生活，解读因此像被共同创作出来。文章从行业内部描述占星咨询如何运作，以及她后来对这份工作的反思。
为什么经久不衰：它不靠嘲讽，而是用从业者视角拆解占星“准”的心理机制，也照见今天各类灵性产品和预测产品为何仍有人买单。
HN 评论精选
占星师提供的是倾听和绕过偏见，建议要包装成神秘语言才被接受。
她帮了那么多人，却因为有人骂她骗子、拒绝她的帮助就辞职了？我认为她该停下来重新想想自己在做什么。她不是骗子，她提供的正是那些人花钱要买的东西：对很多人来说，是一个能说话的人；对一些人来说，是一个能绕过自身偏见、帮他们理清头脑的人；对另一些人来说，是一场魔术。她的错误不在建议本身，而在于没有用被接受的方式——神秘主义——给出建议。该劝他去看医生，但要用符合角色设定的方式，而不是讲逻辑；如果这些人愿意听逻辑，他们就不会来了。我相信一直这样“撒谎”很有压力，但所有工作都有压力，而且文章里看不出她当时有其他选择。
wccrawford查看英文原文
After all the help she gave all those people, she quit because someone called her a fraud and refused her help? I think this woman needs to stop and revisit what she was doing. She wasn't a fraud. She was exactly what those people were paying for. For many, it was someone to talk to. For some, it was someone who could look past their biases and clear their minds. For some, it was a magic trick. Her mistake wasn't the advice, but in not giving it in the accepted way: As mysticism. Tell him to go to the doctor, but have an in-character way of doing it instead of using logic. If they were willing to listen to logic, they wouldn't be there. I'm sure it's stressful to "lie" to people all the time in this way, but all jobs are stressful in their own ways. And I see nothing in this article to indicate the author has any other options open to them at the moment. Edited: Replaced "he" with "she". I was mislead by the image at the top and actually had to search for the author's name.
灵媒和占星无法带来真正自我认识，未受监管的建议可能有害。
我和妻子（持证婚姻家庭治疗师）讨论过很多次。让我在意的是，占星师和灵媒在利用人们天真的轻信：最好的情况是半准确地解读客户，最坏就是诈骗。但两种情况下，他们都没有帮客户理解自己为何有这些感受，也没有带客户走向更健康的自我觉察。我们有个朋友不相信心理学却相信灵媒；她不愿再看心理师，因为心理师要她真正面对和感受过去的创伤，找出自毁倾向的根源。她后来找的灵媒收费不比心理师低（有保险时更贵），只是告诉她“我看到你为什么会这样”，让她有冲动时打电话（当然收费）。我妻子认为只要有帮助就不一定坏；我则认为他们可能带来的好处远小于害处，让未受训练、不受监管的人给你建议很危险。
jermaustin1查看英文原文
This is an discussion I've had plenty of times with my wife (who is a Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist). It's hard to articulate in words, but I will try. What gets me about astrologists and psychics, is they are preying on peoples innocent stupidity. At best they are reading their clients semi-accurately, at worst they are swindling them. But in both cases they are not actually helping the client understand what is making them feel this way, and helping down on a path that leads to a healthier self-awareness. We have a friend who doesn't not believe in psychology, but believes in psychics. She refuses to go back to a psychologist because the psychologist wanted her to actually think on and feel her past traumas, to discover why she has some self destructive tendencies. The psychic she eventually went with and still uses today (costing just as much as the psychologist -- more if you have mental health coverage on your insurance) just told her she sees why she is doing certain things, and to call her if she felt these tendencies coming back (charging her of course). My wife thinks that so long as it is helping, it isn't necessarily bad. She feels that people shouldn't see psychics or read too much into the movement of planets and stars, but that whats the harm if it makes you feel better. I feel that the amount of good they could do is way less than the harm they could do. And that the dangers of allowing another person to give you untrained/regulated advise is a terrible path to go down instead of understanding yourself.
伪科学靠信众共同建构生效，沟通应重在风险防护而非嘲讽。
“我意识到我的解读是一种共同创作”——我认为这是理性主义者和怀疑论者没抓住的关键。伪科学和伪疗法之所以“有效”，不是因为结果准确，而是因为相信的人投入巨大努力让它成立。依我看，怀疑论者若能向信众灌输常识和防护措施，避开最坏的骗子和危险疗法（“你想买多少巴赫花精都行，花的是你的钱——但别放弃化疗”），会比诉诸理性（“你不觉得这很荒谬吗？它不可能有效！”）更有帮助。至少在私人交流中，前者更可能逐渐教育他们。
TuringTest查看英文原文
> It dawned on me that my readings were a co-creation I think this is a key point that rational people and skeptics don't get. Pseudosciences and pseudotherapies don't work because they produce accurate results, they work because of the tremendous effort that believers put in them to make them work. IMHO, skeptics could help believers much more if they instilled in them some common sense and safeguards to avoid the worst crooks and dangerous therapies ("buy as many Bach flowers as you wish, it's your money - just don't abandon your chemotherapy") rather than try to appeal to their rational sense ("don't you realize how ridiculous it is? It could never work!"). At least in personal interactions, it is more likely that the former will gradually succeed in educating them than the latter.
科技信徒对技术神奇解决力的信仰，可能让占星 App 式预测系统大行其道。
文章说：流入占星 App 的风投会造出一个真正有效的算命系统，因为人是可预测的；人越听从建议，App 预测力越强，形成更紧的电子缰绳；而它们会大受欢迎，因为只要撒上魔法，什么都能卖。我对此存疑。我知道很多科技“粉丝”真的相信技术（以及一些科技名人）能近乎神奇地解决大量问题；他们喜欢 TED 式演讲，那里技术似乎能凭空绕过实际问题与人性，给出必然的解决方案。我觉得这些人可能会全身心投入这类东西。
duxup查看英文原文
>I can still make the odd forecast, though. Here’s one: the venture capital pouring into astrology apps will create a fortune telling system that works, because humans are predictable. As people follow the advice, the apps’ predictive powers will increase, creating an ever-tighter electronic leash. But they’ll be hugely popular – because if you sprinkle magic on top, you can sell people anything. I wonder about that. I know a lot of tech, 'fans' who really believe in n technology's (and to some extent some big name tech personalities) ability to solve a lot of problems ... almost to a magical extent. They love TED style talks where through tech somehow hand wave the actual problem and human nature leading to what seems like an inevitable a solution. I could see those folks getting into such a thing whole hog.
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