Oh, for Heaven's sake!

Everyone's been bitching about the "new" Zodiac in the last day or so, and it's really making my skin crawl.

I'll be frank--I've always viewed astrology as a harmless, amusing pasttime and with idle curiosity. I've nothing against it nor the people who eagerly look up their horoscope every day.

But it's this shit people are whining about that's got me grinding my teeth.

"The old zodiac was fine--why did they have to change it!?!", "I was born a Pisces--and I'll die a Pisces!", "Fucking astronomers...", and so on.

Learn some fucking science. Or, if that's too much, how about learning some facts, at least. It'll put the whole thing into a much clearer perspective.


I'll link to this blog post again because between the main post and the author's updates, it covers pretty much everything.

These astronomers did nothing to the zodiac. Nature & physics have been doing this for the last 2000 years since Ptolemy recorded his astrological charts. In fact, apparently, this "new" sign had always been known about but was omitted to make an even 12 signs. Furthermore, allegedly, the zodiac is strung out between the equinoxes and not determined by the stars, per se; however, astrologers have already supposedly already been accounting for the phenomenon of precession for millennia. Seriously, read this post I keep linking to if you haven't.


So what happened here? Some nerds were sitting around their telescope with a cooler and somebody said "Hey, so you know about that whole precession thing? I wonder how it'd affect that whole Zodiac thing.". And because they were nerds, they took the idle suggestion of a probably drunk astronomer and ran with it. It's what they do, they're nerds. Think of all those guys who actually bother to learn to speak Klingon or Elvish.

So they looked up the constellations, remembered that 13th (Ophiuchus), and whipped it all together and said, "Well, look at that.". Nothing changed. The stars were already there.


As for how all this affects your life and your sign, it doesn't. Or doesn't have to, at least. For one, the stars were already (roughly) in these positions by the time of your birth. For two, as that blogger I keep linking to points out:

If you're going to believe that all the people born on your birthday are imbued with certain traits similar to your own in some mystical, ancient manner, you might as well believe it does not matter where the stars are in the sky to begin with.

(There's also how astrology--along with pretty much all fortune telling--works. Telling people what they want to hear, in short. Suggestion, expectation, confirmation biases--all play into it. I'm pretty sure that, if they wanted, some astrologers could find a way to sell even these complainers on the "new system" by manipulating it to their expectations. But now I'm just getting cynical.)

Considering, also, that the signs in the system so commonly used were merely named after--and only roughly aligned with, even then--these constellations, it's as irrelevant now as it was then. And that's been understood for plenty a long while now; get with the times.

Again, nerds just like to dick around for their own amusement. It doesn't change your whole personality, seriously.... It's not like they're trying to destroy your life or something. Calm. Be calm.


I'm not entirely sure why this all bugs me so badly. It's probably some resentment I'll have to take inventory of at some point with my sponsor; joy. Normally, though, I don't mind "ignorance"; I understand not everyone knows everything, and plenty of people jump to conclusions. I usually respond by doing what I can to tell them what I know & have learned in case it might help them see things differently. Yeah, it's judgmental of me, but not as bad as I'm getting over this Zodiac thing. I'm actually snapping at people on facebook over this....

I think partly it's because you can't stem the tide; there's just too many people complaining all at once for me to "teach" them all or even ignore them (every 10 minutes, someone new seems to find out & bitch about it).

Usually this "teaching" impulse isn't so rude or arrogant or even judgmental as it sounds. I know I'm a raging dork and veritable sponge for information, details, facts. I usually come at it as, "Do you know about this thing? It's fucking awesome!!" instead of "Oh you wee, ignorant fool....let me help you." I think in this case it has more to do with my frustration and people's apparent decrying of sciencey-ness that's got me so buggered over.

Another thing is the nature of it. It seems a lot like that whole War on Christmas thing. It's nothing new, and it's been known for a long time now, that Christmas has had very little, if anything, to do with Jesus or his birth or anything. I'll spare you another rant, but in short--it's a carryover/fusion of the multitude of gift-giving winter solstice holidays that have been practiced throughout Europe for practically eons. Mostly "pagan" ones, at that.

But back to the point--people could find out all this information if they just looked around, maybe with a bit of curiosity and open-mindedness, but really it's not that hard to find or see. And yet, instead, they bitch about war's on Christmas or astronomer's fucking with the Zodiac as though it all actually mattered.

And that's just it. For the most part I like to approach life with an easy-going, laid-back, open-minded mentality. I try to, at least. I get flustered, though, not so much when other people don't also approach life with that attitude that way but when they do so quite vocally. They just take things too goddamn seriously, and for some reason that unsettles me deeply.