Yea the 538 stuff (at least that audience) is a prime example of the McNamara fallacy[0]. It’s easy for people to find comfort in what can/is being measured and appoint it as objective truth, and consequently disregard anything that can’t be easily quantified.
Like u alluded to, people like to at least feel in control. And in the case of astrology it manifests in being able to have a simple explanation for things.
And now that I think about it, I’m sort of puzzled y more things don’t seem to get chalked up to random chance. It’s a simple enough explanation and seems ripe for abuse but strangely doesn’t seem to be. Maybe cuz by definition, its randomness isn’t that satisfying of a conclusion for people to draw
Because nothing really ever happens because of random chance. Everything has a reason, and to pretend it happened because of random chance is to say you don't care enough what the reason was to try to figure it out.
Quantum mechanics, at least, seems to indicate that certain things happen if not for "no reason" then at least not for any reason that we can discern in any sort of way.
But beyond that I think your comment misses the larger point: it's exceedingly rare for something to happen for "a reason", most things, even in a deterministic universe, happen due to the combination of multiple factors. Sometimes we can model the cause and effect in simple terms with some success, but in other situations (e.g. wheather forecasts) we deal with nonlinear and chaotic systems that we can't really predict very well.
Yes obviously everything happens for a “reason.” However I’m talking about the majority that internalizes that phrase as indicating there’s some predetermined sequence of events and stars aligning whatever.
Not the “since everything happens for a reason, let me inquire and dig deeper to figure out what was the cause” person. And my point was I’m surprised more people don’t attribute things to random chance cuz it’s an easy out. Again, not the people that actually care about finding things out, Im talking about the astrology type
Sure, cause and effect rules everything, but I suspect that most large systems are chaotic enough that any description we lay on them is just telling stories.
Like u alluded to, people like to at least feel in control. And in the case of astrology it manifests in being able to have a simple explanation for things.
And now that I think about it, I’m sort of puzzled y more things don’t seem to get chalked up to random chance. It’s a simple enough explanation and seems ripe for abuse but strangely doesn’t seem to be. Maybe cuz by definition, its randomness isn’t that satisfying of a conclusion for people to draw
[0]https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/McNamara_fallacy