Astrology at MIT; and Evaluating Character
"It's easier to get a smart person to do something hard than to get them to do something easy that doesn't matter." - Shane Parrish
We Need to Talk About Astrology: Astrologers claim that zodiac signs are important factors in personality. Pisces is loving. Sagittarius is free-spirited. Taurus is loyal (and freaky, according to the renowned stargazer Beyoncé). These are hypotheses. How would you test them scientifically? You could start by surveying a group of people about their birthdays and personalities to see how they cluster together. That’s what a team led by MIT professor Jackson Lu did. They recruited a massive sample—173,709 people. They correlated their zodiac signs with their scores on the Big Five personality traits.
Leg Piece: It’s a real joy to be able to spoil your children, to discover that they will always have dibs on anything they see you eating, to accept that they will destroy all the hard work that went into perfecting your Spotify algorithm. It’s a real joy to give up your favourite things for them, and yet, I would like to take a moment to acknowledge being toppled from my throne.
8 Best Techniques of Evaluating Character: A person’s choice of a spouse—or if they aren’t married, their closest lifelong partner—is much more revealing than anything they say or do in public. This choice tells you about their own innermost longings, expectations, and needs. It tells you what they think of themselves, and what they think they deserve in life (or will settle for). It is, I believe, the clearest indicator of priorities and values you will ever find.