Here is the context: "Millenia ago astrology was as close to science as you got." Does thr sentence mean that people nowadays consider astrology to be a science as they considered in the past?
Learn English – Meaning of the phrase “as close as one get”
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"Pushing" in the context of giving opinions or views carries a context of trying to persuade others in a forceful way. A person may be described as "pushy" if they are excessively assertive about any subject.
Someone described as "pushing their opinions upon others" means they are trying to persuade others to take on the same opinions, or perhaps trying to present their opinion as the only valid one.
eg.
"Please stop pushing your views about veganism on me."
It is somewhat different to the term "peddling", an old-fashioned word for "selling" that has come to be a pejorative term describing someone who spreads their views or ideas:
eg.
"A former Alaska lawmaker has pleaded guilty to a state count of letting unregistered lobbyists peddle their ideas to him."
"Peddling" carries the idea of spreading views to as wide an audience as possible, whereas "pushing upon" more suggests trying to persuade a specific, possibly captive audience.
Your question title says playing human, but the quote says playing humans. These are two very different things, and this is the source of your confusion.
Play human would mean 'pretend to be human; imitate a human' as you've suggested above. But that isn't what this example says. You should be able to find this meaning in dictionaries readily.
Play humans, on the other hand, means 'manipulate humans to get what they want'. This meaning is a little tricky to find in dictionaries since it's a bit slangy, and that's probably why it was put in quotes, but it's related to the meaning play (someone) for a fool which you should be able to find:
play someone for Treat someone as being of (a specified type).
‘don't imagine you can play me for a fool’
The slang version of the word can be used without a for-phrase as a complement.
Best Answer
It means that thousands of years (millenia) ago there was no science. Astrology was not science, but it was the thing that was closest to science. It implies that astrology is not considered to be a science nowadays.
The word "you" in "... as you got." is the impersonal you. It doesn't you "you the reader". It means "an unspecified person". In formal English the expression "...as one got" would mean the same. "Getting close" is used figuratively, to mean "be similar".
Many years ago there was no science. But some things were similar to science. Astrology was the thing that was most similar to science.
For example :
A dinosaur steak isn't a Big Mac. In the past people didn't have any Big Macs, but dinosaur steak was in some ways similar.
But there is a secondary meaning. You know that a dinosaur steak isn't very much like a Big Mac. So the sentence implies that many years ago, there was no Big Mac, and nothing that was very similar.
Similarly, the original sentence also implies that many years ago there was nothing that was very similar to science.