And also, you know some of us are actually practicing Ritual or Ceremonial Magick, and this is actually a sacred symbol for us?
I'd understand if it was upside down, which is part of the laughable LaVeyan Satanic cult, but I assure you there are likely people you know who may be members of very serious Magical Orders.
I will not mention my specific associations with any of these Orders, but even Freemasonry, which I was involved in for years, if studied carefully, has its roots in Ceremonial Magick.
Their use of the pentagram was highly attractive to me - and, furthermore, funny, and clearly educated in Magick to an extent - the I/O symbol at the top is an adorable nod to that being the node of the Spirit.
I studied and practiced Wicca for years before settling into Buddhism. I've personally got no quams about the presence of this symbol.
but I also have lots of family and friends in rural, conservative, christian USA. I assure you, upside down or right side up... If I tried to show them this video, they would flip out. There would be no talk about privacy or cell phones. All discussion would be hyper focused on the presence of this symbol.
Yes, the would equally flip out if the symbol had been a Star and Cresent (Islam), or Swastica (Hinduism, Buddhism, et. all).
I know this debate isn't new (safe spaces, trigger warnings, etc.) but the only point I'm trying to make is that some people will always find the choice to include any religious symbolism in a technical talk divisive. (which sometimes is fine if we are aware and choose deliberately...)
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Hopefully I'm allowed brief tangent back on topic - just in case anyone associated with the project/talk notices this post (and grandparent post): I'm super excited about this phone, and as soon as there's concrete data about comparability for US carriers, I would love to purchase one.
The pentagram at the bottom left of the video is an instant deal-breaker for millions of regular folks
Yeah, it's a little tone-deaf.
I understand it's meant to be tongue-in-cheek and all that. But if, for example, they used a swastika, even if they were using it in the context one of the dozens of cultures for whom it's a normal symbol, it would still be tone deaf.
A lot of people here are saying it's just a symbol, etc... But if it was a Christian cross, I bet a lot of HN readers would flinch with "I'm not supporting some fundy company!"
> A lot of people here are saying it's just a symbol, etc... But if it was a Christian cross, I bet a lot of HN readers would flinch with "I'm not supporting some fundy company!"
I... sort of agree with you. It's generally desirable to make your products acceptable to everyone you can, and so the decision to include a pentagram is probably poorly calculated.
But on the other hand, the sort of people who would put a cross symbol in the corner of a video are probably for-real fundies, while it's obviously extremely unlikely that anyone involved in the making of this video is a for-real Satanist (in the religious sense of the term). So I think there might be some justification for differential treatment on the basis of this context.
Alright, once again, stepping in here to be clear and specific: in no way is an upright pentagram 'Satanic'.
The upside down pentagram 'symbol of Satan' isn't even the symbol of Satan. It's a symbol of the goat's head of Baphomet, which, yes, is on the cover of the LaVeyan Satanic bible, which, um, claims Satan doesn't exist, and worshipping 'Satan' is ignorant and stupid.
The upright pentagram is used in Ceremonial Magick, in fact, as part of a banishing ritual, the aim of which is to literally banish any negative energies or entities.
It baffles me to think of the upright pentagram symbol as anything but sacred.
Broadly speaking, though I think it does depend on context. For instance, if practicing Satanists have attached a sacrificial victim to an upright pentagram, in order to worship Satan, then even if there may be a symbolic error on their part, that particular upright pentagram could safely be called Satanic and Satan would probably overlook the oversight.
The Church of Satan doesn’t believe in the devil. It doesn’t even recognise ‘Satan’ as a physical or spiritual being. As far as the Church is concerned, there is no such thing as heaven or hell.
And human sacrifice? Like, that kind of thing might happen in the Highest Orders of the Left-Hand Path, the Skull and Bones-type societies George W. Bush was a part of - so conspirators claim - like, I want to be expressly clear that suggesting Satanists make human sacrifices is akin to saying all Muslims are terrorists. Seriously. You're just discrediting a group of people who have enough troubles being recognized as valid to start.
I assure you, I have visited branches of the Church of Satan, and they are actually filled generally with very good people, whose philosophy is mostly that of self-love and not taking any bullshit, combined with the dogmatic practice of Ceremonial Magick.
It just wasn't my cup of tea. I have enjoyed more of what I've seen from Thelemic orders, which do not identify as Satanic.
The Church of Satan is just a way of selling libertarian humanism to the dissaffected children of middle class Christians, by inverting some biblical tropes and going woo a lot though. I tend to think of actual Satanists to be more like the mental ones found in European royalty during the medieval period.
Hey - not my cup of tea, either, as I said - but I am saying lumping Satanists and human sacrifice together is like lumping Muslims and terrorism together.
Sure, it might happen, in only the most extreme cases, but it's certainly not the norm, and it makes people who try to take their faith seriously - even if, yes, LaVeyan Satanism is simply libertarian humanism combined with, quite honestly, a fairly weak system of Ceremonial Magick, if it makes them happy, let them do it.
I don't agree with Catholicism, either, but I'm not running around saying all priests rape little boys, even though there is far more evidence of that, than actual human sacrifice in Satanism.
I think the clearest distinguishing line that can be broadly drawn, is between followers of theistic and non-theistic Satanism.
The latter do tend towards being the awfully nice people you've been describing, who are always making sure that everyone is fine in the mosh pit.
The former, however, can conversely tend towards the type of person who is far too enthusiastic about the technical details of the blood gutters in their unnervingly large collection of ceremonial knives.
In my years of practicing Ceremonial Magick, in and out of various Orders, and my studies of Satanism, I have never met such people, would consider them an extreme rarity, and again, would draw the Musilms are terrorists parallel.
There are plenty of theistic Satanists I know who are also great people.
One of the clear messages I get from looking at the past couple of thousand years of history is that I should really try and avoid getting hung up on symbols. Also looking to history, it is remarks such as this that will probably lead to that outcome.
That's great if you're Mr. Spock and the rest of the world is a bunch of Vulcans who can control their brains in the most logical way. But human beings create connections in their brains, and the whole purpose of symbols is to create a connection.
If you use a symbol that has a particular widespread meaning, then people are going to think of that meaning when you use the symbol, even if they then figure out what you really mean a second or two later.
That's why companies trademark logos, and why other companies trying to associate themselves with those companies try to make their logos look similar. (Think of all the knock-off Starbucks-themed coffee shops around the world.)
This section of the comments is... interesting. I wasn't expecting to read about this kind of stuff on HN today. But it's not over-the-top or obnoxious, so it's interesting to learn a little about what other people do/believe/practice.
As to why it became occult, one of my favourite versions is that phi was used for engineering and one of the easiest ways to get phi is to draw a pentagram, but this was a trade secret, so one of the first things you do when drawing plans for a new church is draw a pentagram, measure off phi, then erase it.
No, most of Freemaonsry's really useful secrets come from an extreme measure of self discipline, and through the correspondence courses you work through with your Sponsor.
The Rituals of Freemasonry are something millions of people are shoved through, in the interest of what we call 'knife and fork Masonry' - this is the typical image of usually the largest Lodge in your City or Town, where businessmen congregate to drink beer and make connections.
There are few who take Freemasonry seriously for its rituals, and even fewer who choose to make it past the Blue Lodge (3°), and move on to the Scottish or York rites, which can go all the way up to 33°.
The 33rs Degree is basically an honour. There are very, very few of them. When someone tells me they had a friend of a friend who was a 33rd Degree Freemason I just smile and nod.
Freemasonry is about making 'good people better'. How much you get out of it is entirely dependant on how much you put into it.
I don’t mean to be disrespectful but I find this view weird. The pentagram is on the slides for this technical presentation. Millions of regular folks won’t be watching this video I would think. Maybe I find it weird because I don’t place any significance on that symbol, but you’re talking about slides on a pretty obscure talk.
If the star in the bottom corner was a Star of David instead of a pentagram and you said the exact same thing what do you think the response should be?
If you check their website, the symbol isn’t anywhere to be seen (at least, I couldn’t find it)m so its clearly for the CCC talk only. CCC talks aren’t exactly meant for “mass appeal”.
It's clearly not a satanic pentagram but apparently some sort of authors inside joke. Sure, it's based on it, but as you can see there's more elements added https://imgur.com/PxKw5Yw
Throughout history five pointed star or its variations have been used in various cultures, ideologies etc. so I don't see it as a "deal breaker".
being aware of social sensitivities is a big part of being successful for projects that aim for broad adoption.