At the risk of angering my entire friends list

[thiebes]

I got my ballot in the mail a couple days ago. If you hadn't heard, in Oregon we all get to vote by mail.

Basically the way I feel about Presidential elections is this: it's mind-control. Nothing more

Comments

[popjellyfish]

I was planning to try and throw a party on the 4th, celebrating the joy of nothing changing.

[thiebes]

The Lodge usually has class on Tuesdays, but for the last several elections attendees have chosen to watch the results come in on tv. Maybe we should open up the bar this year.

[maxomai]

I'm giving a class that day specifically on topics relevant to the election and Thelema. The outline is as follows:

1) Why Crowley's critique of democracy falls short.
2) Democracy as a demonic manifestation of the spiritual dark age.
3) Why we should use democracy anyway, and how.
4) The election results.

[thiebes]

Great! Post an announcement! Sounds like a blast. I wonder if we can hook a tv up to the projector or something?

[maxomai]

Beats the snot out of me. Shall I ask around?

[thiebes]

I don't know how to make a tv signal go to the projector. All these new-fangled gadgets. Can't they just work?

[popjellyfish]

If you can get television reception, you most likely wouldn't need a TV... you should just be able to plug right into the projector. Is there an outlet at the lodge?

Worse comes to worse, it would be easy to hook up a lappytop to it and stream he night away.

[maxomai]

Outlets we got. Signal reception is the problem. SML seems to be in a Faraday cage. However, SML does have 802.11(g). We can hook up a laptop to the projector and display real-time updates to an electoral college map and/or streaming video.

[thiebes]

Get television reception on what? That's what I'm confused about. What are we to plug in to the projector? We've used an actual TV in the past, no problem, but we don't have one and last I checked TVs don't have an "out" jack anyway.

[maxomai]

When's the last time we successfully received a television signal on a television at SML? As far as I remember, we've never done that particular operation. And, based on my attempts to get radio and cell reception while in the SML classroom and temple, I think trying to get a television signal is going to be futile.

I'm suggesting that we instead use the projector as an output for a laptop, and use the Lodge's wireless internet to connect that laptop to streaming video, or to a site that will regularly update with fresh election results (such as DailyKos's election map, or CNN).

[thiebes]

2000 and 2004, I recall.

But yeah, whatever works.

[popjellyfish]

Yeah, a laptop would be easier to use, and give you more options of what news source to watch it from.

Plus, I'm guessing there are more laptops than TVs in this town anyway.

[maxomai]

It would be simpler if everything just used USB.

Slower, but simpler.

[kitten_goddess]

Hi Maxomai:

Why is democracy demonic? I'm curious.

[maxomai]

We have a system where we decide the leadership of the most powerful nation in the world by a contest of who can charm tens of millions of people into buying into their egregore. The most effective egregores aren't the ones that appeal to some higher truth, but the ones that appeal to our base emotions, regardless of whether or not the assertions made in building that egregore are true or even outright and obvious lies.

So, you have quantity, sentimentalism, and almost pure maya. That's pretty much bread and butter lower triad qlippoth.

This is not to say that most other attempts at government these days are any better. In fact, they're all a whole lot worse, because they're all built on the same qlippothic foundations of popular support. Any system that's going to be better has to start from stronger foundations than that.