gjm comments on What can we learn from freemasonry? - Less Wrong

10 Post author: Gunnar_Zarncke 24 November 2013 03:18PM

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Comment author: gjm 25 November 2013 11:22:35AM 4 points [-]

it works [...] members seem to be more successful [...] So it seems to me that forming a freemason-like organization [...] would be an effective way to help our members achieve their goals.

That might be right, but I am not convinced. It seems to me possible that the following might be true:

  • The community of freemasons has included, for historical path-dependent reasons, a whole lot of influential people.
  • Fraternizing with influential people is good for your career.
  • This is the dominant cause of any advantage freemasons have had.

In which case, forming a freemasonry-like organization would be valuable in that way only if it manages to recruit a lot of influential people who can help other members as freemasons (hypothetically) have helped one another. That certainly might work but I don't see that it could be guaranteed.