Given that the latter is indistinguishable from the former unless something breaks, starting a new organization sounds better than entryism -- at least assuming there are enough people to make it viable and useful.
Better how though? I just meant that setting up our own organization and getting a viable initial population to join would be work, and it seems pointless if we'd achieve the same result by joining an existing one.
Joining an existing one means having to deal with existing members. If you want an organization to advance a certain set of goals, whether they're policy goals or just networking with similar people (given that similar(LW) is different than similar(freemason)), it seems like it'd be easier to have general agreement, shared background, etc. across all the members, which is something you don't get from entryism -- you have to expend energy on spreading that background, getting existing members to align with the entryists, and so on.
Admittedly, I also have ae...
I recently stumbled over the relationship between freemasons and networks of social and economic influence (e.g. nobility).
I wondered what could be learned from a society which exists so long and has ideals that are not that far away from the LW goal of refining human rationality.
It is interesting to note that the freemasons seem to have highly tolerant and rational values. The freemasons orginated from independent craft guilds but became 'speculative freemasons' during the enlightenment and this is reflected in their commitment to tolerance and reason which builds on crafts traditions of teaching, truth, reliability and craft perfection. Somewhat problematic may be their unusual customs and the prejudice they face. Nonetheless they obviously can cooperate which our kind can't.
Note: I didn't attend any freemason meetings and don't know any details. What I read on Wikipedia was mostly asbtract. I might attend a meeting but unsure about it's value of information.
What do you think: What can we learn from freemasonry? What should be avoided? Is there any freemason here who might provide insights?
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A post about an LW symbol prompted this comment about freemason icons.