with the inclusion criterion of being willing to publicly admire a particular set of people
That isn't quite what Viliam is proposing. He says (emphasis mine):
you associate with people who give social status to people working on X
so what membership in this community commits you to is not admiring specific people but admiring people who do specific things, whoever those people are.
This still seems kinda dangerous, but I don't think it has the same failure modes.
commits you to is not admiring specific people but admiring people who do specific things, whoever those people are.
I suspect that distinction is not going to be as clear-cut when you are dealing with a bunch of actual humans.
"Bob is an asshole but he did the specific thing X so I'm supposed to publicly praise him? I'll pass."
"Alice is such a great person, so what that she skipped the specific thing X this time, she's the best and I'm going to sing hosannas to her really loudly".
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