• danekrae@lemmy.world
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      4 months ago

      I wonder if it’s only in my country, that they are told to protect israel? I read that in a freemasons documents, that I found on his computer in a totally legal way…

      Did your organisation also have to change opsec these past 10 years?

      Uuh and are you also encouraged to do business with other masons, to keep accumulating wealth?

      • TurtleOnASkateboard@lemmy.ml
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        4 months ago

        I wonder if it’s only in my country, that they are told to protect israel? I read that in a freemasons documents, that I found on his computer in a totally legal way…

        Uhmmm two of my lodge members have been bombed by Israel during their military service hahaha. We are not fans.

        Did your organisation also have to change opsec these past 10 years?

        I haven’t been in it 10 years.

        Uuh and are you also encouraged to do business with other masons, to keep accumulating wealth?

        No. Although one can only do business with people one knows, and I know Masons.

  • midnight_puker@sh.itjust.works
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    4 months ago

    I can’t really provide much insight, but I was once contracted by a local Masonic lodge to install new windows. I had unsupervised access to pretty much any room that had a window in it, and I was even permitted to look around in the windowless chamber where they performed many of their rituals. They were actually pretty excited to show me around. I can’t imagine that they would allow a perfect stranger into their secret lair if they really had anything to hide. But, ya know, take what I say with a pinch of salt as it’s just one anecdote about one lodge in Nowhere, Ohio.

    • dnick@sh.itjust.works
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      4 months ago

      That’s their strategy, let some laymen in to look around, show them some fake ‘secret’ rims to show they aren’t really that special, while the clevery hidden real secret doors are quietly moved as you leave and enter each room. You end up being just one boring anecdote on the Internet, but over centuries it adds up to hundreds of ‘eh’ accounts to hide the real story… It’s brilliant!

    • dx1@lemmy.world
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      4 months ago

      Which facts. How does the world work, in your estimation.

      Way I see it, you have two competing overarching theories, “spontaneous order” and “orchestrated order”. You look at the U.S./Western empire, with its totally hierarchical command structure, and a big “?” at the top above SCOTUS, Congress and the Presidency, who all inexplicably follow the same agendas opposed to the will and benefit of the people, it seems to me a perfectly reasonable conclusion that somebody is in control. I don’t think it’s the Freemasons - this was kind of an old trope throughout American history (see the early 1800s Anti-Masonic Party), but knocking out individual dumb theories for who’s in charge doesn’t disprove all of them.

      IMO, “conspiracy theories” are a natural attempt to explain observed reality (inequality, mass conditioning/brainwashing, global militarism and empire, etc.). They can be informed by falsehoods and/or manipulated into harmful movements (MAGA for example), but again, doesn’t disprove the entire idea of society being controlled. The only way you get to such a disproof is by an exhaustive analysis of every social institution demonstrating it’s not being controlled. Going, “these things just happen on their own” without any further detail is hand-wavey.

      Have you considered you can really accuse anyone you disagree with of “being idiots who can’t or won’t face the facts of reality”? Maybe reality is as hideous and our society as controlled as they say, and you’re the one can’t or won’t face the facts of it. That kind of discourse doesn’t get anyone anywhere.

      • zarkanian@sh.itjust.works
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        4 months ago

        You’re attacking a straw man. There are groups vying for control. The question is whether or not there is one group controlling everything, and I think that’s highly unlikely.

        Way I see it, you have two competing overarching theories, “spontaneous order” and “orchestrated order”.

        I see a lot of chaos, too. Conspiracy theorists will look at something that I regard as chaos (say, the Sandy Hook massacre) and say, “Oh, yeah, that was planned (by a conspiracy).” There seems to be an unwillingness to accept that there is a lot of chaos on the world, and while some things are controlled, much of it is not.

        • dx1@lemmy.world
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          4 months ago

          Not attacking a strawman, I asked him to clarify and then talked about the context.

          “Conspiracy theorists” often look at an event that’s heavily covered by the media, that serves a perceived state interest, and investigate it further. Particularly if it receives disproportionate emphasis, like the various mass casualty events that were referenced so often they’re just referred to by dates (“9/11”, “7/7”, “Oct. 7”, etc.). Sandy Hook served a perceived state interest (popular disarmament), and people perceived “weird things about it”, so to speak, so interpretations of the event differed. Sometimes people try to explain the formation of these theories in terms of fulfillment of an emotional need (“they can’t accept this would just happen so they need to pretend someone is in control”), which is just inaccurate. They have a mental model, whether accurate in a given case or not, where there’s an antagonistic power structure of some kind orchestrating events or narratives for its own benefit, and are simply applying that lens to understand new events and narratives.

          At the end of the day, it is a fact that the U.S. government does things like this in general. You look at declassified CIA documents from the past, they are very open about overthrowing governments, manipulating public perception, and all sorts of other shady behavior. But they’re not open about them as they’re doing them. So we’re left with the difficulty of figuring it out for ourselves.

          • zarkanian@sh.itjust.works
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            4 months ago

            This is the straw man:

            Way I see it, you have two competing overarching theories, “spontaneous order” and “orchestrated order”.

            You’re assuming that there is order and working backwards.

            Sometimes people try to explain the formation of these theories in terms of fulfillment of an emotional need (“they can’t accept this would just happen so they need to pretend someone is in control”), which is just inaccurate.

            You didn’t explain how that was inaccurate. You just said they were using a “mental model”. Why are they using that mental model, though? It’s because they need somebody to be in control.

            This has actually been studied. Sociologists have studied conspiracy theorists, and they are often people with control issues.

  • kalkulat@lemmy.world
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    4 months ago

    In 1738 the Pope forbid all Catholics from joining a Masonic lodge (open to men of any religion, and secretive, no doubt to avoid Inquisition), and called them ‘depraved and perverted’ (unlike the Church, of course). No doubt the faithful kept the rumor-mills turning.

  • rumba@lemmy.zip
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    4 months ago

    The Masons are secretive. Many very high level historic figures have been Masons. It’s a good old boys club to get in you need to be sponsored by another Mason. You don’t hear a lot about their accomplishments. And you would expect that a social group that contained many of the important men in history wouldn’t just be sitting around doing nothing in secret.

    • Yokozuna@lemmy.world
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      4 months ago

      To my personal knowledge of them, just a bunch of businessmen who jerk each other off basically.

      If one freemason owns a business, and another finds out they do and they also have a business - there will be some sort of service from one company or the other so they can make each other money. Basically, they just support members and will give them preferential treatment over someone they don’t know.