Secretly... secrets

This thread is prompted by a discussion in #zdoom. We were happily chatting when the subject of freemasonry came up. Now I DON'T want this thread to be about freemasonry, if you want to talk about that make a new thread.

Anyway, Blasphemy came up with a page with all sorts of studies showing how freemasonry could be considered subversive. It was reasonably academic, if poorly referenced, but nontheless was worthy of consideration. It made me wonder if all academic work is naturally biased in favour of discovering hidden readings, but more importantly for me it raised a question about human nature, which is what we WILL discuss.

My question is: can we have secrets today? If I decide to make my society secret, is it automatically considered subversive and dangerous? Do we just fear things because we know nothing about them? And is the reason why we pound secret societies/things as a species simply because it is in human nature to be curious? If so, isn't it about damned time we learned to appreciate privacy? Have we, in this age where information around the world is made available to us in seconds, and the unknown effectively no longer exists on Earth, become even more scared of secrets?

Is this healthy cynicism, or are we dangerously mistrustful? What impacts does this have on our world? Discuss, and stay ON topic.

I think most of us are probably a lot LESS scared of secret societies than we would have been a couple of hundred years ago. It's those damn aliens most people are concerned with nowadays...

fear the Stonecutters!

People are afraid of the unknown/different. Fear leads to anger, anger leads to hate, hate leads to suffering. Mmmmh. Give me a kiss you must. Mmmmh.

To refresh, people are scared of what they don't know. Simple as.

It's human nature to dislike secrets, hence during childhood always being told "It's rude to whisper".
The Masons are quite powerful in England, hence all Police Officers now have to register if they are members, and were a good choice as an example, although I would have cited the Bilderberg Group myself.

Society has always consited of a hardcore ground of nosey cunts. It's just teechnology has given them a chance to indulge their vouyorisitc (sp?) habbits.

SKULL AND BONES! SKULL AND BONES!

pritch has a secret...
If I decide to make my society secret, is it automatically considered subversive and dangerous?

Depends. Which secret society is on top right now? Are you in their good gracies? Are you useful to them? Do you have any chance of fighting your way into power without your secret being blown? There's a very definite food chain among and within these things. It's the way the world works: Some groups/persons are considered superior to others and are gonna make damn sure it stays that way.

Christ in Himmel! It's the gad damn Illuminati! Run!!!