Keeping a secret for four hundred years
Jul. 26th, 2007 04:40 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
jackI won't say whether it exists or not, but much in Foucault's Pendulum much attention is paid to the implausibility of the idea there may be secret descendants of the Templars, putting a long-laid plan. Many other books (and conspiracy theories) have similar ideas.
How *would* you go about organising such a thing? First, a few background points.
* Obviously there are *some* secret societies. The masons actually exist :)
* If that helps the members out now, that's obviously a reason to do it.
* Or if they're following some religious purpose.
* Or if you want to shape the future of humanity.
* But would you want to found a society in order to benefit the N00-year-hence members of it? But that's what some fictional societies with a big secret seem supposed to do. (See 1984 for a philosophical discussion of maintaining a caste system.)
If you did want to, how would you do it? First, the parameters:
* Let's say you have a big secret you want put into effect or revealed at the next millennium.
* You want to prevent anyone finding out before hand, including the members.
* But want the secret to survive.
And, so, what:
* One technique is to simply write lots of instructions and bury them. They (hopefully) won't be found too soon and (hopefully) when they're found some people primed by rumour will follow the instructions.
That later point is when many stories are set: with the digging up of a mysterious treasure map and wondering who wrote it.
* Another is to found a small secret society, and trust the members to hand the secret down to the next generation. This is also popular, though fragile.
If too few people know, sooner or later they die at once, and the followers are stuck.
If too many, someone wants to go off, and grab the secret early.
Each man/group choosing a trustworthy successor can work, but they can't *always* be right. And over their life, they may stop caring.
And they can all be hunted down.
* What other tricks are possible? Perhaps estimate Moore's Law and release an encrypted message publicly, and rely on it being decrypted at about the right time.
* Have several groups with part of the secret, to meet at some point in the future.
It's tricky specifying when though. You can say "meet at this place, this time, this day, this year", and rely on statistics to make it robust. If a secret group has a 10% chance of dying out and 10% chance of going rogue, it has 80% chance of doing the right thing. Founding three such groups needing one other to decrypt the secret improves the chances to ~3% of two dying out, and ~3% of two going rogue.
But no "Machiavellian" secret societies anyone's tried to tell *me* about have been so clever.
Alternatively, try to specify a place you can't find in advance, eg. where the next [event] occurs, one month later. But clever groups trying to jump the gun might cheat, eg. by going to the *last* [event], on the anniversary, and hoping another group will think the same way.
* Found a religious order and tell them it's god's will.
* Launch the secret in a space probe designed to intercept the earth in N years.
* Lock it up and trust no-one ever considers trying to cheat mechanically.
* Hide it in a statue, church, or other long-lasting publicly visible place, with a clock designed to go off at the right time. Anyone looking before that won't know where, but at the time it'll be obvious to all comers.
* Similarly, you could hide it in a computer -- or mutation-resistant biological -- virus, designed to spread slowly and go off on that date.
Though none seem perfect. Does anyone have any better ideas?
How *would* you go about organising such a thing? First, a few background points.
* Obviously there are *some* secret societies. The masons actually exist :)
* If that helps the members out now, that's obviously a reason to do it.
* Or if they're following some religious purpose.
* Or if you want to shape the future of humanity.
* But would you want to found a society in order to benefit the N00-year-hence members of it? But that's what some fictional societies with a big secret seem supposed to do. (See 1984 for a philosophical discussion of maintaining a caste system.)
If you did want to, how would you do it? First, the parameters:
* Let's say you have a big secret you want put into effect or revealed at the next millennium.
* You want to prevent anyone finding out before hand, including the members.
* But want the secret to survive.
And, so, what:
* One technique is to simply write lots of instructions and bury them. They (hopefully) won't be found too soon and (hopefully) when they're found some people primed by rumour will follow the instructions.
That later point is when many stories are set: with the digging up of a mysterious treasure map and wondering who wrote it.
* Another is to found a small secret society, and trust the members to hand the secret down to the next generation. This is also popular, though fragile.
If too few people know, sooner or later they die at once, and the followers are stuck.
If too many, someone wants to go off, and grab the secret early.
Each man/group choosing a trustworthy successor can work, but they can't *always* be right. And over their life, they may stop caring.
And they can all be hunted down.
* What other tricks are possible? Perhaps estimate Moore's Law and release an encrypted message publicly, and rely on it being decrypted at about the right time.
* Have several groups with part of the secret, to meet at some point in the future.
It's tricky specifying when though. You can say "meet at this place, this time, this day, this year", and rely on statistics to make it robust. If a secret group has a 10% chance of dying out and 10% chance of going rogue, it has 80% chance of doing the right thing. Founding three such groups needing one other to decrypt the secret improves the chances to ~3% of two dying out, and ~3% of two going rogue.
But no "Machiavellian" secret societies anyone's tried to tell *me* about have been so clever.
Alternatively, try to specify a place you can't find in advance, eg. where the next [event] occurs, one month later. But clever groups trying to jump the gun might cheat, eg. by going to the *last* [event], on the anniversary, and hoping another group will think the same way.
* Found a religious order and tell them it's god's will.
* Launch the secret in a space probe designed to intercept the earth in N years.
* Lock it up and trust no-one ever considers trying to cheat mechanically.
* Hide it in a statue, church, or other long-lasting publicly visible place, with a clock designed to go off at the right time. Anyone looking before that won't know where, but at the time it'll be obvious to all comers.
* Similarly, you could hide it in a computer -- or mutation-resistant biological -- virus, designed to spread slowly and go off on that date.
Though none seem perfect. Does anyone have any better ideas?
no subject
Date: 2007-07-26 05:52 pm (UTC)I'm sorry, I always take things back to the beginning. I'd say the authors all missed a trick by not explaining why the hell such a secret society would be founded (if they didn't explain, that is - but I can't quite imagine a good explanation).
Well, I think the solution is to try to make something known in 1000 years' time and see if it works. Of course, *we* probably won't have the satisfaction of knowing, but someone else will :)
no subject
Date: 2007-07-26 11:47 pm (UTC)I'm sorry, I always take things back to the beginning.
:) Don't worry, that's probably a good and analytical habit. But I sometimes narrow the focus, not the first bit, but to a self-contained other bit.
In this case, it seems very likely there *are* no good reasons for it, thus the question is hypothetical[1]. However, considering how to set up such a society, I think is also a very useful exercise, and might possibly be relevant elsewhere.
[1] ie. That the question is obviously negative, so might be amusing, but we all agree in advance on the likely answer so don't have to spend brainpower considering it unless we want to.
FWIW, in Umberto Eco, it's more about the people investigating and imagining the society, so these questions aren't properly addressed -- because its mainly considered by dilettantes, so of course they think about how it should work rather than whether it would work. (*Have* you read Eco? I can't remember, I know you'd love that too!)
In Da Vince Code, they want to safeguard Jesus' secret until humanity is ready for it (I think?) and rely on the guardians to be paragons of virtue. Other books consider this approach in a less dumb way :)
In various other stories, a group is seeking some sort of power, and not deliberately delaying, just haven't got there yet.