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Having watched the movie, you had a day or so to Freemasonry Version 4 -(prediction)
get the tape back to the shop or face a penalty for late
returns; on the whole, it was a great concept. Th is will be a transitional period commencing from
around Q1 21st century - fuelled by what is referred
Th ere were many independent shops also renting to as the digital age of the 'IR4' ( the 4th Industrial
movies, but none really had the stock that your local Revolution ).
Blockbusters could hold. Blockbusters become a very
large and very successful company. Th is will see a transformation of Freemasonry v3
from a social dining club - with some charitable giving
- focused organization into an educational [content]
So what happened?
focused organization.
Th e Blockbuster Executive were locked into a closed Th is transition will remodel Freemasonry into a
mindset - they were inward-looking, there was an digital product; preserving, and possibly enhancing
element of complacency. Th eir business model to-date the content. Th e content being the self-development
had been very successful, and it would have been quite lessons encoded in the allegory and symbols.
impossible for the incumbent management to change
that model. In truth, the management would see the Th ere will always be people who want to go to the
risk in changing that model being just too big; they theatre for a live performance. Th ere is a lot more who
had too much to lose if it were to backfi re.
go to the cinema for a 3D surround sound experience.
But neither compare to the number who want movies
While the middle management, with their new directly streamed into their own home.
company cars, corner offi ces, expense accounts, access
to the executive dining room, they refused to look Freemasonry version 3 will be around for a long time
ahead. People will always want to rent new movies, - for those who still want the live performance. Th ey
and so long as the Hollywood machine kept churning want the packaging and the v3 delivery mechanism;
out new content, the public will want to rent it. Th ey they were never too worried about content anyway.
were absolutely right; from their perspective, they
thought their gravy train would never end.
2020/21 Global COVID pandemic
Th en over a short period of time, we had the Internet,
coupled with high-speed broadband. Basically, with Th is transition into Freemasonry version
the introduction of high-speed broadband and a 4, will be partly accelerated by the 2020/21
technique called' tunneling,' it was possible to stream Global COVID pandemic. Th is Pandemic
movies across the Internet. Now it was possible to has put a temporary hold on the Masonic packaging
watch any movie, even the very latest, any time, just and delivery mechanism. In some jurisdictions,
by streaming it to the home via the Internet. No more Masonic meetings are temporarily on hold, while
disappointments in not getting the latest movie, no
late penalties, not even having to get in the car to go others have a limited ability to hold meetings.
and get the movie.
Transformation into Freemasonry version 4, may
not be an option, based on the following hypothesis :
Th en, what appears to be from nowhere, we had
Netfl ix. Th e Netfl ix Executives, by contrast to
Blockbuster, were in a growth mindset. Th ey had 1 - Global pandemics run in a series of 11 waves; the
nothing to lose and everything to gain. fi rst few waves are very signifi cant, while the last few
waves go almost unnoticed.
Th e point here is that, as far as the customer is
concerned, the content never changed - it is still a 2 - Everyone on the planet, at some point, will be
blockbuster Hollywood movie. Th e only thing that infected with the COVID virus, and possibly more
changed for the better was the packaging - from the than once by a mutated variant.
bricks and mortar shop into an online shop - and the
delivery mechanism - from tape / DVD to an MPEG4 3 - Th e only form of protection from infection is total
fi le. isolation - or, at best, minimized by maintaining social
distancing and personal hygiene.
Th e Internet plus high-speed broadband
was the disruptor to the 4 - COVID was fi rst reported around November 2019,
high street video rental business with one person being infected. By No-vember 2020,
an estimated 50 million people have been infected, out
of a population of 7 bil-lion - less than 1% [1] who.int

Montana Freemason Page 12 Jan/Feb 2021 Volume 97 No. 1