Just 12 people!! They were elites in England, but still...
This particular great group chased status and legal standing. Opposite approach of the Hacker groups, Art groups, and revolutionary groups.
Fiction can inspire greatness. What fictional works do the current intellectual elites need to do great things?
A piece of the 1650s Great Context: making pathways to progress and science LEGIBLE. This is a theme of other great groups (ARPA + Hackers)
The men at the core wanted the knowledge to "lead to improvements" — merging research + implementation responsibilities like ARPA, Manhattan, Hackers, PARC...
The Royal Society is a Great Group, and the broader Great Context encompassed all 3 of these, hence "yes to all 3"
Again, making pathways to frontiers of knowledge legible
Arbitrary but Important Ritual?
Great Groups can fail if they lose Great Founders (Gresham teachers became lazy)
"The New Atlantis" by Francis Bacon is mostly unnecessary fluff, which doesn't do a great job honing our picture of great contexts. The one main lesson it teaches is that you can inspire great contexts through works of fiction. Since Great Contexts are often, if not always, condensed, high-communication networks, works of fiction can spread within those contexts like wildfire, inspiring an entire group, if the vision is clear and achievable enough.