“What Mormons get right about community building” by Jacob Brinton
“What Mormons get right about community building” by Jacob Brinton  
Podcast: LessWrong (30+ Karma)
Published On: Sat Aug 15 2026
Description: Mormons get a lot of things right. Apart from strange Masonic temple rituals, they lead rather normal—and even excellent—lives. Mormons enjoy a longer lifespan, Utah is the #1 state for volunteering, and their language training programs are so successful that missionaries are a known source for foreign service and intelligence careers. Throughout this post, I'll be making generalizations of Mormons rather than hedging the claims properly. I grew up in Wisconsin, Maryland, and Utah, and many of the claims are more true of the Utah/Idaho/Arizona corridor (affectionately called the "Morridor" by some ex-Mormons) than the rest of the US, and certainly the rest of the world. Religions share much in common with AI safety and other impact-driven movements, and even more so the Mormon church. There are a few reasons for this: Commitment to the cause. Anecdotally, nearly all of the ~500 Utah Mormons I've interacted with have been true believers, and only a handful just went to church out of habit. High stakes. Mormons do believe (I've heard they are trying to disavow this, but it was taught) that they will get a planet or some portion of the cosmos as their own if they are good in [...] ---Outline:(02:15) Building community is a first-order priority(02:26) Geography(02:29) Ministering(03:07) Trek(03:51) Callings(04:27) Fast offerings(05:18) Being ingroupy allows you to move faster(06:10) Implications The original text contained 4 footnotes which were omitted from this narration. --- First published: August 14th, 2026 Source: https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/xzhzHhLSg9nSGLk5f/what-mormons-get-right-about-community-building --- Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.