Dear Nick and Friends of Wisdom,

I agree with Jiyan and Leland!

My mind is bursting with ideas - I'll try and capture the highlights here.

Should we write letters, post videos, tweet, facebook, online petitions etc etc.  Yes to all of the above.  I do not think it is a case of "either or".  We need to pursue all channels in order to maximise "market penetration".  However, the campaign will need a home website, from which everything can hang, and on which all the key messages are broadcast.  There needs to be a single point of contact and information which provides a gateway in to the campaign, a promotional "brochure" site, that first timers and the media can be directed to.

I currently provide consultancy on collaborative working in industry.  My favourite platform is currently Google Apps and Google Sites.  Sites can be set up in minutes and serve as a location for collation of shared documents, coordination of focused discussions, a platform for polls and surveys etc etc. which hooks straight in to the G+ network.  Such a site could also be used as a campaign headquarters.

In addition, we could provide a valuable service to the public from such a site which publishes the "truth" on the key issues (climate change, poverty, energy etc etc), from reliable peer-reviewed sources and promotes the "wisdom".  At the moment the media are performing this function and their focus is not wisdom, it is selling newspapers and increasing ratings, so they are not interested in "truth" or "wisdom".  Such a site should aim to demonstrate the value of wisdom-based inquiry, and show how focused research can answer the questions that need to be answered.

Kevin de Laplante also raised a good point that "the public don't understand what a good "argument" is".  They need to understand the rules of "argumentation" if they are ever going to "believe" what the "experts" are telling them.  The point is, even if we do succeed in promoting wisdom-based inquiry in academia, the public still wont understand or believe the outcome until we improve our communications and provide them with the tools to enable them to understand the arguments.  http://www.criticalthinkeracademy.com/

Campaign adherents need a clear purpose and something to do to contribute.  I ran a very effective kickstarter campaign which we operated on military grounds.  Campaign members suggested targets.  The campaign coordinators planned the "mission".   "Missions", with clear instructions, were posted to the followers and they were dispatched to online discussions, online newspaper articles, reddit discussions etc, to get the discussion going and point people back to our Kickstarter campaign headquarters.  This whole operation was run from a Facebook Group and we raised $160,000 dollars in 12 days!

We need to connect to like minded organisations that are already trying to create a "new age of science and reason", for example the Breakthrough Institute:  http://www.thebreakthrough.org/  There are also nearly 17 million adherents to the "I Fucking Love Science" facebook page, which has to be a fertile area for recruitment to the cause.

We should also hook up with researchers who are already undertaking wisdom-based enquiry, for example, Jem Bendell, who is trying to address the real problem of the finance systems that are the route of so many of our problems:  http://jembendell.wordpress.com/about/ 

There is also a growing group of media-savvy scientists that already have high profiles and large followings that we should try and engage , for example Iain Stewart and Ben Goldacre.

Then there are the Journalists who should be amenable, for example George Monbiot and Mark Lynas.

But the first thing we need to do is get this discussion into a more convenient environment.  I would (could, am willing to) create a Facebook group, because that is what I know, and most of the other activists I have highlighted above have profiles on Facebook!  Incidentally, a facebook group can be kept private, for invitees only, until we get our story straight and remain so for a core group, if needs be.  Another group can be set-up for public discourse.

So much more to talk about, but that will do for now!

All the best

Greg

Dr. Greg Samways - Petroleum Geology Consultant and Trainer

Mob: +44 (0)7720 296 483

Tel: +33 (0)555 78 54 20

VOIP: +44 (0)20 7193 1815

Website: www.adinvenio.com

On 27/06/2014 16:55, Qiao, Jiyan wrote:

Dear Nick and friends of wisdom,

This is a grand cause and we need the join efforts of like-minded people around the globe to effect substantial changes gradually. While a top-down method can be effective to some extent as well, for launching the campaign, it seems we need to first, build a campaign team (three to five firm believers of the cause might be enough for launching it) and have a brain storming of all team members (convene a meeting of founding members); second, with the most immediate tasks being identified at the first meeting, assign them to each to be implemented. Among these tasks, one most urgent I think is to enhance the presence of our cause in social media, including Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, (each reaches a certain group of audience with its distinctive features of communication. I am not sure if LinkedIn is a good fit for us at the moment) and Symphony (which orchestrated all of the previous social media genres). We have to admit that in our digital age, especially over the last decade, people are reading less and less of hard copy books and newspapers, but they are reading more and more of these piecemeal writings published on those new media. Our Wisdom cause is yet to be made present in this new world.

Please let me know if I can help.

Best,

Jiyan

From: "Maxwell, Nicholas" <[log in to unmask]>
Reply-To: <[log in to unmask]>
Date: Fri, 27 Jun 2014 08:46:14 +0000
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Subject: Campaign for Wisdom-Inquiry

Dear Friend of Wisdom,

 

                                     You, like me, hold that the world is heading towards disaster: global warming, population growth, vast inequalities of wealth and power around the world, lethal character of modern war, destruction of natural habitats and extinction of species, pollution of earth, sea and air.  You, like me, hold that these current and impending disasters have been made possible, even caused, by modern science and technology.  The basic fault is a kind of academic inquiry (devoted to the pursuit of knowledge) damagingly irrational, in a structural way, when judged from the standpoint of helping to promote human welfare.  As far as the long-term interests of humanity are concerned there can scarcely be a more important task than to correct the gross defects of academia, and put something like wisdom-inquiry into practice so that humanity may come to have what it so urgently needs: institutions of learning rationally designed and devoted to helping us make progress towards as good and wise a world as possible.

 

                                     Climate change is perhaps the most striking example of the urgency of the need for academic change.  Academia ought to have generated sustained discussion in the public domain as to what humanity ought to be doing to bring down CO2 emissions as rapidly as possible.  But we are still stuck in the rut of discussing whether or not we are causing global warming, and how seriously we should take it.  Academia, devoted to the pursuit of knowledge, seems to be incapable of taking an active role in creating serious discussion of policies in the public domain – even when the future of civilization may be at issue.

 

                                    If all this is correct – and if not, where does it go wrong? – then it becomes a matter of great urgency to get a campaign going to alert scientists, academics, the public, the media, even politicians, about the urgent need to transform universities so that they begin to put wisdom-inquiry into practice.

 

                                    How might such a campaign be initiated?  What steps might be taken in an attempt to get such a campaign underway?  What might Friends of Wisdom do?  Might we as, potentially, a campaigning organization, write letters to newspapers, post talks on You Tube outlining the argument, write to influential scientists and academics who might be sympathetic?  Do we take to twitter?  Do we spell out the message on Facebook and LinkedIn?  Do we talk to colleagues about the matter?  Do we email vice-president of universities around the world?  Do we find some way of alerting students to the situation?

 

                                   It would be very interesting, and it might even be helpful, to have suggestions as to what such a campaign might do to spread awareness, at least, of the urgent need to transform academia. 

 

                    Best wishes,

 

                                   Nick Maxwell

Website: www.ucl.ac.uk/from-knowledge-to-wisdom
Publications online: http://philpapers.org/profile/17092
http://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/view/people/ANMAX22.date.html