Pitch
@MIT Plan 4 Action on #ClimateChange #Occupy'S #hopium|#MotivatedReasoning re #CapitalismFail & its #Anthropocene threats. SoftSci strategy.
Description
Summary
The hopium of the rationale of MIT’s Plan for Action on Climate Change requires a rational critique so that the underlying economic needs of the institution are met without it promoting motivated reasoning as a social good within the Anthropocene.
To the degree rational thought, not rationalized thought, is a valued social good, it is proposed that alumni withhold any further financial support of MIT (& publicly promote others to do this as well), until MIT’s Plan for Action on Climate Change changes to one that is rational: reflects reality and science…particularly, with the physical science issues of climate change predominately, and conservatively settled, those of the social sciences.
Concurrently with withholding funding to MIT, the alumni will use its network to facilitate crowd-sourcing a $1,000,000,000 prize to be awarded to the first educational institution to effect sustainable carbon-intensive lifestyles among 10% of the populations of 50% of alums' communities of residence. These communities are limited to those in the 'Developed' world since the ’developing’ one tends to already mostly qualify as living this way. Offsets, geo-engineering and future scaled carbon sequestering technologies (e.g. BECCS) may not be factored into the definition of sustainable carbon intensity. Rebalancing the planets' energy imbalance is the metric for judging what is that carbon-intensity.
What actions do you propose?
The implementation of this proposal will accomplish the proposed valuing of rational, not rationalized thinking. To win the prize, direct impact on climate change will be effected. This proposal will:
- of necessity involve alumni with social science expertise, or access to the same
- leverage the systemic greed of CapitalismFail to create a "market” reward for rational behavior
- both with the crowd-sourcing funding effort, and with the academic rigor of defining sustainable carbon intensity lifestyle and strategizing how to effect the required social change, enhance individual academic institution's social worth
- likely require academic rigor and networking that will open up possibilities for thinking differently, which motivated reasoning currently tends to preclude
Immediate implementation can use existing crowd-sourcing sites, but it is proposed that MIT establish a web-portal to a trust fund established for this purpose.
By:
