Networked Alumni
The Mandate Democracy® initiative aims at networking approximately 24,000 Caltech Alumni of which incudes every possible demographic, spread throughout the world.
Shared Ethos
No matter widely diverse personal convictions, beliefs and identities, Caltech Alumni do crucially share one trait common from their education and professional ethos:
- Dedication to “Truth” – To fact-based, reasoned scientific method, open-minded inquiry and free-thinking creative problem solving, embodied in Caltech’s motto,
“The Truth Shall Make You Free.”
Founding Father Scientists
Thomas Jefferson, a scientist Founding Father like Ben Franklin, expressed that characteristic this way:
“I never submitted the whole system of my opinions to the creed of any party of men whatever in religion, in philosophy, in politics, or in anything else where I was capable of thinking for myself. Such an addiction is the last degradation of a free and moral agent.”
“There is not a truth existing which I fear, or would wish unknown to the whole world.”
Most Trusted Institutions
That ethical standard of Trust & Truth helps explains why, next to the military, scientists are the most (and only other) majority-trusted institution in the United States.
Today’s Tech Tyranny
Jefferson could not have foreseen but fiercely prophesied against the nature of today’s “New Tyranny” — the massive, subversive cyber-assault on the public consciousness — presaged by the inscription around his Memorial Rotunda
“I have sworn upon the altar of God eternal hostility against every form of tyranny over the mind of Man.”
And so…
Mandate Democracy™ aims to reflect a value system of Truth & Trust, to honestly craft the best range of options and information needed for the electorate to make informed choices, free from bias or special interests, for free minds to place ultimate peer group trust in E Pluribus Unum.
