* BFU Weekly Journal * documenting creation of aVisionaries Learning Center

Hacker Interviews A Tyrant

2010-08-04T16:59:00.000-07:00

Most of you have read the free online novel Hacktivism End Game - Complicit Simplicity. Many have read the short story prologue, *hacktivist*. It seems right to add an interview as an epilogue, a story of slavery and extortion:

A Hacker Interviews A Tyrant

His Nibs was on a rant, and he was mostly right – just a bit extreme; as usual. I knew when I walked in and saw him drinking port instead of wine as his evening glass of thought provoker, he was working up to something big.

“Tell me I'm Wrong;" he started. “There are two types of governments.”

“You were on this last week,” I replied. “Tyrannies formed by elites manipulating the masses by installing puppets in a democracy, and dictatorships that skip the appearance of fairness and rule directly.

He waved me off. “The purpose of argument is to get your premise accepted as a given -- so I simplified and overextended. I'll assume for now you finally accept at least part of that idea. Lets go a dualism deeper.”

“Isn't dualism a bit inaccurate, there is no complementary balance to your idea, both forms you mention are malignant, neither positive.”

“You're right. There is coffee in the kitchen, let me think on how to rephrase that.”

I settled down with my coffee, and waited him out.

“Your point illustrates why I've searched deeper. No duality; and other citizen management tools are available besides democracy and totalitarianism. It's too vague an argument to gather a consensus.”

“And...”

“And that's why I needed to go deeper, exploring the origins of governments. The idea that people need to be manged by people that can't manage their own lives is ludicrous on the surface. You would have to be carefully taught to believe that.”

I looked at my notes and prepared questions, "You've covered that in The Case For Coercive State Education: 'States can not afford to ignore the propaganda value of indoctrinating captive children, starting with loyalty oaths and on to rewritten histories. Let children starve before allowing them to grow up thinking for themselves.”

“I sometimes forget you've read my books. During court proceedings I had time to write them, I didn't expect my enemies to take time to read them.” He paused a moment, then continued. “Let's consider the two ways governments first formed. We will exclude small family and tribal units that were assimilated into larger units.”

“Such tribes and families still maintain their basic functions, balancing individual needs against group survival.”

“Good, you understand. It's larger groups, preying on natural instincts to create artificial unity in dissimilar peoples, that interest me today.”

I prodded him a bit, “That sounds like a good thing.”

He reacted to that, “What?" Then he paused before: "Oh yes, it sounds good. Like most such arguments, forgetting differences and assimilating all into a common culture always feels right. That's why governments publicly pursue such ideals regardless their real goals. Their populations unite behind them: 'As long as it's our culture others are forced into.'”

“Forced is a loaded word, what about choice?”

“Hah! Well challenged. That would be natural, for individuals or tribes to want to migrate toward something better. Unfortunately that's not how governments work. Governments are not the individuals they represent, the societies they rule, or the nations of like individuals they divide with intentionally contentious borders. Just like corporations, governments are artificial constructs for managing livestock.”

“I think I see where your ruminations are taking us.”

“Quite right. That is one of the two divisions of government origins.”

“People as livestock? That would be slavery.”

“It was and is slavery. Today we have found free range livestock is healthier and more productive – but they are still slaves. My house arrest is a reasonable example. My jailers and those confined in smaller cells may call it freedom, but I don't. Freedom is not relative. You are either free or a captive.”

“And the second origin of governments?”

“Extortion: hunter gathers collecting any perceived surplus of farmers and merchants.”

“Barbarians.”

“Perhaps, but many barbarians were of more ethical stock than the population centers they sometimes looted.”

'Define ethical for me.”

“Causing minimal damage, doing what you said you would do. That second part requires any counter-parties to do what they said they would do; or any agreements are voidable without notice. That's why an ethical reputation is important: your reputation argues for your actions.”

“That's okay for now, but does ethics align with raiding barbarian hoards?”

“More frequently than with leaders of governed masses. The first sack of Rome was limited to one day of souvenir and gold grabbing. It was pay, and pay back, for the conquering soldiers. Compare that to the prolonged enslaving of entire civilizations by Rome.”

“Granted, if for no other reason than to progress in recording your memoirs.“

“An accurate history of our times must have a summation of current power-politics. Taxes and fees increase political influence by extortion. Laws and regulations create piecemeal slavery. "

“So?”

“Both the debauched Romans and the steadfast Huns have their analogs today.”

“These are your slave-masters and extortionists?”

“No, but they are stones of prior edifices from which current castles are fashioned.”

“How encompassing is your vision of history and current politics?”

“I'm still considering, but I believe all current governments will fall under both of these categories. The Federation of Liberated Cantons and King Jacob's Elldee are but interesting experiments. If the FLC endures another century we will call them a success: but they won't be mentioned as free states in next millennium's history books.”

“There are un-noted historical exceptions to your theory?”

“Many. Parts of the Hanseatic League, The Vikings in Iceland when it was warm and fertile, some North American tribes such as the Iroquois and Apache, The USA for eleven years between the Declaration Of Independence and the Constitution, the CalBaja Free State. There were others.”

“Historians will argue with the short time frame for the USA.”

“Most intellectuals ignore or argue against all truth that contradicts what they have accepted. Those that lived then knew what happened. Richard Henry Lee authored the Bill Of Rights to correct the constitution. Too little, too parsed before passage, too late. The errors of limited people's rights and expanding government privileges were already propagating. Jefferson said something like: 'Tyranny is when government has powers denied to citizens.' He knew, but still, he was human.”

“So your indictment is I am either slave or slaver, extortionist or co-dependent victim.”

“Not really, I'm speaking of governments, not individuals. There are free people, but no free peoples. As I recall, Voltaire said 'Man is free when he determines to be free.”

"And a counter quote as long as we are playing history: 'I freed thousands of slaves. I could have freed thousands more if they had known they were slaves.' - Harriet Tubman. But I'm here to record your thoughts before your execution.”

“Ouch. Direct as usual Jon, that is why I requested a hacker as my biographer. I also know my biography will be read, especially if it is banned throughout the world like my other books. If nothing else, write a novel to reveal these truths. You have always been an ethical barbarian.”

“And you have always been the puppet master of the governments you are now revealing. Your story needs to be told and understood. That I have known your methods and fought your bureaucracies does lend credence to your insights.”

“You ruined a good thing for me. Perhaps your Friends Of Hacker Jon will change the way the world runs. The international court has ruled I will not see that day.”

“That the court would not condemn your policies until you were ousted from government shows little has changed.”

“Slavers, murderers, and thieves travel together, but leave their wounded to be devoured by following wolves.”

“I still hope that ethical hacker's proactive actions, as were applied in Elldee, will spread and at least genocides and repressive regimes will decrease.”

“Don't count on it. What King Jacob is accomplishing in Elldee is amazing, but it is easy to imagine it not lasting past his death. The world is full of pragmatic egotists like myself. We will find a way to enslave and steal once he is gone – perhaps sooner.”

“With that our time is up, your jailer approaches. I can envision a day when instead of hoarding and stealing, the mindset will change to allowing increasing abundance.”

Scar closed the interview; “Good luck with that. It argues against history. But maybe that's your point.”

Time for a change - a new style of BFU Journal

2008-07-02T21:21:00.000-07:00

"Regardless of what you have been taught to believe; your most important asset is time - not money or possessions, your most important impact will be made through relationships - not through positions or certifications." - Allan Wallace

As you've seen in recent post I keep writing more and more on Squidoo, and less and less here.

Squidoo has more tools than a blog, and each entry grows in readership over time, instead of disappearing into the archives. I've tried various archiving methods on other blogs, but with few exceptions, older post just sit there unread. If you want to try Squidoo too, there will be a link on my "lens."

It does take more time to build a quality Squidoo page, but over time readership increases. It is fairly easy to find and improve what I've written, something that rarely happens to these journal posts. There will be BFuniv tweets most weekdays on Twitter, most updates, quotes, and comments should only need those 140 characters. We will still send out quarterly Bastiat Free University e-mails to let you know how your university is progressing.

Here is the new BFU Journal style I'm going to test for a while. I have a Squidoo lens that lists what I've written there. At the top of the page I will list my most recent pages, the others will be grouped by category. If you want to treat it like a blog, just look at the most recent entries.

If you find something interesting, say about education, scroll down to the Finding A Cure For The Common Education module to access more lenses on the subject. I will be playing with the format - over the next few months it may change occasionally.

Go take a look, the page is titled:

"An eccentric old fellow who trains visionaries." - a lensography

Blogging Break

2008-06-19T22:32:00.000-07:00

I'll be out of town a great deal during the next week or two; subscribe to the RSS feed and you will know when I return. I had planned to talk about the competitors of BFU this week, perhaps I can do that when I return.

For a few interesting reads, try these:

A rewrite about the inspirational Dr. Margarita Pereyda

A chance to challenge your independent thinking

And as close as we will get, for now, to a Foreign Language Department for Bastiat Free University and the Netcohort Institute.

Best,

Allan

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No Anti-bureaucratic School Rants Today

2008-06-12T09:05:00.000-07:00

Well, except the title of this journal post.

It would be easy to rant, but you probably already know about the problems I'd address. Another rant would scare off folks that want to know more, and put the awake few to sleep. There is a better way. If we need and want change - let's listen to someone successful at creating change.

"To change something, build a new model that makes the existing model obsolete."
R. Buckminster Fuller

This should be easy, the old model is already obsolete. However, it is self perpetuating. What we need discover is a way to break the chain of delusion that impels new cows into the slaughter yards. Ranting, while easy, is not the answer.

"My days of whining and complaining about others have come to an end. Nothing is easier than fault finding. All it will do is discolor my personality so that none will want to associate with me. That was my old life. No more."
Og Mandino

I can look at this post and see where my mind has tried to slip into anger and hostility. A release of anger and angst will not achieve our purpose of expanding viable alternatives to the common education. Once our better learning regimes are expanding; creating battles will not tear down the entangled webs of sophist rhetoric.

The BS, MS, and Phd will just get piled deeper and deeper. (you know what BS is, MS is More of the Same, PhD is Piled higher and Deeper.)

Creating a better mouse trap is also no guarantee of the world beating a path to your door. The world must know of it, and it must be enough better to justify replacing the old and developing new methods of application.

It is apparent in this post-bureaucratic era that integrity, accomplishment, and actual knowledge are becoming more important than diplomas. We realize this makes options like free universities, the Netcohort Institute, unschooling, homeschooling, and open schools an overwhelming improvement when compared with most existing educational platforms.

The reason to beat a path to our independent doors clearly exists.

The next step is to let the world know it is worth the journey.

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The Importance of Education and the Power of The Internet

2008-06-05T07:46:00.000-07:00

I have several lenses at Squidoo about education, learning, knowledge, and understanding.

I have one The Importance Of Education that has an almost seasonal quality about it.

It appears that at the end of a school year some teachers assign a project to their students that requires a definition of "the importance of education." The first reaction of many students is to Google the assignment. That leads them to my page.

Now I don't have an approved book in their school library, the public library will not have any of my materials in their reference section, and they won't easily discover the advantages of self-directed learning in available periodicals. They certainly won't find an outline for the Netcohort Manifesto or current information about student directed learning at the Netcohort Institute.

What does happen, is their search engines will direct them to a trusted website that offers fresh insights into the importance of education -- and they discover my lens. At the least they will discover there are both social and personal reasons for education. They may use that bi-pole relationship to develop their essays. The open information in the lens is not necessarily what educational authorities would approve for their coerced students.

By the power of the internet, both sides of the story about educational importance are told.

To the horror of bureaucrats -- students can make up their own minds.

"The shocking possibility that dumb people don't exist in sufficient numbers to warrant the millions of careers devoted to tending them will seem incredible to you. Yet that is my central proposition: the mass dumbness which justifies official schooling first had to be dreamed of; it isn't real."
John Taylor Gatto

Mark up a big plus for the Internet.

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an anti-bureaucratic manifesto

2008-05-29T06:05:00.000-07:00

Sixteen realities of this new era.

This started as a module in my Bureaucrat Tipping lens, but seems too cumbersome to remain there. I'm loath to throw it out without putting it somewhere we can find it, so it will sit in the archives of the BFU Weekly Journal.

Unless of course it gets enough comments to justify working on it some more.

A week later I've decided to build a Squidoo lens around this idea; go ahead and visit Netcohort Manifesto.

an anti-bureaucratic manifesto

Humanity is composed of individuals.
Every functioning individual is better equipped to determine what is best for themselves than any other person.
The "one size fits many" bureaucratic age is over - it ain't coming back.
the world is still full of bureaucratic age misfits believing it is their calling to run the lives of others. Their world is shrinking, and in some cases imploding.
The technologically empowering age of the individual has begun; individuals are starting to self-tailor their own lives.
The social axiom with the greatest potential -- Do as you wish; without harming others and their rights to do as they wish.
If you so tailor your life so as to optimize opportunities for yourself and those you love, everyone benefits.
A life well lived is a disruptive technology.
Any exchange of loyalties is an ongoing negotiation. Individuals can choose where and why to direct their loyalty, and when to remove it.
Loyalty is now born of respect, not of position. If you are posturing for position, any loyalty perceived as gained is ephemeral.
Respect, or lack thereof, is reciprocal. Now is the time to change the equilibrium point with those important to you.
Institutions that seek quality relationships with their constituents are destined to find like measure to what they uniquely offer.
Too big -- a balloon waiting for a pin.
Too small -- the first step to success. Creative "too small" organizations and individuals are a pin box.
In fast paced technology environments what you know is far more important than where you learned it.
Your capabilities and character are becoming far more important than organizational position or certificates.

This was a good start, do you have an idea to add to the list?

Perhaps some speculative fiction showing human rights hacktivism will better portray these ideas?

Seeking A Cure For The Common Education

2008-05-22T08:33:00.000-07:00

A frontal assault on wealthy and entrenched educational bureaucrats is not the answer.

As a side note there is encouraging news, some of those education industry bureaucrats have noticed us and started to snipe. These may just be scouts or pickets taking a random shot, but we have made some wary and dangerous. Good.

No, a frontal assault is not yet within our power. As awareness increases of the dysfunctional education system our numbers are increasing - there is no need for covert action. What we need to do is flank institutional education's Maginot line fortifications. Approved formal institutions and their supporting ramparts are all intimidation, mono-directional, and with no sustainable depth.

Here are a few of the salients we have introduced while searching for routes around open conflict.

Teach yourself and learn more. (Renaissance learning)

Develop peer to peer tools for accelerated learning - P2Pedu. (Netcohort Institute)

And an acknowledgment of how little we really know. (we be ignorant)

"Education: that which reveals to the wise, and conceals from the stupid, the vast limits of their knowledge." - Mark Twain

The days of common education, where boredom and authority are used to create wage slaves, are almost over. The days when being a wage slave had any value have already started to fade into memory. You are the vanguard of a new movement, and you are proceeding for your own good and the good of those you love.

Perhaps we need a William Shakespeare style, Henry V Agincourt speech:

Enter the KING

WESTMORELAND. O that we now had here
But one ten thousand of those men in England
That do no work to-day!

KING. What's he that wishes so?
My cousin Westmoreland? No, my fair cousin;
If we are mark'd to die, we are enow
To do our country loss; and if to live,
The fewer men, the greater share of honour.
God's will! I pray thee, wish not one man more.
By Jove, I am not covetous for gold,
Nor care I who doth feed upon my cost;
It yearns me not if men my garments wear;
Such outward things dwell not in my desires.
But if it be a sin to covet honour,
I am the most offending soul alive.
No, faith, my coz, wish not a man from England.
God's peace! I would not lose so great an honour
As one man more methinks would share from me
For the best hope I have. O, do not wish one more!
Rather proclaim it, Westmoreland, through my host,
That he which hath no stomach to this fight,
Let him depart; his passport shall be made,
And crowns for convoy put into his purse;
We would not die in that man's company
That fears his fellowship to die with us.
This day is call'd the feast of Crispian.
He that outlives this day, and comes safe home,
Will stand a tip-toe when this day is nam'd,
And rouse him at the name of Crispian.
He that shall live this day, and see old age,
Will yearly on the vigil feast his neighbours,
And say 'To-morrow is Saint Crispian.'
Then will he strip his sleeve and show his scars,
And say 'These wounds I had on Crispian's day.'
Old men forget; yet all shall be forgot,
But he'll remember, with advantages,
What feats he did that day. Then shall our names,
Familiar in his mouth as household words-
Harry the King, Bedford and Exeter,
Warwick and Talbot, Salisbury and Gloucester-
Be in their flowing cups freshly rememb'red.
This story shall the good man teach his son;
And Crispin Crispian shall ne'er go by,
From this day to the ending of the world,
But we in it shall be remembered-
We few, we happy few, we band of brothers;
For he to-day that sheds his blood with me
Shall be my brother; be he ne'er so vile,
This day shall gentle his condition;
And gentlemen in England now-a-bed
Shall think themselves accurs'd they were not here,
And hold their manhoods cheap whiles any speaks
That fought with us upon Saint Crispin's day.

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Creating an Internet Presence

2008-05-21T01:32:00.000-07:00

Squidoo has been putting together some interesting tools. I've been doing most of my writing over there. The Squidoo pages don't seem to suffer from aging as much as web posts, and they are easier to keep up-to-date.

Squidoo now has a voting widget that might just allow me to show off what I have there. If this works you will be able to look at a list of my Squidoo pages and vote individual pages up or down.

Click through to see the plexo

The pages with material most like what you have found here will be scattered throughout the list (seeking a cure for the common education, that kind of stuff). Read the titles and the brief summary and pick what you would like to review. Read it and then vote.

Your vote on any connected page should show in all locations that have "grabbed" my list.

I will soon be adding more pages to the list, called a plexo, and they should also be added to the list available here. If you haven't given squidoo a try, it's both easy and fun - especially once you get used to their module page construction tools. They keep trying creative ideas - that keeps it interesting. It also has a web 2.0 community type of feel.

Here is an invite to try Squidoo.

Squidoo is better than free - they have an ad share program that kicks back a small amount of money on each page. If you make $15.00 there we both get another $5.00 (mine goes to Bastiat Free University). They use Paypal - if your country does not, you will need to find a work-around.

From the looks of it, well done mature lenses currently average a bit less than a dollar a month in ads alone. Some better individual lenses bringing around $10.00 a month; that amount seems to be rising. Many lensmasters have also found significant affiliate income using the site -- some saying Squidoo works well with Clickbank.

Squidoo also shares Google love well - links from there will help your other web sites and blogs. Link your "squidoo lenses," together and multiply the effects.

Click through to see the plexo

There are quite a few nicely presented learning and education lenses - read them and then vote.

Best,

Allan

Renaissance Education

2008-05-16T21:46:00.000-07:00

There has been a page about reviving Renaissance Education over at the main Bastiat Free University site for quite a while. It is an overview of what makes the BFU approach different from bureaucratic age education.

There is now a new Squidoo lens that details what is encompassed by the label of modern renaissance education. There are techniques, books, and ideas that can help you self-educate in the classics. This will be a fine guideline as you pursue wisdom and understanding.

There is also the start of a Top 100 classic Books List that you can add to.

Renaissance Education: understanding, wisdom, and a keen eye for logic can be developed by anyone willing to put in the effort required.

You will enjoy the benefits for the rest of your life.

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Visions and Views - The Bureaucratic Age

2008-05-08T10:19:00.000-07:00

You've heard me talk about how the Industrial age is over, and the Netcohort Age has begun.

Sometimes I'm a bit slow.

I have spent a great deal of time explaining that industrial age bureaucracies were not just in industry, but in all of the too bigs: government, education, religions, unions, etc. I then spent time explaining a rational for economies of scale and how that lent itself to a one size fits most society.

I had not considered that some prefer to use the industrial age moniker as a way to misdirect attention from where it belongs. Those that want to blame capitalism for all the worlds ills for one, others that don't want you looking at unjust too big governments as arising from the same family business as industry. There are others.

It is similar to how governments have recently changed the debate on every one's right to privacy into a witch hunt of private companies that have weak privacy policies. That leaves government free to be as intrusive as they wish. As recently as President Johnson privacy was an acknowledged universal right: "Every man should know that his conversations, his correspondence, and his personal life are private." - Lyndon B. Johnson

Laws were passed to require "privacy," from business intrusions while all other bureaucracies assumed an open policy. Those same laws had many loopholes to allow big business to join into the mining of your private life. The result? All bureaucrats can use what was recently our discretionary property.

So we see that industry is blamed for any ills of the last few hundred years while governments and other bureaucrats claim to have created the benefits.

As you can guess from the title of this journal post, I think it is time to acknowledge the source of much of mankind's current woes - bureaucracies. We are leaving The Bureaucratic Age, nee industrial age.

Yes, there were great advances made under bureaucratic umbrellas - but most were due to individuals that heroically fought inertial resistance and persevered.

"People who create things nowadays can expect to be prosecuted by highly moralistic people who are incapable of creating anything. There is no way to measure the chilling effect on innovation that results from the threats of taxation, regulation and prosecution against anything that succeeds. We'll never know how many ideas our government has aborted in the name of protecting us." - Joseph Sobran

Mankind has always seemed to be on the cusp of disaster.

It is only in innovation, made possible by individual visionaries, that we will be able to maintain the progression of civilization. It is time the Bureaucratic age ended. We need the self-tailored society being created by the Netcohort.

There ain't no rules around here!
We're trying to accomplish something.
Thomas Edison

I will try to remember to call it the bureaucratic age in my future writings.

If something evil is about to fall -- it should be pushed!

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Peer To Peer Education - The Netcohort Institute

2008-05-01T09:30:00.000-07:00

It's time to turn the page.

The Netcohort Institute does not just require a better user interface than BFU - it requires a whole new approach to education. The time spent developing the current platform was not wasted, we successfully found many approaches that will not work.

Lets start from bare ground and put out a few ideas of what we think is needed.

A way for creative project teams to form, self-regulate, and manage reputation for future projects. To really have value we need a web 2.0 approach - let the students develop the courses they need - let all students vote their projects up or down.

What we need is

An open system like Wikipedia or Mozilla

A community / communications organization like an online poker room with a general lounge and breakout rooms

A reputation measurement similar to what e-bay had

A voting system like Digg employs

and a lot of stuff we haven't thought through yet. Maybe that is your job also.

You have the audacious dreams - you can make them come true.

What sort of resources can a P2P educational network offer? As a start look at this Squidoo lens on the Royalton Raid created by Evelyn Saenz as a course for unschoolers. While not college level, it sure is interesting, and provides a compelling picture. To adjust to a college level course you could take the frame work at the BFU lens under the heading Create Your Own College Course.

In fact Squidoo is a resource we may want to use for course creation. It is easy, enjoyable, and you can actually earn a little money with it.

Think of thousands of students creating courses, thousands of students voting on what is most valuable, you deciding on what is most valuable to you.

Then think of thousands of students joining on project teams and creating value for all of us.

The rest of the institute will not be so easy - it will take visionary volunteers that want to shape the future of education.

This is just the start, the reputation you build within your teams will qualify you for inclusion in serious start up projects - within a Netcort Institute incubator, or on your own.

Want a first assignment?

Make a lens, Put a BFU or Netcohort stub onto Wikipedia - or add to one already there. Put a comment here, or on Evelyn's lens.

This is too big and too important for just me, The Netcohort Institute needs all of us.

Allan

Allan Wallace Lensography

2008-04-30T14:22:00.000-07:00

You've read my rants and opinionated claptrap; but perhaps you want to know how I really feel.

My Squidoo lenses have allowed me to weigh in on a number of subjects, notably:

1) enabling sharing

2) seeking cures for the common education

3) social interaction while retaining personal identity

4) acquiring and protecting property (money)

There is also a catchall section for etcetera, etcetera, & etcetera.

All of these have been compiled into a new lens; a Squidoo lensography of my ideals, aspirations, and passing fancies. It is up to you to decide if it is a body of work -- or just an intellectual corpse.

Allan Wallace Lensography

enjoy,

Allan

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Samuel Adams - This Beer's For You

2008-04-29T16:30:00.000-07:00

"If ye love wealth greater than liberty, the tranquility of servitude greater than the animating contest for freedom, go home from us in peace. We seek not your counsel, nor your arms. Crouch down and lick the hand that feeds you. May your chains set lightly upon you; and may posterity forget that ye were our countrymen." - Samuel Adams

"How strangely will the Tools of a Tyrant pervert the plain Meaning of Words!" - Samuel Adams

"Among the natural rights of the colonists are these: First a right to life, secondly to liberty, and thirdly to property; together with the right to defend them in the best manner they can. "
Samuel Adams

The Constitution shall never be construed... to prevent the people of the United States who are peaceable citizens from keeping their own arms. - Samuel Adams

"The natural liberty of man is to be free from any superior power on Earth, and not to be under the will or legislative authority of man, but only to have the law of nature for his rule." - Samuel Adams

"We cannot make events. Our business is wisely to improve them." - Samuel Adams

BFU Quarterly Update

2008-04-24T11:45:00.000-07:00

This week we've sent out a new update, I'll let it tell its own story:

Greetings,

This will be more of an update on salient resources than a "state of the college" report.

For those of you that have not kept up with the blog, there have been a couple of specifically useful ideas presented within the BFU Weekly Journal pages

1) How To Create A College Degree Substitute: http://bfuniv.blogspot.com/2008/02/how-to-create-college-degree-substitute.html

2) A new Higher Education Model: http://bfuniv.blogspot.com/2008/01/new-higher-education-model.html

I have found that blogs have a limited life on their entries, I may eventually put these ideas into a Squiddo lens. A fine post on the high achiever, Dr. Pereyda, has almost disappeared in Google's eyes, while in a lens it would continue to attract the attention she deserves. http://bfuniv.blogspot.com/2008/02/dr-margarita-pereyda.html

In fact here are several lenses that have growing popularity and maintain their google edge.

1) Start Your Own Business Ideas: http://www.squidoo.com/mybusinessideas

2) The Importance of Education (it may be different than you thought): http://www.squidoo.com/educationalimportance

3) How to raise money for charity: http://www.squidoo.com/askformoney

And the newest lens, just a couple of days old; Visionary Leaders - inspiring and leading change: http://www.squidoo.com/visionaryleaders

These will all be a potential learning experience - enjoy.

Sincerely,

Allan

Allan Wallace, Rector
Bastiat Free University
www.BFuniv.net

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Visionary Leadership

2008-04-17T07:02:00.000-07:00

I've just created a new lens on Visionary Leadership.

Like most new creations I am not happy with it, yet. I will be working on it, you can help by taking a look and giving me your ideas.

The basic format is contrasting what is not leadership with what is truly visionary leadership. This may not be the best approach. We could instead start with the foundations of visionary leadership and progress through the stages of growth. You may have another idea for the presentation I have not considered. If you think yours is a great idea - create your own Squidoo lens or blog post and I'll link to it.

What is not good leadership is easy - we have examples everywhere around us. Defining visionary leadership is harder; there are many components that need to be operating in congruence. Starting at the foundations of leadership and progressing through those components is probably more than a one page lens can handle.

Take a look at Visionary Leaders - inspiring and leading change and give me your opinion. I promise you will discover the foundation of true visionary leadership before you are done.

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don't think - don't become

2008-04-14T11:41:00.000-07:00

"We become what we think about" - Earl Nightingale

How could we become anything else?

You will find this reflected in powerful texts, wonderful works of art, and in the lives of the successful.

In fact in the Bible's Proverbs 23: 6-8 we get a warning of what happens if we let others (news, politicians, professors, and TV?) do our thinking for us.

Eat thou not the bread of him that hath an evil eye, neither desire thou his dainty meats: For as he thinketh in his heart, so is he: Eat and drink, saith he to thee; but his heart is not with thee. The morsel which thou hast eaten shalt thou vomit up, and lose thy sweet words.

As he thinketh in his heart, so is he ...

We need to be proactive - searching out the best and seeking to understand. Think, don't just follow.

We don't have time to dwell on the negative - that will make us increasingly negative also.

Goals alone are not enough. We must constantly redirect our own thoughts toward apprehending our full potential.

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Leadership or Gamesmanship

2008-04-10T08:59:00.000-07:00

There are two types of leaders.

The first is most common and includes almost all politicians.

These are the folks that want and use power over others. Their methods may vary, but are always self-serving and uncaring of those they wish to rule. Their primary characteristic is that they are always seeking to present an image of action, rather than actually create solutions. You end up with two main categories.

The first is those who try to anticipate what current ruling powers want and provide it before asked -- or those who try to see which direction the crowd is headed, then run to get in front of the crowd. Their drive is to do whatever is necessary to advance.

"Sometimes it is said that man cannot be trusted with the government of himself. Can he, then, be trusted with the government of others?" - Thomas Jefferson

There is a second style, more benign, but equally focused on control. These are the gamesmen. They learn the rules of the game, then maximize their efforts at winning. You find them in bureaucratic (regulated) businesses more than politics, as they advance they adapt quickly to more difficult levels of rules. Most discover, and some use, "game cheats" to get closer to victory.

There is a third, minuscule, minority. These are those that see a need and realize they can galvanize others to assist them in meeting that need. This is what politicians claim to do as they run to get in front of the crowd so they can personally profit.

"There are men in all ages who mean to govern well, but they mean to govern. They promise to be good masters, but they mean to be masters." - Daniel Webster - 1782-1852

The quality of tools used to achieve a goal are important.

The goal itself is also important. There are several hot issues currently debated where leaders on both sides know the truth, but one side is willing to back lies and slander so they can profit over the short term. The crowd may be wrong, but leading the crowd is highly profitable. In the long term almost everyone will finally realize they have been bilked.

A true leader is someone that creates an opportunity for many to assist in positively changing the future; and then empowers their efforts. True leaders realize it is better to fight a difficult battle that will eventually see victory than lead a powerful movement that is doomed to fail.

You can be a true leader.

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The Essence Of The Netcohort

2008-04-03T09:03:00.000-07:00

Let's start with trends.

When I was in college many of those looking for a job believed the best situation would be IBM. Good pay, lifelong employment, lots of status, and a good retirement - the downside was forced moves and a company that owned your life. That idea is now gone, IBM will layoff employees, and they are just one big company of many.

Today many college graduates seek to work for the government; forget good pay and status, but there are still good benefit packages, life long employment, and a guaranteed retirement. The downside of being owned for life now has the added cost of a brain numbing work environment. See the previous journal post to understand where I think that will be headed.

Technology has changed the equation by empowering individuals. Bureaucracies are shrinking, imploding, or at least becoming less profitable as individuals seek to have their specific needs met, bypassing marketed packaging for assumed uniform masses. As a result, no job has security, no well run business will keep you a single day beyond profitability. Everyone that has a job rather than a personal business should be looking for a new job all the time.

Enter the Netcohort.

Lets say you make a widget or two to enhance existing software. You meet someone else in the same space doing similar things and collaborate on some widgets where your skills and knowledge complement each other. While chatting you brainstorm a new idea, but it will take skills and knowledge neither of you yet has to make it a reality. You pull in some friends, make contact with some people referred by other friends - you now have a team. You may add a few freelancers for specific and limited tasks.

This team will probably just last for one project. At the end of the project you will not just have a better widget, you will have a group of potential future partners where you know their capabilities -- and their strengths and weaknesses. Just as they will know yours. A netcohort team's referral structure is centered in reputation.

That is your local Netcohort circle. In the future you will pull folks from this netcohort circle, and seek referrals from their circles as you work on new projects. As an individual you will be at the center of your circle; forming or joining new teams as opportunities arise.

You are the basis of a new middle and upper class - one that will replace the unskilled union laborer and industrial business executives. The old middle class will vanish, just as they replaced the middle class of skilled guild workers. Of course we still have agriculture long after the agriculture age is past, so we will have industry long after the industrial age fails.

In reality, The Netcohort Society is already here, those widget makers are already collaborating.

Will you join them?

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Since We Won't Change, what will follow dystopia?

2008-04-02T08:54:00.000-07:00

I seldom stray to the political in this journal, but perhaps it is appropriate today.

The following is from the in-depth intro to BFU philosophy (as opposed to the simple intro to Bastiat free University). Neither the intro nor the text is overtly political - but it presents a powerful parallel to where the western world is headed.

- In finance there is a rule of thumb for large investors. If they own a great deal of stock in a company and notice the company has not, and will not, repair a flawed business plan; they sell their stock to protect themselves. They will then sell short more stock to profit from the collapse they think is coming. Their sales may alert others to look for problems and the stock may start it's decline.

I believe as the netcohort society takes hold our traditional, inefficient, expensive, snobbish, government supported and regulated universities must change. They have a flawed business plan for an information society. That finance rule of thumb? If something is going to fall, it should to be pushed.

Innovation by the entrepreneur, argued Schumpeter, led to gales of "creative destruction" as innovations caused old inventories, ideas, technologies, skills, and equipment to become obsolete. The question, as Schumpeter saw it, was not "how capitalism administers existing structures,... [but] how it creates and destroys them." This creative destruction, he believed, caused continuous progress and improved standards of living for everyone.

Bastiat Free University is creating an alternative learning system; cost appropriate distance learning customized by and for the individual. As Oscar Wilde said “an idea that is not dangerous is unworthy of being called an idea at all.”

So what brings this to mind from a political perspective?

America, two hundred years ago a bastion of freedom, is becoming progressively more tyrannical. Anyone who cares to look will see freedom vanishing. In like manner the free markets that gave America its wealth and influence have been decaying for over a century. We are devouring our inheritance.

Since the federal reserve (owned by private banks) was created in 1910 and ratified in 1913 the currency of America has lost most of its value. (a dollar in 1913 is worth less than a nickel now - even as measured by self-serving government statistics).

Much as the Patriot Act stripped Americans of privacy and dignity; so the new financial bailout is set to strip Americans (those not important enough to connect with government) of their savings and their hope for a better future.

The same non-government federal reserve (fed) that destroyed the dollar is to be put in charge of controlling all markets, the same markets that have been interfered with covertly for decades. You can not find out who owns the "fed" except by inference - which banks got to bail out LTCM or buy Bear Stearns with government guarantees of assured profit? Those are the likely backers of a new program where the fed will bail out everyone - again to guaranteed profit and increased power of a select few.

The American Revolution started by Franklin, Washington, Madison, Adams, et al is over -- we lost.

There is good news. We are in the end game.

Last century a dollar taken from taxpayers and spent by government would bring close to a dollars GDP growth - less than in the taxpayer's hands - but its benefits controlled by government.

Now they are spending the lifestyles of our children by borrowing trillions of dollars just to gain a little until after the elections.

Soon they will begin slipping down hill, no matter how much of your depreciating money they throw around. It is going to be verrry messy.

That is the reason for this journal entry - the poverty that is soon to impact the world will effect all - except those that are already living at a subsistence level or below.

This then is a warning.

Do what you can to prepare. If I am wrong, preparation will cost little, if I am right it may save your life and the lives of those you love.

What Price For Knowledge?

2008-03-27T20:20:00.000-07:00

At BFU we talk about cost appropriate learning.

It is the student that is seeking that is most important, not authorities telling her what to seek.

What do YOU want to know?

We live at a time when knowledge itself is exploding, access to knowledge is simplifying, and tools for organizing knowledge are increasingly available.

Why then are college costs escalating when what we do is organize and dispense knowledge? Modern industrial age colleges have added research in the Prussian model; this does not effect serious learners - only grad students seeking to become professors.

You don't need permission to learn what you want to know. You do not need any help to organize and apply your new knowledge. Grab a mentor if it will help, but you don't have to give up years of your life and huge amounts of money, and your freedom, to learn.

Degrees are losing value as they become common and bureaucracies shrink. What will be important to you is making yourself more valuable. Rediscover the joys of learning, 24/7/365, as a life long pursuit.

Knowledge is virtually free and freely available.

Avail yourself of free knowledge.

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Those Who Have Gone Before - Those Who Will Follow

2008-03-21T05:17:00.000-07:00

It is the changing of the guard.

Those that are not not close to ready are mocking those in charge. Those that have served well are willing, if no longer able, to once again enter the fray. Few of those approaching the coming unpleasantness have any idea of the dedication required to survive and succeeded. It will be their mind set more than their training that prepares them.

"It is no use saying 'We are doing our best.' You have to succeed in doing what is necessary." - Winston Churchill

For fifty years or more the world has been carried by the few individuals that willingly paid an enormous price in their efforts to unrelentingly do what is necessary. Others have coasted behind their efforts, receiving equal or greater acclaim and rewards, that time is now past.

It is only with unfaltering determination, and a conscious disregard of personal consequences within the coming engagement, that those now entering the battle will come forth as heroes. It is not a time for procrastination, hesitation, and half measures.

The world is changing, those that persevered in the last age will not be able to carry the torch into the new.

It is up to you.

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Honorary Degrees

2008-03-20T12:10:00.000-07:00

I was glancing through an online educational forum when I ran across a thread about professors and their doctorates. the essence was very dismissive of anyone that had not "earned a degree" but had instead received an honorary degree. To clarify BFU's position:

Bastiat Free University does not now award honorary degrees.

I do not have, nor am I seeking an honorary degree.

My viewpoint however is quite different then that espoused by the tenured professors in the forum.

It is not wisdom, understanding, or creativity adding value to various college degrees. Instead huge institutions value active compliance as demonstrated by fulfilling college graduation requirements. Submission to authorities, no matter how silly they are, is a virtue in bureaucratic organizations.

The purpose of education, as sold by the education industry, is career advancement, higher pay, and empowering a college graduate's job search. Modern schools and colleges are molded on the early industrial age Prussian formula - their purpose is to make compliant and uniform citizens. Students from government approved schools can be easily managed; the longer they stay in school the more uniform they become. In essence the entire formal educational process develops candidates for tedious jobs within bureaucracies.

"Academies that are founded at public expense are instituted not so much to cultivate men's natural abilities as to restrain them." - Baruch Spinoza

Brick and mortar colleges are where leather bound encyclopedias were a few decades ago - highly respected - unable to gracefully adapt to the information age. The tenured professors at these institutions frequently fall into the same category; respected but without adaptability.

"In a time of drastic change it is the learners who inherit the future. The learned usually find themselves equipped to live in a world that no longer exists." - Eric Hoffer

Formal colleges and their instructors still retain value, but their effectiveness is increasingly one of perception, not of reality. Investments in existing higher education are producing diminishing returns as degrees become common place, as bureaucracies shrink, and as technologically empowered individuals exercise increasing personal choice.

So what do I see as the difference between attending college for an extra decade or so to receive a doctorate degree and receiving an honorary degree? The difference is in the route to sheepskin.

studying a set curriculum from preschool through grad school, taking decades to earn a doctorate degree, gets the professional stamp of approval. Those so honored have proven that they can follow senseless rules and wend through bureaucratic red tape in a manner that pleases authority figures.

Those that receive an honorary degree most frequently receive it for actual accomplishment in their field; they have achieved impressive results due to diligence, knowledge, and hard work.

Frankly I believe an honorary degree is earned, a scholastically awarded degree is a sign of survivorship. I value more highly the honorary degree as a sign that someone can think for themselves, adapt within a real environment, and create value. That has to be far more important than mere practiced recitation, no matter how diligent the student.

"I know very well that because I am unlettered some presumptuous people will think they have the right to criticize me, saying that I am an uncultured man. What stupid fools! Do they not know that I could reply to them as Marius did to the Roman patricians: 'Do those who pride themselves on the works of other men claim to challenge mine?'" - Leonardo da Vinci

To my way of thinking, Leonardo earned an honorary degree - even if it was never awarded.

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Building For The Long Term

2008-03-13T09:57:00.000-07:00

Don't spend most of your time dealing with the bottom line, on success, but on building a legacy that will sustain and nurture your organization.

As a principal in your own life, and in the organizations you direct, you will be called on to make short term decisions. If the decisions are made piecemeal without concern for long term consequences you risk suffering a drifting vision unanchored but by expediencies. To sustain a fixed vision your priority must be on direction and sequential consequences.

If you focus on other's ideas and forsake developing a set of personal absolutes you will flounder like a swimmer unable to decide toward which edge of the pond to swim. It is in the determination of goals and of a vision that you establish way points where your path is to lead.

Once established, these landmarks of intention will serve to re-align your walk when distracted by current events and personalities. With practice and attention you will learn that it is your goal that is important to you, not what others think of it. This will provide a dependable reference for making immediate decisions based on more than what is emotionally satisfying in the short term.

Take some time. and a pad of paper, and dwell on what you want to achieve. A first step is to write down the names of all the people whose expectations for your decisions affect how you act. Now write down what you would like to achieve in the long term, regardless of others approval or disdain.

Like plowing a field, if you look at your feet you will wander aimlessly. If instead you focus on a far point, a fence post or tree, and walk towards it your furrow will be straight. To achieve success you must have a goal, and a determination to achieve it within a long term mental commitment to your own moral code.

For a farmer, a series of straight furrows may be the difference between plenty with a salable surplus, and hunger. For your life well directed short term decisions may be the difference between a life well spent and wasted efforts that achieve no long term purpose.

While we must live today, our future is determined by consistency of choice based on personal priorities. Invest more time developing that priority set than you spend on solving small problems.

At the end of the growing season; may you be well fed and have a surplus to sell.

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There is only one success

2008-03-09T09:51:00.000-07:00

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"There is only one success - To be able to spend your life in your own way." - Christopher Morley

"I would rather be exposed to the inconveniences attending too much liberty than to those attending too small a degree of it." - Thomas Jefferson

"An Avidity to punish is always dangerous to liberty. It leads men to stretch, to misinterpret, and to misapply even the best of laws. He that would make his own liberty secure must guard even his enemy from oppression; for if he violates this duty he a establishes a precedent that will reach to himself." - Thomas Paine

"Fire, water, and government know nothing of mercy." - Albanian Proverb

"What is ominous is the ease with which some people go from saying that they don't like something to saying that the government should forbid it. When you go down that road, don't expect freedom to survive very long." - Thomas Sowell

"The rights of every man are diminished when the rights of one man are threatened." - John F. Kennedy

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keep moving, learning, and growing

2008-03-02T07:41:00.000-08:00

The BFU story is about setting new educational goals, the old goals are almost completed.

"Do not go where the path may lead. Go instead where there is no path and leave a trail."

Ralph Waldo Emerson

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Spring Pruning - blogging vacation

2008-02-27T09:32:00.000-08:00

Time to sort my priorities; or as I tell my kids - I need to think about what I want to be when I grow up.

"The most practical, beautiful, workable philosophy won't work- if you won't." - Zig Ziglar

Or as I've said elsewhere:

We hear fables about the past, we develop dreams of the future, but the work needs to be done today.

I should be back blogging in a couple of weeks - poke that orange button to the right of the address to get my RSS feed and you will be one of the first to know. If you need to contact me use the contact link at the Bastiat Free University lens.

When next I write, I will hopefully have some fresh insights occasioned by prayer and contemplation.

May you find your best in life.

Sincerely,

Allan

try liberty

2008-02-24T15:52:00.000-08:00

"Away with the whims of governmental administrators, their socialized projects, their centralization, their tariffs, their government schools, their state religions, their free credit, their bank monopolies, their regulations, their restrictions, their equalization by taxation, and their pious moralizations!

And now that the legislators and do-gooders have so futilely inflicted so many systems upon society, may they finally end where they should have begun: May they reject all systems, and try liberty; for liberty is an acknowledgment of faith in God and His works."

Claude Frederic Bastiat

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How To Ask For Money For A Good Cause

2008-02-21T08:35:00.000-08:00

There are three links to follow here to paint the picture and show the choices available when seeking donations.

Of course you can also click on the title of this journal entry and find a general how to ask for money page. Perhaps the following links are better served by the label who to ask for money for a good cause.

The first quite powerful argument is from a post in the Bastiat Society Blog (no affiliation with BFU). It shows a college seeking money without regard to the source.

I'm writing in response to Tom Martin's article about the University of Kentucky seeking state funding for a new high-tech home for the Gatton College of Business and Economics. I hope that the irony of this request is not lost on readers of Business Lexington.
more -->

The second link shows a state college, not normally socially responsible in a Bastiatian view, that has been emphasizing private support by those it has trained and those that support its mission.

Only three days into 2008, Cal State Fullerton starts the new year with a record-setting $30 million dollar gift to the College of Business and Economics. The gift from a grateful alumnus is the largest ever for Cal State Fullerton and ...
more--->

The third link is to good old BFU itself and our fundraising page; - so far a very ineffective fundraiser. However, it does state our position on valuing the source of our finances - and our refusal to seek grants and state aid by complying with bureaucratic rules.

Bastiat Free University does not receive any of the tax payer funding and public grants that are available to other universities and colleges. Further, we do not wish to receive such school funding due to the strings that are invariably attached and the coercive manner in which such funds are normally raised. Rather,
more--->

I would be remiss not to mention a one page, general college donations lens I have created called: How to use college donations to shape our future.

Read the links, consider the differences in approach, then expand your own conclusions to encompass all fundraising, and re-think your position again. If you consider all fundraising immoral, all donations to a cause indefensible, please remember benefits within free exchange do not have to be monetary.

Of all these links the one to the Bastiat Society Blog's post A Business Education will reveal the most elegant arguments, and is the one you should not skip.

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But what more oft

2008-02-17T07:54:00.000-08:00

But what more oft, in nations grown corrupt, and by their vices brought to servitude, than to love bondage more than liberty - bondage with ease than strenuous liberty - and to despise, or envy, or suspect, whom God hath of his special favor raised as their deliverer? - John Milton

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How To Create A College Degree Substitute

2008-02-14T09:55:00.000-08:00

Do you want knowledge beyond a college degree but don't want to go to college?

"You never change things by fighting the existing reality. To change something, build a new model that makes the existing model obsolete" - Buckminster Fuller

You do not need a college to learn, not even Bastiat Free University. This will not be an easy substitute, in fact you will work harder and learn more than I achieved at a state university.

It can be done faster, and it certainly will help you outperform most college graduates, in almost any discipline. But just because you will be better equipped and a more adaptable performer does not mean your substitute college degree will be accepted in mindless bureaucracies.

Happily mindless bureaucracies are dying along with the industrial age. What you are considering is preparing yourself for a more discerning individualistic age. We call those so equipped The Netcohort.

Two Steps To Your College Degree Substitute.

First you need to start your own blog. This will be the public record of your achievements and it needn't cost money, just time.

Second you need to decide on your course of study and find an exceptional mentor(s). You can go it alone - but a mentor can help keep you on track and add their valuable experience to your learning.

What Are The Benefits of A Substitute College Degree?

Self confidence, freedom, knowledge, adaptability, life long learning, and a host of other attributes you will acquire. What you sacrifice is a piece of paper that says so many years ago you complied with a bunch of silly regulations and you are now qualified to follow stupid orders without question.

What you gain is a website / blog that demonstrates your growth, within your field, with improved communications skills and a dazzling breadth of knowledge.

You can now start or grow your own company, work with compatriots at changing the world, or dedicate yourself to further learning.

Once you start your college degree substitute regime let us know. A bunch of folks who are dedicated to personal growth may get us to start re-issuing Bastiat Free University learning certificates or even unaccredited degrees.

After all, it will be easy to review your efforts; recognition of completion and a final assignment should be enough. Books, materials, mentor rewards, and review of your blog and learning documentation by BFU could cost less than a year in a traditional education institution, perhaps much less (use library books, etc.).

As indicated in a prior post, put a link to your student blog in your resume and your cover letter. This should impress everyone except the educational establishment, corporate bureaucrats, and state licensing bureaus. They want proof that you will easily comply with their wishes.

Or -- you can create a college degree substitute on your own.

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Dr. Margarita Pereyda

2008-02-10T05:46:00.000-08:00

Dr. Pereyda has been the SOS Medical Director since July, 2004.

Many BFU students are in circumstances similar to those Dr. Pereyda experienced as she was growing up.

Dr. Pereyda is originally from Arizona, where she lived in poverty in a community that did not encourage, nor expect, students to succeed. However, a few special teachers encouraged Pereyda. The tenth of eleven children she became the only one of her siblings to graduate from high school.

Throughout college and graduate school, she had to work, take out loans, and apply for scholarships since her parents were unable to help her earn her M.D. A graduate of the University of Michigan School of Medicine with her MD, Dr. Pereyda then matriculated as a specialist in internal medicine at Stanford University. As an MD she oversaw residents working in area free clinics. She has recognized medical training that matches her determination.

For my objectivist friends this is a good place to make a point. You value the power of the individual and their ability to make selfish choices. Your reasoning is if we do what is best for ourselves and those we love, others will also benefit as we create and add value. Let me task you with considering a basic of your value system; in a free market an exchange will not occur unless both parties see a benefit for themselves.

Just as the founders of the United States changed John Locke's "life, liberty, and the pursuit of property" when they inserted it into the Declaration of Independence to an equally Lockeian "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness," it would be well to recognize that not all benefits derived from a fair trade involve property. A great benefit within volunteering and charity is the sweet taste of giving. To those that have experienced it in large doses, non-coerced giving can be a tremendous pleasure that brings enormous satisfaction. And it helps others.

A bright and intelligent woman, Dr. Pereyda has become an excellent doctor. Working in The OC, an area largely given over to the pursuit of wealth, she has instead dedicated her considerable skills to helping others. The recipients of her kind ministries are not only society's hidden down-and-outers, but up-and-outers that slipped through the cracks after medical problems and layoffs. Struggling Internet entrepreneurs and former Fortune 500 executives that have had reversals sit next to injured migrant workers in the Share Our Selves waiting room.

Here are the main points:

As Dr. Pereyda has demonstrated -- with determination you can succeed; hard work, determination, and a set goal. To these she has chosen to add compassion.

Not all find their happiness in acquisition - perhaps service, support, and volunteering may help you achieve your own brand of personally fulfilling success. You need not limit pleasures to be derived from extensive charity.

As an individual you can make a difference. No matter where or when you start, it is your subsequent direction of travel that will be most important.

Dr. Margarita Pereyda is an inspiration on many levels; as an overcomer, a scholar, and a dedicated giver. What do you want to do with your life?

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Emotional Investment - Emotional Yield

2008-02-01T08:56:00.000-08:00

I just talked to a fellow that had turned down an appointment to West Point. He decided to get married instead.

It reminded me in reverse of a fellow I knew that was always concerned about how his name was pronounced, he would interrupt classes and conversations if he heard Steve instead of Stephen. He would get red faced and adamant about someone knowing his name was NOT the short version.

The common thread between these two seemingly unrelated stories is the emotional attachment of the parties.

In the first, the man considered all the benefits of West Point; free high quality education, secure future, an "old boys club" that can't be beat, and to repeat - security!!! He traded all of that for financing his own education and an uncertain future. He also retained his freedom and got to marry the girl he loves.

In the second, Steve was defensive and always uncomfortable waiting for the need too defend a name someone else had given him. He had no gain from his defense, just a reputation as a prickly sort of person best avoided.

In the first we have an active decision to go the route with the most personal promise. As in all speculations, he could be wrong; but he made what to him was the best decision based on current information.

In the second we have a refusal to consider the costs of change, and a huge emotional investment in a single variable that returned a negative emotional yield. The thought would have been rejected immediately that he could easily change his name to any that suited him; and start concentrating on more important ideas. As John, or Bob, or David he would have little investment and be able to seek a positive return for his other emotional commitments.

What does this reveal for us about ourselves?

We need to look closely at what drives us emotionally, and at the returns we derive from our commitments. If a value or a relationship yields happiness and contentment perhaps it merits an increase as a percentage of our emotional portfolio.

If those factors that effect us emotionally have low or negative yield, be they jobs, national affiliation, attitudes, or commitments -- they need to be reviewed. We may find that changes are in order. Perhaps we have already made the best choices in major areas - but might it not be wise to develop the habit of questioning new values as they arise, and periodically the old values to see if they still hold?

It is not easy to question those things we are taught to accept without question. But it can create emotional stability and emotional wealth to make our emotional investments where they will procure the greatest positive emotional yield.

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How to Pronounce Bastiat

2008-01-27T08:27:00.000-08:00

Knowing the ways to pronounce Claude Frédéric Bastiat is not nearly as important as understanding the concepts that underlie his elegant writing. Have patience with those that follow another pronunciation key.

Bastiat was French so he would have pronounced his name in the French manner, bästyä´ (bast-ya); frequently a very soft 'e' sneaks in between the two syllables, almost as an accent mark on the hyphen. While this might be regarded as the preferred pronunciation, it should be realized that French government tends to disown Bastiat; not teaching him in schools, nor studying him at the universities. When you read Bastiat and then view modern French politics it is easy to see why they choose to avoid him.

On the other hand, Americans tend to pronounce Bastiat as three syllables, and in a very unFrench fashion pronounce the last consonant while putting the accent on a hard middle e. (bast-e-yat). Of course modern American politics is no better than French politics; we must make room for this pronunciation because America possess more of the logical sort of student that embrace Bastiat's ideas.

I can not speak for Frederic Bastiat; but for myself I would rather have my ideas discussed openly, than have my name pronounced with the proper inflection. Bastiat did say: "The worst thing that can happen to a good cause is not to be skillfully attacked, but to be ineptly defended." - C. F. Bastiat

Bastiat was an able defender of his principles.

Much more important than pronunciation is the elegance with which Bastiat stated his good cause. He could in one clear sentence sum up ideas others would dawdle over for hours.

"Everyone wants to live at the expense of the state. They forget that the state wants to live at the expense of everyone." - Bastiat

A single paragraph by Bastiat could relate arguments it would take others a book to outline.

"Away with the whims of governmental administrators, their socialized projects, their centralization, their tariffs, their government schools, their state religions, their free credit, their bank monopolies, their regulations, their restrictions, their equalization by taxation, and their pious moralizations! And now that the legislators and do-gooders have so futilely inflicted so many systems upon society, may they finally end where they should have begun: May they reject all systems, and try liberty; for liberty is an acknowledgment of faith in God and His works." - Claude Frederic Bastiat

If you want to understand the concentrated effect of Bastiat you can read a short broadside like The Candlemaker's Petition. In a page or two he establishes an entertaining argument that exposes the reasoning of those seeking government protections.

And if you want an education in reality; Bastiat's essays The Law and What Is Seen and What Is Not Seen will provide you with valuable insights for everything from starting your own business to understanding Hollywood politics.

Perhaps you want even more. There is available a two volume set of Bastiat's writings translated into English (video discussion uses American pronunciation of Bastiat). The Bastiat Collection has enough economic theory, entertaining insights, and clear thinking to help you refute arrogant supporters of bureaucratic plunder. Consider reading this your senior project in the principles of social interaction.

Go ahead and pronounce Bastiat the way those around you pronounce Bastiat. Just be sure to understand what genius that name represents. Also be open to others that pronounce his name differently, but have the wisdom to seek his wisdom.

A new Higher Education Model

2008-01-20T12:04:00.000-08:00

As I mentioned in a prior journal entry on a new higher education model; BFU is considering how to best implement the idea.

This new college model does not even need BFU, except perhaps as some form of middleman. There is a lot to consider, this entry is a first rough outline. Here is the most pertinent paragraph from that prior journal entry.

You can even self teach yourself by reading sixty or more related non-fiction books and doing an in depth review of each one in a blog. Put the blog's URL net address on your resume. Adapt the BFU course directions if you want a bit more structure. To consider yourself a knowledgeable renaissance person in your field, keep learning.

Lets put a bit more clay on to the sculpture.

Find a mentor in the field you wish to enter; someone that won't mind asking and answering questions.

Get your mentor to review each entry so you can improve it.

Create multiple choice questions and/or review points on each chapter you have read and add those to your blog post.

Correct the entry, then have your mentor acknowledge your work in the comments.

Pay your mentor well, but remind him he will profit not only by all the direct work he does with you, but by others being able to judge the excellence of his efforts to assist you. Negotiate everything you can think of upfront until you both are satisfied.

Ask your mentor to emphasize where you have failed to improve. This is not like archaic institutional schools where the goal was a high grade. If you are desiring to learn -- failure with insightful correction is a much better teacher than steady success. For that reason you should seek opportunity to exceed what you think is possible. Stretch yourself.

You will have done more thorough work and learning than in most college degree programs. Anyone wishing to verify your knowledge can read the blog you created. You will also be able to review your learning by referring to what you have written.

Show depth and flexibility by also blogging on books, seminars, and courses outside your immediate area of study. These will probably not need your mentor's acknowledgment.

This will not help you win a cubical in a warehouse like bureaucracy - but that is probably not what you wanted anyway. Any opportunities you discover will be with compatriots that want to work with people of determination and achievement. That can be a very good thing.

Diplomas are losing value as they become common and as bureaucracies shrink. A diploma is a dead document representing past compliance with inflexible regulations. Your blog can be a living document that displays your continued growth. You can do this even if you already have a degree.

If you wanted to start a company and change the world where would you look for fellow innovators; to those with a five year old degree and experience in a cube farm, or to those striving constantly for understanding and wisdom and then acting on what they learn?

So would I.

It Takes Individuals To Create A Village

2008-01-18T08:44:00.000-08:00

You
Me
Us

Humanity is composed of individuals.

If you were born into a small tribe, your life roles would follow predictable paths. Since you were born during the late industrial age, your life path was selected by circumstances of birth and you were trained to fit within it. Like an assembly line your life has been hacked into small functions; one life at home, a separate and defined life at play, and another autonomous piece of life at work or school.

Pervasive technologies now allow us a more coherent, integrated, and authentic self. Our kids and grand kids have a chance to grow up whole in a way we were never allowed to imagine.

While the fundamental unit of society is the individual, our relationships help us to define ourselves. Increasingly these relationships are based on love, reputation, and respect rather than on some extended hierarchy.

If we are to find meaning in our own lives we must first discover ourselves and then determine how we want to relate to others. Instead of wearing incompatible social facades at work, play, and home we can give ourselves permission to act as we feel appropriate wherever we find ourselves.

The gain for the individual is choice.

We do not have to be interchangeable parts of an impersonal social machine. We can communicate with anyone willing to communicate with us, at any level. The old form is dead -- a few scared and pompous individuals making decisions beyond their competence for everyone else. Dilbert will be freed.

"An individual's risks and rewards from creative and natural enterprise are greater, and of far more value to society, than any illusions of security that enslave human cogs in a social machine." - Allan Wallace

Empower yourself. For yourself, for those you love and respect - and then let the results benefit society. As an individual it is your right to choose where, how, and when to expend your efforts. The rewards have seldom been higher for autonomy, and the costs are steadily decreasing.

"Liberty consists in doing what one desires." - John Stuart Mill

Rigid structures and bureaucracies are anti-liberty and inherently unjust. Democracy is not liberty but a vain attempt to give social voice to the disenfranchised. A self important Shepard has no effect on the wolves by declaring them to be vegetarians, while three wolves and a sheep voting on lunch has a predictable outcome.

What is important is what you decide for yourself, as an individual.

"Man is free at the moment he wishes to be." - Voltaire

Freedom is messy. The results of thinking and doing what you feel is best are unpredictable and can't be blamed on others. The results of living are the same for all of us; we will make mistakes and we will die. The difference in how we live is determined by our decision to take the safe route of being part of a stagnant society and told what to do, or being an individual and determining how we wish to live.

While most world leaders talk in sweeping terms of how they want to advance society; their means always seem to involve controlling the individual. They seem to be saying "We love humanity - it's people we hate."

"Those who take the most from the table, teach contentment. Those for whom the taxes are destined, demand sacrifice. Those who eat their fill, speak to the hungry, of wonderful times to come. Those who lead the country into the abyss, call ruling difficult, for ordinary folk." - Bertolt Brecht

"Sometimes it is said that man cannot be trusted with the government of himself. Can he, then, be trusted with the government of others?" - Thomas Jefferson

Recent history (in centuries) has had central governments using educational marketing to create indoctrinated citizens. Education is finally escaping total government controls as new media are opening new learning channels. The citizen/government relationship is shifting toward monitored reciprocal duties, balance, and benefits weighed against costs.

Those that tell us the village is most important are usually village leaders that want the benefits of power over others. Instead of letting them decide our contributions, we can give as little or as much as we believe is justified. The time is coming when you can pick your government a la carte.

Most villages have a plaque on a small house proclaiming that a hero of some sort was born there. That is one thing they feel sets them apart, that is what put their village on the map. Everyone doing the expected does not create a stir, it is the individual who excels that defines humanity.

Villages that offer the greatest opportunities with stability will attract more of those singular heroes. The life well lived can be a wonderful adventure; if we are willing to take responsibility for our own actions, and then act.

"Decide now -- is your next action to be determined by what you want to do, or by what you want to accomplish?" - Allan Wallace

Tell Your Fabulous Story

2008-01-14T14:14:00.000-08:00

If the Internet serves a deep human need, it is the ancient need to tell and hear stories.

Your story is important, it lets all of us know that our stories are important also.

The BFU story has been told, just not well told. It is not personal enough. The thoughts that led to its creation and the plans for its growth are a sterile sort of presentation. What is more important are the missteps, the blind alleys and box canyons, the serendipity of supporting discoveries. It is the reality, not the best face, that is most interesting. That is what we sometimes try to share here in the journal.

But this is about you.

What do you hope to discover, where have you put wasted effort, where have you found surprising rewards? If you know what you seek; how can we as fellow students assist?

Of interest, while writing this epistle I have received a phone call. A local hospital, Hoag, that did some excellent and cheerful emergency work on me, has asked if I will let them tell my story as a testimonial. It will be a bit embarrassing, a bit uncomfortable, and of course I will do it. I just hope I get to mention the best doctor I have ever found, Dr. Pereyda; she is conscientious, thorough, and caring - what more could you ask for.

"Let us speak, though we show all our faults and weaknesses - for it is a sign of strength to be weak, to know it, and out with it..." - Herman Melville

Write your story in your blog and leave a note in the comments about it. If you don't have a blog, see the prior post for some hints on starting a blog. If you don't want a blog, but would like to share your story, send it to me using the "contact me" link at the top of the BFU lens - It will probably be worth posting here.

A short story might fit in the comments.

Telling your story will not just help us, it may be fun, educational, and helpful to you also.

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How To Start Blogging

2008-01-12T10:52:00.000-08:00

I had a young professional ask me how to get started blogging, and he gave me a list of his priorities. This is not an exhaustive list of blog starting ideas - but it answered most of his questions, perhaps it will answer some of yours.

I would pick up a regular website to start.

Get it through a domain seller and add a page or two. It will only cost a few dollars a year, and site age does mean something if you decide to develop it later.

For ease of use try the free blogger, it was bought by Google and is steadily improving. You can connect it to your web site if you start your site first. Google offers several templates (the facade or look), there will be more on the net for free if you search; there are folks that will create custom looks for very little money. You will own your material, although it might not be easy to transfer to another platform.

It is also easier to get approved by Google adsense if you have blogger - put up your first 10 or fifteen posts and then apply from the blogger dashboard.

About the time you apply to adsense, use AddMe to send your url to the search engines. You only need to do it once, and you only need their free service. Each time you post use Pinggoat to distribute your content.

It is best if at first you post a lot - even several times a day. Frequency builds your archives for the search engines, and rewards readers that return. Be sure to use categories so it is easy for readers to find prior posts. Posts do not need to be long, a few hundred words is sufficient. Plan to post a minimum of several times a week for the first five or six months.

Use 1000 Bees or HitTail to track your visitors. The key words (search terms) your blog visitors used to find you may be a good title for your next post, or your next blog. They will also help you measure and compare the effectiveness of your changes - the secret of marketing success.

Don't expect to earn a lot of money blogging. It does happen occasionally, but many bloggers earn nothing. It does improve writing skills and can be fun, but the pay per hour spent can be dismal. If earning money is your goal, invest a few hundred dollars in a bundled site building program; Sitesell is the best I've found. Start your investigation with Sitesell's free courses. They will sell and service the domain as part of their fees (their tools will help you pick the most profitable name also).

Amazon pays around 5% of sales, you need a lot of traffic to sell enough to make money. In fact traffic is the key, targeted traffic is the goal - people that want what you offer and will linger and return to enjoy it.

Consider building a Squidoo lens - they are easy to build and simple to maintain. best of all they will provide quality links to your blog that will please search engines. Squidoo also has some new lens styles, like Squidflix, which might also fit your style. They share revenue, but don't expect large amounts. Most of my Squidoo lenses average less than a dollar a month, although a couple do better. They do generate targeted business traffic if well written.

While Google's blogger is a good place to start, you will quickly learn of other products and may decide to switch. After a bit you may decide to quit, or take what you have learned and start over.

It is fun and educational, if rarely high return.

Three Steps Forward, Two Steps Back

2008-01-12T03:37:00.000-08:00

The title's reference to steps forward and steps back is based on societal progression as postulated within Elliott Wave Theory. Being a fractal construct it is scalable, perhaps though, not as far down as a single upstart university.

At one level BFU is advancing, we are still improving slowly. At another we have taken a step back. We will no longer offer college degree programs.

There was interest in the degree track, just not enough to justify upgrading the learning materials we were making available. We could not afford to offer the quality we sought to provide for the relatively few that were interested.

For now we think it is best to leave Bastiat Free University available to all. There will be no charge to access any of our sites. Get your own books, buy your own materials, and monitor our classes for free.

That had always been an option, for now it is the only option available.

The cost of finding and understanding knowledge is dropping toward zero. Learning will someday be as inexpensive as knowledge acquisition is now. We intend to stay in the vanguard, but acknowledge that doing so precludes covering our expenses at our stage of development. Every degree student we add would increase costs.

Eventually the needs of pursuers of wisdom will prevail. From the introduction to the BFU len s:

Starting before kindergarten, college degrees are marketed as a way to get a better job, more income, or a promotion. Bureaucrats are selling meal tickets to future bureaucrats.

But college degrees are losing value as they become common and as bureaucracies shrink with the ending of the industrial age. That college degree meal ticket no longer guarantees entry to a quality meal.

At student-centric Bastiat Free University your emphasis will be on learning. You can learn at no cost except for books and supplies - just register and monitor the classes. There is finally a college that understands cost appropriate learning.

Change is coming, we will be part of it, we will continue to improve.

Enjoy all BFU has to offer at no charge. We will continue to offer this option; we will regularly revisit the idea of offering students the chance to earn low cost degrees and certificates.

For yourself, you can do the work required in the BFU course guide and save it. It may come in handy in the future. I also mention a way to self teach and give yourself credit in another journal post.

But degrees will continue to decrease in value. What will remain important is your reputation. Rediscover the love of learning - it is your knowledge, integrity, and adaptability that will allow you to excel even as the industrial age crumbles.

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Counting The Cost

2008-01-09T09:46:00.000-08:00

You know it and don't need me to tell you - the world is changing.

Bastiat Free University was born in the enthusiasm of a "can do" decade, the summer of the long Kondratieff wave. The anticipation of fall and winter for the world also carried the distant promise of spring.

Now that it is late fall or early winter you can feel the chill within the social mood. Skepticism is rampant, the desire for uniformity increasing. The final gasps of the industrial age are heard from a factory castle with hoarfrost on the windows. The dying dotard within is seeking his legacy by rule of law; nothing must change, any extant institutions are to be considered inviolate.

The bureaucrats of the passing age are of course in agreement. Their armies promoting failing kings are marching to forestall spring offensives by new and "dangerous" ideas. The Russian winter will once again destroy arrogance, but not before great damage is wrought.

Spring is yet hidden beyond a mist shrouded valley of almost incomprehensible dimensions.

What then of Bastiat Free University. We are in the marches between the past and the future; and we are not yet fully realized. We have no authority in the strategies of conquest, we are but a slight hindrance, a small obstacle, virtually unseen from within ideological campaigns for power.

The BFU game plan, developed during the heady days of summer, was to ride out the winter storms and like wheat planted before the first freeze burst forth as an early sign of spring. Unfortunately our autumn reception has been cooler than anticipated, there has been little cultivation beyond our own efforts.

Our field is being paved with regulations supporting mere bureaucratic certification rather than quality learning; all the better for battling forces to traverse. The high guilds of educational accreditation are ensconced by their roaring fires - seeking functionaries to exalt their humility.

They have found their toadies and are sending them forth.

The war maintained by supporters of central authority is a holding action, straining to delay liberating advances. The futility of their actions will not decrease the horrible cost in lives wasted. What then is the best strategy for BFU? Do we remove ourselves from the field of battle and return in a more accommodating season?

Do we count our task as done; knowing the seeds we planted will sprout from fertile soil enriched by blood spilled for an ignoble cause? Do we continue in the fields during winter, or retire from battle to await the promised thaw?

The primary reason to continue is that we may help avert disaster as the new age dawns. Perhaps that is hubris, and we are better off observing and preparing.

Our shared future is a race between sedentary fools courting disaster to maintain their power; and innovation sparked by empowered individuals meshing by reputation to achieve their personal goals.

Should Bastiat Free University attack, defend, or perhaps withdraw while awaiting an advantageous season?

"In a time of drastic change it is the learners who inherit the future. The learned usually find themselves equipped to live in a world that no longer exists." - Eric Hoffer

Universities Similar To Bastiat Free University

2008-01-03T14:28:00.000-08:00

Someone found this journal by googling: "similar universities to Bastia [sic] Free University."

There could be lots of reasons for the search; they may hope for something better than BFU, or want to start their own university, or want information before they make a college donation, or many other possibilities. They may even have been thinking of free lunch rather than free speech, while we are most attuned to the second meaning of free.

The short answer to their query -- yes, there are universities similar to BFU.

I have a list that includes a couple of them on my distance learning vs. brick and mortar lens under the title "Schools On The Edge." I also have a bit on a discontinued MIT computer science program (ADU) that still has materials available, at the end of the School For Entrepreneurs page.

I get an occasional e-mail from a new college with a fixed program of courses on liberty that sounds interesting; although fixed and required are not really compatible with BFU philosophy. If you are interested leave a comment and I'll try to remember to post a link here the next time they solicit a donation.

You can even self teach yourself by reading sixty or more related non-fiction books and doing an in depth review of each one in a blog. Put the blog's URL net address on your resume. Adapt the BFU course directions if you want a bit more structure. To consider yourself a knowledgeable renaissance person in your field, keep learning.

There are also journal comparisons of BFU with Thunderbird International Business school and with the South Harmon Institute of Technology.

There are several other alternatives, most of them are industrial age educational institutions that are trying to adapt to a new age. As shown by Tony Lopez in The Manila Times, MIT is trying very hard.

As I wrote in the distance learning lens:

"Brick and mortar colleges are where leather bound encyclopedias were a few decades ago - highly respected - unable to gracefully adapt to the information age." - Allan Wallace

Do you remember the transitions of encyclopedias as they went digital? First one, then others, sold inexpensive CDs of their materials. Increasingly encyclopedic materials became available on-line. Then ventures such as user supported Wikipedia and advertisement financed search engines offered additional resources.

Today even Wikipedia has several promising challengers. The old line leather bound encyclopedias still have value, but they seem needlessly cumbersome and expensive - and are therefore increasingly rare.

Cost appropriate knowledge is becoming virtually free. Cost appropriate learning will likely travel the same path.

That some brick and mortar institutions offer better programs than BFU currently offers is beyond doubt. Bastiat Free University and The Netcohort Institute belong to the future, and that is where they will excel.

Formal college programs are handicapped by restrictions and expenses that limit their flexibility and hence their future - we have no such barriers to overcome. BFU will survive to make mistakes and adapt as the future unfurls.

The original free universities were founded centuries ago by self-directed learners that hired respected mentors to teach what those students wanted to learn. This is an interesting educational model that BFU plans to pursue when able; freelance educators mentoring self-determining students.

All of the original free universities have vanished or been melded into formal platforms. There was a bit of a revival in free universities during the 1960s protest era, those seem to have vanished also.

BFU may be unique in some ways, but our desire to continue in liberty is probably the most important. That is why, while there are many universities similar to Bastiat Free University, there are as yet no viable replacements for Bastiat Free University

We were born free, we want to remain free, we want to help others become free.

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Happy Holidays To All

2007-12-13T12:49:00.000-08:00

I will be out of touch with much of BFU for the next few weeks - a winter holiday. I plan to be back to the BFU Journal in early January.

I will be in touch with family and friends - and I'm looking forward to it.

"Approach each new problem not with a view of finding what you hope will be there, but to get the truth, the realities that must be grappled with. You may not like what you find. In that case you are entitled to try to change it. But do not deceive yourself as to what you do find to be the facts of the situation." - Bernard M. Baruch

May you find your best in life.

Sincerely,

Allan

Allan Wallace, Rector
Bastiat Free University

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Focus On The Attainable In Three Steps

2007-12-09T22:35:00.000-08:00

Dwelling on what you can't control is futile.

You may not be able to ignore the packaged angst of public media; but you can apply your thoughts only to those subjects where you can make a difference.

There are three questions to ask yourself as you consider your thoughts.

Relevancy: Is what you are considering in any way relevant to where you want to go and what you want to do. If not it is just consuming time and delaying your chance to bring about a significant advancement.

Importance: There may be something to do, it may even have some value. But will it make powerful accomplishments possible, or just add a pebble to a small stack of insignificance? Your life has great value, if you will direct it toward possibilities of major consequence.

Actionable: It may be important, but can you see any way at this time, with tools currently available, you can change things for the better? Much of what is reported is so far away from our influence that we might as well dream fantasy as spend time considering it.

I am reminded of the couple where the man bragged that he made all the important decisions in his family - such as should the US try to land on Mars, or should the UN be disbanded. His spouse made the unimportant ones, what is for dinner, where the kids will go to school, if they should move to a different country.

What is important to you? If it is easier for you to remember the negative:

Ignore everything that is irrelevant, unimportant, or un-actionable.

If it fails any of those tests there is only one reason to continue - perhaps your futile efforts will inspire someone else to do better.

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The Door Closes, A Window Opens

2007-12-01T10:33:00.000-08:00

"When one door closes another door opens; but we so often look so long and so regretfully upon the closed door, that we do not see the ones which open for us." - Alexander Graham Bell

We are all like that, and our life also seems to have a fractal dimension. In simple terms, as you look at smaller or larger pieces of life they have a rough similarity.

In nature a three foot stretch of a tidal pool's seaward edge will bare a resemblance to the view of the coastline from an airplane - and similarities persist within the views between.

Interactions between individuals, groups, and nations also have similarities. There are flirtations, unions, misunderstandings and wars. There is also an element of constant change.

This is one reason for the pursuit of wisdom, knowledge gained is frequently applicable to many fractal relationships. The multiplication of understanding engendered allows a much broader view of life.

A door that just closed has provided experience that may apply at many levels. Perhaps an opportunity now exists to apply your knowledge in larger or smaller arenas.

The trick, as someone once said, is to distill all the wisdom out of your experience you reasonably can, but no more.

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Accelerating Change

2007-11-25T17:58:00.000-08:00

Consider your world view.

We are entering a depression, a valley that our leaders have led us toward. In the bottom of that valley we will leave much of what we knew about how the world works. As we leave the depression in 5, 10, or 15 years we will be entering a new world with new rules.

Think of pioneers crossing a desert in their wagons. The had to drop off cherished possessions so as to survive; but they kept moving. Their goal was an entirely new style of life. It would have been nice to arrive with baggage from the past, but proceeding toward the goal was most important.

The changes that are before us are foundational, much of what succeeds today will no longer work where we are headed. It is our adaptability, not what we think we know, that will allow us to excel. Our education to this point has been centered on facts, retention of specific knowledge, and the quest to obtain proof of completion.

Where we are going we don't need roads.

Not only will society change, but the very assumptions that underlie our actions will be challenged. It is not facts and knowledge you will be pursuing, it will be action derived from understanding processes you will be seeking.

This will not be a time for sitting and learning over extended periods - we are entering a time when learning will be accomplished while in motion. Changes will be made as an action is evaluated, new vectors will emerge.

You might as well get used to embracing change - you will be living with it.

Start preparing now.

Think, do, then think again.

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We Need New Questions - school success

2007-11-20T04:07:00.000-08:00

I woke with my head racing with important thoughts, I stumbled to the computer and wrote down this headline "We Need New Questions," and went back to bed. Unlike the last time I had a dream and wrote down its meanings this time I returned to bed without anything more than a headline.

Today that is all I remember.

Next time I will write more before returning to sleep; frequently my best work is done in the middle of the night. I will guess at what new question started this line of thought, perhaps you might add a new perspective or question in the comments.

At BFU we have spent time trying to understand where government sponsored education went wrong. Why are the students so poorly served, spending more than a decade in forced education and finishing with less curiosity, less spontaneity, very little actionable knowledge, and no desire to act independently.

"What's the difference between a bright, inquisitive five-year-old, and a dull, stupid nineteen-year-old? Fourteen years of the British educational system." - Bertrand Russell

Yes -- the educational bureaucracies were charged with creating useful citizens and participants in industry, but the results even there have been pitifully poor. Continually praising academics and giving more money to their institutions has resulted in graduates with declining functional abilities.

Yes -- bureaucracies were the most efficient way to handle masses of people back before information technology. Treat everyone the same, and most will receive some benefit.

Bureaucratic persistence as a system after its grievous faults became known is understandable - many institutions had a symbiotical relationship with mankind's larval endeavors and aggressively resist separation from the source of their sustenance.

But perhaps these are answers to the wrong question.

Consider all the time, money, and sophistication that have been applied to schools. Do the dropouts and inept graduates created represent success? Perhaps students we consider poorly served are an intentional byproduct of motives other than those of the citizens.

What if a uniformly dependent culture within a controlled society is the goal?

Then formal education would not be a failure that needs to be remedied, but an overwhelming success that needs to be eradicated.

"A general State education is a mere contrivance for moulding people to be exactly like one another; and as the mould in which it casts them is that which pleases the dominant power in the government, whether this be a monarch, an aristocracy, or a majority of the existing generation; in proportion as it is efficient and successful, it establishes a despotism over the mind, leading by a natural tendency to one over the body." — John Stuart Mill

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What Communications Imperative?

2007-11-12T08:02:00.000-08:00

Is it time to expand the debate?

For quite a while we at BFU have ranted about the end of bureaucracies. We see technology empowered individuals sucking the air out of over inflated organizations; education, corporations, government, religions, unions, and others of the ilk.

This has happened before, Gutenberg and his printing press empowered individuals to share knowledge that had been the exclusive domain of governments and the Church. New organizations flourished and morphed -- change came.

It is happening again, on a much greater scale, and much faster. I've just read an essay that has an interesting take on this. I may disagree with some of the premises, but that is never a good reason to ignore the arguments. The fact I disagree with the author on some points is a reason to pay closer attention. I might be wrong, his different point of view might uncover truths I would never have considered.

This does create hope. If what I see as a cause for the diminishment of bureaucracies, and the bureaucrats that inhabit them, is but one part of the puzzle; this may result in an implosion rather than a slow deflation.

Read the essay, even if you don't believe it, what will be the effect if The Inner Ring does believe it? This will impact your life, that should make knowledge about the reshaping of communications an imperative.

Change is upon us -- it is our responsibility to prepare.

"In a time of drastic change it is the learners who inherit the future. The learned usually find themselves equipped to live in a world that no longer exists." - Eric Hoffer

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Sharp Essays On Communication

2007-11-07T12:09:00.000-08:00

A very nice collection of essays by Richard Mitchell can be found by clicking on the title of this post.

Short, tart, and only a little sweet, they offer insight into the taste of words we serve. One of Mitchell's favorite quotes displays the fire over which he crafts his appetizers to thought.

"The shame of speaking unskilfully were small if the tongue onely thereby were disgrac'd: But as the Image of a King in his Seale ill-represented is not so much a blemish to the waxe, or the Signet that seal'd it, as to the Prince it representeth, so disordered speech is not so much injury to the lips that give it forth, as to the disproportion and incoherence of things in themselves, so negligently expressed.

Neither can his Mind be thought to be in Tune, whose words do jarre; nor his reason in frame, whose sentence is preposterous; nor his Elocution clear and perfect, whose utterance breaks itself into fragments and uncertainties.

Negligent speech doth not onely discredit the person of the Speaker, but it discrediteth the opinion of his reason and judgement; it discrediteth the force and uniformity of the matter and substance.

If it be so then in words, which fly and ‘scape censure, and where one good Phrase asks pardon for many incongruities and faults, how then shall he be thought wise whose penning is thin and shallow?

How shall you look for wit from him whose leasure and head, assisted with the examination of his eyes, yeeld you no life or sharpnesse in his writing?" - Ben Jonson

Enjoy the sensory indulgence of thoughts well expressed. Prepare yourself for a meal of significant thought.

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Education Quotes And Ideas

2007-11-04T07:50:00.000-08:00

Before I get back to journal posts, perhaps we need some expert quotes about the formal education question. Actually the first and the last quote may be enough ...

The desire to know is natural to good men. — Leonardo da Vinci

Make me the the master of education, and I will undertake to change the world. — Gottfried Wilhelm Leibnitz

One can have no smaller or greater mastery than mastery of oneself. — Leonardo da Vinci

In a time of drastic change it is the learners who inherit the future. The learned usually find themselves equipped to live in a world that no longer exists. — Eric Hoffer

I know very well that because I am unlettered some presumptuous people will think they have the right to criticize me, saying that I am an uncultured man. What stupid fools! Do they not know that I could reply to them as Marius did to the Roman patricians: 'Do those who pride themselves on the works of other men claim to challenge mine?'" — Leonardo da Vinci

The philosophy in the classroom of this generation is the philosophy of government in the next. — Abraham Lincoln

I freed thousands of slaves. I could have freed thousands more if they had known they were slaves. — Harriet Tubman

The children who know how to think for themselves spoil the harmony of the collective society which is coming, where everyone would be interdependent. — John Dewey

Loyalty to petrified opinion never yet broke a chain or freed a human soul. — Mark Twain

Government will not fail to employ education, to strengthen its hands and perpetuate its institutions. — William Godwin

In summary, the present survey of biographical information on a sample of twenty men of genius suggests that the typical developmental pattern includes as important aspects: (1) a high degree of attention focused upon the child by parents and other adults, expressed in the intensive educational measures and, usually, abundant love; (2) isolation from other children, especially outside the family; and (3) a rich efflorescence of fantasy as a reaction to the preceding conditions. It might be remarked that the mass education of our public school system is, in its way, a vast experiment on the effect of reducing all three factors to a minimum: accordingly, it should tend to suppress the occurrence of genius. — Harold Grier McCurdy

Every child is born a genius. 9,999 out of every 10,000 are swiftly, inadvertently, de-geniused by grown-ups. — R. Buckminster Fuller

The group consisting of mother, father and child is the main educational agency of mankind. — Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr

To be nobody but yourself — in a world which is doing it's best, night and day, to make you like everybody else — means to fight the hardest battle which any human being can fight, and never stop fighting. — e.e. cummings

The conventional view serves to protect us from the painful job of thinking. — John Kenneth Galbraith

To compel a man to furnish funds for the propagation of ideas he disbelieves and abhors is sinful and tyrannical. — Thomas Jefferson

Freedom is not a gift bestowed upon us by other men, but a right that belongs to us by the laws of God and nature. — Benjamin Franklin

In the eighteenth century it was not common to suggest that slavery was a sin against fellow human beings. In the nineteenth century it was not common to suggest that women deserved the same privileges of citizenship as men. In the twentieth century it is not common to suggest that children can learn without attending schools. All three are examples of how the cultural attitudes of a population influence not only their view of reality, but also create social structures that reinforce and perpetuate those views. Science, medicine, and law were used to keep slaves and women in their place until cultural attitudes towards these people changed; likewise, I think, we are in the midst of a gradual change in our perception of children. — Patrick Farenga

School was the unhappiest time of my life and the worst trick it ever played on me was to pretend that it was the world in miniature. For it hindered me from discovering how lovely and delightful and kind the world can be, and how much of it is intelligible. — E. M. Forster

My grandmother wanted me to have an education, so she kept me out of school. — Margaret Mead

Education rears disciples, imitators, and routinists, not pioneers of new ideas and creative geniuses. The schools are not nurseries of progress and improvement, but conservatories of tradition and unvarying modes of thought. — Ludwig von Mises

Thank goodness I was never sent to school; it would have rubbed off some of the originality. — Beatrix Potter

I suppose it is because nearly all children go to school nowadays and have things arranged for them that they seem so forlornly unable to produce their own ideas. — Agatha Christie

I am beginning to suspect all elaborate systems of education. They seem to me to be built up on the supposition that every child is a kind of idiot who must be taught to think. Whereas if the child is left to himself, he will think more and better, if less showily. Let him go and come freely, let him touch real things and combine his impressions for himself , instead of sitting indoors at a little round table, while a sweet-voiced teacher suggests that he builds a stone wall with his wooden blocks, or plant straw trees in bead flower-pots. Such teaching fills the mind with artificial associations that must be got rid of, before the child can develop independent ideas out of actual experiences. — Anne Sullivan

People who make careers out of helping others - sometimes at great sacrifice, often not - usually don't like to hear that those others might get along fine, might even get along better, without their help. - John Holt

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blogging vacation

2007-10-20T09:00:00.000-07:00

With other commitments looming and much travel ahead, it will be a couple of weeks (at least) until my next post.

May you discover the next path in your journey, and the destination for your life.
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Live My Own Life

2007-10-18T07:18:00.000-07:00

Life is a balance between what do I want to do and what do I want to become. An unnecessary complication is to add "what do others want of me."

You can be a good family member, friend, and a good neighbor without sacrificing parts of your life to satisfy other's expectations. Set your own expectations high, and then decide for yourself what is important.

"It is not the critic that counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done better.

The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, and comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement. And at worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who know neither victory nor defeat." - Theodore Roosevelt

It is your life, live your own life in a way that is meaningful - to you.

Why is it that millions of children who are pushouts or dropouts amount to business as usual in the public schools, while one family educating a child at home becomes a major threat to universal public education and the survival of democracy? - Stephen Arons

Life vs School - Life vs Job

2007-10-13T18:32:00.000-07:00

You travel through school just to get to the next school level, you go through college to get a good job, you dedicate yourself to a job to get advancement, you work for decades to reach a retirement that may allow you to live your own life.

Your starting point was the freedom of childhood where you spent all your time enraptured with the joy of discovery. A few falls and bruises resulted - but you were encouraged to try again. Eventually you succeed in many natural and enjoyable endeavors.

Then you start school. To try and fail is now horrible, to learn but not memorize is unforgivable, the goal has become to impress and conform. There are targets, but you have not chosen them. You no longer discover exciting knowledge and skills, you now learn how to cram and use stories to survive within a bureaucracy.

You graduate and use those same bureaucratic skills; make work, segmented knowledge and labor, last minute efforts, avoidance of trial and error learning, hyperbole instead of reality. By the time you retire this is how you will believe the world is supposed to operate and you will encourage others to pay a similar price for success.

All of the above after your too short childhood is based on a lie. "School was the unhappiest time of my life and the worst trick it ever played on me was to pretend that it was the world in miniature. For it hindered me from discovering how lovely and delightful and kind the world can be, and how much of it is intelligible." - E. M. Forster

Since your directions were wrong, you will end up in the wrong location. You were not born to be an employee. You will not find meaning in your life by following fictions.

If bears do not add fat in the fall, can they cram for hibernation?

Can beavers repetitiously chew at the same tree and still build their dam?

Can an antelope use excuses about his troubled fawn-hood to escape the lions jaws?

The real world is nothing like school, it is also nothing like working in the bureaucracies that follow school. The real world is much more like the freedom and responsibility you once experienced as a child.

You learned to walk by falling down, you learned to fall backwards because forwards hurt more. You learned to speak by first making sounds that others did not understand. You learned to share by example and personal instruction (and maybe a swat where you had learned to fall).

When disaster strikes it is too late to cram for survival skills. When opportunity knocks it is too late to memorize preparation tools. When life beckons it is too late to learn its language.

It turns out that childish ways are the most mature.

Those rules based institutions treated us as perpetually ignorant children, and punished us if we did not fit their mold. You were molded by obsolete machines to fit a past era. Those running educational machines continue to extrude cogs that no longer fit even the faltering industrial age.

Find your own path, perhaps start your own business, return to the wisdom and flexibility you had before life's real challenges were stolen from you.

Discover life instead of just finding another job.

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Dottie Walters, 1925 - 2007

2007-10-07T07:43:00.000-07:00

Dottie Walters was a friend of Bastiat Free University.

Dottie inspired tens of thousands to reach for great achievement, she is still inspiring more through her materials.

If you have looked at the BFU master's courses you will see Dottie Walters listed as one of the luminaries that has created a course. Unlike most college courses the books required are not those written by Dottie, they are of books that inspired her to become both a successful female entrepreneur and an inspirational speaker.

Dottie Walters, how does it feel to have blown a handful of stardust to the world? - Napoleon Hill

A biography of Dottie is on the way, it will not be a standard biography. Those she has impacted; great motivators, speakers, entrepreneurs, and trainers will share in their own words how Dottie helped move them to success.

You will not want to miss Share and Grow Rich, The Dottie Walters Effect when it is released, these powerful words once spoken by Dottie can still impel your success -- order it today. Dottie has helped so many - let her help you also.

Book description at Amazon -- Experience the inspirational story of legendary speaker, author, and marketing genius Dottie Walters though the eyes of those who loved her. Share and Grow Rich captures events that shaped the life of those who transformed the speaking world and shares the lessons she learned along the way. Walters paved the way for women in business and for the profession of speaking. She launched countless successful careers and touched many hearts in the process. Allow her story to touch your heart too!

The title of the new book is derived from her own book Speak And Grow Rich, Which Dottie used as a platform for expanding opportunity in the field of public speaking. She founded a welcoming and advertising service, created a speakers bureau, listened to young upstarts like myself and gave encouragement, wrote several books, started a magazine called Sharing Ideas, spoke inspirational messages herself, raised a family, and seemingly managed a thousand other things.

Dottie has that special talent to put her thoughts into words so that the words go out and move the people. - Earl Nightengale

One of her first books filled a needed niche - Never Underestimate The Selling Power Of A Woman, Dottie Walters personified this power. Anything Dottie touched, audio material, books, training materials, and lives has had an enduring impact. As an early and vocal woman entrepreneur she inspired many other women to seek success in sales or public speaking.

Go read the inspirational story about Dottie Walters written by her daughter. Don't miss the section on the special wisdom of Dottie Walters. I'm sure you will then want to learn more.

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Giving To Change The World

2007-10-01T10:17:00.000-07:00

While we greatly appreciate any college donations to Bastiat Free University, this journal post is about a rewarding lifestyle of giving to change the world.

Give where you want to give, in the manner you want to give. There is just too much joy to be found in giving not to make it part of your life. Getting is cool, becoming rich may be glorious, but appropriate giving to a need or opportunity is wonderfully satisfying.

One of our favorite gifts, right after Junior Partner Ministries and BFU, is a gift toward micro finance. Even a small gift made here can make a huge difference in a village's prospects. Notice that for me all these gifts are about the future - each makes our world a better place to live.

Don't be guided by guilt, don't let slick pictures of a need impel you action. Let your first choice be action and seek out those giving opportunities that will yield the most satisfaction in you life. Find an opportunity not just to meet a current need, those sad pictures will get plenty of donations. Instead be part of the solution. Find and support change that will continue with positive ripples throughout society.

Find a worthy cause or causes, then share in the joy and hope they help create. Make these causes your cause, become involved in the solutions they are creating. The Bible says the Lord loves a cheerful giver; find those opportunities where you can give cheerfully - and enjoy them often.

It is not your age or wealth that will make you a successful philanthropist, it is you willingness to share a bit of what you have right now. As you age and your wealth grows you will be able to share even more. Giving not from pity, not under coercion, but from a deep desire to see your gift change the world.

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Participating In Collaborative Projects

2007-09-27T10:21:00.000-07:00

We are entering an era of collaborative achievement unbound by age, location, nationality or any other arbitrary social segmentation.

Netcohort individuals of the Netcohort Society will define a Netcohort Age.

For BFU this is both our challenge and our promise. While we are constructing Bastiat Free University on certain principles - they primarily appeal to those visionaries that want to run their own lives.

"- I don't understand a thing in your books - said Teodor.

- Why should you understand? My books are like a buffet. You take what you want and how much you want from the book, whichever end of the table you start from. I offered you freedom of choice, and you were confused by the plenitude and freedom like Buridan's ass that perished between two stacks of hay, unable to decide which one to eat first. - Milorad Pavic

BFU still needs much more "hay" in many more stacks. We now rationalize what we offer as a menu for student directed learning buffets. While some of the information you need will be found within Bastiat Free University's hallowed holograms of virtual learning - most will be found outside.

First research to discover a starting point, second start devouring knowledge related to your own passions. Third take that knowledge and accomplish something significant. You live in a quick response world. The faster you can make something happen the more impact you will have.

BUT -- if the future will be fashioned by netcohort teams; how can individuals like yourself transition from passion directed living to effective community collaboration? BFU is a catalyst to ignite learning, but in concept is still too close to the formal schools of the industrial past it is being designed to replace. There needs to be a next step.

The Netcohort Institute will therefore emphasize enabling and enhancing netcohort participation in collaborative projects. The focus will be on developing collaborative projects that require increasing skills, knowledge, and wisdom in order to be completed. Relationships and reputation will be built allowing further growth and opportunities.

Much like infrastructure build outs promoted growth within the industrial age, so will projects of the netcohort expand our options and potential within the netcohort age. We not only have opportunity to create a better future - but to shape its very structure.

Three "C"s that will change society;

Collaboration - netcohort teams formed of visionaries eager to improve their lives, and as a byproduct our lives also.

Competition - developing different and better solutions to create a winning edge, improving both the quality and the price of offerings.

Cooperation - if it is to big to handle alone it can still be accomplished; not by inefficient coercion of governments but by willing interaction between motivated teams of individuals.

"If you wish to prosper, let your customer prosper. When people have learned this lesson, everyone will seek his individual welfare in the general welfare." C. F. Bastiat

The direction of the future is subject to guesses, but is intrinsically unknowable. At best we can master what is available while remaining adaptable to sudden change.

Just as our time is mostly free of plague and famine due to progress engendered by visionaries of the last era; so marvelous benefits may accrue to society from projects soon to be envisioned by netcohort students.

"The risks and rewards of collaborative projects are greater, and of far more value to society, than any illusions of security enslaving human cogs in a social machine." - Allan Wallace

The Netcohort Institute -- Open House

2007-09-22T16:18:00.000-07:00

The Netcohort Institute is not planned to be operational until 2008.

We have started to develop some plans and ideas, and we are starting to put the materials we will use in the first class next to the foundation. There are several short essays, a couple of entertaining articles, and even some books that may find their way into the final mix.

If you have not yet registered for Bastiat Free University at no charge - go do it now. If you have registered for BFU college classes use this link to get to your login page.

You will probably want to log in and click through the course material, some of it is very interesting. As a further inducement you will find an introduction page within the materials that gives away part of our overall plan - there is good news if you want to join the international netcohort society and earn some personal freedom.

"It had long since come to my attention that people of accomplishment rarely sat back and let things happen to them. They went out and happened to things." - Leonardo da Vinci

If you want to find a life rather than just find a job - go take a look in the course catalog for Introduction To The Netcohort Institute.

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The Offer To You

2007-09-21T07:54:00.000-07:00

In the prior post I made an offer to George. There was a list of difficulties facing BFU and a look at the promise of Bastiat Free University that makes it all worth while.

We can therefore assume you know there is a need for BFU, and that a diploma from BFU has value to some people. If the idea seems too bold, go read that post. The question is if you are one of those people and in what circumstances a BFU college degree will help you?

If you lack the self discipline to finish what you start without someone controlling your actions - BFU is not for you.

Even in BFU's most structured format there is not a lot of structure. BFU was created for self-directed visionaries and entrepreneurs - students that find freedom and personal control appealing.

If you want to be a bureaucrat - BFU is not for you.

College degree credits or a diploma from Bastiat Free University will not be accepted by government licensing bureaus, most other colleges, and many employers.

However, Bastiat Free University may be for you:

if you want to interact with other successful individualists in the netcohort society:

if you want to be honored with an enviable reputation based on performance;

if you willingly want to take responsibility for your own life;

and if in exchange you expect personal freedom and control.

There is one more very exciting promise on the horizon, The Netcohort Institute.

For those of you wanting to find a future rather than find a job, the Netcohort Institute will be providing competency based learning. The immediate goal is to help you develop the internet and community skills required to develop new tools, businesses, and technologies.

There will be three levels of involvement with The Netcohort Institute, first will be a free team building and knowledge sharing community that will focus on finding team members to work on simple, and useful projects. As your reputation grows you may be invited to join graduates of The Netcohort Institute in commercially viable projects as a team member - TNI graduates will not pay for this level of involvement, others will pay a small monthly fee.

A third level is planned where those who have developed their reputation will be made known to serial entrepreneurs of major projects with the opportunity to become part of the next New - New - Thing.

It is something to consider.

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The Offer To George

2007-09-20T11:57:00.000-07:00

George and his wife have communicated with me by e-mail several times.

George has completed a college degree under the rigorous rules of a formal school. He has also completed many free Christian courses as he has sought greater knowledge and wisdom. What he would like is to earn a master's degree, and he would like to earn it at BFU.

We have made provisions for a masters degree at Bastiat Free University, and as an auxiliary of Junior Partner Ministries we can offer such a degree. But first I need to warn George, and you, of the conflicts and limitations such a pursuit may create.

Bastiat Free University is happily unaccredited and intends to remain unaccredited. This enables us to avoid the expensive and useless requirements that are road blocks to affordable learning established by government supported educational guilds. We have started free, we want to remain free.

Bastiat Free University could not possibly exist in much of the world except on the Internet. It's diplomas will not be accepted by most governments and private organizations. BFU can be based in the United States as a result of it being part of a church, Junior Partner Ministries, and the US government is separated from religion by law. If BFU became a corporation we would be subject to corporate law and governance requirements - we will remain under Biblical governance instead.

Bastiat Free University is experimental, we currently have a staff of one and a half (myself, and sometimes my son) and part time help or specialists hired as money is available. It is still early days for BFU, the education we offer is improving in quality, but is still less robust than we desire. We have therefore discouraged potential students from paying for courses in advance; encouraging them instead to enroll for no charge, do the work, and submit the work with payment when completed. No one has yet completed a full course of study and submitted payment. Many have subscribed to classes and profited - at no charge, this is a good thing.

Bastiat Free University therefore has made no income. We would love to receive donations, even as a small encouragement; we provide links to give by credit card; as any set amount, as $5.00 a month, or with a form to make other styles of gifts such as by check and as bequests. To date we have received $15.00, ten of it from a relative that helped develop the school and was testing the donations links. Student's prayers and letters of encouragement have also been received and greatly appreciated.

Bastiat Free University does not have money to grow and improve as we would like. This will be surmounted in time, for now we don't want to charge and that leaves us without funds to improve to where we would be comfortable charging. A puzzle that will be resolved.

Another problem for many will be the very structure of Bastiat Free University. Being student directed we do not have staff professors. We do not use standard, and expensive, college text books. We do not loom over students requiring compliance. We feel the authors of the books we use present their case well, a student that reads these books with an eye toward application will derive understanding of the subject. The required homework helps to increase retention. In many ways these classes will be tougher than a standard college course.

Applicable learning is least likely to occur when knowledge is distributed and temporarily held as a route through exams toward job acquisition. College is most frequently sold as a good career move, at BFU we feel school should be about learning instead. In essence - learning is most efficient, when pursed by a motivated student seeking specific knowledge.

The final hurdle to becoming comfortable earning a degree from Bastiat Free University is myself. You can find out about me in two places "An Aggrandizement Of Allan R. Wallace, or Allan R, Wallace in a nutshell," and in my biography. In short I am a life long learner, but without the patience to attend dysfunctional formal schooling. Even though I have an accredited bachelor's degree, and had acceptance and scholarships to pursue further education, I am glad I did not waste my time.

What then does BFU have to offer?

Learning.

The pendulum has swung far enough. We are in that momentary pause before it retraces its accelerating route back through the mean and on to the other extreme. At maximum extension the educational process, and thought itself, has become a servant of the industrial age. At the other extreme we will return to allegorical myths concerning the why of life. Now we are consumed with discrete pieces of knowledge and definition of precise interactions, the what of science.

Because why is still important, Bastiat Free University is important. We are a vestige of gravity pulling society back to moderation from its seemingly nihilistic extreme. Education as it now exists is a structured model of indoctrination justified by weak excuses. Socialization, career enhancement, and promised better pay are the current rational for schooling, learning has been deemphasized.

Ok BFU serves a purpose, but what purpose could an unaccredited college degree serve if earned from such a remarkably non-conformist institution?

If the student is seeking to secure themselves a position in one of the shrinking bureaucracies of the prior age - attending BFU will be counter productive.

If you are a visionary, an entrepreneur, or a self directed individualist - BFU will offer degrees that you can earn to affirm your learning accomplishments. While BFU diplomas may have no value on a resume, they may open a few doors if used on your business card, they may save you feeling the need to proclaim "I have been extremely successful - even though I dropped out of school." Do the work, pay the small fees, accept the acknowledgment you earn.

Back To George.

Now that I have told you all the reasons you would not want to earn a diploma from BFU, I will offer you a way to earn a Bastiat Free University Master's Degree in Christian Education. This is for George only, If others register at no charge they will discover a 5 unit master's capstone course is available on individualized terms - these are George's terms.

You have looked over the classes of the BFU School of Theology, you know they are but minimalist presentations that need material added to bring them to life.

Write a blog or journal such as this one to record your progress.

Start editing and augmenting the School of Theology courses. Find video clips, sermons, sound clips, and interactive materials that will enhance learning - improving all the courses.

Add at least one course following the BFU format in Christian Education with books you have read and material you have found or developed. Suggest changes in the format if appropriate.

As a final requirement find a notable Christian leader and help them develop the core for a Master's course following the models already developed - books and concepts that helped them achieve their understanding of success. Finish the course with suitable learning materials.

We will discuss your thesis - choose a subject. Send us a copy of your transcripts and we will let you know how many other courses you need to complete the Master's degree. For your efforts there will be no charge from BFU, consider it an earned scholarship. Your costs will mainly be books and materials.

If you decline we will not be hurt, we did want you to know everything in advance. Let us know if you have further questions.

Thats it George, I've done all I can do to be honest. Pray and let God direct you from here.

In Christ,

Allan

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Renew Your Appetite For Learning

2007-09-16T15:30:00.000-07:00

If your love of learning was stolen from you in early schooling, it is time to take it back.

Consider yourself one of a few students arriving early for a first class, eager to learn. The teacher / facilitator asks, "where are the other students?" Trying to be helpful and having just entered you respond "most seem to be down the hall waiting for the bell."

The teacher looks at you and obviously annoyed asks "well why aren't you getting them like I asked?" Even as you head to the hall on her implication you think silently" I did not hear you ask for action, I just heard you ask for information."

You now have a huffy teacher and a class where an eager early arriver has learned not to volunteer a response. All of this occurs before the first class starts.

When the teacher later complains about how dull the class is, not responding instantly to her questions, you just listen. What will you do if she directs the question at you "Why are you not contributing to class?"

Do you shrug your shoulders and remain mute

Do you respond "Because you ask questions and expect us to guess correctly if it is a question or some unstated demand?

Do you explain that communications requires two parties, sender and receiver, both of which are prone to error. This requires a non-defensive mental posture allowing verification and adjustment if communications are to remain effective.

Or are you more likely to wish it was break time, knowing there is no escape from answering the question in a way that will annoy an already aggressive defender of her personal authority. The teacher already "knows" the problem or she wouldn't ask.

She thinks everybody is too slow to follow her directions. She does not even consider that her directions might be vague and her short follow up responses condescending. The most outspoken, precise, and valuable student contributors are also those quickest to learn; you have learned that it is painful to contribute to this class.

Let's consider the alternative. You have just discovered hang gliding, and you love it. You read books and magazines, you bookmark good hang gliding blogs, and you hang out with experienced hang gliders; listening intently and asking questions. This is natural learning.

The types of books you read may quickly expand as your knowledge of the field expands. You study engineering, aeronautics, fabric types and dyes, geography, and emergency medical procedures. You are quickly becoming a renaissance person, your ever expanding knowledge keeps pulling you into new fields of endeavor and contemplation.

You specific passion guides you to explore diverse knowledge, and because learning is driven by your own desire, you retain this knowledge.

Of even greater significance is the probability your passion of the moment will lead you to your life's passion as you explore new areas of knowledge. In our example you might discover you love emergency medicine, particularly relating to sports.

You have discovered self-directed, interest-based learning; the most efficient learning is always student initiated.

From what you now understand of yourself you can consider becoming a sports trainer, an EMT, and perhaps an emergency room nurse or doctor. As you read and talk to those in the field you will find other options.

Options you would probably never find sitting in a class room. Now you can add specific classes if they will help define your new sports medicine goals or move you toward goal completion.

Find a passion and drill into it with reading and inter-personal research. You may just find your life's passion - the one that will provide meaning to your life. You can live your own life;

or you could just survive formal school and take the first reasonable job offered

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The Bastiat Society Blog

2007-09-16T11:35:00.000-07:00

There is a lot of good information here, but don't look for treatment of Bastiat's personal economic theories and their relevance to today. The use of Bastiat's name seems to act more as an anchor for selecting reflections by more modern heroes.

But there is good stuff to be found in the Bastiat Society Blog. They do have a link to the collection of translations of Bastiat. Here also is a cut from a recent post

In the long centuries of the Islamic Golden Age, from the middle of the 8th century AD to the middle of the 13th, the Arab-speaking Muslim world presided over the greatest commercial civilization on earth. It offered the most tolerant government policies to people of other faiths, including Jews and Christians. Indeed, if Arabic civilization had not done such a good job preserving and expanding the realm of human knowledge, Europe might never have had its Renaissance.

One of the great puzzles of the modern world is how a civilization could go from being so wealthy, enlightened, and tolerant to one that is known for its violence, anti-intellectualism, and blind hatred. There may even be lessons here for the West, which views its commercial and moral achievements as unassailable.

I have heard others compare some current Islamic actions as similar in tone to the crusades. Allowing for the later creation of Islam than Christianity these actions would even have similar time lines.

There is no resemblance to foundational Islam or Christianity in that small minority that use religious violence as an emotional lever to create their own power base.

See how nicely that worked? The input of ideas from the Bastiat Society Blog started my own thought processes rolling. Go read a few of their posts, listen to a few of their videos, and see how they might inspire you.

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BFU -- Accept No Substitutes

2007-09-15T09:59:00.000-07:00

Actually there are no reasonable substitutes.

BFU is student-directed learning, the most efficient route to wisdom and understanding.

BFU is just a tool, a catalyst to empower your desire to achieve meaning in life. Self-directed, interest-based learning can profoundly enable excellence.

The substitutes you are offered against directing your own learning are the Frankenthoughts of industrial age formal schools. To discern their value to your life's passions consider their dominate marketing claims.

"You need to do well in grade school so you can do well in high school."

"You need to do well in high school so you can go to college."

"You need to do well in college so you can start a good career."

Is that how you want to invest your life? Getting through college to get a job? Then getting through jobs to get retirement? Have you asked yourself about the difference between "what should I be doing?" and "what in my heart do I want to do?"

Think of all the professional careers that are now being lost to technology or lower cost providers. I recently had an initial consultation with a specialist physician on the phone. I was at his office, he could have been half a world away.

How long before they do surgery remotely, or by robot? The technology already exists or can be created by entrepreneurs. All that stops it are regulatory hurdles local doctors have captive bureaucrats draft to protect their home turf. No other profession seems to have this level of protection from competition, it won't last forever.

Decades of your life can be spent entering a career with all the promise of buggy whip specialist. Your school is not likely to tell you to quit studying a soon to be obsolete field; segmenting and dispensing knowledge is the only business they know (besides asking for more money).

You can not make a diminishing career option more valuable - the longer you stay with it the more you lose and the harder it will be to leave. You need to chart your own course and start a new journey.

What has no substitute is making yourself more valuable.

Become a life long learner - because you have re-discovered how to love learning.

Learn how to quit - if you are in a hole, stop digging - if the boat is sinking, get off.

Commit - to an adaptive general life view, determined to remain flexible within it.

Everyone has a different idea of what you should do. Ultimately you will decide on your own success in life. I can't picture you saying "My life has been a success because I always conformed to others expectations."

Become a jack of all trades, and a master of one. Which one? By becoming a generalist first you increase your odds of finding that one passion that will ignite your quest for mastery.

BFU is student directed learning for visionaries and entrepreneurs.

The only satisfying success will be one you define, the only route is to self-direct your own life.

Your knowledge of an alternative to a life molded by others offers you choice. If BFU represents your journey from self discovery to self determination how could there be an acceptable substitute?

You may as well register for BFU - at no charge - right now. If you chose the satisfaction of pursuing wisdom and understanding on your own terms, you have accepted the BFU concept for which there is no substitute.

Live Your Own Life!

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Two Rough Draft Videos - Comments Needed

2007-09-12T13:53:00.000-07:00

These videos were not made by BFU but are being created by Andrew Quinlan and his foundation.

The first video is very short and cute - just a couple of minutes. It does make a good point in a humorous way, I sent them an email letting them know I've already added it to my Free Market Lens. This talks about international competition, I would like to compare this to how the founding fathers pictured America as 13 competing governments or states. The most attractive governments would attract new settlers and no government would dare become too strong.

"A government big enough to give you everything you want, is strong enough to take everything you have." - Thomas Jefferson

The second video is a bit longer, and still a bit rough (he even mispronounces Celtic). It is still an entertaining and insightful piece of work. You will learn more in less than ten minutes than I learned in years of economics courses - some real common sense ideas. Once these are done expect to see them as part of a few BFU courses.

Having had bad experiences recently with e-mails in a blog I'll send you to Andrew's Market Center Blog to make comments. His blog and his site have good educational material that you will want to explore.

"But what more oft, in nations grown corrupt, and by their vices brought to servitude, than to love bondage more than liberty - bondage with ease than strenuous liberty - and to despise, or envy, or suspect, whom God hath of his special favor raised as their deliverer?" - John Milton

Invest Your Thoughts First

2007-09-07T09:46:00.000-07:00

This is not just about investing money. You also invest yourself into ideas, beliefs, and projects.

Our very nature seems to insist on emotional decisions; emotions want instant satisfaction. Once an emotional decision is made, it is hard to be rational and even consider changing our path. The time to seek rational thought is before a decision is made.

If an idea is in any way important - read a book and talk to successful people first. There are good general books on just about any subject; and while any breathing being will have an opinion, it is only those folks with success in what you are researching that can add value.

With more information under your belt it is time to invest thought and develop your own, flexible, ideas. The old fashioned way is to find a quiet spot with a nice view, take out a pad of paper and a pencil, and write down everything that pops into your mind - you can edit later.

Often what blocks constructive thought are problems that scream for attention; write those down as they appear and then forget them for now. You may even start a grocery list in a corner.

With your mind now somewhat clear of clutter start listing ideas about your current investment.

In a reasonable period of time you will create a short list of potential ideas. At any time come back and add a few, throw any shopping ideas back at that growing grocery list. You may reach a decision, but more likely you will find more information is needed. It's back to books, and successful people.

"Keep away from people who try to belittle your ambitions. Small people always do that, but the really great make you feel that you, too, can become great." - Mark Twain

It has been noted that most people will invest their life savings or start a career with less research than they use to buy a car. A "deal of the century" comes about every two weeks. If you miss this deal because you were learning and thinking, you will be better prepared for the next one.

Invest your thoughts first.

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Planned Giving Donations, Bequests, and Legacy Gifts

2007-09-06T13:07:00.000-07:00

Estate planning is more about passing on values than valuables.

If you do not have a will, for everyone's sake, create one immediately. Without a will you won't have your values represented as the estate you built is distributed.

Writing a first will can be a quick and simple project.

List individuals and organizations you wish to impact. Take care of people first, then give 1% of your estate to each of up to nine worthy causes you wish to support, finally contribute everything that remains to one very special organization (a residuary bequest). Now read a book or see your lawyer and make it legal.

With your completed will as a guideline you can now develop increasingly meaningful estate planning or planned giving ideas. Consider all the responsibilities you feel are important:

* Family - multiple generations, prior marriages, family members with special needs

* Business - succession in the family business, key person retention or replacement, buy out provisions

* Charity - religious organizations, schools, orphanages, micro-finance lenders, and other causes dear to your heart

A quick gift today and a word of encouragement can help those on your list over a rough spot they may be encountering. Then make that simple will. This might also be a good time to consider helping raise money for your favorite causes.

After initial contributions and with an initial simple will as an outline -- it is a good idea to consult your advisers for more detailed planned giving analysis including estate planning.

Philanthropy is an important part of your estate plan. Also consider contributing by listing worthy causes in your IRA or life insurance policy as a beneficiary. The long term effects of your bequest can create a personal heritage that will extend far into the next age.

Endowments are donated with the understanding that capital will be kept secure while yield will be used for a specific purpose. Directions can be added to apply annual income to meeting administrative costs, developing special projects, enhancing curriculum, or even "wherever the greatest opportunity exists."

Your selected worthy cause will probably have pages to print or a download form to help you define your gifts. Ours is available for you to look at if you click on The BFU College Contribution Form.

Life insurance can also play an important role in estate planning. Investigate having ownership of any life insurance policy outside of the estate to avoid possible extra estate taxes. Estate laws vary by location and change often. Confirm any statements from a salesman, or from this article, with your personal accountant or attorney.

Develop a consistent approach of supporting worthy causes during your lifetime. Extend your own version of empowerment by creating a planned gift legacy. Your donations will keep valuable initiatives growing. Your bequest is a last chance to powerfully implement meaningful change in society.

As in all important areas of your life, do not be led by others opinions or sales talk. Take your time and invest your thoughts first. Make your own decision on how you wish to direct your planned giving donations, your bequests, and your legacy gifts.

How do you wish to be remembered?

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Understanding Change

2007-09-04T01:32:00.000-07:00

You have heard it before. Much of what we do is equivalent to re-arranging chairs on the deck of the Titanic. We have expectations based on our knowledge and history. Our projections are usually a predictably straight line based on these reasonable expectations.

Life is not linear or reasonable. Icebergs happen.

The future is not obligated to be reasonable. Even at a time such as this where we see huge change everywhere around us, we expect to keep living much as we have been living.

Worry is not a solution. Projections and educated guesses about vicious cycles of calamity or virtuous cycles of unending progress are equally suspect. If the past is any guide, all of the guesses and intelligent prognostications will be hugely wrong. In essence, virtually everyone is always looking in the wrong direction.

The big changes that are coming will arrive unexpected by everyone but a few with a lucky guess. No one will have paid much attention to those few until after an event - then they will be afforded far too much attention.

It will not be just one event and then everything will return to normal, there will be other events, equally unforeseen.

Take normal precautions, they may be appropriate. But the greatest precaution is personal - learn to adapt to the unexpected. Make yourself a generalist, not a specialist. Discover new ideas, explore new territories, experience different lifestyles. Do not over expose or over commit yourself to one scenario.

"Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn't do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover." - Mark Twain

There is only one thing we know for sure - what we now know will someday change dramatically; and then some later day it will happen again.

"Security is mostly a superstition. It does not exist in nature, nor do the children of men as a whole experience it. Avoiding danger is no safer in the long run than outright exposure. Life is either a daring adventure, or nothing. To keep our faces toward change and behave like free spirits in the presence of fate is strength undefeatable." - Helen Keller

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BFU Student ID

2007-09-02T12:28:00.000-07:00

For BFU students - we have a new college identification generator. Your comments and criticisms have helped us make it better. Visit the Bastiat Free University identification generator page to see the improvement over the first draft.

For prospective BFU students - you can go to the entrance page of the picture ID generator and find one more reason to complete the no-charge registration for Bastiat Free University.

No BFU student will be required to create a student ID; make one only if it will be of value to you. Bastiat Free University is not becoming a bureaucracy.

As educational bureaucracies deflate with the ending of the industrial age, we can expect them to concentrate even more on marketing and certificate sales, even less on teaching you how to think clearly. If Bastiat Free University inspires you to think rather than follow, we have achieved a major part of BFU's educational goals.

Go generate your BFU student ID, you may do no more than look at it and toss the file away. We would rather you carry your Bastiat Free University Student Identification proudly.

Before you forget please send us a note with any complaints or comments.

If you want to tell someone how to find the BFU Student ID generator, tell them to go to BFuniv.net.

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Educating Entrepreneurs and Visionaries

2007-08-28T08:22:00.000-07:00

The BFU Rector received a letter from a prospective student. This scholar is already a successful consultant and was wondering if what Bastiat Free University offered would be a useful addition to his education. The following is in part, with some editorial changes, the Rector's reply.

I know many successful entrepreneurs that disdain formal schooling and yet desire to earn, not just buy, a degree. When Bastiat Free University was conceived the majority of students were expected to be those same successful entrepreneurs. Unless I am mistaken, and I frequently am, you are actually the first fitting that description to contact my office while also seriously wanting to attend BFU.

To better place you within the school, or help you decide if it has any value for you, let me ask you two questions:

1) What do you want from BFU?

2) What do you hope to accomplish in terms of learning?

There are half a dozen marketing questions I should ask - but you know those as well as I do. Your mentioning of the esteemed Richard Daughty (creator of a master's course - ed) already answered a couple of questions.

For your general interest, and to address your question on cost I will direct you to our degree information page. For a quick summary of our educational perspective read this page. These are general - I will be glad to answer your specific questions.

Application requirements are simple; add your desire to a reading of The Candle Makers' Petition. (At some future point we may require an application essay on what The Candle Makers' Petition means when applied to a college education. -ed)

All that remains is the no charge registration.

I would suggest that you check out a couple of the courses before you decide - there is no charge for investigation. To be honest the minimalist structure that now exists is not enough to direct most college students - they have been trained only to follow, not to think.

If your goal is to find a life rather than a job The Netcohort Institute is being built for you. Join the adventure - bring your most audacious dreams.

There is still a lot of work to be done at Bastiat Free University and on re-engineering education using new concepts like The Netcohort Institute. While we need entrepreneurial leaders that are adaptable and able to "think not just follow;" they will have to be educated at very different schools than now exist.

Schools like Bastiat Free University is striving to become.

Best regards,

Allan

Allan R. Wallace, Rector
Bastiat Free University

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BFU is not nearly as good as we want it to be

2007-08-26T16:28:00.000-07:00

Just as we advise our students, we dream big dreams.

In reality though there are limits to our capabilities. There are only so many steps toward our ambitious dreams that can be accomplished with our current resources and staff.

"We knew that Google was going to get better every single day as we worked on it, and we knew that sooner or later, everyone was going to try it. So our feeling was that the later you tried it, the better it was for us because we'd make a better impression with better technology. So we were never in a big hurry to get you to use it today. Tomorrow would be better." - Sergey Brin

We are improving BFU, but progress seems slow when compared to the need of generating leaders for the netcohort age; leaders of character, persistence, and vision. We have maximized what we have, but there is still so much to be done. Even what we have already accomplished needs to be improved.

Choices will have to be made between forging ahead with needed initiatives such as the Netcohort Institute and re-visiting early efforts that now seem so naive. It has to be even more frustrating to a student encountering our limitations than it is for us.

I have discouraged students from taking the paid BFU college degree track, I do not feel comfortable with the value offered. Without income though we are unable to improve the courses to where they offer sufficient value. We have received a couple of college donations, (thanks Matt) those have been gratefully applied toward improving what we offer our students.

This current slow growth period will be overcome, just not as soon or as smoothly as we wish. We know that the existing educational bureaucracy is not preparing the adaptable leaders the Netcohort needs. We also know that we are not yet producing those leaders either - but we do have a clear path toward the needed tools.

For now leaders are individually self taught by trial and error within a very tough internationally networked environment. Far too many entrepreneurs are lost or have their feasible dreams destroyed before they come to fruition. Many of their projects are needed - the path is however strewn with their broken shells.

We can not and will not quit, but we must apologize that we have not yet created the resources you need.

Join Us In The Adventure - Bring Your Dreams

2007-08-17T08:48:00.000-07:00

If you do not yet have bold, creative, even audacious dreams - start developing them.

Goals are nice, for many the setting of goals and achieving them is an important part of their success. But goals are safe. We set them with an eye firmly fixed on the sequentially achievable, and then initiate a developed path to their completion.

Dreams are different, and they are not achieved by sequential and controlled implementation. Dreams are discovered when we extend our passions beyond current reality and imagine the best possible outcome. We may not be able to achieve our dream alone, but planning the achievement is not the immediate concern of a dream - altering reality is.

Life is not linear!

Our lives and our goals seem to flow from step to step, but it is the huge leaps to the side that surprise and define our future. These massive dislocations of normal activity can be perceived as vicious or as virtuous - but it is dreamers that will discover a new path starting at the disruptions door.

Those who only have goals will likely find their plans destroyed by these occasional new realities, life itself may be destroyed. But those that dream and survive will quickly discover opportunities that others might not see for decades. Be prepared.

There will be thousands of "unforeseen circumstances" that will effect our lives over the next year. Those that base their plans on projections of the future will have plenty of excuses why their plans did not work. To the dreamer, each unforeseen circumstance is an opportunity amplified by the learning they have accumulated around their passions.

Discover your passions.

Discover the deep pleasures of researching every aspect of your passions.

Dream of the best possible, or impossible, implementation of passions.

Work, set goals, achieve - and be prepared for the unexpected to provide the opportunity you need to move confidently in the direction of your most audacious dreams.

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Judge Not (students are deeper than many think)

2007-08-12T00:47:00.000-07:00

"Really great people make you feel that you, too, can become great." - Mark Twain

This is just a cut from a true story. I've heard it before, but not to this depth. It is not the reality of the story, or the subject, it is the realization that we can not tell by looking or reading what a student can accomplish. You are at Bastiat Free University to energize your creative and audacious dreams. You will achieve far beyond what the doubters believe possible.

"It begins with a dotty gingham dress. That's what the woman is wearing - and that's what I want you to remember.

With her husband, who's sporting a rumpled, ill-fitting suit, she boards a train in hopes of getting an appointment with the president of Harvard University.

They arrive in Boston and walk all the way to Cambridge. They manage to find the office. The president's secretary takes one look at the pair and decides on the spot that the president wouldn't have time for them. The term gate-keeper hadn't been coined at the time - but the secretary was a gate-keeper to the nth degree.

The couple ask to see the president.

"He's busy all day," the secretary says. Actually she barks the words so severely she expects the couple will be discouraged and go away. But it doesn't seem to put them off. They just sit down and wait. --- (more) --->

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The Netcohort Institute

2007-07-30T13:54:00.000-07:00

The Netcohort Institute is scheduled to start offering services in 2008.

This is a change for Bastiat Free University. All of 2007 has been a sabbatical, not just to renew the contributors to BFU, but to consider ways to renew the educational services we offer and make them more relevant.

The BFU you know will be changing a bit next year, but the services will continue to expand through the entrepreneurial Netcohort Institute. The plan is to enhance opportunities for those who have become the core of BFU's student body -- passionate knowledge workers united in flexible teams based on relationships and reputation - The Netcohort.

The Netcohort Institute will also offer a new series of college level courses expected to round out the knowledge and skills of the creative netcohort. Many of these new courses have been suggested by BFU students. Of perhaps equal interest will be a form of networked learning -- relationship based systems and tools for facilitating mutually profitable learning interactions.

Our netcohort students will be able to creatively interact with internet centric knowledge workers on real world projects. While not all tools and services will be offered at once, there will be a continual process of improvement as we move toward our goals.

Join us in the adventure - bring your dreams.

Mankind is finally ready to leave the industrial society. The information age has not yet dawned, most of the wonderful technologies to this time are used to enhance old processes. Think Google search, a nice service, but it is in essence a very fast and intuitive librarian. Each tool that allows individuals to shape their own reality is a step away from the "too big" organizations that have metastasized to dominate society. A reality of choice may still be far in the future, but for members of the Netcohort, they can start rearranging their lives toward personal freedom right now.

This is a quick look at TNI, there will be more information soon. While BFU's limited finances will not allow quick growth, we will start laying the foundations of truly useful relationship structures early this next year. The mission of The Netcohort Institute will be to enable student's creative and audacious dreams.

Our goal for The Netcohort Institute is simple: to be the relational focal point for internet entrepreneurs.

The entrepot facility for these new netcohort interaction tools will be The Netcohort Institute.

Of Pendulums, Fads, and Extremes

2007-07-23T07:53:00.000-07:00

Fads and extremes are part of human nature.

There is no logic in our emotional excesses, in fact logic itself falls prey to fads and extremes. There have been times when sound logic has been ridiculed and the mystical reigned, and times when a current logic ruled supreme and the miracle of life was purposely scoffed at or ignored.

The most observant of the human race may fail to notice when society is on a binge; if everyone is delusional, delusion is normal. As a pendulum swings back and forth on a pivot, accelerating through equilibrium to extremes, so the human herd spends little time properly centered in reality but is always rushing past to some new excess.

In defining these extremes we have a historical viewpoint from Charles MacKay's classic book first published in 1841 -- Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds. Writing of manias , mass anger, and overwhelming greed MacKay allows us to observe from a safe distance how extreme all of society can become. We still have our tulip manias and witch hunts, but they seem reasonable to those of us now caught up in them.

Even when we recognize that society is at an extreme, the emotional pressure to join in and rush forward with the mass of humanity is almost impossible to over come. We are reversing from several extremes right now, lets look at some of these ended cycles so as to illuminate what will happen with others that have not yet reached their end.

As the pendulum reaches the full extent of its journey it slows down, stops, and then accelerates toward the equilibrium point passing through it quickly on the way to the opposite end of its path. During this process it passes through the same points it traversed on its journey to the extreme.

Look at technology stocks or the real estate markets. They not only reached ridiculous extremes from historic valuation models, they pulled in even rational people to believe that "this time its different." When the crowd reaches madness they always perceive that they are now more wise than prior generations and know how to overcome problems that accompanied previous excesses. The pendulum reaches the end and on its, slowly at first, accelerating descent it passes through those same vestiges of irrationality that had impelled it to the top. At the far extreme to be reached years or even decades latter everyone will know that it is better to rent than buy real estate and that tech stocks are too dangerous to own. The pendulum will then reverse and start traveling down the path to equilibrium once more.

What makes the observation of these swings difficult is the simultaneous activity of a multitude of cycles having different durations and importance all happening at once. It is like walking into a gigantic clock store just as all the alarms ring. The noise is so deafening that conscious thought as to meaning is almost impossible.

We can observe historical large degree cycles, such as the swing of nations from freedom and abundance to totalitarian regimes and scarcity; but few apply such images to the day we live in. The repetition of the ending of one epoch and the entering into another is replete with examples of overextended cycles As we enter what some have called the information or communication age, many cycles of the prior age are on their last powerful accent. Many new cycles are just about to start their first journey.

This is an interesting time to be alive.

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The Power Of Micro-Finance

2007-07-20T12:07:00.000-07:00

Micro Finance may be the second most powerful idea in the world.

In microfinance a poor person stuck in an exploited position is assisted in starting her own business. An example is a mother that has a job building brooms, someone drops off a few sticks, some straw, and a bit of string. A day or two latter they pick up the brooms and pay a piece work price for the completed work, a price not quite enough to feed a family.

Enter micro-finance. A very small loan is made, usually just a few dollars, to the mother to buy a small supply of sticks, string and straw. She can now sell completed brooms in a competitive market, making enough to feed her family, grow her business, and pay back the loan. The loans are almost always paid back. The repaid loan is recycled to another poor person trapped at the bottom of society.

The first and most familiar micro-finance venture is The Grameen Bank that was soon followed by The Grameen Foundation, Kiva, and other groups. These are actually micro-venture capital teams financing micro-entrepreneurs. As the Grameen Foundation says about themselves on their website:

"With tiny loans, financial services and technology, we help the poor, mostly women, start self-sustaining businesses to escape poverty. Founded in 1997 by a group of friends who were inspired by the work of Grameen Bank in Bangladesh, our global network of micro-finance partners reaches over 3.6 million families in 22 countries."

The small businesses created are what capitalism once was, before governments and special interests united to control markets and centralize power. That is what makes micro-finance so powerful. Because the loan makes families self-sufficient -- it is an exciting form of giving that multiplies results and keeps giving.

These results are achieved by ignoring the dire warnings of bureaucrats and academics that view the countless poor as a drain on the world and civilization. Their talk is filled with images of mouths to be feed, housing required, waste that needs to be managed.

In reality the poor can be the worlds salvation - they are minds needing to create, desires for themselves and their families that strive to be satisfied.

They want a better world, if we but provide tools and get out of the way, they will make our world better also.

While academics write position papers that are only read by those academics that already agree with them; The Grameen Bank, The Grameen foundation, and other similar outreaches are helping large numbers of people isolated by their societies.

This is real progress. Each of those helped by micro-finance are also examples to the many around them of what can be accomplished using individualistic and personal commerce. All manner of government and non-government organizations have for decades flown to their location in chartered jets and driven around in air conditioned cars offering help - and overall life just got worse. They also know that corporations backed by government programs offer limited routes to escape from poverty.

With micro-finance however they have discovered a first step to independence, a small and personal business.

Education, corporations, governments, unions; in fact all bureaucracies are already under pressure from technological solutions. In another type of pressure, micro-financed individuals are also discovering they no longer need listen and hope at empty promises from politicos that live well while they starve.

The world is changing. The old industrial age middle class is shrinking even as the individualistic knowledge workers of netcohort are rising. For the first time in centuries there is also hope for the poor in badly governed countries. Micro-finance lifts them and offers positive direction as no promised socialist paradise ever did.

These once totally downtrodden poor, and their billions of brethren, can provide a foundation for the sweeping changes of the emerging netcohort age. Their lives will be better, our lives will also improve with each innovation and business they create.

The American dream of upward mobility, equality of opportunity rather than equality of position, may be re-born on a world wide scale. Imagine billions of people that are not motivated by promises to pull down those above them but instead seek opportunity for their own ascension. A powerful picture, and since it is happening first at the poorest levels that have been so cavalierly treated - it is off the radar of self-centered world leaders.

By the time all are aware of a groundswell of historic capitalism, it will already be a powerful force within societal structures. Micro-finance is a remarkably efficient way to assist the poor in helping all of us.
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The Myth Of A Balanced Education

2007-07-14T07:00:00.000-07:00

A BFU student quoted an unknown source and stated "School is obedience training for the untalented."

That seems rather harsh.

I have said that college is frequently just a vocational school for lawyers and accountants. That is also a bit inaccurate as vocational schools are usually much more efficient than colleges.

Perhaps my assertion on the Squidoo BFU page is more accurate:

"College costs too much time and too much money. The core learning acquired by your investment in a formal college education is bureaucracy survival." - Allan Wallace

The reality however is that there is truth in all of those ideas, but much more can be said. The Germanic inspired industrial age definition of a university consists of a lecture and research facility. Educators have embraced this format while offering lip service to prior higher education models. College is sold as a way to get a better job, but a softer side is sometimes also displayed - the historic goal of a balanced education.

Classical college archetypes created leaders by opening students eyes and minds to great achievements upon which they were expected to build. Todays required "general education" courses are taught in a stupefying montage of discrete bits and pieces of information. Undergraduate general education is no substitute for true balanced education.

All effective schooling, all enabling education, all empowering learning, is at its heart self education. It is student desire that drives learning, not the lectures of supposed authorities. Lectures monopolize the ears, putting creative thought to sleep. By contrast a genuine balanced education opens the eyes and therefore opens the mind.

The content of most "general ed" courses can be learned by reading a book or two over a weekend. It is a farce to pretend this small exposure to information, because it is outside the vocational goals of a modern student, is a balanced education.

You can have a well rounded education. You will have to get it yourself. Explore ideas of great thinkers, by searching for and reading material that will expand your personal horizons. Don't fall into the trap of balanced education as defined by someone with a vested interest in making their teaching job simple. You do not want to be simple.

Build on the thoughts of others within your self-created balanced education. Create within yourself a versatile leader worth following -- by opening your own eyes and mind to the broad knowledge that surrounds you.

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The BFU Story

2007-07-10T12:45:00.000-07:00

The BFU story is a scaled personal story.

When setting your own personal goals it is important to keep developing new goals as you approach success. Stepped goals keep you from reaching a climax with a following let down that leaves you without purpose.

Our educational system is in danger of such a let down. The education establishment designed "one size fits many" schools for the industrial age. These schools are quickly becoming obsolete. Technologically empowered students and shrinking bureaucracies are encountering micro finance in a perfect storm of educational change.

It is time to support the future of education, creating goals that will ensure enabling schools for the next millennium. This is where Bastiat Free University enters the scene with its story.

When you support Bastiat Free University you are supporting the future. Yes, you can continue to contribute to brick and mortar colleges and still have an impact, but they are a diminishing asset and the value of your contribution will diminish with them. With the largest colleges your donation is further diminished by the huge endowments they already enjoy. Your college donation is but a drop in their donations giving ocean.

No matter if you support Bastiat Free University by becoming a student, telling others, or by planned giving; you are making a difference that will endure well past this current era.

The BFU story is about setting new educational goals, the old goals are almost completed.

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College User Group for Bastiat Free University

2007-07-10T11:25:00.000-07:00

A college user group will enhance your Bastiat Free University experience.

Your distance learning college experience has many benefits over brick and mortar colleges, but it does lack in other areas. Both the trials and the joys of college are greater if you can directly share them with others. A beautiful sunset is more meaningful when viewed with those that appreciate it.

By creating a local BFUniv college users group you can magnify your own learning while encouraging and amplifying the potential of all in your BFU mutual support team. Starting a local physical learning arena on a weekly or bi-weekly basis is a simple approach to keep everyone on track. Let us know if we can help with a forum or yahoo user group style application.

In the past students at BFU have preferred to go their own individual way and discover solutions that work best for them. Let us know if you find a particularly attractive solution for your own college user group. Perhaps you or we can adapt it to assist all BFU students - you might even be able to create a scalable money maker from your ideas.

Bastiat Free University students are overwhelmingly visionaries and entrepreneurs I'm looking forward to seeing what you create in your college users group.

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Happy Birthday Frederic Bastiat

2007-06-29T15:33:00.000-07:00

While there may be a bit of a question on the date, on or about 29 June 1801

Claude Frédéric Bastiat

was born in Bayonne France. Bastiat received a normal education for the period, not one provided by the government, and studied a couple of years at a private college without graduating. The remainder of his life, except his last several years, were dedicated to studying and understanding human nature.

He saw in free men harmonious actions fulfilling each others needs and so fulfilling their own. Much as when the truck driver takes wheat from the farmer to the baker he is earning money for his own desires, not as a service to a bread eater. Bastiat reasoned that any interference with these harmonious transactions created economic dissonance that impaired both freedom and the efficiency of the naturally effective system. A more efficient system than free association could not be planned, so any interference is destructive on all levels.

Talking about the contrasting socialist view that seeks to impose a central order on associations Bastiat wrote "Mankind is not in their eyes a living and harmonious being endowed by God Himself with the power to progress and to survive, but an inert mass that has been waiting for them to give it feeling and life; human nature is not a subject to be studied, but matter on which to perform experiments."

The last few years of his life were spent in public service, creating free trade associations, as a member of the French National Assembly, and most important to us as a writer. With humor and simple insights he destroyed the arguments of socialists and communists; in fact destroying the arguments of any that would steal from one to benefit another.

If you want a short entertaining story try The Candle Makers' Petition. If you want to spend just a bit more time with Bastiat as your mentor read his powerful and enduring essay The Law. After having read The Law you will be much less open to claims of those planning to steal from you "for your own good." If you want to read a single essay that will show you how to become a good economist, read What Is Seen And What Is Not Seen.

Discover Frederic Bastiat, investigate his stories and essays, you can do very little, involving so little time, that will yield larger life long benefits for yourself.

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Educational Foundations

2007-06-24T15:02:00.000-07:00

How far have we wandered from real education?

I have just spent a few days with a young relative. She has a lot of opinions, all of which have been given her by teachers. She said, "we should have peace!" but she had not thought about how to acquire peace in a world where people want to control or even kill others. She wanted to protect the environment, a laudable goal, but her means were all short term positive, long term destructive - "save a tree - use plastic."

No one had explained the choices; paper is a renewable resource - plastic is petroleum based. Which do you think makes the best long term sense? Did she want to read up on the subject, get several views, and develop her own opinion? No - she already has an opinion, already provided to her with a nice sound bite, it needs no thought.

The foundation of a sound education is simple.

learn to read

learn to research

challenge what you are taught and develop your own viewpoint

If you can read, and read enough to discover the pleasures of reading, then you can uncover any knowledge you desire, on any subject. "The man who does not read good books has no advantage over the man who cannot read them." - Mark Twain

I provided my young relative with a couple of sound bites to consider

Don't automatically believe anything you hear, and only half of what you see.

Give advice to fools and they will hate you, give advice to the wise and they will thank you.

Education is a do it yourself endeavor. You need to be self educated - especially if you go to school. Many great people of the past were self-educated, most great achievers of the future will be.

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Three Secrets To Learning Passion

2007-06-17T07:59:00.000-07:00

Do you already possess a passion for learning?

A passion filled life, one where you enhance your knowledge by delving deeper into what is most important for you, is endorsed by many - sought by few.

To expand your life beyond servicing necessities and into learning passions, here are a few areas to examine.

Avoiding distractions

Life itself can be a distraction. A regular life routine filled with work, eating, and entertainments can become sedative. Lulled into the complacency of average expectations the great potential within you may never awaken. It can be the expected that defines you, as it has many others. Small successes and occasional disappointments mark the daily hills and valleys of your life.

Break from this pattern, get outside the box of normal expectations and redefine yourself. Make your life an expression of passion by examining all you do, removing all that does not help you grow. By seeking deeper understanding -- make your life burn brightly.

Broadening your search

What you regularly do each day can be comfortably programmed movements. If your life is filled with mundane daily routine - change the view's scale. Instead of looking at daily events go directly to a view of what you would like to accomplish with your life. This is the difference between watching ripples around you and climbing a mountain to view full rivers, lakes, and streams.

If you choose to climb the mountains of experience you will learn one thing; if you look at the maps made by other's experience you will learn another. To gain the greatest perspective, use maps created by others to guide your own initial explorations. If you enjoy music - study the lives of great composers, from classical to rock, and learn of their expression of passions -- their triumphs and disasters.

Concentrate your learning Passion

Having started with your general search you will soon find new views that entice you to inspect knowledge more closely. Follow new maps and new paths to investigate what now appears so interesting. Don't stop at the first thrill, keep looking, there will be much more to discover.

At some point you will find that with each new discovery, you are comparing them to a certain prior discovery. The paths, the maps, the knowledge you gain, all seem to relate to this exciting nexus that continues to draw you back. You have discovered a passion.

Attack this discovery on two fronts, from within as you explore its depth, from without as you relate other discoveries back toward the center. This may be one of the passions that can define a greater life for you -- seek first to define the passion.

In summary

It is your life, it is your search. You have willingly looked at this general map about learning passion. Getting on your feet and out of a daily routine will be your next step.

Your daily routine is a rut, and a rut is just a grave with the ends kicked out. Maps provided by others can offer direction and help direct your steps. It is your learning more about what you enjoy that will be the steps along the path leading to your passions.

"Our doubts are traitors

and make us lose the good we oft might win,

by fearing to attempt"
Shakespeare

Whether you are just starting to seek and define your passions; are studying and learning passion; or are enveloped by a passion for learning, there is much waiting to be discovered during the remainder of your life adventure.

You can sit in a life of quiet desperation, or you can commit to exploring your understanding of yourself and your awaiting learning passions.

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The Permanent Traveler @ Bastiat Free University

2007-06-15T16:22:00.000-07:00

A PT - Permanent Traveler is a good fit for becoming a BFU student. With no physical campus, Bastiat Free University travels well.

Hundreds of years ago people seldom traveled more than a few miles from the place they were born. For large parts of the physical world's population this is still the case.

(warning -- rant ahead)

I'm sure you have heard of the "One hundred dollar lap-top" fiasco. A few years ago a bureaucrat conceived the idea that at under US$100.00 every child in the world could have a wind up computer provided by their governments. Laptops have now started to ship to poor kids. When crooked politicians don't grab them first, the kids themselves are selling them as soon as they get them. The "$100" laptops now cost almost US$200 dollars each, not counting graft and distribution expenses.

Not only are bureaucrats acting surprised this should happen, they want lots of new laws, powers, and controls installed to stop it. It won't work. They even have the gall to be mad at private enterprise because you can now buy a new laptop off the shelf for less than their centrally planned nightmare costs. Private enterprise seeks to provide what people want, bureaucrats tell us what we will want, and then can't deliver.

Back to our BFU & PT lifestyle theme - there is a connection.

For decades freedom loving people have been quietly slipping out of the bureaucratic world. With businesses that travel well, and a desire to live as they feel best suits them, they have joined others in loose associations of what may be called sovereign individuals.

These are the perpetual travelers know as PT. Joining this group has been easy, if you were well educated, or had a mobile business, or a nice bit of savings. That and the knowledge that they were not born to be an employee or an indentured citizen led these pioneers to discover routes to personal liberty.

Now to tie it all together.

Back in the late sixties electronic calculators became available - slide rules were faster - and a hundred times cheaper. As time passed, a calculator's quality and number of functions increased - and prices dropped. At first only the wealthy, or businessmen and scientists, or some students would pay the high price for a calculator. By the late eighties calculators were not only cheap - they were give-away premiums with a purchase.

Lets roll the tape again, but this time let computers play the role once acted by calculators. If the free market is allowed to operate, private enterprise will drive down the cost of computing to where it is not worth the effort of a child, or a crooked diplomat, to steal and sell computers.

The age of the individual will have been born.

Empowered by inexpensive technology, anyone in the world can discover the best places for them to live, and have access to a medium that will allow them to earn their tickets. These will be the students that need BFU and others of its ilk; they will also be the ones that network without boundaries, ethnicities, and distance as limitations. These are the hope for a better, safer future; the Netcohort. That is they may have this wonderful chance.

If we can keep the bureaucrats from destroying their opportunities with new laws, regulations, and taxes.

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Positive Psychology - don't worry, be happy

2007-06-14T18:51:00.000-07:00

From the most popular course at Harvard University, Positive Psychology, come these scientific insights on happiness from the instructor, Tal D. Ben-Shahar.

Give yourself permission to be human. When we accept emotions -- such as fear, sadness, or anxiety -- as natural, we are more likely to overcome them. Rejecting our emotions, positive or negative, leads to frustration and unhappiness.

Happiness lies at the intersection between pleasure and meaning. Whether at work or at home, the goal is to engage in activities that are both personally significant and enjoyable. When this is not feasible, make sure you have happiness boosters, moments throughout the week that provide you with both pleasure and meaning.

Keep in mind that happiness is mostly dependent on our state of mind, not on our status or the state of our bank account. Barring extreme circumstances, our level of well being is determined by what we choose to focus on (the full or the empty part of the glass) and by our interpretation of external events. For example, do we view failure as catastrophic, or do we see it as a learning opportunity?

Simplify! We are, generally, too busy, trying to squeeze in more and more activities into less and less time. Quantity influences quality, and we compromise on our happiness by trying to do too much.

Remember the mind-body connection. What we do -- or don't do -- with our bodies influences our mind. Regular exercise, adequate sleep, and healthy eating habits lead to both physical and mental health.

Express gratitude, whenever possible. We too often take our lives for granted. Learn to appreciate and savor the wonderful things in life, from people to food, from nature to a smile.

Secret Wisdom & Hidden Logic

2007-06-09T05:04:00.000-07:00

There is a fun read over in the financial fairy tales section of Speculation Rules. The story revolves around distilling secret wisdom and hidden knowledge into a palatable form.

In what might be a useful exercise for any of us I decided to look at distilling Bastiat Free University into an extreme elevator speech - one sentence or one word. The sentence was easy, that would be some version of our university slogan: Re-engineering higher education -- BFU offers self directed distance learning for visionaries and entrepreneurs.

One word was a lot tougher. Someday the letters BFU will represent us -- just as your name, IBM, or AT&T are a representation and distillation of essence. For now the best I can do for Bastiat Free University is probably a two word set - perhaps as above re-engineering education or maybe educational disintermediationists; either is quite a mouthful.

Educational disintermediation, cutting out the intermediary or "middle guy" in schooling, is a two word phrase that reveals a source of most current disruptions. It is a reversal of a process that happened early in the industrial age. It recognizes that educational excellence is achieved due to the desires of a motivated student -- not by the rigorous hounding of an authoritarian hierarchy.

The following is a statement made before formal and institutionalized bureaucracies reigned in what has become a moribund educational industry.

"Whatever be the qualifications of your tutors, your improvement must chiefly depend on yourselves. They cannot think or labor for you, they can only put you in the best way of thinking and laboring for yourselves. If therefore you get knowledge you must acquire it by your own industry. You must form all conclusions and all maxims for yourselves, from premises and data collected and considered by yourself. And it is the great object of New College to remove every bias the mind may be under, and to give the greatest scope for true freedom of thinking." - Joseph Priestly, Dedication of New College, London, 1794.

The process brought on by technological empowerment of individuals is both liberating our lifestyles, and it is sucking the bloat out of industrial age bureaucracies like the education industry. Disintermediated students are returning to a learning process where the student is responsible for developing their own open mind and filling it with their own useful insights. With Bastiat Free University you can start today.

Let's make this exercise more personal, what sentence or word can sum up our thoughts of the last few years?

One long sentence that may cover almost everything I've written is -- "The one size fits most society is imploding; the big bang following the collapse will spawn the creative galaxy of the netcohort society."

If I had to sum up everything I've written recently into one word it could be disintermediation.

If it has to be even shorter, one word with a lot of meanings might do quite well. That one word expression of everything is -- Change

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