Majoring in Hackademics: The UnCollege

College debt across the US has skyrocketed to near $1 trillion, risking a catastrophic financial bubble when it bursts. At the same time, the benefit a student derives from a four year college degree is falling off, year by year.

Minyanville

The diverging trends are taking a toll on students and recent grads. Student loan delinquency rates now exceed those of credit card, mortgage, and all other types of consumer debt. And many indebted grads are being forced to delay buying homes, having children, and saving for retirement.

The situation is causing many experts to warn of a student loan bubble that could burst much like the housing market did in 2008. Howard Dvorkin, author of Credit Hell, told The Fiscal Times last month: “It's hard to predict when the student loan meltdown could occur, but if the bubble explodes, the consequences will be devastating for the economy.” _Minyanville

NYT

The idea that a college diploma is an all-but-mandatory ticket to a successful career is showing fissures. Feeling squeezed by a sagging job market and mounting student debt, a groundswell of university-age heretics are pledging allegiance to new groups like UnCollege, dedicated to “hacking” higher education.

...UnCollege advocates a D.I.Y. approach to higher education and spreads the message through informational “hackademic camps.” “Hacking,” in the group’s parlance, can involve any manner of self-directed learning: travel, volunteer work, organizing collaborative learning groups with friends. Students who want to avoid $200,000 in student-loan debt might consider enrolling in a technology boot camp, where you can learn to write code in 8 to 10 weeks for about $10,000, Mr. Stephens said.

THEY can also nourish their minds from a growing menu of Internet classrooms, including the massive open online courses, or MOOCs, which stream classes from elite universities like Princeton. This guerrilla approach hits home with young people who came of age seeking out valuable content free on Napster and BitTorrent.

Mr. Stephens, a dropout from Hendrix College in Arkansas (he later earned a Thiel Fellowship), started UnCollege less than two years ago, and already its Web site attracts 20,000 unique visitors a month. “I get on scale of 10 to 15 e-mails a day from people who say something along lines of, ‘I thought I was the only one out there who thought about education like this, I don’t feel crazy anymore,’ ” he said.

There are other groups, too, like Enstitute, which offers two-year apprenticeships with entrepreneurs in lieu of college, and Zero Tuition College, an online support network for students looking for alternatives.

The goal is not to foment for a mass exodus from the ivy halls, Mr. Stephens said, but to open people’s minds to a different set of opportunities. _NYT

Children need to be trained in the many arts of making money long before they reach college age. Children schooled in The Dangerous Child Method will acquire the skills to support themselves financially at least three different ways -- and they will know how to manage the money for its best utility as well.

The US government educational system isolates children from a very young age from real world responsibility and avoids teaching them vital real life skills which they will need when they are out on their own. Each stage of education kicks the can down the road a little further, expecting that the next level of education will fill in the gaps. Sadly, parents are complicit in this massive scam of the "educators," and then they wonder why their children move back in with them -- unmarried, unable to find work, without meaningful skills or competencies.

The trend toward general indebted incompetency is one that the government welcomes -- because it gives governments new excuses to expand to new areas of oversight and responsibility, while taking away or restricting more individual responsibility. Time is running out on this misguided culture of psychological neotenates and lifelong incompetents.

The Road to Mastery

The following article is adapted from a previously published posting on Al Fin, the Next Level blog. It is part of an ongoing series on that blog dealing with the importance of raising dangerous children.

We talk a lot about competence in the dangerous child, and certainly competence is crucial when dealing with dangerous (and valuable) skills. But on the road to mastery, competence occurs somewhere near the half-way point.

In 1980, Stuart and Hubert Dreyfus described A FIVE-STAGE MODEL OF THE MENTAL ACTIVITIES INVOLVED IN DIRECTED SKILL ACQUISITION (PDF). In the document, they describe 5 steps, or stages, in the growth from beginner to master:

1. Novice
2. Competent
3. Proficient
4. Expert
5. Master

Since then, the Dreyfus and Dreyfus model has been altered so that the 5 stages are now:

Novice -- Advanced Beginner -- Competent -- Proficient -- Expert

When reduced to just 3 stages common to both ancient and modern guilds, we would describe the model as Apprentice -- Journeyman -- Master.

Slideshare presentation of the Dreyfus & Dreyfus model

The road to mastery is a long one, which modern western educational systems are reluctant to follow. The resistance to mastery learning among modern educators is extremely strong, perhaps due to the time and effort required of both teacher and learner.

Famed psychologist of expert learning, K. Anders Ericsson, says that world class mastery requires at least 10 years of directed practise by the most gifted, and more like 15 to 25 years of hard directed practise by the merely elite (PDF).

In Ericsson's view, it is the duration and quality of practise which determines who will master the skill, rather than innate talent or IQ. Perhaps it is best to adopt that view, and teach students to enjoy the hard effort required to achieve mastery, even if it is not entirely correct.

After all, even among the elite, there are those who are clearly superior, who took much less time and practise to achieve higher levels of mastery than the masses of those who are considered "expert" or "master." But again, perhaps it is best to focus on teaching students to enjoy mastering challenges, and solving difficult problem after difficult problem. Students who incorporate persistence and grit along with expertise, are more likely to succeed.

But each child is different, with different propensities and likelihood of achieving mastery, for a wide range of skills and practises. Some children are more likely to be happy as specialists, while others are more naturally generalists. Not only must we provide the child with a likely path to mastery in his general field of choice, we must also learn to gauge his optimal balance of depth vs breadth.

For students who wish a shallower level of mastery for a large number of different fields, the mastery of "heuristics" in each field is likely to be very important.

For those who wish to master a smaller number of fields, the utilisation of customised "mastery learning" should take them to a deeper level, as appropriate.

And for those who are compelled to take the field or profession beyond the level of its current masters -- to achieve creative innovation and genius level work -- a working through the entire 5 stage Dreyfus and Dreyfus model is required, plus just a little extra.

When a master is doing genius level revolutionary innovation, he is working at a hypothetical "level 6" or higher. He is devoting his entire being to the problem, over an extended period of time. This is something that is not easily taught -- if it can be taught at all.

Daniel Kahneman's book, Thinking Fast and Slow, illustrates some of the problems in making decisions and judgments at different stages from novice to expert.

Typically we think of the early stages of mastery as involving more conscious and deliberative thinking, while the more expert stages involve more automatic and intuitive types of thinking.

But if experts and masters cannot "keep their hand in" with the earlier skills of deliberative and conscious thinking and fact-checking, they may be at a loss when entirely new problems arise which do not succumb to their intuitions and learned automaticities.

Early stage learning -- before the ages of 12 or 16 -- will provide the child with a wide range of competencies and mid-level skills which fall far below mastery. But if sometime between the ages of 5, and 12 to 16, the child experiences a special affinity to and talent for one or more skills, he should be encouraged along a road that might lead to mastery of the special skill or skills. The more high quality directed development time the child can put in for a particular skill, the closer to world class mastery he can come.

Early stage learning focuses upon heuristics and rules of thumb. These are practical and easy to remember scaffolds of learning, for building more detailed structures of learning later.

Many people go through their entire lives without ever going beyond the early heuristic level of learning for any given field. And some do not even get that far.

For those who wish to raise truly dangerous children, it is important that you learn to provide the important heuristics which will keep the child safe even in a dangerous environment. And should the child show a marked preference for any particular dangerous environments, the child should not only be given the crucial heuristics to keep him safe, but should also be helped further along the road to mastery so that he can shape both himself, and the environment itself to his own advantage.

Finally, a caveat: IQ and innate ability do play an important part in the road to mastery along with innate inclinations -- despite what well-meaning experts such as KA Ericsson may claim publicly. Pay close attention to cues which may indicate an especially fulfilling direction of development for a particular child.

Children can become infatuated with a particular field without understanding the incredible amount of difficult work that is necessary for mastery of it. It is important that children be given a chance to prove themselves, but in a realistic -- not pampered or sheltered -- way. Force them to see what the thing really is, and what it will take to achieve it. Be brutally honest here, or you may do far more harm than you realise.

The child does not have time for a large number of abortive attempts at mastery, if it takes between 15 and 25 years for him to achieve top level mastery. And most parents don't have the time, patience, or the money to support multiple failed attempts.

Yes, you want the child to aim high. But: Do not pamper. Do not shelter. Do not encourage fantasy dreams which are without realistic possibility. Make the child prove himself each step of the way, but be sure to provide the opportunity for him to do so.

More: We have pointed out in previous articles that dangerous children should be able to support themselves economically -- in multiple ways -- by the time he or she is 18. This is due to the multiple skills and competencies which the child will have learned on the path to becoming dangerous.

This is a very good thing for parents, who will no doubt have their own uses for their hard-earned wages. A widely-competent dangerous child should be able to finance his own long experimentation into mastery over the decades of early to middle adulthood.

Dangerous children typically remain dangerous over entire lifetimes. They are far less likely to sink deeply into time-killing entertainments and mind-wasting amusements and intoxicants. Parents give dangerous children their start, but it is the children themselves who must find their own way.

“Your children are not your children.
They are sons and daughters of Life's longing for itself.
They come through you but not from you.
And though they are with you yet they belong not to you.

You may give them your love but not your thoughts,
For they have their own thoughts.
You may house their bodies but not their souls,
For thir souls dwell in the house of tomorrow, which you cannot visit, not even in your dreams.

You may strive to be like them, but seek not to make them like you.
For life goes not backward nor tarries with yesterday.
You are the bows from which your children as living arrows are sent forth. _Kahlil Gibran _ quoted in Goodreads

Human existence is passing through a phase change, although very few are aware of the crucial transition. Only a relatively small proportion of those who are presently alive are likely to transit the treacherous narrows ahead, successfully. Most of those fortunate few are only wee children now.

It is not survival which is in question, but rather it is the quality of human life and the human future which hangs in the balance.

Everything you think you know, just ain't so.

We will be expanding on this topic on alfin2101.blogspot.com

Peter Thiel Aims to Misbehave

This article is cross-posted from Al Fin, the Next Level

Peter Thiel is a successful entrepreneur, visionary, and venture capitalist. But according to many tenured ivory tower professors, Peter Thiel has become "the enemy." One of Thiel's recent "investments" involves sponsoring youth under the age of 20 years old, in the starting of their own entrepreneurial enterprises. The young people must forego a college education during the time that they are engaged in their intensive entrepreneurial training and startup experience.

Interestingly, one of Thiel's young hopefuls -- 19 year old Dale J. Stephens -- has embarked on an entrepreneurial campaign in opposition to an excessive dependency on a college education. The excerpt below is taken from Stephens' article in CNN: College is a waste of time:

I have been awarded a golden ticket to the heart of Silicon Valley: the Thiel Fellowship. The catch? For two years, I cannot be enrolled as a full-time student at an academic institution. For me, that's not an issue; I believe higher education is broken.

I left college two months ago because it rewards conformity rather than independence, competition rather than collaboration, regurgitation rather than learning and theory rather than application. Our creativity, innovation and curiosity are schooled out of us.

...College is expensive. The College Board Policy Center found that the cost of public university tuition is about 3.6 times higher today than it was 30 years ago, adjusted for inflation. In the book "Academically Adrift," sociology professors Richard Arum and Josipa Roksa say that 36% of college graduates showed no improvement in critical thinking, complex reasoning or writing after four years of college. Student loan debt in the United States, unforgivable in the case of bankruptcy, outpaced credit card debt in 2010 and will top $1 trillion in 2011.

... Learning by doing -- in life, not classrooms -- is the best way to turn constant iteration into true innovation. We can be productive members of society without submitting to academic or corporate institutions.

... We who take our education outside and beyond the classroom understand how actions build a better world. We will change the world regardless of the letters after our names. _College is a waste of time

Brave words, which will need to be backed up by braver actions. Stephens will receive $100,000 and access to expert advice and assistance in reaching his entrepreneurial goals. Stephens has already been signed by Penguin Press to write his first book, "Hacking Your Education."

What is most interesting about this phenomenon is that Thiel's initial investment is spurring a downstream expansion in interest in entrepreneurial alternatives to mainstream college education. And this downstream expansion is likely to spawn further downstream expansion, and so on etc. . . .

Wise people understand that school is not the education. Life is the education. The efforts of modern society to place emphasis on the educational effect of schools at the expense of the educational effect of life, has led to a society of Peter Pans and Cinderellas, perpetual incompetent adolescents of the psychologically neotenate variety.

Peter Thiel aims to change that emphasis back, in an effort to help save at least a few youth from wasting their time and lives. Peter Thiel aims to misbehave. And he is hoping that the attitude will be catching.

Rumours of Rutan: Design Revolution in Retirement?

Aircraft designer Burt Rutan is working on a new aviation project in the Idaho lake house where he retired only seven months ago after a 45-year career that produced SpaceShipOne, Voyager and dozens of other ground-breaking air vehicles.

"I found after working on 40 airplanes in 40 years it probably is impossible to stop," Rutan said in an exclusive interview. "So I'm working on a new one." _FlightGlobal

Burt Rutan is one of the few winners of the coveted "Al Fin Portrait of Competence Award." When such a person retires from his day job, he is not likely to sit around twiddling his thumbs. There are rumours that Burt Rutan is working on a new design for a flying boat.

There’s been plenty of speculation within the aviation world about whether Rutan would stop designing airplanes now that he’s retired from Scaled Composites. Imaginative and prolific, Rutan has been at the leading edge of aerospace design since the 1970s, and few thought he would simply play golf all the time. True to form, Rutan is working on a new aircraft design.

Rutan is famously secretive about designs that have yet to fly, though now that he is “retired” he is letting out a few more details than usual. The engineer told the Experimental Aviation Association he is tinkering with a design influenced to some extent by the lakes and rivers of Idaho, where he now lives after spending more than 40 years in the Mojave Desert. He also mentioned being influenced by the unusual Russian air/watercraft, like the MD-160 Lun-class ekranoplan, he saw shortly after the fall of the Soviet Union.

...What Rutan did say is he hopes to design a very efficient winged boat that could be used on a major body of water like Lake Coeur d’Alene and converted into a seaplane to navigate the small lakes and rivers nearby. There are a few other designs out there that use ground effect to “fly” just above the surface of the water, but no one’s seen anything like the design — known simply as 372-3 — Rutan is hinting at. _Wired

Coeur d'Alene is certainly a beautiful lake, but Al Fin prefers Pend d'Oreille, and points north. Regardless, if one has a flying boat, his selection of lakes, rivers, bays, coves, inlets, estuaries, and lagoons becomes quite enlarged.

Rutan is not likely to be wasting his time. Whether he emerges from his present project with a salable product or not, he is likely to be learning a great deal. What a pity that it could not be easier to transfer lessons learned -- and the motivation to learn them -- from one person to another.

Cross-posted from Al Fin Potpourri

Image Source

Starting a New Civilisation from the Ground Up

Global Village Construction Set - TED Talk from Open Source Ecology on Vimeo.

Have you ever considered how you would go about re-starting civilisation if the Earth were struck by a comet, or suffered some other widescale, civilisation-ending catastrophe? The people at Open Source Ecology have, and they are in the process of building the Global Village Construction Sett.

This construction set is a platform which will allow you to build 50 industrial machines that you can use to re-build civilisation from the ground up.

The complete Global Village Construction Set will include 50 different industrial machines, from tractors and sawmills to wind turbines and steam generators and CNC mills and 3D printers and laser cutters. Apparently, with all 50 of these machines, you can create "a small civilization with modern comforts." Yep, that's all it takes. So far, they've prototyped eight of these machines, and with help from Kickstarter, they're hoping to get to work on the other 42 to make them available to hopeful developing civilizations all over the world. _DVice

What Makes the Global Village Construction Set so special?

Open Source- we freely publish our 3d designs, schematics, instructional videos, budgets, and product manuals on our open source wiki and we harness open collaboration with contributors.
Low-Cost- The cost of making or buying our machines are, on average, 8x cheaper than buying from an Industrial Manufacturer, including an average labor cost of $15 hour for a GVCS fabricator and using mail-order parts.
Modular- Motors, parts, assemblies, and power units can interchange.
User-Serviceable - Design-for-disassembly allows the user to take apart, maintain, and fix tools readily without the need to rely on expensive repairmen.
DIY - The user gains control of designing, producing, and modifying the GVCS tool set.
Closed Loop Manufacturing - Metal is an essential component of advanced civilization, and our platform allows for recycling metal into virgin feedstock for producing further GVCS technologies - thereby allowing for cradle-to-cradle manufacturing cycles
High Performance - Performance standards must match or exceed those of industrial counterparts for the GVCS to be viable.
Flexible Fabrication - It has been demonstrated that the flexible use of generalized machinery in appropriate-scale production is a viable alternative to centralized production.
Open Business Models - We encourage the replication of enterprises that derive from the GVCS platform as a route to truly free enterprise - along the ideals of Jeffersonian democracy.
Industrial Efficiency - In order to provide a viable choice for a resilient lifestyle, the GVCS platform matches or exceeds productivity standards of industrial counterparts. _Global Village Construction Set

Cross-posted to Al Fin, the Next Level

This type of hands-on, can-do creative tinkering-in-depth, is something that has been largely lost in an American society that has handed its children over to an irresponsible and untrustworthy academia. The result of this misplaced trust, and low rates of trained practical competencies, is the higher education bubble, high unemployment, lowered rates of inventions and independent business startups, and an extremely unhealthy growth in dependency on government.

Talpiot: Seizing the Day

The applicant pool consists of nearly ten thousand top scorers of a test taken by all graduating high school seniors. 150-200 potential applicants are then subjected to a two-day series of tests.[1] These include further IQ exams as well as group-tasks designed to test one's social dynamics, all conducted under the supervision of trained psychologists and military personnel. For example, teams of applicants are given a specific task then the instructions are changed while the test is in progress, such as shortening the alloted time or changing the assigned tasks.[1] Final applicants appear before a panel of professors, military leaders, and other examiners where they are asked questions such as to explain the theory of relativity or mechanisms of solar heating.[1] Final acceptance into the program entails a high security clearance rating, given by the Air Force. _Talpiot (wikipedia)

Talpiot is a program for bringing the best of the best of Israeli youth together into an intensive mental, physical, and military training regimen. 5,000 youth apply every year, and 50 are accepted. Out of those 50, only 40 will complete the training, and be commissioned as lieutenants in the IDF. They spend 9 years total, including education, training, and military commitment.

Those who survive go on to careers as officers in some of the military's most prestigious operations, mostly in research and development projects, Schlachet said. From there, the 500-odd Talpiot grads have tended to find their way to the upper echelons of business and academia, he said.

"You learn self-confidence, not to be afraid of anything. No subject is too complex to go after, and no answer should be taken for granted," said Talpiot grad Gilad Almogy, 38, Applied Materials' top executive in Israel.

The Nasdaq-traded biotech company Compugen was formed by three of Almogy's Talpiot comrades. A fourth, Mor Amitai, now runs the company.

Amitai says some of the most complicated work he ever did was during his time in Talpiot. "The experience of sometimes succeeding, almost always as part of a team, involving something that really seemed impossible, I think this is something we took with us," he said. _USAToday_via_SteveHsu

Talpiot is run by the Israeli Defense Force with the aim of creating an elite officer corps which is capable of responding to any threat by the innovative use of the most advanced technologies -- or any tool within reach. If these elite soldiers later become leaders in business, technology, finance, and other vital areas of society, it should come as no surprise to anyone who is paying attention.

During the training, the youngsters are taught to flirt with insubordination (PDF). Rather than listen to their superiors, they are taught to find answers on their own. The aim is to create self-confident, self-sufficient self starters capable of innovative thinking on the fly, in the middle of a crisis that doesn't yield to SOPs and conventional operations.

Israel is a tiny country thriving in a hostile environment. The country is famous for scientific and technological innovation and achievement far beyond what its small population would lead one to expect. Part of the reason for this overachievement is the survival imperative. Part of the reason is the significant proportion of famously high IQ European Jews who provide much of the leadership for all segments of Israeli society. When you combine high IQ with the will to survive, you come up with programs such as Talpiot.

Israel can not afford to waste its most talented youth -- as western nations such as the US seem intent on doing. At least, Israel's military cannot afford to lose these tough and talented innovators. Not if the country is to survive.

While western nations are busy drowning in debt, demographic decline, political correctness, green dieoff.org-motivated energy starvation, cultural decay, and other methods of slow suicide, at least a few segments of some national governments still recognise the need to promote the best of human potential and ability.

Militaries are often the last bastion of competence in countries whose cultures are in decay. At least, militaries that have to work and maintain an acceptable level of competence. But militaries tend to settle into conventional thinking and lowest common denominator policies, like all bureaucracies and institutions. That is why it is important to feed a constant flow of brutally tested innovative thinking into the mix, and give it freedom to work.

The difference between the Talpiot approach and conventional academia could not be more stark. Academia is about status, tenure, and publishing as much crap as possible. Talpiot is about sound, rapid innovation to get good results. The Talpiot must start with the best of the best, and winnow the field from there. No affirmative action. No social promotion. No special preferences for "disadvantaged groups." Just unrelenting tests for competence, ability, and ingenious thinking.

In other words, these cadets are not only smart, but they also have to be good. And they especially must have grit -- character.

Obviously this system will not work for the average youth. Even most above-average students would fall by the wayside in a rigorous program such as Talpiot. But the concepts involved in the program are key to revitalising western education. No nonsense. No grade inflation. No social promotion. No affirmative action. Focus on results, competence, and character.

Getting from here to there, however, will require a bit of demolition and reconstruction. Such an overhaul is not possible on a national level, but could be done locally, under careful leadership.

More on Talpiot via Steve Hsu

A Brief Insight Into Human Nature from Minot, ND

Suffering and loss are widespread in the town of Minot, North Dakota, as flood waters continue to rise. How are the people of Minot dealing with this ongoing tragedy?

First of all, if you can’t tell from the pictures, this a tragedy of almost unthinkable proportions. The Souris River carves a winding path through an otherwise flat terrain. The river valley is relatively shallow, about 150′ lower than the prairie on either side, and maybe 2 to 3 miles wide. The river is also crooked, and makes a horseshoe shape. The town of Minot straddles the river, with roughly 1/4 of the town on the north hill, 1/4 of the town on the south hill, and 1/2 the town in some part of the valley.

...12,000 people have been displaced, and hundreds more are in a state of voluntary evacuation. Hundreds, if not thousands, of houses will be destroyed...People have made their best efforts to move their belongings and prized possessions to higher ground, but everyday seems to bring worse news. 3 days in a row the predicted crest level has been higher than the previous day. Friends that two days ago thought they were safe found out yesterday that they were not. By the time this thing is over, perhaps a third of the town’s homes and businesses will be destroyed, along with the vital infrastructure that links the north hill and south hill neighborhoods.

...I am not from this part of the country (I hail from the East Coast) and nowhere that I have lived has ever faced this kind of adversity. But I would be proud to call this town my home. I have not seen one person whine or complain. I have not heard one hopeless person ask when the government or FEMA would rescue them. The town mobilized itself days ahead of the impending disaster and began planning for the worst; secondary levees and sandbag walls went up with breathtaking speed, and thousands of homes were evacuated without incident. Think of it as the anti-Katrina. Once the townspeople saw that their worst fears were about to be realized, and their homes and livelihoods destroyed, instead of giving up, they have only redoubled their efforts to save what can be saved. Their stoic determination in the face of absolute catastrophe amazes me. _Instapundit

"Stoic determination in the face of absolute catasrophe...." A society made up of competent individuals determined to work their way through to the other side of catastrophe largely on their own sweat, will, and competence -- that is a somewhat resilient society or community. It can make the hard decisions and sacrifices it needs to make in order to survive as a unit group.

Politicians and other public servants often call on citizens to display such fortitude and sacrifice -- at the same time as they, the politicians and bureaucrats, fly around the world playing golf, drinking cocktails with peers, attending fundraisers, twittering their photographs, and dispensing public resources to private supporters and hangers-on so as to maintain their hold on power. Societies which depend on politicians and public servants for their survival, will fall.

Inner grit -- the type of resilience and determination displayed by the people of Minot -- cannot be conjured out of thin air by some political messiah, wordsmith, or witch doctor. Such determined and competent perseverance combines both lifelong immersion in a certain mindset along with constant training and responsibility in mundane day to day needs of living. And although it is far from politically correct to say this, breeding also comes into play in human resiliency or the lack of it.

Floods and other natural disasters are inevitable, as is a growing societal dissonance due to debt and demographic decline. And yet most modern governments persist in forcing citizens to grow more dependent upon government, and less resilient or competent in meeting their own needs and exigencies.

The lesson, for those who want to see it through, is to build networks of competence in your neighborhood, community, and region. Instill competence and resilience in your children and yourselves. Problems and catastrophes are inevitable. They do not have to turn into large scale doom unless you allow it.

Shining a Light On A Truly Brave, New World

There is a tide in the affairs of men
Which, taken at the flood, leads on to fortune;
Omitted, all the voyage of their life
Is bound in shallows and in miseries.
On such a full sea are we now afloat,
And we must take the current when it serves,
Or lose our ventures. _JuliusCaesar (IV.ii.269–276)

Sometimes the difference between success and disaster hinges upon a small decision. But making hard decisions requires courage -- or does it? Perhaps the requirement for making tough decisions is the ability to overcome the anxiety and fear that decision-making often entails? And the key to overcoming anxiety and fear may be as close as the nearest light source.

"I've never seen anything like it," says Kay Tye, a postdoctoral researcher in Deisseroth's lab and lead author on the study. Mice are naturally fearful of exploring open areas, she explains. Under normal circumstances, the animal "will poke its nose out and then scurry into a corner," says Tye. "But when you turn on the light, the animal begins exploring the platform with no visible signs of anxiety. Then you turn the light off, and it scurries back in to the corner."

...The researchers engineered mice to express light-sensitive proteins in specific cells in the amygdala that send out neural wires, known as axons, to different substructures. Using a specially designed fiber-optic cable implanted in the animal's brain, researchers found that aiming the light to activate one specific circuit had an immediate and potent effect on the animal's behavior.

..."Our understanding of the more precise circuitry within the amygdala is just now beginning to take off," says Kerry Ressler, a neuroscientist at Emory University who was not involved in the study. "Optogenetics, where scientist can activate specific cell populations and even parts of cells, is a powerful approach to dissect how the amygdala modulates fear and anxiety."

Ki Ann Goosens, a neuroscientist at MIT who was not involved in the study, says the research could help explain individual variation in baseline anxiety levels. "The findings tell us that this circuit contributes to an individual set point for anxiety," she says. _TechnologyReview

Tiny brain circuits can make all the difference in a person's life. A society comprising fearful, anxious, security - fixated persons, will have a far different destiny than a society made up of of imaginative, thoughtful, and courageous persons.

Perhaps it is no accident that most western societies find themselves clinging to present security at the expense of their own futures. That is the way of a cringing and shrinking death at one's own cowardly hands.

Besides a mastery of fear and anxiety, persons will also require wisdom and logical thinking skills, if they wish to catch the tide at its flood, sailing on to fortune. Logic must have both courage and wisdom, or it will be left either paralysed, or will find itself a force of wasted -- or even destructive -- effort.

Research can only reveal tiny, disconnected pieces of the current conundrum. But an integrated solution requires a wider-ranging mind than one finds in most lab rats, dependent on government funding and constraints of all kinds. Rather than huddling together in institutions and special-interest lobbies and unions, people of the next level will require courage, wisdom, logic -- and competence.

One must not only know what needs to be done when, and have the courage to do it, but also know how to do it properly and effectively.

Portrait of Competence: Heimo and Edna Korth

Heimo Korth is "The Final Frontiersman." He and his wife Edna are the last legal full time residents of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, living far away from outside assistance and companionship. They move between three widely placed cabins every year, so as not to deplete the game as they trap and hunt for a living.

Living in the Arctic is not for the weak of heart, the government-dependent, or for faux environmentalists such as those who occupy highly-paid lobbying positions for Greenpeace, Sierra Club, and the rest of the dieoff.orgy gang. The Korths must be competent, or they will die.

Living in such a rugged environment is proof of a residual toughness living in at least a portion of western men. In case of catastrophe, most westerners could not cope without their supermarkets, convenience stores, and ATMs.

Taken from an earlier article at Al Fin The Next Level

The book, The Final Frontiersman, is quite good, written by a cousin of Heimo's who lived with the family for several months and dug deeply into the couple's lives, and those of their daughters. Most readers will be deeply moved by the well-told story of the tragedies and triumphs of the Korth family, deep in the Alaska wilderness.

Some of Heimo's story may remind you of Richard Proenneke, the first recipient of the "Portraits of Competence Award" from Al Fin. Significantly, Heimo Korth found a woman capable of sharing his life in the wilderness, and together they made a life and family in a place where most affluent westerners could not survive a week on their own without significant outside assistance. Even after the Korths are gone, their story will continue through their daughters and their families.

Of course, Richard Proenneke's story goes on in the lives of everyone who was inspired by his life. Even so, very few who read or view the story of Proenneke's (or Korth's) life will ever be able to follow in his footsteps. Competence is becoming a fleetingly rare characteristic among modern humans living in a dumbed-down Idiocracy.

A Slipping Away of Competence and Human Capital Over Time?

...in a hard place, independence and self-reliance were the most sovereign of virtues and looked upon as the elements of character that made a man or a woman “worthwhile.” _Rex Murphy

NationalPost
In the National Post article quoted here, Rex Murphy is looking back at a recent bygone era of practical competence and self-reliance. Modern people in the year 2011 perceive their advanced technologies and lives of relative ease as signs of superiority. And yet, what is lost when generations of children are raised so as to be unable to lift a finger to provide practical sustenance for themselves or those they care about?

We know what is gained in terms of productivity, when specialisation of labour is practised. But when children spend most of their formative years -- outside of their school indoctrinations into political correctness and groupthink -- playing video games, watching cartoons and movies, texting friends . . . what will they do in a large-scale catastrophe to provide for personal and group survival?

...when I look to the Newfoundland of 50 years ago, look to it as my native province really was, not as I now retrospectively would like it to have been, I see in that hardscrabble time and place certain features of character and life that present a worth and depth all too rarely encountered today. Furthermore, I think most present day Newfoundlanders would agree with me — they were a better crowd then, those Newfoundlanders on the edge of our memories from a couple of generations back. They were a modest, hardworking, uncomplaining and above all a self-reliant people...

...The people of old did not advertise their diligence, industry, their life-long persistence at the hard, hard business of getting food and shelter for their families, and of making do with what they had. This was a time before the Oprah gene of emotional incontinence and reckless, exhibitionary self-worship so tormented our species. Newfoundlanders had the grand old gift of shutting-up about what they endured, why they endured it, and how much it cost them to endure it...

...They were tough, and in addition they were incredibly, ferociously self-reliant. Self-reliance was a foundation rock of their entire character. Be careful that you never accidently cast a doubt or a slur on a man or woman’s ability — and total determination — to be utterly free of any dependence on anyone else whatsoever.

I remember one old man who after a life of being on the water decided to build a long-liner all by himself. Cut the timbers, hauled the wood, planed, hammered and sawed away for the whole of two full winters: no neighbours to help, just him and a few tools. At the end to look across the road and see the magnitude of what, solitarily, he had built, the grace and finish of it, too — was to marvel that one man had so much within his own capacity and determination. I know he was proud that he, “just a fisherman” had so much skill. He was proud of his craft. But he was more proud that he could engineer this whole project all by his own 70-year-old self. He needed no one. Had to ask help of no one. Took money nor grant from no one. This was his boat....

...That self-sufficiency and the intensity of the commitment to it was the real hallmark of the Newfoundland character. It showed itself not just in large projects — such as building a boat — but in the lesser gestures of everyday as well...For many people, especially in the outports, this meant keeping a few farm animals and growing in a back garden of potatoes, cabbage and turnip. Together with fish and game, they had their own food supply. _RexMurphy-NationalPost

Murphy talks about self-reliance in Newfoundland, but the same ethic was practised across the rural areas of North America -- from seacoasts to mountains to the great plains. People were self-reliant because they had to be, and had been required to be so for as long as they could remember.

Modern people have largely forgotten any world except one where one supplies any need -- service or substance -- through a monetary (typically credit card) purchase. It is not so hard to imagine situations where the modern infrastructure of universal supply and demand might break down. A broader competence would come in handy in such situations. Another situation requiring self-reliant and resourceful competencies will be the opening of new frontiers in space and on/beneath the oceans.

A smarter society -- smarter than the currently deepening Idiocracy -- would raise its children with such possibilities in mind.

Life: An Ongoing Journey from Passage to Passage

Today...rites of passage are almost extinct. Boys [or girls] lack clear markers on their journey to becoming a man [or woman]. If you ask them when the transition occurs, you will get a variety of answers: “”When you get a car,” “When you graduate from college,” “When you get a real job,” “When you lose your virginity,” “When you get married, “When you have a kid,” and so on. The problem with many of these traditional rites of passage is that they have been put off further and further in a young man’s life. 50 years ago the average age an American man started a family was 22. Today, men [and women] .... are getting married and having kids later in life. With these traditional rites of passage increasingly being delayed, many men [and women] are left feeling stuck between [childhood] and [adulthood]. College? Fewer men are graduating. And many that do “boomerang” back home again, spending another few years figuring out what the next step in their life should be. As traditional rites of passage have become fuzzier, young men are plagued with a sense of being adrift. _ArtofManliness

Today's western young person is poorly prepared for the constant "testing" nature of reality. Sheltered and pampered from the adult world of responsibility throughout childhood and adolescence, modern children too often become lifelong adolescents of incompetence and indecision. Young Peter Pans and Cinderellas, forever looking and waiting for that ideal world to which they feel entitled.

The diagram above looks at "life events" and how a person might react to them. Things happen to people throughout life. How a person reacts to these "things" determines the path of the person's life. The same set of curves could also describe the repetitious "rites of passages" which mark a person's life as he either fails or succeeds in negotiating each transition. It is best to teach children to recognise these "tests of transition" very early in life, and how to successfully pass them.

Books have been written describing this dearth of modern rites of passage. Commercial enterprises have sprung up for youth and adults, in an attempt to fill the gap.

Science fiction fans will immediately understand the concept from reading books such as Alexei Panshin's "Rite of Passage" and many of the books by Robert Heinlein.

What Is a Rite of Passage

Sociologists have identified three phases that constitute a proper rite of passage: separation, transition, and re-incorporation.

Separation: During this phase an initiate is separated in some way from his former life. In the case of the Mandan tribe, the young man was isolated from the village in a hut for three days. In other tribes, boys’ heads were shaved and they were ritually bathed and/or tattooed. In a more modern example, when a man has just enlisted in the military, he is sent away to boot camp. His former possessions are put aside, his head is shaved, and he is given a uniform to wear. During the separation phase, part of the old self is extinguished as the initiate prepares to create a new identity.

Transition: During this phase, the initiate is between worlds-no longer part of his old life but not yet fully inducted into his new one. He is taught the knowledge needed to become a full-fledged member of that group. And he is called upon to pass tests that show he is ready for the leap. In tribal societies, the elders would impart to the initiate what it meant to be a man and how the boy was to conduct himself once he had become one. The initiate would then participate in ritual ceremonies which often involved pain and endurance. In the case of the new soldier, he is yelled at, prodded, exercised, and disciplined to prepare him to receive a rank and title.

Re-incorporation. In this phase, the initiate, having passed the tests necessary and proving himself worthy, is re-introduced into his community, which recognizes and honors his new status within the group. For tribal societies, this meant a village-wide feast and celebration. The boy would now be recognized by all tribe members as a man and allowed to participate in the activities and responsibilities that status conferred. For the soldier, his boot camp experience would come to an end and both his superiors and his family would join in a ceremony to recognize his new status as a full-fledged member of the military. _ArtofManliness

Military service still serves as a distinctive and frequently successful rite of passage for some young people. Membership in the military definitely incorporates the three phases -- separation, transition, and re-incorporation -- listed above. But those classical phases of rites of passage are most distinct and recognisable for the transition from childhood to adulthood.

Other, less obvious transitions may passs through the phases so quickly or subtly that they are not recognised for passage rites. Nevertheless, like a whitewater journey, each person's life is a succession of rapids, calm, waterfalls, etc occurring in all kinds of weather and at all levels of water flow.

The long transition from the incompetence of infancy to the competence of a skilled, well-rounded, and confident adulthood, should provide many opportunities for acquiring personal competence and for discovering one's own pace and direction of discovery and mastery over challenges. If a society -- such as ours -- is profoundly neglectful and negligent in providing for these successive rites and opportunities for competency acquisition, it will be rewarded with lifelong adolescents who lack both competency and confidence.

Although it may never be too late to have a happy childhood, it may be too late to learn competencies at your peak learning window. That is a pity, but only one of many, and not to be cried over. The lesson to be learned from it is to not repeat the same mistake for your students, children, or grandchildren.

If you are 30 or 40 years old and still trying to find your "vision quest" or "rite of passage", you have been ill treated by well-meaning parents and society. Do what you can to make up for it in yourself, but try not to perpetuate the crime on future generations.

Baby birds have to first crack their way out of their hard shells. Then they have to learn to leave the nest without killing themselves. They have to learn to fly, feed, survive. Then they must find mates, raise their young, migrate with the seasons, over and over again.

Modern humans of affluent societies wish to spare their young from all of those difficulties. That is the worst thing they could do. Modern college professors too often tell students what to think rather than preparing them to competently mind-wrestle all comers. Such indoctrination -- a hallmark of a modern university education -- is likewise the worst possible approach. And so it goes, as government takes the place of parents and schools, creating an artificial layer of regulation and "protection" around the citizen.

As new generations of incompetents work their way further into the control rooms of government and society, expect things to get harder for almost everyone. These are the times when you want maximum competence for yourself and those around you.

Governments are Not Forever: The Coming Idiocracy

Think of Prichard, Alabama, as the preview of coming attractions. Mayor Ronald Davis, pictured at left, is the face of Prichard's government. Prichard's government is like many local governments across the US deep south and California, except perhaps a bit advanced in its progression toward a corrupt inability to meet its obligations.

the declining, little-known city of Prichard is now attracting the attention of bankruptcy lawyers, labor leaders, municipal credit analysts and local officials from across the country. They want to see if the situation in Prichard, like the continuing bankruptcy of Vallejo, Calif., ultimately creates a legal precedent on whether distressed cities can legally cut or reduce their pensions, and if so, how.

“Prichard is the future,” said Michael Aguirre, the former San Diego city attorney, who has called for San Diego to declare bankruptcy and restructure its own outsize pension obligations. “We’re all on the same conveyor belt. Prichard is just a little further down the road.”

...The city’s rapid decline began in the 1970s. The growth of other suburbs, white flight and then middle-class flight all took their tolls, and the city’s population shrank by 40 percent to about 27,000 today, from its peak of 45,000. As people left, the city’s tax base dwindled.

...The city had already taken the unusual step of reducing pension benefits by 8.5 percent for current retirees, after it declared bankruptcy in 1999, yielding to years of dwindling money, mismanagement and corruption. (A previous mayor was removed from office and found guilty of neglect of duty.) The city paid off its last creditors from the bankruptcy in 2007. But its current mayor, Ronald K. Davis, never complied with an order from the bankruptcy court to begin paying $16.5 million into the pension fund to reduce its shortfall.

A lawyer representing the city, R. Scott Williams, said that the city simply did not have the money. “The reality for Prichard is that if you took money to build the pension up, who’s going to pay the garbage man?” he asked. “Who’s going to pay to run the police department? Who’s going to pay the bill for the street lights? There’s only so much money to go around.”

Workers paid 5.5 percent of their salaries into the pension fund, and the city paid 10.5 percent. But the fund paid out more money than it took in, and by September 2009 there was no longer enough left in the fund to send out the $150,000 worth of monthly checks owed to the retirees. The city stopped paying its pensions. And no one stepped in to enforce the law.
_NYT

When the human capital of a municipality, state, or country is allowed to decay -- when unqualified people rise to positions of responsibility and power -- why should anyone be surprised when complex systems decay and collapse?

Across large parts of North America, Europe, and Oceania, human competence is being lost over time, and replaced by persons who are less than competent. Sometimes the explanation for a human system's failure lies in the corruption and lack of integrity of the system's leaders and operatives. In many cases it is not actually the fault of the persons placed in positions of responsibility -- it is the Peter Principle at work.

The problem is widespread and growing rapidly. If you have been unaware of the phenomenon, the wakeup call can be a bit of a shock.

Unfalsifiable Intellectuals and the Rise of Cargo Cult Science

...among people in mentally demanding occupations, the fault line between those most likely to be considered intellectuals and those who are not tends to run between those whose ideas are ultimately subject to internal criteria and those whose ideas are ultimately subject to external criteria. _Sowell_Intellectuals and Society

Intellectuals do not like to be judged or called to account. Because most of their ideas cannot be tested -- or falsified -- by the real world, they see themselves as being above mere scientists, engineers, builders, merchants, accountants, crafstmen, and labourers.

[The intellectual] sees himself as a leader and a master. Not only does he doubt that the masses could do anything worth while on their own, but he would resent it if they made the attempt. The masses must obey. _Eric Hoffer The Ordeal of Change _The Intellectual and the Masses

In other words, intellectuals see themselves as above judgment by the mundane real world, or by anyone other than their own kind. They generally take care to avoid situations where they would become vulnerable to the judgment of the outside world.

Science is different, being traditionally under the discipline of repeatability and falsifiability. Genuine science goes out of its way to demonstrate an impartiality, and a fairness to competing hypotheses. But we are seeing the corruption of modern science by the "intellectual ethic", a degradation of science by the closed polemics of a clique mentality. Nobel Prize physicist Richard Feynman referred to such perversion of science as "cargo cult science."

… there is one feature I notice that is generally missing in cargo cult science. … It’s a kind of scientific integrity, a principle of scientific thought that corresponds to a kind of utter honesty — a kind of leaning over backwards. For example, if you’re doing an experiment, you should report everything that you think might make it invalid — not only what you think is right about it: other causes that could possibly explain your results; and things you thought of that you’ve eliminated by some other experiment, and how they worked — to make sure the other fellow can tell they have been eliminated.

Compare Feynman’s scientific integrity with the continual attempts by the leaders of climate “science” to prevent skeptics from checking their data. True scientists would be extremely pleased to provide all raw data, and they would make the data available to all on the Internet. A state attorney general would not have to file suit to make them disgorge. _Frank J. Tipler, mathematical physicist

Tipler singles out climate science as an example of "cargo cult science", but any science can be corrupted by the desire to be unfettered by the discipline of verifiability.

When scientists -- individually or as a group -- try to break free of the necessary restrictions inherent in honest science, they become very much like intellectuals, or like the pompous priesthood of an earlier age.

Intellectuals grew to become a "secular priesthood", beyond the judgment of the common man, by default.

With the decline of clerical power in the eighteenth century, a new kind of mentor emerged to fill the vacuum and capture the ear of society. The secular intellectual might be deist, sceptic, or atheist. But he was just as ready as any pontiff or presbyter to tell mankind how to conduct his affairs. _Johnson_Intellectuals

For a good example of the lack of integrity among intellectuals, I recommend this glimpse into the JournoList scrum.

For an example of how science can allow itself to degenerate to the level of the basest of intellectuals, study this analysis of ClimateGate well.

Honesty is a rare commodity among modern intellectuals, because honesty does not serve "the cause" to which most intellectuals are devoted. But never has honesty been more important to the average voter and taxpayer, who must now decide the best way to extricate himself, his family, and his community from the catastrophic effects of the implementation of the policies of today's intellectuals.

Why should we expect the policies of modern intellectuals to lead to catastrophe? The scrupulous avoidance of judgment by intellectuals (and cargo cult scientists) means that these persons are generally devoid of practical skills or knowledge, and typically incompetent in any area outside the realm of verbal polemic and the slipperiest forms of sophistry. You would think that such persons would at least have a good grasp of logic, or some rudimentary skills of good writing, but that is only rarely the case.

Their ideas are thus disconnected from actual mechanisms of cause and effect in the real world, and spring from their mouths and pens "ex cathedra," as it were.

If the above portrait of intellectuals reminds you of a prominent person -- or prominent persons -- in politics, media, activism, philosophy, punditry etc., that is not a coincidence. The tragedy is that such a portrait might well describe persons prominent in particular areas of science.

The Unbearable Lightness of Constructive Change

Is there anything about yourself or your life that you've been wanting to change, but somehow just cannot get enough willpower together to make the change? You may be going about it the wrong way. Psychologist Ibrahim Senay of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign looked at the difference between "willfulness and willingness", or the difference between "making it happen" and "letting it happen."

In twelve step programs, for example, participants must admit that they cannot make the needed change by themselves, and must be willing to let a "higher power" assist them in changing. The approach has worked for atheists and believers alike, for good reason, if the person is willing to let go, and let constructive change happen to him.

It’s a tricky concept for many and must be taken on faith. But now there may be science to back it up. Psychologist Ibrahim Senay of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign figured out an intriguing way to create a laboratory version of both willfulness and willingness—and to explore possible connections to intention, motivation and goal-directed actions. In short, he identified some key traits needed not only for long-term abstinence but for any personal objective, from losing weight to learning to play guitar.

...Here is how Senay tested this notion. He had a group of volunteers work on a series of anagrams—changing the word “sauce” to “cause,” for example, or “when” to “hewn.” But before starting this task, half the volunteers were told to contemplate whether they would work on anagrams, while the others simply thought about the fact that they would be doing anagrams in a few minutes. The difference is subtle, but the former were basically putting their mind into wondering mode, while the latter were asserting themselves and their will. It is the difference between “Will I do this?” and “I will do this.”

The results were provocative. People with wondering minds completed significantly more anagrams than did those with willful minds. In other words, the people who kept their minds open were more goal-directed and more motivated than those who declared their objective to themselves.

These findings are counterintuitive. Think about it. Why would asserting one’s intentions undermine rather than advance a stated goal? Perhaps, Senay hypothesized, it is because questions by their nature speak to possibility and freedom of choice. Meditating on them might enhance feelings of autonomy and intrinsic motivation, creating a mind-set that promotes success.

...Next, Senay ran still another version of this experiment, one more obviously related to healthy living. Instead of anagrams, he changed the goal to exercise; that is, he measured the volunteers’ intentions to start and stick to a fitness regimen. And in this real-world scenario, he got the same basic result: those primed with the interrogative phrase “Will I?” expressed a much greater commitment to exercise regularly than did those primed with the declarative phrase “I will.”

What’s more, when the volunteers were questioned about why they felt they would be newly motivated to get to the gym more often, those primed with the question said things like: “Because I want to take more responsibility for my own health.” Those primed with “I will” offered strikingly different explanations, such as: “Because I would feel guilty or ashamed of myself if I did not.” _SciAm

The exercise of willpower involves a tightening and pulling together of the person's resources. The "I", or ego, is fortified and solidified. This makes change -- for good or bad -- more difficult.

The exercise of a wondering willingness opens gaps in the ego -- places where the subconscious components of motivational change can slip in unnoticed, subtly altering the sub-surface dynamics.

Salesmen, propagandists, political operatives, drug dealers, and pickup artists know all about this -- and use numerous cues to get inside a person's mind in order to create manipulated change. But if more parents, teachers, supervisors, and counselors understood these inbuilt mechanisms of change better -- and were willing to call on them to aid the growth of the individuals under their care or instruction -- the everyday world would take on a more constructive appearance.

In the end, it is up to the person to choose the attitude he will adopt in facing the world and his life. And it is that attitude -- whether of willfulness or wondering willingness -- which makes all the difference.

The tricky part is that there is no one attitude which suits all situations. Human beings who attain a higher level of existence are more likely to possess a fuller toolbox of attitudes with which to approach a wide array of situations. Such persons are able to slip from one attitude to another as conditions warrant. This wide and easy adaptability of a full palette of attitudes is priceless, and is unlikely to be achieved automatically -- nor to be the result of indoctrination.

The leaked emails of JournoList and UAE Hadley CRU, provide two good examples of the destructiveness of groupthink and orchestrated indoctrination. Any society that breeds such perversity is in desperate need of constructive change on a societal level.

Like that's gonna happen. In lieu of that, focus on the personal level. Personal constructive change is more satisfying, regardless.

Sending A Competent and Intelligent Man to Congress

Art Robinson PhD is a winner of the prestigious Al Fin Portrait of Competence Award. Dr. Robinson has already proven himself in the fields of science research, energy journalism, business, education, and ranching. But now that his six children all have their doctorates (or nearly so), it is time for a new challenge -- saving the US from the predators who are devouring the country from within. Art Robinson is running for US Congress, Oregon District 4.

ODE: How would you describe yourself as opposed to incumbent Congressman Peter DeFazio?

Robinson: There couldn’t be very many similarities. Generally I prefer smaller government, more freedom, fewer government programs, more free enterprise programs. DeFazio is really on the opposite side of that — he favors larger government and he’s known as one of the most liberal, or as they say, progressive, congressmen, so as he voted for the health care bill I would not have done that. He’s anxious for the government to regulate energy and fuel, and I think that’s a bad idea. In a general sense, DeFazio favors big government solutions to things and diminished freedom, and I favor small government and more freedom.

ODE: With that perspective, politically and economically, how do you view the recent financial collapse in America, because a lot of voices are calling for regulation now?

Robinson: I think they are making a mistake. Clearly the United States has got economic problems. They stem from several causes: One is a simple failure of the United States government to balance its budget. We have $14 trillion in interest-bearing debt — that’s roughly $40,000 for every American family. The private sector misbehaved, and the public sector misbehaved ... the government not only has a lot of debt, but it’s gotten to the point where it can’t incur any more, it just can’t do it. So the government has gotten itself terribly in debt, but so have the people. The people have made an error, but they have been induced to do this by irresponsible businessmen, bankers, people on Wall Street. Generally, if someone makes a mistake, you let him go down, so I don’t think the taxpayers should have paid a dime to bail out Wall Street ... We certainly shouldn’t further indebt the public sector to save the private sector. Ultimately, if things keep going like this, the public sector is going to have to declare bankruptcy too, and that will have to happen to clean things up....

ODE: You published a report on global warming that was somewhat controversial- where do you stand on the climate change debate today?

Robinson: Climate has changed forever. Greenland is so named because it was green in the middle ages, and they were growing crops there; that’s why its called Greenland. Now it’s covered with ice, because it’s cooler than it was in the middle ages. Fluctuations in climate occur all the time.

ODE: So climate change is not something we should be concerned about?

Robinson: No. It’s something that, basically, you have a field of endeavor in which scientists try to understand the changes and predict them, because there is certainly an advantage in being able to predict ... and it was fine, and then the field got hijacked by the politics and the hijacking didn’t do anything except obscure the good science. And, interestingly, if you look at what man can do to Earth temperature, if we wanted to be prepared for temperature change in the Earth we should hope that it gets too warm, because we can cool it. If it gets too cool, we can’t warm it. If the Earth gets too cold for us, there is nowhere to get the energy to warm it. It’s just not possible. If it gets too warm, it’s very easy to block enough sunlight to cool it, and several scientists have shown very economical ways that that could be done. I don’t advocate doing that today, but mankind can cool it to any extent it wants by blocking the sun, they can’t warm it at all. So if fluctuations go on, and uh, we had our druthers, we better get it too warm because that we can fix. I’ve read every paper in this field; I’ve studied this for ten years, and I can tell you — there is just nothing there. It’s a political front, unfortunately, that’s just what it is.... _OregonDailyEmerald

Dr. Robinson proposed a rather unusual series of debates to his incumbent opponent, Peter DeFazio. Robinson proposed to meet DeFazio in seven 2 hour debates -- one debate for each county in the district. Each candidate would speak for three minutes, followed by his opponent speaking for three minutes...and so on, for two hours. If anyone was still in the audience at the end of that time, they could ask any question they wished. Not a typical Washington style capaign debate -- particularly in this era when most democratic politicians are wisely hiding from their constituents. Not surprisingly, DeFazio declined such a highly exposed and public debate structure.

National politics in the US is marked by its blatant dishonesty, its under-the-table connections to special interests, a preponderance of Washington insiders who have become too comfortable in positions of privilege and power, and the increasing tendency to put the US in an unsustainable economic posture.

Can intelligent and competent persons such as Robinson save the country from the criminals and opportunists who are feeding on its carcass? Probably not. But perhaps if there were enough of them, they could slow the collapse enough to allow more thoughtful and prescient persons the time to prepare for what is likely to be coming.

Robinson's Access to Energy Monthly newsletter

The Robinson Curriculum

2001 American Spectator profile of Robinson

Oregon Institute of Science and Medicine

Robots Pushing the Limits of Deep Sea Efficacy

Update #1: This article from "Heading Out" brings us more up to date on the "top kill" operation combined with the evolving "junk shot." This NOLA article claims that BP is already moving on to the next operation which involves cutting off the old riser at the BOP, then capping the LMRP (lower marine riser package) and installing a new riser from another drill ship -- to divert the oil and gas to waiting vessels at the surface. Al.com has an AP story on the apparent failure of the top kill operation to this point.

The procedure to cap the LMRP will not be easy, fast, or pretty -- not at those depths using remotely operated machinery. But if they are successful in capping the LMRP and retrieving the hydrocarbon flow, at least the scope of the future cleanup operation will be somewhat limited. BP is also considering taking the blowout preventer from the second relief well and installing it above the faulty BOP sitting on the gushing Macondo bore.

Again, it is an extremely dynamic situation, which may change very quickly.


It is clearly far more difficult to perform simple tasks such as bolting / unbolting, sawing, attaching / detaching, etc. when you are 5,000 feet underwater. One of the ROVs (remotely operated vehicles) spent a half hour cutting into what appears to be an access point in the BOP. At one point the robot dropped the saw and had to go retrieve it. Finally, when the robot pulled back, it appeared that a thin spew of grey fluid was coming out of the point where the saw had been.

The operators who control the ROVs must necessarily have a great deal of training and experience, yet it is clear how cumbersome it is to work through such constraints of even the best and most advanced ROV robotic technology.

When you are tempted to become impatient with the progress of the well-capping effort, remember that these techniques are being worked out for the first time at these depths.

If you think that President Obama can magically call on legions of amazingly efficacious undersea experts -- capable of instantly stopping the oil flow and putting everything to rights -- you should think again. President Obama, and most of those he works closely with, are puffed up poseurs with a lot of education, but no real competence or practical knowledge.

Competence still exists in the military, and in the private sector, but for the most part the public, media, and academic sectors are full of empty talking heads who could not repair a leaking sink faucet, much less a high pressure oil well deep undersea.

Live discussion by a mix of amateurs and experts with article by "Heading Out", an instructor of mines and knowledgeable authority.

A Modern Imperative: Learning to Do More, With Less

In a prolonged recession, it sometimes becomes necessary to learn to do more with less. That's why it is good to know several uses for common, cheap, household items such as vinegar, bleach, rubbing alcohol, baking soda, and vaseline. The few links below were located within a few seconds of easy search. Imagine what a few minutes of intense concentration might yield.

Here are 1001 uses for white distilled vinegar. Some of them might get you out of embarrassing situations, or help you get over an ailment when no doctor can be found.

12 extraordinary uses for bleach. Mostly having to do with sanitation, of course. Here's an extra: 5 drops of liquid bleach in 1/2 gallon water can keep stored water potable long term.

13 ways to use rubbing alcohol. Apparently insects do not like rubbing alcohol.

75 extraordinary uses for baking soda -- not all of them for cooking! It can even help clean your stuck drains!

60 uses for table salt. A mixture of salt and baking soda in your Neti Pot can help tremendously in cold and allergy seasons.

30 uses for Vaseline petroleum jelly. The one about getting bubble gum out of your child's hair was a new one for me.

Becoming an expert in the use of cheap, common household products could make you the hero of the hour -- more than once. I won't tell you that such knowledge will save your life someday, but in some circumstances it might.

They call it being resourceful, or being broadly competent, or just being prepared. The best time to learn these simple things is childhood, of course. But who had parent willing to teach them these things? Not many.

Try being your own parent now.

Previously published at Al Fin Potpourri

The Goal Is Competent Societies

Unconscious Incompetence
The individual neither understands nor knows how to do something, nor recognizes the deficit, nor has a desire to address it.
Conscious Incompetence
Though the individual does not understand or know how to do something, he or she does recognize the deficit, without yet addressing it.
Conscious Competence
The individual understands or knows how to do something. However, demonstrating the skill or knowledge requires a great deal of consciousness or concentration.
Unconscious Competence
The individual has had so much practice with a skill that it becomes "second nature" and can be performed easily (often without concentrating too deeply). He or she may or may not be able teach it to others, depending upon how and when it was learned. _Wiki4Stages

The beginnings of competence are instilled in early childhood. Good parents work hard to instill competence (and thus confidence) in the growing child.

As we foster a sense of competence in the home, we build confident, capable, and independent thinkers. Wyatt will begin to understand the dangers of stairs under my watchful eye. He will be able to make better decisions as he learns with me rather than having to wait and learn these skills in front of his peers or other strangers. It is definitely more work to teach your children to master skills at home but it will promote their self-esteem and make them more emotionally successful and physically capable as they venture out into the big world. _FosteringChild'sCompetence

But good parenting skills are a vanishing commodity in the hurry-up modern world. Most parents tend to let the television or the babysitter or the teacher or the child's peer group or popular culture do the child-raising. This is a mistake.

The early childhood is a rare and irreplaceable opportunity to instill the core competencies of living in the rapidly developing brain. Executive functioning skills, basic social skills, the rudiments of problem solving and self-teaching.

And something very important: The Rite of Passage. Not just one rite of passage -- or rite of competence -- but multiple rites of competent display are needed at different stages of development. Such rites should be hard-wired into any competent approach to child-raising.

In homes where "chores" are done -- such as when growing up on a family farm, a working ranch, or within a family business -- such rites and competencies are simply part of daily life, and passed from one generation to the next.

It is true that some types of competence are genetic and heritable. But it is also important that whatever seeds of competence exist, should be nurtured.

The alternative is societies where important competencies are dying out. As western nations age, their competent craftsmen and engineers and skilled technical teachers are retiring and dying out.

As manufacturing is outsourced to China and South / Southeast Asia, manufacturing skills are likewise lost with no prospects for return.

An aging population in Europe, parts of North America, and Oceania will grow more and more dependent upon technical products and technical skills which are no longer locally made or locally taught.

Competence slips away every year, more and more.

Find the pockets of competence that are stubbornly resistant to obliteration, and try to attach yourself to them. Contribute your own competence and learn from the competence of others.

Society at large is sinking in a quagmire of incompetence -- particularly at top levels of political, academic, and intellectual leadership. A thriving and prosperous civilisation encourages the cultivation and growth of independent competence at all ages and levels. A stagnant civilisation encourages a cradle-to-grave dependency, and a constriction of opportunities to excel, thrive, and profit on one's own merit and efforts.

A society that congeals into a monolithic institution is not a healthy or thriving society. What little sprouts of competence and independence that may show, are quickly stifled and discouraged. Most of the world is like that. America was once different.

Portrait of Competence: Art Robinson

Art Robinson, PhD, lives on a 350 acre farm in Southern Oregon. The Robinson family has long maintained hundreds of sheep and lambs, over a dozen milk cows, dozens of wild turkeys, and miscellaneous dogs. Robinson has raised and homeschooled 6 children on the farm: Zachary has a doctorate in veterinary medicine and Noah has a PhD in chemistry. At present, Arynne is in her third year of work toward a DVM, twins Joshua and Bethany are both in their second year of work toward PhDs in nuclear engineering, and Matthew is in his second and last year of work toward a BS in chemistry. Each of the 6 children was taking college physics and math courses by age 16 -- if not before -- and each typically took only 2 years on-campus to finish undergraduate classwork.

Art Robinson received a BS in Chemistry from Cal Tech -- where he was a student of Linus Pauling -- and a PhD in Chemistry from UCSD, where he taught chemistry for a few years before teaming with Linus Pauling to form the Linus Pauling Institute in Menlo Park. After working with Pauling for several years -- and failing to substantiate Pauling's claims that Vitamin C cures cancer -- Robinson and Pauling had a parting of the ways. Robinson and his wife Lauralee -- also a scientist -- moved to Oregon in 1980 with young sons Zachary and Noah.

Between 1980 and 1988, Robinson and his wife lived happily on the farm -- creating a family of 6 young children, operating the farm and various scientific and other miscellaneous ventures. Then in 1988 within 24 hours of developing flu-like symptoms, Robinson's wife died of hemorrhagic pancreatitis. Their children at that time ranged between ages 12 and 18 months. The older children were being home-schooled by Lauralee, and the youngest was still in diapers.

Art Robinson picked himself up from this sudden tragedy and shouldered the additional responsibilities of single parenthood of 6 young children, most in homeschool. Somehow, Art structured the curriculum and format of the school so that in fact the children were able to teach themselves, for the most part. Then, with the children's help, Art packaged the family's complete homeschool curriculum -- The Robinson Curriculum -- and has been selling thousands of the 22 CD sets a year, at $195 a set.

Sales of the homeschool curriculum plus several other enterprising ventures have put Art's scientific career on a self-sustaining basis.

Suffice it to say that Art Robinson has recovered his financial independence. He no longer needs government grants to pursue the unresolved scientific questions that were put on hold over 20 years ago. In fact, his independence as a scientist is now greater than it would be if he were still at a large research institution. Whether the institution is nominally private, or publicly funded, he points out, most scientific research is held captive by heavy infusions of federal money.

Around the time he heard that the Proceedings of the National Academy would publish the article, Art said: "If we just had a few thousand scientists pursuing their own goals, we'd really be able to get some new research done in this country. As it is, most of them are trapped."

...Art took over Access to Energy in 1993, at the request of its ailing proprietor Petr Beckmann, a professor of electrical engineering at the University of Colorado. Beckmann had printed the newsletter on his own press for 20 years. A defector from Communist Czechoslovakia, he valued the First Amendment highly—and exercised it through a printing press in the basement. Until recently, Noah continued to print the newsletter on the same press, which was hauled from Boulder to Oregon. The letter was always a lively read, and Robinson has preserved that quality. It is something you gladly reach for in the mailbox. A subscription costs $35 for individuals, $150 for tax-subsidized organizations (one or two do pay full freight).

...Art's warrior instincts also came to the fore after his daughter Arynne enrolled at Southern Oregon University. To graduate, she was told, she had to take a course called "colloquium," an exercise "specifically designed to destroy her faith, her innocence, her self-respect, and her happiness in her way of life," Art says. Advance placement had allowed the boys to skip this insult. So why not remove her from the school? As it happened, the science faculty was excellent, the university's proximity was convenient, and his tax dollars were paying for this travesty. "What can a student do if the science, engineering and mathematics courses are held hostage by the 'humanities' departments?"

Art informed the university administration that they faced law suits, adverse publicity, and "an ever increasing telephone, fax, and letter campaign." The first two did not worry them, Art says-they had the lawyers and the media. But the third did. It would have involved many thousands of inquiries, and they would be needing extra telephone lines and secretaries. The president backed down at the last minute. "We won this fight without firing a shot," Art told his friends, "but only because we were prepared to shoot." And they were able to do so only because a large number of his subscribers and home-schooling friends "were available to help.

... _IndependentScientist

Robinson and his son Noah -- also a PhD chemist -- work together studying the molecular clock of aging. They have their own lab on the farm -- complete with a very powerful mass spectrometer, and other instruments. They have published multiple papers together in various journals, including the National Academy of Sciences Proceedings and the Journal of Peptide Research.

Art has also been instrumental in countering the mass hysteria of Catastrophic Anthropogenic Global Warming, circulating a petition against CAGW with tens of thousands of scientists signing. Many more potential movements and enterprises are being worked out and knocked about inside his head -- much to the chagrin of the dieoff leftists of the world.

Most information for this story comes from A Scientist Finds Independence

Other information comes from an update on the Robinson Curriculum home site.

If you take the trouble to read either of the above links, you cannot help but be impressed by the multi-dimensional nature of Art Robinson's life. And still the impact of Robinson and his children (and his late wife) continues to reverberate through their work and through all of those who are influenced by their story, their curriculum, and all of their other numerous ventures and projects.