Categories
Religion

Joseph Smith and Abraham Lincoln

Appropriate for President’s Day, I just listened to an excellent speech by Richard Bushman, author of Rough Stone Rolling, which compares and contrasts the lives of Joseph Smith and Abraham Lincoln.

They were contemporaries though they probably never met. Joseph was just 3 years older than Lincoln, and they both lived in Illinois at the same time for 5 years.

Both were born into poor farming families whose ancestors had arrived in America during the 1600’s. Both were hard working, country boys who achieved little formal schooling.

Lincoln’s had little interest in spiritual matters but went to church often with his parents. Joseph’s parents, on the other hand, did not regularly attend church, but Joseph was deeply concerned with spiritual matters such as achieving forgiveness of sins and his own salvation. As a boy Lincoln would often stand on a “stump” after church, repeating the sermon word for word and mimicking the mannerisms of the preacher. Joseph’s formal religious background was far smaller, but his curiosity and inflection much more.

Both went through a period of maturity and accomplishment from age 22 to 25. Lincoln began to be ambitious and began networking with people. Joseph translated the Book of Mormon, organized the Church, and sent out missionaries.

Lincoln worked his way up from hireling to store owner to lawyer to state politician to senator to President. Lincoln’s accomplishments followed the ideal path of the “American Dream,” rising from poverty to President gradually. Joseph’s curve of accomplishments was “almost vertical”, becoming a prophet essentially overnight, not over a period of time.

Lincoln believed in the impersonal, deterministic, uninvolved God of Calvinism, though that softened as he suffered through the Civil War. Joseph believed in a personable, loving, concerned God, which made it all the harder when he felt alone or abandoned by Him.

Lincoln believed in capitalism, the freedom for every man to determine his own place in life. (This was his main concern with slavery — the lack of personal economic freedom.) Joseph believed in material equality and even tried practicing consecration with his people. But more than economics, Joseph was concerned with the spiritual welfare of his people. Lincoln was concerned with free markets; Joseph was concerned with having a temple in each community.

Joseph Smith died at the young age of 38. If Lincoln had died at 38 he wouldn’t have been remembered for anything. Both died as martyrs to their causes.

Joseph Smith and Abraham Lincoln by Richard Bushman [mp3]

This and other talks from the Sidney B. Sperry symposium at BYU

Categories
Main

PHP needs a while-else statement

I think PHP ought to have a while-else statement. There is, of course, a while statement and an if-else statement, but a while() else statement would be perfect for returning a bunch of rows from a MySQL database:

<?php

$q = mysql_query("SELECT name FROM people WHERE age >= 21");
while ($person = mysql_fetch_assoc($q))
{
    echo "$person[name] is at least 21 years old.";
}
else
{
    echo "No one 21 or older was found in the database!";
}

?>

This hypothetical code queries the database for everyone age 21 or older, looping through all the results. If no results were found, it very conveniently says so. Because there is no while-else statement, the programmer has to nest the the while() loop inside an if() statement. A while-else statement would be much cleaner.

Categories
Main

Generous sharing of knowledge

I’ve always thought if I could be smart enough and creative enough, I could build some innovative thing and earn a fortune. And then I would generously share that fortune with others. But today as I was reading Paul Allen’s blog, I felt a flash of insight that shifts my mindset:

If the goal is to get rich, then individuals will obviously not share [information] with others. But if the goal is information democracy leading to more economic equality, then people will freely share it. (Paul Allen on What Motivates Me To Be Foolish)

I think it has always been in my nature to share what I know, but I’ve never considered that knowledge sharing IS a form of generosity. No need to wait for a pile of money. And best of all, it’s a “fishing lesson” instead of a “fish”. I’m going to be better about sharing anything I know.

Categories
Main

Dave Bateman on 75.1

Today I heard Dave Bateman, founder of DearElder.com and PropertySolutions.com, speak at the Marriott School in their entrepreneurship lecture series. The talk went well and he’s entertaining to listen to. Here are notes from his speech:

  • 75.1 — that’s the life expectancy of the average American. That’s not a lot of time. There’s no better time than now to start your own business.
  • Get out and do it. The longer you wait the less chance you have of succeeding.
  • Obstacles get larger as time goes on.
  • In studies old people say their #1 regret, by far, was not taking more risks
  • There are lots of people that want to start a business, but not many do. Why? It’s “not hard to get a profitable business going.”
  • Popular reasons: No money, too many financial burdens, no ideas, no experience, lack of motivation, my spouse doesn’t want to give up something, no time
  • How do I come up with an idea? Find out what pains people and solve it. Or find a way to bring more pleasure to someone.
  • With DearElder.com, Dave took away the pain of sending an email to a missionary, by getting rid of the hassle of the letter taking so long and of having to use an envelope and stamp.
  • A girl in Orem makes $15K/month selling doormats online.
  • Use BYU professors, play the student card, entrepreneurial scholarships
  • They worried first about getting users, then worried about a revenue model later
  • “Care packages” to missionaries are their revenue model. Last holiday season they sold 2500 care packages with a 90% markup. They send 4200 letters per week (for free.)
  • Strike while the iron is hot — mold yourself while you’re still young
  • Running own business requires two things: passion and hard work

Dave’s lecture slides [pdf]

Categories
Main

Judge others by intentions, yourself by results

Great quote from Guy Kawasaki today:

“Judge others by their intentions and yourself by your results. If you want to be at peace with the world, here’s what you should do. When you judge others, look at what they intended to do. When you judge yourself, look at what you’ve actually accomplished. This attitude is bound to keep you humble. By contrast, if you judge others by their accomplishments (which are usually shortfalls) and yourself by your intentions (which are usually lofty), you will be an angry, despised little man.” (From: Hindsights II)

I’d like to do this more myself.