“From Dictatorship to Democracy.” Open Text Changes Face of Egypt.

There’s some­thing won­der­ful about this .… unless you’re a dic­ta­tor. Today, The New York Times shines a good light on Gene Sharp, a shy Amer­i­can intel­lec­tu­al who has spent decades writ­ing on the art of non-vio­lent rev­o­lu­tion. Back in 2002, Sharp pub­lished “From Dic­ta­tor­ship to Democ­ra­cy: A Con­cep­tu­al Frame­work for Lib­er­a­tion,” a 93-page guide to upend­ing auto­crats. Then, he had the text trans­lat­ed into 24 lan­guages and made freely avail­able online, with all copy­right restric­tions removed.  The man­u­al has since inspired dis­si­dents in Bur­ma, Bosnia and Esto­nia, while giv­ing strate­gic direc­tion to the protests in Egypt and Tunisia. Ideas have pow­er. But good ideas have more pow­er when they’re open. You can down­load Sharp’s man­u­al here (PDF), and learn more about his mis­sion through his non­prof­it, The Albert Ein­stein Insti­tu­tion.

Speak­ing of good ideas that are open, feel free to down­load 35o free online cours­es and teach your­self any­thing and every­thing.

via @philosophybites