PERMANENT Bonds/Shares

[Rhyshaelkan]

Hearkening back to the olden days of exploration. PERMANENT could be seen as a venture. While I understand PERMANENT is not solely about making a profit, we will try to make one. A way to attract more investors could be to sell bonds, say $100US bond will net the holder one share of the profits(after rolling stock, equipment maintenance, administrative salaries, taxes, IOUs are paid :p and I know it will be even more complex than that).

Were we able to find ten million spacer-folk out there who could each contribute $100(different ratios of people/moneys are accepted). There would be our billion dollars, to send out probes, send out the mining facilities, ???, profit. No one would be out horrendous money. And we could usher in the future.

This will allow even the little guys like myself to join in the venture. $100US is not small change to my standard of living. However, I want it to succeed. How shares will be doled out for those that contribute time, resources, I have not a clue. That will have to be hashed out and discussed.

Do we tolerate talk of other groups such as PERMANENT. On this forum? There are several. Some much less serious, some more serious.

Hell even in my days before I found PERMANENT, I had my own megalo-maniacal dreams of a corp/company named Ristar Aerospace Technologies. Somewhat taking the place of "Moonbase Inc." of Ben Bova fame.

Most of this is pointed at Mark to pick his mind. But others can chime in as well.

[Bluesteel]

Hearkening back to the olden days of exploration. PERMANENT could be seen as a venture. While I understand PERMANENT is not solely about making a profit, we will try to make one. A way to attract more investors could be to sell bonds, say $100US bond will net the holder one share of the profits(after rolling stock, equipment maintenance, administrative salaries, taxes, IOUs are paid :p and I know it will be even more complex than that).

Were we able to find ten million spacer-folk out there who could each contribute $100(different ratios of people/moneys are accepted). There would be our billion dollars, to send out probes, send out the mining facilities, ???, profit. No one would be out horrendous money. And we could usher in the future.

This will allow even the little guys like myself to join in the venture. $100US is not small change to my standard of living. However, I want it to succeed. How shares will be doled out for those that contribute time, resources, I have not a clue. That will have to be hashed out and discussed.

Do we tolerate talk of other groups such as PERMANENT. On this forum? There are several. Some much less serious, some more serious.

Hell even in my days before I found PERMANENT, I had my own megalo-maniacal dreams of a corp/company named Ristar Aerospace Technologies. Somewhat taking the place of "Moonbase Inc." of Ben Bova fame.

Most of this is pointed at Mark to pick his mind. But others can chime in as well.
I'd been thinking along similar lines about how to fund large scale projects with longer than normal time for return on investment (most want to see it in 3-5 years) and especially projects with mass appeal. The modern equivalent of Bond in the Internet age would be something organised along the likes of KIVA, where a vast number of people could invest very small amounts, typically $25 at a time and would receive a certificate and the possibility of payback in the very long term.

I've never been very keen on chasing high net worth individuals for funding as, if they have an interest and understanding of the project, the likelihood
is that they would be running something like it themselves anyway. If they don't have sufficient knowledge of the subject area that's even worse, as they will put one of their associates who they think has such knowledge in a position of control, and that's often a recipe for disaster.

Those making large number of small loans (effectively donations with a long-shot chance) wouldn't be expecting to have any serious control on the direction of the project, but they can still feel involved through the feeling of part ownership.

But I'm sure an International non-Charity KIVA type system would be a legal minefield to set up, or we would already be being bombarded by them by now...

Julian

[Rhyshaelkan]

I've never been very keen on chasing high net worth individuals for funding as, if they have an interest and understanding of the project, the likelihood
is that they would be running something like it themselves anyway. If they don't have sufficient knowledge of the subject area that's even worse, as they will put one of their associates who they think has such knowledge in a position of control, and that's often a recipe for disaster.

Julian

This deals alot with what Mark had to say in the Investors Investees (http://www.forumlog.com/nanobiotechnologyspace/showpost.php?p=128&postcount=2) thread. People that know how to manage should be in charge(managers). So that the ones that know how to make it work(engineers(of various sorts), machinists, physicists, chemists, fabricators, can to their things without snags and issues. Investors, unless they fell into the manager or 'know-how' group, should not have much of a say. And just wait for the dividends.

Suggestions should be made by all, naturally. I for one would say to put said collection of funds in as high of interest bearing, and as safe, account as possible.

Personally, I do not belong in the management or in the know-how group. Blue collar for life. However, I am passionate about space. So I would like to contribute as I can.

[Bluesteel]

This deals alot with what Mark had to say in the Investors Investees (http://www.forumlog.com/nanobiotechnologyspace/showpost.php?p=128&postcount=2) thread. People that know how to manage should be in charge(managers). So that the ones that know how to make it work(engineers(of various sorts), machinists, physicists, chemists, fabricators, can to their things without snags and issues. Investors, unless they fell into the manager or 'know-how' group, should not have much of a say. And just wait for the dividends.
In a perfect (from our perspective) world yes. But unfortunately the 'invest and leave brigade' are mostly institutional investors who want to see an ROI in the 3-5 year period. High net worth individual investors, in my experience, are just not the 'invest and leave it' type - which is usually why they are high net worth in the first place! However I think a large number of very small investors could be persuaded into 'invest and leave' if the idea was right.

Suggestions should be made by all naturally. I for one would say to put said collection of funds in as high of interest bearing, and as safe, account as possible.
That rather proves my point, it PERMANENT wants to invest with very safe, high interest (if there are such investments these days...), then so do potential investors in such projects.

Personally I do not belong in the management or in the know-how group. Blue collar for life. However I am passionate about space. So I would like to contribute as I can.
Good! I think passion comes first, as it's relatively easy to gain the management and technical skills if you have passion and perseverance and the ability to listen to the advice of others more experienced - but not necessarily take it all on-board, as you need to build your own perspectives.

Julian

[Rhyshaelkan]

That rather proves my point, it PERMANENT wants to invest with very safe, high interest (if there are such investments these days...), then so do potential investors in such projects.

Julian

I did not say it well. While PERMANENT's management would hold the funds generated from such a sale of stock or bonds, waiting to be disbursed for projects. That money could be in side investments with as high of interest as possible, while as safe as possible, guaranteed return. It would not do to amass such funding and lose it on high risk investments.

If we could get guaranteed 4-5% per year on one-billion dollars? Five million dollars in interest alone. That could be another probe mission. Even before we ever touched the principle for the real missions we wanted.


In a perfect (from our perspective) world yes. But unfortunately the 'invest and leave brigade' are mostly institutional investors who want to see an ROI in the 3-5 year period. High net worth individual investors, in my experience, are just not the 'invest and leave it' type - which is usually why they are high net worth in the first place! However I think a large number of very small investors could be persuaded into 'invest and leave' if the idea was right.

It would be in the charter for PERMANENT. If they did not like it, they do not have to invest in PERMANENT.
First rule of investing, never risk more than you are willing to lose. If some mega-investor NEEDS PERMANENT to turn a profit by 20XX. Then they are poor quality investors.
Best way to ruin a good idea is if it is pulled apart trying to cover more than the original idea. Make your plan, and stick to it. Edit: That does not mean we would blindly follow the plan. "No strategy survives engagement with the enemy". PERMANENT would have to be flexible as well. However that would not mean pandering to everyone's personal whim.
But that would be in the interview process for a mega-investor. What do they want? What will PERMANENT do? What won't PERMANENT do.

[Sam Fraser]

I like the direction this thread is taking. Just one minor correction: you would "only" need $100m to generate $5m a year in interest at 5%, not one billion. Of course, you might be amazed what we could accomplish with a lot less in this day of offshore outsourcing.

[Rhyshaelkan]

I R Maths!!! LOL my mistake. But that means it would only be better.

If you could get 5% or more from "guaranteed" investments on one billion dollars? $50M(we need an tax adviser to lower our paid tax as much as possible)-taxes. Even if we paid 20% in taxes that would still net PERMANENT $40M a year without ever touching the principle.

That could be four probe missions to scout out potential targets(8M to launch and 2M for the probe).

Advertising to round up ten-million $100 investors from around the world might not be so difficult if we use the internet.

I used to run something similar at my old welding shop doing a lotto pool. Shared investments. Risk little, possibly gain big.

We need someone to make this forum look similar to the PERMANENT homepage. And since we already have a homepage tack on another page talking about this venture. Separate from the donations page.

Put your contact details here(viewable only to PERMANENT administration) if you think you could afford to invest $100US in an out of this world venture. I did not say that right. On the PERMANENT venture page would be a place to add your name and contact details. Not in this forum.

Send out weekly emails showing the tally. Tell a friend!

Sure no one would drop $100 on the sidewalk for someone else to pick up. But by showing a realistic plan backed by science and other companies like SpaceX. Who knows. A true international effort. Surely we could find ten-million spacers from Europe, Asia, and the Americas willing to part with a little cash.

[Boxy]

I know I don't have a whole lot of money right now, but even something as little as $100 could be spared.

Heck, didn't Obama get a healthy chunk of campaign funds from small-time donors who didn't give any more than $250?

[Sam Fraser]

Yes, it was something like $100m. I think PERMANENT offers real hope and change.

[Bluesteel]

One other good thing mass participation shares based fund raising may bring is a large constituency, which would be very useful for lobbying and pressure grouping those organisations who would be key in the legal and economic framework of NEO exploitation.

But I think it has to be sold beyond 'just' an invest now for long term profits scheme, as NEO exploitation is effectively a disruptive technology with potential to destabilise existing markets and create entirely new ones. So selling it as having 'a piece of the action' may make it a no-brainer investment for those willing to invest a few hundred dollars at a time for the moderately well off.

In many ways a parallel could be that of the later ancient Rome where there were increasingly stretched funds to pay citizen soldiers a pension after service, so they were offered land in the Empire after their service and Roman citizenship if they didn't already have it.

So a stake in an Asteroid or two and the 'right of Asteroid belt citizenship' for shareholders or their descendants could be quite interesting. Many exploration and colonisation operations proceeded along similar lines from the 16thC onward.

Quite how such off-planet citizenship and economy operation would be enforced I'm unsure at the moment, but I suspect those first in the market would be well positioned to force the pace.

Anyway, I just wanted to keep this interesting thread going :)

Julian

[Rhyshaelkan]

I just want to see it happen. Whether it is a $50000 project or $50000000000000 project. Whether it is PERMANENT or someone else. Drag humanity, kicking and screaming if need be, into the future.

[Bluesteel]

I just want to see it happen. Whether it is a $50000 project or $50000000000000 project. Whether it is PERMANENT or someone else. Drag humanity, kicking and screaming if need be, into the future.
Well I think once the first mining probe has acquired something - almost irrelevant what it is - and returned it to Earth for sale, ie. proved the technology. I don't think any dragging will be needed. If only Hayabusa had worked properly, that time would be even closer now.

One of the other organisations I'm involved with that has been (and still is) successful in raising large amounts of money for a very ambitious cause - radical life extension, has some interesting methods that could be copied. It's a good way to raising $7.5 million through it's 300 Club and has a matching donation scheme for up to $3m in place from Peter Thiel, co-founder of PayPal and Facebook investor.

Something along these lines might be useful for PERMANENT

See:

http://methuselahfoundation.org/index.php?pagename=mj_donations_funding

and

http://methuselahfoundation.org/index.php?pagename=mj_donations_the300

and

http://methuselahfoundation.org/index.php?pagename=donors

List of current donators big and small to show what a mass movement can achieve, especially with a personality like Aubrey de Grey at the helm :)

Julian

[Mark Prado]

a matching donation scheme for up to $3m in place from Peter Thiel, co-founder of PayPal and Facebook investor.

http://methuselahfoundation.org/index.php?pagename=donors


This is very encouraging!

The Methuselah Foundation has done much better than most at getting many small donations. I wonder how they are doing it. I doubt it's by just hanging out an internet website, but I'd love to be wrong about that! So, how much do they spend on marketing and fund raising? What is their process? This would be an interesting case study.

Their cause can give selfish benefits to everyone -- discovering ways to improve one's own health and extend life. That will definitely get the serious focus of many people. Whatever they discover will be of benefit to themselves.

It almost has a similar appeal as religion: immortality. (If you have a religion that says when you're dead, it's over, how popular do you think that would be?) However, some of the comments by donors is that their donation is not for themselves but for their children.

We've had the same message about doing something for your children and the next generation, maybe we just need better ways to get it out, via better public relations and a speaker's circuit.

We certainly have an important message -- saving our species from self-destruction; saving the Earth's unique environment from the irreversible damage to millions of years of evolution, destruction in just a few generations, our generations, in all geologic time; a better future in a new frontier; and space benefits for Earth.

It is difficult to get that message out when we are all volunteers who must spend half our waking hours and energy on our normal jobs, and we have nobody focused on our project fulltime. Nobody.

We can get some mileage out of volunteers, but that is slow and the world may continue to pass us by. Unless we get lucky, or find some solution to the support issue.

To date, PERMANENT has been funded mostly by Mark and Sam using our business profits.

For a long time, I've thought that cryonics (freezing your body at death so it can be rejuvenated by future technology) -- the prospect of personal immortality -- could be a good business with good profits to fund something like PERMANENT. It has that selfish and religious personal appeal. In some Asian countries like Thailand, it could be done much more economically than in the West, and the Buddhist live-and-let-live easygoing culture and legal system (especially compared to the litigous American system and the regulations in Europe) plus the quality medical care at low costs makes it a good place to base operations.

Right now, my most profitable business is luxury real estate and I'm expanding it for scalability and the long term, working more on the business process than on the customers themselves, though we do get some good customers and that's what keeps things going. (It's almost all working expats relocating, and the bottom fell out of that market last year with the recession, though recessions are often the best time to regear. Indeed, the PERMANENT book was written when I finally had spare time after the 1997 Asia Economic Crash.) This is what funds PERMANENT -- this forum software, this server, and everything else.

From what I've seen of the world, which is a lot, the problem is not that PERMANENT is expensive. I see people with huge sums of money. Some of them blow awesome amounts of it. Investors stay in luxury suites and spend over $1000 per day. Guys keep beautiful concubines whose prices are a few thousand dollars per month. Luxury goods. So many of our landlords own a large number of luxury properties. A customer two days ago, an American designer in entertainment engineering, came from Vegas and was talking about people dropping down thousands of dollars per roll of the dice in addition to other lavish spending.

However, most of these people are much slower and much more miserly about giving money away to a good cause unless they can personally relate to it.

We need a way to reach out to the entire world, not just the local yokels, to find those people who WILL donate to such a cause as ours. Address a big audience, not one by one.

The world is awash with money. PERMANENT is not expensive. It's relatively cheap compared to a vast number of other projects in the world. It's about what people choose to invest in, or spend on.

Well, speaking of time, my company car is here with driver and my manager (I'm the boss/owner but my manager manages me), so off to another 10 hours on nonhumanistic things.

By the way, I work in luxury property, but I live happily in a little suburban Thai townhouse which my wife bought and paid off before I met her. What I value is my time, and it doesn't matter where I am. Which seems to be unusual in this world.

So off to my notebook PC in the back of the car, albeit without internet...

[Rhyshaelkan]

Personally I liked Sam's idea of hitting up the gaming and sci-fi conventions. Not taking any money on site. But adding their name to a list of thousands. Who will, when the time is right. Toss away $100 towards a bright future. Which, with any luck those funds will be returned to them when the sales of asteroidal goods comes.

We get our name out there. There is a website where they can see their name amongst the cast of thousands. Fanatics have wasted good money on much much less.

If we follow klaks wise suggestions and lower the entire costs of the program by whole orders of magnitude. Then so much the better. We can get there faster. Most of you are older than I, however I feel the press of time already. I want to see this shit happen before I am too old to enjoy it.

If and when I get my life sorted out. I would be happy to run to the various conventions across the US. I profit personally in many ways. I get to see more of the US. Which I regret I have not seen much of. I get to see more like minded individuals, sci-fi fanatics, pen and paper RPG gamers. Perhaps I could find a woman with a similar outlook on life. ;)

[Mark Prado]

Regarding PERMANENT credibility, there are some cultural and psychological barriers.

Most people have one or more of the following issues:

* They see the concept of PERMANENT as unreachable in their lifetime (wrong!), some science fiction fantasy for now(..), and doesn't relate to their values or interests.

* Most people don't really care about the environment or the world. You can see that by their actions, regardless of what they say. The vast majority of people will say they care about the environment, but how many will bother to even try to recycle, or make adjustments in their consumer consume-and-trash lifestyle? Sorry if this sounds cynical, but this is my experience. Only with immediate social pressure and the fear of rejection will many say, much less do, something.

* Only governments with their big money resources can do this, such as NASA, maybe the Russians, hardly the Chinese.

* The work of famous billionaires like Branson and Bigelow are just their personal playgrounds and ego massages. (I know Bigelow is truly in it to help life in his generation, not for his ego, but people will see themselves in other people... About Branson, I don't really know, but he is so flamboyant and high profile that he's well known for Virgin everything... now virgin Galactic!)

* It's an American thing (many see me as "an American"), and they're not American, so PERMANENT is not their group. (Wrong, but still an in-person impression.)

* Biggie: It doesn't connect with their personal interests. Try finding a way that all this may relate to their personal interests. Often, the only appeal of PERMANENT is for their childrens future.

* You fill in the blank for things I've missed: _________________________

We can address all of the above issues effectively.

Most people really haven't given much thought about what they want to do with their lives, or their potential purpose in life in this generation. Their interests revolve around their children, family and friends, some little personal business/busyness projects and distractions, their usual routines, and trendy recommendations. (Note that some fraction of donors use the future of their own children as their rationale, not humanity as a whole.)

Sure, there are high profile efforts to slow down global warming, save fish species in the ocean from illegal mass stripmining (only nonprofits, not the police or military, enforce that), and so on. Very high profile. But very high profile does not mean well funded, or funded enough.

The vast majority of people are still very selfish and selfcentered, and that is one of the first issues we must address.

I think we would get more money passing around a basket church-style whereby there is social pressure all around to put some cash in. But people are not buying their way to personal Heaven with us...

We cannot and should not try to appeal to everybody. And surely not Joe Sixpack.

We must target the maybe 1% of people who really care, could relate, and who have the ability to donate or otherwise support us.

(There may be some reaction to my "maybe 1%" part above, and I hope I am wrong about that, but at some point we will do the analysis and gain some empirical experience along these lines... I'm not saying only 1% enthusiastic, as it will be much higher than that, I'm saying maybe 1% who would make a net contribution of some sort, not be time wasters...)

It's best when we address different people according to how each of the above weighs to themselves, and their own particular values, interests, outlook and past experiences. While we must promote the institutions values and interests with everybody, we must also understand different kinds of people, who are very different from ourselves, and adapt our approach accordingly.

Before I step out and ask for donations on a large scale, I want to have prepared a fairly detailed plan about what we would do with their money. There are some itemized little requests on the old Donations page of yesteryears, but that's a small fraction of what we'd actually do, and it would be better to come up with an overall plan. (However, we should not get bogged down in the details of this plan too much which delays us. We need an appropriate plan for the next step. And also an administration to make sure we are constantly developing our plan and implementing it, though that will also require financial support to do in a timely way.)

Then address specific groups whose profiles make them more likely donors. (I don't consider most of my customers to fit this global consciousness profile, and know it's much better to seek out these groups.)

Also, seek out experienced volunteers. I believe there are many retired people who would be excellent teammates.

About Methuselah, I didn't see many details about what they are actually doing, except building up a bank account to offer prizes. (To who?) They have a Tips 4 Life that's just a user-supplied content system.

Their donations page shows a whole lot of people who have donated, and asks you to "join", which gives you a feeling of "look at all those other people who have contributed, so that's the trend, I should, too" or something like that, appealing to the pack mentality. So I guess we should ask for permission from our donors, too, to name them on our website, for the same effect. I'm happy to acknowledge people who supported us at this early time (in addition to within this forum) as long as they are OK with their name being listed on our website and the amount of money they gave.

The photos of some of the donors are exceptionally well done graphically.

I guess it helps when a founder is Vice President-Creative Director at the Walt Disney Company. So Methuselah got going with an angel investor.

And guess why it started? His personal crisis. He was diagnosed with cancer.

Well, that's my outlook at any time. Please feel free to correct me, critique me, or extend this outlook!

Notably, I've added a response to the thread on "Fan films" and making a space video, that I think we should make a DVD similar to a Discovery Channel program introducing PERMANENT, its purpose, why we need it as soon as possible, all its benefits to Earth and many groups, and so on ... ending in a closing decision point presented to the viewer.

This is just my viewpoint on the fly, typed in the car as we buzzed down the expressway and I avoided distractions, not something carefully composed. (A few edits at the office, too.)

As usual, corrections, critiques, comments, and/or further development along these lines would be appreciated.

[Bluesteel]

Personally I liked Sam's idea of hitting up the gaming and sci-fi conventions. Not taking any money on site. But adding their name to a list of thousands. Who will, when the time is right. Toss away $100 towards a bright future. Which, with any luck those funds will be returned to them when the sales of asteroidal goods comes.

We get our name out there. There is a website where they can see their name amongst the cast of thousands. Fanatics have wasted good money on much much less.

If we follow klaks wise suggestions and lower the entire costs of the program by whole orders of magnitude. Then so much the better. We can get there faster. Most of you are older than I, however I feel the press of time already. I want to see this shit happen before I am too old to enjoy it.

If and when I get my life sorted out. I would be happy to run to the various conventions across the US. I profit personally in many ways. I get to see more of the US. Which I regret I have not seen much of. I get to see more like minded individuals, sci-fi fanatics, pen and paper RPG gamers. Perhaps I could find a woman with a similar outlook on life. ;)
This idea has some merit I think, in fact as a Director of the UK Transhumanist Association I've been involved in a similar outreach project at a major UK Sci-Fi Convention. We had some take up, but most are primarily interested in either gaming, buying or swapping rare collectables or autograph hunting. It was disappointing how few had actually thought past the 'Fi' part of the Sci. So I think it would have to be a very eye-catching presence with an emphasis on outreach by subtle education.

Not that (as a long time RPGer) I'm against the gaming aspect as, until the year 2000 I was the Operations Manager for Wizards of the Coast, a well known games company responsible for Magic: The Gathering and Pokemon TCGs as well as RPGs when we bought out TSR in 1997.

One person it might be worth contacting would be Steve Jackson of Steve Jackson Games (GURPS etc.) as he's quite keen on near term space exploration and Transhumanist technologies and has produced the near term Sci-Fi GURPS environment Transhuman Space, as well as Terradyne, which is all about the commercialisation
of the solar system.

Julian

[Bluesteel]

This is very encouraging!

The Methuselah Foundation has done much better than most at getting many small donations. I wonder how they are doing it. I doubt it's by just hanging out an internet website, but I'd love to be wrong about that! So, how much do they spend on marketing and fund raising? What is their process? This would be an interesting case study.

It's largely through the dogged persistence (as you have also noted elsewhere) of both Aubrey de Grey and David Gobel. In my experience it's been the charismatic presence of Aubrey and his ability to use the media well that's contributed largely to their ongoing success. His enthusiasm is infectious and I've often found myself roped into organising events and meetings for him with no recollection that I'd ever agreed to it!

Also the feeling of involvement on the donations area of the website is good too, anyone can donate anonymously, or put up a little story of who they are any why they are donating.

Their cause can give selfish benefits to everyone -- discovering ways to improve one's own health and extend life. That will definitely get the serious focus of many people. Whatever they discover will be of benefit to themselves.

It almost has a similar appeal as religion: immortality. (If you have a religion that says when you're dead, it's over, how popular do you think that would be?) However, some of the comments by donors is that their donation is not for themselves but for their children.
Yes, it goes far back in time to the epic of Gilgamesh and beyond. But many donors are realistic on the time scales and realise it may not happen in time for themselves but the next generation may benefit - unless of course you are willing to take the punt at Cryonics (as Aubrey has) as a 'stop-gap' measure.

We've had the same message about doing something for your children and the next generation, maybe we just need better ways to get it out, via better public relations and a speaker's circuit.

We certainly have an important message -- saving our species from self-destruction; saving the Earth's unique environment from the irreversible damage to millions of years of evolution, destruction in just a few generations, our generations, in all geologic time; a better future in a new frontier; and space benefits for Earth.

It is difficult to get that message out when we are all volunteers who must spend half our waking hours and energy on our normal jobs, and we have nobody focused on our project fulltime. Nobody.
I know that problem all too well. Even when I deliberately downsized my job to find more time to run Transhumanist activities and undertake a Space Sciences Degree, I rapidly found that the day job took over again. Roll on early retirement is all I can say...

We can get some mileage out of volunteers, but that is slow and the world may continue to pass us by. Unless we get lucky, or find some solution to the support issue.
It's probably got to be one of the first uses of donations to fund a full time fund raiser/marketing person, that's the route SENS/Methuselah Mouse and a few other organisations I know took.


To date, PERMANENT has been funded mostly by Mark and Sam using our business profits.
Once I've investigated an organisation to my satisfaction I'm quite happy to add funds, as I have a % of my income effectively ring-fenced for supporting such efforts.

For a long time, I've thought that cryonics (freezing your body at death so it can be rejuvenated by future technology) -- the prospect of personal immortality -- could be a good business with good profits to fund something like PERMANENT. It has that selfish and religious personal appeal. In some Asian countries like Thailand, it could be done much more economically than in the West, and the Buddhist live-and-let-live easygoing culture and legal system (especially compared to the litigous American system and the regulations in Europe) plus the quality medical care at low costs makes it a good place to base operations.
Legal issues in the Western world are certainly one of the issues as far as Cryonics are concerned, the technology is in advance of the legal and psychological environment at the moment and is holding back any more aggressive business models from Alcor or the Cryonics Institute - but it's getting easier.

Right now, my most profitable business is luxury real estate and I'm expanding it for scalability and the long term, working more on the business process than on the customers themselves, though we do get some good customers and that's what keeps things going. (It's almost all working expats relocating, and the bottom fell out of that market last year with the recession, though recessions are often the best time to regear. Indeed, the PERMANENT book was written when I finally had spare time after the 1997 Asia Economic Crash.) This is what funds PERMANENT -- this forum software, this server, and everything else.

From what I've seen of the world, which is a lot, the problem is not that PERMANENT is expensive. I see people with huge sums of money. Some of them blow awesome amounts of it. Investors stay in luxury suites and spend over $1000 per day. Guys keep beautiful concubines whose prices are a few thousand dollars per month. Luxury goods. So many of our landlords own a large number of luxury properties. A customer two days ago, an American designer in entertainment engineering, came from Vegas and was talking about people dropping down thousands of dollars per roll of the dice in addition to other lavish spending.
Quite right, in relative terms it's astonishingly inexpensive, but it's the smaller (again in relative terms) amounts of finance that are often the hardest to find.

However, most of these people are much slower and much more miserly about giving money away to a good cause unless they can personally relate to it.
That's my experience too, unless it's a 'pet project', in which case they can be generous, but often also rather erratic.

We need a way to reach out to the entire world, not just the local yokels, to find those people who WILL donate to such a cause as ours. Address a big audience, not one by one.

The world is awash with money. PERMANENT is not expensive. It's relatively cheap compared to a vast number of other projects in the world. It's about what people choose to invest in, or spend on.
It's all about persuasion and, as you have mentioned before, dogged persistence. It does work, I've seen it most recently with SENS/Methuselah Mouse. But it needs a few key individuals to free up more of their time to go on the offensive.


Well, speaking of time, my company car is here with driver and my manager (I'm the boss/owner but my manager manages me), so off to another 10 hours on nonhumanistic things.

By the way, I work in luxury property, but I live happily in a little suburban Thai townhouse which my wife bought and paid off before I met her. What I value is my time, and it doesn't matter where I am. Which seems to be unusual in this world.

So off to my notebook PC in the back of the car, albeit without internet...
I'm pretty much the same when I came to realise about a decade ago that the most precious commodity in this world isn't metals, diamonds, oil, or even water, but time. If you can sell people time, you have it made - which is a little of what Cryonics is all about if you think about it...

Julian

[joertexas]

Personally I liked Sam's idea of hitting up the gaming and sci-fi conventions. Not taking any money on site. But adding their name to a list of thousands. Who will, when the time is right. Toss away $100 towards a bright future. Which, with any luck those funds will be returned to them when the sales of asteroidal goods comes.

We get our name out there. There is a website where they can see their name amongst the cast of thousands. Fanatics have wasted good money on much much less.

If we follow klaks wise suggestions and lower the entire costs of the program by whole orders of magnitude. Then so much the better. We can get there faster. Most of you are older than I, however I feel the press of time already. I want to see this shit happen before I am too old to enjoy it.

If and when I get my life sorted out. I would be happy to run to the various conventions across the US. I profit personally in many ways. I get to see more of the US. Which I regret I have not seen much of. I get to see more like minded individuals, sci-fi fanatics, pen and paper RPG gamers. Perhaps I could find a woman with a similar outlook on life. ;)

I've been working on a $145M retail entertainment destination project for about ten years now. If I can get about $500K or so, I have a broker who can get the rest. Once I get that going, I'll be in a much better position to do other things ;)

Of course, I'll do what I can in the meantime...

JR

[Bluesteel]

Does any one know how the new 501(c)(3) nonprofit corporation status of PERMANENT restricts it in fund-raising methodologies? I would have thought it puts share issuing out of the question, but I'm not sure how the US nonprofit statuses compare to those of the UK, of which I'm more familiar.

What are the advantages of PERMANENT having such a status vs. the ability to raise funds in a fully commercial way?

Julian

[Mark Prado]

I will try to get a suitable response about what we can and cannot do as a registered nonprofit in the USA.

However, regarding a fully commercial venture, my general policy is to consider letting companies and organizations use the PERMANENT name and especially our materials and resources for their own fund raising on a case by case basis, which I must approve. Nonexclusively.

We must protect the name against being used abusively ... but generally, we should help genuine Projects as noted in our acronym which are embarked upon with the best of intentions, complete competency, and commitment to doing whatever is needed to get an economically sustainable industrial presence in space and our species off the planet.

This will happen much more quickly and better if we could just get to the point where we could spend more time and effort developing our organization's capabilities to help others, and our promotion of the PERMANENT concepts. That's my focus at the moment. PERMANENT is currently paid for from the small business of myself and Sam Fraser, whereby we must spend most of our time and effort on that small business, then donate ourselves, but then we don't have the time...

So, in the absence of a philanthropic donor or investor, at this point, we are at a situation of "what comes first, the chicken or the egg?"

[Mark Prado]

I should add that we may need to come up with our own Project initiative, in the absence of others doing something important. For example, an asteroid probe. Or it could be something else. The previous message implies that we will just promote others' Projects. I would also consider our own project. It's just that at this time, we don't have anything seriously put together yet, so we don't have many options except helping others.

Generally, I'm not into reinventing the wheel. As a scientist, when I have an idea, the first thing I do is research the literature to find out what others have already done. On the other hand, for a long time I have seen many people who try to develop an idea without putting much effort into researching what others have done, which is a big risk for wasted resources.

In any such project, we must start to put together goals and means, and recruit highly competent team members. Those two go together -- making plans and recruiting good people.

Realistically, we would probably put together a group of entities in some kind of consortium.

One of PERMANENT's longterm roles in this consortium could be spearheading public relations.

The success or failure of a project will not be based on technical matters. It will be based on raising financial support. Of course, poor technical work will kill a project, and exceptionally good technical work can be the key to success, but we will never get a chance if we don't know how to raise a base of financial support.

The world is awash in money. However, how many of the 1000 richest individuals have even heard of PERMANENT? Maybe zero.

What percentage of those 1000 richest people are unselfish and want to contribute to evolutionary progress in their generation, or want to stand out in history among their peers as having saved our species from self-destruction? I don't know. Who knows, maybe a much larger percentage would choose to invest in biotechnology or nanotechnology instead ... or yacht races or resorts or properties or football clubs whatever else ... Of course, there are a lot of good investments out there, but there is an astounding volume of money in the world lavishly spent on conspicuous consumption while we receive practically no donations and some of those I've known with asteroid probes and the like have received very little.

The space development community has done poorly in fund raising. Raising a large amount of money is possible. It would be egotistically cynical and selfdestructive to say otherwise. It's possible, but we must do better, find a way.

Of course, it costs money for outreach to raise money, and the biggest problem we've had is that we've had far too little money for that. The lion's share has been from myself and Sam. Only a few people have donated over $100, one other person donated over $1000 (that was around $1700 = 1000 British pounds at the time). Full stop. With the donations, we mailed out PERMANENT books with nice cover letters to the best addresses we could find for wealthy people. We never got any responses from them. (I got a belated response from Arthur C. Clarke, and a few very brief responses from essentially the secretarial staff of others, but I don't know if the books ever got in front of the intended recipients.)

At this point, I would be happy to try again, packaging PERMANENT with useful Projects of others.

We are nowhere near being ready for our own project by ourselves.

If my business gave me a big repeat customer whereby I could devote more time to PERMANENT, then I would spend that time re-establishing contacts, updating my library of the best research reports by the best people, and coming up with the best projects and plans by the best groups.

Believe me, many others are floundering doing other things for money instead of their PERMANENT-related projects. For example, SpaceDev's NEAP (Near Earth Asteroid Prospector) had been on the shelf for about 10 years while they have flown other high quality hardware commercially. Profitable, but not profitable enough, and still no philanthropic investors.

Bigelow is the leader right now with their inflatable habitats (which could be moved anywhere with enough radiation shielding), but space resources is a big field that could easily hold a lot of Bigelow type initiatives.

Someday, there will be a space race, and our knowledge and skills will be in demand. But right now, it's still poor business and poor public relations.

[Phenix]

Mark,

Those world's of richest selfish would rush to invest if their life would be in danger in an event of a global disaster would occur in the future such the 2012 year apocalypse or what Nostrdamus has predicted. That's so disappointing.

It can be pure speculation as it can be a communication strategy to get known.

It is always the same debate being : knowledge against the unknown -> fear. All is about power balance.

I would only hope, as I am optimistic individual, that volunteers rich or not would come up and combined the efforts to draw a path for good communication and not speculation and ACCOMPLISH by any means of investment, time and money the NEW step for humanity.

For sure if an huge object comes out to hit Earth in near future, because of lack concensus and money, many will die with the honor by fighting the selfish side and vanity of human beings and they can be proud of that !

You are absolutely right about bringing up to the world an awesome leader individual, but we are not looking for a messy at all. It is not a ferry tale.

[Rhyshaelkan]

It is sad that the extinction of humanity is not an compelling enough reason for the rich to get off their duffers.

However more bewildering is the fact that the rich do not see the opportunity to exploit a whole new frontier. Just like the industrial barons of the late 19th and early 20th century.

[Sam Fraser]

Greenpeace's budget is reportedly $200 million a year. That's raised mostly from guilt-tripping people and foundations into donating. Difference is it's not just the whales we want to save. Maybe PERMANENT'S first "Project Initiative" should be to develop the Guilt Initializing and Magnifying Matrix Engine or GIMME. :p

[joertexas]

Greenpeace's budget is reportedly $200 million a year. That's raised mostly from guilt-tripping people and foundations into donating. Difference is it's not just the whales we want to save. Maybe PERMANENT'S first "Project Initiative" should be to develop the Guilt Initializing and Magnifying Matrix Engine or GIMME. :p

Maybe we should point out that moving off planet would go a long way toward saving whales and other critters from us nasty people. But, then we would have to endure the "let's not spoil the other planets" crowd..

JR

[Sam Fraser]

It'd be ironic if we were able to convince enough of the public we were the ultimate environmentalists. Most "terracentric" ™ green groups aren't in fact very forward-thinking at all, despite what they might think of themselves. It's similar to what Mark wrote in one chapter about politicians too busy "engaging in reactionary moves following existing interest groups, rather than higher leadership". So many eco groups just emote and react about immediate environmental threats (real or imagined). Many just want to freeze-frame man's technological progress or turn back the clock. That's not realistic or rational. We're saying "Sure, saving cute fuzzy baby Arctic seals now feels nice. It's not exactly smart though if they just end up being eaten by a rogue nano-swarm in 2027."

Greenies hate it if you both appear smarter than them and steal the moral high ground. :rolleyes:

[Sam Fraser]

Actually, on reflection, my comments above are a bit over the top and amount to stereotyping, like someone calling us Trekkies or space cadets. We have a lot to learn from green groups in terms of outreach and fundraising. I think many of these groups will become allies or at least sympathetic to our initiatives once we calmly explain the benefits. (A few won't, but you can't please or convince everyone.) The last thing we want to do is come across as overbearing condescending know-it-alls, like I may have above.

[Rhyshaelkan]

Would not be the first time I was called "space cadet". I will **** them with a rake when I am Emperor of Luna!!!

Edit: not the nice smooth wooden end either!!

[joertexas]

Would not be the first time I was called "space cadet". I will **** them with a rake when I am Emperor of Luna!!!

Edit: not the nice smooth wooden end either!!

I prefer to simply move off planet and leave the greenies to their tree hugging.

JR

[Sam Fraser]

JR: Greenpeace. $200 million. A year. They're obviously hugging money trees. Let's learn how ourselves before we leave them behind. ;)

[joertexas]

JR: Greenpeace. $200 million. A year. They're obviously hugging money trees. Let's learn how ourselves before we leave them behind. ;)

There are people in this world who can sell ice to Eskimoes. We need to find one or two of them to work with us.

I'm working on pulling the details together by talking to anyone who will listen, because the clock is running on this mission. The window for the probe mission is 2015-2017, and the manned mission window is 2019-2021. That's not a lot of time.

This demo mission will be able to return a couple of metric tons or so of material to LEO - that should be enough to get peoples' attention, and prove that these missions can be flown.

JR

[Bluesteel]

There are people in this world who can sell ice to Eskimoes. We need to find one or two of them to work with us.

I'm working on pulling the details together by talking to anyone who will listen, because the clock is running on this mission. The window for the probe mission is 2015-2017, and the manned mission window is 2019-2021. That's not a lot of time.

This demo mission will be able to return a couple of metric tons or so of material to LEO - that should be enough to get peoples' attention, and prove that these missions can be flown.

JR
Actually selling isn't the hard part. It's developing a strong product with unique features and benefits and answering the all important question that all customers ask - "What's in it for me?". From experience, the vast majority of people, unless they are independently wealthy, usually have a relatively short term view of things as far as investing significant resources are concerned and possibly quite rightly so. But it may be possible to convince people to donate small amounts they could afford to forget about (rather than lose) for longer timescales. More significant investment would need a very strong business plan showing returns within a 5-7 year time scale I would estimate.

However, as you point out, I think it there may well be a rush to investment once the first commercially viable samples have been returned from an NEO. This would be similar to the earlier ages of exploration in the 16th C when explorers returned with exotic goods and gold, showing that it is there and it can be done - which led to Spanish Gold Galleons and Settlement of the Americas etc.

But it looks more hopeful now that NASA will abandon Mars and Moon Missions and concentrate on NEO exploration, or so it said on the radio news this morning.

Julian

[joertexas]

Actually selling isn't the hard part. It's developing a strong product with unique features and benefits and answering the all important question that all customers ask - "What's in it for me?". From experience, the vast majority of people, unless they are independently wealthy, usually have a relatively short term view of things as far as investing significant resources are concerned and possibly quite rightly so. But it may be possible to convince people to donate small amounts they could afford to forget about (rather than lose) for longer timescales. More significant investment would need a very strong business plan showing returns within a 5-7 year time scale I would estimate.

However, as you point out, I think it there may well be a rush to investment once the first commercially viable samples have been returned from an NEO. This would be similar to the earlier ages of exploration in the 16th C when explorers returned with exotic goods and gold, showing that it is there and it can be done - which led to Spanish Gold Galleons and Settlement of the Americas etc.

But it looks more hopeful now that NASA will abandon Mars and Moon Missions and concentrate on NEO exploration, or so it said on the radio news this morning.

Julian

Having NASA fly a NEO misson would be a good thing, but I'm not holding my breath. We don't even have a vehicle (besides the Shuttle) certified to lift people into orbit at this moment.

JR

[Bluesteel]

Having NASA fly a NEO misson would be a good thing, but I'm not holding my breath. We don't even have a vehicle (besides the Shuttle) certified to lift people into orbit at this moment.

JR
In the Space News Section of Octobers Spaceflight Magazine, which just arrived this morning, it says that:

"A manned asteroid mission using two Orion spacecraft, docked nose-to-nose to form a 50-ton deep space vehicle, is being studied by Lockheed Martin Space Systems as an alternative to resumption of US Lunar landing flights."

So I guess it'll need a launch vehicle of some sort. Maybe the Russians could supply...

Julian

[joertexas]

In the Space News Section of Octobers Spaceflight Magazine, which just arrived this morning, it says that:

"A manned asteroid mission using two Orion spacecraft, docked nose-to-nose to form a 50-ton deep space vehicle, is being studied by Lockheed Martin Space Systems as an alternative to resumption of US Lunar landing flights."

So I guess it'll need a launch vehicle of some sort. Maybe the Russians could supply...

Julian

Possibly, but the Orion is designed to ride on the Ares I. SpaceX gets my vote - and I dearly hope they get their Falcon 9 airborne before the end of the year.

The manned mission plan is similar to what I've been working on, with the exception of using two reentry capsules. I've been looking at SpaceX's Dragon system for the reentry capsule, and possibly one of Bigelo Aerospace's inflatable units for the crew habitat module.

JR

[Bluesteel]

Possibly, but the Orion is designed to ride on the Ares I. SpaceX gets my vote - and I dearly hope they get their Falcon 9 airborne before the end of the year.

The manned mission plan is similar to what I've been working on, with the exception of using two reentry capsules. I've been looking at SpaceX's Dragon system for the reentry capsule, and possibly one of Bigelo Aerospace's inflatable units for the crew habitat module.

JR
According to Spaceflight Magazine, Arianespace has offered NASA a heavier version of Ariane 5, currently under development, as an alternative to Ares.

Julian

[Charles_West]

A possible course of action is to sell this as a chance to be part of something bigger than them. A lot of people are looking for something to identify with that makes them feel useful. To be able to take that route, I would suggest two things.

One, you have a PR/common man web blog that chronicles the projects that Permanent is helping. Keep it low on technical talk and large on human interest (mission generalities, character stories of the people doing it). I know this sounds like Nasa but the rapid explosion of blogs and YouTube celebrities has shown that if you make it something interesting and on ongoing people will not only follow avidly but also be far more willing to contribute. Not only would I publish this online, but I would offer it to small local news papers free as a column. That way they get interesting reading material free and permanent gets exposure.

Second, I would generate a list of components and processes that need to be refined on Earth before being sent into space (see my threads on space industry for example) and break them down into small pieces. Then take those small pieces and approach the faculty/students of engineering colleges. Many of the students need something to work on for their senior projects and might be quite happy to work on something you suggest. (Then use their stories in one). Student groups at universities might be a good idea as well.

Lastly, having some sound bites might be handy for posters and essay headers ("ONLY YOU CAN SAVE MANKIND!", "We turned back...", etc).

Thoughts?

[Sam Fraser]

This was/is a great thread.

Watching the recent Tea Party protests (I'm not an American) makes me wonder how we can tap into some of that anger and channel it into something positive. (I understand it's mostly a fiscal conservative/limited government people's platform, so maybe I'm just off base here.) Obama raised hundreds of millions from selling "hope and change", and Scott Brown raised a lot of money just in the last few days of his campaigning. People seem willing to contribute money and time if they're impassioned enough and are fed up with "business as usual".

[joertexas]

This was/is a great thread.

Watching the recent Tea Party protests (I'm not an American) makes me wonder how we can tap into some of that anger and channel it into something positive. (I understand it's mostly a fiscal conservative/limited government people's platform, so maybe I'm just off base here.) Obama raised hundreds of millions from selling "hope and change", and Scott Brown raised a lot of money just in the last few days of his campaigning. People seem willing to contribute money and time if they're impassioned enough and are fed up with "business as usual".

Sam, how many threads like this have we lost track of? This was posted back in September, and I didn't even see it until today. Do we have a way to post a list of ongoing discussions somewhere besides in the forums where they can get buried? This is too good to just lose...

JR

[Rhyshaelkan]

Sam, how many threads like this have we lost track of? This was posted back in September, and I didn't even see it until today. Do we have a way to post a list of ongoing discussions somewhere besides in the forums where they can get buried? This is too good to just lose...

JR

All I can say is read all the topics ;) But I might move this thread down to Projects and tasks to do. This is my favorite thread(not only because I started it :P) because it could lead to PERMANENT's success.

[asteroid-wildcat]

Where do I send the check? The door to space is about to open. Giving people a piece of what is left after analysis from material returned from an Asteroid sampling mission could be a very good way to capture a larger group of people because they could possess something unique.

I predict that the Falcon 9 will go up next month without a problem. SpaceX is going to leave the second stage and the Dragon capsule in orbit. How can we refuel the thing and use it for a sampling mission?

[joertexas]

Where do I send the check? The door to space is about to open. Giving people a piece of what is left after analysis from material returned from an Asteroid sampling mission could be a very good way to capture a larger group of people because they could possess something unique.

I predict that the Falcon 9 will go up next month without a problem. SpaceX is going to leave the second stage and the Dragon capsule in orbit. How can we refuel the thing and use it for a sampling mission?

I won't say that it's not useful, but I understand that this Dragon will be pretty much inert. I'm with Elon Musk when he predicts an 85% chance of a completely successful first launch.

If you're passing out checks, I've got just the mission for you ;) I've proposed that we send a carrier spacecraft with 15 probes into a heliocentric orbit between Earth and Mars. There, it will drop probes to investigate asteroids that we either know about now, or discover with WISE, to determine our target for a manned mission. It would require a single F9 launch, and would cost about $100 million.

JR

[asteroid-wildcat]

JoeR,

I have been reading about the "Dirty Dozen Mission" - I am VERY interested on progress.

Sad to see that the SpaceX Falcon 9 launch has been pushed back to May. Specs for fuel and oxidizer are likely very tight for anything SpaceX leaves in orbit. It was just a thought considering all of that hardware will be left in orbit to someday burn up during reentry without being used for something.

My comment regarding where to send the check was geared more towards a PERMANENT solution. We need to expand beyond Earth.

[Rhyshaelkan]

I won't say that it's not useful, but I understand that this Dragon will be pretty much inert. I'm with Elon Musk when he predicts an 85% chance of a completely successful first launch.

If you're passing out checks, I've got just the mission for you ;) I've proposed that we send a carrier spacecraft with 15 probes into a heliocentric orbit between Earth and Mars. There, it will drop probes to investigate asteroids that we either know about now, or discover with WISE, to determine our target for a manned mission. It would require a single F9 launch, and would cost about $100 million.

JR

F9? or F9H launch?

[joertexas]

F9? or F9H launch?

One F9.

JR

[joertexas]

JoeR,

I have been reading about the "Dirty Dozen Mission" - I am VERY interested on progress.

Sad to see that the SpaceX Falcon 9 launch has been pushed back to May. Specs for fuel and oxidizer are likely very tight for anything SpaceX leaves in orbit. It was just a thought considering all of that hardware will be left in orbit to someday burn up during reentry without being used for something.

My comment regarding where to send the check was geared more towards a PERMANENT solution. We need to expand beyond Earth.

I agree. There was another thread posted today that summed the priorities up quite neatly..

JR