[ExI] A decentralized autonomous space agency

Giulio Prisco giulio at gmail.com
Tue Mar 21 19:39:23 UTC 2017


Thanks Adrian, lots of food for thought here, I'll reply tomorrow.

On 2017. Mar 21., Tue at 19:32, Adrian Tymes <atymes at gmail.com> wrote:

> The DAO was a funding agency/VC-like.  It had at least celebrity
> status and hot buzz.  Space...you'd think it has buzz, but that's
> nothing compared to software/virtual anything or biotech (including
> health care).  The product was the promise of funding cryptocurrency
> projects.  It's also been basically shut down after less than a year
> in existence and being hacked to drain $50M of that $150M.  I assume
> you wish to create something to create lasting value, not merely
> flash-in-the-pan where you can trick people, cash out, and be done
> with it as those who got rich off the DAO (whether or not those were
> the ones who ran the Kickstarter) did.  (If scamming people for a
> quick cash out is your goal, I decline to assist.)
>
> In a public corporation, if you or I have enough money, we can buy
> enough shares that we do have a say in the governance.  Alternately,
> we can incite a shareholder revolt, by organizing and motivating
> people who collectively have enough shares to matter - which tends to
> require arguing well.  Mechanisms for delegation - also known as
> "proxy voting" - are well established.  In a DAO...same deal: only
> those who buy a lot of shares, or can organize a voting block among
> many people who collectively have enough shares, matter in practice,
> no matter the hype.  (Karma adjustments devolve to "more votes for
> whoever those who write the code that hands out karma - or, worse, who
> manually hand out karma - agree with", effectively giving the
> karma-controllers more votes to delegate.)  No, seriously, a DAO is
> basically a corporation, just one that tries to enforce its governance
> through computer code instead of through legal code.
>
> There are different forms of "crowdsourcing".  Just lazily asking
> people for ideas doesn't work well.  A far, far more effective version
> is known as "research": start with an idea, look up what people have
> said about that idea and similar ones (which can involve asking around
> but most of it doesn't: you just look up articles and studies that
> have already been done), refine and revise, repeat until you have a
> model built from solid facts - not "this is cool so people should",
> but solid data based on what people have done and are doing - that
> shows a strong likelihood of success (which usually includes a
> positive return on investment for whatever resources anyone chips in).
>
> Over 90% of startups fail, most often because their founders refuse to
> do the research before committing resources - especially other
> peoples' resources.  In space launch specifically, the average
> lifespan of a startup is less than two years, before those backing the
> idea give up as they find it hard, or are unable to attract sufficient
> funding.  (CubeCab's more than 2 years old, mainly because I'm a
> stubborn SoB...but also because I did the research and have a viable
> enough model to attract a bit of resources and help, not to mention
> lots of would-be customers though they generally won't pay anything
> until after we've flown something - again, because most space launch
> startups die without actually launching.  It's a catch 22 we're
> working on.)
>
> If I can give you one piece of advice at this stage, it's to do the
> research and learn from other peoples' fails.  Acknowledge that people
> have tried things like your idea - including the DAO itself, but far
> more than just the DAO.  Know that, any time you think your idea is
> unique and special and totally unprecedented, you are wrong: there's
> always, always someone who's done something like yours.  Your job is
> to find these and note how your idea is different - how they failed
> and you won't repeat their mistakes (or, rarely, how they succeeded in
> this other area and you'll repeat their success).
>
> Let's start with: the DAO itself basically folded; its administrators
> are now trying to get money back to those who chipped in as best they
> can, but it looks like less than 20% can be recovered.  (Source:
> Wikipedia.)  There are many reasons why it failed; the hack of 1/3 of
> their money is notable, but they forked to try to fix that - and even
> ignoring that, a 33% drain is less than the majority of the at least
> 80% loss.  What are the other reasons why it lost so much money?
>
> Also: the DAO, being about cryptocurrency, could at least
> theoretically apply its principles to its primary area of operation,
> and requires no centralized physical locations.  Space requires
> hardware, which means there is a place where it is manufactured (or
> assembled from distributed components) and a place for launches
> (likely outsourced, but launch tends to be the majority of the cost
> for small satellites).  How is a DAO relevant to the industry given
> these needs?  Potential answers come from the current established
> industries - telecommunications and earth observation - which are all
> about data, but saying you can take cryptocurrency experience and
> apply it to space, with no further elaboration, is like a Web
> application developer claiming that experience gives them expertise
> about laying cable and setting up telecommunication exchanges.  (If
> you're familiar with the OSI model, you have experience in layers 5-7,
> maybe 4, and you're trying to apply it to layers 1-2.)
>
> But seriously: learn from other peoples' fails, as relevant to what
> you seek to do.  It's what I did for years to shape CubeCab into
> something remotely potentially possible.  (And thanks for the like.)
> At this point we have something where we can credibly seek funding,
> and we've even been invited to present at the Paris Air Show (though I
> don't yet know whether we will: the opportunity will cost a lot of $,
> and we only have so much).  And especially in space, there are so many
> fails to learn from.
>
> On Tue, Mar 21, 2017 at 9:22 AM, Giulio Prisco <giulio at gmail.com> wrote:
> > Thanks Adrian,
> >
> > re "you have a valuation of $0 right now, so all the shares of it are
> > worth $0 too" - that should also apply to The DAO... but they raised
> > $150 million in weeks! At the beginning, the novel participatory
> > governance model IS the product.
> >
> > re "Governance belongs to those who buy shares?  You have described
> > most corporations." - I disagree. You and I (average investors, not
> > seriously rich) can buy shares in a public corporation, sell the
> > shares and maybe get dividends now and then, but our decision making
> > power is nil. In a private corporation, we can't even buy shares. In a
> > DAO, everyone can buy shares and everyone can participate in decision
> > making. Of course, the votes of those with many shares count more, but
> > if you argue well you can persuade others. There's easy delegation and
> > "liquid democracy." Also, shares could be karma-adjusted in voting
> > (I'm thinking aloud here).
> >
> > re "The wisdom of those with money is not the wisdom of the crowd -
> > and in both cases, for actual working space projects, there's
> > fascination but not, it turns out, much actual wisdom." - in other
> > words, fascination is easy but wisdom is hard. Of course I can't
> > disagree, but isn't this one more reason to crowdsource? If you have
> > just one idea it's probably wrong, but among thousands of ideas there
> > must be one that is right. The problem is finding that one, and here's
> > where crowdsourcing helps. Wings uses an internal prediction market to
> > evaluate proposals.
> >
> > Keep criticism coming!
> >
> > PS CubeCab is cool! http://cubecab.com/
> >
> >
> > On Tue, Mar 21, 2017 at 4:56 PM, Adrian Tymes <atymes at gmail.com> wrote:
> >> To be clear: I offer you this criticism because I want you to succeed.
> ;)
> >>
> >> Governance belongs to those who buy shares?  You have described most
> >> corporations.  The problem you are concerned about comes when those who
> buy
> >> are not those who do the work, but just those with a lot of money
> seeking to
> >> make more, by selling later for a higher price, with interests thus
> often at
> >> odds with the workers in practice.  (Also, the workers - working on
> whatever
> >> the corp does - tend to know a bit about the field, while the investors
> too
> >> often lack this experience.)  These investors often delegate day to day
> >> decisions to a few people, who are known as "executives" or
> "management" and
> >> often have way more shares than the workers (but usually less than the
> >> investors) because the investors, having appointed them, trust them
> more.
> >> (This dynamic has spiraled way beyond reasonable bounds at many large
> public
> >> companies, but that's a separate topic.)
> >>
> >> This is especially the case when the just-in-it-for-the-money types get
> a
> >> majority of the shares, making the workers' shares worthless re:
> controlling
> >> the organization's direction, as eventually happens at most public
> companies
> >> if it wasn't already the case before they went public.  (This is why,
> for
> >> CubeCab, I'm trying to keep a majority of shares in the workers' hands
> at
> >> least until IPO/acquisition - including my own, and granted I'm
> "management"
> >> if anyone here is.  But there are so many really bad ideas investors
> without
> >> much experience in the market would likely try, ironically tanking
> their own
> >> investment along with our hard work.  I'm not in this to fail, at least
> not
> >> so easily.)
> >>
> >> The wisdom of those with money is not the wisdom of the crowd - and in
> both
> >> cases, for actual working space projects, there's fascination but not,
> it
> >> turns out, much actual wisdom.
> >>
> >> Also you have to pick a project and start gathering resources before the
> >> shares are worth anything.  No, seriously: there's this thing called
> >> "valuation" with lots of ways to calculate it, but by all the good
> formulas
> >> you have a valuation of $0 right now, so all the shares of it are worth
> $0
> >> too.  You've yet to do anything new, except use new words to describe
> well
> >> established stuff.
> >>
> >> On Mar 21, 2017 4:46 AM, "Giulio Prisco" <giulio at gmail.com> wrote:
> >>
> >> Thanks Adrian, and don't worry, harsh criticism is exactly what I want.
> >> The difference is in the ownership and governance model. A DAO belongs
> >> entirely to its members (those who chose to buy shares) and all
> >> shareholders are empowered to easily vote on all decisions. So this
> >> model replaces traditional exec/management layers with the wisdom of
> >> the crowd.
> >>
> >> On Mon, Mar 20, 2017 at 10:58 PM, Adrian Tymes <atymes at gmail.com>
> wrote:
> >>> How is this meaningfully different from the (literally) thousands of
> >>> space startup companies all across the world, other than that you
> >>> haven't yet picked a particular project or set of related projects to
> >>> focus on?
> >>>
> >>> "Funded by bitcoin/crypto" is not a meaningful difference; more than
> >>> one of those others is too.  "Assembles space hardware from prefab
> >>> components" is true of at least a quarter of them.  "Is focused on one
> >>> or more potentially world changing projects" is true of most of them -
> >>> the dreams run strong - except, again, they have decided which
> >>> specific projects they will work upon.  Likewise "global, distributed,
> >>> decentralized" has been done in spades (not "to death" because it has
> >>> proven a viable model - but at this point it's a bit short of saying,
> >>> "and our people will sit on chairs").
> >>>
> >>> And if it isn't, why should anyone care, when they can instead find
> >>> one of those startups (one that works on a project that appeals to
> >>> them), work with/for them, and have a far higher chance of success and
> >>> payback?
> >>>
> >>> Sorry if this sounds harsh, but you need answers to those questions if
> >>> you seek to accomplish anything.  Your overview doc acknowledges that
> >>> you need to decide on "WHY/WHAT" before moving past that, but it's
> >>> deeper than you know: deciding on the what will, necessarily, exclude
> >>> people who aren't interested in that particular what - and only then
> >>> will you see if you have a group capable of addressing that particular
> >>> what.
> >>>
> >>> On Mon, Mar 20, 2017 at 3:26 AM, Giulio Prisco <giulio at gmail.com>
> wrote:
> >>>> I started a working group to discuss conceptual and implementation
> >>>> related aspects of a Decentralized Autonomous Organization (DAO)
> >>>> focused on world-changing space projects. Comments, thoughts and
> >>>> requests to join welcome.
> >>>>
> >>>>
> >>>>
> https://giulioprisco.com/a-decentralized-autonomous-space-agency-43232aed471c
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