[ExI] A decentralized autonomous space agency

Wed Mar 22 17:14:52 UTC 2017

CubeCab might "take" payment in cryptocurrency...if the payee took on
the onus of converting it to US$ first and actually handed over US$,
which is technically what happens with some places that "accept"
cryptocurrency.

Then again, this is what we'd lead toward for euros or any other
non-US$ currency too.

On Wed, Mar 22, 2017 at 9:52 AM, Giulio Prisco
<giulioprisco at protonmail.ch> wrote:
> Don't worry Adrian, that - doing all the needed research and then some, and
> learning from others' mistakes - is exactly what I want to do. I started a
> working group for this project because I think the idea is cool and worth
> doing, but I still have many questions and not enough solid answers. I
> started this conversation to refine my initial ideas, and I especially value
> the advise of those who have been at the school of hard knocks (I have been
> there too).
>
> Besides the need for watertight security and the other points you raise, I
> find this point especially critical:
>
> 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).
>
>
> In fact, it's much easier to apply the DAO model to projects related to
> cryptocurrency itself, not only because there is no hardware to build or
> ship back and forth, but also because most internal and external payments
> are in the DAO's native cryptocurrency. In the real world things are not so
> simple. For example, if a DAO project wants to launch a cubesat with
> CubeCab, I doubt you would accept a payment in whatever the DAO's native
> cryptocurrency is, so there should be a mechanism to convert crypto to
> dollars and pay you. That could be done with smart contracts.
>
> There is a lot of initial work to do to adapt the DAO concept to real world
> projects.
>
> Unrelated note: I am sending this from Protonmail but Gmail is much faster
> and easier to use, so I think I'll go back to Gmail. Google has the money to
> develop great services, and it's difficult to develop great services without
> Google's money - then, perhaps, this IS related to the topic...
> --
> Giulio Prisco
> https://giulioprisco.com/
> giulioprisco at protonmail.ch
>
>
> -------- Original Message --------
> Subject: Re: [ExI] A decentralized autonomous space agency
> Local Time: March 21, 2017 7:31 PM
> UTC Time: March 21, 2017 6:31 PM
> From: atymes at gmail.com
> To: ExI chat list <extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org>
>
> 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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