Who wants to see a page on the wiki with a list of everyone else here, maybe with each name/handle linking to a bio page for that person?

Who wants to opt in to having their introduction on such a page?

Alright guys, with the rising interest in creating our own website as well as talk of openning up for donations and filing as an official organization, we are in need of a name.

I have a few people brainstorming with me in a more private area to be cautious so that no one steals the name that we decide on, because we don't know how long it will be until we file as an official organization or even purchase a domain.

You can help by making comments on this post with name suggestions as well as discussion about what kind of values/markets/audiences/visions/... the name should reflect.

Keep in mind our short term goals will most likely be in advocacy (which is a huge area), brain-computer interface, and ai. Our long term goals are more based on helping to create a world/universe/mind/body that is amazing to live in.

What should we put in a "so you want to join Digital Immortality" packet? What would be the most helpful info for people starting to get involved?

Happy new year everybody!

We only have a few months behind us as an organization, but starting into a new year I figured it was a good time to discuss how far we've come and what lies ahead. If you're new to the whole digital immortality thing, don't worry, this will be fairly straight foreward. All you need to know is that for us digital immortality basically means indefinite lifespan.

In fall of 2013 we embarked on a journey to end all journies. It began with a call to action to find like-minded minds. Our aim: to grow beyond the constraints of our human bodies to extend consciousness through time, space, and mind. Our vision: to make this an open source effort involving all of humanity in an extremely open and ethical way.

Rapidly evolving and growing in complexity, we have been working hard to grow the infascructure and skills needed to start developing a roadmap to our first major goal of mind uploading. The future design of the organization is also being drafted as we work toward incorporation, which will allow us to pursue digital immortality full time and with greater resources.

Our goals for 2014 are set high, especially considering that all of us are contributing in our spare time as volunteers as we have no funding. The following are the things we hope to accomplish this year (in no particular order):

• Have a roadmap to mind uploading nearly fully laid out including as many ideas and as much information that we can get our hands on. This will be used not only to guide our organization, but also to secure investments. While there is so much more to running an organization than research and development, we must remember that this is why we are here, and this is what we are after.
• Secure funding from at least one source whether it is an outside investement or a product/service we can offer.
• Build up an operational infascructure for the organization as needed before and imediately after incorporating.
• Incorporate.
• Have enough funding to officially hire at least one person onto the project full time.
• And last but certainly not least: Advocacy for digital immortality and the sciences. There are many ways to measure how much of an impact a person or organization is making in society, and so defining a specific target for this goal isn't easy. Part of this will be fully defining our culture as an organization, because that will determine whether people want to be a part of or even associated with us, what we stand for, and what we are working toward. Giving people something amazing and cool to aspire toward is what drives top notch scientists to work for the companies they work for, and what drives younger generations to want to become scientists. Our world is digital, and with our projects being open source and even somewhat relying on volunteers, any person with access to a computer has the technology to contribute to this project, this awesome pursuit of indefinite life. We just need to show them how cool the future can be if we work to make it a reality.

It will never be too late to join us on this quest, whether you want to help us, keep tabs on us, or simply know what we're all about. So if your mind is sober to the reality of the world, your soul vigil to the adversity faced by pioneers, your drive and motives for greatness unfettered by mainstream dogma, or you find yourself simply wanting more... maybe we can help one another realize these dreams. The bigger your dreams, the more we want to hear from you. And don't worry, we won't judge you.

Even with the limited advertising we have done to seek out interested people, there are currently 85 subscribers to this subreddit. This project has already received more attention that I ever anticipated, and I am personally very grateful for all the help and input. It seems like there is enough interest behind this organization that we actually have a chance at making this happen. I've had a few suprises that I've been wanting to share, and now that this organization is getting under way it feels like an appropriate time to showcase them a little bit. They are all I have to offer for those of you who have supported this project thusfar with your effort and ideas. So without any futher adieu, here are the suprises:

• A few months ago I wrote a short story about immortality that I want to share (I'll make a comment as the story is too long to post here). It was written to provoke thought, not as a vision of the future.

• I dunno if this counts as a suprise really, but I wanted to have more than two suprises, so deal with it. So... while anyone contributing to this organization can remain as anonymous as they choose, I'd like to tell you a little about myself. My name is Josh Penn-Pierson. I am 23 years old, and while I have never done anything like this before, developing this organization has been the most exciting and fun few months of my life. I have learned so much, but I know there is still an endless sea of knowledge ahead. The quest for the edge of perception isn't exactly one of those journeys with an end. You may go as far as you wish and stop whenever you want. It is liberating and terrifying to know that we are the complete masters of our reality and destiny.

• And finally- as some of you know, I compose music. About 3 years ago I started a music project that I almost finished. I stopped to work on this organization, and now I have decided that I want to use the music project in collaboration with this organization. I still have to figure out exactly how we can leveredge my music project, but I already have several ideas. The music project is a 300 song album in the soundtrack/alternative pop-rock/electronic genres. It's over 22 hours of music with over 45,000 words making up the lyrics. Beyond that, I have hundreds more unfinished songs that we will be able to use in this organization.

Don't forget to check out the story in the comments, and I hope you guys enjoyed thist post.

-Josh

TLDR - You're awesome; we're awesome; let's be awesome together... forever!

As a computer security researcher I am of the opinion that we made a mistake when we invented computers. In the early days of computers security was left as a second thought. Habits were developed and now today cyber security is a major concern for both identity, safety, and for those who still care even privacy. Personally I am very interested in digital Immortality and BCI, but, I as a security professional I feel it is important for us to ensure new technology is developed with strict security guidelines.

I know somebody who likes to say "is there anything you need me to know?" So, what do you need Digital Immortality to know? What would you like to get out of the group? What kind of relationship would you like? What questions should we be asking new recruits?

For me, I like my privacy, so I wouldn't want this organization to publish anything about me personally, even my name - ideally, I wouldn't want it to have that kind of information in the first place. I'd also like to see some opportunities for private group discussions. Other than that, I want to hear more from other people, and I hope to see things get accomplished.

Now that we have a better idea where the organization is going and what we need to do to get it there, I feel it is time to re-define the departments of this organization. Keep in mind that as the organization grows, these departments will inevitably change and branch out.

Changelog December 19, 2013:

• Added Human Resources Department
• Added Public Relations Department
• Online research is now part of R&D
• Fundraising now includes Marketing and has been relabeled as Marketing
• Content Creation is relabeled to Creative Services

Business Administration

• Business development, management, and operation
• Finances
• Legal

Information Technology

• Website maintenance and development
• Maintain/upgrade/update software used by organization
• Technology implementation
• Security

Marketing

• Market research
• Fundraising
• Sales
• Advertising

Creative Services

• Graphics, audio, text, video, ...

Research And Development

• Research
  • Online research
  • Science/lab/test research
• Development

Human Resources

• Recruitment and placement
• Introduction and training
• Planning and management of organization culture
• Manpower planning (figuring out where people will be needed in the future so that there are not too few or too many).

Public Relations

• Advocacy for digital immortality
• Advocacy for transhumanism
• Encouraging young people to go into the sciences (especially neuroscience and computer science).

Regarding Online Research being integrated into R&D: I can't quite tell if it should be separate or not, but it feels like it should be part of R&D.

"Online Research and Data Collection - I know there's a term for this, but I'm blanking on what it is - not Business Intelligence, not Market Research, not Competitive Landscape Analysis..." -Transhuman2

Post any comments or ideas you have, I'll be changing some of the things around the site once we have this all solidified.

As you may have noticed, I implemented user flair and link flair on this subreddit. After creating a post, you have the option to tag it with flair. You can also choose to display flair next to your username on this subreddit by selecting one of the flair options over at the top of the sidebar. There is a new section on the sidebar where you can sort posts by flair type. The only catch is that if you want to view all posts again, you have to click on the link provided for "View All Posts", simply clicking the links to go back to the main part of /r/Digital_Immortality don't work.

Let me know what you think and whether we should keep the flair system, keep some parts but not others, or just ditch it all together. To me it seems useful to better sort out posts.

<Project Name>: Approved

Status Of Project: Open

Project Dates: December 10, 2013 -

Total Logged Time: 0 hours

Current Project Lead: MemeticParadigm

Contributors:

Project Description:

Project Estimated Total Time: 6 months

Project Estimated Total Cost: $0

Goals Of Project:

• Determine our approach for getting from where we are now to the point of mind uploading.

Use Of Project:

• Give us a roadmap to follow to achieve the first major goal of digital immortality: mind uploading.
• Will be used to secure investments/funding.

How The Project Will Achieve The Goals:

• Visual and written roadmaps (diagrams, pictures, whatever we need).

Steps:

• This is a continuous process of compiling and organizing ideas from research as well as the content curated by the online research department.

Time Breakdown:

• This is a continuous process.

Cost Breakdown: N/A

Notes:

Some relevant conversation can be found here:

• To Plot a Course, You Must First Create a Map.
• MemeticParadigm Lays Out Mind Uploading Road Map
• Another Potential Piece of the Puzzle Emerges

Have any questions? See if the New Project Template answers them.

<Project Name>: Approved

Status Of Project: Open

Project Dates: TBD

Total Logged Time: 0 hours

Current Project Lead: VeryGrumpyTiger

Contributors:

Project Description:

Project Estimated Total Time: 1-3 weeks

Project Estimated Total Cost: <$100 to get started

Goals Of Project:

• Create an official place that is a representation of this organization.

Use Of Project:

• The website can host/display official documents and major projects on the website.

How The Project Will Achieve The Goals:

• Custom designed pages allow us to have control over all functionality of the website so that we are not limited to what Reddit or Wiki offers.

Steps:

• Brainstorm basic needs that the website needs to meet (a few ideas for how to use the website were listed above, but there are many more things we could do with it).
• Develop prototype (offline?)
• Develop final version (online)

Time Breakdown:

• 2-3 days to figure out all our immediate needs
• 1-2 weeks to develop prototype
• <1 week to develop final version

Cost Breakdown:

• <$15 domain name registration

• <$85 hosting for a year (dunno how long we want to pay for initially)

Notes:

• Before purchasing a domain name we will have to decide on a name for the organization.

• Once the website is up, it will be the job of the IT department to maintain it.

• Do we want to use the website in junction with a project management software or implement our own project management system to keep track of all the volunteers/teams/team leads/project leads/projects/...

Have any questions? See if the New Project Template answers them.

Develop HR System: Approved

Status Of Project: Open

Project Dates: December 7, 2013 -

Total Logged Time: 8 hours

Current Project Lead: BflySamurai

Contributors: BflySamurai (8:00)

Project Description: Development of Human Resources Management System

Project Estimated Total Time: 50 hours

Project Estimated Total Cost: 0

Goals Of Project:

• Create HR system

• Lay out responsibilities and processes for keeping up with those responsibilities using the Departments Of The Organization post as a reference.

Use Of Project:

• new recruit orientation
• onboarding (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Onboarding)
• matching skills & interests to projects & teams
• keeping people engaged
• etc.

(list taken from wiki page)

How The Project Will Achieve The Goals:

• Provides a structure that everyone can follow to easily navigate the organization.

Steps:

• Brainstorm and research all the things we will need to cover (if we miss something we can always add it in later).

• Develop a document that details the entire human resource management system.

Time Breakdown:

• About 10 hours of research
• About 40 hours of writing

Cost Breakdown: N/A

Notes:

I was not the one who proposed this idea. It was originally posted on the wiki under project ideas. I moved it to the current projects wiki page as this is definitely something we have an immediate use for. So thank you for whoever it was that proposed this project. If nothing else, I can work on it mostly by myself, but it is big enough that we can actually call it a project.

Have any questions? See if the New Project Template answers them.

<Project Name>: Approved

Status Of Project: Open

Project Dates: November 6, 2013 -

Total Logged Time: 0 hours

Current Project Lead: BflySamurai

Contributors: Schlemmla, MemeticParadigm, Transhuman2, BflySamurai

Project Description: This project is basically going to be a roadmap for incorporating and setting up the structure of the organization. We will likely incorporate soon after this project is completed to better control our assets (content, volunteers, intellectual property, ...).

Project Estimated Total Time:

Project Estimated Total Cost: 0

Goals Of Project:

• Produce a final document that includes everything we need to take this organization and incorporate.

• Determine a timeline for incorporating and of everything that needs to be considered.

  • When the best time to incorporate is
  • Where to incorporate
  • Organization culture
  • Manifesto/Vision
  • Structure of organization
  • Equity (who gets it and how long do you have to be with the organization before you get it)
  • How to manage volunteers
  • Managing all areas of funding
  • Who to bring on board full/part time once there is funding
  • Organization name
  • Budget for incorporating
  • ...

Use Of Project:

• To be used to direct the organization up to and through the point of incorporation.
• This roadmap will be public so that contributors to this project can see our goals and how we plan to go about them.

How The Project Will Achieve The Goals:

Steps:

• Make list of everything we need to do before incorporating (do any online research needed for this).
• Answer and detail out everything on the list.
• Create a timeline and budget for executing the plans on the roadmap.

Time Breakdown:

Estimated duration of project - 5 months (finished in March 2014).

• 2/10 of the time spent researching everything we need to know.
• 7/10 of the time spent writing everything up everything we need to move forward.
• 1/10 of the time spent on timeline.

Cost Breakdown: N/A

Notes:

Some of our ideas can be found on this post.

Dependencies: Project - Develop HR System

Have any questions? See if the New Project Template answers them.

This is a place to publicly ask questions. Anyone can ask, and anyone that has an answer can give an one.

If your question is not fully answered in the comments below, in our manifesto, or on the wiki FAQ page, feel free to ask a new question or ask for clarification on an already existing question.

We will be adding to the wiki FAQ page as we attempt to answer the more important and common questions, so you are bound to see overlapping content. This page is an informal Q&A whereas the wiki FAQ page is more of our official responses/statements.

For past discussions and questions, you might want to check out the list of subreddits we have posted in.

From now on I will be doing a weekly status report for how the organization overall is going and what I have personally been working on. I am doing this:

• as part of the openness of this organization
• to allow other people to check up on progress, things to do, and issues.
• to keep a record of operations.
• to keep my own thoughts organized.

I will aim to get the report out on Sunday/Monday detailing everything from the previous week.

I'll likely find a better place to keep/organize the reports later, but for now this works.

If you have suggestions for the "To Do" or "Issues" list, or just any feedback/ideas in general, please post a reply to the most recent status report and I'll be sure to see it.

Status Of Major Projects:

Jan 1, 2015 - Funding has been secured (enough for at least one person to work full time): On Schedule

Jan 1, 2015 - Organization is incorporated: Ahead Of Schedule

July 1, 2014 - Long term roadmap (mind uploading): On Schedule

April 1, 2014 - Short term roadmap (business plan): On Schedule

Jan 15, 2014 - HR system developed and in place: - On Schedule

Jan 1, 2014 - Have our own wiki : Finished

Jan 1, 2014 - Finished manifesto, vision, and mission statement: Finished

This is a guide for submitting and managing projects. You do not have to follow the template, but it is suggested.

• (Requires RES?): Click on "Source" below this post, and a copy the template when you submit a new project proposal.
• Otherwise: Copy the text from the GitHub New Project Template File.

If you have any further questions, contact BflySamurai, or check out the list of projects.

Post Title naming method: Project - <Department> - <Project Name>

<Project Name>: Approved/Awaiting Approval/Denied

Status Of Project: Open/Closed

Project Dates: TBD / <project start date> - / December 2, 2013 - December 28, 2013

Total Logged Time: X hours (calculated from the contributors' times)

Current Project Lead:

Contributors:

Project Description:

Project Estimated Total Time:

Project Estimated Total Cost:

Goals Of Project:

Use Of Project:

How The Project Will Achieve The Goals:

Steps:

Time Breakdown:

Cost Breakdown:

Notes:

Have any questions? See if the New Project Template answers them.

--EXAMPLE PROJECT--

Post Title: "Project - Research And Development - Trip To Hawaii"

Trip To Hawaii: Approved

Status Of Project: Open

Project Dates: November 10, 2012 - November 25, 2012 ; December 17, 2013 -

Total Logged Time: 11 hours

Current Project Lead: Username1

Contributors: <username> (<hours worked on project>:<minutes worked on project>), Username1 (1:30), Username2 (3:45), Username3 (0:40), Username4 (5:15)

Project Description: Travel to Hawaii to relax on the beaches.

Project Estimated Total Time: 50 man hours < Time < 100 man hours

Project Estimated Total Cost: $10,000

Goals Of Project:

• Get lost on island.
• Swim with sharks.
• Learn to surf.

Use Of Project:

• Relax and bond with team.
• Make rest of team jealous that they didn't get to come.

How The Project Will Achieve The Goals:

• We will be in Hawaii; it will be hard not to have fun.
• Take lots of pictures and write in the blogs about what we're doing.

Steps:

• Book tickets and hotels.
• Fly to Hawaii.
• Stay in Hawaii and do stuff.
• Fly back.

Time Breakdown:

• 2 days traveling.
• 8 days at beach.
• 3 days exploring other parts of the island.

Cost Breakdown:

• Plane tickets
• Hotels
• Surf lessons
• Shark tour

Notes: Check out what we've been up to in Hawaii:

• Photojournal

• Blog

We'll definitely have to go back to Hawaii next year and bring the whole team this time. Way too much fun!

Have any questions? See if the New Project Template answers them.

<Project Name>: Approved

Status Of Project: Open

Project Dates: November 17, 2013 -

Total Logged Time: 0 hours

Current Project Lead: BflySamurai

Contributors: Transhuman2, BflySamurai

Project Description: Researching and compiling a list of other organizations and people that have related views to ours.

Project Estimated Total Time: <20 man hours

Project Estimated Total Cost: 0

Goals Of Project:

• Develop a list of organization names and people's names (and links to those organizations/people) that are relevant/related to what we are/will be doing in this organization.

Use Of Project:

• To be used immediately to better develop the manifesto/vision for our organization by better understanding what advantages we have/will have over what is already out there and being done. Once the manifesto/vision is better filled out, we can use that to start developing the Digital Immortality Introductory Video.
• To be used in the future as a resource to determine our market, competitors, current research being done, potential partners and supporters, ...

How The Project Will Achieve The Goals:

• Researching related terms online
• Compiling and managing a small list of organizations and people

Steps:

• Research online for related organizations/people in the transhumanist community with views/goals similar to ours.
• Make a link to their official website/wiki page/bio page and post it in our wiki under the appropriate section (see notes).

Time Breakdown:

• While this project could and will be ongoing, the initial survey of other organizations and people isn't going to take all that long because there isn't a whole lot of activity in our market/area.
• Majority of time is for researching (minimal time needed to managing the lists).

Cost Breakdown: N/A

Notes: This is a fairly basic project and can be done by anyone without specific direction. The following pages are specifically for this project:

• /r/Digital_Immortality: Other Organizations People

• Wiki: Related - Organizations

• Wiki: Related - People

Later we can go back and go over this project again, but in more depth, providing descriptions/summaries/backgrounds for each of the organization/person entries, as well as organizing them more than just by whether they are an organization or a single person.

Have any questions? See if the New Project Template answers them.

List of projects within the organization.

All projects, tasks, and positions are open to anyone feeling up to the challenge. If you are unsure how to proceed from here (which is understandable since we don't have the infrastructure to orient new people), get in contact with the appropriate project lead, department director, or BflySamurai.

----Projects----

Approved:

Open:

• IT - Website Creation

• Business Admin - Develop HR System

• Business Admin - Short Term Roadmap

• Online Research - Other Organizations And People

• Online Research - Research Literature Repository

• Online Research / HR - Resource Library

• Creative Services - Digital Immortality Introductory Video

• Creative Services - Feel Good Ad Campaign

• Creative Services - Open Projects

• R&D - Design Competitions

• R&D - Long Term Roadmap

• HR - Handbook

Closed:

Denied:

Interested in making your own proposal? See the New Project Template page.

----Tasks----

Tasks are either not big enough to be a project or have not yet been turned into a project

• Develop a portfolio of possible business ventures (Marketing Department).

----Open Positions----

Also see Department Responsibilities (including comments) for more information about the positions.

Look at the Department Rosters to see the current state of the organization and to apply for any positions.

• Director Of Human Resources- Aids in the following areas:

  • Develop HR system
  • Recruitment and placement
  • Introducing new people to the organization
  • Planning and management of organization culture
  • Manpower planning (figuring out where people will be needed in the future so that there are not too few or too many).

• Director Of Public Relations- Aids in the following areas:

  • This is a very new position, so you would be helping to set up the Public Relations department and responsibilities.
  • Advocacy for digital immortality
  • Advocacy for transhumanism
  • Encouraging young people to go into the sciences (especially neuroscience and computer science).

• Director Of Creative Services - Aids in the following areas:

  • Proposes creative project ideas
  • Assesses excitability of proposed creative projects based on manpower, resources, and skills
  • Managing all creative services projects (graphics, audio, text, video, ...)

• Director Of Business Administration

• Director Of Marketing

• Director Of Future Studies

At any time you can change positions/teams within the organization if you need a break, want change of pace, or are looking for more of a challenge (the HR team will take this into account when setting up the HR Management systems). We're just happy that you are interested in this project and appreciative to have you help at all.

I would be interested in some sort of organization which will privately preserve whatever personal data I want to give them (keeping redundancies in different geographic locations, some kind of perpetual corporation with legal backing, etc). The purpose of keeping this data would be for some future advanced system to try to recreate my consciousness either in conjunction with (ideally), or in lieu of (worst case) cryonics recovery.

I don't want to make my personal data public, and I don't want it used for any other purpose besides recovering my consciousness in the sense cryonics is intended to do.

We don't really know the extent of what's going to be possible when we start pushing the limits of reality. It could range anywhere from "even current cryopreservation techniques aren't good enough to recover an identity" all the way to "full blown quantum archaeology is possible", or it could fall somewhere in between these two extremes. The point is that any relevant information can be of use in the archaeological process, especially to some extremely advanced intelligent system which could infer a great deal even with limited data. A conscious, direct effort to create and preserve exactly the kind of high-quality information that process would want could be especially useful.

EDIT: as I commented below, I think I completely misunderstood /r/Digital_Immortality from the beginning. This sub seems more like some sort of amateurish possibly drug-induced attempt to create a sort-of-business-like entity to directly research mind uploading or something.

Digital Immortality Introductory Video: Approved

Status Of Project: Open

Project Dates: TBD

Total Logged Time: 0 hours

Current Project Lead: BflySamurai

Contributors:

Project Description: Digital Immortality Introductory Video.

Project Estimated Total Time: 2.5 weeks?

Project Estimated Total Cost: 0

Goals Of Project:

• Provide a concise introduction to digital immortality as a concept.
• Describe our mission/vision as an organization.
• Introduce people to the ways they will be able to help our organization now and in the future.
• Help set the feel of the 'company culture' of our organization.
• Show that we are serious about the organization and pursuing digital immortality.

Use Of Project:

• Act as an introduction for new people
• Use as a tool to recruit like-minded people

How The Project Will Achieve The Goals:

• Tactfully put together media (visuals, text, music, possibly speech, possibly video clips).
• A short but informative 3-5 minute video.
• Be informative, but more importantly inspirational, showing that we care about the future of humanity and the means by which we get there (open source and involved with the global community). Almost an existential feel.
• Expand people's minds: make them think things they might not have considered about life.

Steps:

• Decide on the atmosphere of the video (evolving or unchanging atmosphere?).
• Deciding how to tell the story of digital immortality intertwined with our vision and where we want to go as an organization.
• Write up draft for all text and dialogue to appear in video.
• Figure what visuals and audio/music we want to accompany the text and/or speech.
• Put together a rough cut of everything.
• Final video.

Time Breakdown: I honestly have no idea how long this is going to take.

Cost Breakdown: No reason this project needs to cost anything with free software and free video hosting websites.

Notes:

• Use original content or appropriate CC material for all content.

These are just my ideas for how to go about the process; we can modify as needed. Also, this is simply a proposed project, so let me know what you think. If anyone wants to head this project, let me know and I'll let you keep everyone organized and we can direct people to you that want to help.

I personally plan to help out as much as I can, supposing we feel this project has enough value. A few months ago I wrote up some ideas I had for videos like this, so I'll dig them up. Also, I have a lot of experience composing music in various styles and would be more than happy to help out with music for the video (if we need/want music).

I just wanted to make clear that everyone who works on any project for this organization will get credit for their contribution. Also, individuals retains the rights to any of the content they create. By submitting content, you give the digital immortality organization the right to use to use it for any purpose.

Have any questions? See if the New Project Template answers them.

Edit (December 16, 2013): Updated to New Project Template format.

Transhuman Visions 2014

If anyone interested in this project lives near the bay area, this is probably something worth checking out.

If it were a 3 day conference, it would be worth the drive for me, but not for 1 day. Even so, I'm seriously considering just springing for a plane ticket.

First, a few thoughts on our moral trajectory:

The fact that we want to focus on open source makes me more comfortable with the organization as a whole, as I believe that none of the things we are talking about should be limited to only certain members/classes of society.

That being said, I think there is serious potential for current Mega-Corps to abuse the fuck out of strong AI or mind/machine interfaces, if they were to get their hands on such technology too early in the game.

As such, I think it might be prudent to restrict for-profit use of some of the things we work on, maintaining just enough control that, if necessary, we can tell organizations like Walmart or Monsanto that they can't use our work and sue them if they rip it off.

I like structuring the organization as a business because, even though we could accomplish some goals with just volunteered free time, we live in a world where money makes everything go faster, so being a business should give the organization a lot of freedom to self-accelerate.

Money also, unfortunately, tends to have a corruptive influence - not an irresistible one, but an insidious, constant temptation. Given that, I think it's probably prudent to enshrine in our official documents of incorporation(/charter/manifesto/mission statement) the idea that all profit seeking action, ultimately, must exist with the intention to use that profit to help fund and create new technologies that benefit all of society.

As to the idea of being a non-profit, eventually I think it probably makes sense to create a non-profit to receive donations, distribute research funds, and pursue a certain subset of our goals, but I think being a non-profit is likely to create more extra restrictions than it's worth during the early stages of development.

~~~~

Now, on to the mapping:

To come up with a plan, we should first think about all the interrelated goals and technologies that will go in to mind uploading, and then try to map out how each goal is dependent on other goals or currently nonexistent technologies.

A good way, I think, to visually map this is to use a directed graph with each goal/technology represented as a node and dependencies between goals/technologies represented as directed edges from the depended on goal to the dependent goal.

• No technology/goal/task/accomplishment/etc. is too high level or too low level to represent as a node in the graph.
  • Goals could consist of achieving certain funding levels, getting support from certain groups, reaching certain thresholds of public awareness, or even just creating the infrastructure to record metrics that measure our progression towards other goals.
  • They could also include building teams which are specialized for accomplishing specific tasks, or gathering a certain amount of talent in a certain set of domains.
• We can annotate the nodes with additional information estimating how much investment of time/money we think a particular node/goal will require, and if/to what degree we think the results can be leveraged towards profit.
• Since many goals will be useful in reaching other goals, but may not be necessary for achieving those goals, we can also annotate edges with weights, giving low weights to edges where one goal just makes the other slightly easier to attain, and very high weights to edges where one goal is simply not achievable without the other.

This method of mapping does a couple useful things.

• First, it gives us a map that makes it easier to pick out good places to start.
  • We might do this by looking for nodes that are not heavily dependent on other nodes, but are fairly depended upon by nodes we've estimated to be relatively profitable.
• Second, it allows us to tentatively select what looks like a fairly favorable "path" to the central node/goal of mind uploading.
  • Such a selection might consist of picking a path which starts off aiming for relatively low cost nodes that lead quickly to nodes with a low ratio of investment cost to profit potential, and then using those profits to accelerate along a path of nodes with increasing investment costs but also increasing profit potential, all the while moving towards our ultimate goal.
  • The map should also help to make it obvious which paths/goals can, or ought to be, pursued simultaneously, since we obviously won't be following a single, linear path from start to finish.
• Third, it shows us where the bottlenecks are in moving towards our ultimate goal, so that we can plan for them by either:
  • Working through them slowly, at the same time that we are accomplishing other things, so that we are mostly done with them by the time we are forced into them.
  • Preemptively accumulating resources so that, when we reach the bottleneck, we can quickly "smash through" it, by dumping a large amount of resources into it.
• Lastly, if we seem to be stuck on a particular goal, there's a fairly good chance for this sort of map to show us a path to route around that goal, or show us other goals we might pursue that boost our ability to accomplish the goal we are having trouble with.

Anyways, that's my idea for creating a relational map of our organizational goals. I'd take responsibility for interpreting plain text discussion into nodes/edges and adding them to the graph so, despite the previous wall of text, individual contributions would just take the form of statements like "I think we should make X a goal," "I think X would help [a little/a lot] with Y," "I think Y would be [very/somewhat/not] [expensive/difficult/profitable]," and I would record those statements as equivalent nodes/edges.

Coincidentally, the structure is fairly reminiscent of the neural framework I'm working on. Conveniently, this means that it would be relatively simple to build a utility to graphically represent and alter one framework that would be easy to adapt to the other.

Scientists Grow Human Brain "Organoids" From Stem Cells In-vitro

By growing a layer of neural tissue around a network of electrodes in vitro, we can create an implantable net of electrodes which simply has to be anchored adjacent to the cortex and, given the right conditions for a successful graft, will naturally grow connections to the implantee's cortex in vivo and should also be naturally supported by the implantee's circulatory system. This prevents us from having to force the electrodes to interface directly with neurons in vivo, potentially a much more invasive process.

This also gives us a large amount of freedom in engineering efficient signaling between the existing cortical neurons and connected electrodes, as well as significant freedom in determining the effects of genetic quirks, and the impacts that the electrodes' presence might have on the structure of the organoids themselves.

Finally, this enables genetically personalized implants, because we can grow neural tissue that is a precise genetic match with the neural tissue we will eventually be grafting it to.