Very soon, I want to get back to update the PERMANENT website, especially the database of quality papers and reports, crossreferenced with the authors database. These are the key people who would be needed once investment comes in. I've spent a lot of money ordering printed materials from the USA and having them sent by FedEx to my company in Thailand, and I've started reading all these at night.
Then, I want to start attending professional meetings again.
The keys will be:
A key part of that plan will be presenting it to potential philanthropic investors. The book is still quite good enough, but we need to separately create and refine a new business plan.
I have seen a tremendous amount of money be spent around this world. The issue is not lack of money, it's lack of commitment.
I have itemized some of the PERMANENT first steps. For example, updating the database would cost just a few thousand dollars. I have a German programmer in Thailand who can do it. The old database is in outdated Lotus Notes format (1998), and Lotus Notes is dead, especially on the web. It has more than 500 records up to 1998. It needs to be ported to an SQL web database, and then updated with publications and authors since 1998.
For so many things, we don't need to do actual research and development. We need to use research and development which has already been done by others, and is largely published. We need to take a look at all our human resources.
I have a sizeable documents library in Thailand. Most documents are not on the web. They are sold on paper only, copyrighted by the publisher or institution. They must be bought and shipped. I would like to get key documents and get them into our Asia library here in Bangkok, and also read and incorporate their content into the longterm PERMANENT plan.
I would like to fly to the USA to a good library and review a lot of documents there, incorporating many of them into my database and website, and others make notes to order a copy and ship to the Asia library.
Based on all this technical literature, we can put together our best engineering plan to mine the asteroids and the moon, and have a list of the best engineers and scientists who we could bring in.
We can come up with a budget for this project, and revenue streams.
We can hire architects and artists for the important audiovisual presentations in our sales pitches on the web and general publicity, such as presentations to Discovery Channel, National Geographic Channel, etc., for global outreach in a time-efficient and cost-effective manner.
It's very frustrating to see PERMANENT needing a few thousand dollars here and there, but unable to get much except $50 donations and $30 book purchases. Then, in my life in Thailand, I see people coming over and blowing $50,000 or more on some jungle bunny bargirl girlfriend, or unnecessary ostentatious luxury items.
For example, one "friend" argued with us endlessly over the cost of his company's website. I met this CEO while he was vacationing in Thailand, where he met a Thai lady. His big company is obviously making millions upon millions of dollars per year on mainly services, largely to the government sector. He was arguing over our price of $500 or so for a website, our lowest price, sometimes rudely. His ego just couldn't allow him to pay one cent more than the competition, and he pointed out that there were spam advertisements for cheaper websites, etc., etc. I pointed out that those guys will not produce a website anywhere near the quality of their alleged samples, and he will have headaches, etc., ... which he did. However, when his girlfriend became unreachable on her mobile phone, suddenly he wired $500 for quick surveillance. He bought her a car for $20,000. And the story goes on...
And that guy is a low spender compared to a lot of others I see ostentatiously throwing money around! However, suggest something about helping life on this planet, and the response is disinterest. They're usually interested only in "what's in it for me?".
That's how people are going down in history ... or rather how they are NOT going down in history, because they aren't contributing.
"If you aren't part of the solution, then you are part of the problem."
It is extremely frustrating to me that after billions of years of evolution in life, survival of intelligent life from this planet is up to this ONE generation, OUR generation. But guess what? Amidst all the wealth on this planet, I'm having to spend my time in menial work, wasting my talents, experience, and limited time by surviving monetarily instead of working on PERMANENT.
It is not a lack of money. It is a selfish lack of commitment by people.
I am 47 right now, and hopefully I will live a lot longer, goodness forbid I get cancer or heart problems or something like that. I don't know what my energy levels will be like in the future as I age, but I think I've got another 20 good years to make a difference, probably more.
I've gained a lot of good business experience, especially over the past 10 years, and a lot of key experience over the last 22 years.
Now that my business is going well, I think that I will be able to spend more time on PERMANENT, hopefully to the point of finding a good philanthropic investor, at which time things will really take off. That will be a very personal effort.
Actually, I think that I have about another 1 or 2 years of ramping up my business before I will be able to invest much money and time into PERMANENT or travel to conferences, because I'm really only a couple of months ahead of bills and overhead. The company has constant income, but I do think it needs to build up a little bit more. I don't want to return to the state of company failure 10 years ago after all these years of hard work.
Nevertheless, at some time, I need to put time back into PERMANENT, and at this time, I am still the one and only person putting significant money and quality time into PERMANENT.