I will be at the Cafe today to discuss future developments. Thanks for the high quality feedback that has been generated by the Cafe. I hope we can get to higher level-maybe we already have?
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I would like to note that @achronon, @Michael_Stumpf and @Gennifrey_Edwards have stated priorities elsewhere. @madrush, @Mark_Jabbour and others who may/may not desire to appear based on personal schedule. . . all are welcome to share thoughts if the Cosmos allows. I understand the framing of this Cafe was/is quite loose and the experiment in sharing our personal readings and other thoughts was a minimal success. I may appear early to air our some personal thoughts that I have written, rewritten, and tossed in wads to the recycle bin. I greatly appreciate @patanswer’s and @Ariadne’s contribution to this thread and would like for us to sponsor their efforts. Thank you too for your constant feedback @johnnydavis54. Let us permit emissions of great radiance!
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A few weeks ago I experienced an intuitive download of a media idea that could take place on something like Cosmos Cafe. A very welcome experience! And I have the encouragement of an experienced integrally-informed journalist, Amir Nasr. However, my limitation is finances. For me to engage in developing something, I need to believe that there is a goal for financing Cosmos Co-op. @madrush as it stands, you are the only group I am aware of to have made positive contact with Evolve.Foundation!
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Durwin, that sounds promising. Good to hear Amir’s name too, in connection.
We have been talking about financing Cosmos for the last 6 months in the “Cosmovision” sessions which you can find here: Cosmos Co-op - Infinite Conversations. @care_save is becoming quite focused on our next practical steps, as am I.
Unfortunately, the topics haven’t been very well developed with detailed notes and/or transcripts. On the other hand, we have made a lot of progress with backend systems (e.g., Cosmos Cloud) and forming the beginnings of a development team (Coevolve). We’ve done this with virtually zero funding (except for a very generous Bitcoin donation in 2015-16), and I personally could go on for a while longer on passion alone—as I know others could as well, since we are already doing it.
That said, it would be nice to be able to focus on Cosmos 100% to actually bring the vision to fruition, and this will require funding for a small dedicated team at least, including seed funding for various experimental projects. We do have a goal to seek funding for an R&D team (which, for me, means not only “Research & Development” but also “Reading & Dialogue”) in the imminent future.
I believe as a general rule in Cosmos: If you want to see things happen, you have to help make them happen—in whatever ways you can, big or small. If you (and Amir?) would like to invest some labor and/or capital in Cosmos Co-op at this stage, that would be great—just let me know. We can discuss specifics in a separate thread.
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what i experience is that what i have to offer isn’t wanted, like the connection to Bo Shao, and also I offered to connect Caroline with a very good friend of mine and she didn’t do anythign with that.
I don’t see those as a matter of want, but timing—and effort. You can make a suggestion for us to talk with someone; but then who actually does the work of following up? We already have a lot on our plates.
For someone to say, “Hey, you guys should get some money,” is a nice sentiment—and you stand to gain for introducing us to possible funding sources. Nonetheless, someone has to actually follow through with the work. We can’t just ask for money. At the minimum, we have to put together some materials. We have to think about our message and pitch. We need a business plan, a power point, or whatever else it takes. That takes time, effort, labor.
I appreciate the connections you are trying to make, and your own personal research that goes into them. But it doesn’t mean we’re in a position to act on your suggestions. That is why I am asking for a more serious commitment. Caroline and I (and Kayla and Doug and a few others, like the Café regulars, intellectually) are already doing pretty much all we can. We need others to help fill in the substantial gaps and raise the whole community to a higher level.
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thanks very much for this clarification :). I can see how I need to be more focused in my contributions in this context.
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Yes indeed, to reiterate @madrush, we’re trying to move into the space of making the ideas tangible… by making testable prototypes. We’ve done a lot of hypothesizing about a collaborative autopoetic platform and how it might work. Now it’s time to raise resources to run experiments… of which, building a committed and compensated team is one such experiment. 
Here’s my work on that, just posted to the forum a little earlier: https://www.infiniteconversations.com/t/fundraising-for-a-cosmos-development-sprint-to-startup/3255/2
Durwin, your contributions are so welcome and encouraged. Many of them are quality, IMO. But as Marco noted, the time of exactly when/how to act on them (and the coordinated resources to do so) may not be there, since it IS just a tiny team and we are all unpaid, and doing what we can. Capacity is and will be the biggest limit to effective action.
With putting out “offerings” into a communal milieu, it’s worth noting that communities are complex systems, and are subject to variable positive and negative feedback loops. Any bit of information may be lost to the “noise” of that system, especially if the human participants are running low on their personal resources (like yours truly). Please don’t take it personally if your suggestions are acted on or not, and when. The email thread with your friend Nancy is a drop in the ocean of correspondences (each with lovely potential) that I have neglected this past year. I haven’t had the capacity, and am working hard to restore it so I can keep giving at the caliber I have been. But I need to be given to, too, I need to receive. And I get to define what I need. It may differ from what you offer! And such is the miasma of community and relationship entanglements. I’m content that mutual good faith and dialogue may suffice to remain in a joint community fabric, even when our offerings don’t “land” how we might hope. Sometimes, a nutrient bit gets cycled around and around in the milieu, before the collective consciousness goes, “Oh! This thing is useful! Let’s…”
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This is an awkward question because, again, I am a relative new-comer, don’t know much about platforms, and don’t have many resources, but…would it be helpful to have levels of small, ongoing donations to support Cosmos? I would be happy to participate in such, though it would likely be at the lowest rung, but still, if members give ongoingly at the level that works, that makes for a more cooperative Coop, it seems to me, rather than having all the financial work and contribution coming from a smaller group only. I am a member of a Credit Union, and a 40+ year old Food Co-op, and have been for ages. I really feel that Co-operative financing of Co-ops makes the best sense, even if there does need to be a staged level of dnation or contribution, whatever you call it. Would this be helpful do you think?
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Hi Maia, from about this time in 2017 until the end of last year we had a “beta” membership program collecting anywhere between $2 and 25/month from a few early supporters. This helped with some of the web hosting costs; however, this program has not been collecting payments this year for technical reasons.
We have a presence at Cosmos Cooperative - Open Collective but it has not been developed, staffed, or promoted. In my latest talks with @care_save we have focusing on our next steps for setting up an open accounting and collective budgeting framework (ahead of a funding attempt), so any proto-member could get involved in evolving our financial picture. (But there is still some framework to organize and orient our work.)
We certainly want this to be a participatory dialogue, with lots of room for feedback and collective intelligence to emerge. At the same time, there are some very normal, practical tasks we could use help with. One of those tasks is to gather up and document all of the tasks! Then members can see what needs to be done (for what we want to have happen) in concrete terms (“operational chains”) and can choose to contribute in ways that are generative and supportive.
Thank you for the suggestion! I have often felt awkward talking about money—don’t want to kill my visionary vibe (for what it’s worth). But the realist in me knows that we need to have that dialogue, and could even make it into a positive practice. I always like the feeling (which isn’t always feasible, some months are better than others) of balancing our family budget. I think it would feel good to do this on a community-scale as well.
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I’ve been contributing regularly (I think, maybe @madrush you can confirm), first through the beta cosmos platform and more recently I contributed via Patreon if I’m not mistaken. Like you, @Ariadne, I am able to do so, but the mecanism seems to shift around and right now it maybe that I’m not contributing anything $ -wise…
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I have to confess I’m notexactly clear about your response in regard to ongoing (even if small) member donations. Unfortunately, I don’t have the skills or reliable energies to offer practical help, and I regret that, but it’s my reality now.
Yes, I am ALWAYS awkward talking about money, even offering small amounts for great causes because…of how small the donation has to be, given my circumstances! But it’s also the “moral support” of members contributing that seems inspiring, too. For example, I give $10 a month to Tree Sisters, a planet-wide tree planting group of (mostly) women. It’s tiny, but the ongoingness makes it add up over time (been six years now).
Not sure where this is going. But, thanks for everything you do.
And, Marco, I am sooooo glad you are writing poetry…
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Geoffrey, when you say “the mechanism” do you mean the computer format for donating or something else entirely?
Hi Maia, I spoke with Doug earlier today and he helped me think through some of our next steps on website work. After getting our podcasting set up this week, next I am going to fix our donations to make it easy for anyone to make whatever kind of contribution they feel comfortable with. This will be on our own website to keep things simple and within our control. We will need someone to help with bookkeeping and reporting. We have also discussed exploring collective budgeting software such as cobudget to allocate resources once there is actually something to work with. But this function may ultimately be filled by our own community currencies, such as “LitCoin.”
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Sounds good. All I would add re: donations is that you include a way for non-credit card people to pay by check (that would include me), but there are others. This is always an issue wherever I go, due to frequent assumptions that everyone has a smart phone, banks online, has cards, etc
Thanks!
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That is a good suggestion, thanks. I will be sure to include a check option. That also reminds me of a related post:
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