The people who are first to enter into business in a new industry are generally in the best position to profit from it.
If you knew people who knew something about the cemetery industry and you knew people who knew people in your state government and you knew people who knew something about information technology and you knew people who had some money, then you and the people you knew would be sitting in the proverbial cat-bird seat.
Update April 29, 2013: I’m not interested in sitting in this cat-bird seat. I’ve checked, and none of my relatives are either. But, it’s a good idea for a new industry. Get yourself in that seat!! [I fixed one mistake “Human” to “Humans,” and I’m not going to read this again.
I’ve just details my goals, [http://abighairyspider.blogspot.com/2013/04/goals-now.html] which does include reading my own blog, but I could sit here for fifteen years enjoying correcting my own grammar and spelling mistakes.
Only information lasts forever.
Humans have reached the stage when information can be perpetually preserved, verbatim. Digitally stored information can be stored and replicated ad infinitum.
Thousands of years from now, someone will read that last paragraph, maybe a great, great, great […] grandson, and roll his eyes that I put “ad infinitum” in there.
Or will he?
This blog is being hosted by a Google company. Will Google be around? Google is a business. The content of this blog belongs to me, but they’re presented to you at the commercial will of a capitalistic company who could one day decide it no longer serves their stockholder’s purposes to continue to host it.
This is where the Perpetual Information Industry comes in.
Here’s what you need to do:
(1) Write a bill for the Oklahoma House defining the industry as a set of businesses, operated by express trusts, maintaining perpetual information care funds which are regulated by the Oklahoma Banking Commission.
(2) The bill should specifically state the security of the information stores: primary site security, weather resistance, bunkering, and backup requirements. The bill should be so specific as to exclude most if not all existing data centers in the state.
Ok, this is the creepy side of government. If you think that RFP you’re working on wasn’t written to specifically cater to a preselected vendor, then you don’t know the RFP process.
(3) While the bill is working, start building the aforementioned data center.
The bill should create a certification and logo that a business can place on their materials and websites to reassure customers that the business operates in a manner to be certified an Oklahoma Perpetual Information Service.
When the customer signs up for service, part of their fees are placed into a perpetual care fund. The business operated by the trust can then use the interest on that fund in the future to make sure the information stays in tact and served according to the wishes of the customer, forever.
A senior member of a family could arrange for service for generations by paying a relatively small fee (compared to cemetery space).
Why would someone want this?
Imagine that you could put your family pictures and video and stories and personal diaries into a system like that.
While you’re alive, your family could use it, instead of Facebook, to see what’s going on and to stay in touch.
It would record the history of the family, kids’ report cards, drawings, stories, video of that home run, video of the retirement party, etc.
You could record your personal thoughts, important financial information, etc.
While you’re alive, you can safely change the information sharing configuration and you would specify to the trust what information to release after your death, and when.
So, you could have really personal thoughts recorded that you might want descendants many generations from now to see, but you don’t want anyone alive to see… So you could lock one of your stores for 100 years after your death.
You may be thinking: Wait, this sounds like the sort of crap locked up in a Presidential library. I’m not a President, no one cares.
I don’t know much of anything that my great grandparents were thinking. My Great Grandpa Link and my Granny Winett were very interesting people, but I was young when I knew them. There are some super-8 movies somewhere of Grandpa Link telling stories which I haven’t seen in a while, but I remember that they’re fascinating.
You know, Grandpa Link worked in the oil fields near Covington and met some colorful characters. What if he had written those stories down? You bet, I’m interested.
Holy crap, someone needs to digitize those super-8 movies and get them into a perpetual information store!!
I don’t know anything about my great grandparents’ parents.
This is a real industry. It might already exist somewhere, I don’t know.
If someone is going to say it’s INFORMATION FOREVER and that the information will be released ACCORDING TO YOUR WISHES AFTER YOUR DEATH then it needs to be regulated by the STATE OF OKLAHOMA just like cemeteries are now.
Gee, if only I knew people who knew people who knew about this sort of thing.
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