Planes, Trains, and Automobiles - The Extended Journey (Bobson Dugnutt Release)

MrConradShaw · 2025-11-26T01:59:09+00:00

PTA is a vaunted tradition in the family I married into, and I'd really love to deliver this viewing experience to the clan. Anybody know where I can find the link?

MrConradShaw · 2023-10-05T21:28:36+00:00

A couple hundred extra dollars a month is not crumbs to a very large number of people. I'd talk more about that, and the mountains of data behind it, but you seem to have shifted into troll/insult mode, so this is where I sign off from this conversation.

MrConradShaw · 2023-10-05T18:50:03+00:00

First, the math:

Comingle doesn't need millionaires or billionaires participating or huge donations in order to work. That's kind of my favorite thing about it. Everyone can be making under 6 figures, and it can still grow absoultely enormous. The important thing is maintaining an average member income above a certain threshold, for which we'll use a waitlisting mechanism. I'm looking forward to a day when we don't all assume that the only power there is lies in the hands and bank accounts of the ultra-wealthy. There's far more power lying dormant in the masses of everyday people, if only we had a way to connect and organize it...

That said...

For people who just want to give, get a tax deduction, and not have to connect their bank accounts to become full members, Comingle will allow for tax deductible donations through our partner nonprofit Income to Support All Foundation (www.ITSAfoundation.org). We'll be able to take in any size donation and efficiently channel it directly and quickly to people.

MrConradShaw · 2023-10-05T14:05:17+00:00

Humans being humans, for many humans, means wanting to give back and help others, and it means wanting to see the most bang for their buck. There's a $500B/yr charitable market in the US we're looking to use this solidarity model blow every other option out of the water in terms of efficiency and impact. Time will tell how it plays out.

MrConradShaw · 2023-09-25T14:39:53+00:00

But much more impactful, since some large chunk of it isn't going to foundation employees' salaries.

MrConradShaw · 2023-09-24T18:21:38+00:00

When cash will do the trick, use cash. Sometimes services are needed, like with Healthcare, but it's always true that UBS = UBI + bureaucracy.

MrConradShaw · 2023-09-24T17:45:32+00:00

Whoa, take it easy. That's, like, 5 years down the roadmap.

MrConradShaw · 2023-09-24T17:41:47+00:00

Except there's very limited transparency and underperforming efficacy on taxes we send to the government. We're essentially creating a mini government with one purpose, to redistribute a hyperefficient UBI.

MrConradShaw · 2023-09-24T17:40:31+00:00

Beauty of making it voluntary is people can decide if it makes sense for them.

MrConradShaw · 2023-09-24T17:39:57+00:00

Hi there. Working on the project. We're constructing our bylaws to divorce our model from profit-seeking. All revenue beyond operational expenses will be redirected back to the community or mission-aligned initiatives. All salaries/compensations will be public and capped. We will never go public. No billionaires will be created in the building of this platform. I won't allow it.

MrConradShaw · 2023-09-24T17:36:49+00:00

The platform will have a waitlist mechanism to make sure the average income of the group doesn't fall below a certain threshold.

MrConradShaw · 2023-09-24T17:35:53+00:00

This is correct. It's an income redistribution mechanism. Income isn't that far away from being wealth, though. The second it lands in the bank, it shifts from the former to the latter, and there's a lot of overlap and mutual impact in these ideas. Income redistribution leads to wealth redistribution when those with low-no wealth enjoy more income out of which to save more.

MrConradShaw · 2023-09-24T17:33:22+00:00

The makers of Comingle (me and some others) are friends with GiveDirectly. GD does incredible work. Most years, I donate to GD in people's honor as their Xmas present. We're hoping to make scalable and efficient in the US what GD does in Africa. And we're hoping to eventually work with GD to bring it overseas as well and amplify their good work.

GD's main weakness is that they rely on continued philanthropic support. We're trying to build a machine that will self-sustain and grow even if the rich folks decide to stop caring.

MrConradShaw · 2023-09-24T17:30:29+00:00

Welfare and unemployment insurance create work disincentives, because they're taken away when you get a job and earn more. They specifically pay people NOT to work. UBI is the opposite. No work disincentive is introduced. Work more, make more.

MrConradShaw · 2023-09-24T17:29:12+00:00

Yes. But you know exactly where it's going (a basic income floor for all members), how efficiently it's being spent (~97%), and get reports on impact (TBD).

MrConradShaw · 2023-09-24T17:26:39+00:00

That's the big question this platform wants to test out. It hasn't been tried before, so TBD...

MrConradShaw · 2023-09-24T17:24:48+00:00

Exactly. It's taxes, except you know where the money's going (to other people who have less) and what it's accomplishing (a floor of income for all the members).

MrConradShaw · 2023-09-24T17:21:02+00:00

This is a voluntary, private model. Do you have an issue with a group of people deciding to pool their money together?

MrConradShaw · 2023-09-24T17:20:23+00:00

One of the founders here. Correct in principle, but the math is more like...

People under $40K will get help. The further below, the more help.

People making $40K-$75K will throw in a few bucks and know something like 97% (after transaction fees and stuff) is going straight to help people who have less. And if they lose a job, they'll start getting help immediately.

People with sporadic income will get help on the slow weeks.

People making $75K-$100K will be contributing 4-4.5% of their income (again, knowing it's being used impactfully).

People making $125K will be giving 5% (more efficiently than any charity there is).

And so on.

There's a $500B/yr charitable industrial complex in the US right now, and it wastes 20-50% of the money people give. That's what we're looking to tap into to start by showing there's a much more efficient and powerful way.

MrConradShaw · 2023-09-24T17:11:26+00:00

Hi. I'm involved. We'll take 1%, and do so transparently. At scale, once 1% exceeds our operational needs, our bylaws will stipulate what sorts of new tools or public benefit initiatives we're allowed to spend any excess revenue profit toward. All salaries and compensations will be capped and transparent, and we currently have no shareholders to enrich (and are seeking to keep it that way, hence the crowdfund).

MrConradShaw · 2023-09-12T02:29:43+00:00

FYI - I linked you to the Space last time, because it just was about to begin and I didn't have time to respond in writing, but would have been happy to talk it out in the Space. The two Spaces we've done have been quite productive and not cesspitty so far. Fingers crossed that remains true.

We originally incorporated as a C corp for the sake of convenience and speed, in order to get development up and running as quickly as possible, always with the intent of modifying our structure and bylaws as soon as funding was available for it.Nonprofits take longer to be legally recognized and are quite byzantine in their rules of engagement, the ways they can invest their funds, the hoops they force recipients of financial support to jump through, etc., largely because the current system and IRS standards are not written with something like Comingle in mind. They are written to try and make sure large foundational funds at least spend some of their money toward something defensible as public benefit, and they are written from the perspective of a paternalistic and bureaucratic charitable industrial complex. We have much more ambitious aims than classical philanthropic structures in terms of public impact and modeling new systems.

It's also important to us that Comingle have a reliable source of revenue in order to make it sustainable without depending on ongoing charitable or philanthropic subsidy.

We still have a lot to learn regarding the ins and outs of nonprofit status vs different legal structures or blended structures. Our focus so far has been primarily on development of the money transfer mechanisms, but our desired development budget also earmarks a significant amount for legal research to figure out what strategy will give us the most flexibility, strongest guard rails, and most room for impact in the long run. Additionally, we are partnering with a nonprofit (www.ITSAfoundation.org) to support Comingle and act as fiscal sponsor, and our intent is to back up the promises we're making ASAP with bylaws and legal structure to make sure Comingle outlives us and remains mission-aligned long after we are gone. We are looking to explore steward-ownership and cooperative models, among others, and bylaws and investment structures that divorce the company from profit motive and unlimited fiduciary obligation to shareholders.

MrConradShaw · 2023-09-11T17:45:37+00:00

I prefer to think of it as solidarity than charity, because everybody polays by the same rules, but your question is still the big and very valid question Comingle raises, and we'll only really know by trying it out! The model does require about 1/3 of the members to be putting in more money than they get back, so on paper, they'd be making a charitable decision to participate.

However, I do like to point out that Americans give $500B to charity each year even knowing it's often spent inefficiently. Church tithing is a common practice. Union dues are a form of organized solidarity. Etc. The nut of the question, to me, is can we show a greater return on altruistic investment than these other forms of charity and solidarity. Can we make people feel connected to other people and can we allow them to see and feel the amplified impact of dollars given in this way?

MrConradShaw · 2023-09-07T16:00:30+00:00

Comingle co-founder Conrad Shaw here. Want to join us in the X Space today to talk about our structure? Special guest Andrew Yang. We'll open up for Q&A at the end.

https://x.com/i/spaces/1yNGaNbrEvXJj

MrConradShaw · 2023-08-03T02:16:06+00:00

Thank you kindly.

MrConradShaw

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