While I think this piece is right in some sense, seeing it written out clearly it feels like there is something uncooperative and possibly destructive about it. To take the portfolio management case:
Why do the other fund managers prefer 100% stocks? Is this a thoughtful decision you are unthinkingly countering?
Each fund manager gets better outcomes if they keep their allocation secret from others.
I think I’m most worried about (2): it would be bad if OP made their grants secret or individuals lied about their funding allocation in EA surveys.
Tweaking the fund manager scenario to be a bit more stark:
There are 100 fund managers
50 of them prefer fully stocks, 50 prefer an even split between stocks and bonds
If they each decide individually you’d get an overall allocation of 75% stocks and 25% bonds.
If instead they all are fully following the lessons of this post, the ones that prefer bonds go 100% bonds, and the overall allocation is 50% stocks and 50% bonds.
It feels to me that the 75-25 outcome is essentially the right one, if the two groups are equally likely to be correct. On the other hand, the adversarial 50-50 outcome is one group getting everything they want.
Note that I don’t think this is an issue with other groups covering the gaps left by the recent OP shift away from some areas. It’s not that OP thought that those areas should receive less funding, but that GV wanted to pick their battles. In that case, external groups that do accept the case for funding responding by supporting work in these areas seems fine and good. Which Moskovitz confirms: “I’m explicitly pro-funding by others” And: “I’d much prefer to just see someone who actually feels strongly about that take the wheel.”
(This also reminds me about the perpetual debate about whether you should vote things on the Forum up/down directionally vs based on how close the vote total currently is to where you think it should be.)
I think these unsavory implications you enumerate are just a consequence of applying game theory to donations, rather than following specifically from my post’s arguments.
For example, if Bob is all-in on avoiding funging and doesn’t care about norms like collaboration and transparency, his incentives are exactly as you describe: Give zero information about his value system, and make donations secretly after other funders have shown their hands.
I think you’re completely right that those are awful norms, and we shouldn’t go all-in on applying game theory to donations. This goes both for avoiding funging and for my post’s argument about optimizing “EA’s portfolio”.
However, just as we can learn important lessons from the concept of funging while discouraging the bad, I still think this post is valuable and includes some nontrivial practical recommendations.
While I think this piece is right in some sense, seeing it written out clearly it feels like there is something uncooperative and possibly destructive about it. To take the portfolio management case:
Why do the other fund managers prefer 100% stocks? Is this a thoughtful decision you are unthinkingly countering?
Each fund manager gets better outcomes if they keep their allocation secret from others.
I think I’m most worried about (2): it would be bad if OP made their grants secret or individuals lied about their funding allocation in EA surveys.
Tweaking the fund manager scenario to be a bit more stark:
There are 100 fund managers
50 of them prefer fully stocks, 50 prefer an even split between stocks and bonds
If they each decide individually you’d get an overall allocation of 75% stocks and 25% bonds.
If instead they all are fully following the lessons of this post, the ones that prefer bonds go 100% bonds, and the overall allocation is 50% stocks and 50% bonds.
It feels to me that the 75-25 outcome is essentially the right one, if the two groups are equally likely to be correct. On the other hand, the adversarial 50-50 outcome is one group getting everything they want.
Note that I don’t think this is an issue with other groups covering the gaps left by the recent OP shift away from some areas. It’s not that OP thought that those areas should receive less funding, but that GV wanted to pick their battles. In that case, external groups that do accept the case for funding responding by supporting work in these areas seems fine and good. Which Moskovitz confirms: “I’m explicitly pro-funding by others” And: “I’d much prefer to just see someone who actually feels strongly about that take the wheel.”
(This also reminds me about the perpetual debate about whether you should vote things on the Forum up/down directionally vs based on how close the vote total currently is to where you think it should be.)
I think these unsavory implications you enumerate are just a consequence of applying game theory to donations, rather than following specifically from my post’s arguments.
For example, if Bob is all-in on avoiding funging and doesn’t care about norms like collaboration and transparency, his incentives are exactly as you describe: Give zero information about his value system, and make donations secretly after other funders have shown their hands.
I think you’re completely right that those are awful norms, and we shouldn’t go all-in on applying game theory to donations. This goes both for avoiding funging and for my post’s argument about optimizing “EA’s portfolio”.
However, just as we can learn important lessons from the concept of funging while discouraging the bad, I still think this post is valuable and includes some nontrivial practical recommendations.