For the FLI issue, I think we can confidently say more democratic decision making would have helped. Most EAs would have probably thought we should avoid touching a neo Nazi newspaper with a 10 foot pole.
On the other hand, more decentralized grantmaking, i.e. giving money to more individuals to regrant, increases the risks of individuals funding really bad things (unilateralist curse). I suppose we could do something like give regranters money to regrant and allow a group of people (maybe all grantmakers and regranters together) to vote to veto grants, say with a limited number of veto votes per round, and possibly after flagging specific grants and debating them. However, this will increase the required grantmaking-related work, possibly significantly.
For the FLI issue, I think we can confidently say more democratic decision making would have helped. Most EAs would have probably thought we should avoid touching a neo Nazi newspaper with a 10 foot pole.
Oh okay, but grant level democratisation is a huge step.
On the other hand, more decentralized grantmaking, i.e. giving money to more individuals to regrant, increases the risks of individuals funding really bad things (unilateralist curse). I suppose we could do something like give regranters money to regrant and allow a group of people (maybe all grantmakers and regranters together) to vote to veto grants, say with a limited number of veto votes per round, and possibly after flagging specific grants and debating them. However, this will increase the required grantmaking-related work, possibly significantly.