Many people are working on new governance mechanisms from an altruistic perspective. There are many sub-categories such as Charter cities, space governance, decentralized governance, RadicalXChange agenda..
I’m uncertain as to the marginal value in such projects, and I’d like to see a broad analysis that can serve as a good prior and analysis framework for specific projects.
This is not quite what I was going for, even though it is relevant. This problem profile focuses on existing institutions and on methods for collective decision making. I was thinking more in the spirit of market design, where the goal is to generate new institutions with new structures and rules so that people are selfishly incentivised to act in a way which maximizes welfare (or something else).
I think the framing is weird because of EAs allergy to systemic change, but I think on practice all of the points in that cause profile apply to broader change.
Curious about what you think is weird in the framing?
The problem framing is basically spot on, talking about how our institution drive our lives. Like I said, basically all the points get it right and apply to broader systemic change like RadX, DAOs, etc.
Then, even though the problem is framed perfectly, the solution section almost universally talks about narrow interventions related to individual decision making like improving calibration.
I doubt that there is any one answer re the marginal value of such projects, because the value depends on what is being governed. For instance, I think a successful implementation of regulatory markets for AI safety would be very valuable, but regulatory markets for corporate law wouldn’t be; yet the same basic framework is being implemented.
For this reason, I’d be more interested in analysis of governance innovation for a particular cause area.
Governance innovation as a cause area
Many people are working on new governance mechanisms from an altruistic perspective. There are many sub-categories such as Charter cities, space governance, decentralized governance, RadicalXChange agenda..
I’m uncertain as to the marginal value in such projects, and I’d like to see a broad analysis that can serve as a good prior and analysis framework for specific projects.
Here’s an analysis by 80k. https://80000hours.org/problem-profiles/improving-institutional-decision-making/
This is not quite what I was going for, even though it is relevant. This problem profile focuses on existing institutions and on methods for collective decision making. I was thinking more in the spirit of market design, where the goal is to generate new institutions with new structures and rules so that people are selfishly incentivised to act in a way which maximizes welfare (or something else).
I think the framing is weird because of EAs allergy to systemic change, but I think on practice all of the points in that cause profile apply to broader change.
No, the analysis does not seem to contain what I was going for.
Curious about what you think is weird in the framing?
The problem framing is basically spot on, talking about how our institution drive our lives. Like I said, basically all the points get it right and apply to broader systemic change like RadX, DAOs, etc.
Then, even though the problem is framed perfectly, the solution section almost universally talks about narrow interventions related to individual decision making like improving calibration.
I doubt that there is any one answer re the marginal value of such projects, because the value depends on what is being governed. For instance, I think a successful implementation of regulatory markets for AI safety would be very valuable, but regulatory markets for corporate law wouldn’t be; yet the same basic framework is being implemented.
For this reason, I’d be more interested in analysis of governance innovation for a particular cause area.