I completely agree with this actually. I think concerns over unilaterialist’s curse is a great argument in favour of keeping funding central, at least for many areas. I also don’t feel particularly confident that attempts to spread out or democratize funding would actually lead to net-better projects.
But I do think there is a strong argument in favour of experimenting with other types of grantmaking, seeing as we have identified weaknesses in the current form which could potentially be alleviated.
I think the unilateralist’s curse can be avoided if we make sure to avoid hazardous domains of funding for our experiements to evaluate other types of grantmaking.
Actually, a simple (but perhaps not easy) way to reduce the risks of funding bad projects in a decentralized system would be to have a centralized team screen out obviously bad projects. For example, in the case of quadratic funding, prospective projects would first be vetted to filter out clearly bad projects. Then, anyone using the platform would be able to direct matching funds to whichever of the approved projects they like. As an analogy, Impact CoLabs is a decentralized system for matching volunteers to projects, but it has a centralized screening process with somewhat rigorous vetting criteria.
(Just saying I did lots of the vetting for colabs and I think it would be better if our screening would be totally transparent instead of hidden, though I don’t speak for the entire team)
If you want a system to counter the univerversalist curse, then designen a system with the goal of countering the univeralist curse. Don’t relly on an unintended sidefect of a coincidental system design.
I completely agree with this actually. I think concerns over unilaterialist’s curse is a great argument in favour of keeping funding central, at least for many areas. I also don’t feel particularly confident that attempts to spread out or democratize funding would actually lead to net-better projects.
But I do think there is a strong argument in favour of experimenting with other types of grantmaking, seeing as we have identified weaknesses in the current form which could potentially be alleviated.
I think the unilateralist’s curse can be avoided if we make sure to avoid hazardous domains of funding for our experiements to evaluate other types of grantmaking.
Actually, a simple (but perhaps not easy) way to reduce the risks of funding bad projects in a decentralized system would be to have a centralized team screen out obviously bad projects. For example, in the case of quadratic funding, prospective projects would first be vetted to filter out clearly bad projects. Then, anyone using the platform would be able to direct matching funds to whichever of the approved projects they like. As an analogy, Impact CoLabs is a decentralized system for matching volunteers to projects, but it has a centralized screening process with somewhat rigorous vetting criteria.
(Just saying I did lots of the vetting for colabs and I think it would be better if our screening would be totally transparent instead of hidden, though I don’t speak for the entire team)
Yes! Exactly!
If you want a system to counter the univerversalist curse, then designen a system with the goal of countering the univeralist curse. Don’t relly on an unintended sidefect of a coincidental system design.