In short, I think the effectiveness of altruism is limited in a non-demopistic society.
My perspective is that markets are a key factor in enabling things to happen. EAs are focused on promoting the social good, but current markets only promote individual benefits, not public benefits. We can either work upstream against the structure of incentives that currently exists, or we can implement systems (such as Quadratic Funding) that align incentives with the public good, thereby making our work easier and motivating more people to work on projects that the EA community values.
Thanks. I’d be very excited to see a full post considering this set of ideas as a cause area proposal, possibly using the ITN framework, if you or anyone else is up to it.
I think that the discourse in EA is too thin on these topics, and that perhaps some posts exploring the basics while considering the effects of marginal contribution might be the way to see whether we should consider them worthwhile. I think this makes this post somewhat premature, although I appreciate the suggested terminology and the succinct but informative writing.
This feels useful. Do you mind expanding on the relevance to the current EA framwork?
In short, I think the effectiveness of altruism is limited in a non-demopistic society.
My perspective is that markets are a key factor in enabling things to happen. EAs are focused on promoting the social good, but current markets only promote individual benefits, not public benefits. We can either work upstream against the structure of incentives that currently exists, or we can implement systems (such as Quadratic Funding) that align incentives with the public good, thereby making our work easier and motivating more people to work on projects that the EA community values.
Thanks. I’d be very excited to see a full post considering this set of ideas as a cause area proposal, possibly using the ITN framework, if you or anyone else is up to it.
I think that the discourse in EA is too thin on these topics, and that perhaps some posts exploring the basics while considering the effects of marginal contribution might be the way to see whether we should consider them worthwhile. I think this makes this post somewhat premature, although I appreciate the suggested terminology and the succinct but informative writing.