In my opinion the way to improve the donor lottery is to convert them into democratic lotteries. The concept is simple. Instead of one person in control, the donor lottery is now controlled by a small committee, and the charities are chosen using a proportionately representative election system such as single transferable vote or party list.
By ruling by committee, you average out the response and make the results representative of the membership. moreover, rule by committee enables deliberation and information transfer, so that persuasion can be used to make decisions and potentially improve accuracy or competence at the loss of independence.
Rule by committee also has superior connection to “democracy” and therefore make the donor lottery more appealing in a marketing perspective. Democracy is potentially more popular than lottery.
The advantage of membership over meritocratic control is the subjectivity of moral weights. Everyone has different moral weights. For example Dustin Moskowitz might not care as much about insect harm prevention, but that doesn’t make his opinion more or less correct than yours.
Donor lotteries, and ultimately any kind of democratic lottery, average out the moral sentiments of its participants and make you more effective than if you acted alone. Rule by committee could increase accurate assessment of member moral sentiment and reduce lottocratic temporal chaos.
How is that better than individuals just donating to wherever they think makes sense on the margin? If it’s about reducing the influence of large donors, what is the incentive for large donors to participate?
How is that better than individuals just donating to wherever they think makes sense on the margin?
I think the comment already addresses that here:
moreover, rule by committee enables deliberation and information transfer, so that persuasion can be used to make decisions and potentially improve accuracy or competence at the loss of independence.
>If it’s about reducing the influence of large donors, what is the incentive for large donors to participate?
Even large donors suffer from the problem of the time cost in evaluating charities. Imagine there are 100 large donors. Imagine a”democratic lottery”, now turned oligarchic lottery, chooses the committee and voter weights based on the amount donated.
The incentive for wealthy individuals to participate is to reduce the huge evaluation costs. The oligarchic lottery can be trusted to on average, statistically represent their personal moral weights, proportionate to the wealth they donate. The small lottocratic committee makes the big decisions, so the large whole doesn’t have to make any decisions.
What incentive is there for wealthy people to donate to a democratic instead of oligarchic lottery? Even some wealthy people might believe in equal consideration of other people’s opinions, that their personal wealth does not make them better at utilitarian or moral calculation. If so, wealthy individuals can still reap the benefits of the lottery and reduce their personal evaluation costs.
In my opinion the way to improve the donor lottery is to convert them into democratic lotteries. The concept is simple. Instead of one person in control, the donor lottery is now controlled by a small committee, and the charities are chosen using a proportionately representative election system such as single transferable vote or party list.
By ruling by committee, you average out the response and make the results representative of the membership. moreover, rule by committee enables deliberation and information transfer, so that persuasion can be used to make decisions and potentially improve accuracy or competence at the loss of independence.
Rule by committee also has superior connection to “democracy” and therefore make the donor lottery more appealing in a marketing perspective. Democracy is potentially more popular than lottery.
The advantage of membership over meritocratic control is the subjectivity of moral weights. Everyone has different moral weights. For example Dustin Moskowitz might not care as much about insect harm prevention, but that doesn’t make his opinion more or less correct than yours.
Donor lotteries, and ultimately any kind of democratic lottery, average out the moral sentiments of its participants and make you more effective than if you acted alone. Rule by committee could increase accurate assessment of member moral sentiment and reduce lottocratic temporal chaos.
How is that better than individuals just donating to wherever they think makes sense on the margin? If it’s about reducing the influence of large donors, what is the incentive for large donors to participate?
I think the comment already addresses that here:
>If it’s about reducing the influence of large donors, what is the incentive for large donors to participate?
Even large donors suffer from the problem of the time cost in evaluating charities. Imagine there are 100 large donors. Imagine a”democratic lottery”, now turned oligarchic lottery, chooses the committee and voter weights based on the amount donated.
The incentive for wealthy individuals to participate is to reduce the huge evaluation costs. The oligarchic lottery can be trusted to on average, statistically represent their personal moral weights, proportionate to the wealth they donate. The small lottocratic committee makes the big decisions, so the large whole doesn’t have to make any decisions.
What incentive is there for wealthy people to donate to a democratic instead of oligarchic lottery? Even some wealthy people might believe in equal consideration of other people’s opinions, that their personal wealth does not make them better at utilitarian or moral calculation. If so, wealthy individuals can still reap the benefits of the lottery and reduce their personal evaluation costs.