It is cognitively and philosophically sloppy, and extremely ill-advised to disallow negative votes on a project, as you state:
“If I think a project has negative externalities, can I make a “negative vote” aka pay to redirect money away from it?
TBD. This may be theoretically optimal and has been used by other projects, but leaning no because of bad vibes/potential for drama and additional complexity it introduces.”
See, for example, my previous EA post on the negative externalities, including a contribution to catastrophic and x-risks, of insecticide-treated plastic bednets, ‘There are no people to be effectively altruistic for on a dead planet: EA funding of projects without conducting Environmental Impact Assessments (EIAs), Health and Safety Assessments (HSAs) and Life Cycle Assessments (LCAs) = catastrophe’
Since a ‘negative externality’ could include catastrophic and x-risks, there is no good argument to be made for disallowing negative votes. In my view, it is completely irresponsible. The first rule should always be, ‘do no harm’.
I don’t think this comment really engages with what Manifund said. They are leaning no on allowing negative votes “because of bad vibes/potential for drama and additional complexity it introduces.” It is not sufficient to establish that a good argument exists for allowing negative votes to prove that “no good argument to be made for disallowing negative votes.” That would, at a minimum, require engaging with the reasons Manifund identified for leaning no.
For example: as relevant here, the quadratic funding mechanism is at least somewhat open to manipulation and arguably to bad-faith voting, so one would need to worry about (e.g.,) a minority using small negative donations to financially silence someone they had a grudge against (rather than based on an honest belief that their work was net-negative).
It is cognitively and philosophically sloppy, and extremely ill-advised to disallow negative votes on a project, as you state:
“If I think a project has negative externalities, can I make a “negative vote” aka pay to redirect money away from it?
TBD. This may be theoretically optimal and has been used by other projects, but leaning no because of bad vibes/potential for drama and additional complexity it introduces.”
See, for example, my previous EA post on the negative externalities, including a contribution to catastrophic and x-risks, of insecticide-treated plastic bednets, ‘There are no people to be effectively altruistic for on a dead planet: EA funding of projects without conducting Environmental Impact Assessments (EIAs), Health and Safety Assessments (HSAs) and Life Cycle Assessments (LCAs) = catastrophe’
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/xcvjuH5jgzmAtgdit/there-are-no-people-to-be-effectively-altruistic-for-on-a
Since a ‘negative externality’ could include catastrophic and x-risks, there is no good argument to be made for disallowing negative votes. In my view, it is completely irresponsible. The first rule should always be, ‘do no harm’.
I don’t think this comment really engages with what Manifund said. They are leaning no on allowing negative votes “because of bad vibes/potential for drama and additional complexity it introduces.” It is not sufficient to establish that a good argument exists for allowing negative votes to prove that “no good argument to be made for disallowing negative votes.” That would, at a minimum, require engaging with the reasons Manifund identified for leaning no.
For example: as relevant here, the quadratic funding mechanism is at least somewhat open to manipulation and arguably to bad-faith voting, so one would need to worry about (e.g.,) a minority using small negative donations to financially silence someone they had a grudge against (rather than based on an honest belief that their work was net-negative).