researching the legal environment in the state where the charity is registered and coming up with creative ways around local regulations or going through complicated registration procedures such as the ~ 1.5 year long one with the SEC are not things that I can automate… I’m taking two different perspectives in the comment based on the following steps: (1) What is realistic to realize now to get the idea off the ground, and (2) what is realistic to expect to happen in 5–10 years assuming that step 1 has succeeded… I don’t see a way to get [tax deductability] unfortunately… The legal risks I’m referring to are not simply that it might not be possible to get tax deductibility. It’s rather that in the worst case the responsible people at the charities may need to pay 8–9 digit settlements to the SEC or go to prison for up to five years for issuing unregistered securities.
VCs often manage to buy stakes in companies privately. Wouldn’t it be natural to sidestep that issue by copying what VCs do (and staying off the blockchain)? i.e. step (1) is privately traded patronage certificates, then step (2) is public ones? If so, then one could imagine a scenario where all you need for now is to do some research, and write up a pro forma contract?
Ah, my point here was more that an evil charity that is afraid that it’ll get shorted can decide not to offer the (say) 99% of its shares that it still holds for borrowing...
I can envisage a lot of ways to ensure some lending, so this seems like a small advantage.
I’m currently very concerned about prices not reflecting downside risks, and this mechanism is the only one that may be able to keep risky charities out...
Yes, having the ability to short companies is quite a weak method for punishing companies, because they can just stop selling patronage certs if they go negative. It would be better if we could get charities to pay for their negative impact somehow. An ``absolving″ certificate, of sorts. Maybe the people who would want to sell these ``absolving″ certificates are similar to the ones who look to buy ``patronage″...
My thinking has gone through the following steps: (1) I want to create charity shares. (2) Oops, charity shares are prohibitively difficult to do because of legal risks, effort, and hence very low chance of getting the buy-in from all the US- and UK-based EA charities. (3) So I need to come up with something that is almost as good but is more achievable: Project shares… and intervention shares...
Ahhhh, OK! I must say though, it rewards and punishes orgs for the performance of other orgs in their area. You portray this as a positive, but it seems like a big negative to me. It incentivises people to start new incompetent orgs in an intervention area, (or to keep incompetent orgs running) just because there are existing competent orgs. Conversely, it punishes competent orgs for the presence of harmful orgs implementing their same intervention. It’s quite messy to require an external panel to divide up the tokens between orgs. Frankly, given the fact that it’s a bit inelegant, I would bet that other problems will arise.
I can’t promise I’ll have much more to say in this thread, but in case I don’t, let me say that I’ve found this an illuminating discussion. Thanks!
VCs often manage to buy stakes in companies privately. Wouldn’t it be natural to sidestep that issue by copying what VCs do (and staying off the blockchain)? i.e. step (1) is privately traded patronage certificates, then step (2) is public ones? If so, then one could imagine a scenario where all you need for now is to do some research, and write up a pro forma contract?
Heh, yes. That’s an option. But I don’t suppose having a contract template has been the bottleneck why this hasn’t happened over the past years? I made a Google Doc for this for one impact purchase, and it worked just fine. They even have a version history that’s a bit like a blockchain. Writing contracts is rather far from my absolute advantages, so maybe it’s also far from my relative advantages…
I can envisage a lot of ways to ensure some lending, so this seems like a small advantage.
Yeah.
It would be better if we could get charities to pay for their negative impact somehow.
No mechanism comes to mind, but that general problem is one I want to think about more.
It’s quite messy to require an external panel to divide up the tokens between orgs.
That’s just for the initial allocation. So long as no one (other than me) has the tokens, no one (other than me) can vote, which is boring. But once I’ve allocated some 50% of them to MIRI, FHI, CLR, AISS, et al., the actual voting can start. I haven’t researched how that is usually done on Solana, but surely there’s some elegant mechanism for it.
It incentivises people to start new incompetent orgs in an intervention area, (or to keep incompetent orgs running) just because there are existing competent orgs. Conversely, it punishes competent orgs for the presence of harmful orgs implementing their same intervention.
If the existing shareholders – MIRI et al. – initially vote to get Evil Org accepted into their ranks, but then it turns out that Evil Org is evil and they regret the decision, then yes, that’s a problem. But if they set a high bar and only vote in orgs that have proven over many years to do high-quality and conscientious work, the risk from that failure mode can be minimized. So for this to become a problem, a new org would first have to impress MIRI et al. a lot, but then completely fall short of their expectations after all.
And if the problem with the disappointing Evil Org gets too bad, someone (me) will deploy an alternative intervention token, and the market will decide which one people like more. There might even be a market of one token against the other.
I can’t promise I’ll have much more to say in this thread, but in case I don’t, let me say that I’ve found this an illuminating discussion. Thanks!
VCs often manage to buy stakes in companies privately. Wouldn’t it be natural to sidestep that issue by copying what VCs do (and staying off the blockchain)? i.e. step (1) is privately traded patronage certificates, then step (2) is public ones? If so, then one could imagine a scenario where all you need for now is to do some research, and write up a pro forma contract?
I can envisage a lot of ways to ensure some lending, so this seems like a small advantage.
Yes, having the ability to short companies is quite a weak method for punishing companies, because they can just stop selling patronage certs if they go negative. It would be better if we could get charities to pay for their negative impact somehow. An ``absolving″ certificate, of sorts. Maybe the people who would want to sell these ``absolving″ certificates are similar to the ones who look to buy ``patronage″...
Ahhhh, OK! I must say though, it rewards and punishes orgs for the performance of other orgs in their area. You portray this as a positive, but it seems like a big negative to me. It incentivises people to start new incompetent orgs in an intervention area, (or to keep incompetent orgs running) just because there are existing competent orgs. Conversely, it punishes competent orgs for the presence of harmful orgs implementing their same intervention. It’s quite messy to require an external panel to divide up the tokens between orgs. Frankly, given the fact that it’s a bit inelegant, I would bet that other problems will arise.
I can’t promise I’ll have much more to say in this thread, but in case I don’t, let me say that I’ve found this an illuminating discussion. Thanks!
Heh, yes. That’s an option. But I don’t suppose having a contract template has been the bottleneck why this hasn’t happened over the past years? I made a Google Doc for this for one impact purchase, and it worked just fine. They even have a version history that’s a bit like a blockchain. Writing contracts is rather far from my absolute advantages, so maybe it’s also far from my relative advantages…
Yeah.
No mechanism comes to mind, but that general problem is one I want to think about more.
That’s just for the initial allocation. So long as no one (other than me) has the tokens, no one (other than me) can vote, which is boring. But once I’ve allocated some 50% of them to MIRI, FHI, CLR, AISS, et al., the actual voting can start. I haven’t researched how that is usually done on Solana, but surely there’s some elegant mechanism for it.
If the existing shareholders – MIRI et al. – initially vote to get Evil Org accepted into their ranks, but then it turns out that Evil Org is evil and they regret the decision, then yes, that’s a problem. But if they set a high bar and only vote in orgs that have proven over many years to do high-quality and conscientious work, the risk from that failure mode can be minimized. So for this to become a problem, a new org would first have to impress MIRI et al. a lot, but then completely fall short of their expectations after all.
And if the problem with the disappointing Evil Org gets too bad, someone (me) will deploy an alternative intervention token, and the market will decide which one people like more. There might even be a market of one token against the other.
Awesome! Thank you for your input! :-D