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!
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