If one point of karma was worth on average more than $100 donated to EA charities, then posting on the EA forum would be so preposterously effective that my 1300 karma points accrued this year would be worth ~$130,000 to the movement, massively outweighing any donations I could hope to make to EA charities, also seemingly outweighing the impact of many other forms of direct work (since most EA salaries are lower than $130K/year) and equivalent to saving more than 25 lives just by commenting. It would also imply that CEA is massively underinvesting in support for the Forum.
On the other hand, if karma points were worth only $1 of donations to EA charities, then everyone would be completely wasting their time here (depending on how long it takes you to write comments, conceivably doing less good than you could do by donating 10% of your income after working an extra hour at minimum wage, etc), and CEA would be massively overinvesting by spending more money on supporting the Forum than the value it actually produces.
Realistically I think Karma points are probably worth $20-$30 “on average”. But the average is dragged upwards by a small number of extremely valuable posts. From an inside-view perspective, I think my participation on the Forum has been decently helpful to folks, but I probably haven’t discovered any totally revolutionary insights that will become foundational for EA causes going forward. So I figure if folks like me want to try to quantify their Forum contributions despite all those valid objections I linked, they should figure each karma point to be worth ~$10.
Interesting analysis. The airdrop wouldn’t need to be based on the estimated value of karma points though. I was thinking of it more in terms of a mechanism for decentralising (grant making) power in the EA movement. $100 was chosen to make the sums allocated to people significant in a way that $10 probably wouldn’t be (e.g. if it was $10, most people wouldn’t really get enough to fund or start new projects, quit their job and do independent research, etc).
Nuño’s list probably means that there should be some attempt to apply adjustments to scores. But this does open a can of worms.
Are there any other promising proxies for EA impact that could be used for an airdrop?
Maybe instead of airdropping something that can be directly exchanged for cash (in which case many people would just buy a house with their $600K), we airdrop a resource that is somehow restricted such that it has to be a donation? A Forum-Karma-based airdrop seems like it would be an awesome way to kick off an impact certificates program—people could use their KarmaCoin to invest in impact certificates, with the promise that if you invest wisely, down the road the certificates for the most impactful projects might get bought by a mega-donor like OpenPhil, and that’s how you’d ultimately get a cash payout.
Sounds good! I wonder what loopholes could emerge though? Most cryptos end up with a market value even if they don’t intend to have one. I suppose KarmaCoin could be timelocked somehow. It makes it more difficult to trade, but people can still make IOU contracts.
Even putting aside Nuno’s list of pretty serious issues preventing karma from correlating well with impact, I think $100 is way too high a value for current-day EA karma points (maybe it could be appropriate for Karma points earned years ago in the Forum’s infancy).
If one point of karma was worth on average more than $100 donated to EA charities, then posting on the EA forum would be so preposterously effective that my 1300 karma points accrued this year would be worth ~$130,000 to the movement, massively outweighing any donations I could hope to make to EA charities, also seemingly outweighing the impact of many other forms of direct work (since most EA salaries are lower than $130K/year) and equivalent to saving more than 25 lives just by commenting. It would also imply that CEA is massively underinvesting in support for the Forum.
On the other hand, if karma points were worth only $1 of donations to EA charities, then everyone would be completely wasting their time here (depending on how long it takes you to write comments, conceivably doing less good than you could do by donating 10% of your income after working an extra hour at minimum wage, etc), and CEA would be massively overinvesting by spending more money on supporting the Forum than the value it actually produces.
Realistically I think Karma points are probably worth $20-$30 “on average”. But the average is dragged upwards by a small number of extremely valuable posts. From an inside-view perspective, I think my participation on the Forum has been decently helpful to folks, but I probably haven’t discovered any totally revolutionary insights that will become foundational for EA causes going forward. So I figure if folks like me want to try to quantify their Forum contributions despite all those valid objections I linked, they should figure each karma point to be worth ~$10.
Interesting analysis. The airdrop wouldn’t need to be based on the estimated value of karma points though. I was thinking of it more in terms of a mechanism for decentralising (grant making) power in the EA movement. $100 was chosen to make the sums allocated to people significant in a way that $10 probably wouldn’t be (e.g. if it was $10, most people wouldn’t really get enough to fund or start new projects, quit their job and do independent research, etc).
Nuño’s list probably means that there should be some attempt to apply adjustments to scores. But this does open a can of worms.
Are there any other promising proxies for EA impact that could be used for an airdrop?
Maybe instead of airdropping something that can be directly exchanged for cash (in which case many people would just buy a house with their $600K), we airdrop a resource that is somehow restricted such that it has to be a donation? A Forum-Karma-based airdrop seems like it would be an awesome way to kick off an impact certificates program—people could use their KarmaCoin to invest in impact certificates, with the promise that if you invest wisely, down the road the certificates for the most impactful projects might get bought by a mega-donor like OpenPhil, and that’s how you’d ultimately get a cash payout.
Sounds good! I wonder what loopholes could emerge though? Most cryptos end up with a market value even if they don’t intend to have one. I suppose KarmaCoin could be timelocked somehow. It makes it more difficult to trade, but people can still make IOU contracts.