It seems to me that there are a few other relevant considerations that people should bear in mind and that, if borne in mind, should somewhat mitigate these coordination issuesāin particular, moral uncertainty, empirical uncertainty, and epistemic humility. You can definitely still have these coordination issues after you take these things into account, but I think the issues would usually be blunted a bit by paying explicit attention to these considerations. E.g., if Iām in your donor of last resort scenario, then once I remember that the other donor might have good reasons for their beliefs which Iām not aware of, I move my beliefs and thus goals a little closer to theirs.
(Though paying too much attention to these considerations, or doing so in the wrong way, can also create its own issues, such as information cascades.)
So I think that a proposal for āImplicit impact markets without infrastructureā should probably include as one element a reminder for people to take these considerations into account.
Iād be curious to hear whether that seems right to you? Did you mainly leave this point out just because you were implicitly assume your audience would already have taken those considerations into account to the appropriate extent?
(I also imagine that the idea of moral trade might be relevant, but Iām not immediately sure precisely how it would affect the points youāre making.)
Moral trade is definitely relevant here. Moral trade basically deals with cases with fundamental-differences-in-values (as opposed to coordination issues from differences in available information etc.).
I havenāt thought about this super carefully, but it seems like a nice property of impact markets is that theyāll manage to simultaneously manage the moral trade issues and the coordination issues. Like in the example of donors wishing to play donor-of-last-resort itās ambiguous whether this desire is driven by irreconcilably different values or different empirical judgements about whatās good.
I agree that these considerations would blunt the coordination issues some.
So I think that a proposal for āImplicit impact markets without infrastructureā should probably include as one element a reminder for people to take these considerations into account.
I guess I think that it should include that kind of reminder if itās particularly important to account for these things under an implicit impact markets set-up. But I donāt think that; I think theyāre important to pay attention to all of the time, and Iām not in the business (in writing this post) of providing reminders about everything thatās important.
In fact I think itās probably slightly less important to take them into account if you have (implicit or explicit) impact markets, since the markets would relieve some of the edge that itās otherwise so helpful to blunt via these considerations.
I think theyāre important to pay attention to all of the time, and Iām not in the business (in writing this post) of providing reminders about everything thatās important.
Hmm, I donāt think this seems quite right to me.
I think Iāve basically never thought about moral uncertainty or epistemic humility when buying bread or getting a haircut, and I think that thatās been fine.
And I think in writing this post youāre partly in the business of trying to resolve things like ādonors of last resortā issues, and that thatās one of the sorts of situations where explicitly remembering the ideas of moral uncertainty and epistemic humility is especially useful, and where explicitly remembering those ideas is one of the most useful things one can do.
I think itās probably slightly less important to take them into account if you have (implicit or explicit) impact markets
This seems right to me, but I donāt think this really pushes against my suggestion much. I say this because I think the goals here relate to fixing certain problems, like ādonors of last resortā issues, rather than thinking of what side dishes go best with (implicit or explicit) impact markets. So I think what matters is just how much value would be added by reminding people about moral uncertainty and epistemic humility when trying to help resolve those problemsāeven if implicit impact markets would make those reminders less helpful, I still think theyād be among the top 3-10 most helpful things.
(I donāt think Iād say this if we were talking about actual, explicit impact markets; Iām just saying it in relation to implicit impact markets without infrastructure.)
I guess I significantly agree with all of the above, and I do think it would have been reasonable for me to mention these considerations. But since I think the considerations tend to blunt rather than solve the issues, and since I think the audience for my post will mostly be well aware of these considerations, it still feels fine to me to have omitted mention of them? (I mean, Iām glad that theyāve come up in the comments.)
I guess Iām unsure whether thereās an interesting disagreement here.
Yeah, I think Iād agree that itās reasonable to either include or not include explicit mention of those considerations in this post, and that thereās no major disagreement here.
My original comment was not meant as criticism of this post, but rather as an extra ideaālike āMaybe future efforts to move our community closer to having āimplicit impact markets without infrastructureā, or to solve the problems that that solution is aimed at solving, should include explicit mention of those considerations?ā
Thanks for this interesting post.
It seems to me that there are a few other relevant considerations that people should bear in mind and that, if borne in mind, should somewhat mitigate these coordination issuesāin particular, moral uncertainty, empirical uncertainty, and epistemic humility. You can definitely still have these coordination issues after you take these things into account, but I think the issues would usually be blunted a bit by paying explicit attention to these considerations. E.g., if Iām in your donor of last resort scenario, then once I remember that the other donor might have good reasons for their beliefs which Iām not aware of, I move my beliefs and thus goals a little closer to theirs.
(Though paying too much attention to these considerations, or doing so in the wrong way, can also create its own issues, such as information cascades.)
So I think that a proposal for āImplicit impact markets without infrastructureā should probably include as one element a reminder for people to take these considerations into account.
Iād be curious to hear whether that seems right to you? Did you mainly leave this point out just because you were implicitly assume your audience would already have taken those considerations into account to the appropriate extent?
(I also imagine that the idea of moral trade might be relevant, but Iām not immediately sure precisely how it would affect the points youāre making.)
Moral trade is definitely relevant here. Moral trade basically deals with cases with fundamental-differences-in-values (as opposed to coordination issues from differences in available information etc.).
I havenāt thought about this super carefully, but it seems like a nice property of impact markets is that theyāll manage to simultaneously manage the moral trade issues and the coordination issues. Like in the example of donors wishing to play donor-of-last-resort itās ambiguous whether this desire is driven by irreconcilably different values or different empirical judgements about whatās good.
I agree that these considerations would blunt the coordination issues some.
I guess I think that it should include that kind of reminder if itās particularly important to account for these things under an implicit impact markets set-up. But I donāt think that; I think theyāre important to pay attention to all of the time, and Iām not in the business (in writing this post) of providing reminders about everything thatās important.
In fact I think itās probably slightly less important to take them into account if you have (implicit or explicit) impact markets, since the markets would relieve some of the edge that itās otherwise so helpful to blunt via these considerations.
Hmm, I donāt think this seems quite right to me.
I think Iāve basically never thought about moral uncertainty or epistemic humility when buying bread or getting a haircut, and I think that thatās been fine.
And I think in writing this post youāre partly in the business of trying to resolve things like ādonors of last resortā issues, and that thatās one of the sorts of situations where explicitly remembering the ideas of moral uncertainty and epistemic humility is especially useful, and where explicitly remembering those ideas is one of the most useful things one can do.
This seems right to me, but I donāt think this really pushes against my suggestion much. I say this because I think the goals here relate to fixing certain problems, like ādonors of last resortā issues, rather than thinking of what side dishes go best with (implicit or explicit) impact markets. So I think what matters is just how much value would be added by reminding people about moral uncertainty and epistemic humility when trying to help resolve those problemsāeven if implicit impact markets would make those reminders less helpful, I still think theyād be among the top 3-10 most helpful things.
(I donāt think Iād say this if we were talking about actual, explicit impact markets; Iām just saying it in relation to implicit impact markets without infrastructure.)
I guess I significantly agree with all of the above, and I do think it would have been reasonable for me to mention these considerations. But since I think the considerations tend to blunt rather than solve the issues, and since I think the audience for my post will mostly be well aware of these considerations, it still feels fine to me to have omitted mention of them? (I mean, Iām glad that theyāve come up in the comments.)
I guess Iām unsure whether thereās an interesting disagreement here.
Yeah, I think Iād agree that itās reasonable to either include or not include explicit mention of those considerations in this post, and that thereās no major disagreement here.
My original comment was not meant as criticism of this post, but rather as an extra ideaālike āMaybe future efforts to move our community closer to having āimplicit impact markets without infrastructureā, or to solve the problems that that solution is aimed at solving, should include explicit mention of those considerations?ā