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 issues—in 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 I’m in your donor of last resort scenario, then once I remember that the other donor might have good reasons for their beliefs which I’m 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 “Implicit impact markets without infrastructure” should probably include as one element a reminder for people to take these considerations into account.
I’d 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 I’m not immediately sure precisely how it would affect the points you’re 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 haven’t thought about this super carefully, but it seems like a nice property of impact markets is that they’ll 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 it’s ambiguous whether this desire is driven by irreconcilably different values or different empirical judgements about what’s good.
I agree that these considerations would blunt the coordination issues some.
So I think that a proposal for “Implicit impact markets without infrastructure” 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 it’s particularly important to account for these things under an implicit impact markets set-up. But I don’t think that; I think they’re important to pay attention to all of the time, and I’m not in the business (in writing this post) of providing reminders about everything that’s important.
In fact I think it’s 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 it’s otherwise so helpful to blunt via these considerations.
I think they’re important to pay attention to all of the time, and I’m not in the business (in writing this post) of providing reminders about everything that’s important.
Hmm, I don’t think this seems quite right to me.
I think I’ve basically never thought about moral uncertainty or epistemic humility when buying bread or getting a haircut, and I think that that’s been fine.
And I think in writing this post you’re partly in the business of trying to resolve things like “donors of last resort” issues, and that that’s 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 it’s probably slightly less important to take them into account if you have (implicit or explicit) impact markets
This seems right to me, but I don’t think this really pushes against my suggestion much. I say this because I think the goals here relate to fixing certain problems, like “donors of last resort” 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 problems—even if implicit impact markets would make those reminders less helpful, I still think they’d be among the top 3-10 most helpful things.
(I don’t think I’d say this if we were talking about actual, explicit impact markets; I’m 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, I’m glad that they’ve come up in the comments.)
I guess I’m unsure whether there’s an interesting disagreement here.
Yeah, I think I’d agree that it’s reasonable to either include or not include explicit mention of those considerations in this post, and that there’s no major disagreement here.
My original comment was not meant as criticism of this post, but rather as an extra idea—like “Maybe future efforts to move our community closer to having ‘implicit impact markets without infrastructure’, or to solve the problems that that solution is aimed at solving, should include explicit mention of those considerations?”
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 issues—in 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 I’m in your donor of last resort scenario, then once I remember that the other donor might have good reasons for their beliefs which I’m 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 “Implicit impact markets without infrastructure” should probably include as one element a reminder for people to take these considerations into account.
I’d 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 I’m not immediately sure precisely how it would affect the points you’re 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 haven’t thought about this super carefully, but it seems like a nice property of impact markets is that they’ll 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 it’s ambiguous whether this desire is driven by irreconcilably different values or different empirical judgements about what’s 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 it’s particularly important to account for these things under an implicit impact markets set-up. But I don’t think that; I think they’re important to pay attention to all of the time, and I’m not in the business (in writing this post) of providing reminders about everything that’s important.
In fact I think it’s 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 it’s otherwise so helpful to blunt via these considerations.
Hmm, I don’t think this seems quite right to me.
I think I’ve basically never thought about moral uncertainty or epistemic humility when buying bread or getting a haircut, and I think that that’s been fine.
And I think in writing this post you’re partly in the business of trying to resolve things like “donors of last resort” issues, and that that’s 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 don’t think this really pushes against my suggestion much. I say this because I think the goals here relate to fixing certain problems, like “donors of last resort” 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 problems—even if implicit impact markets would make those reminders less helpful, I still think they’d be among the top 3-10 most helpful things.
(I don’t think I’d say this if we were talking about actual, explicit impact markets; I’m 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, I’m glad that they’ve come up in the comments.)
I guess I’m unsure whether there’s an interesting disagreement here.
Yeah, I think I’d agree that it’s reasonable to either include or not include explicit mention of those considerations in this post, and that there’s no major disagreement here.
My original comment was not meant as criticism of this post, but rather as an extra idea—like “Maybe future efforts to move our community closer to having ‘implicit impact markets without infrastructure’, or to solve the problems that that solution is aimed at solving, should include explicit mention of those considerations?”