Not saying I disagree with this, but it may be worth noting that “democracy” as an alternative didn’t exactly do great either—Stuart Buck wrote this comment, and it got downvoted enough that he deleted it.
Indeed. I actually am inclined to agree that more democracy in distributing funds and making community decisions is safer overall and prevents bad tail risks, and I think Zoe Cremer’s suggestions should be take seriously, but let’s remember that democracy in recent years has given us Modi, Bolsonaro, Trump, Duterte and Berlusconi as leaders of countries with millions of citizens, on the basis of millions of votes, and that Hitler did pretty well in early 1930s German elections. Democracy is not just “not infallible” but has led to plausibly bad decisions about who should lead countries (as one example) on many occasions. (That might be a bit politicized for some people, but I feel personally confident all those leaders were knowably bad.)
This post is merely asking questions of those currently in power, not saying any specific form of greater internal democracy is a good thing (I know you acknowledge that the post is doing this as well, but thought I would reiterate :-)!). Moreover, because of the karma system, the EA Forum is hardly democratic either!
You’re correct that the EA Forum isn’t as democratic as “one person one vote”. However, it is one of the more democratic institutions in EA, so provides evidence re: whether moving in a more democratic direction would’ve helped.
I’d be interested if people can link any FTX criticism on reddit/Facebook prior to the recent crisis to see how that went. In any case, “one person one vote” is tricky for EA because it’s unclear who counts as a “citizen”. If we start deciding grant applications on the basis of reddit upvotes or Facebook likes, that creates a cash incentive for vote brigades.
you can see who likes things on Facebook, and reddit isn’t especially used. You can actually see democratic voting on the tree of tags (weird that I can’t find the same option for the forum itself...), but you still run into the issue that people might upvote/downvote posts that have more upvotes in general.
I think most democratic systems don’t work that way—it’s not that people vote on every single decision; democratic systems are usually representative democracies where people can try to convince others that they would be responsible policymakers, and where these policymakers then are subject to accountability and checks and balances. Of course, in an unrestricted democracy you could also elect people who would then become dictators, but that just says that you also need democrats for a democracy, and that you may first need fundamental decisions about structures.
Not saying I disagree with this, but it may be worth noting that “democracy” as an alternative didn’t exactly do great either—Stuart Buck wrote this comment, and it got downvoted enough that he deleted it.
Indeed. I actually am inclined to agree that more democracy in distributing funds and making community decisions is safer overall and prevents bad tail risks, and I think Zoe Cremer’s suggestions should be take seriously, but let’s remember that democracy in recent years has given us Modi, Bolsonaro, Trump, Duterte and Berlusconi as leaders of countries with millions of citizens, on the basis of millions of votes, and that Hitler did pretty well in early 1930s German elections. Democracy is not just “not infallible” but has led to plausibly bad decisions about who should lead countries (as one example) on many occasions. (That might be a bit politicized for some people, but I feel personally confident all those leaders were knowably bad.)
This post is merely asking questions of those currently in power, not saying any specific form of greater internal democracy is a good thing (I know you acknowledge that the post is doing this as well, but thought I would reiterate :-)!). Moreover, because of the karma system, the EA Forum is hardly democratic either!
Fair enough!
You’re correct that the EA Forum isn’t as democratic as “one person one vote”. However, it is one of the more democratic institutions in EA, so provides evidence re: whether moving in a more democratic direction would’ve helped.
I’d be interested if people can link any FTX criticism on reddit/Facebook prior to the recent crisis to see how that went. In any case, “one person one vote” is tricky for EA because it’s unclear who counts as a “citizen”. If we start deciding grant applications on the basis of reddit upvotes or Facebook likes, that creates a cash incentive for vote brigades.
you can see who likes things on Facebook, and reddit isn’t especially used. You can actually see democratic voting on the tree of tags (weird that I can’t find the same option for the forum itself...), but you still run into the issue that people might upvote/downvote posts that have more upvotes in general.
I think most democratic systems don’t work that way—it’s not that people vote on every single decision; democratic systems are usually representative democracies where people can try to convince others that they would be responsible policymakers, and where these policymakers then are subject to accountability and checks and balances. Of course, in an unrestricted democracy you could also elect people who would then become dictators, but that just says that you also need democrats for a democracy, and that you may first need fundamental decisions about structures.