Think of it like a grants program, except that instead of evaluating someone’s pitch for what they intend to do, you are evaluating what they actually did, with the benefit of hindsight. Presumably your evaluations will be significantly more accurate this way. (Also, the fact that it’s NFT-based means that you can recruit the “wisdom of the efficient market” to help you in various ways, e.g. lots of non-EAs will be buying and selling these NFTs trying to predict what you will think of them, and thus producing lots of research you can use.)
I don’t think it should replace our regular grants programs. But it might be a nice complement to them.
I don’t see what you mean by centralization here, or how it’s a problem. As for reliable guarantees the money will be used cost effectively, hell no, the whole point of impact certificates is that the evaluation happens after the event, not before. People can do whatever they want with the money, because they’ve already done the thing for which they are getting paid.
Think of it like a grants program, except that instead of evaluating someone’s pitch for what they intend to do, you are evaluating what they actually did, with the benefit of hindsight. Presumably your evaluations will be significantly more accurate this way. (Also, the fact that it’s NFT-based means that you can recruit the “wisdom of the efficient market” to help you in various ways, e.g. lots of non-EAs will be buying and selling these NFTs trying to predict what you will think of them, and thus producing lots of research you can use.)
But the reason why you would evaluate someone’s pitch as opposed to using hindsight is that nothing would be done without funding?
I don’t see what you mean by centralization here, or how it’s a problem.
I think I am using centralization in the same way that cryptocurrency designers/architects talk about crypto currency systems actually work (“centralization pressures”).
The point of NFTs, as opposed to you, me, or a giant granter producing certificates, is that it is part of a decentralized system, not under any one entity’s control.
My understanding is that this is the only logical reason why NFTs have any value, and are not a gimmick.
They don’t have any magical power by themselves or have any special function or information or anything like that.
Under this premise, centralization is undermined, if any other structural component of the system is missing.
For example, if the grantors or their decisions come from a central source. Then the value of having a decentralized certificate is unclear.
Note undermining “centralization” is sort of like having a wrong step in a math theorem, it’s existentially bad as opposed to a reduction in quality or something.
As for reliable guarantees the money will be used cost effectively, hell no, the whole point of impact certificates is that the evaluation happens after the event, not before. People can do whatever they want with the money, because they’ve already done the thing for which they are getting paid.
I meant that you have written out two distinct promises here that seem to be necessary for this system to structurally work in this proposal. One of these promises seem to be high quality evaluation:
Commit to buy $100M/year of these NFTs, and occasionally reselling them and using the proceeds to buy even more.
Promise that our purchasing decisions will be based on our estimate of how much total impact the action represented by the NFT will have.
Once it’s established that you will be giving $100M a year to buy impact certificates, that will motivate lots of people already doing good to mint impact certificates, and probably also motivate lots of people to do good (so that they can mint the certificate and later get money for it)
By buying the certificate rather than paying the person who did the good, you enable flexibility—the person who did the good can sell the certificate to speculators and get money immediately rather than waiting for your judgment. Then the speculators can sell it back and forth to each other as new evidence comes in about the impact of the original act, and the conversations the speculators have about your predicted evaluation can then help you actually make the evaluation, thanks to e.g. facts and evidence the speculators uncover. So it saves you effort as well.
I might see this as a creating bounty program for altruistic successes, while at the same time creating a “thick” market for bounties that is crowd sourced, hopefully with virtuous effects.
Think of it like a grants program, except that instead of evaluating someone’s pitch for what they intend to do, you are evaluating what they actually did, with the benefit of hindsight. Presumably your evaluations will be significantly more accurate this way. (Also, the fact that it’s NFT-based means that you can recruit the “wisdom of the efficient market” to help you in various ways, e.g. lots of non-EAs will be buying and selling these NFTs trying to predict what you will think of them, and thus producing lots of research you can use.)
I don’t think it should replace our regular grants programs. But it might be a nice complement to them.
I don’t see what you mean by centralization here, or how it’s a problem. As for reliable guarantees the money will be used cost effectively, hell no, the whole point of impact certificates is that the evaluation happens after the event, not before. People can do whatever they want with the money, because they’ve already done the thing for which they are getting paid.
But the reason why you would evaluate someone’s pitch as opposed to using hindsight is that nothing would be done without funding?
I think I am using centralization in the same way that cryptocurrency designers/architects talk about crypto currency systems actually work (“centralization pressures”).
The point of NFTs, as opposed to you, me, or a giant granter producing certificates, is that it is part of a decentralized system, not under any one entity’s control.
My understanding is that this is the only logical reason why NFTs have any value, and are not a gimmick.
They don’t have any magical power by themselves or have any special function or information or anything like that.
Under this premise, centralization is undermined, if any other structural component of the system is missing.
For example, if the grantors or their decisions come from a central source. Then the value of having a decentralized certificate is unclear.
Note undermining “centralization” is sort of like having a wrong step in a math theorem, it’s existentially bad as opposed to a reduction in quality or something.
I meant that you have written out two distinct promises here that seem to be necessary for this system to structurally work in this proposal. One of these promises seem to be high quality evaluation:
Once it’s established that you will be giving $100M a year to buy impact certificates, that will motivate lots of people already doing good to mint impact certificates, and probably also motivate lots of people to do good (so that they can mint the certificate and later get money for it)
By buying the certificate rather than paying the person who did the good, you enable flexibility—the person who did the good can sell the certificate to speculators and get money immediately rather than waiting for your judgment. Then the speculators can sell it back and forth to each other as new evidence comes in about the impact of the original act, and the conversations the speculators have about your predicted evaluation can then help you actually make the evaluation, thanks to e.g. facts and evidence the speculators uncover. So it saves you effort as well.
Ok, I see what you’re saying now.
I might see this as a creating bounty program for altruistic successes, while at the same time creating a “thick” market for bounties that is crowd sourced, hopefully with virtuous effects.
Thats a succinct way of putting it, nice!