But my second critique is more substantive. It is that apart from being rationally ignorant on these issues, most voters probably will be irrational on them too.
I’m kind of confused about this point—why expect big funders to be less irrational? You point to ‘incentives’ but AFAICT those incentives will push big donors to do good things given their beliefs, but not to be less irrational about what beliefs to hold (unlike in the for-profit company space where if you make less money you’re less of a thing in the market).
I don’t think that they won’t be irrational. I think that the need to have a reputation would lead to them being more rational than the median voter. EA organisations will make mistakes. Voters too will make mistakes.
But only EA organisations will face public blowback for that and over time will have better processes for correcting those mistakes
I’m kind of confused about this point—why expect big funders to be less irrational? You point to ‘incentives’ but AFAICT those incentives will push big donors to do good things given their beliefs, but not to be less irrational about what beliefs to hold (unlike in the for-profit company space where if you make less money you’re less of a thing in the market).
I don’t think that they won’t be irrational. I think that the need to have a reputation would lead to them being more rational than the median voter. EA organisations will make mistakes. Voters too will make mistakes.
But only EA organisations will face public blowback for that and over time will have better processes for correcting those mistakes