I agree that open competition could lead to bad dynamics, but you absolutely don’t need a central authority for this, you just need a set of groups trusted to have high epistemic and infohazard standards. Within the “core EA” world, I’ll note that we have Openphil, Givewell, FTX Foundation, Survival and Flourishing Fund, Founders Pledge, and the various EA Funds, LTFF, Infrastructure, etc. and I’d be shocked if we couldn’t easily add another dozen—though I’d be happier if they had somewhat more explicitly divergent strategies, rather than overlapping to a significant extent. So we do need authorities who are responsible, but no, they don’t need to be centralized.
I agree that open competition could lead to bad dynamics, but you absolutely don’t need a central authority for this, you just need a set of groups trusted to have high epistemic and infohazard standards. Within the “core EA” world, I’ll note that we have Openphil, Givewell, FTX Foundation, Survival and Flourishing Fund, Founders Pledge, and the various EA Funds, LTFF, Infrastructure, etc. and I’d be shocked if we couldn’t easily add another dozen—though I’d be happier if they had somewhat more explicitly divergent strategies, rather than overlapping to a significant extent. So we do need authorities who are responsible, but no, they don’t need to be centralized.