I broadly agree that there’s ample opportunity for more digitally native public institutions and to improve government operations. Here is a post on some of the potential that I see there. Here is another looking at improving state capacity more broadly.
It seems like the Ethereum Foundations foray into a DAO would be worth exploring as a case study here? I like the idea of experimenting with novel approaches to governance with some subset of EA funding. I’m not sure though that this idea is fully fleshed out and might benefit from further fleshing out before convening a council to test the idea.
Replacing existing state institutions (or functional aspects of them) with digitally native systems will almost certainly have many benefits. That’s not really what I’m getting at here. I’m saying that it makes sense find better ways to govern and coordinate in general. The process of designing a software system with the general goal of focusing coordination could produce novel ways of doing that and/or it could leverage good ideas we already have around successful collaboration structures, focusing collective intelligence, etc. If there exists a subversive path in which we build such a system, for instance, to run a charitable organization and that process is successful enough to influence how other things are governed, then that is a win. My primary point is embarrassingly unfocused: getting better at coordination, given impending risks, is important and it might be good to start building experiments toward that goal.
Decentralized systems are attractive in that borders (of many varieties) inhibit coordination. I have some worry around the idea of using a crypto ecosystem as the basis for a something of this type. Whether the reasons are good or bad, the perception of cryptocurrency is divisive. I also worry that financial aspects around running a DAO could provide barriers to entry or could pervert incentives. I’m not really deep in that world so maybe my worries are overblown.
I broadly agree that there’s ample opportunity for more digitally native public institutions and to improve government operations. Here is a post on some of the potential that I see there. Here is another looking at improving state capacity more broadly.
It seems like the Ethereum Foundations foray into a DAO would be worth exploring as a case study here? I like the idea of experimenting with novel approaches to governance with some subset of EA funding. I’m not sure though that this idea is fully fleshed out and might benefit from further fleshing out before convening a council to test the idea.
Replacing existing state institutions (or functional aspects of them) with digitally native systems will almost certainly have many benefits. That’s not really what I’m getting at here. I’m saying that it makes sense find better ways to govern and coordinate in general. The process of designing a software system with the general goal of focusing coordination could produce novel ways of doing that and/or it could leverage good ideas we already have around successful collaboration structures, focusing collective intelligence, etc. If there exists a subversive path in which we build such a system, for instance, to run a charitable organization and that process is successful enough to influence how other things are governed, then that is a win. My primary point is embarrassingly unfocused: getting better at coordination, given impending risks, is important and it might be good to start building experiments toward that goal.
Decentralized systems are attractive in that borders (of many varieties) inhibit coordination. I have some worry around the idea of using a crypto ecosystem as the basis for a something of this type. Whether the reasons are good or bad, the perception of cryptocurrency is divisive. I also worry that financial aspects around running a DAO could provide barriers to entry or could pervert incentives. I’m not really deep in that world so maybe my worries are overblown.