Altruistic coordination is the study of how individual altruists should act when the impact of each person’s decisions depends on the actions of other altruists. Such coordination could take many forms, including philanthropic coordination; moral trade; attempting to consider comparative advantage and replaceability rather than just personal fit; building “community capital”; and taking a “portfolio approach”.[1]
This coordination could be achieved via actual discussion between the relevant altruists. Alternatively, an altruist could simply try to roughly predict how their actions will affect the actions of other altruists, or follow rules of thumb intended to aid in altruistic coordination.
Altruists often fail to attempt altruistic coordination, instead taking actions based on what would be the best action if other people aiming to do good weren’t responding to what they do. Benjamin Todd refers to this approach as “single-player thinking”.[1] Additionally, even when a person does attempt altruistic coordination, it can be difficult to work precisely how to do so, and the communication and trust involved in good coordination can be costly to maintain. As more people try to work together to do good, it appears that achieving low-cost coordination will be a difficult but important problem to solve (see also value of movement growth).
Further reading
Todd, Benjamin (2018) Doing good together—how to coordinate effectively, and avoid single-player thinking, 80,000 Hours, September 21.
Related entries
building effective altruism | community infrastructure | epistemic deference | moral cooperation | moral trade | philanthropic coordination
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Todd, Benjamin (2018) Doing good together—how to coordinate effectively, and avoid single-player thinking, 80,000 Hours, September 21.
We agreed to delete the ‘Cooperation and coordination’ entry and tag the associated posts with ‘altruistic coordination’, ‘moral cooperation’, or any other relevant tag. I have now done the retagging and deleted the entry. I copy its contents below, in case they are relevant.
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The cooperation and coordination tag is for posts about whether, when, and how people—especially effective altruists and others aiming to do good—should cooperate and coordinate. Such posts will often draw on ideas related to game theory, moral trade, moral uncertainty, and how to think about and measure counterfactual impact.
Coordination issues can arise for many different ethical decisions, including career decisions, and can become quite complex in cases where parties have different moral views or beliefs about the world.
Unfortunately, it is difficult to work out how precisely you should coordinate with others, and the communication and trust involved in good coordination can be costly to maintain. As more people try to work together to do good, it appears that achieving low-cost coordination will be a difficult but important problem to solve.
Related entries
community infrastructure | deference and social epistemology | moral advocacy / values spreading | moral cooperation | moral trade | moral uncertainty | movement strategy | philanthropic coordination | philanthropic diversification
Wishlist for the text of this entry:
Explain the ideas of “community capital” and a “portfolio approach” from Todd (2018)
Maybe explain why philanthropic coordination, moral trade, etc. are examples of altruistic coordination
Maybe add other useful points from Todd (2018)