The clearest example anyone has given of futarchy is markets to replace the CEO if doing so leads to greater profit for the company. But I’d rather have the CEO replaced if doing so leads to greater probability they’ll give LessWrong all of the money that’d otherwise be profits. These two options seem anti-correlated, so it’s not clear why we should support futarchy (unless futarchy advocates start advocating for markets that help direct money to LessWrong).
I think market mechanisms in general are an interesting example of group rationality, and thus worthy of study even if we do not advocate for them directly.
For example, here is how studying futarchy could indirectly benefit LessWrong. We could simulate a barter market for impact certificates on posts, so we could retroactively incentivise people to write good posts. And this simulated economy could have simulated futarchy hedge funds in it to make it more efficient.
We don’t know ahead of time the qualitative way in which people will later make impactful posts, so this can’t actually focus on rewarding the posts that would naturally be impactful. Instead it will encourage people to assume that others have good reason for their judgement even if they can’t figure out what those reasons are.
The clearest example anyone has given of futarchy is markets to replace the CEO if doing so leads to greater profit for the company. But I’d rather have the CEO replaced if doing so leads to greater probability they’ll give LessWrong all of the money that’d otherwise be profits. These two options seem anti-correlated, so it’s not clear why we should support futarchy (unless futarchy advocates start advocating for markets that help direct money to LessWrong).
I think market mechanisms in general are an interesting example of group rationality, and thus worthy of study even if we do not advocate for them directly.
For example, here is how studying futarchy could indirectly benefit LessWrong. We could simulate a barter market for impact certificates on posts, so we could retroactively incentivise people to write good posts. And this simulated economy could have simulated futarchy hedge funds in it to make it more efficient.
We don’t know ahead of time the qualitative way in which people will later make impactful posts, so this can’t actually focus on rewarding the posts that would naturally be impactful. Instead it will encourage people to assume that others have good reason for their judgement even if they can’t figure out what those reasons are.