Re nanotechnology, you link to Ben Snodin’s post as agreeing that nanotechnology is feasible, and then ask where all the nanotechnology research institutions are, but fail to mention that Snodin recommends only “2-3 people spending at least 50% of their time on this by 3 years from now”. I guess I agree that there should be more EA research on nanotechnology, but I think you exaggerate the amount of attention it should have.
Re coordination failures, there is one group focused on it, the Game B community, however they aren’t EAs and I have little confidence that they’ll make any progress. EA does have people working on improving institutional decision-making, which seems closely related, like the Effective Institutions Project. I think “solving coordination problems” more generally is not that neglected and/or tractable, given that there are strong incentives for a lot of people and organisations to do so already, but I may be wrong.
Re coordination failures, there is one group focused on it, the Game B community
The interesting thing about that article is that it doesn’t say anything about how the Game B community actually does anything to organize their community in a Game B way.
Yeah, I was excited when I heard Game B was being created. Will have to wait and see if it yields any fruit. Improving institutional decision making is more of the symptom than the cause, but it might work as a proxy solution, which is probably much easier.
“I think “solving coordination problems” more generally is not that neglected and/or tractable, given that there are strong incentives for a lot of people and organisations to do so already, but I may be wrong.”
But this seems to be the core of coordination problems. Everyone has a collective incentive to do it, and yet we see failures in it all around us. I’m too pessimistic to think we can get to something like “dath ilan”, but it seems like we can surely do better than our current SNAFU. I agree that it might not be tractable. I imagine it might depend more on a few key breakthroughs that are able to outcompete less-than-optimal methods.
Re nanotechnology, you link to Ben Snodin’s post as agreeing that nanotechnology is feasible, and then ask where all the nanotechnology research institutions are, but fail to mention that Snodin recommends only “2-3 people spending at least 50% of their time on this by 3 years from now”. I guess I agree that there should be more EA research on nanotechnology, but I think you exaggerate the amount of attention it should have.
Re coordination failures, there is one group focused on it, the Game B community, however they aren’t EAs and I have little confidence that they’ll make any progress. EA does have people working on improving institutional decision-making, which seems closely related, like the Effective Institutions Project. I think “solving coordination problems” more generally is not that neglected and/or tractable, given that there are strong incentives for a lot of people and organisations to do so already, but I may be wrong.
The interesting thing about that article is that it doesn’t say anything about how the Game B community actually does anything to organize their community in a Game B way.
Yeah, I was excited when I heard Game B was being created. Will have to wait and see if it yields any fruit. Improving institutional decision making is more of the symptom than the cause, but it might work as a proxy solution, which is probably much easier.
“I think “solving coordination problems” more generally is not that neglected and/or tractable, given that there are strong incentives for a lot of people and organisations to do so already, but I may be wrong.”
But this seems to be the core of coordination problems. Everyone has a collective incentive to do it, and yet we see failures in it all around us. I’m too pessimistic to think we can get to something like “dath ilan”, but it seems like we can surely do better than our current SNAFU. I agree that it might not be tractable. I imagine it might depend more on a few key breakthroughs that are able to outcompete less-than-optimal methods.