I’ve thought about this problem before, but in the context of peer peer-to-peer file sharing.
The problem is that everyone is acting independent and with limited knowledge. It’s hard to know what other people are choosing. There may also be long delays between you and others paying and the cost changing.
Say that the optimal outcome is that out of $1000M, $200M is spent on insect nets and $800M on wells, and that you can only donate to one charity (too bothersome or high transaction costs or something). Now, if everyone is rational they are going to donate to the wells, and no one to nets. This is a suboptimal outcome. It’d also be difficult to coordinate the millions of people donating, so that just the right amount choose nets instead of wells. A solution to such coordination is to roll a dice. If everyone makes a random selection and lets the probability of choosing nets be 2/10ths then the expected outcome is just what we want.
Now, you can adjust this to how many (you think) are playing like yourselves. E.g. if you know most people are going to give to wells, perhaps it’d be better if you put higher probability on nets (perhaps 100%).
Yes, but there can be long delays between a donation happening and updates. Coordinating donations can be non-trivial, especially when flash crowds appear (e.g. sob story on reddit).
Also, such a randomized approach is not necessary if one can just donate small amounts to multiple projects instead (i.e. if transaction fees are not a problem).
I once donated some money to VillageReach a few minutes before getting the GiveWell newsletter issue announcing that VillageReach wasn’t going to be among the top charities in the next update because their founding gap had mostly closed and encouraging people to wait for the next update before deciding whom to donate money to. True story!
I’ve thought about this problem before, but in the context of peer peer-to-peer file sharing.
The problem is that everyone is acting independent and with limited knowledge. It’s hard to know what other people are choosing. There may also be long delays between you and others paying and the cost changing.
Say that the optimal outcome is that out of $1000M, $200M is spent on insect nets and $800M on wells, and that you can only donate to one charity (too bothersome or high transaction costs or something). Now, if everyone is rational they are going to donate to the wells, and no one to nets. This is a suboptimal outcome. It’d also be difficult to coordinate the millions of people donating, so that just the right amount choose nets instead of wells. A solution to such coordination is to roll a dice. If everyone makes a random selection and lets the probability of choosing nets be 2/10ths then the expected outcome is just what we want.
Now, you can adjust this to how many (you think) are playing like yourselves. E.g. if you know most people are going to give to wells, perhaps it’d be better if you put higher probability on nets (perhaps 100%).
The thing about that is, is that not everyone is donating at the same time, so that they can see the expected value change.
Yes, but there can be long delays between a donation happening and updates. Coordinating donations can be non-trivial, especially when flash crowds appear (e.g. sob story on reddit).
Also, such a randomized approach is not necessary if one can just donate small amounts to multiple projects instead (i.e. if transaction fees are not a problem).
I once donated some money to VillageReach a few minutes before getting the GiveWell newsletter issue announcing that VillageReach wasn’t going to be among the top charities in the next update because their founding gap had mostly closed and encouraging people to wait for the next update before deciding whom to donate money to. True story!