david_reinstein
Bio
Participation2
I'm the Founder and Co-director of The Unjournal; We organize and fund public journal-independent feedback, rating, and evaluation of hosted papers and dynamically-presented research projects. We will focus on work that is highly relevant to global priorities (especially in economics, social science, and impact evaluation). We will encourage better research by making it easier for researchers to get feedback and credible ratings on their work.
Previously I was a Senior Economist at Rethink Priorities, and before that n Economics lecturer/professor for 15 years.
I'm working to impact EA fundraising and marketing; see https://bit.ly/eamtt
And projects bridging EA, academia, and open science.. see bit.ly/eaprojects
My previous and ongoing research focuses on determinants and motivators of charitable giving (propensity, amounts, and 'to which cause?'), and drivers of/barriers to effective giving, as well as the impact of pro-social behavior and social preferences on market contexts.
Podcasts: "Found in the Struce" https://anchor.fm/david-reinstein
and the EA Forum podcast: https://anchor.fm/ea-forum-podcast (co-founder, regular reader)
Twitter: @givingtools
Posts 72
Comments920
Topic contributions9
I think "an unsolved problem" could indicate several things. it could be
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We have evidence that all of the commonly tried approaches are ineffective, i.e., we have measured all of their effects and they are tightly bounded as being very small
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We have a lack of evidence, thus very wide credible intervals over the impact of each of the common approaches.
To me, the distinction is important. Do you agree?
You say above
meaningful reductions either have not been discovered yet or do not have substantial evidence in support
But even "do not have substantial evidence in support" could mean either of the above ... a lack of evidence, or strong evidence that the effects are close to zero. At least to my ears.
As for 'hedge this', I was referring to the paper not to the response, but I can check this again.
Some of this may be a coordination issue. I wanted to proactively schedule more meetings at EAG Connect, but I generally found fewer experienced/senior people at key orgs in the Swapcard relative to the bigger EAGs. And some that were there didn't seem responsive ... as it's free and low-cost, there may also be people that sign up and then don't find the time to commit,
Posted and curated some Metaculus questions in our community space here.
This is preliminary: I'm looking for feedback and also hoping to post some of these as 'Metaculus moderated' (not 'community') questions. Also collaborating with Support Metaculus' First Animal-Focused Forecasting Tournament.
Questions like:
Predict experts' beliefs over “If the price of the... hamburger-imitating plant products fell by 10% ... how many more/fewer chickens consumed globally in 2030, as a +/- percent?
Posted and curated some Metaculus questions in our community space here.
This is preliminary: I'm looking for feedback and also hoping to post some of these as 'Metaculus moderated' (not 'community') questions. Also collaborating with Support Metaculus' First Animal-Focused Forecasting Tournament.
Specific questions include
What will be the average production cost (per edible kg) of cell-cultured chicken meat at the end of the following years (between 2026-2051) across all large-scale plants in the world?
and
Predict the median of experts' beliefs over "Does $100k to fund plant-based hamburger R&D have a greater animal welfare benefit than $100k to corporate animal welfare campaigns for chickens?"
Unjournal.org is collaborating with this initiative for our Pivotal Questions projects:
Is Cultured Meat Commercially Viable? Unjournal’s first proposed ‘Pivotal Question’ (& request for feedback) and
"How much do plant-based products substitute for animal products and improve welfare?" – An Unjournal Pivotal Question (update: added polls)
Aiming to integrate this with some of the questions in our community here
Feedback on these questions and operationalizations is highly appreciated.
I made a similar argument a few years back, advocating that GiveWell should rank, rate, and measure charities beyond the absolute best/most measurable.
A common response was that the evidence suggested the returns were so heavy-tailed... So moving money from ~ineffective charities (Make a Wish) to 'near-top' charities, or to mainstream charities operating in similar areas (say MSF vs. AMF) would have far less value than moving money from near-top to top charities.
My counter-response was ... ~we don't have solid that charities like MSF are much less effective than AMF, my prior is a less heavy-tail, and we should try to collect more evidence on 'mainstream multi-intervention charities'.
Not sure if a similar argument applies within the context of animal welfare charities – I'd guess so (within the context of farm animal welfare, say).
Project Idea: 'Cost to save a life' interactive calculator promotion
What about making and promoting a ‘how much does it cost to save a life’ quiz and calculator.
This could be adjustable/customizable (in my country, around the world, of an infant/child/adult, counting ‘value added life years’ etc.) … and trying to make it go viral (or at least bacterial) as in the ‘how rich am I’ calculator?
The case
While GiveWell has a page with a lot of tech details, but it’s not compelling or interactive in the way I suggest above, and I doubt they market it heavily.
GWWC probably doesn't have the design/engineering time for this (not to mention refining this for accuracy and communication). But if someone else (UX design, research support, IT) could do the legwork I think they might be very happy to host it.
It could also mesh well with academic-linked research so I may have some ‘Meta academic support ads’ funds that could work with this.
Tags/backlinks (~testing out this new feature)
@GiveWell @Giving What We Can
Projects I'd like to see
EA Projects I'd Like to See
Idea: Curated database of quick-win tangible, attributable projects