Policy-focused grad student groups

I think there could be value in running EA groups for niche populations of students who might go on to have high-leverage roles. Policy students strike me as one of the clearer targets for this.
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Career panels or similar: Career-focused events targeting specific groups, such as late-stage PhD students in economics or public health, could be impactful during critical decision-making periods.

The Unjournal would be interested in helping facilitate and sponsor reading/discussion/evaluation groups for PhD students, especially in economics and policy. This could be compatible with and linked to such grad student groups and career events. 

If you are an academic or PhD student interested in piloting and organizing this, please contact me/us.  You can also peruse our notes on this potential initiative here and add comments.
 

Possibly naive question: are the projects open source, shared code, and forkable?

I expect there are some cohort effects (people in more recent generations have a higher probability of being involved).  In particular, many people get into EA via university groups (although it may not be the place they 'first heard' about it; see David Moss' reply), and these groups have only been around a decade or so. 

But I also imagine some pure age effects (as people age they leave/are less likely to enter), perhaps driven by things like 

1. Homophily/identity/herding: If you only see people unlike you (agewise) you're less likely to think you belong. This leads to inertia. 

2. Cost and family priorities: EA ~expects/encourages people to donate a substantial share of their income, or do directly impactful work (which may be less remunerative or secure). For older people the donation share/lost income could seem more substantial, esp. if they are used to their lifecycle. Or probably more significantly, for parents it may be harder to do what seems like 'taking money away from their children. 

3. Status and prestige issues: EA leaders tend to be young, EA doesn't value seniority or credentials as much (which is probably a good thing). But older people might feel ~disrespected by this. Or second order: they might think that their age-peers and colleagues will think less of them if they are following or 'taking direction' from ~'a bunch of kids'. E.g., as a jr. professor at an academic conference if you are seated at the grad students' table you might feel insecure.

4. Issues and expertise that are relevant tends to be 'new stuff' that older people won't have learned or won't be familiar with. AI Safety is the biggest one, but there are other examples like Bayesian approaches.

(Identity politics bit: I'm 48 years old, and some of this is based on my own impressions, but not all of it.)
 

I expect a lot of people might be attracted to something like PfG now on the following (not entirely utilitarian/EA grounds). This could be a potential catalyst.

1. ~Liberals and moderates in the US and abroad (people who support democratic institutions the rule of law, oppose DOGE shutting down USAID, the corruption, etc.) don't want to buy from any of the companies supporting Trump or ~bribing him. Amazon.com springs most to mind.

2. I think PfG is not about moral purity, it's more about utilitarian 'do the most good'. But companies that donate (most of) their profits to GH&D, environmental, or animal welfare charities are very unlikely to be Trump-backed oligarchs/cronies. In fact, it might be impossible for them to do so because their donations would code them as liberals/globalists/whatever. 

3. So it's a good proxy. Liberals+ could use PfG to find alternatives to Amazon etc.
 

currently, our main focus is in the United States

What is the justification for this focus on the United States?  (Which is, obviously, among the wealthiest countries in the world already).

Or maybe https://rethinkpriorities.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/11/Discountrate.pdf

Main link needs updating: https://rethinkpriorities.org/research-area/a-review-of-givewells-discount-rate/

EA Forum Question posts with 50+ karma that seemed promising for finding 'Pivotal Questions'

RE: https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/dPsgWav4Tryb4BrYv/pivotal-questions-an-unjournal-trial-initiative

David R: In general I don’t think all of these questions/question posts themselves contain pivotal questions. But some of them seem promising, and in others the responses seem to generate potential pivotal questions.

Should we push for a rapid malaria vaccine rollout? — EA Forum Bots

What EA projects could grow to become megaprojects, eventually spending $100m per year? — EA Forum Bots

Why isn't there a charity evaluator for longtermist projects? — EA Forum Bots

How much funging is there with donations to different EA animal charities? — EA Forum Bots

How do you deal with the "meat eater" problem — EA Forum Bots

Implications of USAID freeze on donations — EA Forum

I'm interviewing the co-Founder of the Lead Exposure Elimination Project, Lucia Coulter. What should I ask her? — EA Forum Bots

Odds of recovering values after collapse? — EA Forum Bots

Is preventing child abuse a plausible Cause X? — EA Forum Bots

I'm interviewing Marcus Davis, co-founder of Rethink Priorities — what should I ask him? — EA Forum Bots

Is there evidence that recommender systems are changing users' preferences? — EA Forum Bots

I'm interviewing Carl Shulman — what should I ask him? — EA Forum Bots

What's the Theory of Change/Theory of Victory for Farmed Animal Welfare? — EA Forum Bots

Has anything in the EA global health sphere changed since the critiques of "randomista development" 1-2 years ago? — EA Forum Bots

What EA projects could grow to become megaprojects, eventually spending $100m per year? — EA Forum Bots

Marginal:

How high impact are UK policy career paths? — EA Forum Bots

Has anyone actually talked to conservatives* about EA? — EA Forum Bots

But even if it had a very small change of swaying the outcome it could have been worth it in EV terms of course.