DR

david_reinstein

Founder and Co-Director @ The Unjournal
3949 karmaJoined Working (15+ years)Monson, MA, USA

Bio

See davidreinstein.org

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

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Unjournal: Pivotal Questions/Claims project

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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 

  1. People might really be interested in this… it’s super-compelling (a bit click-baity, maybe, but the payoff is not click bait)!
  2. May make some news headlines too (it’s an “easy story” for media people, asks a question people can engage with, etc. … ’how much does it cost to save a life? find out after the break!)
  3. if people do think it’s much cheaper than it is, as some studies suggest, it would probably be good to change this conception… to help us build a reality-based impact-based evidence-based community and society of donors
  4. similarly, it could get people thinking about ‘how to really measure impact’ --> consider EA-aligned evaluations more seriously

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 

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.

I just updated it (same link) to include a much larger set of papers. The 'other' category now includes papers we may not yet have prioritized, may have deprioritized somewhat (but still found interesting), or may have set aside for other reasons (e.g., slightly outside our scope, not timely for evaluation as part of our model, etc.)

Now grouped by main outcome/cause/field cluster.

 

Sadly, my instincts on foreign aid seem to have been correct, at least if the 90-day suspension is a sign of things.

Also sadly, Perplexity seems to have been accurate in predicting the attempt to undermine state legislation on welfare standards.

Update: currently exploring this within a small team.  We're trying to gauge interest & the capacity for this, as well as propose an approach.

Would still love to get more feedback from ~established legal scholars, lawyers who engage with research, and law students involved with legal journals. 

One question in particular: would legal scholars would you be interested in doing this public peer-review/rating of work in your area, with modest compensation (~$450), and what would motivate them?

If you fall into this category you can register your interest and leave thoughts at bit.ly/UJlegalEOI (a quick survey) or DM me if you prefer. 

I proposed something related to this, trying to get around some of the issues you mention above. Essentially, a way to have your employer re-purpose some of your salary towards an external charity. 

 

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