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
Comments915
Topic contributions9
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).
It's hard for me to glean what the consensus is in this thread/on this issue. But if there seems to be a strong case that some outside scrutiny is needed, this might be something The Unjournal (Unjournal.org) could help with. Bringing "outside the EA bubble" academic expertise to weigh in is one of our key things
We generally focus on economics and social science but we might be able to stretch to this. (Feel free to dm/suggest/ping me).
I like the post and agree with most of it, but I don't understand this point. Can you clarify? To me it seems like the opposite of this.
If EA organizations are seen promoting frugality, their actions could be perceived as an example of the rich promoting their own interests over those of the poor. This would increase the view that EA is an elitist movement.
A quick ~testimonial. Abraham's advice was very helpful to us at Unjournal.org. As our fiscal sponsor was ending its operations we needed to transition quickly. We were able to get a 501(c)3 with not a tremendous amount of effort much quicker than anticipated.
in retrospect, there would have been a better decision to form a 501c3 as soon as we had our first grant and had applied for a larger grant. It would have saved us a substantial amount of fees and allowed us to earn interest/investment income on the larger grant. And it's also easier to access tech discounts as a 501(c)(3) rather than a fiscally sponsored organization.
Enjoyed it, a good start.
I like the stylized illustrations but I think a bit more realism (or at least detail) could be helpful. Some of the activities and pain suffered by the chickens was hard to see.
The transition to the factory farm/caged chickens environment was dramatic and the impact I think you were seeking.
One fact-based question which I don't have the answer to -- does this really depict the conditions for chickens where the eggs are labeled as "pasture raised?" I hope so, but I vaguely heard that that was not a rigorously enforced label.
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