david_reinstein

• david_reinsteinMar 22, 2025, 4:01 PM

  6 points

  1 ∶ 0

  in reply to: Arden Koehler’s comment on: 80,000 Hours is shift­ing its strate­gic ap­proach to fo­cus more on AGI

  I would lean the other way, at least in some comms. You wouldn’t want people to think that (e.g.) “the career guidance space in high impact global health and wellbeing is being handled by 80k”. Changing branding could more clearly open opportunities for other orga to enter spaces like that.

• david_reinsteinMar 21, 2025, 4:48 PM

  5 points

  0 ∶ 0

  on: Pro­jects I’d like to see in the GHW meta space

  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.
  ...
  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.
  

• david_reinsteinMar 15, 2025, 6:21 PM

  2 points

  0 ∶ 0

  on: AI for Epistemics Hackathon

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

• david_reinsteinMar 14, 2025, 10:34 PM

  5 points

  1 ∶ 0

  on: Where Are the Older Peo­ple in Our Move­ment?

  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.)
  

• david_reinsteinMar 13, 2025, 10:13 PM

  4 points

  0 ∶ 0

  on: Shar­ing My Profit for Good Blog Series

  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.
  

• david_reinsteinMar 12, 2025, 1:33 AM

  30 points

  4 ∶ 2

  on: New Fo­cus Area: Abun­dance and Growth

  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).

• david_reinsteinMar 10, 2025, 10:46 PM

  2 points

  0 ∶ 0

  in reply to: david_reinstein’s comment on: A re­view of GiveWell’s dis­count rate

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

• david_reinsteinMar 10, 2025, 10:45 PM

  2 points

  0 ∶ 0

  on: A re­view of GiveWell’s dis­count rate

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

• david_reinsteinFeb 6, 2025, 2:12 AM

  5 points

  0 ∶ 0

  on: david_re­in­stein’s Shortform

  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

• david_reinsteinFeb 5, 2025, 12:34 AM

  6 points

  1 ∶ 0

  in reply to: NickLaing’s comment on: Im­pli­ca­tions of USAID freeze on donations

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

• david_reinsteinJan 29, 2025, 10:51 PM

  0 points

  0 ∶ 0

  in reply to: david_reinstein’s comment on: Un­jour­nal: “Re­search with po­ten­tial for im­pact” database

• david_reinsteinJan 29, 2025, 10:13 PM

  2 points

  0 ∶ 0

  on: Un­jour­nal: “Re­search with po­ten­tial for im­pact” database

  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.
  
  

• david_reinsteinJan 27, 2025, 9:57 PM

  2 points

  0 ∶ 0

  in reply to: david_reinstein’s comment on: The elephant (and don­key) in the room

  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.

• david_reinsteinJan 27, 2025, 4:14 PM

  2 points

  0 ∶ 0

  on: Le­gal schol­ar­ship: Is it high-im­pact? Should Un­jour­nal eval­u­ate it? Call for par­ti­ci­pa­tion/​scoping

  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.

• david_reinsteinJan 15, 2025, 10:48 PM

  2 points

  0 ∶ 0

  on: Vol­un­tary Salary Reduction

  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.
  
  

• david_reinsteinJan 15, 2025, 12:16 PM

  2 points

  1 ∶ 0

  in reply to: barkbellowroar’s comment on: Find­ing ‘pivotal ques­tions’ from 80k pod­cast tran­scripts, sug­ges­tions, LLM ap­proaches/​ Is there already an “80k chat­bot”?

  Thanks @barkbellowroar! Responding in this Gdoc for organization; will probably excerpt back into this EA Forum thread too.

• david_reinsteinJan 13, 2025, 12:25 PM

  2 points

  0 ∶ 0

  in reply to: JuanGarcia’s comment on: Un­jour­nal eval­u­at­ing 1+ re­search out­put per rele­vant ~EA-funded or­ga­ni­za­tion: next steps

  Thanks, updating now!

[Question] Find­ing ‘pivotal ques­tions’ from 80k pod­cast tran­scripts, sug­ges­tions, LLM ap­proaches/​ Is there already an “80k chat­bot”?

• david_reinsteinJan 6, 2025, 7:59 PM

  4 points

  0 ∶ 0

  on: Cul­tured meat: A com­par­i­son of techno-eco­nomic analyses

  By the way, you wrote “we also plan to hire external experts to red-team our analysis and check for relevant flaws post-publication.”
  
  Did you ever implement that?

• david_reinsteinJan 6, 2025, 11:22 AM

  2 points

  0 ∶ 0

  on: An­nounc­ing: Au­dio nar­ra­tions of EA Fo­rum posts

  
  Fwiw some human-narrated episodes can still be listened to at
  
  The earlier Spotify EA Forum podcast link
  
  and also some on my earlier podcast “Found in The Struce”