This isn't really fair I think. Academic money is actually not fungible - it can't be used to fund athletics, and vice versa. Just because both pots are relatively large doesn't mean that the money itself is fungible.
As an academic researcher, it's most frustrating in that it feels like IRB scrutiny doesn't seem to align with risk.
I do accounting research. My human-subjects research involves surveying practitioners about their jobs, interviewing them about their experiences, and conducting very simple experiments online that ask them to make decisions. There is virtually 0 real risk to any participants of my studies. IRB does always give my studies "exempt" status, but it still has to be reviewed. And they will pester me about different things like where will store our data (Onedrive is fine, but dropbox is not for some reason). This process will typically take a couple weeks of back and forth.
Yet I have a friend who participated in a Kinesiology dissertation study where they were asked to do extremely strenuous physical activity. He fainted(!) at one point from the activity. And it seemed to them that there were relatively few safeguards from that happening. Now, I'm sure that study did have IRB approval, but it really got me thinking... are we really scrutinizing studies optimally?
> IRB does always give my studies "exempt" status, but it still has to be reviewed.
How could they do it more efficiently?:
How could they know it's exempt without reviewing it? Should they take researchers' at face value? That seems to undermine the reason we have IRBs, which was unscrupulous researchers. Should we assume they are willing to torture people but not to mislead the IRB?
Why shouldn't data be private? How hard is it?
> a Kinesiology dissertation study where they were asked to do extremely strenuous physical activity. He fainted(!) at one point from the activity. And it seemed to them that there were relatively few safeguards from that happening.
Informed consent is essential to an IRB; your friend would have read and signed something detailing the activities and risks. Strenuous excercise to the point of exhaustion is a part of sports performance research, at least. As long as you inform people, they have the power to opt-out (not prisoners, 6 year olds, etc.), and no undue risk.
Think about how taxes work. The IRS doesn't check every person. You make rules, you perform random audits.
IRBs could easily do the same thing. Set some rules like (simplified) "No IRB necessary if your research doesn't physically touch a person". Researchers will read the rules and skip an IRB if they're in an exempt category. Then just audit at a high enough rate they won't lie.
There is a huge opportunity in simplifying and automating IRB review.
Here in the Netherlands (we call it HREC, human research ethics committee) the process takes months and months to get permission to talk to people.
Like, “hey I’ve designed some cool new interaction design, I want to get permission to interview people and do human-centered design iterations.” Yes, you will need to spend dozens of hours on forms and wait months.
It cannot be ethical to put these many barriers on talking to humans. And, if you want to do something like an educational game for kids? Or support for the elderly? Or for your students? Well, those are vulnerable populations, so add a few more months.
Education research is extremely difficult here (in the USA it is exempt). How to conduct research on the use of AI in a class you are teaching? You can’t get retroactive consent.
Have I? Haven't I? Are you really saying that all these scientists - anyone doing human subject research at least in advanced democracies - are mostly liars trying to defraud people?
> I do accounting research. My human-subjects research involves surveying practitioners about their jobs, interviewing them about their experiences, and conducting very simple experiments online that ask them to make decisions. There is virtually 0 real risk to any participants of my studies.
Cool, I guess. I wouldn't want to participate if my answers were visible to my employer because honest answers could put my employment at risk.
> As an academic researcher, it's most frustrating in that it feels like IRB scrutiny doesn't seem to align with risk.
As a worker^H^H^H^H^H^Hhuman I find it most frustrating when academics don't understand what things I consider to be risks.
If my answers to your research are leaked, can they be tracked back to me? Onedrive is terrible, just look at Microsoft's repeated flagrant disregard for security. Dropbox is awful too, just look at how easy it is to accidentally a whole folder. Why would you store your data in such places instead of on a research computer with locked down access? That screams to me of a researcher who doesn't understand the value (and risk) of the data they hold. Or perhaps of a researcher who doesn't value that risk appropriately. Perhaps also researcher who doesn't coordinate with their IT department, or an IT department who's equally or worse as competent.
I disagree with this - traditional philanthropy does ignore systematic/societal problems, for many reasons it is simply unable to.
EA tries to look at the bigger picture of effectiveness, and many within EA do believe that political solutions are a good use of resources. For example, many of the new charities created by Charity Entrepreneurship spend their time lobbying governments. Relative to traditional philanthropy, I think EA has a real shot at the systemic changes necessary to make real change.
This article makes a fundamental mistake that many who have written about EA make - by treating the philosophical and real-world application of EA as the same thing. EA is such a new philosophy and movement that the philosophy and application of EA are not sufficiently divorced from one another, and the people at the core of "philosophy EA" are also involved in "application EA". So this is an easy mistake to make.
There are people in rooms discussing whether "the ends justify the means" (though I don't think anyone is seriously arguing in favor of SBF-type means). BUT THESE ARE PHILOSOPHICAL DISCUSSIONS.
If you asked 1,000 effective altruists if they think what SBF did was acceptable (or gave a hypothetical ends justify the means at 10% of the severity of SBF), I would wager that 0 would say it was acceptable. SBF used EA as a shield to hide his fraudulent behavior, and EA (both the philosophy and application sides) have taken a hard look at what EA argues for, and to think that EA (even philosophy EA) would approve of SBF's behavior do not understand EA at all.
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I study EA and so I am loosely connected to the movement, but I don't consider myself an effective altruist.
OK but you also have to measure the services the university provides to students through the increase in administration. Things listed already in this thread articulate that students desire these services.
I think if you seriously looked at the difference in the level/sophistication of services over those 20 years, it explains the vast majority of the bloat.
Students are getting what they pay for, and ultimately they demand greater services.
But removing tenure will only increase the incentives of chasing those things.
And I don't understand how others in this thread are saying academic freedom isn't necessary anymore/doesn't matter. The entire purpose of the republican party attacking tenure is so they can explicitly attack academic freedom.
You've hit on a few reasons. Basically: taxes, no more need for money, desire to give back, desire to have a lasting legacy, societal pressure...
And no, there really is very little work done evaluating private foundations. They operate with very few guardrails and oversight is extremely minimal. It is difficult to evaluate the effectiveness of charities, so how do you evaluate foundations that give grants to charities?
I am an academic that studies foundations and would be happy to talk more about it if you have other questions.
My wife and I are about to go from ~70k yearly income to ~250k yearly income.
I have done a ton of planning for how our lifestyle will change and new expenses (buying a house, having kids). 250k is an insane amount to me, but as I am doing the math for our monthly income and expenses, it does go quickly if you are not careful.
Wish there were more resources on navigating this kind of income jump. Anyone know any?
I know biology and many other STEM stipends are very low.
As someone in a business field with a very high stipend (32k), I am also feeling the pinch. My wife and I keep a relatively strict budget and I track with YNAB, and gas alone is pretty damaging to our spare income. And I am lucky to be at an institution in a college town with a relatively low cost of living. I don't know how my peers in cities like Boston do it.
Have you considered a used bicycle for transportation? Hobbyists refurbish old steel frames that last forever and work as well as they did on day one, and they're usually $100-$300 depending on your desired comfort level.
You usually do pay for a dog you adopt from a shelter. It's cheaper ofc. I paid 200, which covered his shots and vet bills that the shelter initially paid.
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