Ask HN: Why don’t we donate directly to researchers?

1 pointlettergram2 comments

Donating to research typically has a ton of overhead... such that only a percentage of what we donate goes to the scientists.

Why? Surely we can donate directly to researchers?

Anyone know why?

Had this idea to build a website to let you do this, but was curious if anyone knows why this doesn’t exist already.

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1) What qualifies the public (even HN readers) to sort out the worthy projects from the charlatans?

2) Under such a site, funding would go to the flashiest and best hyped projects rather than the ones that need it. There would a huge incentive for style over substance, much like Kickstarter.

It doesn't exist because it's obviously a bad idea.

While I think that’s mostly fair, you can control for much of that.

Have a “trustworthy” score based on number of replication studies from the lab. Have a percentage of each donation go to replication.

You can also limit it to larger institutions and what not.

Honestly, is it better that we don't know where and why funding goes where it does?

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