You have the right approach. If you have neither the time nor the ability to judge for yourself, you should 100% outsource it to the proper channels. I just mean for the people who have the energy and ability to responsibly do the digging, there is no reason to be so limited in your resources.

38 with a masters degree. No house in sight. Good luck. Remember, there is always [redacted].

I have no skin in the game but I have worked professionally as both an academic scientist and a data scientist in the private sector and I can tell you that peer review is great but a lot of legitimate research is done outside the bounds of academic journals. It is entirely possible for amateurs to do real science.

If the effect size is large enough, you dont actually need to be that rigorous about it. No one needed to do a study on whether there was a direct correlation between adverse medical outcomes and gunshot wounds to the head.

Well yeah. Sam Altman just came out and basically said he needs a few trillion dollars and government backed loans. This shit is going to be BAD.