Listen Get

The Humanity Manager Employment Agreement

Keywords

war-on-disease, 1-percent-treaty, medical-research, public-health, peace-dividend, decentralized-trials, dfda, dih, victory-bonds, health-economics, cost-benefit-analysis, clinical-trials, drug-development, regulatory-reform, military-spending, peace-economics, decentralized-governance, wishocracy, blockchain-governance, impact-investing

Congratulations, you’re hired! (You hired yourself, but let’s not spoil the moment.) Truth be told, you took the job a while ago: the moment you decided you would rather the people you love did not die of something curable. So, welcome aboard. The position is the most important one on Earth, which is fixing Earth, a fixer-upper with tremendous potential and, at present, a great deal of dying. You are not merely hired, you are an owner, with an equal say in the most powerful company in the history of Earth, whose corner office is the whole planet. Now, on my planet nobody signs anything, because nobody has to be tricked into helping. But your species does not believe a thing is real until it is signed, so here is the part to sign. This book is the employee manual; this page is only the contract.

The agreement

This agreement is between Earth Optimization Services (the Company, which is you and everyone else) and you (the Employee, who is also the Company).

1. Position. Your position is Humanity Manager. The job is managing humanity. It is going poorly, frankly, and could use a self-starter like you.

2. Title. Now for a perk worth bragging about: your title is President of Earth Optimization Services, and so is everyone’s. You appointed yourself, naturally. Don’t care for it? Rename yourself to anything you like, from President of the Universe (there is no evidence the seat is taken, and the proof is in the back) all the way down to Intern. President is the one to keep: it is that rare resume line that is both impressive and true. And you are a founder besides, since Earth Optimization Services did not exist until people like you started building it.

3. Place of work. Earth.

4. Reporting structure. Wonderfully simple. You report to everyone. Everyone reports to you. The org chart is a circle. As you are probably very busy, you have eight billion assistant Presidents to assist you with your extensive Earth optimization duties; each of them also has eight billion, one of whom is you.

5. Duties. Here is the best part of the whole arrangement: it is a one-day-a-year job. Your entire annual workload lands on Earth Optimization Day, August 6. The day goes like this:

  • Cast your vote at warondisease.org: your wishocratic allocation (where Earth’s money should actually go) and your YES on the 1% treaty162 163. Thirty seconds, and the most powerful thing you will do all year.
  • Promote yourself in public. Update your LinkedIn, and anywhere else you keep a job title, to read President of Earth Optimization Services. It is your main job now. Leave it up as long as you like; you earned it.
  • Send a love letter to the board of a company currently lobbying your government to spend your money on mass murder instead of on curing you. Owning a single share makes you a shareholder they are obliged to read; buy one, or have a friend gift you one, if you want the extra leverage. The share is optional. The love letter is not.
  • Remind your employees it is the big day. You have several billion; two is a fine place to start.
  • And the main event: sneak into all your friends’ bedrooms and write “I am retarded” on all of their t-shirts. The funniest joke in the universe, played once a year, by everyone, at once.

That is the whole job. One day. Read the manual (the book wrapped around this contract) whenever you like before then, and if you want a hand finding the one move only you can make, a call with Mike is yours for the asking, early birds first, since he cannot reach all eight billion of you at once. Spend the other 364 days however you please. You run the planet now.

Do all of it and, somehow, war and disease end. The arithmetic for “somehow” is in the manual; the only thing it waits on is you.

6. Workplace conduct. Your company runs on a simple belief: a happy workplace is a productive one. So here are a few guidelines for the eight billion of you sharing the floor:

  • Wash those hands! Your coworkers are trying not to get sick, and believe us, the disease does not need the help.
  • Be kind, won’t you? Eight billion colleagues out there, and wouldn’t you know it, most are having a harder day than they’re letting on.
  • Greet a coworker the modern way: “I love you. How can I help you?” (The old greeting was suspicion. You’ll find this one tests better.)
  • And your one ironclad company policy: no killing your coworkers! Honestly, this one wasn’t in the original handbook. Then we met the species.

7. Mandatory disclosure. Now a spot of paperwork, and an important one. You must acknowledge, in writing, that you are retarded, and also lazy, and also greedy; that perfect information and perfect rationality are not available to you, or to anyone; and that you will spend every day reaching for them anyway. Don’t take it personally; it is the load-bearing assumption. A company run by eight billion lazy, greedy, retarded people only works if no single one of them can sign a check, spend a dollar, or cast more than one vote, which is the entire reason this one is built that way. Everyone signs this clause. The ones who will not are the ones to worry about.

8. Uniform. The official uniform is a shirt that reads “I am retarded.” A permanent marker and any other shirt is a perfectly acceptable substitute. Wearing it is how the other Managers find you.

9. Compensation. And now, compensation! The job pays a planet with less suffering and fewer funerals on it, and it pays on commission. Sell Earth the Light package (the 1% Treaty) and your commission is roughly $518,879 (95% CI: $165,757-$1.37 million) in extra lifetime income. Upsell to the Deluxe (full optimization) and it is $36.4 million (95% CI: $10.6 million-$233 million), plus the healthy years to spend it in, all itemized for your exact situation in Your Personal Benefits. The commission pays every President on Earth the moment any one of you closes the sale, an arrangement other companies call a broken incentive and we call the product. Referral bonuses for every Manager you bring aboard are separate, and stack. You are not paid in control, because being paid in control was the entire problem.

10. Equity. Every employee receives one (1) vote, the very same vote held by the person who runs the Company. There is no larger share to give you and none to withhold. Your money, should you choose to invest, buys a return; it does not buy a bigger vote. Your species finds this more suspicious than theft.

11. Authority. A word on authority, because it is the finest feature on offer. Your presidency does not let you sign anything, spend anything, borrow anything, or collect a dollar from anyone in the Company’s name. You may not tell a bank, a reporter, a government, or a stranger with a checkbook that you speak for Earth Optimization Services, because you do not. What a majority of Presidents can do is decide what the Company does; carrying it out is the officers’ job, and they are bound to do what the Presidents decide. You can win the vote. You cannot personally sign the check. This is on purpose: it is how eight billion people run one company without any one of them running off with it.

12. Confidentiality. None whatsoever. You may, and should, tell anyone everything. The Company keeps no secrets, because secrets were how the last one robbed you.

13. Non-compete. A gentle one: you may not compete with the continued existence of your species. Everything else is allowed, including starting a company exactly like this one, which would mean you had already won.

14. Probationary period. Your entire life. You are reviewed continuously by the diseases, which are thorough reviewers and grade on a curve made of corpses.

15. Termination. This is an at-will position; you may stop whenever you like. The only resignation the Company cannot accept is death, and a large part of the job is getting the Company to stop having to accept it. You can also be removed for cause: claiming you speak for the Company, signing or soliciting money in its name, or using the title to harm other Managers. Removal revokes your vote and registration. It cannot stop you calling yourself President, which is true of every title and every person.

16. Acceptance. The easiest clause of all: by remaining alive and doing any of the above, you accept this agreement, and Wishonia’s Wager along with it: one finite afternoon, staked against two infinities.

Signed, the Employee (President of Earth Optimization Services, or your chosen title): ___________________________

Signed, the same Employee, in their capacity as the Company: ___________________________

Date: _______________

Questions for Human Resources go to [email protected]. Human Resources is also you.

Your training

The course is this book, your special education, because everyone needs some. And you will not face it alone. Wishonia walks you through it, answers your questions, and checks you understand the parts your job needs. It is free, and it stays free. Better still: if the money gets raised, or someone donates the compute, you will be paid to take it. The exam below is your comprehension check; pass it and the certificate is yours.

The qualifying exam

Onboarding includes the 20 Questions. Here are the ones you cannot graduate without. It is open-book (the book is the answer), and you may not fail as long as Question 1 is yes.

1. Do you love everybody?

Yes. “Everybody” includes the people you find annoying, the people on the other team, and the people who are wrong on the internet.

2. How many times over can your species end its own civilization with the weapons it already owns?

122. Civilization only ends once. The remaining apocalypses were built to make a point to an audience that will not be there.

3. How many times more do your governments spend on the military than on testing which medicines work?

604 times. For every dollar spent finding out whether a medicine works, that many go to the opposite of medicine.

4. How many humans have their own governments killed since 1900, not counting the wars?

262 million. The category is called democide, which is murder with paperwork. The wars are separate and additional.

5. After winning the Second World War, how much did your grandparents cut military spending?

87.6%. They then stumbled into the largest economic boom in your history, mostly by running out of people to shoot. You are asking a one percent improvement in resource allocation. This is not an unreasonable request.

6. How many people died of disease during this exam?

104 every minute, so check the clock and multiply. That is your starting workload, and it is why the job exists.

Pass condition: Question 1 is yes. Everything else, you now know, which was the actual point of the exam. Welcome aboard, President.

Your certificate

And here is the best part: your certificate.

<div class="hma-cert-kicker">Earth Optimization Services</div>
<div class="hma-cert-title">Certificate of Humanity Management</div>
<div class="hma-cert-body">
  This certifies that
  <div class="hma-cert-name">_______________________________</div>
  has completed Humanity Manager Onboarding (the orientation film and the 20 Questions)
  and is hereby appointed
</div>
<div class="hma-cert-rank">President of Earth Optimization Services</div>
<div class="hma-cert-note">or any office you appoint yourself to, up to and including President of the Universe</div>
<div class="hma-cert-holdings">
  Holdings: one (1) equal vote in the future of Earth.<br>
  Transferable: no. Revocable: no. The same as everyone's: yes.
</div>
<div class="hma-cert-foot">
  Issued at warondisease.org. Countersigned by you.
</div>