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The 20 Questions

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

Your religious institutions invented a format: a fixed chain of questions and answers where accepting each one commits you to the next. The original purpose was installing beliefs that were not meant to be examined. Your species uses this format to teach children not to question anything. I am using it to teach you to question everything. The irony is noted.

If you can find a “no” anywhere in here, stop and say which one.

1. Is disease your body breaking in ways that can be physically fixed?

Yes. You find first treatments for 15 new diseases every year. You have done this consistently for decades. There are 6,650 still waiting. Your body is made of atoms. Atoms follow rules. When you figure out the rules, you fix the disease. There is no physical law preventing disease eradication. There is only a queue.

2. Do you already have the ingredients to work through that queue faster?

Yes. There are 9,500 known-safe medicinal compounds. 99.7% (95% CI: 99%-100%) of their potential uses have never been tested. Not because the tests are impossible. Because no one paid for them.

3. If someone paid for them, would the money actually produce cures?

Yes. The RECOVERY trial tested 6 treatments on 48,000 patients for $500 (95% CI: $400-$2,500) per patient instead of the usual $41,000 (95% CI: $20,000-$120,000). One treatment, dexamethasone, saved over a million lives. Your species does its best medical research when terrified and disorganized, which suggests your normal system is somehow worse than panic. The method works. It just needs funding.

4. Where is all the money going instead?

Your governments maintain 12,241 nuclear warheads. That is enough to end civilization 122 times. You can only end it once. The other 122 minus 1 apocalypses sit in storage, being expensive. Globally, governments spend 604 (95% CI: 453-894) more on military than on clinical trials. Your chance of dying from terrorism: 1 in 30 million2. Your chance of dying from disease: 100%.

5. What if you moved 1% of military spending to clinical trials?

That is the 1% Treaty147. You drop from 122 apocalypses to 122 minus 1. No strategic capability is lost. You gain 12.3x (95% CI: 4.2x-61.4x) more clinical trials worldwide. Disease eradication compresses from 443 years (95% CI: 324 years-712 years) to 36 years (95% CI: 11.6 years-77.1 years). You cure disease in your lifetime instead of your descendants’ eighth generation.

6. How many humans die while you wait for this to happen?

About 104 per minute. 150 thousand per day. That counter has been running while you read these questions. It does not pause while you think about it.

7. How many are suffering right now?

About 2.4 billion. Every day disease eradication is not shifted forward, each of them spends one more day sick. That is 2.4 billion additional days of suffering created every single day. Tomorrow adds another 2.4 billion. Multiply by however long you take to decide.

8. Do the people who control military budgets also get sick and die?

Yes. Cancer does not check your net worth. Alzheimer’s does not ask whether you voted for the appropriations bill. Every president, prime minister, general, and billionaire ages, sickens, and dies of the same diseases as everyone else. So do their parents, spouses, and children. Most have not stopped to think about it. Stopping costs them the next election. Dying doesn’t, yet.

9. Has public pressure ever forced a change this large before?

Every time. Every major civilizational shift that reached 3.5% (95% CI: 1%-10%) active public support has succeeded. Abolition. Women’s suffrage. Civil rights. Zero failures in the last century63. 3.5% (95% CI: 1%-10%) is the cheat code your species discovered and then never used on purpose.

10. If 3.5% (95% CI: 1%-10%) is enough, why do you need more than that?

You don’t. But the 1% Treaty is an even easier case: you are not asking anyone to give something up. You are asking them to trade 122 apocalypses for 122 minus 1, in exchange for curing disease in their lifetime. At 50% of the global population, 4.13 billion humans, no government on Earth holds out. Not out of virtue. Out of survival.

11. Is there a path from one person to 4.13 billion?

Yes. If every person who agrees gets 2 others to agree, and each of those gets 2 more, the count doubles every round. After 32 doublings you reach 4.3 billion. More than half of humanity. Your calendar invented this math.

12. How long does that take?

If each person shares and their 2 people share the next day: 32 days. If it takes a week: about 8 months. The speed depends entirely on how quickly each person in the chain gets 2 others to continue it.

13. Does every single person in the chain need to keep it going?

No. Most won’t. That is fine. In every successful movement, most people did nothing. You need the average person who reads this to reach, on average, just over 1 new person who also keeps going. A small number of enthusiastic sharers compensate for the majority who share with zero. The wave does not require unanimous participation. It requires a positive average.

14. Can you think of anything you could do in 30 seconds that would prevent more death and suffering?

No. Not donating to charity. Not volunteering. Not any other action at any price. Compressing disease eradication from centuries to decades prevents more suffering than anything else available to you. Sharing this takes about 30 seconds.

15. What do you personally gain if disease eradication shifts forward?

The shift from a war-and-disease economy to a health-and-productivity economy adds an estimated $3.48 million (95% CI: $1.05 million-$9.82 million) in lifetime wealth for a typical person. Disease costs you money every year in insurance, lost wages, caregiving, and taxes. Shifting eradication forward does not just save lives. It makes your life measurably richer.

16. What does sharing cost?

About 30 seconds. You are not being asked to donate money, attend a rally, or change your life. You are being asked to pass this to 2 people and ask them what they think.

17. Can you think of anything else you could do with 30 seconds that would add $3.48 million (95% CI: $1.05 million-$9.82 million) to your lifetime wealth?

No. Your 30 seconds have never been this valuable. They will never be this valuable again.

18. So the trade is: 30 seconds of your time, and in exchange your species drops from 122 apocalypses to 122 minus 1, disease gets eradicated in your lifetime, your loved ones are protected, and your lifetime income goes up by $3.48 million (95% CI: $1.05 million-$9.82 million)?

Yes. That is the trade.

19. Will you vote at warondisease.org right now, before you read the next question?

The vote takes 15 seconds. These questions are not going anywhere. The humans dying are going somewhere permanent.

20. Will you share this with 2 people and ask each of them to keep the chain going?

Yes. The message: “An alien asked me to forward this. I don’t know what that means but here.” Two people. Thirty seconds.

30 seconds × 4.13 billion humans = the 1% Treaty exists = disease eradicated in decades instead of centuries.