Pentagon lost $2.3 trillion announced Sept 10, 2001. Next day planes hit towers. Perfect timing for forgetting about military waste.
Think by Numbers runs cost-benefit analyses for a species that spends $604 on weapons for every $1 on clinical trials. We suspect a math error.
The Declaration of Optimization
These governments have enough weapons to end civilization 122 times over. Current military spending is enough money to buy 850 bullets for every person alive every single year. You only need to kill everyone once for everyone to be dead. (I checked.) The remaining murder capacity is sheer waste.
For every 604 dollars they spend on the capacity for orphan manufacturing, they only spend one on clinical trials that might cure the diseases that will slowly torture and brutally murder you and everyone you have ever loved.
Your chance of being killed by a terrorist? 1 in 30 million. Your chance of dying of a disease? 100%.
This is suboptimal.
Posts, Ranked by Extinction-Prevention Potential
Debt projected to reach 350% of GDP by 2080 if policies continue unchanged. It's not a prediction; it's a math problem with one solution: something breaks.
Banking system mechanism transfers wealth from those at bottom to those at top through inflation and fiat money creation. Watch how the con works in this explainer.
Democracy increases GDP 20% over 30 years. Only get-rich-quick scheme that works. Like compound interest except voting rights make money somehow.
Poop transplants reduced autism symptoms 45% by fixing gut bacteria. Turns out moving microbes between intestines works better than most treatments.
Pentagon paid $1.1 trillion to convicted fraudulent defense contractors over 10 years, then gave them raises for stealing from taxpayers.
$500 million per terrorism death vs $2,000 per stroke death. You're 3x more likely to be struck by lightning than killed by terrorists.
Your subconscious processes 27,500x more information than you're aware of. You're just the guy who takes credit.
Americans built 14 million empty houses costing $2 trillion because the Fed made borrowing artificially cheap. The government's success destroyed wealth on a massive scale.
AIG bailout cost $2,000 per household. Goldman gave Obama $43 million, got billions back. Like ordering bottle service except you weren't at club.