For 10,000 years life expectancy was 28 and GDP was $100. Around 1800 both went vertical. Humanity spent 10,000 years in tutorial mode then someone pressed start.
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
70% of voters don't know how much government spends on anything. Your lizard brain beats your rational cortex 206 times per day.
87% of Democrats and 62% of Republicans both predicted they'd win same election. Math doesn't work. Brain lies to you wearing statistics costume.
Iraq War cost $3 trillion, enough to end world hunger for 100 years. We chose to make 4 million Iraqis homeless instead.
Government spends $65,337 per voter annually. You could buy a car or pay student loans. Instead government bought fighter jets for you.
Americans underestimate wealth inequality so badly the perception gap exceeds the actual wealth gap—like thinking your neighbor has 2 cars when they own a dealership.
Democracies doubled, autocracies halved in 60 years. Progress measured by fewer countries where one person decides if you die. Bar is underground.
Average American household pays $10,489 in personal taxes yearly (14% of income). Federal budget is $4.4 trillion divided by 328 million people equals $13,403 spent per person. Math gets weird.
0.1% chance novel coronavirus appeared near the only 5 labs studying this exact virus. Basic math meets uncomfortable facts.
3,222 Americans killed by terrorists vs $1.1 trillion spent—$1.1 billion per victim. Yet we call this counterterrorism.