The Daily Body Count.

Every single day:

one hundred and fifty thousand people stop existing

one hundred and thirty thousand from disease (diseases are very effective at their job).

eighty thousand were preventable (you had the technology, you just chose not to use it).

thirteen thousand seven hundred are children (which matters if you believe children should continue existing).

That's fifty nine elevens. Every. Single. Day.

After the first nine eleven, America invaded two countries and spent two trillion dollars. After the fifty daily nine elevens, humanity shrugs and checks Instagram.

Every hour: six thousand two hundred and fifty deaths. Every minute: one hundred and four deaths. Every second: one point seven deaths.

If you took everyone in a decent-sized stadium and deleted them, that's one day. Then do it again tomorrow. And the day after that. Forever. You'd run out of stadiums before you'd run out of corpses, which seems like poor urban planning.

That's the body count. Now let's talk about the bill.

The Financial Cost.

While you read this sentence, disease just deleted twelve point six million dollars of human potential from existence.

By the time you finish this paragraph, sixty million dollars more will evaporate into cancer treatments, heart surgeries, and funeral expenses. Also Dave from accounting's weird rash, but that's probably unrelated.

Humanity hemorrhages three hundred ninety-seven point four trillion dollars annually to diseases that are basically just engineering problems with meat robots.

That's more than the entire global economy. Every year. You lose more money to disease than you make doing everything else combined. It's like running a lemonade stand that costs more in lemons than the entire G.D.P. of Earth.

"Wait," you say, demonstrating basic arithmetic skills, "global G.D.P. is only one hundred and one trillion dollars. How can we lose more than everything that exists?".

Because economists forgot to include the dying part. For centuries, economics measured productivity without accounting for the people who stopped being productive on account of being dead.

This is like calculating the cost of a plane crash without including the plane, the passengers, or the fact that they were going somewhere.

The Actual Bill (Economist-Approved Misery Accounting).

Here's what disease actually costs, translated from economist-speak into human language:

Direct Medical Costs mean paying doctors to Google your symptoms in a room that costs five hundred dollars per hour, totaling eight point two trillion dollars.

Lost Productivity means sick people make fewer spreadsheets, decreasing global PowerPoint supply, totaling six point seven trillion dollars.

Lost Human Life, or disability-adjusted life years, or D.A.L.Y.s, means dead people contribute zero to the economy (economists finally noticed), totaling three hundred eighty-two point five trillion dollars.

The TOTAL DISASTER is more money than exists on Earth, totaling three hundred ninety-seven point four trillion dollars.

Let me explain that last one, because it's where the real horror lives.

How to Measure Suffering Without Feeling Feelings (The D.A.L.Y.).

disability-adjusted life years, or D.A.L.Y.s stands for "Disability-Adjusted Life Year." That's economist-speak for "quantifying human misery without having to look people in the eye.".

One D.A.L.Y. = One year of healthy human life, deleted.

Die at 40 instead of 80?
That's 40 D.A.L.Y.s.
Spend 10 years severely depressed?
That's 5 D.A.L.Y.s (economists calculated that being miserable counts as being half-dead, which is oddly accurate).

The entire human species combined? 2.55 BILLION D.A.L.Y.s annually. That's 2.55 billion years of human potential, dissolving annually into medical bills and funeral expenses.

What the W.H.O. Thinks You're Worth (Less Than a Tesla).

The World Health Organization decided one year of human life is worth one to three times G.D.P. per capita. They made this calculation sober, which is surprising.

Let's use three times G.D.P. per capita. We're optimists who think humans are worth at least three years of their economic output. This is the most generous estimate bureaucrats could manage, and it's still less than a luxury sedan.

The math is simple and horrifying:

The value per healthy year is one hundred fifty thousand dollars (less than a Tesla, apparently).

The total D.A.L.Y.s lost annually is two point five five billion years.

Multiply these together:

That's three hundred eighty-two point five trillion dollars of human potential. We flush it annually down the toilet labeled "diseases we haven't cured yet because the money went to bombs.".

Let's Break Down This Apocalypse By Time Unit.

Three hundred ninety-seven point four trillion dollars annually breaks down to:

One point zero nine trillion dollars EVERY DAY (more than most countries make in a year).

Forty-five billion dollars EVERY HOUR (enough to fund a mid-size cancer research institute).

Seven hundred fifty-seven million dollars EVERY MINUTE (more than most lottery jackpots).

Twelve point six million dollars EVERY SECOND (a new Tesla Roadster worth of human potential, gone, every second, forever).

By the time you finish this chapter (about 10 minutes), disease will have cost humanity more than the entire Apollo moon program. We went to the moon for less than one chapter's worth of disease costs.

The math is, as your children say, not mathing.

What's Actually Deleting Everyone (The Greatest Hits).

Here's what's killing people while you read about what's killing people:

Heart disease causes twenty million deaths annually, which is fifty-four thousand eight hundred every day, meaning five hundred people will die while you're reading this chapter.

Cancer causes ten point four million deaths annually, or twenty-eight thousand five hundred per day, and two hundred sixty will die reading this.

Respiratory disease causes six point five million deaths annually, which is seventeen thousand eight hundred per day, including one hundred sixty while you read.

Dementia causes two point six million deaths annually, or seven thousand one hundred per day, and sixty-five during this chapter.

Diabetes causes three point four million deaths annually, which is nine thousand three hundred per day, and eighty-five while reading this.

Kidney disease causes one point four million deaths annually, or three thousand eight hundred per day, and thirty-five while reading this.

Tuberculosis causes one point three million deaths annually, which is three thousand six hundred per day, and thirty-three while reading this.

In total, fifty-five million people die annually, which is one hundred fifty thousand per day, meaning one thousand three hundred seventy will die while you read this chapter.

One thousand three hundred seventy humans will permanently stop existing while you read this chapter. That's five seven-forty-sevens crashing. Every ten minutes. Forever. If this happened to actual planes, you'd ground all flights within an hour and the twenty-four-hour news cycle would collapse from overuse.
But because it's disease, you call it "natural causes" and go back to arguing about parking.

While you're busy testing zero point zero zero zero zero zero three percent of potential cures:

Ten million people annually will die from antimicrobial resistance by twenty-fifty (bacteria evolved faster than we did, which is embarrassing).

Six hundred thousand people annually die from malaria (mosquitoes: six hundred thousand, humanity: zero).

Ten point four million people annually die from cancer (your own cells killing you because they forgot how to die).

Twenty million people annually die from cardiovascular disease (hearts that gave up on humanity, can't blame them).

Each death represents:

Someone's entire universe ending.

A grandmother who won't meet grandchildren.

A scientist who might have cured the thing that killed them.

Four million dollars in lost economic value (if we're being cold about it, which economists always are).

Infinite sadness if you're the one dying, mild inconvenience if you're not.

Your Body Is Not Magic, It's Just Broken.

Your body is a machine. Not mystical, not "in balance with the universe." A biological machine made of thirty-seven trillion cells. And like all machines, it breaks.

Machines can be fixed.

Every disease is just a broken part: cancer is cells with broken stop buttons, Alzheimer's is broken garbage disposal in brain cells, aging is everything breaking at once very slowly (rude).

You don't fix them because you haven't tested ninety-nine point nine nine nine nine nine seven percent of the repair tools. There are one hundred sixty-six billion possible molecules. You've tried roughly zero point zero zero three percent of them. That's like trying to find your car keys by checking one pocket then giving up forever.

What This Actually Costs.

The three hundred ninety-seven point four trillion dollars "Disease Tax" is optional. Not optional like "you can skip it," but optional like "it's not a law of physics, just a choice humanity keeps making.".

It's the price you pay for being too slow to fix your own broken meat robots.

Every day you delay costs another one point zero nine trillion dollars. Not theoretical future money. Real human potential dissolving right now into medical bills, funeral expenses, and GoFundMe campaigns. Meanwhile, politicians argue whether you can "afford" to test molecules.

Your Priorities, Written in Your Budgets.

Military budget: Gets seven point four billion dollars daily to practice ending human life.

Medical research: Gets one hundred eighty-five million dollars daily to practice extending it.

That's a forty to one ratio in favor of death over life.

If aliens intercepted your budget spreadsheets, they'd conclude you're a death cult that occasionally dabbles in medicine as a hobby. (We have intercepted them. This is accurate.).

The Future You're Paying For.

Somewhere in the future, there's a Tuesday when:

Cancer is a minor inconvenience like a cold.

Hearts are as repairable as carburetors.

Death is optional, not mandatory.

Aging is something that happened to your ancestors.

Every day between now and that Tuesday costs you one point zero nine trillion dollars. That's the real invoice. The actual bill for choosing bombs over grandma's cancer treatment.

The future is waiting. You're just too busy building better ways to explode each other to notice. The explosions are very impressive, though. Full marks for spectacle.