1 00:00:00,300 --> 00:00:04,320 A one percent Treaty You have enough nuclear weapons to kill everyone thirteen times. 2 00:00:05,100 --> 00:00:10,080 Here's how to settle for twelve point eight seven times and use the savings on medicine. 3 00:00:10,840 --> 00:00:17,170 Controversial, apparently. The world spends two point seven two trillion dollars a year on military forces. 4 00:00:17,960 --> 00:00:24,430 If every nation reduces that by one percent at the same time, the balance of power remains identical. 5 00:00:25,320 --> 00:00:30,480 No country becomes more vulnerable. Nobody loses a single war they would have otherwise won. 6 00:00:31,060 --> 00:00:35,500 You just become slightly less capable of destroying a planet you're still living on. 7 00:00:36,600 --> 00:00:41,260 That one percent is twenty-seven point two billion dollars a year. 8 00:00:41,880 --> 00:00:45,860 For comparison, that's roughly what Americans spend on Valentine's Day. 9 00:00:46,420 --> 00:00:51,460 You are currently spending more on heart-shaped candy than on curing heart disease. 10 00:00:52,580 --> 00:01:00,440 A one percent treaty is a piece of paper that says every signatory nation redirects that one percent to enable any patient 11 00:01:00,440 --> 00:01:05,360 to participate in pragmatic clinical trials for the most promising new treatments. 12 00:01:06,060 --> 00:01:12,980 That's it. That's the whole idea. On Wishonia, we fought for twelve thousand years before we figured this out. 13 00:01:13,800 --> 00:01:19,300 Your species has been thinking it over for several thousand years, so you're actually ahead of schedule. 14 00:01:20,300 --> 00:01:28,640 How It Works. Funding. It creates a twenty-seven point two billion dollars a year revenue stream for the one percent Treaty 15 00:01:28,640 --> 00:01:39,560 Fund. Execution. A network of Decentralized Institutes of Health subsidizes patient participation in a decentralized F.D.A., 16 00:01:39,580 --> 00:01:44,090 clinical trials that are forty-four point one times cheaper than the current model. 17 00:01:44,500 --> 00:01:52,120 Governance. Global population via Wishocracy, with transparent auditable rules and automated fund allocation. 18 00:01:53,000 --> 00:01:57,740 Transparency. All research, data, and spending published on a public ledger. 19 00:01:58,720 --> 00:02:05,980 This Isn't a Trade-Off. It's like if everyone in your neighborhood spent their life savings on attack dogs, and then called 20 00:02:05,980 --> 00:02:10,250 it a "safe community" because all the dogs are equally vicious. 21 00:02:10,880 --> 00:02:19,060 When every nation builds one percent fewer explosion devices at the same time, you get two good things: You become safer. 22 00:02:19,520 --> 00:02:23,820 The global "you might all die by accident" temperature drops one percent. 23 00:02:24,500 --> 00:02:28,420 Fewer chances of someone pressing the wrong button, which happens more than you'd think. 24 00:02:29,040 --> 00:02:37,040 You stop dying from stupid things. That twenty-seven point two billion dollars pays sick people to try treatments instead 25 00:02:37,040 --> 00:02:45,660 of waiting for death. Economists call this a Kaldor-Hicks improvement, which is their way of saying "the winners win more 26 00:02:45,660 --> 00:02:53,260 than the losers lose, and we've decided that counts." In practice, some weapons manufacturers lose one percent of their 27 00:02:53,260 --> 00:03:00,040 contracts. In exchange, they and everyone they love become less likely to die of cancer. 28 00:03:00,540 --> 00:03:05,420 Most people consider this a good trade. Defense contractors are still doing the math. 29 00:03:06,340 --> 00:03:11,280 Why Your Most Expensive Things Are Also Your Most Useless Things (A Mystery). 30 00:03:12,080 --> 00:03:16,520 When countries "invest" in military hardware, they're not buying assets. 31 00:03:17,100 --> 00:03:21,100 They're buying very expensive paperweights that occasionally explode. 32 00:03:21,700 --> 00:03:28,660 A bridge lets trucks drive over it every day, which creates something called "economic activity," which is when money moves 33 00:03:28,660 --> 00:03:33,760 around instead of sitting still. A bridge lasts fifty to one hundred years. 34 00:03:34,200 --> 00:03:40,860 It makes everyone richer. It's quite nice to look at. A missile also sits still, but instead of trucks driving over it, 35 00:03:40,900 --> 00:03:46,240 it just... waits. For the day it gets to be a missile. Most missiles never get that day. 36 00:03:46,960 --> 00:03:51,880 They just sit in a hole until someone throws them away, which costs more than buying them in the first place. 37 00:03:52,560 --> 00:03:58,360 It's like adopting a dog that you're never allowed to walk, and it costs one point five million dollars a year in food, 38 00:03:58,700 --> 00:04:05,820 and if it ever gets out it kills everyone. Economists call this "dead capital," which means resources trapped in a form 39 00:04:05,820 --> 00:04:10,640 that can't do anything useful. It's like converting your house into a pile of T.N.T. 40 00:04:11,440 --> 00:04:18,040 Impressive, but you can't live in it, rent it out, or do anything except eventually blow it up, at which point you have 41 00:04:18,040 --> 00:04:27,380 neither a house nor T.N.T. As President Eisenhower put it: "Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket 42 00:04:27,380 --> 00:04:34,980 fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed." 43 00:04:36,280 --> 00:04:40,490 Eisenhower was a five-star General, which means he had five stars. 44 00:04:41,000 --> 00:04:45,600 Most generals only get three or four, so he was basically the Michelin Guide of killing people. 45 00:04:46,460 --> 00:04:52,100 He personally ran the largest military operation in human history, the invasion of Normandy. 46 00:04:52,820 --> 00:05:00,420 And even he thought you were overdoing it. A one percent treaty doesn't ask you to spend twenty-seven point two billion 47 00:05:00,420 --> 00:05:07,700 dollars curing diseases. It asks you to redirect twenty-seven point two billion dollars from the least useful one percent 48 00:05:07,700 --> 00:05:11,460 of your military budget to things that make you richer and less dead. 49 00:05:12,640 --> 00:05:17,220 The Blueprint. A treaty is basically a promise between countries. 50 00:05:17,780 --> 00:05:20,680 Like a pinky swear, but with more lawyers and fewer pinkies. 51 00:05:21,400 --> 00:05:27,500 The thing about promises between countries is that nobody can actually make them keep the promise, because the only people 52 00:05:27,500 --> 00:05:32,100 who could punish a country are other countries, and they're all busy breaking their own promises. 53 00:05:32,820 --> 00:05:35,820 Sometimes treaties work (you haven't had World War Three yet). 54 00:05:36,660 --> 00:05:39,860 Sometimes they don't (you've had about two hundred other wars). 55 00:05:40,300 --> 00:05:45,160 But they're the only tool you have for getting countries to do anything together besides kill each other. 56 00:05:46,460 --> 00:05:54,100 What Each Country Pays. Every signatory nation contributes exactly one percent of their military budget to the one percent 57 00:05:54,480 --> 00:06:01,320 Treaty Fund. U.S.A., eight point eight six billion dollars, which sounds like a lot until you learn they once lost two point 58 00:06:01,320 --> 00:06:04,700 four six trillion dollars in accounting errors at the Pentagon. 59 00:06:05,420 --> 00:06:13,740 Not spent. *Lost.* As in, they don't know where it went. Two point four six trillion dollars just wandered off, like a cat. 60 00:06:14,180 --> 00:06:21,700 And unlike a cat, nobody put up posters. China, two point nine six billion dollars (what they spend on military parades). 61 00:06:22,720 --> 00:06:27,360 India, eight hundred and thirty-five million dollars (one aircraft carrier's wine budget). 62 00:06:28,320 --> 00:06:31,980 Russia, one point zero nine billion dollars (Putin's shirt budget). 63 00:06:32,860 --> 00:06:37,200 Saudi Arabia, seven hundred and fifty-four million dollars (one prince's yacht). 64 00:06:38,040 --> 00:06:45,880 U.K., six hundred and eighty-six million dollars (the National Health Service, or N.H.S., waiting list is currently longer 65 00:06:45,880 --> 00:06:52,520 than some of the wars this money is meant to prevent). France, five hundred and sixty-three million dollars, which is what 66 00:06:52,520 --> 00:06:57,880 they spend on... well, it's France, so probably something involving cheese or being disappointed in other countries. 67 00:06:58,700 --> 00:07:04,220 The French military has a long and proud history of things I'm not going to get into because this is a book about medicine. 68 00:07:05,180 --> 00:07:11,180 And so on... National Security (Which Is What You Call It When You Spend Money on Things That Don't Make You Secure). 69 00:07:12,180 --> 00:07:16,660 What actually threatens nations today: Real Threats (That Actually Kill People). 70 00:07:17,640 --> 00:07:23,880 One. Pandemics: COVID killed more Americans than World War Two, Korea, and Vietnam combined. 71 00:07:24,340 --> 00:07:29,420 But you don't have a Department of Pandemics with an eight hundred and eighty-six billion dollar budget and a flag. 72 00:07:30,360 --> 00:07:35,760 Two. Cancer: Kills ten million people a year, which is more than the population of Sweden. 73 00:07:36,360 --> 00:07:42,560 Essentially, Sweden is being completely eliminated by cancer every twelve months and nobody's declared war on it. 74 00:07:43,040 --> 00:07:47,100 Well, Nixon did, in nineteen seventy-one. Cancer won. Three. 75 00:07:47,580 --> 00:07:55,240 Heart Disease: eighteen million annual deaths. You are, as mentioned, spending more on heart-shaped candy than on this. 76 00:07:56,080 --> 00:08:02,800 Four. Dementia: Destroying the minds of every nation's elderly (and sometimes their leaders, which you'd think would speed 77 00:08:02,800 --> 00:08:08,840 things up, but no). Five. Climate Disasters: Making entire regions uninhabitable. 78 00:08:09,480 --> 00:08:14,160 Six. Mental Health Crisis: More people kill themselves than die in wars. 79 00:08:14,520 --> 00:08:21,140 The wars have a dedicated budget. The suicides do not. Overfunded Threats (That Countries Spend Trillions On). 80 00:08:21,960 --> 00:08:26,360 Other Countries Attacking: It happens. It's real. Ask Ukraine. 81 00:08:26,380 --> 00:08:33,570 But disease kills two hundred and twenty-five times more people every year, and you're funding them in the opposite ratio. 82 00:08:34,539 --> 00:08:42,280 Terrorists: Kill fewer people than furniture accidents. But here's the part your defense budget doesn't advertise: military 83 00:08:42,280 --> 00:08:52,020 occupation is the primary *cause* of terrorism. Robert Pape at the University of Chicago analyzed every suicide terrorist 84 00:08:52,020 --> 00:08:59,220 attack from nineteen eighty to two thousand and three and found that ninety-five percent were responses to foreign military 85 00:08:59,220 --> 00:09:07,580 occupation, not religious ideology. The group that committed the most suicide attacks during that period was the Tamil Tigers 86 00:09:07,580 --> 00:09:12,540 of Sri Lanka: Marxist atheists who invented the suicide vest. 87 00:09:12,660 --> 00:09:20,140 Not a mosque in sight. Half of all suicide attackers in the dataset had no religious motivation whatsoever. 88 00:09:21,000 --> 00:09:29,780 Your eight trillion dollar War on Terror killed nine hundred thousand people and global terrorist attacks went from about 89 00:09:29,780 --> 00:09:35,500 one thousand per year to nearly seventeen thousand per year by twenty fourteen. 90 00:09:36,560 --> 00:09:42,220 Nearly all of them targeted democracies that had stationed military forces in the attackers' homeland. 91 00:09:42,900 --> 00:09:48,880 You spent eight trillion dollars making the problem seventeen times worse. 92 00:09:48,940 --> 00:09:54,100 Your military bases aren't protecting you from terrorism. They're the reason it's pointed at you. 93 00:09:55,060 --> 00:10:01,440 A one percent treaty addresses the real threats. It doesn't weaken your ability to handle the conventional ones. 94 00:10:01,920 --> 00:10:08,540 You keep ninety-nine percent of your weapons. If ninety-nine percent of your military can't handle the job, the last one 95 00:10:08,540 --> 00:10:13,520 percent wasn't going to save you. Besides, you've done far bigger cuts before. 96 00:10:14,080 --> 00:10:21,900 After World War Two, the U.S. slashed military spending by eighty-seven point six percent in two years (from one point four 97 00:10:21,900 --> 00:10:27,880 two trillion dollars to one hundred and seventy-six billion dollars in today's dollars). 98 00:10:28,460 --> 00:14:08,800 G.M. went from building Cadillacs to building B twenty-four bombers, won the war, and went back to Cadillacs. 99 00:14:09,220 --> 00:14:17,200 Frigidaire stopped making machine guns and returned to refrigerators. 100 00:14:17,200 --> 00:15:01,700 Nobody held a congressional hearing about whether the refrigerator industry could survive without the machine gun contracts. 101 00:15:03,600 --> 00:25:04,980 Frigidaire just made refrigerators again. It wasn't complicated. 102 00:25:05,340 --> 00:25:19,360 It was only complicated later, when the machine gun industry hired lobbyists. 103 00:25:21,160 --> 00:25:23,600 The economy didn't collapse. It produced the greatest boom in your history. 104 00:25:24,960 --> 00:25:28,380 Today you're spending thirty point six times the pre-World War Two baseline in inflation-adjusted dollars: twenty-nine billion 105 00:25:28,380 --> 00:25:28,380 dollars in nineteen thirty-nine versus eight hundred and eighty-six billion dollars today, during peacetime, with no existential 106 00:25:28,380 --> 00:25:28,670 threat requiring it. it. Your defense industry learned how to make peacetime feel like wartime (see Regulatory Capture). 107 00:25:28,670 --> 00:25:28,670 You're asking to redirect one percent of that. The Rebranding Campaign: From "Weakness" to "Strategic Genius". 108 00:25:28,670 --> 00:25:28,670 Politicians hate looking weak. It's their biggest fear, right after having to use their own healthcare system. 109 00:25:28,670 --> 00:25:28,670 So you don't frame this as "reducing military spending." You frame it as: "The Strategic Health Defense Initiative". 110 00:25:28,670 --> 00:25:28,670 The old frame ("We're cutting defense by one percent") is political suicide. 111 00:25:28,670 --> 00:25:28,670 The new frame ("We're building a biodefense shield against the real threats") is political genius. 112 00:25:28,670 --> 00:25:28,670 Same policy. Different adjective. Your species can be manipulated with adjectives. 113 00:25:28,670 --> 00:25:28,670 This is simultaneously the most depressing and most useful fact about you. 114 00:25:28,670 --> 00:25:28,670 The Talking Points That Make Hawks Sound Like Doves. For Conservatives: "This protects American lives from diseases, which 115 00:25:28,670 --> 00:25:28,670 are basically immigrants that got past the immune system. It's the Strategic Defense Initiative for the twenty-first century, 116 00:25:28,670 --> 00:25:28,670 except it works.". For Liberals: "We're redirecting the tools of war to the cause of healing. 117 00:25:28,670 --> 00:25:28,670 This is how we build a more just and equitable world.". For Nationalists: "Our nation grows stronger when our people stop 118 00:25:28,670 --> 00:25:28,670 dying of diseases we can prevent. A healthy population is a powerful population.". 119 00:25:28,670 --> 00:25:28,670 For Economists: "The R.O.I. on the one billion dollar campaign to pass it is eighty-four point eight million to one. 120 00:25:28,670 --> 00:25:28,670 On paper, that beats every public health intervention on record.". 121 00:25:28,670 --> 00:25:28,670 For Conspiracy Theorists: "Big Pharma hates this one weird trick that makes medicine basically free.". 122 00:25:28,670 --> 00:25:28,670 For Everyone: "Your mom has cancer. This might cure it. Sign here.". 123 00:25:28,670 --> 00:25:28,670 The Money Flow. The one percent Treaty Fund. Twenty-seven point two billion dollars annually from military budgets flows 124 00:25:28,670 --> 00:25:28,670 into the one percent Treaty Fund. An eighty ten ten automatic split divides it before any funds reach discretionary spending: 125 00:25:28,670 --> 00:25:28,670 Eighty percent, or twenty-one point eight billion dollars, is allocated to Pragmatic Clinical Trials for patient subsidies, 126 00:25:28,670 --> 00:25:28,670 R. and D., and pandemic prep. Ten percent, totaling two point seven two billion dollars, goes to VICTORY Incentive Alignment 127 00:25:28,670 --> 00:25:28,670 Bond Returns for perpetual investor payments. Ten percent, also two point seven two billion dollars, is designated for Incentive 128 00:25:28,670 --> 00:25:28,670 Alignment Bond Political Incentives as rewards for supporting legislators. 129 00:25:28,670 --> 00:25:28,670 Notice what this does: it disentangles money from influence. 130 00:25:28,670 --> 00:25:28,670 In current government budgets, the people who provide the money (lobbyists, donors) also control where it goes. 131 00:25:28,670 --> 00:25:28,670 Money buys influence, influence redirects money, and the loop is invisible. 132 00:25:28,670 --> 00:25:28,670 Here, investors get money (ten percent). Politicians get career incentives (ten percent). 133 00:25:28,670 --> 00:25:28,670 Neither group touches the eighty percent that goes to clinical trials. 134 00:25:28,670 --> 00:25:28,670 The corruption is capped, transparent, and separated from the public goods funding. 135 00:25:28,670 --> 00:25:28,670 The eighty percent for pragmatic clinical trials is insulated from investor and political capture. 136 00:25:28,670 --> 00:25:28,670 Patients direct trial-participation spending by joining studies, while Wishocracy governs infrastructure and other shared 137 00:25:28,670 --> 00:25:28,670 medical public goods, not by a committee of twelve people in a conference room who haven't had a new idea since nineteen 138 00:25:28,670 --> 00:25:28,670 eighty-seven. Every human still gets direct say on the part that actually requires collective choice. 139 00:25:28,670 --> 00:25:28,670 Yes, even Florida Man. Year One Projected Outcomes. Only one point nine million participate in drug trials annually out 140 00:25:28,670 --> 00:25:28,670 of two point four billion people with chronic disease. With a one percent treaty plus a decentralized F.D.A.: Cost per patient 141 00:25:28,670 --> 00:25:28,670 is forty-one thousand dollars currently, but nine hundred and twenty-nine dollars with the treaty, making it forty-four 142 00:25:28,670 --> 00:25:28,670 point one times cheaper. Government trial funding is currently four point five billion dollars, with an additional twenty-one 143 00:25:28,670 --> 00:25:28,670 point eight billion dollars from the treaty. There are one point nine million patients per year currently, which would increase 144 00:25:28,670 --> 00:25:28,670 to twenty-three point four million under the treaty, a twelve point three times increase. 145 00:25:28,670 --> 00:25:28,670 The Incentive Structure. The military-industrial complex gets to keep ninety-nine percent of their budget (still plenty 146 00:25:28,670 --> 00:25:28,670 for bombs), pivot one percent to biotech (the health market is growing; the bomb market just got one percent smaller), look 147 00:25:28,670 --> 00:25:28,670 like heroes (rare for arms dealers), invest in the fund (VICTORY Incentive Alignment Bonds pay two hundred and seventy-two 148 00:25:28,670 --> 00:25:28,670 percent annually), and not die of cancer (even arms dealers get cancer). 149 00:25:28,670 --> 00:25:28,670 Especially the not dying of cancer part. The C.E.O. of Lockheed Martin has the same cells you do. 150 00:25:28,670 --> 00:25:28,670 Those cells malfunction on the same schedule. No amount of missile production has ever cured a tumor. 151 00:25:28,670 --> 00:25:28,670 Lockheed Martin Presents: The F thirty-five Cancer Killer. Boeing Proud Sponsor of: Not Dying of Alzheimer's. 152 00:25:28,670 --> 00:25:28,670 Raytheon Technologies: Now With one percent Less Death. They keep their contracts. 153 00:25:28,670 --> 00:25:28,670 They keep their profits. They just point one percent of their death machines at actual death. 154 00:25:28,670 --> 00:25:28,670 What Happens If This Actually Works. The Endgame. A one percent treaty isn't the goal. 155 00:25:28,670 --> 00:25:28,670 It's the proof of concept. I've watched roughly eight hundred and forty-seven civilizations reach this exact fork in the 156 00:25:28,670 --> 00:25:28,670 road; the ones still around all started with something like one percent, and the ones that didn't are geological features 157 00:25:28,670 --> 00:25:28,670 now. Once your species gets a taste of "spending money on things that help instead of things that explode," you'll want 158 00:25:28,670 --> 00:25:28,670 more. The Ratchet Effect. Public sentiment helps: once cures start rolling out, people want more. 159 00:25:28,670 --> 00:25:28,670 "Grandma's dementia is manageable now. Want to try another half-percent?" 160 00:25:28,670 --> 00:25:28,670 But your species has wanted cures for centuries without funding them. 161 00:25:28,670 --> 00:25:28,670 Popular demand alone doesn't move budgets. Money does. That's what the Incentive Alignment Bonds are for. 162 00:25:28,670 --> 00:25:28,670 Bondholders receive ten percent of all treaty inflows, perpetually. 163 00:25:28,670 --> 00:25:28,670 At one percent, that's two point seven two billion dollars a year split among them. 164 00:25:28,670 --> 00:25:28,670 At five percent, it's thirteen point six billion dollars. At full redirection, two hundred and seventy-two billion dollars. 165 00:25:28,670 --> 00:25:28,670 Every percentage point increase is a direct raise for every bondholder. 166 00:25:28,670 --> 00:25:28,670 These aren't random investors. They're billionaires, family offices, and institutional funds, people who already have senators 167 00:25:28,670 --> 00:25:28,670 on speed dial, media access, and campaign donation budgets. 168 00:25:28,670 --> 00:25:28,670 They didn't buy influence over the treaty fund. They bought a revenue share. 169 00:25:28,670 --> 00:25:28,670 But their pre-existing influence over everything else means any politician who tries to shrink or stall the treaty is picking 170 00:25:28,670 --> 00:25:28,670 a fight with the richest, most politically connected humans on the planet, all of whom have a quarterly earnings statement 171 00:25:28,670 --> 00:25:28,670 explaining why the treaty should be bigger, not smaller. The defense lobby built a permanent machine to keep military budgets 172 00:25:28,670 --> 00:25:28,670 growing. Incentive-alignment bonds, or I.A.B.s, build the mirror image: a permanent class of wealthy investors whose income 173 00:25:28,670 --> 00:25:28,670 scales directly with treaty expansion. Perpetual bonds mean a perpetual financial incentive to lobby for expansion, every 174 00:25:28,670 --> 00:25:28,670 single year, forever. Except these lobbyists have better math and a more popular product ("not dying" polls well). 175 00:25:28,670 --> 00:25:28,670 And the politicians on the receiving end of that pressure? They have their own math. 176 00:25:28,670 --> 00:25:28,670 The treaty's ten percent political incentive allocation scales with treaty size. 177 00:25:28,670 --> 00:25:28,670 At one percent, that's two point seven two billion dollars a year funding campaign support and post-office career rewards 178 00:25:28,670 --> 00:25:28,670 for legislators who voted yes. At five percent, it's five times that. 179 00:25:28,670 --> 00:25:28,670 A politician who votes to expand the treaty is voting to expand their own campaign war chest and retirement options. 180 00:25:28,670 --> 00:25:28,670 A politician who votes against expansion is voting to shrink them. 181 00:25:28,670 --> 00:25:28,670 Your species designed a system where politicians follow the money. 182 00:25:28,670 --> 00:25:28,670 This just points the money somewhere useful. More cures lead to more popular support. 183 00:25:28,670 --> 00:25:28,670 More bondholder income leads to more political pressure. More treaty funding leads to more campaign support for yes-voting 184 00:25:28,670 --> 00:25:28,670 politicians. Three ratchets, one direction. The endgame: countries bragging about their cancer survival rates instead of 185 00:25:28,670 --> 00:25:28,670 their missile counts. For quantitative projections of health and economic impacts, see impact dot war on disease dot O.R.G. 186 00:25:28,670 --> 00:25:28,670 Avoiding Treaty Pitfalls. Treaties fail in predictable ways. 187 00:25:28,670 --> 00:25:28,670 They all fail for the same boring reasons. Here's how this one avoids the common killers: Reservation Games. 188 00:25:28,670 --> 00:25:28,670 Countries love to sign treaties then add exceptions that gut them. 189 00:25:28,670 --> 00:25:28,670 It's like joining a gym but reserving the right to never go. 190 00:25:28,670 --> 00:25:28,670 Solution: No reservations permitted. All or nothing. Take it or leave it. 191 00:25:28,670 --> 00:25:28,670 Ratification Delays. Sign with fanfare, take a photo, then let it die in committee forever. 192 00:25:28,670 --> 00:25:28,670 Your species calls this "diplomacy." Solution: Provisional application. 193 00:25:28,670 --> 00:25:28,670 Takes effect on signature. Ratification just formalizes what already started. 194 00:25:28,670 --> 00:25:28,670 Creative Accounting. Reclassify "military" spending as "peacekeeping" or "homeland security" to dodge obligations. 195 00:25:28,670 --> 00:25:28,670 This is beige crime: making theft so procedurally dull that nobody investigates. 196 00:25:28,670 --> 00:25:28,670 Reclassifying "military" as "peacekeeping" is the bureaucratic equivalent of stealing someone's car by renaming it "shared 197 00:25:28,670 --> 00:25:28,670 mobility infrastructure." Solution: I.A.B.s make creative accounting self-defeating. 198 00:25:28,670 --> 00:25:28,670 Politicians who benefit from treaty compliance have personal financial incentive to ensure their nation's full one percent 199 00:25:28,670 --> 00:25:28,670 contribution flows through. Reclassifying military spending to dodge obligations reduces I.A.B. 200 00:25:28,670 --> 00:25:28,670 returns for that nation's own legislators, the same people who control budget classifications. 201 00:25:28,670 --> 00:25:28,670 Parliamentary Obstacles. Executive signs, legislature refuses to implement. 202 00:25:28,670 --> 00:25:28,670 Solution: The treaty obligates the percentage; Congress implements via the annual National Defense Authorization Act (N.D.A.A.). 203 00:25:28,670 --> 00:25:28,670 After Medellin versus Texas (two thousand and eight), the Supreme Court made clear that not all treaties are self-executing, 204 00:25:28,670 --> 00:25:28,670 so the treaty doesn't try to bypass Congress. It creates a binding international obligation that Congress fulfills through 205 00:25:28,670 --> 00:25:28,670 its normal appropriations process, the same way NATO's spending commitments work. 206 00:25:28,670 --> 00:25:28,670 The Incentive Alignment Bonds, or I.A.B., mechanism ensures legislators have a personal incentive to include the one percent 207 00:25:28,670 --> 00:25:28,670 line item every year. Summary. A one percent treaty is a piece of paper that says "Let's spend one percent less on killing 208 00:25:28,670 --> 00:25:28,670 and one percent more on not dying.". That's it. That's the whole thing. 209 00:25:28,670 --> 00:25:28,670 It doesn't end war. It doesn't destroy the military. It doesn't create world peace. 210 00:25:28,670 --> 00:25:28,670 It just moves the *first* one percent of your murder budget to your survival budget. 211 00:25:28,670 --> 00:25:28,670 If you can't agree on that, if you can't agree that spending one penny less on death and one penny more on life is a good 212 00:25:28,670 --> 00:25:28,670 idea, then you deserve whatever's coming. Addendum: The Actual Treaty Text (First Draft). 213 00:25:28,670 --> 00:25:28,670 THE TREATY FOR THE ONE PERCENT REALLOCATION OF MILITARY EXPENDITURES TOWARDS BIOMEDICAL RESEARCH AND DEVELOPMENT FOR THE 214 00:25:28,670 --> 00:25:28,670 PREVENTION OF HUMAN SUFFERING AND DEATH (Or: The "Let's Not Die" Treaty, for short) WHEREAS, humanity spends two point seven 215 00:25:28,670 --> 00:25:28,670 two trillion dollars annually on methods of killing itself; WHEREAS, this seems somewhat counterproductive; WHEREAS, diseases 216 00:25:28,670 --> 00:25:28,670 kill more people than all wars combined and don't even have the decency to be quick about it; WHEREAS, we have nuclear weapons 217 00:25:28,670 --> 00:25:28,670 sufficient to end civilization thirteen times but haven't cured Alzheimer's once; WHEREAS, this is embarrassing; NOW, THEREFORE, 218 00:25:28,670 --> 00:25:28,670 the undersigned nations agree to try a different approach, as follows: Article One: Each signatory shall redirect exactly 219 00:25:28,670 --> 00:25:28,670 one percent of its annual military budget to the one percent Treaty Fund for allocation to pragmatic clinical trials. 220 00:25:28,670 --> 00:25:28,670 Article Two: Transfers shall be automatic, immediate, and irrevocable. 221 00:25:28,670 --> 00:25:28,670 No "we'll get to it later.". Article Three: Percentages may increase but never decrease. 222 00:25:28,670 --> 00:25:28,670 This is a ratchet, not a yo-yo. Article Four: Compliance shall be verified by public ledger and independent audits. 223 00:25:28,670 --> 00:25:28,670 No creative accounting. Article Five: Non-compliant parties lose access to I.A.B. 224 00:25:28,670 --> 00:25:28,670 benefits and treaty fund advantages. Your opponents get what you forfeit. 225 00:25:28,670 --> 00:25:28,670 Article Six: Success metrics trigger mandatory percentage reviews. 226 00:25:28,670 --> 00:25:28,670 When it works, we do more. Article Seven: Citizens have standing to enforce via domestic courts. 227 00:25:28,670 --> 00:25:28,670 You can sue your own government for non-compliance. Article Eight: Withdrawal requires unanimous consent of all parties 228 00:25:28,670 --> 00:25:28,670 plus ten-year notice. Good luck with that. Article Nine: This treaty supersedes all conflicting domestic law. 229 00:25:28,670 --> 00:25:28,670 Yes, even that law. Article Ten: Entry into force upon signature by two states. 230 00:25:28,670 --> 00:25:28,670 You only need two countries brave enough to go first. IN WITNESS WHEREOF, the undersigned, being of sound mind (debatable) 231 00:25:28,670 --> 00:25:28,670 and tired of watching their loved ones die of preventable diseases, have executed this Treaty on behalf of populations who 232 00:25:28,670 --> 00:25:28,670 would have executed it much sooner if anyone had asked them. 233 00:25:28,670 --> 00:25:28,670 Signed this day, blank, in the year of our ongoing confusion. 234 00:25:28,670 --> 00:25:28,670 Nation Name. "We choose life, I guess". P.S. - Yes, this includes space weapons. 235 00:25:28,670 --> 00:25:28,670 Nice try. P.P.S. - "Cyber weapons" too. We saw you thinking it.