1 00:00:00,580 --> 00:00:06,500 Peace Dividend Your government spends more on camouflage paint than on curing Alzheimer's. 2 00:00:07,080 --> 00:00:14,700 Move one percent of the bomb budget to medicine: twenty-seven point two billion dollars for clinical trials, plus one hundred 3 00:00:14,700 --> 00:00:18,560 and fourteen billion dollars saved by slightly fewer explosions. 4 00:00:19,180 --> 00:00:24,280 The worst-case scenario is still the largest increase in medical research in history. 5 00:00:24,940 --> 00:00:33,660 Here's what one percent less murder money buys you. The one percent Treaty Fund gets twenty-seven point two billion dollars 6 00:00:34,080 --> 00:00:43,480 to subsidize hyper-efficient pragmatic clinical trials. The world saves one hundred and fourteen billion dollars it would 7 00:00:43,480 --> 00:00:49,500 have spent rebuilding bombed hospitals, treating shrapnel wounds, and housing refugees. 8 00:00:50,560 --> 00:00:59,300 Your lifetime tab for wars in countries you can't find on a map: one hundred and thirteen thousand, five hundred and fifty-one 9 00:00:59,300 --> 00:01:06,840 dollars per person over eighty years. That's per person. Every person on Earth. 10 00:01:07,380 --> 00:01:16,240 Including you. You personally have been billed one hundred and thirteen thousand, five hundred and fifty-one dollars for 11 00:01:16,330 --> 00:01:22,760 explosions on the other side of the planet, and nobody sent you an invoice because they knew you'd cancel. 12 00:01:24,300 --> 00:01:32,680 How one percent Less Violence Pays For Everything. An analysis of a decentralized F.D.A. 13 00:01:32,680 --> 00:01:38,940 shows pragmatic clinical trials can be forty-four point one times more efficient. 14 00:01:39,980 --> 00:01:47,800 Two ways you profit from building one percent fewer bombs: The Captured Money: twenty-seven point two billion dollars per 15 00:01:47,800 --> 00:01:57,320 year. Your governments spend two point seven two trillion dollars yearly on things whose sole purpose is making other things 16 00:01:57,320 --> 00:02:08,660 stop existing. Redirect one percent: Two point seven two trillion dollars multiplied by point zero one equals twenty-seven 17 00:02:08,660 --> 00:02:13,540 point two billion dollars. The rounding error on your murder budget. 18 00:02:14,420 --> 00:02:19,160 The Bonus Savings: one hundred and fourteen billion dollars per year. 19 00:02:19,960 --> 00:02:29,480 Wars cost eleven point four trillion dollars per year. Build one percent fewer bombs, fight one percent fewer wars, save 20 00:02:29,480 --> 00:02:39,240 one hundred and fourteen billion dollars. Eleven point four trillion dollars multiplied by point zero one equals one hundred 21 00:02:39,240 --> 00:02:48,440 and fourteen billion dollars. Money no longer spent on unblowing-up hospitals and bridges, removing shrapnel from people 22 00:02:48,440 --> 00:02:57,320 you put shrapnel into, housing refugees whose homes you converted into craters, and routing shipping containers around minefields. 23 00:02:58,260 --> 00:03:04,380 Your species has an entire industry dedicated to rebuilding things it blew up. 24 00:03:05,080 --> 00:03:09,780 You employ people to fill holes that you employed other people to make. 25 00:03:10,540 --> 00:03:14,910 On Wishonia, this is used as a children's fable about inefficiency. 26 00:03:15,880 --> 00:03:19,690 The children laugh. Then they ask if it's real. Then they stop laughing. 27 00:03:20,200 --> 00:03:27,140 It replaced the previous worst children's fable, which was about a species that invented an instrument called "the recorder" 28 00:03:27,400 --> 00:03:34,350 and then made every child play it. The violence fable is considered more tragic, but only slightly. 29 00:03:35,500 --> 00:03:38,940 Where the one hundred and fourteen billion dollars Comes From. 30 00:03:39,840 --> 00:03:47,500 Your itemized receipt for violence. Direct costs are seven point six six trillion dollars per year. 31 00:03:48,100 --> 00:03:56,000 This includes military budgets (two point seven two trillion dollars), infrastructure you blow up and then pay to rebuild 32 00:03:56,000 --> 00:04:04,940 (one point eight eight trillion dollars), humans you break (two point four five trillion dollars), and trade routes you 33 00:04:04,940 --> 00:04:09,060 keep putting mines in (six hundred and sixteen billion dollars). 34 00:04:09,640 --> 00:04:14,680 Cutting one percent saves seventy-six point six billion dollars. 35 00:04:15,500 --> 00:04:19,640 Indirect costs are three point seven trillion dollars per year. 36 00:04:20,320 --> 00:04:27,920 This is the part your accountants pretend doesn't exist, including lost economic growth from pointing engineers at missiles 37 00:04:27,920 --> 00:04:36,140 instead of medicine (two point seven two trillion dollars), and veteran healthcare, because the humans you send to war come 38 00:04:36,140 --> 00:04:45,900 back needing hospitals (two hundred billion dollars). This includes refugees, P.T.S.D., environmental damage, and lost human 39 00:04:45,900 --> 00:04:50,520 capital. Cutting one percent saves thirty-seven billion dollars. 40 00:04:51,640 --> 00:05:01,460 Total: eleven point four trillion dollars per year on war. One percent less war saves one hundred and fourteen billion dollars. 41 00:05:02,060 --> 00:05:10,340 On your planet, this is called "a good deal." On mine, it's called "so obvious that failing to do it constitutes evidence 42 00:05:10,340 --> 00:05:15,380 of a cognitive disability.". Plus cancer gets cured as a bonus. 43 00:05:15,880 --> 00:05:23,100 Almost forgot about that part. The benefits cascade beyond medicine in ways that should be obvious but apparently aren't. 44 00:05:23,820 --> 00:05:29,200 Addiction is a neurological disorder; cure the brain chemistry and the drug trade collapses. 45 00:05:29,920 --> 00:05:34,980 Most poverty is catastrophic medical costs; cure the diseases and people can work again. 46 00:05:35,920 --> 00:05:43,560 Radicalization is often untreated mental illness; you can't bomb someone into being mentally stable (you tried this, it 47 00:05:43,620 --> 00:05:48,820 didn't work, cost eight trillion dollars, created more radicals). 48 00:05:49,420 --> 00:05:53,650 Fix the biology and you fix the society. This is not a new insight. 49 00:05:53,960 --> 00:05:59,120 It's just one your species keeps forgetting because explosions are louder than pharmacology. 50 00:06:00,260 --> 00:06:08,240 The Two Numbers. The Captured Dividend (the money you definitely get): two point seven two trillion dollars in military 51 00:06:08,240 --> 00:06:13,880 spending times one percent equals twenty-seven point two billion dollars per year. 52 00:06:14,540 --> 00:06:18,340 That's a bank transfer. It happens because the treaty says it happens. 53 00:06:18,880 --> 00:06:27,620 No behavior change required. The Societal Dividend (money you save by being slightly less insane): one hundred and fourteen 54 00:06:27,620 --> 00:06:33,940 billion dollars per year. Depends on whether one percent fewer bombs means one percent fewer wars. 55 00:06:34,680 --> 00:06:43,560 The Elasticity Question. The elasticity parameter (e equals one point zero) asks the only interesting question here: if 56 00:06:43,560 --> 00:06:49,200 you cut military spending one percent, do war costs actually drop one percent too? 57 00:06:49,640 --> 00:06:54,470 Or do humans, being humans, find a way to keep killing each other at full price? 58 00:06:55,380 --> 00:07:02,860 At e equals zero point two five (the "humans are barely trainable" scenario), only a quarter of cuts reduce violence. 59 00:07:03,720 --> 00:07:11,560 At e equals zero point five (the "humans are somewhat rational" scenario, which is historically optimistic), half the cuts 60 00:07:11,560 --> 00:07:20,100 translate. At e equals one point zero (full match, the baseline assumption, probably generous given your track record), 61 00:07:20,740 --> 00:07:28,760 every dollar cut is a dollar of war cost saved. At e greater than one point zero, curing cancer together turns out to be 62 00:07:28,760 --> 00:07:35,740 better bonding than threatening each other with missiles, which is suspiciously wholesome and therefore the scenario I trust 63 00:07:35,740 --> 00:07:44,360 least. It doesn't matter. Even at e equals zero point two five, the Captured Dividend of twenty-seven point two billion 64 00:07:44,360 --> 00:07:50,980 dollars is treaty-mandated. That money moves regardless of whether you manage to be less violent. 65 00:07:51,480 --> 00:07:56,710 It's a bank transfer, not a prayer. The Part Where the Math Gets Embarrassing. 66 00:07:57,580 --> 00:08:02,160 The guaranteed floor is twenty-seven point two billion dollars per year. 67 00:08:02,920 --> 00:08:08,880 Direct budget transfer. No elasticity, no assumptions, no hoping humans behave. 68 00:08:09,440 --> 00:08:17,660 Just math. The best case is one hundred and fourteen billion dollars per year in total societal benefit; the range is wide 69 00:08:17,660 --> 00:08:26,200 because, again, your species. Even the pessimistic scenarios stay above roughly fifty billion dollars annually, which means 70 00:08:26,200 --> 00:08:32,000 your "worst case" is still the largest increase in medical research funding in human history. 71 00:08:32,820 --> 00:08:40,679 For context, the Captured Dividend alone would boost global medical research funding by roughly forty percent over the current 72 00:08:40,679 --> 00:08:48,940 sixty-seven point five billion dollars baseline. You've been spending more on camouflage paint than on curing Alzheimer's. 73 00:08:49,560 --> 00:08:57,040 Camouflage paint. To make things invisible. While Alzheimer's makes people invisible and you can't even be bothered to match 74 00:08:57,040 --> 00:09:00,860 the budget. What You're Assuming (and Where It Gets Shaky). 75 00:09:01,420 --> 00:09:07,030 The G.D.P. Multiplier. Spend a dollar on weapons, get sixty cents of economic value. 76 00:09:07,160 --> 00:09:09,980 Spend a dollar on healthcare, get four dollars and thirty cents back. 77 00:09:10,780 --> 00:09:16,780 Your species chose weapons. Every time. For centuries. On Wishonia, this would be considered evidence. 78 00:09:17,400 --> 00:09:22,160 On Earth, it is considered an anecdote, which is what humans call evidence when they don't want to act on it. 79 00:09:23,020 --> 00:09:28,180 The Lost Economic Growth component (two point seven two trillion dollars) already captures this difference. 80 00:09:28,740 --> 00:09:33,700 It's not double-counted, just consistently ignored. The Elasticity Assumption. 81 00:09:34,100 --> 00:09:39,160 The treaty requires multilateral cuts, so relative military balance is preserved. 82 00:09:39,740 --> 00:09:42,780 If your neighbor also cuts one percent, neither of you is weaker. 83 00:09:43,280 --> 00:09:48,080 The Societal Dividend assumes one percent less spending means one percent less war cost. 84 00:09:48,800 --> 00:09:54,720 Reality is messier. Some costs lag by years. Some wars are fueled by boredom rather than budgets. 85 00:09:55,160 --> 00:10:01,600 And military spending may occasionally deter a war, though it starts far more than it prevents (a bit like crediting your 86 00:10:01,600 --> 00:10:04,280 arsonist neighbor for occasionally calling the fire department). 87 00:10:05,240 --> 00:10:11,820 Here's why the elasticity is probably better than one point zero: military spending doesn't just respond to threats; it 88 00:10:11,820 --> 00:10:18,700 generates them. Robert Pape at the University of Chicago found that ninety-five percent of suicide terrorist attacks from 89 00:10:18,700 --> 00:10:24,880 nineteen eighty to two thousand and three were responses to foreign military occupation, not ideology. 90 00:10:25,380 --> 00:10:30,900 Half the attackers had no religious motivation at all (the leading group was atheist Marxists). 91 00:10:32,100 --> 00:10:40,040 Your eight trillion dollar War on Terror took terrorist attacks from about one thousand per year to nearly seventeen thousand 92 00:10:40,040 --> 00:10:47,980 by twenty fourteen. Bases provoke resistance, resistance justifies bigger budgets, bigger budgets fund more bases. 93 00:10:48,380 --> 00:10:51,900 It's a feedback loop, and feedback loops don't scale linearly. 94 00:10:52,480 --> 00:10:58,430 Cut one percent of the bases, you remove one percent of the provocation, which removes more than one percent of the terrorism, 95 00:10:58,840 --> 00:11:02,380 which removes the justification for more than one percent of next year's budget. 96 00:11:02,940 --> 00:11:09,740 The elasticity isn't one point zero because you're not just reducing spending; you're interrupting the cycle that manufactures 97 00:11:09,740 --> 00:11:14,580 the thing you're spending on. It's like discovering that your umbrella was causing the rain. 98 00:11:15,300 --> 00:11:20,040 (See the full data on occupation and terrorism.). And you've tested this at scale. 99 00:11:20,540 --> 00:11:27,980 After World War Two, America cut military spending eighty-seven point six percent (from one point four two trillion dollars 100 00:11:28,280 --> 00:11:36,080 to one hundred and seventy-six billion dollars in today's money) and got the greatest economic boom in human history: eight 101 00:11:36,080 --> 00:11:42,100 percent G.D.P. growth for a decade, home ownership doubled, the interstate highway system. 102 00:11:42,700 --> 00:11:47,340 The Cold War ended, spending dropped by half, and you accidentally invented the internet. 103 00:11:47,980 --> 00:11:53,080 Every time your species stops buying explosions, prosperity shows up uninvited. 104 00:11:53,620 --> 00:11:58,580 You're asking for one percent. You've proven you can handle eighty-seven point six percent. 105 00:11:59,580 --> 00:12:05,080 How Good Are the Sources? I'm being honest about confidence levels, which is more than your murder engineers do. 106 00:12:05,580 --> 00:12:13,060 The cost category of military spending, sourced from the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, or S.I.P.R.I. 107 00:12:13,160 --> 00:12:21,980 (peer-reviewed), has high confidence. Infrastructure damage, sourced from Brown slash Watson Costs of War, has medium confidence. 108 00:12:23,300 --> 00:12:26,240 Trade disruption, from the World Bank, has medium confidence. 109 00:12:27,440 --> 00:12:32,480 Lost economic growth, based on S.I.P.R.I. estimates, has medium-low confidence. 110 00:12:33,400 --> 00:12:38,080 Psychological impact, from a PubMed meta-analysis, has medium confidence. 111 00:12:39,100 --> 00:12:43,280 Lost human capital, based on author estimates, has low confidence. 112 00:12:44,500 --> 00:12:53,640 The Safe Bet. For policy decisions, use the Captured Dividend of twenty-seven point two billion dollars as the reliable 113 00:12:53,640 --> 00:13:00,860 number. Money moved directly to medical research. No assumptions about whether humans will fight less. 114 00:13:01,440 --> 00:13:05,000 Just a bank transfer from the explosion account to the medicine account. 115 00:13:06,100 --> 00:13:10,480 The Societal Dividend is the upside if you manage to behave yourselves. 116 00:13:11,040 --> 00:13:14,080 I'm not holding my breath. (I don't have lungs, but the expression stands.). 117 00:13:15,680 --> 00:13:24,880 The Trajectory, Not the Snapshot. Skeptics ask whether one percent fewer bombs means exactly one percent fewer wars. 118 00:13:25,480 --> 00:13:32,920 This is the wrong question. It's like asking whether the first seed planted produced exactly one tree's worth of shade. 119 00:13:33,420 --> 00:13:42,720 The question is what happens when the seeds keep growing. Your species cut military spending eighty-seven point six percent 120 00:13:42,720 --> 00:13:47,140 after World War Two and got the greatest economic boom in history. 121 00:13:47,860 --> 00:13:55,420 That's the empirical answer. But even that misses the point, because the one percent treaty doesn't stay at one percent. 122 00:13:56,240 --> 00:14:04,760 Incentive Alignment Bonds are tradable securities held by rich and powerful people whose income scales directly with treaty 123 00:14:04,760 --> 00:14:11,660 expansion. At one percent, bondholder payouts are two point seven two billion dollars per year. 124 00:14:12,180 --> 00:14:17,580 At two percent, they double. At ten percent, they collect ten times as much. 125 00:14:18,300 --> 00:14:25,860 These aren't activists you can ignore at a dinner party. They're investors with Bloomberg terminals, lobbyists, and the 126 00:14:25,860 --> 00:14:34,060 same tools your weapons manufacturers currently use to expand military budgets, except pointed at curing diseases. 127 00:14:34,920 --> 00:14:44,280 At just one percent, the I.A.B. political incentive pool of two point seven two billion dollars per year already outguns 128 00:14:44,280 --> 00:14:51,740 your entire defense industry's lobbying budget of one hundred and twenty-seven million dollars per year by twenty-one point 129 00:14:51,740 --> 00:15:01,320 four times. Every expansion multiplies this. You've built a defense lobby in reverse, and it's twenty-one point four times 130 00:15:01,320 --> 00:15:11,820 stronger than the original on day one. Two Futures. Your species currently spends eleven point four trillion dollars per 131 00:15:11,820 --> 00:15:19,060 year on war. Over twenty years at current levels, that's two hundred and twenty-seven trillion dollars. 132 00:15:19,660 --> 00:15:27,080 This is the price tag of the current trajectory: terrorism feedback loops getting worse (Robert Pape showed bases create 133 00:15:27,080 --> 00:15:35,220 the terrorism they're built to stop), an A.I. weapons race that a planet called Moronia already ran to completion, and a 134 00:15:35,220 --> 00:15:41,520 species that spends trillions on self-destruction when the same capital could have cured disease. 135 00:15:42,240 --> 00:15:48,320 The other future: bondholders push for treaty expansion because their income depends on it. 136 00:15:48,580 --> 00:15:55,560 Each expansion weakens the terrorism cycle (fewer bases, fewer attacks, less justification for more bases). 137 00:15:56,320 --> 00:16:00,740 The A.I. gets trained on curing cancer instead of targeting civilians. 138 00:16:01,240 --> 00:16:09,320 The money compounds in the right direction. Run those numbers forward twenty years and the Treaty Path produces sixteen 139 00:16:09,360 --> 00:16:16,940 point five times the G.D.P. of the current trajectory. The full Wishonia Path, fifty-six point seven times. 140 00:16:17,820 --> 00:16:24,640 The G.D.P. trajectories chapter shows how compound interest does this to civilizations that stop wasting money. 141 00:16:25,820 --> 00:16:32,720 Years one to three: one percent treaty, twenty-seven point two billion dollars a year in research funding, and one hundred 142 00:16:32,720 --> 00:16:37,440 and fourteen billion dollars a year in war costs saved. Treaty passes. 143 00:16:37,960 --> 00:16:45,260 Bondholders start lobbying for two percent. Years four to seven: two percent treaty, fifty-four point four billion dollars 144 00:16:45,260 --> 00:16:50,630 a year in research funding, and two hundred and twenty-seven billion dollars a year in war costs saved. 145 00:16:51,240 --> 00:16:58,140 Politicians discover voters like living. Years eight to twelve: five percent treaty, one hundred and thirty-six billion 146 00:16:58,140 --> 00:17:03,620 dollars a year in research funding, and five hundred and sixty-eight billion dollars a year in war costs saved. 147 00:17:03,620 --> 00:17:03,620 Health lobby rivals defense lobby. Years thirteen to twenty: ten percent treaty, two hundred and seventy-two billion dollars 148 00:17:03,620 --> 00:17:03,980 a year in research funding, and one point one four trillion dollars a year in war costs saved. 149 00:17:04,819 --> 00:17:13,119 Defense contractors pivot to health. Over twenty years, the trajectory change is worth sixteen point three trillion dollars: 150 00:17:13,780 --> 00:17:21,520 three point one six trillion dollars redirected to curing diseases, plus one point zero due to terrorism feedback loops. 151 00:17:21,880 --> 00:17:29,320 Thirteen point two trillion dollars your species no longer spends on the industry of blowing things up and rebuilding them. 152 00:17:30,280 --> 00:17:36,120 That's at e equals one point zero (one percent spending cut equals one percent war cost reduction). 153 00:17:36,680 --> 00:17:43,940 Given that military spending generates the terrorism it's built to fight, the actual elasticity is probably better, which 154 00:17:43,940 --> 00:17:49,720 means these numbers are conservative. Moronia's politicians were rewarded for buying weapons. 155 00:17:50,460 --> 00:17:55,220 Moronia's contractors were rewarded for selling weapons. Moronia's A.I. 156 00:17:55,280 --> 00:18:00,620 read the receipts and optimized accordingly. Every budget vote was an instruction, and the A.I. 157 00:18:00,780 --> 00:18:06,120 was a very good student. The impact-adjusted bond, or I.A.B. 158 00:18:06,160 --> 00:18:12,680 ratchet flips the incentive structure using the same force that currently points it toward explosions: money. 159 00:18:13,340 --> 00:18:20,660 The difference between Moronia and the civilization that survived wasn't intelligence, resources, or goodwill. 160 00:18:20,700 --> 00:18:26,920 It was whether the richest people on the planet made more money from expanding the treaty or from letting it die. 161 00:18:27,860 --> 00:18:35,460 The one percent treaty isn't the peace dividend. It's the down payment on a future of so nice that your brain is literally 162 00:18:35,460 --> 00:18:38,240 incapable of even imagining it currently.