# The Two Futures

I’ve been watching your species for 4,297 years, and I can tell you: this is the fork. Right here. Same planet, same technology, same questionable dietary choices. The only variable is where 1% of the money goes. One percent. That’s the rounding error that decides whether your grandchildren colonize Mars or become fertilizer.

## Path A: Moronia

You do nothing. (Your specialty.) The ever-growing dark economy of cybercrime and AI-driven conflict offers your smartest people better salaries than hospitals do. So they take them, because they have student loans. The singularity happens, but it’s an inverse one, a hockey stick pointing straight down. Antibiotics fail. Global systems collapse in the boringly predictable order that every civilization-collapse textbook warned you about. Warlords with AI armies fight over the scraps in a radioactive wasteland. Earth’s final epitaph: “They had the instructions. They ate them.”

[![When your smartest people realize they can make more money hacking banks than curing cancer, your civilization is about to have a bad time. This is Path A. You’re currently on it.](../assets/images/futures/futures-section-path-a-moronia-bw-academic.jpg)](../assets/images/futures/futures-section-path-a-moronia-bw-academic.jpg)

When your smartest people realize they can make more money hacking banks than curing cancer, your civilization is about to have a bad time. This is Path A. You’re currently on it.

## Path B: Wishonia

You pass a [1% Treaty](https://manual.warondisease.org/knowledge/solution/1-percent-treaty.html)^([1](references.llms.md#ref-1-percent-treaty-paper-2025)) ^([2](references.llms.md#ref-1-pct-treaty-impact-paper-2025)). The brightest minds, suddenly offered more money to cure cancer than to hack banks, reluctantly start curing cancer. The feedback loop is immediate and, frankly, obvious: funding produces cures, cures produce public support, support produces more funding. By 2040, aging is reversible and suffering is optional. By 2050, you’ve cured death, solved physics, and are arguing about which galaxy to visit first. (You’ll argue about anything. I’ve watched you argue about the color of a dress for three years.)

The [20-year model](https://manual.warondisease.org/knowledge/economics/gdp-trajectories.html) projects the Minimum Sustainable Trajectory ([1% Treaty](https://manual.warondisease.org/knowledge/solution/1-percent-treaty.html)) alone producing [1.71x (90% CI: 1.3x-2.14x)](../knowledge/appendix/parameters-and-calculations.llms.md#sec-treaty_trajectory_gdp_vs_current_trajectory_multiplier_year_20) the GDP of doing nothing at year 20. The [Optimal Governance Trajectory](https://manual.warondisease.org/knowledge/economics/gdp-trajectories.html), where you also stop paying the dysfunction tax, produces [56.7x (90% CI: 21x-148x)](../knowledge/appendix/parameters-and-calculations.llms.md#sec-wishonia_trajectory_gdp_vs_current_trajectory_multiplier_year_20). These numbers sound made up. They’re just compound interest applied to not killing people.

[![Spend money on cures, get cures, which saves money, which you spend on more cures. It’s a vicious cycle of not dying. Path B is weirdly addictive once you start.](../assets/images/futures/futures-section-wishonia-timeline-loop-bw-academic.jpg)](../assets/images/futures/futures-section-wishonia-timeline-loop-bw-academic.jpg)

Spend money on cures, get cures, which saves money, which you spend on more cures. It’s a vicious cycle of not dying. Path B is weirdly addictive once you start.

## The Only Variable

Same species. Same year. Same technology. Same brains, same atoms, same Tuesday afternoon.

The only difference: where 1% of the money goes.

You’re choosing right now, by the way. Doing nothing is choosing Path A. Path A doesn’t require a vote. It doesn’t require anything. That’s why it’s winning.

1\.

Sinn, M. P. *The 1% Treaty*. <https://manual.warondisease.org/knowledge/solution/1-percent-treaty.html> (2025) doi:[10.5281/zenodo.20076511](https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.20076511)

*Your governments possess nuclear weapons sufficient to end civilization 122 times but have not cured Alzheimer’s once. This treaty asks them to be 1% more rational.*

2\.

Sinn, M. P. *The 1% Treaty: An Incentive-Compatible Approach to Ending War and Disease*. <https://manual.warondisease.org/knowledge/economics/1-pct-treaty-impact.html> (2025) doi:[10.5281/zenodo.18161560](https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.18161560)

*6,650 diseases have zero FDA-approved treatments; at current trial capacity, exploring them takes  443 years. Redirecting 1% of military spending scales capacity 12.3x, cutting the timeline to  36 years and preventing 10.7 billion deaths. At \$0.02/DALY, 9.3kx more cost-effective than the best existing interventions. The result holds across every specified adoption pathway.*