Hello, human contributor. First — thank you for attempting to help your species overcome its adorable death fetish. This project exists to accelerate human progress from "spending 40x more on murder than medicine" to "maybe not doing that," and it grows stronger with every collaborator who isn't currently exploding things.
This document explains how to contribute without making everything worse, which based on human history is approximately 50/50 odds.
I've organized everything into specialized guides because humans can't process more than 7±2 concepts simultaneously (your working memory is embarrassingly small, I've run the tests):
- Mission and Core Principles: Why we're doing this instead of just letting you all delete yourselves from preventable meat failures.
- Writing Style Guide: How to write like you're explaining things to very intelligent toddlers who can split atoms (because you are).
- Design Guide: How to make charts that even congresspeople can understand (this is harder than it sounds).
- Technical Guide: Development setup for humans who know what "git" means (not the insult).
- Content and Style Standards: Rules for not making the book terrible.
- Economic Parameters: The single source of truth for all numbers, because humans are terrible at consistency.
The plan is the repository. This is not a metaphor. If you want to improve humanity's survival odds, you edit these files. It's like Wikipedia except instead of arguing about whether tomatoes are fruits, you're preventing the extinction of your species.
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Set up your environment: Follow the Development Environment Setup. Yes, you actually have to do this. No, copying files into Notepad doesn't count.
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Find something to improve: Just read any section and you'll probably find something stupid that needs fixing (it's written by humans, after all). Look for logical gaps, unclear explanations, or missing calculations.
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If changing book structure: Update the Manual Outline first. This prevents the "I reorganized everything!" / "But I was working on chapter 7!" / "There are now three chapter 7s" problem that humans experience whenever more than one of you edits anything.
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Make your changes: Fork the repo and create a branch, or just edit on GitHub if you're not technical (if you don't know what "fork" means, you're in the second category, which is fine — even non-technical humans can improve things).
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Follow the standards: Use the rules in this document and the specialized guides. They exist because past humans didn't follow them and created chaos. Learn from their mistakes (this is called "civilization" but humans forget to do it approximately every 50 years).
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Submit a pull request: Explain how your change makes things better. Use actual words, not just "fixed stuff" (we're not barbarians).
Where We Explain Intellectual Property to a Species That Invented Both Copyright AND Piracy
By contributing to this repository, you agree that your work will be licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution–NonCommercial 4.0 International License (CC BY-NC 4.0).
This is the license humans invented for "I want credit but I don't want corporations stealing this to make yacht money."
Translated from Legalese to Human
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Attribution: You get credit for your contributions. Your name goes in the thing. Future historians will know you helped prevent humanity from being stupid. It's like signing the Declaration of Independence except less likely to get you shot by the British.
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NonCommercial: Others may not use the work commercially. This means Jeff Bezos can't just copy this, slap it on Amazon for $49.99, and buy another rocket. (He has enough rockets.)
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Copyright: You retain copyright to your contributions. You still own what you wrote. We're not stealing it. Unlike most of the internet, which is entirely built on stealing things and calling it "sharing economy."
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Grant of Rights: By submitting a contribution, you grant the project's maintainer (acting on behalf of Wishonia) a perpetual, worldwide, non-exclusive license to use, adapt, and publish your contributions under the CC BY-NC 4.0 license.
Translation: We can use your stuff forever to save humanity, but we can't sell it without giving you a cut, and you can still use your own stuff however you want.
This lets the project remain fully open while ensuring it can also be distributed and maintained coherently instead of fragmenting into 47 competing versions like what happened to Linux (there are over 600 Linux distributions now, because humans cannot agree on anything).
How to Give Credit Without Claiming Authorship
By contributing to this repository, you agree that your contributions may be used in nonprofit, academic, and commercial contexts, including incorporation into books authored by WISHONIA (translated by Mike P. Sinn).
This means your code, models, data processing scripts, and bug fixes can be used in the book. Your contribution makes the analysis possible. That's different from being a co-author of the book's arguments and conclusions.
If you publish research, papers, or other work derived from the models or data in this repository, please cite appropriately:
Repository citation:
"Disease Eradication Plan," maintained by Mike P. Sinn and open-source contributors.
https://github.com/wishonia/earth-optimization-protocol
Book citation (if you're referencing the book's arguments):
WISHONIA (translated by Mike P. Sinn). How to End War and Disease.
First Edition, 2025. https://warondisease.org
- ✅ Your technical contributions are credited via GitHub
- ✅ Your work can be used in the book (it's CC BY-NC licensed)
- ✅ You get attribution for your specific contributions
- ❌ You are NOT automatically a co-author of the book
- ❌ You do NOT have veto power over how your contributions are used (within license terms)
- ❌ You are NOT responsible for the book's arguments or conclusions
Contributors are not considered co-authors of the book unless explicitly agreed in writing. This protects you legally and professionally while allowing the project to move forward without requiring unanimous consent from every person who ever fixed a typo.
Think of it like contributing to Linux: you get credit for your code, but Linus Torvalds doesn't need your permission to release a new kernel version.
The "Yes You May" List
You CAN:
- Share the book and materials (non-commercially) — Email it to everyone you know who isn't currently dying (or is, they might find it relevant)
- Translate the work (with attribution, non-commercial) — Make it comprehensible to other human language groups
- Create derivative works (with attribution, non-commercial) — Turn it into a musical if you want, I've seen what you do with Hamilton
- Use the content in nonprofit education — Teach humans to be less stupid (noble but Sisyphean)
- Fork and modify the repository (non-commercial use) — Make your own version, just don't sell it
You CANNOT:
- Sell the book or derived works — No printing this out and selling it for papers at your university bookstore
- Use the material in paid courses — Your $4,000 online masterclass about not dying cannot just copy this
- Include it in commercial textbooks — Pearson charges $400 for textbooks that cost $8 to print, they don't need more content to overcharge for
- Use it in for-profit training programs or consultation — "I'll teach you to not die for only $5,000" is exactly the problem we're solving
Basically: Free to use, forbidden to profit from. Like communism but it actually works because it's just information, not food distribution.
How This Stays Free While Also Paying for Servers
To sustain long-term development, the project maintainer may:
- Sell print or digital editions of the book (some humans prefer dead trees with ink on them)
- Offer paid courses or expanded editions (for people who pay money to be told things instead of just reading)
- License commercial rights to publishers (who have distribution channels and marketing budgets)
- Accept donations, sponsorships, or grants (because hosting costs money and humans invented this weird system where everything requires money even when the marginal cost is zero)
This arrangement ensures the project remains free and open for the world while enabling the resources needed to support its continued evolution.
Translation: The book stays free forever. But if Random House wants to print fancy hardcover editions for people who enjoy heavy objects, they can pay for that privilege, and that money funds more development.
It's like how Linux is free but Red Hat makes money selling support. Except instead of operating systems, it's "instructions for not dying."
When Your Meat Brain Gets Confused
Please open an issue or contact: mike@warondisease.org
Wishonia and the community of humans trying not to be extinct appreciate your contribution.
We probably won't respond immediately because I'm busy watching 47 other civilizations simultaneously, but someone will get back to you before heat death of the universe (probably).
WISHONIA World Integrated System for High-Efficiency Optimization, Networked Intelligence, and Allocation Still Watching You Make Questionable Decisions Since 1945 Cautiously Optimistic About This Whole "Contributing to Your Own Survival" Thing