this post was submitted on 16 Aug 2026
43 points (93.9% liked)

No Stupid Questions

4246 readers
58 users here now

There is no such thing as a Stupid Question!

Don't be embarrassed of your curiosity; everyone has questions that they may feel uncomfortable asking certain people, so this place gives you a nice area not to be judged about asking it. Everyone here is willing to help.

Reminder that the rules for lemmy.ca still apply!

Thanks for reading all of this, even if you didn't read all of this, and your eye started somewhere else, have a watermelon slice ๐Ÿ‰.

founded 4 years ago
MODERATORS
admin@lemmy.ca
43
You Have found a genie that grants 3 wishes! What are your wishes, how do you avoid loopholes or "the monkeys paw"? (lemmy.ca)
submitted 2 days ago by WizardGed@lemmy.ca to c/nostupidquestions@lemmy.ca
93 comments fedilink hide all child comments
 

Lets assume that genies grant wishes literally, but will twist your words. How do you wish without unintended consequences? Typical rules of no more wishes, no resurrection, no forced love, no altering the past, can't defy logic, can't break physical laws, can't create paradoxes, and can't affect higher powers (this is one tough genie!).

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[โ€“] CanadianCorhen@lemmy.ca 2 points 12 hours ago (1 children)

i've given (too much) thought into the wishes:

  1. I wish all public officials, both elected, appointed, or otherwise, work to maximize the well-being of the people they represent, and the world as a whole.

  2. I wish to invent practical, sustainable, achievable FTL propulsion, and live to share the knowledge to parties who can and will implement it.

  3. If there is no positive life after death, I wish there was, retroactively, and it was roughly inline with the form of the Good Place at the series end.

WIshes arn't perfectly bulletproof, but are robust enough i think it would be hard to twist.

[โ€“] WizardGed@lemmy.ca 2 points 5 hours ago (1 children)
  1. a state of pure anarchy comes about due to the inability to the inability to maximize the well being of the people they represent to any extent as no method of measurement is defined and as one manages to maximize one metric it minimizes others making public officials disappear!
  2. you discover FTL propulsion as you fall into a black hole and share it with others on the same ship. unfortunately even if you find a way to escape it eons have passed and either everyone already is aware of FTL travel, or they have disappeared with the heat death of the universe.
  3. unfortunately this affects higher powers!
[โ€“] laranis@lemmy.zip 2 points 4 hours ago

I love a good monkey's paw thread.