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Three wishes
The Last Gent
Registered User regular
Registered User regular
We all know the story, the Genie in the Lamp gives you any three wishes. I was in an introspective mood yesterday, and began to actually think, if something like that ACTUALLY happened, what would I do? Would I go the selfish route? Try and help the world? Or some combination of the two?
First, I'm going by the assumption the entity had some ground rules against loopholes, the typical "no wishing for more wishes" shtick. And I'd also assume that the entity was benign, willing to fulfill these wishes in a positive way, and not about to twist my words or exploit my own loopholes into some sort of nightmare scenario (think the sketch from the Simpsons Halloween Special 2, only serious). I'm also going under the assumption that they won't severely mess with the laws of reality or nature in an obvious way to fulfill these needs, I.e. changing some fundamental rule of existence to make it happen.
That being said, after some thought, I think I'd phrase my wishes this way:
1. No one in the world will die of anything other than natural causes. (I'm going by that "no twisted intent" thing here. I think this is a nice way to cure a good portion of the world's problems in one shot. War, disease, deadly poverty, all taken care of.)
2. My own guaranteed financial stability for the rest of my life. (purely selfish, but think of all the worries that immediately gets rid of) and,
3. A guaranteed love for the rest of my life to share this with (because even if I was married or whatever, the guarantee would still be good insurance)
I considered also asking for the same control over time and space that the Genie/entity has, but opted out of it, as I wouldn't want that on my shoulders for ethical and emotional reasons. (If you could mold the world, everything around you would feel fake and hollow)
So, what would yours be?
Oh, one more thing: a childhood memory made me just now youtube the scene from Aladdin where the genie explains his rules, I'm going to say those rules don't apply here, because they suck and its more fun without them.:P (If you're interested, they were no killing people, no making people fall in love, no resurrecting the dead).
First, I'm going by the assumption the entity had some ground rules against loopholes, the typical "no wishing for more wishes" shtick. And I'd also assume that the entity was benign, willing to fulfill these wishes in a positive way, and not about to twist my words or exploit my own loopholes into some sort of nightmare scenario (think the sketch from the Simpsons Halloween Special 2, only serious). I'm also going under the assumption that they won't severely mess with the laws of reality or nature in an obvious way to fulfill these needs, I.e. changing some fundamental rule of existence to make it happen.
That being said, after some thought, I think I'd phrase my wishes this way:
1. No one in the world will die of anything other than natural causes. (I'm going by that "no twisted intent" thing here. I think this is a nice way to cure a good portion of the world's problems in one shot. War, disease, deadly poverty, all taken care of.)
2. My own guaranteed financial stability for the rest of my life. (purely selfish, but think of all the worries that immediately gets rid of) and,
3. A guaranteed love for the rest of my life to share this with (because even if I was married or whatever, the guarantee would still be good insurance)
I considered also asking for the same control over time and space that the Genie/entity has, but opted out of it, as I wouldn't want that on my shoulders for ethical and emotional reasons. (If you could mold the world, everything around you would feel fake and hollow)
So, what would yours be?
Oh, one more thing: a childhood memory made me just now youtube the scene from Aladdin where the genie explains his rules, I'm going to say those rules don't apply here, because they suck and its more fun without them.:P (If you're interested, they were no killing people, no making people fall in love, no resurrecting the dead).
The Last Gent on
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Then world peace, or some hippie bullshit like that.
And I'd save the third one in case anything came up.
Also, would the power to alter reality be a bit too much?
Teleportation, a la Jumper.
And lastly, an infinite wardrobe.
You gotta look fly when you're travelling around the world!
Actually, I'd probably put "unlimited power" last if I knew for a fact that it wouldn't be enough to grant me the others for free, and put "warp drive plz" in first place.
Then the ability to change my appearance and at will, just for laughs. That could also potentially confer immortality, as I could just keep on changing into younger forms.
I'd like to think that I'd then use my last wish to make the world a better place, but there's always the nagging feeling that I'd just be making it a better place for me. Do I change something political, ecological, or what?
I would wish for a cheap, renewable and versatile energy source, but that might go against the whole laws of reality thing. If it doesn't, then that. If it's impossible, then I wish for a button on my keyboard which allows me to slap people over the Internet. I'd then spend all my time on Youtube, reading the comments.
Currently DMing: None
Characters
[5e] Dural Melairkyn - AC 18 | HP 40 | Melee +5/1d8+3 | Spell +4/DC 12
2. Very Strong Telepathy (Prof X's ability)
3. Save last wish for emergencies or set the djinni free to prevent anyone else benefitting
"This is where I say something profound and you bow, so lets just skip to your part."
Second part of 3 is kinda dickish.
1.) Immortality, with the addition of having the ability to die at will.
2.) Human perfection, ie all 'natural' characteristics (5 senses, intelligence, organs etc) being improved to the highest possible human level.
3.) I'll also jump on the time travel bandwagon.
2) More wishes
3) A pony and a plastic rocket
And thus far, it surprises me how few people do anything for the rest of the world, you guys are selfish.:P
Edit: To the above, read the first post, there's no allowance for "infinite wish" loopholes.
AN ALL-POWERFUL GENIE!!!!!
1) Wish that the world was self-aware.
2) Give the lamp to the world.
3) Hope that the world doesn't wipe out humanity as its wish.
Or:
1) Wish for the knowledge of which wish would do the most good for humanity.
2) Wish for it.
3) Selfish wish.
Pfft, other people can pull themselves up by their own bootstraps and make/find their own wish-granting genie or something like that.
Currently DMing: None
Characters
[5e] Dural Melairkyn - AC 18 | HP 40 | Melee +5/1d8+3 | Spell +4/DC 12
Edit: replying to GS.
Depending on your philosophical viewpoint, this may entail changing fundamental universal laws or whatnot. It would require massive mind control/loss of free will forever. Assuming nearly no limits you could get rid of disease/famine/etc, but war is unlikely.
In any case... without much thought put into it
1. Telepathy... cause I'm a freaking head case and always want to know what people are thinking
2. immortality maybe... but then again I suspect I'd just end up bored for thousands of years instead of dozens.
3. some sort of massive knowledge thing... like perfectly being able to recall anything I've ever learned/seen/etc... though combined with immortality I suppose that has the potential to lead to crazy-town...
Yeah... I'm all about me... though with telepathy, perfect recall, and forever to figure things out maybe I can solve world hunger/peace
2) Guaranteed life-long (shared) love.
3) For my great-grandchild to become Presiding Leader over Earth and all its Colonies and declare my birthday a galactic holiday. :P
You really need to think this one through. Even with the "no twisted intent" clause, it not only doesn't solve all of the problems you think it does, it potentially increases the general level of suffering.
Do you really think not being able to kill someone is going to stop war? I don't. If anything, it'll make war more common because the powers that be don't have the whole "our soldiers are dying" to contend with. However, people are still going to get shot at, some of those shots are going to hit, and they'll be in some serious pain and maybe even lose an arm or leg.
Similar arguments for the other things you seem to think you're going to solve with this one.
My wishes? Let's see...
I think first would be to increase the general level of empathy in the world... I'm not sure how I'd word it, but I'm not talking about an average here, I mean each person should care more for other people than they currently do.
Second, I'd wish for everyone to be more open-minded and accepting of those who are different from themselves. (so long as nobody is being harmed, of course)
Third, because I suppose I'd want at least one selfish wish, I'd wish for sufficient income to keep myself and my family comfortable for the rest of our lives while allowing us to pursue personally fulfilling activities.
I'd probably save my other 2 wishes for a while and see how the Superman thing went.
2. Comfortable wealth that will last until my death by extremely old age.
3. (Would have been the power to have any woman I want, but I'm married now, so...) For folks to just get along.
For the second wish, I'd bid the genie tell each and every intersexed, transgender, or otherwise non-binary person in the world that in one week he would return, and if they wanted, he would grant them the binary form of their choice.
For my final wish, I would abolish the possibility of people being born intersex, transgender, or suffering any other identity abnormalities along the gender-sex spectrums.
There need never be another Oboro!
I'll have to think about the other two.
Er...? Disease = natural. Poverty = starvation = natural. It's also pretty natural to die from being shot. I think your wish might disappoint you.
Financial stability? I'm glad your third wish isn't for a massive global party, just in case it happens and we all end up playing scrabble and eating cheese-sticks. :P
Mine would be easy: Omniscience, Omnipotence, then do you really need the third one?
Actually: no bad effects to any of the 3 wishes would be first, then omniscience and omnipotence.
Then I'd wish away human greed.
Then I'd wish to reattach the motivation and ambition greed creates to altruism, thus making people lust to help others.
Then I'd watch as all that lust to help others created a cutthroat culture where people will kill to help the most people because you can't just fuck with humans like that without consequences. But I'd be satisfied with the idea that I tried.
You furry freak! :P
2) Human life lasts exactly 80 years except in cases of accidental death
3) Human reproduction limited to twice per person (i.e. 2 children per couple)
Takes care of overpopulation and ignorance. I think an intelligent human race can solve any other problems on it's own.
2. A few million dollars, basically enough to have a nest egg and finish paying for school.
3. I'd probably go with a wish for the good of humanity, but I'd have to think about it.
Really, though, all I've wanted since I was a kid was a real working lightsaber.
Being able to soar as an eagle would be the best feeling in the world.
Till a poacher shot you down for his own sick pleasure.
I didn't say "as the eagle from Rescuers Down Under" now did I?
2. The active (not passive) ability to read other people's thoughts
Don't really need a third wish.
I think that depends on your ego. I would posit that given enough time, I can accomplish anything you might ask a genie to do with my first two wishes.
Honestly, you people just don't plan ahead at all! You should be prepared for shit like this!
Ha!
Have you ever been near academia?
Ah that brings back memories.
There are still avenues that my own can backfire, but I feel okay writing those off as acceptable losses. Stuff like "rewiring emotions" or giving all humans "perfect cognition" just seems like it would result in either catastrophic restructuring of the world or nothing changing appreciably.
Would you really want Eternal Youth knowing at some point humanity will most likely die out and you'll be left alone for at least millions of years until another species becomes sapient? Not that that happening is even a sure bet.