I love that he never even touched proton earth, which would really release some energy. Not sure how bad the collapse of the strong force in that nucleus would be, but I can't imagine that a proton mass 6x more massive than the electron moon would have any less spectacular of a result.
Unfortunately, this is not the case. There are plenty of atoms/molecules that have greater negative ionization states than -1. This wouldn't even make everything neutral.
OTOH, if you shifted the ionization state of every single atom, then pretty much every molecule would end up flying apart. You can't form H2O if hydrogen has no electrons at all; hydrogen becomes a single proton.
This is interesting cause I wonder if relatively it'd be like shifting every element in the periodic table one to the left, cause who's to say neutral isn't our current measurement -1, but the orbitals will remain the same hence the shift
For sure but we have no absolute charge measurements, really for all we know were super positively charged, but so are all our voltometers so everything balances out
To highlight this we gotta disect your answer a little.
Why does your hair stand up when charged? Because the relationship between each other is similarly charged, and the air less similarly - so its going to have the force of gravity, and those 2 charges affecting it.
If you increase both charges from our 'neutral' by one yes your hair repels itself greater, but so does the air around it.
Similarly if you were on a super charged planet/atmosphere, your hair wouldn't stand up at all cause the atmosphere is charged and you are grounded to it - but the second you change your relative environment to earth you'd probably pass out from the discharge
Stuff stands on end in a vacuum too, though. I don't know about the effect of the presence of air exactly, but the basic phenomenon doesn't depend on it. In electrical engineering where you mostly care about voltage it's convenient to pick a relative ground, but in physics Coulomb's law is pretty unambiguous:
|F| = keq1q2/r^2^
Where q are the charges in question, measured in Coulombs, r is distance and ke is a fundamental constant. For contrast voltage is energy per distance per Coulomb. If we were to add a constant charge to both sides:
|F|=ke(q1+1)(q2+1)/r^2^
|F|r^2^/ke=(q1+1)(q2+1)
|F|r^2^/ke=q1q2+q1+q2+1
You'll notice that even if we assume no charge was present in the first place, the +1 means that now the two objects will repel. Doing the same thing subtracting from one of them, assuming they're both the same, produces a difference of squares and will decrease repulsion or add attraction, again without requiring any charge in the first place.
The Earth probably does gain a very slight electric charge as it interacts with the solar wind, but it's tiny and I'm not sure if it has ever been measured.
So every time someone stubs their toe, every other human would feel the pain? Everyone would be completely overwhelmed by all kinds of feelings all the time.
Apparently, the word empathy isn't as well understood as I thought.
Under typical usage, it refers to emotions, not full sensory input. Think Deanna Troi from star trek.
I've never actually heard/seen it used to refer to sensory input.
And, yes, even if it's "only" emotions that are picked up, it would be distracting. This would radically change human society. That's the entire point of the question in the post. It would be even more of a change with full sensory input though.
Imagine a world where that guy that's creeping along on the highway isn't just making people angry, because everyone that gets close knows that he's grieving so hard he can barely function. You feel that grief yourself. Or, if you prefer your interpretation of empathy, you can feel his bowels cramping and realize that he's going slow because he's looking for an exit.
Now, this doesn't automatically mean that everyone is going to act with kindness. But it does mean that none of us could ever again just dismiss someone else's state of being. We would know that the other person is a feeling being and that makes being cruel an entirely different proposition. Whe we would feel, just like it were our own pain, what our actions cause, it's gong to make people slow down and think before acting.
If people are only able to respond in a socially appropriate manner as a result of literally feeling others' feelings, doesn't that mean they still only care about others to the extent that it affects them? Wouldn't such a response still be rooted in self-centeredness?
Wouldn't actual selflessness mean accommodating someone else's emotional state specifically when you don't/can't identify with them? (Maybe more like sympathy than empathy?)
Sure, but the net effect is still the same. Giving everyone true empathy wouldn't eliminate psychopaths and sadists entirely, I'm sure. But for the average person, that barrier to spite and cruelty would be enough.
I’m trying to focus this answer on something that seems like a really small change:
I wish everyone is slightly more empathetic.
I feel like this could give us a lot of small nudges toward being better people and a better society. I wonder if a small nudge could end up having a profound effect.
Yes. But i was trying to make my change small… which is, of course, subjective. For me setting an empathy baseline feels like more than a small change.
It probably would, butterfly effect and all. That's part of the reason why I'm trying to evaluate why I do the things I do, trying to see how they impact other people more versus in my youth. It might be small, but enough small things do add up, compound even.
Who said the genie was supernatural? If I can see the genie in front of me and sufficiently measure it's existence, then it is real and natural. "Super natural" literally means "outside of nature", i.e. stuff that doesn't have any evidence of ever existing.
OP called it a magical genie. Magic is by definition outside of nature.
If presented by observable evidence the supernatural exists in one specific case (the genie) then it is reasonable to suppose there may be other supernatural beings.
If this were a highly advanced alien with probability manipulating technology, that would be a different question.
If this were a highly advanced alien with probability manipulating technology, that would be a different question.
"Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic."
If presented by observable evidence the supernatural exists in one specific case (the genie) then it is reasonable to suppose there may be other supernatural beings.
Imagine I was a person who had never seen a narwhal, and thus didn't believe they were real; suppose I believed them to be supernatural creatures. So to prove me wrong, you bring me to an aquarium and show me a narwhal and say, "look, a live narwhal. See? They are naturally occurring creatures". I could respond with, "well no, that's obviously a supernatural creature, and now it's reasonable for me to also suppose that unicorns exist!" Do you see any flaws in my logic?
We've hypothesized of a situation where we have an observable creature in front of us. At that point, regardless of how "magical" we believe it to be, it is, by the definition of "supernatural", not supernatural. However, when it comes to supernatural beings that we have not observed, this genie has not given us any more evidence for their existence.
Well, when their purpose is to detonate themselves and kill as many people around them so they can get some heaven virgins, I think it's a sacrifice we are willing to make.
Everyone is gifted with the ability to control their own fertility. You're only fertile if you want to be. The only chance for pregnancy to occur is if both partners want it to.
I imagine that would cause a severe population decline, and I'm fine with that. There's too many humans on this planet already.
Every one gets a strong moral compass that they can't ignore.
Sure we won't all have the same morals but I believe that most bad things in the world happen because people ignore morals and act selfish and only a small part of our issues stem from actual moral differences.
Edit: Seems I am much more optimistic than I thought.
Rates of religiously based terrorism would go through the roof. The problem is that people that, e.g., bomb abortion clinics believe that they are doing the morally correct thing, because it's better to murder a few people than to allow those people to "murder" thousands of innocent "babies". Likewise, you'd suddenly have people that are casually racist now immediately turn to full-on race war shit, because if you believe that nonwhite people are causing harm to the "white race" simply by existing, and you have a moral compass that you can't ignore, then the moral thing to do is to prevent that harm by killing the people committing the harm, esp. when you believe that they're irredeemable by virtue of genetics.
You could argue that "moral compass" means more than just a strong sense of right/wrong. Presumably, most people have that, even if we don't describe it as such. I think OP intended something more like a "strong sense of harmony" wherein everyone has a shared common understanding of some greater good and therefore work towards it with common cause.
It's still a fairly naive notion, but for an entirely different reason. Rather than self-righteous chaos, such a wish would lead to a sort of moral tyranny imposed by one single person's preconceptions of what constitutes a moral life.
I think OP intended something more like a “strong sense of harmony"
Or, more succinctly, the wish was "everyone has my moral compass, and can't ignore it". Unfortunately, the foundations upon which people build their "moral compass" is almost as varied as people themselves. It's one of the reasons politics exists, so that we can sort out where to draw the legal line in between differing beliefs, without resorting to the age-old practice of deciding who is right through a war which sorts out who is left.
Depends what you mean by moral compass. I don't think anyone's conscious tells them "man, we really shouldn't be mixing these textiles". They might feel guilty for breaking rules they want to follow, but that's it.
Pull a gazilion tons of carbon out of the atmosphere, crystallise it into gigantic diamond shards, and drop them from the stratosphere onto the 95th percentile by wealth in each country.
Why not have it drop as graphite. Could be compressed as diamonds or used as base stock for carbon fibers or carbon nanotubes or carbon future-space-filaments. More useful, more stable, and could be a more versatile export.
Per kilo, sure. But in terms of overall impact, I'll lay odds that reducing the CO2 level down to preindustrial levels would be more effective than reducing any other pollutant.
Metacognition becomes routine for humans. We are able to better de-fuse from our thoughts, and recognize them not as reality but as thoughts about reality.
We all have thoughts in our head. They are the lenses through which we see reality.
Sometimes, we are aware of that. For example, we may realize we're being prejudiced or that we're being cranky because of our mood.
However, this uses up a lot of energy; our frontal lobe is very energy-hungry. So we spend most of the time thinking habitual thoughts and following habitual behaviors. We don't realize we're looking at reality through a lens. We assume we are simply looking at reality.
What I am wishing for is for people to constantly be aware that the way they are looking at reality depends on the lenses they have learned and habitually use.
I mean, we kinda see it anyway when people are lying a bit just to be polite, and I wouldn't be mad about it. But that's not what I was talking about.
What I really meant is the ability to see malicious lies, the ones designed to take advantage of us. This would be really OP, i think xD. I apologize for the misunderstanding, english is not my 1st language.
Not sure if it's a small thing but I think I would change it so good deeds make a bigger impression on people than the bad.
It's a bit of a rainbow sunshine kind of wish but it's human nature to remember bad things easier than the good, it's a survival instinct to protect ourselves. But with all these conflicts and discrimination, big or small, if people don't let fear dominate, everyone would cut each other more slack.
Of course this requires everyone to have the same mindset to work, that's why I think making that small change in human nature at its core is the only way, and only a genie could pull that off.
Unless we're still getting free access to all the services which use advertising to offset the costs, this is a terrible idea as people rely on some of those services
Abolish share based profits instead, if not capitalism, might be a better solution towards that goal
Every figure leading every cult of personality is now seen as an imposter pretending to be themselves. For example, people think some orange-faced lunatic keeps trying to get on stage at a Trump rally, but Trump himself just disappeared.
Yup, there's a theorem ("no-hair theorem") that the only information about a black hole which does influence the universe is its mass, spin, and electric charge.
Well, a black hole 2cm in diameter is basically the mass of the Earth, and protons are positive. Gravity would attract the two, so the black hole would impact the earth. Criteria are fulfilled. It's the biggest positive impact.
What would that look like? I'm a trans woman. When someone is standing there trying to take my rights away, and actively working to remove my access to care and support, what does "agree to disagree" look like?
"I accept your right to be what you want to be and don't care about it anymore. I am sorry for all of the damage I caused by getting so invested in an issue that has nothing to do with me."
Nope. Well, mostly, but there are a few regions where the tradition is still going. Mauritania only banned slavery in like 2003, and the law is basically a joke. Foreign journalists will tell stories about visiting and being served by rough people dressed in rags, until the host notices them staring and gets nervous.
The gulf states are also famous for having slaves, although in that case it has more to do with cost savings and a lack of scruples, and I don't think they would call them slaves, just workers-who-have-to-work-and-can't-leave. There's various forms of forced labour in probably most places too, but it's a matter of definition if prison labour or indentured labour count as slavery (which is usually what they're counting when they put out figures with a giant number of modern slaves).
A few more decades, assuming all goes well and there's a crackdown on places like the gulf (that situation only exists because the US military umbrella protects the local royals). Mauritania is not a populous country, and in other poor countries you have to go seriously backwoods before people are able to even somewhat-openly keep slaves, so it's not like the progress made is negligible.
And of course there's cases where some guy (or guys) lock somebody in their basement, but if it's ended and the offenders punished immediately upon it coming to light, I'd argue we should count that as a sort of background noise that can't be avoided.
That's such a myopic view, it's given everyone the chance to speak and learn from each other which has resulted in a lot of shared understanding and growth.
You just want to sweep all the social problems back under the rug simply because you don't like seeing them.
I wonder if you'd carve out an exception for yourself, like you're using social media now - are you banning this conversation too?
CO2's share of the greenhouse effect is pretty significant (about 20% afaik), and the other gases wouldn't just fill the gap. So it would get quite a bit colder.
AFAIK without any greenhouse gasses the temperature would be about -18 °C so 20% of about 45 is 9° C which is a drop from +25 to about +16 which is quite cold but not exactly humanity ending cold, right?
The conservative ideology to include a prevalence of rational discourse and a functional sense of cognitive dissonance. Am I allowed to wish for that? Let's make it permentant.
@Weirdbeardgame That hated should not be exiting if the grounds are because of someone's Disability, Sex, Sexuality, Gender Identity, Religion or Skin. It should only exist for how nice the person is.
Psychologically that would be a desaster. People would wear themselves out in an instant, and in 6 months top we'd have a world population suffering from clinical depression.
Oh, buddy... The only reason that Hindu nationalism isn't a bigger problem is because they're mostly in India. And it's not like the Romans weren't expansionist and quite efficient at murdering their neighbors without having a single god. Or, for that matter, the Vikings.
Who said it would eliminate all wars? Of course it would not. But I think that monotheistic religions throughout history were one of the most divisive factors among people that otherwise would get along just fine.
I think that religion is the reason that's often used to mask simpler motives; people want other people's stuff--their land, their wealth, their resources--without having to expend work to get it themselves. Or perhaps they can't get what they want/need without taking it from their neighbors. For instance, Japan is a very small country, and seriously lacks natural resources; in order to compete internationally, they needed to become an expansionist empire in the late 1800s/early 1900s, which led to them bombing Pearl Harbor in order to attempt to stop our imperial ambitions in the Pacific. Sure, Japan made claims about the emperor being divine, but it was fundamentally about resources.
Of course you can find examples of conflicts not motivated by religion. But do you think that for example Balkans would be such a shit show if all the nations involved had the same religion? They have the same ethnicity and similar language. What's the divisive factor there? The rest of the Soviet Union managed to transition peacefully. Why is that? And what about the crusades? Was the motivation really the land? Or simply religion? What about missionaries and all the harm they have caused? Did any polytheistic religion had missionaries? I don't think so.
And before you start listing other wars and crimes not motivated by religion I'm obviously not saying that without monotheism the world would be perfect. I'm just saying it would be better.
But I think that monotheistic religions throughout history were one of the most divisive factors among people that otherwise would get along just fine.
Yes, I believe this is the part that got you oh buddy'd. People make religions, they are a reflection in the mirror. Trying to solve the history of humanity by excising monotheism is like trying to convince your reflection to stop scowling at you
So you don't think religion often drives a wedge between groups of people that otherwise would live together without issues? Well, I disagree. And of course there are other reasons for people to hate one another but 'my made up guy in the sky is better than your made up guy in the sky' is the dumbest one.
So you don’t think religion often drives a wedge between groups of people that otherwise would live together without issues?
Is that what I said? Don't strawman me.
Let me put it this way instead: given any system of self-replicating information, be it DNA or gospel, you will observe convergent evolution. If the environment offers a productive niche, then it's only a matter of time before that niche gets exploited. Monotheism isn't a tragic freak accident -- it's an inevitable response to an unexploited niche. Wishing it away is pointless because then something nearly identical would spring up to replace it. If one wishes to alter the reflection (i.e.: culture), then they must direct their focus upon the subject therein (i.e.: human society)
As an American, one of the most positive things that could happen to the world is the abolishment of the United States as a government. We're directly or indirectly responsible for most of the ethnic cleansing that has gone on the last several decades.
Could this backfire? Like, sure, no combustion engines, but that would be solved in the long run with electricity. But are there things I'm forgetting that would be critical? Like a chemical process for critical chemicals that requires explosions or something like that.
Resource mining, large structure demolitions, SFX pyrotechnics for film, television, and stage. Exploratory and scientific rocketry, rescue flares, backup generators, trains, industrial diamonds like the ones on diamond-tipped tools.
Essentially what this guy wished for was a full arrest on rapid exothermic reactions which are used in many manufacturing processes, scientific experiments, and life. Hell, I just checked and technically the process that causes things to explode is roughly the same one used by our cells to process ATP into energy for the persistence of our life (and most other non-fungal and non-plant life).
I actually never said that. I said backfiring cars. You are changing my words to fit physics, instead of looking at a genie wish being magical. But okay, if we change my request to fit that all, not just loud and explosive dangerous explosions, but all explosions including the internal combustion cars don't work, then I guess we go electric engines.
But I figure I just meant what I said, I guess you are in charge of monkey paws?
The original Monkey Paw is a story where people get wishes while holding a mummified hand. It counts down remaining wishes with its fingers. But every wish gives the result asked for, but doesn't fulfil the spirit of the sish, just a literal truth and a nice large handful of bad luck to go with.
For example, you wish for millions if dollars. The finger folds.... And a loved one dies, leaving you with a massive insurance policy payout. You get the money but are massively bereaved and you are the killer!
These days a monkey paw is often thought of as someone who gives whilst taking away, but any granting of a wish while ruining the spirit of the idea qualifies. Like deciding I wasn't specific enough about my explosion damper, and taking out internal combustion cars, and even the sun, with the same hand as removing bombs.....
The minds of all living things on Earth are connected as one giant hivemind. The thoughts aren't an overwhelming barrage, but rather a collective experience.
All cars are now have a perfect implementation of self driving.
All traffic is now gone. Road rage, gone. People everywhere are happier. Commutes suck less. People take more road trips to see more outside their comfort zone. Lyft and Uber really explode, no more driver needed, just summon a car and go.
I would not teleport even if I could. I don't want to die only to be replaced by a clone that thinks its the original me. Give me a portal I can step though, and I'll step through it, but outright teleportation is a no from me :)
This depends on the mechanism of teleportation. The Star Trek matter-energy conversion with quantum state duplication is absolutely what you described. The ability to make personal wormholes, folding space, passing through a hyperdimensional space, or macro-scale quantum tunneling are all methods of teleportation that don't involve any overt destruction of your corporeal entity and are all technically feasible under the laws of physics or mathematics. The real issue is the potential for exotic forms of radiation that cook you and anyone around you instantly on arrival. The real wish is "I wish everyone could teleport without risk of death, damage, or adverse environmental repercussions."
I wish for one electron to disappear from every atom. The net result would be that all atoms would now have a positive charge.
True, it would not only end all life on earth, but also destroy the entire earth. But everything would be positive.
Mandatory XKCD, sort of.
::: spoiler TL;DR It breaks the whole universe. That's a lot of charge density over a very substantial area. :::
I love that he never even touched proton earth, which would really release some energy. Not sure how bad the collapse of the strong force in that nucleus would be, but I can't imagine that a proton mass 6x more massive than the electron moon would have any less spectacular of a result.
Unfortunately, this is not the case. There are plenty of atoms/molecules that have greater negative ionization states than -1. This wouldn't even make everything neutral.
Captain Pedant... AWAAAAYYYY.
OTOH, if you shifted the ionization state of every single atom, then pretty much every molecule would end up flying apart. You can't form H2O if hydrogen has no electrons at all; hydrogen becomes a single proton.
This is interesting cause I wonder if relatively it'd be like shifting every element in the periodic table one to the left, cause who's to say neutral isn't our current measurement -1, but the orbitals will remain the same hence the shift
Nah, two atoms repelling is not relative. They will do that in every reference frame.
For sure but we have no absolute charge measurements, really for all we know were super positively charged, but so are all our voltometers so everything balances out
No, because we'd be flying apart, or at least our hair would stand up. Negative vs positive are relative, but distance from neutral is not.
Charge and voltage are slightly different, maybe that's where you're caught.
To highlight this we gotta disect your answer a little.
Why does your hair stand up when charged? Because the relationship between each other is similarly charged, and the air less similarly - so its going to have the force of gravity, and those 2 charges affecting it.
If you increase both charges from our 'neutral' by one yes your hair repels itself greater, but so does the air around it.
Similarly if you were on a super charged planet/atmosphere, your hair wouldn't stand up at all cause the atmosphere is charged and you are grounded to it - but the second you change your relative environment to earth you'd probably pass out from the discharge
Stuff stands on end in a vacuum too, though. I don't know about the effect of the presence of air exactly, but the basic phenomenon doesn't depend on it. In electrical engineering where you mostly care about voltage it's convenient to pick a relative ground, but in physics Coulomb's law is pretty unambiguous:
|F| = k
eq1q2/r^2^Where q are the charges in question, measured in Coulombs, r is distance and k
eis a fundamental constant. For contrast voltage is energy per distance per Coulomb. If we were to add a constant charge to both sides:|F|=k
e(q1+1)(q2+1)/r^2^|F|r^2^/k
e=(q1+1)(q2+1)|F|r^2^/k
e=q1q2+q1+q2+1You'll notice that even if we assume no charge was present in the first place, the +1 means that now the two objects will repel. Doing the same thing subtracting from one of them, assuming they're both the same, produces a difference of squares and will decrease repulsion or add attraction, again without requiring any charge in the first place.
The Earth probably does gain a very slight electric charge as it interacts with the solar wind, but it's tiny and I'm not sure if it has ever been measured.
Simple. True empathy for everyone. Literally feeling what others feel
"If by allow you mean force..."
So every time someone stubs their toe, every other human would feel the pain? Everyone would be completely overwhelmed by all kinds of feelings all the time.
Apparently, the word empathy isn't as well understood as I thought.
Under typical usage, it refers to emotions, not full sensory input. Think Deanna Troi from star trek.
I've never actually heard/seen it used to refer to sensory input.
And, yes, even if it's "only" emotions that are picked up, it would be distracting. This would radically change human society. That's the entire point of the question in the post. It would be even more of a change with full sensory input though.
Imagine a world where that guy that's creeping along on the highway isn't just making people angry, because everyone that gets close knows that he's grieving so hard he can barely function. You feel that grief yourself. Or, if you prefer your interpretation of empathy, you can feel his bowels cramping and realize that he's going slow because he's looking for an exit.
Now, this doesn't automatically mean that everyone is going to act with kindness. But it does mean that none of us could ever again just dismiss someone else's state of being. We would know that the other person is a feeling being and that makes being cruel an entirely different proposition. Whe we would feel, just like it were our own pain, what our actions cause, it's gong to make people slow down and think before acting.
If people are only able to respond in a socially appropriate manner as a result of literally feeling others' feelings, doesn't that mean they still only care about others to the extent that it affects them? Wouldn't such a response still be rooted in self-centeredness?
Wouldn't actual selflessness mean accommodating someone else's emotional state specifically when you don't/can't identify with them? (Maybe more like sympathy than empathy?)
Sure, but the net effect is still the same. Giving everyone true empathy wouldn't eliminate psychopaths and sadists entirely, I'm sure. But for the average person, that barrier to spite and cruelty would be enough.
I’m trying to focus this answer on something that seems like a really small change:
I wish everyone is slightly more empathetic.
I feel like this could give us a lot of small nudges toward being better people and a better society. I wonder if a small nudge could end up having a profound effect.
With a baseline minimum empathy. Cause damn, some people really bottom out that needle.
Yes. But i was trying to make my change small… which is, of course, subjective. For me setting an empathy baseline feels like more than a small change.
It probably would, butterfly effect and all. That's part of the reason why I'm trying to evaluate why I do the things I do, trying to see how they impact other people more versus in my youth. It might be small, but enough small things do add up, compound even.
Everyone religious wakes up tomorrow realizing that it's just a social club and none of the god stuff is real.
So in this scenario where you have a magical Genie, you would use a supernatural being to stop others from believing in supernatural beings?
Whoa dude. I just woke up and was not prepared for philosophy!
Who said the genie was supernatural? If I can see the genie in front of me and sufficiently measure it's existence, then it is real and natural. "Super natural" literally means "outside of nature", i.e. stuff that doesn't have any evidence of ever existing.
OP said so.
OP called it a magical genie. Magic is by definition outside of nature.
If presented by observable evidence the supernatural exists in one specific case (the genie) then it is reasonable to suppose there may be other supernatural beings.
If this were a highly advanced alien with probability manipulating technology, that would be a different question.
A magician would disagree with you :D
"Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic."
Imagine I was a person who had never seen a narwhal, and thus didn't believe they were real; suppose I believed them to be supernatural creatures. So to prove me wrong, you bring me to an aquarium and show me a narwhal and say, "look, a live narwhal. See? They are naturally occurring creatures". I could respond with, "well no, that's obviously a supernatural creature, and now it's reasonable for me to also suppose that unicorns exist!" Do you see any flaws in my logic?
We've hypothesized of a situation where we have an observable creature in front of us. At that point, regardless of how "magical" we believe it to be, it is, by the definition of "supernatural", not supernatural. However, when it comes to supernatural beings that we have not observed, this genie has not given us any more evidence for their existence.
Happy halloween!
They would still pretend. And, though it would solve a lot of problems, it would remove purpose for so many people.
Well, when their purpose is to detonate themselves and kill as many people around them so they can get some heaven virgins, I think it's a sacrifice we are willing to make.
Low back pain eliminated in all humans.
Wish granted! Humans are no longer born with spinal vertebrae
Ooh yeah, it's tunicate time!
Eradicate all mosquitoes
People can no longer share or post something on social media unless it is objectively true.
You will be assimilated. Resistance is futile.
So would this allow you to check if something is true?
Well, the foundations of reality might make that a bit difficult when it's a topic that's indeterminate, as truth could end up being relative.
But yes, in our fictional genie reality, you could just try posting everything and then what goes through is objectively true.
No more cavities!
As in teeth cavities!
Thanks for clarifying!
Not bum cavities or wall cavities, I feel they have a purpose.
Everyone is gifted with the ability to control their own fertility. You're only fertile if you want to be. The only chance for pregnancy to occur is if both partners want it to.
I imagine that would cause a severe population decline, and I'm fine with that. There's too many humans on this planet already.
This I like
Every one gets a strong moral compass that they can't ignore.
Sure we won't all have the same morals but I believe that most bad things in the world happen because people ignore morals and act selfish and only a small part of our issues stem from actual moral differences.
Edit: Seems I am much more optimistic than I thought.
Rates of religiously based terrorism would go through the roof. The problem is that people that, e.g., bomb abortion clinics believe that they are doing the morally correct thing, because it's better to murder a few people than to allow those people to "murder" thousands of innocent "babies". Likewise, you'd suddenly have people that are casually racist now immediately turn to full-on race war shit, because if you believe that nonwhite people are causing harm to the "white race" simply by existing, and you have a moral compass that you can't ignore, then the moral thing to do is to prevent that harm by killing the people committing the harm, esp. when you believe that they're irredeemable by virtue of genetics.
You could argue that "moral compass" means more than just a strong sense of right/wrong. Presumably, most people have that, even if we don't describe it as such. I think OP intended something more like a "strong sense of harmony" wherein everyone has a shared common understanding of some greater good and therefore work towards it with common cause.
It's still a fairly naive notion, but for an entirely different reason. Rather than self-righteous chaos, such a wish would lead to a sort of moral tyranny imposed by one single person's preconceptions of what constitutes a moral life.
Or, more succinctly, the wish was "everyone has my moral compass, and can't ignore it". Unfortunately, the foundations upon which people build their "moral compass" is almost as varied as people themselves. It's one of the reasons politics exists, so that we can sort out where to draw the legal line in between differing beliefs, without resorting to the age-old practice of deciding who is right through a war which sorts out who is left.
There’s a ton of really shitty people with strong moral compasses they can’t ignore. Most of them follow faiths ending in ity, ism, or lim
Depends what you mean by moral compass. I don't think anyone's conscious tells them "man, we really shouldn't be mixing these textiles". They might feel guilty for breaking rules they want to follow, but that's it.
Dude according to some people not straight cisgender people wouldn't have rights and would be killed
Make everyone's interpretation of "small thing" slightly more similar.
Pull a gazilion tons of carbon out of the atmosphere, crystallise it into gigantic diamond shards, and drop them from the stratosphere onto the 95th percentile by wealth in each country.
Wouldn't work. If there's so many diamonds, they'd just kind of lose their value. Also, who are you gonna sell them to, if everyone has them?
Although it could kind of be a new currency that excludes the rich, making their wealth at least a little useless.
I fully agree on the premise, but I think it needs refining.
I don't plan to use them for wealth, it's just a nice stable form of carbon that's sharp and heavy.
Only to the people they're aimed at.
Agreed, but looking in the bright side: it would kill the diamond industry, which is a fucking awful blight on the world :)
Why not have it drop as graphite. Could be compressed as diamonds or used as base stock for carbon fibers or carbon nanotubes or carbon future-space-filaments. More useful, more stable, and could be a more versatile export.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Graphite
Not nearly so stabby, nor does it send nearly such a fabulous message.
Hate to be a killjoy but C02 is only one greenhouse gas and not even the worst one.
Per kilo, sure. But in terms of overall impact, I'll lay odds that reducing the CO2 level down to preindustrial levels would be more effective than reducing any other pollutant.
Methane would be more effective than C02. Methane is the elephant in the room no one talks about
Normalise the phrase: "I don't agree with your opinion and that's fine"
A ubi funded by a hefty carbon tax on big polluters.
I'm always getting UBI and UTI mixed up.
Urinary Bract Infection
Metacognition becomes routine for humans. We are able to better de-fuse from our thoughts, and recognize them not as reality but as thoughts about reality.
whats that
We all have thoughts in our head. They are the lenses through which we see reality.
Sometimes, we are aware of that. For example, we may realize we're being prejudiced or that we're being cranky because of our mood.
However, this uses up a lot of energy; our frontal lobe is very energy-hungry. So we spend most of the time thinking habitual thoughts and following habitual behaviors. We don't realize we're looking at reality through a lens. We assume we are simply looking at reality.
What I am wishing for is for people to constantly be aware that the way they are looking at reality depends on the lenses they have learned and habitually use.
Not a very small thing maybe, but: All people gain ability to instantly recognise bullshit (at work, in media, interpersonal relationships, etc)
I'm not sure this would be a positive. I think there are a lot of pleasantries we afford each other to deescalate a situation.
I mean, we kinda see it anyway when people are lying a bit just to be polite, and I wouldn't be mad about it. But that's not what I was talking about.
What I really meant is the ability to see malicious lies, the ones designed to take advantage of us. This would be really OP, i think xD. I apologize for the misunderstanding, english is not my 1st language.
Fair, you've got to be careful with those genies though, if your wish isn't carefully crafted they'll happily use it against you 😉
Oh heck i didn't think about that... 😱 Thx for the reminder :D
The invention of a small easily producible power source that never runs out and has enough power to power vehicles/planes/vessels of all kinds.
RTG enters the chat.
Not sure if it's a small thing but I think I would change it so good deeds make a bigger impression on people than the bad.
It's a bit of a rainbow sunshine kind of wish but it's human nature to remember bad things easier than the good, it's a survival instinct to protect ourselves. But with all these conflicts and discrimination, big or small, if people don't let fear dominate, everyone would cut each other more slack.
Of course this requires everyone to have the same mindset to work, that's why I think making that small change in human nature at its core is the only way, and only a genie could pull that off.
To remove the desire for power over others.
OP asks for small thing, most replies ask for huge things.
I guess the opposites of small thing and biggest positive impact on the world makes it hard to answer.
And the vagueness. How small is small? Most of the replies I'm seeing aren't the biggest thing you could ask for, at least.
Advertising is illegal
Might as well take it a step further and criminalize capitalism.
Unless we're still getting free access to all the services which use advertising to offset the costs, this is a terrible idea as people rely on some of those services
Abolish share based profits instead, if not capitalism, might be a better solution towards that goal
Every figure leading every cult of personality is now seen as an imposter pretending to be themselves. For example, people think some orange-faced lunatic keeps trying to get on stage at a Trump rally, but Trump himself just disappeared.
A black hole about 2cm across filled entirely with protons.
The positive charge would remain though
Yup, there's a theorem ("no-hair theorem") that the only information about a black hole which does influence the universe is its mass, spin, and electric charge.
You may be right, but I have yet to have evidence to the contrary.
Well, a black hole 2cm in diameter is basically the mass of the Earth, and protons are positive. Gravity would attract the two, so the black hole would impact the earth. Criteria are fulfilled. It's the biggest positive impact.
Make everyone understand basic propositional and predicate logic.
Elimination of the tribal parts of the brain that want to go to war.
Bring back the concept of shame.
cries in has lots of it
Bring back? It never left me! Can you tell the shame-voice in my head that it's been left behind and all the other shame has left already?
You should tell the US Congress about it.
Compassion
"You are a human too" for all people.
People regain the ability to agree to disagree, and stop hating each other over political issues.
What would that look like? I'm a trans woman. When someone is standing there trying to take my rights away, and actively working to remove my access to care and support, what does "agree to disagree" look like?
"I accept your right to be what you want to be and don't care about it anymore. I am sorry for all of the damage I caused by getting so invested in an issue that has nothing to do with me."
That would be nice, but to be fair, it's also a bit more than "agree to disagree"
I feel like that one could go wrong. There's regions where slavery is still de-facto legal, isn't it awful to just let that slide as their opinion?
You mean the United States of America, right? Because slavery is still legal here.
Sure, if you count prisoners. The US has a ridiculous prison population and a lot of them are made to work; sometimes even for private entities.
Point made, back to the topic.
Isn't slavery universally panned, though?
Nope. Well, mostly, but there are a few regions where the tradition is still going. Mauritania only banned slavery in like 2003, and the law is basically a joke. Foreign journalists will tell stories about visiting and being served by rough people dressed in rags, until the host notices them staring and gets nervous.
The gulf states are also famous for having slaves, although in that case it has more to do with cost savings and a lack of scruples, and I don't think they would call them slaves, just workers-who-have-to-work-and-can't-leave. There's various forms of forced labour in probably most places too, but it's a matter of definition if prison labour or indentured labour count as slavery (which is usually what they're counting when they put out figures with a giant number of modern slaves).
I wonder what it would take to completely erase the practice from the human condition.
A few more decades, assuming all goes well and there's a crackdown on places like the gulf (that situation only exists because the US military umbrella protects the local royals). Mauritania is not a populous country, and in other poor countries you have to go seriously backwoods before people are able to even somewhat-openly keep slaves, so it's not like the progress made is negligible.
And of course there's cases where some guy (or guys) lock somebody in their basement, but if it's ended and the offenders punished immediately upon it coming to light, I'd argue we should count that as a sort of background noise that can't be avoided.
You could roll back the internet to pre 2.0, removing the ability for people to engage with each other outside of real life.
And religious beliefs
Every child born has a flat increase of 0.0005% higher IQ, and is also 0.0003% more altruistic.
I really should have done the math ahead of time. That'd mean an increase of like 70k IQ per year.
Social media never happened. It will not happen.
That whole business of brainwashing, of lowest common denominator, of selling yourself for likes - scourge of our times.
That's such a myopic view, it's given everyone the chance to speak and learn from each other which has resulted in a lot of shared understanding and growth.
You just want to sweep all the social problems back under the rug simply because you don't like seeing them.
I wonder if you'd carve out an exception for yourself, like you're using social media now - are you banning this conversation too?
Three more genies.
Remove the ability of carbon dioxide to act as a greenhouse gas.
Pooof, we all freeze to death.
Still makes the world better, just not for humans ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Only if you like cold barren rock, there's plenty of those already - isn't it nice to have an interesting one with lots of stuff happening?
I assume that the other greenhouse gasses would still be plenty good at their job. Why do you assume that the drop would be catastrophic?
CO2's share of the greenhouse effect is pretty significant (about 20% afaik), and the other gases wouldn't just fill the gap. So it would get quite a bit colder.
AFAIK without any greenhouse gasses the temperature would be about -18 °C so 20% of about 45 is 9° C which is a drop from +25 to about +16 which is quite cold but not exactly humanity ending cold, right?
Apparently it's a bit more complicated than that.
A deadly virus that kills assholes
I get your intent... I think, but taken literally that's going to cause some issues. A virus that causes necrotic butt holes... Hmmm.
Technically that's just making the hole bigger. It'd have to seal them shut.
Hahaha i forgot genies are tricky that would be a shitastrophe.
The conservative ideology to include a prevalence of rational discourse and a functional sense of cognitive dissonance. Am I allowed to wish for that? Let's make it permentant.
the extinction of mankind
@Weirdbeardgame That hated should not be exiting if the grounds are because of someone's Disability, Sex, Sexuality, Gender Identity, Religion or Skin. It should only exist for how nice the person is.
Abolish politics from social media
Abolish social media, period.
Inherent self interest disappears. People work for the greater good.
Psychologically that would be a desaster. People would wear themselves out in an instant, and in 6 months top we'd have a world population suffering from clinical depression.
would need to be more specific, plenty of evil organisations believe they are working for the greater good (ISIS, Nazis etc)
no more hiccuping
Good bye spam blocking
You've gotten a bad date for the last eighteen dates because you can't discriminate between people.
Make sure whatever people do for work brings them enough money to live. So, have people work doing what they love.
End speciesism
More wishes.
Some ambiant temperature supraconductors
One sophon we get to fly around the universe looking at stuff.
I’d say that’s the most benefit to mass ratio and therefore it’s a small thing that would really help the world out
People will just use it to perv on each other.
That’s what I’m talking about man. We can finally get some Washington DC nudes and make the world a better place.
Just think: Hillary Clinton, Mitch McConnell, even Nancy Pelosi and Ariel Sharon in the buff!
Kill all humans
Remove the UK
Ah yes, genocide. Lovely.
It's not really genocide because the UK is very multicultural. It's even better than genocide.
/s
Nono, i mean to just balkanize it so it stops existing, no genocide here.
Maybe just England?
Exactly, tho i'd give NI to Ireland
@Weirdbeardgame Make Moringa taste good.
Eliminate all monotheistic religions.
Oh, buddy... The only reason that Hindu nationalism isn't a bigger problem is because they're mostly in India. And it's not like the Romans weren't expansionist and quite efficient at murdering their neighbors without having a single god. Or, for that matter, the Vikings.
Who said it would eliminate all wars? Of course it would not. But I think that monotheistic religions throughout history were one of the most divisive factors among people that otherwise would get along just fine.
I think that religion is the reason that's often used to mask simpler motives; people want other people's stuff--their land, their wealth, their resources--without having to expend work to get it themselves. Or perhaps they can't get what they want/need without taking it from their neighbors. For instance, Japan is a very small country, and seriously lacks natural resources; in order to compete internationally, they needed to become an expansionist empire in the late 1800s/early 1900s, which led to them bombing Pearl Harbor in order to attempt to stop our imperial ambitions in the Pacific. Sure, Japan made claims about the emperor being divine, but it was fundamentally about resources.
Of course you can find examples of conflicts not motivated by religion. But do you think that for example Balkans would be such a shit show if all the nations involved had the same religion? They have the same ethnicity and similar language. What's the divisive factor there? The rest of the Soviet Union managed to transition peacefully. Why is that? And what about the crusades? Was the motivation really the land? Or simply religion? What about missionaries and all the harm they have caused? Did any polytheistic religion had missionaries? I don't think so.
And before you start listing other wars and crimes not motivated by religion I'm obviously not saying that without monotheism the world would be perfect. I'm just saying it would be better.
Yes, I believe this is the part that got you oh buddy'd. People make religions, they are a reflection in the mirror. Trying to solve the history of humanity by excising monotheism is like trying to convince your reflection to stop scowling at you
So you don't think religion often drives a wedge between groups of people that otherwise would live together without issues? Well, I disagree. And of course there are other reasons for people to hate one another but 'my made up guy in the sky is better than your made up guy in the sky' is the dumbest one.
Is that what I said? Don't strawman me.
Let me put it this way instead: given any system of self-replicating information, be it DNA or gospel, you will observe convergent evolution. If the environment offers a productive niche, then it's only a matter of time before that niche gets exploited. Monotheism isn't a tragic freak accident -- it's an inevitable response to an unexploited niche. Wishing it away is pointless because then something nearly identical would spring up to replace it. If one wishes to alter the reflection (i.e.: culture), then they must direct their focus upon the subject therein (i.e.: human society)
That's not a small thing.
Whirled peas
To take a human life, no matter how, you sacrifice your own life as well.
The end of the medical profession as we know it.
Take is not the same as lose
Genies have a reputation for having the least charitable and most obtuse interpretation of rules....
That would end war pretty effectively.
As an American, one of the most positive things that could happen to the world is the abolishment of the United States as a government. We're directly or indirectly responsible for most of the ethnic cleansing that has gone on the last several decades.
Is this retroactive?
What would you replace it with?
Eplosions just... don't.
Guns cannot fire, bombs no longer boom, backfiring cars and fireworks don't make that noise.
People have to resort to hand-killing their enemies, not strafing children and saying their parents deserved it or something.
It won't solve world problems, but it is a start.
Could this backfire? Like, sure, no combustion engines, but that would be solved in the long run with electricity. But are there things I'm forgetting that would be critical? Like a chemical process for critical chemicals that requires explosions or something like that.
Resource mining, large structure demolitions, SFX pyrotechnics for film, television, and stage. Exploratory and scientific rocketry, rescue flares, backup generators, trains, industrial diamonds like the ones on diamond-tipped tools.
Essentially what this guy wished for was a full arrest on rapid exothermic reactions which are used in many manufacturing processes, scientific experiments, and life. Hell, I just checked and technically the process that causes things to explode is roughly the same one used by our cells to process ATP into energy for the persistence of our life (and most other non-fungal and non-plant life).
Also internal combustion engines won’t.
I actually never said that. I said backfiring cars. You are changing my words to fit physics, instead of looking at a genie wish being magical. But okay, if we change my request to fit that all, not just loud and explosive dangerous explosions, but all explosions including the internal combustion cars don't work, then I guess we go electric engines.
But I figure I just meant what I said, I guess you are in charge of monkey paws?
Sorry I offended you. What are monkey paws?
The original Monkey Paw is a story where people get wishes while holding a mummified hand. It counts down remaining wishes with its fingers. But every wish gives the result asked for, but doesn't fulfil the spirit of the sish, just a literal truth and a nice large handful of bad luck to go with.
For example, you wish for millions if dollars. The finger folds.... And a loved one dies, leaving you with a massive insurance policy payout. You get the money but are massively bereaved and you are the killer!
These days a monkey paw is often thought of as someone who gives whilst taking away, but any granting of a wish while ruining the spirit of the idea qualifies. Like deciding I wasn't specific enough about my explosion damper, and taking out internal combustion cars, and even the sun, with the same hand as removing bombs.....
I don't think the world would be better off without the giant explosion we call the sun.
Nobody likes today's leaders. No support at all.
The minds of all living things on Earth are connected as one giant hivemind. The thoughts aren't an overwhelming barrage, but rather a collective experience.
All cars are now have a perfect implementation of self driving.
All traffic is now gone. Road rage, gone. People everywhere are happier. Commutes suck less. People take more road trips to see more outside their comfort zone. Lyft and Uber really explode, no more driver needed, just summon a car and go.
Utopia would be achieved shortly after.
30% of the work force is in transportation related jobs.
The Great Depression saw only 22% of unemployment at its peak.
Your well meaning wish would destroy millions of lives while tanking the developed world economies.
Yeah, maybe add a phase-in period.
your cartopia sounds like hell. last time I checked Humans were the dominant species, not fucking cars.
I'd wish for everybody to be able to teleport. Such chaos.
I would not teleport even if I could. I don't want to die only to be replaced by a clone that thinks its the original me. Give me a portal I can step though, and I'll step through it, but outright teleportation is a no from me :)
This depends on the mechanism of teleportation. The Star Trek matter-energy conversion with quantum state duplication is absolutely what you described. The ability to make personal wormholes, folding space, passing through a hyperdimensional space, or macro-scale quantum tunneling are all methods of teleportation that don't involve any overt destruction of your corporeal entity and are all technically feasible under the laws of physics or mathematics. The real issue is the potential for exotic forms of radiation that cook you and anyone around you instantly on arrival. The real wish is "I wish everyone could teleport without risk of death, damage, or adverse environmental repercussions."
Personally, I would have absolutely no problem with that.
Enormous unemployment from the transit sector spikes immediately and causes a depression.
Wish 2: all cars have perfectly efficient solar generation and power train.
No more car based pollution. Climate crisis fixed (not really but a good step forward). Save people everywhere money.
People being fucking allergic to animal products, like at all. Or finding the taste naturally disgusting