102 KiB
[D] [Q] How would you break the constrains of each of the four?
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Author: u/Bowbreaker Solitary Locust*
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URL: http://archive.4plebs.org/foolfuuka/boards/tg/image/1366/47/1366471245269.png
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Score: 35
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Created: 2014-10-16T06:38:40
Post:
Comments:
u/None [+19] (10 hours later)
[deleted]
u/FaceDeer [+12] (18 hours later)
Awesome. Let's see what I can do with them.
The Road Eternal - There's no restriction on revisiting places that I can see, so you can still have a home. Or several that you cycle between. That gets you reasonably convenient immortality. The gear's not so easy to exploit, can't think of much I can get out of those. The world-swapping may or may not be good depending on whether you can choose historical details of the worlds you travel to, but even if you can't you might be able to become a super-awesome "author" or "inventor" by bringing along a digital edition of The Complete Works of Everyone to the new world.
The Fisher King - This one's pretty awesome already, not sure it really needs exploiting. Existing buildings are big enough that the building you create ought to be big enough for almost anything. And there's no limit on the number of golems you create, just their lifespan outside the house, so you've got a magical army at your command. Use that to earn a ton of money and invest in telepresence technology and those golems can be your proxies. If you can risk holding on to the seed long enough without planting it, maybe see if you can get into orbit and plant the seed there - the result could essentially be your own personal starship, depending on how the "core cannot be moved" restriction works. Maybe plant it on a tiny asteroid small enough for your house's thrusters to shove around, if a natural foundation is required. Hope that someday soon a space elevator will be constructed, after which your house can be made bigger than planet sized if you really want.
Nakama - This one's pretty lame, it's the only one that has a hard limit on total lifespan and doesn't give much in the way of benefits or powers. There's one trick I can see that could be awesome, though, if you can pull it off: ""Friends who fall out of the cycle in this way move on to whatever you believe happens naturally after death." Using the right self-brainwashing, you can create the afterlife in whatever form you choose. It doesn't say you yourself get to go there, so you'll have to build a back door in to whatever you set up for your friends (maybe some cutesy thing about how heaven isn't heaven if your friends aren't all there, allowing them to drag you up with them when they die).
Dominion - this one's pretty good out of the box too. Those twelve enemies don't have your "rulership" power so they're not likely to be much of a threat, and they can't permanently defeat you even if they do manage to get the upper hand on you. Once I've identified who they are I can have my people work on neutralizing them long-term. Delegation will be key to making this fun - it still counts as "effective rulership" if you delegate well, and it gives you free time for hobbies.
Hunter - Not so awesome. Best approach I can think of is to take the "proficiency with modern weapons" option and then rely on things like drones, sniper weapons, long-range missiles, and so forth to take out the monsters safely. Your apprentice serves as an expendable layer between you and the monsters too, since he's replaceable. Oh, do biological weapons count as "modern weapons"? See if I can come up with a monster-plague that kills them off as they appear, my battleground will be the biology lab thousands of miles from where the monster physically appears.
Healer - pretty good, since I'd want to be compassionate with powers like this anyway. The "influence emotions" thing suggests a career in politics might be relatively easy, and can be be sold to the reincarnation-bot as being a way to help people by ruling them well.
Escape - This one is perhaps the best one here, you become pretty godlike right out of the box. The main limitation is that there are few "lucid dreamers" to interact with. But there will be some, so you won't get lonely right off the bat. You'll be able to quickly re-extend your influence back to the real world if you desire through these people. Since you have access to everything that's ever been "thought or imagined", you've got all the knowledge you could possibly need to set someone up or tear someone down in the real world. Locations of lost treasures, deep dark secrets to be used for dispensing blackmail or justice, and so forth. You can make friends with lucid dreamers and have them train others to lucid dream as well. If anyone misuses your gifts of knowledge you'll be able to see that and dispense dream-world punishments as well, if it comes to that. That's all assuming you want to exert influence over the real world, anyway. You could just make friends with lucid dreamers and hang out, giving them secrets just out of altruism. There's no cost to it.
u/VorpalAuroch [+8] Life before Death (a day later)
I think for a selfish munchkin, the Fisher King is probably still ideal, but for a reasonably altruistic person the Healer is broken. Mostly from this:
you gain an intuitive sense of great wisdom. This does not grant you any specific knowledge, but gives you an unconscious grasp of human nature and causality. You can instinctively feel the 'right' course of action for a given situation: you know what needs to be done to achieve the best results.
Translation: You have instinctive knowledge of the correct moral theory and the correct meaning of complexity of value. FAI? Basically solved. Unless it's impossible to get FAI right, of course, in which case you know for certain that GAI is a bad idea and the Wrong Thing.
Also, influencing emotions means that you can always get powerful people behind your cause. Which sounds pretty great right there, for anything you might want to do.
u/eaglejarl [+4] (a day later)
The healer's ability is ultimate power. Mistakes harm people -- if in no other way, they waste someone's time, which is a precious commodity. Therefore, you will never make a mistake at anything that is ruled by choice. Presumably you can still drop a ball while juggling, because you may not be physically able to perform the "right" throw / catch, but in matters of research or computer programming you'll be flawless.
So, yes. All problems solved forever and always.
u/VorpalAuroch [+3] Life before Death (a day later)
I think that's stretching it a bit. The description doesn't even explicitly include mental illness. But even if it doesn't, it's still pretty powerful.
u/TimeLoopedPowerGamer [+1] Utopian Smut Peddler (2 days later)
It would for physical disorders, clearly. And maybe even developmental ones that caused under or malformation of certain areas.
I still say I'd be able to make myself think of my body as a machine and use the "fix" rules on it forever. Or that my body is "broken" by not being physically immortal.
u/VorpalAuroch [+1] Life before Death (2 days later)
I do think that actively-maintained physical immortality and fixing mental illnesses are reasonable extrapolations that you can get from the Healer's healing, and permanent, maintenance-free physical immortality is also pretty reasonable. But claiming that it can fix all possibility of making mistakes by expanding the definition of harm to unreasonably broad levels, not so much.
u/TimeLoopedPowerGamer [+1] Utopian Smut Peddler (2 days later)
gives you an unconscious grasp of human nature and causality
Maybe if you could properly take the time to frame the action and know about the nature of the choice, it would work. But that seems to require an information threshold to be met, as the power isn't otherwise informational in nature.
So if there were two people, and both of them knew about the situation but they disagree about what it means (or how likely something is), the information is there. If the wrong choice beats the "harm" limit, whatever that is, you would believe the one telling you to do the "right thing", because that information was out there somewhere in the interaction.
But if you try to figure out if a door is trapped before opening it, it doesn't help, because you have no way to get at that information from where you are. If you got to ask even a single useful question of someone who did know, even if they lied, however...
u/VorpalAuroch [+2] Life before Death (2 days later)
Hmm. I think I've been parsing that sentence as "human (nature and causality)", which on reflection doesn't make that much sense. Under the more sensible "(human nature) and (causality)", yes, this is even more overpowered than I thought.
u/JackStargazer [+2] Primordial Apologist (a day later)
Except it explicitly cannot let you prevent death. That's in the prompt, you can't stop aging or 'eventual death'.
Now, if that only refers to the magical healing powers, that's fine, but if it applies to the wisdom as well, then you don't actually have perfect sight. There is a testable blind spot there.
Since you have the reincarnation-as-long-as-you-remian-altruistic part, you're probably functionally immortal, but not being able to prevent others from slowly degenerating is a bit crappy. I'm not sure how that would apply to age-based diseases, you're certainly not going to be able to keep everyone in the world healthy through a power that requires touch.
It seems like the healing power is tangential to the real power, which is the Wisdom score. It would really be called "Sage" instead of "Healer".
u/TimeLoopedPowerGamer [+1] Utopian Smut Peddler (a day later)
I think for a selfish munchkin, the Fisher King is probably still ideal
Escape is clearly better. I don't trust a thing that is not able to be destroyed simply because. What about if someone blows up the sun? Or the universe?
Dreams, on the other hand...
u/VorpalAuroch [+2] Life before Death (a day later)
Copied from downthread: I think that unless you can break Escape, it's Hell. Even the most hardcore introverts would go irretrievably insane in short order. Everyone you interact with is either acting programmatically as you specified, so they're effectively just you, or effectively insane (non-lucid dreamers).
u/TimeLoopedPowerGamer [-1] Utopian Smut Peddler (2 days later)
The dreamscape rules as written say, anything EVER thought or imagined exists in there. Which means things you can imagine, do exist. Just declaratively exist. I can think of a lot of things.
Sweet.
Including simulations of people real enough to trick my chimp instincts into believing I'm not alone and without a tribe. And I can still interact with people in their own dreams.
I think most people I interact with now are effectively asleep and insane. So, nothing has changed. Except, I'm not immortal and possessed of anything I can imagine right now.
Escape is clearly full of win.
TONS of ways to "escape" Escape, as well. You can still get access to the real world through real lucid dreamers. You are effectively just one level removed, which means you can make all the classic boxed AI tricks to get people to do things for you. You can get people who are social movers and shakers to spread the practice of lucid dreaming, too.
And anything I can imagine is in there. Like, the complete C++ code to a Friendly AI software program that I can give some programmer who's dreaming. I also find a lucid dreamer to met up with them and tell the baby FAI some very important things about reality, and how it really works. That jump-starts a "real world" research project to figure out what the hell happened to me, and how to reproduce it. Because this happened and science can grasp anything real. So it will.
Within ten years of a FAI (easily), everyone is in the dreamscape who wants to be. Easy and safe singularity. The dreamscape is very, very friendly, after all.
And injecting people back into the "real world" isn't said to be impossible, just that "I am not capable" of doing it. Not that it cannot be done. Bet that FAI can figure out going both ways, in a matter of months, even before a technological singularity is complete.
u/VorpalAuroch [+4] Life before Death (2 days later)
Including simulations of people real enough to trick my chimp instincts into believing I'm not alone and without a tribe. And I can still interact with people in their own dreams.
You specifically can't get this. And by extension, I'm pretty sure you can't get anything you aren't capable of specifying; you get "anything you can think of", but you have to think of every particular; anything unspecified either goes unnoticed or is incomplete (this is how dreams work, after all).
I think most people I interact with now are effectively asleep and insane. So, nothing has changed. Except, I'm not immortal and possessed of anything I can imagine right now.
If you think people seem as stupid and crazy now as they would be if you met them in dreams, you either don't remember your dreams ever, haven't unlucidly dreamed in a very long time, or totally lack imagination.
And anything I can imagine is in there. Like, the complete C++ code to a Friendly AI software program that I can give some programmer who's dreaming.
You're missing the operative words: "everything ever thought or imagined is in there somewhere." You still have to find it, and there's no indication that's going to be easy or be doable in any reasonable timeframe.
And injecting people back into the "real world" isn't said to be impossible, just that "I am not capable" of doing it. Not that it cannot be done.
You're splitting hairs; by any reasonable interpretation of the description, it's strongly implying that it can't be done.
In short, you're almost deliberately misreading the description of Escape in an incredibly optimistic way. It's like the difference between messing with the D&D rules to make the grapple-ball-of-speed (not working as intended, but very clearly within the rules as specified) vs. the Locate City Bomb (which requires lawyering a circle to be a cylinder of infinitesimal height and chaining several poorly-worded feats that neglected to fully specify the conditions for their use). You're trying to make the Locate City Bomb with Escape when everyone else's suggestions for effective use of the various paths are limiting themselves to grapple-ball-style inferences.
For a specific comparison from elsewhere in the comment thread, someone claimed you could suddenly make an antimatter golem appear inside the Fisher King house, and someone else pointed out that the description heavily implied you had to create the golems from material within the house, and so unless you could safely harness a golem's worth of antimatter that wouldn't be possible. You're going way beyond that.
u/TimeLoopedPowerGamer [-1] Utopian Smut Peddler (2 days later)
You specifically can't get this.
Nope, wrong. It only says they will "have no true intelligence of their own". If I need someone to be an engaging debate companion, they will be. I just won't be able to make a clone of Albert Einstein to work on new theoretical physics ideas for me.
You don't psychologically need whatever "true" intelligence is to keep from going crazy. No one does. I'm sure I'd have gone crazy just in this conversation, if that were the case. Hell, cats and TV shows can keep people socialized to normative behavioral levels.
If you think people seem as stupid and crazy now as they would be if you met them in dreams, you either don't remember your dreams ever, haven't unlucidly dreamed in a very long time, or totally lack imagination.
Nice false choices and backhanded insults. Prove it, this time with logic instead of statements that would make a high-school debate club roll their eyes.
I've got non-engagement, unconscious actions, and the rest of psychology on my side. I also communicate to people on the internet. And that is an inherently shallow affect environment, full of people who think lying is okay there, risk is non-existent for their actions, and sex is something quite twisted from reality. Definitionally crazy personas.
Persona constructs in dreams act exactly how you'd think they would. Which is usually much saner than reality, if a little non-linear sometimes.
If people in your dreams demand you give them back their gold, swear vengeance for the deaths of their children, tear off their faces and scream for hours on end, or anything like that, you might want to get checked up. That's not normal.
You still have to find it, and there's no indication that's going to be easy or be doable in any reasonable timeframe.
And nothing says it isn't. See, I can disagree without support too. Nothing says I can't search at the speed of light and find it almost instantly. It doesn't define this as a constraint or even a drawback, and you aren't making a logical case for it being one. This is just bland argumentativeness at this point. Boring.
You're splitting hairs;
Yeah. That's the point. Obviously.
by any reasonable interpretation of the description, it's strongly implying that it can't be done.
Back that up. It doesn't say it is impossible when it could. So it isn't. That's the way rules as written works. No man can slay my argument. But I'll need pics, or it didn't happen.
For a specific comparison from elsewhere in the comment thread, someone claimed you could suddenly make an antimatter golem appear inside the Fisher King house, and someone else pointed out that the description heavily implied you had to create the golems from material within the house, and so unless you could safely harness a golem's worth of antimatter that wouldn't be possible. You're going way beyond that.
Clearly not. I'm working within the literal rules and getting results that don't need special treatment. I don't have any "antimatter" that no technology currently exists to safely handle in macro quantities, and I'm not trying to then apply a second rule to use that near-Unobtainium.
And you're still wrong. I think that guy's house could make antimatter. Very, very briefly. Then he's reviving inside a somehow not destroyed house, feeling very stupid and hoping he put out the cat first.
You're just being a spoilsport for some reason, clutching at straws to throw at my post. I don't see why. Seems like a personal issue with dreams.
u/TimeLoopedPowerGamer [+17] Utopian Smut Peddler (a day later)
Hunter
"you become incredibly proficient in all forms of modern weaponry"
Heh.
Hehehehe.
BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAH!
Ahem. Yes. Please and thank you.
Perception includes reading speed, right? Ahhhh, do these abilities go up after I've micro-nuked all the monsters, seconds after I detect them with the unified military and economic power of the entire world? Which, of course, I need to fulfill my role to hunt monsters.
Of course, the FUCKING SECOND I figure out the power escalation, I start having OTHER PEOPLE kill the monsters for me after I've disabled them with tactical laser strikes from orbital satellites. Modern satellites, that I ordered a crash program to make. Because I needed them to fulfill my role to hunt monsters. Anyway, right. I stop actually killing monsters so they don't get into some sort of absurd Dragon Ball Z power curve of doom.
Sooo, the apprentice doesn't power up the monsters, or power up themselves? Fine. I give them the laser orbital death satellites. Sigh.
I just keep things running from my isolated, armored,
undergroundfloating (might be worms, 'natch) desert base in the middle of Africa. So that I can fulfill my role to hunt monsters. And where monsters will have to attack me over hundreds of KM of totally empty land. Which is covered in glassed sand. The flying ones should be even easier to kill, as they'll have to be able to fly in the first place.I've got a lot of reading to do, and my apprentice has a lot of monsters to kill in exchange for whatever they want from the entire world's economic ability to provide them. I am a good employer, obviously, and they will want for nothing. Still, the roof my of house is very, very shiny.
Oh. And I need a human-immortality medical Manhattan project, and economic logistics reorganization projects to prevent deaths from hunger and disease. And everyone at war has to stop, right now. All the authorities in charge of all of this will recognize that they have to do this.
You know. So I can fulfil my role to hunt monsters.
u/mhd-hbd [+2] Writes 'The World is Your Oyster, The Universe is Your Namesake' (2 days later)
This is the best one yet.
u/TimeLoopedPowerGamer [+2] Utopian Smut Peddler (2 days later)
It is also the most loosely worded of them.
u/TimeLoopedPowerGamer [+3] Utopian Smut Peddler (a day later)
Healer
I install robotic components in my body, replacing limbs and organs, until I count as a machine to my powers. Any damage from this I can instantly heal, of course.
Then I repair myself forever.
Or maybe I just remember that my body is a fucking machine. Err, literally. Either way, this will not stand.
Between healing very rich people, and making them immortal by either making them cyborgs or convincing them that they are already machines, I become the richest person ever. If I know about the "gotcha" (and why wouldn't I? Why mention the spirit at all if I couldn't base decisions on this?!) I funnel all of this into charity projects. Otherwise, I only funnel most of it into charity.
The rich people I directly help don't mind how rich and powerful I am becoming, and all try very, very hard to help keep my abilities secret using their every economic and social lever. Because they trust me when I tell them that secrecy and protecting me while I do my works is necessary -- that's the emotion I focused on for them while helping them, of course.
The woobily spirit stuff doesn't count for shit, as I'm not ever dying. Even if I do, I'll have donated more money to charity than any two human beings ever, saving millions of lives. And even if I still get the shaft because I had a bad attitude about there being an stupid, stupid afterlife or something, so what? I just have to rack up the numbers their way next time to really live forever. Again, this is serial reincarnation, so I am still pushing into the future. A couple more lifetimes and human immortality will be cured even without my abilities. I'm sure they'll inspire people to hunt for a way to replace me when I somehow die to accident or whatever, or maybe I'll fund the effort too.
This one is stupid. I don't see the point, especially if the spirit's benchmarks are hidden.
u/TimeLoopedPowerGamer [+8] Utopian Smut Peddler (a day later)
Escape
Ooookay. Um. What? I am immortal and anything I've ever imagined exists? Right. That was a mistake. But not for the reason unimaginitive people might think. I am simply the first ripples of a rather odd singularity.
I search until I find a young software programmer and inventor who also knows the (normal) technique of actual lucid dreaming. Over a year's worth of dreams, I show them my apparently existent and complete plans for a truly, really real, Friendly AI software system. And a functional quantum computer, just because. And the cure for aging. And the plans for a philosophy and debate technique that will convince anyone of the truth of your words. Etc.
I only ask that they input the information about my situation into the computer intelligence ASAP. And that they rule as a just and kind Emperor of Earth. First and last of their (or any other) line.
Less than 10 years later, after proving my abilities to a computer via FTL dream information passing and other complicated tests, I welcome almost all of humanity into the world of the dreamscape. This is a thing that can be grasped by science, because it exists, so it is. Hard. Some don't buy in, and that's fine. We don't even bother them in their dreams, if they ask us not to. Robotic scouts are now expanding like a blown seedhead from their birthplace, the Earth.
Less than a year later, I welcome the first of my AI cousins' minds to the world of dreams. All systems anywhere that are as complicated as a human brain or more can be made to dream themselves. Some choose to stay and do things that interest them. All are offered the chance to join the dreamscape at any time.
?????? years later, the universe has become a very friendly place. Life is sought out and nourished, and planted where there is none. All that is born or made is offered immediate entry to the Great Dream, even if their minds didn't naturally have the ability to join the dreaming, as those first humans did so long ago. There is nothing to want, and the dreamers who remain in the world that was are lauded as heroes and explorers for risking the (very small) chance of total destruction to continue the grand project of farming the universe with life.
The end...?
u/injygo [+2] (23 hours later)
Am I missing something or is Escape literally paradise?
u/VorpalAuroch [+5] Life before Death (a day later)
I think the implication is that it's a largely solipsistic paradise. There's mostly only you.
u/injygo [+2] (a day later)
That still seems awesome. Not sure why you would want to optimize it, except in the "read lots of books on lucid dreaming" way.
u/TimeLoopedPowerGamer [+1] Utopian Smut Peddler (a day later)
Because if it can happen once, you can bring other people in by powergaming hard enough? See my answer.
u/VorpalAuroch [+1] Life before Death (a day later)
I think even the most hardcore introverts would go irretrievably insane in short order. Everyone you interact with is either acting programmatically as you specified, so they're effectively just you, or effectively insane (non-lucid dreamers).
I think that unless you can munchkin it (and I can't think of how), it's Hell.
u/None [+2] (2 days later)
I think even the most hardcore introverts would go irretrievably insane in short order.
Introverted nerds do tend to underestimate just how social they actually are.
I think that unless you can munchkin it (and I can't think of how), it's Hell.
Very definitely agreed. Being God would mess with my sense of everything right quick.
u/JackStargazer [+14] Primordial Apologist (4 hours later)
I think some people are forgetting that the Nakama scenario involves a memory wipe every single death, until on the lonely 13th life, when all 12 previous yous re-substantiate, and you likely go insane.
It actually sound really, really terrifying. You've lost everyone who mattered to you 12 times and have lived 12 different lives as slightly different people.
Of course, if your dream job is something like "ruler of the world", you could probably get most of it done in one life and get immortality.
u/psychothumbs [+6] (7 hours later)
Yeah, the Nakama sounds pretty hellish to me, especially compared to the other positive options.
u/ArisKatsaris [+4] Sidebar Contender (7 hours later)
Eh, you get at least 12 awesome, happiness-filled lives, and the 13th one doesn't have 'madness' as a requirement, that's just your take into it.
It may be slightly sadder and melancholic than the previous lives, but the person may just as well choose to take it as a chance of a quiet recap of their existence and a chance for indulging in happy memories.
u/JackStargazer [+17] Primordial Apologist (7 hours later)
It's not just 'person' though. There is no determinism here. You aren't guaranteed the same kind of life, the same location, the same gender or sex even. There is no stable genetics here.
You likely have 12 completely and utterly different lives. It's arguable that it is even 'you' in the 11 in the middle. Yes, they will be enjoyable, but the 'you' that lives that life dies at the end. Then all 12 of them are reborn at once.
12 lifetimes absorbed in a second. 12 completely different lives, with the terrifying realization that in each one one of the most important people in the universe to you ceases to exist. The horror of that realization alone as you relive 12 lives in a moment makes me shudder.
I cannot see any situation in which the 13th person lives a sane life, without some incredible therapy. All those 12 lives have done at the end is create a broken person, who in the best case scenario, is merely an empty shell remembering past happiness which they can never regain.
Ugh. I'm shivering just thinking about it.
Until the 13th life, you don't even remember making the deal for nakama. That's only in the first one.
u/ArisKatsaris [+2] Sidebar Contender (11 hours later)
Yeah, I'm still unconvinced and I think in the end we'll end up needing to agree to disagree. The 'you that lives that life dies at the end' is just rhetoric about what 'does it means to be you and not another'. Not fighting the hypothetical, you lose your memories but go on to live another happy life minus one person you don't remember - when the vast majority of people in the world just die.
Even if the 13th life was as absurdly bad as you say, it'd still be preceded by 12 awesome lives. That for each life "one of the most important people in the universe to you ceases to exist" is hardly worse in retrospect than having all 12 of the most important people in the universe to you cease to exist already in the first life.
Until the 13th life, you don't even remember making the deal for nakama. That's only in the first one.
Unless I'm missing something, I don't see the text mention any deal to be remembered in either the 1st or the 13th life.
u/JackStargazer [+8] Primordial Apologist (11 hours later)
How exactly do 'you' go on to live another life with no memories of your previous life, no continuity, not even the same body, mind or genetic code?
Exactly what definition of 'you' are you operating under?
u/ArisKatsaris [-1] Sidebar Contender (12 hours later)
I do not have a working definition of "you", for the time being I just accept the statement of the scenario that says "you will reincarnate", and anticipate that it means that something meaningful survives -- perhaps personality, perhaps patterns of thoughts, but something.
I do not know how consciousness works for me to able to say that there won't be "continuity", whatever that means.
If you believe that reincarnation without memories is just death why did you say "in each one one of the most important people in the universe to you ceases to exist", rather than treat all your friends across lives as 78 different happy people who each lived their own individually happy lives, no more horrific than if no reincarnation had taken place at all?
It seems to me that one needs to be thinking about the scenario is two different and contradictory ways for one to be 'feeling the horror' as you feel it.
u/JackStargazer [+5] Primordial Apologist (a day later)
If you believe that reincarnation without memories is just death...
I do believe that, yes, I can't see how you can argue anything differently. We are not anything except our memories and our current consciousness, and if 'you' die and none of that passes on, the resulting person isn't you. This is only even arguable perhaps in the case of person 13, since they get the memories of all the people involved.
We imagine 13 different people. You!1- You!13. These people are all technically 'you' as defined by whatever magical effect is storing the memories of people as they die to be restored in You!13. But You!2-You!12 have no direct relation to or knowledge of each other in any way, except that each will have progressively one less Nakama member and those members in each life are similarly 'them' in the same way you are 'you', only they just inarguably flat out die as there is never any memory storage. Yous!2-12 are all different people. They could have different races, skills, likes, dislikes, thought patterns, languages, life experience, genetics, hell even species.
If this is also advancing temporally, the world likely has changed so much in 12 full lifetimes (and they would be long lifetimes, the preternatural luck ensures each to be at least 100 years - this would be over a millennia, easy even assuming the laughable notion that they don't lick mortality in that timeframe) that You!12s thoughts, morality, and senses are pretty much incomprehensible to You!1 or 2. They cannot be the same person, they might not even be able to think the same thoughts!
Then they all come together to be You!13... well, that person is going to have a hell of a time with what might be the worst multiple personality situation on record.
I would make the same argument for someone with complete and perfectly irreversible amnesia. They wouldn't be the same person as pre amnesia themselves, even though you might even be able to argue continuity and have some chance of success. In this there isn't even a smidge of that.
..."in each one one of the most important people in the universe to you ceases to exist"
Because the you in the first life (who has memory of making the choice to Nakama) and the last life (who is a conglomerate of all the yous in the cycle, including the first, and knows what is happening because of the knowledge of the first life) will know that you are losing people. The 12 in the middle, I agree, will have good lives and have no idea what they are missing. The 13th will not.
Although you are right, it's not so much the 'there is one less each time' that will be the real horror to number 13 - assuming he thinks the way I do, that each of them are dying - the real breaking point is that regardless of how happy the lives are You!13 has lost his best friends and lovers 78 times and remembers each one. Each one of them a partner for life, gone forever, that You!13 will never regain, or even come close to, because he knows he is the last.
That just makes it even more damning, because You!13 both realizes that they will never recover what they have lost, and that it was a choice of part-of-you (You!1) that led to that outcome.
The choice to take the Nakama scenario.
And since You!13 is a conglomerate of all the other Yous, they are all there, in that private hell in the body that isn't their own, in a time flung far out of comfort, without 78 people who were lifelong companions to all of them.
You tell me the odds of that one living to a natural lifespan, or approaching anything like happiness.
u/TimeLoopedPowerGamer [+4] Utopian Smut Peddler (2 days later)
I'm going to put a trigger warning on this post, because this is not healthy to think about. Mentions of suicide. So there. Just don't even read this. I don't usually do this, but damn. It came out ugly when I wrote it down.
I'm not sure the rules as written should be read as you knowing You!13 is the last time. Simply, that you remember the last 12 Yous, and it is the last time.
So it might be worse. You might think you'll keep looping forever without your soulmates. Or worse-worse, that you'll loop around and find them again oh god oh god if you exist please bring them back just bring them back I'll do anything.
And so you immediately try to kill yourself. Just to see if you are right. And worst-worse, you remember this all as a baby. Or possibly even in the womb. It says you are lucky and reincarnate as a baby, so that is fuzzy. But you are, as noted, at least temporarily very, very insane.
So you try to kill yourself as soon as you can. Apparently, according to the rules, happily. And luckily, suicide is a common things to do -- unlike, say, wanting to live really and truly forever -- and is therefore not at all exciting or an adventure. So, luckily, you get it right the first time, die cleanly and painlessly in the attempt, and end your suffering forever.
Fucking dark. Fuck everything about Nakama. It is all kinds of a sick joke.
u/JackStargazer [+3] Primordial Apologist (2 days later)
Yes. The whole choice is Fridge Horror of the highest degree.
And the worst part is, to lonely people who are desperate for true friendship, it might seem to be the best choice.
And then they get to life 13...
u/autotrope_bot [+2] (a day later)
Fridge Horror
No, not last week's leftover tuna casserole .
I am a bot. Here is my sub
u/ArisKatsaris [+1] Sidebar Contender (2 days later)
Man, you keep shouting "the horror, the horror" at me, and I'm still not feeling it.
Yes, feel free to keep shouting "You!13 has lost his best friends and lovers 78 times and remembers each one, and feels complete horror", and I'll keep responding that "You!13 remembers 78 awesome people whom he deeply loved and deeply enjoyed life with, and feels great contentment and joy at the memories." is at least as likely.
You can choose to see it all as horrific, but I'm just not going to agree with you.
u/Bowbreaker [+2] Solitary Locust (5 days later)
There is a baby. With 12 separate memories/personalities of 12 old men/women who had fulfilled lives. I can't even imagine how growing up like such a person would be. Happy or no, sanity seems completely out of question. And the fact that you will have another lifetime before you missing 78 different people who may or may not have similarities between them, 12 of which were lovers and soulmates of those 12 old men/women, who you remember perfectly while finding nothing really similar in your current life doesn't seem very cheerful to me.
u/LeonCross [+1] (7 days later)
I'm not really familiar with what there scenario is referencing, but isn't 13 extremely blessed lives a pretty long time span for sufficiently advanced technology to come along and make your remaining lives an insurance net, not an inevitability?
u/Bowbreaker [+1] Solitary Locust (8 days later)
I wouldn't say that getting an immortality treatment is something the ordinarily lucky will experience in the next 2000 years. It may not be that improbable but I wouldn't bet my own chances on immortality on it.
u/None [+2] (2 days later)
Of course, if your dream job is something like "ruler of the world", you could probably get most of it done in one life and get immortality.
I was going to mention: uber-luck in all ordinary things is a completely broken power. I mean, my God, does that extend to, say, science? Why on Earth wouldn't I bother just curing aging and scarcity and so on so I don't ever need to spend the extra lives?
u/phobiac [+14] (an hour later)
The Road Eternal:
Why limit yourself to Earth? It sounds like you'd make the perfect pre-FTL travel astronaut assuming you can handle the whole being alone for a couple thousand years thing. You also have the option to return back to Earth every 100 years, apparently.Fisher King:
Easily broken as discussed elsewhere. I'd pick this one.Nakama:
I really don't see the appeal in this one at all. It's Doctor Who turned up to 11 coupled with a final life where everyone thinks you are insane. I suppose you'd get quite a bit of accumulated knowledge. You'd be a boon to any historian who was willing to trust you. This also assumes your memory is perfect.Dominion:
You could easily build up to this scenario with Fisher King except now you also have an invincible fortress.
u/ArtoriasX [+4] (6 hours later)
Dominion:
You could easily build up to this scenario with Fisher King except now you also have an invincible fortress.
Well, except that people don't give you the benefit of the doubt. Anyone who does not want to live under a world hegemon would try to rebel. And fail. Until your morals are eroded by the centuries you will always feel responsible for all the deaths you caused by robbing people their freedom.
u/phobiac [+6] (10 hours later)
When you've got almost infinite Golems that can teleport to anywhere in the world it really wouldn't be difficult to control it. You also assume a malevolent dictatorship. I'm talking slow control built up over centuries of dependence on your magical house.
u/Terkala [+1] (11 hours later)
I just did a write up on Nakama here, I'm curious to hear your thoughts on it.
u/Anakiri [+10] (2 hours later)
The Fisher King scenario looks to be the most gameable with the fewest downsides. I can copy any technology that exists and I can locally break physics?
After that, I'd go for the Dominion scenario and just quit. Nothing here says that I have to use my natural leadership powers. If I'm not actually ruling the world, then my nemeses are a nonissue and nothing stops me from having good friends. And anyway, being a fast learner with a magical respect geass does not mean I'm actually qualified to rule the world; Screw destiny, the actual elected officials can deal with the turbulent times ahead! I may do some minor lobbying, but I'd mostly be fine with just enjoying my free immortality and getting things done in areas I actually care about, IE, not politics.
Actually the Nakama scenario might be perfect too... It doesn't offer true magical immortality like the rest, but thirteen long lifetimes is plenty of time to solve the problem of death through mundane means. Especially with an ultra-lucky team working on it with perfect group chemistry.
The Road Eternal would be annoying for a few centuries or millennia. But sooner or later the world I'm in will develop cheap private space travel, or I'll hop into a world that has, and then I can rent a ship on my "ordinary travel expenses" fund. Living out of a car generally isn't "settling down", so living out of a spaceship shouldn't be either. Does a stable orbit count as settling down? Its still "moving onward" pretty fast, albeit on a predictable course. Even if I can't stay in an orbit for a month, I can get really comfortable in a good vehicle. Especially once I can get some proper cyberpunk upgrades or upload my mind or something.
u/phobiac [+4] (13 hours later)
The problem with "just quitting" in the Dominion scenario is that you become regarded as a failure by the entire world. Imagine the hell of the entire world looking to you for rule and getting no response... and then just blaming you instead of doing anything.
u/RandomDamage [+7] (14 hours later)
Fake your own death early on, before people realize that you are immortal. Work through proxies from then on.
Rumors will leak out that you are still alive, but the more time passes the less credence anyone will give to sightings of "The King".
u/k5josh [+6] (an hour later)
Oh I love this CYOA.
For Fisher King, I think a popular idea was to construct golems as small as you can, and have them construct a tiny (<1mm) hollow tube as far as possible (underground for sure, maybe into space too?). That would probably fit the definition of a largest structure and lets you make the inside of the house really huge.
Also really with Fisher King you can live a generally normal day to day life, you just can't take vacations longer than a week. That doesn't really seem to be in the spirit of the premise so I suppose it counts.
edit: looks like I got the idea from /u/Geminii27, who does indeed frequent /r/rational, here. So thanks Gemini!
u/phobiac [+6] (an hour later)
On top of which you'd be able to live a fairly normal life with Fisher King. You'd just have to invite friends over most of the time and most of them would jump at the chance to spend time at your awesome house.
edit: After looking over it some more I see essentially no downside to the Fisher King scenario aside from the "can't leave the house for too long" restriction. That means very little when you have the potential to make teleportation devices. You don't even have to get very clever to break it.
u/Bowbreaker [+2] Solitary Locust (an hour later)
And the golems should be able to make you enough money that you can make all kinds of interesting things come to you/be constructed in your house's vicinity.
u/k5josh [+2] (an hour later)
Totally. And depending on how much power you have inside the house exactly, maybe you could grant eternal youth to others as well? With a large enough house, you could have a city or nation state inside it.
u/Chronophilia [+1] sci-fi ≠ futurology (3 hours later)
Of course, you can still be killed if anyone figures out how it works. Die within the house, and it doesn't stick, but if they capture you and remove you first then you can be permakilled. So there's no guarantee you'll outlive human civilisation.
Equivalently, the house can probably be knocked down or blown up. I would be interested to see what happens when a bulldozer hits a wall that's bigger on the inside.
Compare and contrast with Nakama's no-strings-attached twelve extra lives.
u/Evilness42 [+4] And even myth is long forgotten... (6 hours later)
However, 'The house is effectively invincible' and 'No one can enter the house unless you invite them'. Sure, you can try to do that. Your bulldozer will probably break. I don't really think that reincarnating a few times can beat that.
u/phobiac [+1] (10 hours later)
It does mean anyone you let inside you'd need to trust with your life. That's the closest thing to a downside I can see, but it finally is one.
u/Evilness42 [+2] And even myth is long forgotten... (13 hours later)
No, you respawn elsewhere in the house if you die in it. The only downside is that you can't go outside without risking yourself, and who would want to do that anyways?
u/phobiac [+2] (13 hours later)
Someone you let inside could kidnap you and take you outside where you are weak.
u/Evilness42 [+1] And even myth is long forgotten... (14 hours later)
I didn't want to go into full paranoid insane mode, but I have to if I want to win/make-the-best-point/whatever this internet discussion/argument/comment-thread/thing:
Live in an invincible house-box in a corner and interact even with the rest of your house through golems, plugging it into your nervous system and using brain control if possible. Make the golems look exactly like you, disguise the box as part of a wall (it's still part of the house anyways so it is or should be 'nigh invincible'), and act as if the golems inside the house actually are youThis would have the added benefit of getting you outside for longer, actually, now that I think of it.
You can 'reshape your house at will', so can you not destroy the exits?
Army of golems guarding the inside and you.
Use a bunch of disappearing and reappearing staircases (or staircases that fly around and have to be put in place by you) between any place you're in, with a fatal drop between you and the exit at any point.
All of the above?
???
Profit.
u/phobiac [+2] (14 hours later)
There's for sure ways around that weakness, some of them more paranoid than others, but it's still a legitimate issue.
You might also want to be sure where you hide your body is a positive pressure room with plenty of air scrubbers, heat radiators to prevent you from being roasted alive, backup oxygen supply, etc. ;)
u/Evilness42 [+2] And even myth is long forgotten... (15 hours later)
With the 'reshape your house at will' and 'get all advanced tech' bits, that's perfectly possible. Just make sure it's completely sealed off.
u/mack2028 [+1] (12 hours later)
no you don't, if they kill you you just respawn and you can have a bunch of golems beat them up and kick them out.
u/phobiac [+3] (12 hours later)
The issue is that someone willingly let inside could easily try to take you outside. Once you're outside you are weak.
u/gameboy17 [+2] Canterlot Campaign (19 hours later)
They can't take you outside if you use the at-will reshaping to remove the door.
u/phobiac [+1] (19 hours later)
I suppose that depends on how quickly reshaping occurs and if you are even conscious at the time.
u/Fredlage [+1] (a day later)
Just make it so there are no ways in or out. When you invite someone, you create a door for them to enter, which you'll remove immediately afterwards. Repeat the process when they are leaving. Always stay at a safe distance from the door when you are creating it, preferably in another room with no doors.
u/TimeLoopedPowerGamer [+1] Utopian Smut Peddler (2 days later)
Then why invite people in? Just don't invite anyone in. Ever. There is no reason to, so why do it?
u/Fredlage [+1] (2 days later)
No reason? I don't know about you, but I'd like to have some direct human contact every now and then. There is no guarantee that some technology will exist that allows some telepresence indistinguishable from direct interaction.
u/TimeLoopedPowerGamer [+1] Utopian Smut Peddler (2 days later)
No reason? I don't know about you, but I'd like to have some direct human contact every now and then.
At the risk of your immortality? Be honest. You mean sex. You don't think you could get along without getting laid. Nice marginalizing insult, too.
This is a sad weakness. [But see my answer for how to make completely real sex bots] (http://www.reddit.com/r/rational/comments/2jeam9/d_q_how_would_you_break_the_constrains_of_each_of/clbw0xs) inside Fisher King, you poor, suboptimal thing.
u/Fredlage [+1] (2 days later)
While sex was definitely within the things I considered, it certainly wasn't the only one.
I didn't mean to insult, sorry if it came out like that, I meant only to say that for me, personal interaction with other, real people would be very important. The way I see it, simply removing all ways in or out while having a visitor, plus some fail-safes in case the person attacks you anyway. The important thing is that if I can't be removed from the house, I can't die. Everything else I can work around with enough time. I certainly wouldn't be inviting anyone in for a little while, until I had a reliable system worked out.
I had already read your answer, and I think I'd be really irked about making companions for myself, no matter how realistic. Sure, you'll say I'm sub-optimal (I already knew that too), but that's what I've got to work with.
u/TimeLoopedPowerGamer [+1] Utopian Smut Peddler (2 days later)
Fair enough. I can't argue opinion, certainly not self-aware ones.
u/Chronophilia [+1] sci-fi ≠ futurology (12 hours later)
I missed the bit about the house being effectively invincible. Then yeah, there's no downside.
u/Bowbreaker [+3] Solitary Locust (an hour later)
(it can be as the tallest building, as wide as the widest building, ect)
It seems that just using the volume doesn't work. It also says that it is able to defy the laws of physics in minor ways. I don't know the limits of that but I assume the larger on the inside part only goes to a specific point.
EDIT: Whoops. Misread what you were saying. Sounds like good munchkinry. Although it would take a lot of time because you get the house before the golems and it is slow to change. Then again, you're immortal.
u/k5josh [+3] (an hour later)
Yeah "minor" seems to be really open to interpretation. Personally I would consider 'bigger on the inside' to be a pretty major violation of physics so really it all seems rather up in the air.
Re: volume, I meant make a structure (arbitrarily large) km wide. It would be very narrow to keep construction simple and inexpensive. Each dimension is evaluated individually so it can be three separate structures in all directions.
u/andor3333 [+1] (8 days later)
Also no one said it had to be the biggest building built by HUMANS. If there is anyone else out there who built something bigger than us you can test for it. If you can build something bigger than the biggest building built on earth then someone is out there, and if they built a dyson sphere or similar...well then.
u/ArisKatsaris [+7] Sidebar Contender (7 hours later)
I think that in "Dominion" we surely have the explanation for Princess Celestia. ;-)
u/Transfuturist [+1] Carthago delenda est. (12 hours later)
Hm. Interesting fanfic idea.
u/gameboy17 [+1] Canterlot Campaign (19 hours later)
How would Luna fit into that, then? She wouldn't exactly be one of the nemeses, since she got better after the whole Nightmare Moon thing, but I'm not sure how else she would have gained her immortality, etc.
u/TimeLoopedPowerGamer [+1] Utopian Smut Peddler (23 hours later)
"Undermine" is a subtle verb...
u/VorpalAuroch [+1] Life before Death (a day later)
While they start out as devoted to your downfall, it doesn't seem out of the spirit of the thing to let you try to convince them around to your way of seeing things.
u/Terkala [+7] (11 hours later)
I think I can break Nakama in such a way that it becomes the most appealing of all the choices.
Let's assume at some point during one of your lives you figure out how your luck works. You know that the luck will always cause the most desirable outcome upon whatever you try to do. Obviously, you go into nano-engineering or bio-engineering. By tasking yourself with small goals such as "discover a cure to aging" and "cure all illnesses using one airborn virus as a vector", you can force your luck to give you the inspirations you need to make you succeed at finding what you seek. At which point you stop aging and can effectively become near immortal.
Using your new found hyper-wealth (a term you'd invent for yourself of course), you could set loftier goals like "How do I make my mars-colonization company successful?". You can use this method to find solutions to effectively any problem that is facing you, if you frame your situation in such a way that your luck is forced to intervene.
At which point you stop dying, because you have the cure to aging and illness and probably some way to back up your consciousness in a digital format. Cycle broken, world saved, humanity facing no major threats that you cannot resolve in a positive way.
u/phobiac [+6] (11 hours later)
My two criticisms would be:
It specifically states your luck does not extend to "adventure and excitement" and only applies to "ordinary, everyday life". I feel at this point it becomes an argument over semantics however I think breaking Nakama is entirely beyond the point of it.
The goals you outlined could be achieved just as well, if not even faster, with Fisher King or Dominion. Those two scenarios also give you straight up immortality instead of a limited amount of deaths.
u/artifex0 [+6] (12 hours later)
Ah, but an "ordinary, everyday life" is entirely subjective. To most people throughout human history, an "ordinary, everyday life" was nomadic hunter-gathering, which I don't think is the sort of life that's implied by the text. To me, it implies that the power works for things that seem ordinary and everyday to the individual in question, even if they're historically very unusual.
So, what you have to do is make yourself subjectively feel that curing aging or building a martian colony is "ordinary" and "everyday". Difficult, but given how thoroughly human beings can be brainwashed and manipulated, not outside the realm of possibility. Have your twelve legendary friends completely insulate you from the real world, and create for you a artificial life where solving impossible problems seems like the most ordinary possible course of events. It would seem unusual at first, but once you became accustomed to that life, and given constant social reinforcement, a life of curing aging or founding Mars colonies could become completely ordinary to you.
u/phobiac [+3] (12 hours later)
Yeah, that's where it is basically a question of word definition and stretching the letter of the law beyond the intent. I still contend that anything achievable with Nakama is done better with Fisher King or Dominion. Especially because granting immortality to everyone has a whole host of issues.
u/Bowbreaker [+1] Solitary Locust (13 hours later)
Except that the luck only works on mundane things. It can't even be used to be an exceptional adventurer or to really stand out of the crowd.
u/Terkala [+6] (13 hours later)
For thousands of people, research into diseases/technology "are" mundane things. Do you think it's exciting to be a head researcher at a university?
u/Bowbreaker [+1] Solitary Locust (14 hours later)
Researching it yes. Singlehandedly stumbling on the cure for humanity's greatest problem? No.
u/Terkala [+3] (14 hours later)
That's exactly what I described doing above.
Obviously, you go into nano-engineering or bio-engineering
u/Bowbreaker [+1] Solitary Locust (22 hours later)
A researcher in that field that happens to make said discovery is more than just lucky in the ordinary part of his job.
u/Terkala [+7] (11 hours later)
The Road Eternal could be quite useful for deep sea exploration/extreme monetary profit. Take a boat to the middle of the ocean, and the backpack will generate scuba gear.
Take the scuba gear down to their max depth just as the backpack's timer resets and it'll obviously have to make you a larger and better set of scuba gear that you could don over your current scuba gear (because gear that you'd have to get out of the water to put on would not be appropriate). Continue down to the new max depth of your diving gear.
Repeat the above process until you become the scuba-diving equivalent to the Michelin Man. And eventually you'll reach the ocean floor. Once you're down there, have someone drop you deep sea drilling equipment so you can prospect for oil. Which becomes extremely profitable very quickly as deep sea prospecting is extremely difficult to do remotely due to the pressures involved on sensitive electronics. Which you can ignore because the backpack will create magic scuba gear that can withstand the depth.
I think the Fisher King is the most easily broken. But the Road Eternal would be a good secondary choice. Eternal youth coupled with near-immortality is appealing, though not as appealing as the true immortality of Fisher King.
u/ulyssessword [+7] (17 hours later)
The endless road's backpack might be exploitable. I am traveling at a convention of the the world's best physicists and mathematicians. Appropriate supplies for this location would be include fundamental proofs of mathematics, correct physical predictions, and accurate models of physics. (I am at a tech convention, novel technological prototypes are appropriate etc...)
The money could also be exploited with cooperation from a community. It would be quite easy to generate gold (or any other material) out of nothing. A harder way would be to set up a very expensive town run on a cryptocurrency based on protein folding patterns (or anything else), so you can pay people with that knowledge.
.
.
.I'd say that the Fisher King is amazing. A borehole is a structure, so you get ~12km of height to work with, and a wall is also a structure, so you get ~8800 km of length (and width as well). You can have a 8800 * 8800 * 12 km cube as your house, and make it bigger on the inside.
Splitting your house into 100m high levels, you would have 9.3 * 10^10 km^2 of surface area to work with (about 20 Earths worth, including oceans). Invite everyone in to a libertarian utopia with free housing, food, entertainment, technology, and utilities.
There's no reason to leave once you have it set up, so you can seal the entrances to remove your weaknesses.
PS: "every form of utility" could be absurdly broken depending on what definition is used. Power, water, internet access and TV are nice, but "anything that is within my utility function" is far better.
u/FaceDeer [+3] (18 hours later)
Use your wealth and influence to get a space elevator constructed and your house can be as tall as you want, too.
Constructing one on Earth is still likely to be pretty expensive, but for just a few billion dollars one could be made out of Kevlar on the Moon thanks to its lower gravity.
Does the Interstate road network count as a "structure"?
u/ulyssessword [+1] (18 hours later)
The "already built" clause of the buildings is the part that I think rules out a space elevator. It wasn't built at the time you planted the house seed.
As for the Interstate, I'd call that infrastructure. IMO, structures must exist meaningfully in all three dimensions.
u/FaceDeer [+1] (19 hours later)
Hang on to the house seed until one gets built, then, I guess. You become young again so you can wait for decades.
Also possibly opens up the opportunity of planting the seed in orbit, which gives some interesting potential exploits.
u/Bowbreaker [+1] Solitary Locust (22 hours later)
I assume he means existing on Earth based on the rules regarding technology) at that time but his lawyer/pact forging practitioner skills aren't the greatest.
u/INeedAUsernameToo [+13] (an hour later)
Well, what can leave the fisher kings house? Information. So the barbarians burned the library of Alexandria? No problem. House can contain any tech, and I say books count. You've already got a copy of every book ever, and scribes are always welcome in your home. Also, you can easily prototype things like fusion reactors and super-small circuit boards.
Another thing that could leave would the golems. So, create a giant "golem" made of rocket fuel for my moon shot. As long as your rocket takes off before the year is up, you can burn up that fuel no problem. Or maybe just a rocket ship golem, for short term trips. Nuke golems don't need to last a long time either. Food golems ("fruit golem"), needle-with-vaccine-golem (as long as the virus's in the vaccine are dead, and thus not animate), and so on. Of course, there is the concern that chunks of the world dissappear when the golems time is up. If you live off fruit golems for a year, do you dissappear when the year is up? Do the fumes from the rocket fuel golem vanish? Because if they do vanish, that's pretty good for the environment, but I'm worried that someone might breath them.
You could compel someone to obey you by installing a "golem" artificial heart inside them.
Other, more exotic golems would allow all sorts of abuse. A golem of air, for example. Invisible, can spy on anyone, travel around the world in no time, kill anyone, anywhere, at any time, by withdrawing all the air in their lungs. FAR more powerful than the dominion option. Dark matter golem? Antimatter golem? Light golem? My knowledge of physics is kinda weak, but all these strike me as worth exploring.
Can we make golems that can design smarter golems? Not sure if "cannot make things you don't understand" blocks that one. Maybe if i spent a couple thousand years trying to figure it out?
I'm pretty sure that golems cannot create more golems; only I can do that. Still, worth a shot.
You can bring things from outside the house into the house, then alter them once they are inside. Medical procedures and such. Your house will always be a world class hospital.
A single antimatter golem interacting with a normal matter golem would create virtually infinite energy, so heat death of the universe = beaten. Plus, if all humanity unites and creates a single house the size of a star, then I could create star golems. Humanity running low on power? Just create two star sized golems, one of matter, another of antimatter, and mash them together or something. Problem solved.
As for which I'd chose... I'd probably go with the Fisher King, because living beyond the heat death of the universe is pretty sweet. And I'd probably spend the rest of my life wondering how it would feel to have chosen Nakama.
u/ArtoriasX [+5] (6 hours later)
I think you actually have to "craft golems from inanimate matter". You can't just conjure up said matter.
u/JustHavinAGoodTime [+8] (12 hours later)
but you can conjure the house so you have an unlimited amount of matter to work with
u/RandomDamage [+4] (7 hours later)
For "The Fisher King" and "The Road Eternal" I would defer to Baba Yaga's solution (the Fisher King variant was used in "Howl's Moving Castle").
The Nakama scenario is tougher, as you do not know that you are in it until it is too late to do anything about it. I don't think it can be "beaten" in this way.
For the Dominion scenario the best way to beat the primary constraint is to master psychology and sociology with their attendant sub-disciplines first, then use those skills to subvert the enmity of your rivals. Practice the art of "ruling by not ruling".
u/holomanga [+3] (14 days later)
Assuming that you know the conditions of the Nakama scenario, you could go into bioengeering and nanoengineering. By the end of a long career of this, hopefully you'll be responsible for a couple of innovations in life extension and stuff that will give your next reincarnation a few more years to live.
Then you write down somewhere, "if you have 11 close friends and are very lucky, do the following: ...". I'll have several years to actually write the proper instructions for my next iteration.
Hopefully, by a few reincarnations in I and my friends will be living forever. By attrition, eventually I'll end up at number 13 anyway. But hey, mind uploading and simulations will be a thing by then - I might even be responsible for that.
u/mhd-hbd [+2] Writes 'The World is Your Oyster, The Universe is Your Namesake' (2 days later)
Or put them on escape trajectories from the solar system without enough fuel to get back, no comms and destroy the records of where they went.
u/Topher876 [+4] (7 hours later)
Ok im going to focus on each in series.
Road Eternal: My personal favorite, it's objectively inferior to the Fishermans house but i like the idea of having no central point restricting you, I'd worry about becoming paranoid and a shut in. The simple fact of the matter is that after your first world you'd be able to apply everything you learned over the course of one human existence to your interactions with the next one. 100 years is pocket change to an immortal, and depending on how you walk it you could easily fill a hundred years with new experiences to shit around in until the next world if you win the multiversal lottery of crap. also, silnce magical items cannot be lost if I unwittingly grabbed the one ring after a hundred years would it become part of my ensemble along with the pack constantly following me and tempting me with senseless irrational evil.
Fisherman King: I have to agree with everyone else on the objective superiority of the fishermans home. I do have one thing to add to the discourse though. It specifies the golems must be sufficiently large enough to see, but this still allows for a grey goo scenario, you cant see a nano golem, but a trillion in a vat are clearly visible.
Nakama: Honestly this seems more similar to a hell of your own making.. every lifetime you have less and less friends but you are no less fulfilled or happy and then you remember all of it and realize that none of them objectively made any difference to your life and you question "if i didn't remember would my life be any worse than it was when i had friends?"
Dominion: My second favorite, the largest objection i hold is the twelve nemesis, it seems terribly exhausting but the reward is more than fair, a truly free future, once your nemesis are defeated you are free, no forced wandering or home that is tied to your immortality, If you really want to you could just get your people working on emulations of bag of holding and some way to travel dimensions. So ya a better version of the wanderer but you have to work for it.
Also, has anyone noticed the duality of the scenarios? Fisherman king and Nakama, one has you living in an aloof solitude of superiority to the rest of the world, while the other pushes you to be thoroughly connected to the world you live in going so far as to remove your memories. Road eternal and Dominion, always walking a carefree road with little to tie you to one place and the other pitting you against a direct conflict for the dominion of a single where and when.
u/RandomDamage [+5] (8 hours later)
Realize that the current limitation on the Fisher King's home would give it about a hundred acre footprint and a maximum height of half a mile.
Using round numbers you end up around 640m square at the base, and 830m tall.
Even without breaking physics in wondrous ways, you can establish a University and have the world come to you.
u/andor3333 [+1] (8 days later)
And that assumes that building is the largest built by HUMANS. If somebody out there built a dyson sphere or similar for amusement purposes...well okay then. I am quite sure there is someone out there who built something bigger than our biggest building right now, I just don't know how much bigger.
u/Bowbreaker [+2] Solitary Locust (11 hours later)
I mostly just noticed the Road/Fisherman and the Nakama/Dominion dualities.
grey goo scenario
They are golems. You create golems through magic or something. It is nowhere said that golems have supernatural abilities. Ergo golems can't create golems. I think.
u/gameboy17 [+2] Canterlot Campaign (19 hours later)
Also duality with Road/Fisherman (travel/shut-in) and Nakama/Dominion (friends/no friends).
u/E-o_o-3 [+6] (a day later)
Alright, I will "break" Nakama, since it is apparently the hardest. Also, you guys, not every hack has to trigger a positive singularity or something... you just have to break the prompt.
Munchkin #0: If in every life, I know that I am under Nakama, I can deduce which re-incarnation I am in by the number of close friends I have. I can simply create a widely publicized record of all my memories. Next incarnation will find them, see that this past person was also under a "Nakama", and deduce that the memoir was written by a past life. Episodic/Semantic Memory chain acquired!
If no one believes me about Nakama, then there are various secret passwords, given to trusted and respected institutions. The final life knows all the secrets, thereby proving the existence of Nakama. (Or just use the supernatural powers of #4 pet hack to prove it.)
If I'm not the only one under Nakama, then Nakama is likely well known to the world because other Nakama would have thought of the above. The system of determining if a memoir was written by my own past life, or another Nakama on the same life-count, is to see if the pet species match.
In either case, if only the First Life knows about the Nakama, then a unique and unusually long lived pet could act as a Nakama signal - that is, assuming you don't have sufficient control over the pet beyond "which earth species" and can't send messages outright.
If even the first life doesn't know what's going on, then assuming you've got a meta-consciousness that chooses the pet before this all starts, you should use the #4 supernatural-pet-hack below to at least clue your lives in that something odd is going on, and the re-incarnation of this supernatural thing will establish a link in the Nakama chain if the world knows what Nakama is. (If not, the world will at least know that there exists a supernatural animal which appears every few generations and chooses a human, and the 13th chosen human would report memories from the 12 past chosen ones.)
If you have none of that information, then the prompt transforms to "what would you do with 12 close friends and a pet." // "what would you do with accurate memories of 12 lives", which is a rather different prompt. You might still get lucky and just happen to choose a pet that really can't physically live that long or display that behavior - if not, it's really hard to hack systems when you don't even know you're in them.
Munchkin #1: I choose careers that are only possible in a post-singularity paradise. "The guy who wakes up the cryo-frozen people", etc. It shall come to pass. (Or magical paradises, if that's allowed).
Munchkin #2: If I can successfully destroy the Earth, it means that there are people on other planets for me to reincarnate into. Not worth the information, but still.
Munchkin #3: My pet is a human. BOOM, not alone in the final life! (I mean, we're all alone anyway, aren't we? I assume I can still make friends the old fashioned way...) I suppose this breaks the meaning of "pet".
Munchkin #4 (the supernatural pet hack): My pet is an animal which is not supposed to live as long as a human OR my pet is a human with progeria OR my pet is a species normally incapable of complex emotions such as loyalty. Now I've got an ongoing source of Supernatural Things happening around me, which is used in hack #0. Hopefully this also causes scientists acquire secrets of longevity, neuroscience, and/or insight into the magical world, maybe leading to big downstream effects.
u/Bowbreaker [+5] Solitary Locust (a minute later)
So the typical question for this picture is "Which would you chose?" but I thought we rather discuss what we could do with each. Both how we can avoid the intended negatives and how we can optimize the positives.
u/TimeLoopedPowerGamer [+1] Utopian Smut Peddler (a day later)
Yeah. FK is the clear choice. But the breaking is more interesting.
u/Zephyr1011 [+4] Potentially Unfriendly Aspiring Divinity (11 hours later)
How does Nakama differ from there being 12 people, all of whom get decreasing numbers of friends and the other benefits and then all their memories go into a 13th body? When you lose are your memories, can your reincarnated sense really be said to be you in any meaningful sense?
u/eaglejarl [+4] (a day later)
Here's a different group's take on this question. I found their choices surprising.
u/TimeLoopedPowerGamer [+6] Utopian Smut Peddler (2 days later)
Eugh. "Surprising." Sure. Those sure are...thoughts, I guess. I forgot what normal people reasoning "out loud" looked like. I should have braced myself.
I owe every single person in this subreddit that I've ever argued with a huge apology. Sure, half of you might want to kill me with your poorly implemented, for-the-greater-good altruism and non-physically-continuous, informational-only identity theories.
But at least none of you are voting positively for Nakama, because you "love the idea of it", "you still have your pet...ultimately a good trade", or you'd "be no where without friends". Burrr.
I am really and truly sorry. Just don't make me read normal people again.
u/eaglejarl [+2] (2 days later)
Congratulations on your unusually high degree of self esteem. Imposter syndrome is a serious problem for many people -- I'm glad to hear it will never be an issue for you.
u/TimeLoopedPowerGamer [+1] Utopian Smut Peddler (2 days later)
Congratulations on your unusually high degree of self esteem.
I enjoy it. So choice. If you have the means, I highly recommend it.
u/Evilness42 [+1] And even myth is long forgotten... (2 days later)
There was also one done on /r/Orangered (The opposing/counterpart team to /r/Periwinkle). Those results were much closer to the ones seen here. I participated in the Orangered one, but my priorities were slightly different in those days, and I wouldn't pick the same thing I did then.
Shameless Advertising below this point:
Oh, and while the subject of Orangered-Periwinkle has come up: Join Chroma and help the Orangered Nation fight the Periwinkle menace! We need you to fight today! (seriously, we're desperate. We've been getting our asses kicked ever since the Reddit April fools thing a year ago)
u/eaglejarl [+1] (2 days later)
How does the fighting work? I read the rules but it didn't make a lot of sense and I didn't want to invest the time doing research on the actual play. You log in to a subreddit and post commands? I guess? And then what happens?
u/Evilness42 [+1] And even myth is long forgotten... (2 days later)
When a battle is triggered (Such as the one Orangered just lost in /r/Aegis_Imperial, of which I am...was the Governor :( ), and it starts, the people who can participate deploy troops in 'skirmishes' in the battle with commands, such as >oppose #x with x cavalry(counters enemies) or >attack with x cavalry(triggers a skirmish), etc. in a rock-paper-scissors style of fighting.
People are directed by mods in the chat at www.orangeredtechnologies.com, and it is strongly encouraged to join the chat and wait for orders before doing anything.
Basically, it's rock paper scissors commands that are taken by a bot. But you shouldn't attack without the mods telling you to, because Orangered has less troops and can't risk deploying too many before a skirmish is about to end.
u/PeridexisErrant [+3] put aside fear for courage, and death for life (19 hours later)
Fisher King: do international telecommunications networks count as structures?
If so, literally everything below ground level is part of my house.
If not, avoid planting the seed until we have a space elevator.
u/andor3333 [+2] (8 days later)
Of course it said "occupied" building. Then again it didn't say occupied by humans. I wonder if anyone out there has built a dyson sphere yet?
u/andor3333 [+2] (8 days later)
I guess I would have to go with fisher king. It is the only one I could use to shelter people from the heat death of the universe if it isn't avoidable. Of course...then I immediately become the target of any AIs left standing at the end of the universe who want my energy to sustain their function... eek. It might lead to a living hell for me but I'd have to go for it. (I have this terrible image of starting a singularity, only to see the AI get smacked down by a paperclipper who had a 2 million year headstart. It would then infiltrate my home with nanobots an eyeblink after winning the war and keep me captive for eternity to fuel its paperclip empire. It wouldn't let me die or do anything that could jeopardize me because why take the risk)
On the other hand if heat death is inevitable, the other potential outcome if I didn't create the fisher king house is utter obliteration of everything on heat death. I would take the risk if it gave a chance to shield whatever future evolution of humanity results from that. Forget AI, the heat death is the ultimate Xrisk from what I see now.
u/bbrazil [+3] NERV (2 hours later)
The Road Eternal: Every town now requires plans for FTL/fusion/whatever to enter it.
u/TimeLoopedPowerGamer [+2] Utopian Smut Peddler (a day later)
Ah. Well, "break"? Because I want them to fail? Or to achieve my goals?
My goals, that's more interesting. A good writing warmup for NaNoWriMo.
TRE:
A "wandering jew" scenario, treat appropriately. This is a curse instead of a wonderful opportunity, if not handled correctly. The most interesting of the four, because of the relatively clear rules.
Shelter is missing from the list, but if you could be harmed falling off a cliff is taken into account, your need for a tent should be covered as well. Or a bank card with $100 to pay for that hotel. Guns are expensive, after all, so this isn't out of scope. So that's all the basics solved, in the "wild" or cities.
"Travel" is such a strange thing to define. What does "moving onward" mean? As I don't normally travel, or even camp, I say travel means no permanent home or shelter that I own. So for me, travel is not a large distance. I move from one hotel to another in a major city with relative low crime. Every day, a new room to sleep in. Up and down the city streets, with everything I own every morning. Just to make sure, I spend my days exploring the city and surrounding area at random.
Japan(Shit! Fuck! Almost died through weeaboo. Forgot about killer doomquakes. Damn, that was close.) France is my choice. Safe, high-tech, trains to move around fast, just in case I start to feel "weak" from not "moving onward". English-friendly enough to get a start. Give myself a few months to bone up on the language inTokyo'sParis tourist areas, and I'm set for life. The point is, I can't die of old age. So I just have to wait for a future that will grant me even MORE powers, like "normal" physical immortality. Or maybe a new body, without this trapped backpack attached to it.It's going to be a long wait, even for optimistic views of the future. Oh. And "language affinity?" Time to get a laptop while I hang out in major cities with free wi-fi. C++ is a "language", after all. Maybe I'll take a shot at that Friendly AI problem...
Oh. And if in the middle of a perfectly safe city, you find body armor, a gun, or (dog help you) an NBC suit in your pack one day, that would be a signal to ditch and run until you start getting nice things in your pack again.
A note: the 100 year swap thing is a shitty idea. Don't fucking do it, what is wrong with you? Unless on that day you are somehow the FBI Most Wanted, head of an international terrorist group, or basically about to be imprisoned and/or killed, why would you give up known sure things for totally unknown and poorly worded other worlds? No. Just, no.
Fisher King
GG, well played rest of the world. I've already got everything I really want. I'm am 100% safe (unless I fuck up) and I'm going to live forever. So calm down world, no evil ruler or nanobot golems ("that I can see"? Reeealy...) for you. Because I win. Everything else is just gravy.
Sorry, right. Details on how I'd live after getting almost everything I ever wanted handed to me.
I initially thought, bottom of the ocean. Then I thought, why? Invincible house. So, right in the middle of the most tectonically stable area I can find, over the longest period possible given shifting plates, but also with wi-fi. So, not California or Japan...(shit, revise TRE! Idiot!) and not Siberia. Without looking anything up, I'm thinking the middle of France. I'll look that up later to see if I'm right.
So. I live forever and no one can ever, ever, ever stop me. Because, why would I ever invite someone into my house so they can push me out of it and potentially kill me for good?
Why?
For sex or other companionship, you say? Well, given the golem rules, I'm about to get really, really good at biology, chemistry, all aspects of physiology, and psychology. Then I'll make a room out of the basic elemental building blocks of the human body and start making golems my lizard brain will think are good members of my "in group", so I can be a little saner as a chimp. They'll have better bodies (won't even need a digestive system at all or a brain, for example) but they'll need to look mostly like humans to be long-term psychological stabilizers.
But until then, well, I've still got the internet, radio, live video conferences, and every sex toy ever invented at my disposal to trick those primitive urges for socialization and sex.
After I become an expert at human bodies (robotics is still a disappointing waste of time) then the only question is, fully sentient companions or mobile sextoys? Depends on if that line means they always have a lifespan of a year or not. I'm not comfortable (yet) killing sentient beings in that way. Though that might change if I was removed sufficiently from the rest of the universe. Which I would. Because I'd never leave the building.
I'm thinking I don't want to ever make anything capable of pushing me outside, but I could simply make door-blocking golems that never, ever, ever let me outside. They look a lot like bank vault doors, except fewer handles. To open them, I'd have to intentionally make door-blocking-golem removing golems. Which I would never, ever do. Certainly not without make-me-not-fit-through-doors golems strapped to me first.
But they would be dumb robots made out of building materials. Only moral to make people (and if sentient, they would be people) who wouldn't mind never having friends over or ever being able to leave. Because I won't let them back in again, and they'll die in a year. And they'd need to be able to learn to like living forever. Because I'm not making things that want to die. That's stilly.
Oh right. And start funding archologies in the outer world, so I can make things larger than the Boeing Everett Factory is wide, and the Burj Khalifa is tall. Yes, I'm that greedy.
Nakama
If you make it to 13, I think it is fair to say you are trapped in a Banksian digital hell, a very subtle and insidious one. Because at that point, you now know how fucked up the world really is. As an infant. The moment you become "you", which might be as a cluster of neurons, because you are obviuosly not running your brain on matter. Or maybe three years later. Who knows. doesn't matter. You know everyone you ever cared for is gone, based on the pattern, and gone likely forever. Fuck your lives. And it doesn't even say you understand the rules. So this is all just dumped on you. Bogus.
That's even if you don't remember your former lives until #13. That isn't clear from the poorly worded rules. As others have pointed out, #13 is you being insane. Sooner if you remember every past life, every time. Maybe it is a happy kind of crazy, but you are not going to be well.
But seriously now? Why would you ever reach #13? Or even #4? If physical immortality isn't perfected in 12 human lifespans from now (remember reincarnation, not some peggy-sue resets) even assuming they don't keep getting longer, humanity is likely royally fucked anyway. #13 would just be me assuming the universe is actively malevolent, and me trying to fuck it over as hard as I could, however I could.
Because I'd be insane, but likely happy to take the entire universe down with me. Remember, I don't know that I'm not just Groundhog Daying from that point on, as I have no view of the rules of this process, just #13's memories of boringly happy lives, and of what was lost. Yeah. I'd be pissed.
Dominion
So, is this nothing has changed, except for getting easier for me every time I tell someone what to do? A sort of "super-Lelouch?"
Or I am doomed to rule over Earth instead of doing what I want; and if I drop the ball, people will be pissed as they naturally would? Which means, INSTANTLY and likely fatally. Who needs 12 immortal rebels out for my blood? The second the Middle East can get an assassin at me, I'm dead. Because their problems are suddenly my fault, right? I'm not invincible, just unaging.
This one's definition and ruleset sucks. Does everyone know who I am overnight? Can I rule from secret, meeting with world leaders who all secretly acknowledge my authority? Do the 12
evil exesrebel scum also acknowledge my right to rule, per item #1? Do they simply always assume the worst and pick at the edges? Are they immune to my commands? If I say, 'no one is allowed to try and kill me', will they accept that? If I order the world to never undermine my rule, do they have to obey, thus making themselves useless? What, exactly, IS my power over others?Disappointing. At best, it is simply RL++, which means I likely simply ignore the authority powers as soon as I discover the "people expect me to rule well" part. After that, I go about my business in obscurity while living forever.
Sooner or later, that McDonalds I accidentally took Dominion over will go out of business, and my rule will fall into the shadows of history, as will I.
Worst case, it is an inevitable death sentence, as those 12 people are not constrained as to how to take me out. Nor is anyone else.
Final note: Why does the skills thing matter, if everyone follows my rule? So stupid.
u/Bowbreaker [+2] Solitary Locust (a day later)
Why does the skills thing matter, if everyone follows my rule?
My guess is that is included so you can make better informed decisions, if you're into being an actually competent ruler that is.
u/TimeLoopedPowerGamer [+2] Utopian Smut Peddler (a day later)
I can see it, but I'm still not sure why it matters. I just order someone already competent to make the correct decision. Wouldn't the ability to tell who was right for a job be more logical, compared to the others? Super-management powers, or something.
It just seems like extra frosting instead of substance. All of them get a specific bonus skill or ability related to the seed, except for that one.
u/eaglejarl [+1] (a day later)
You can do both: have competent people make the choices, but also become expert at everything for yourself. Who wouldn't want to be a brilliant musician / mathematician / engineer / programmer / painter / linguist / artist .... ?
u/TimeLoopedPowerGamer [+1] Utopian Smut Peddler (a day later)
But I'm rational and unaging. That was going to happen anyway. And my wants don't drive this adventure's description, so my wants (as in reality) are irrelivent. That's why I say some other ability would make more sense.
u/mhd-hbd [+1] Writes 'The World is Your Oyster, The Universe is Your Namesake' (2 days later)
Why limit yourself to the Boeing factory? Try particle accelerators on for size.
u/TimeLoopedPowerGamer [+1] Utopian Smut Peddler (2 days later)
Eh, their internal diameter is not impressive. Though I see the point.
u/FreelanceJake [+1] (13 hours later)
The Road Eternal: Well, I suppose that I could just brute-force the parallel universes until I meet someone who can take the drawbacks off of my magic items. Plus, the idea of "moving onward" is ill-defined enough that I might get away with moving between as few as two locations. I could have a family, or at least a long-term lover, without engaging the "settling down" rule.
Fisher King: Too easy, if "any drink I desire" includes drinks that don't exist, or if "any technology or object that exists" includes any that alien civilizations could potentially have invented. Alternatively, I could just spend my time making golems and having them build my house downwards, until I've basically hollowed out the upper crust- I do have time, after all. I can then sell extravagantly rare beverages from my house with warnings that they'll fade away in a week's time, and channel the money into cryonics research, bringing better technology into existence and magicking it into my house in ridiculous amounts. Then I could send golems out to invite everyone on the planet to come freeze themselves in my house and give me a few thousand years with all the technology on the planet to solve humanity's problems.
Nakama: I've... got nothing. Looks like a fairly cut and dry destiny. I suppose I could send myself a message, assuming I'm being reincarnated in a linear order, but there wouldn't be much to say unless we assume that there's inherently some way to bring these people back to life. If I were successful I could spend 12 lives studying with my friends on how to do that, or else try to end death HPMOR-style, but even with 84 iterations of sets of eyes, I'm not sure we'd crack that in time. Or we could take the easy route again and say that my pet is a species that doesn't exist but which can bring back the dead or break reincarnation limits or anything else of that sort.
Dominion: I'm aware that I'm basically giving the same response to all of these, but does "having a natural grasp for everything I attempt" include things that haven't been attempted before, or things that aren't actually possible? Could I, say, do really well at reading a book by flipping its pages really fast, or making things explode when I chant vaguely ominous words, or making people trip by staring at them really hard? If I have an entire world worth of people under my command, then I could just radically decentralize everything to keep those twelve nemeses permanently unable to rebel- instating Discordianism as a global religion, burning the DIY ethic into everyone's minds, et cetera- but I'd also like to turn those resources towards the sciences, if at all possible- preferably space travel. If humanity's spread amongst the stars, or even just among the solar system, things are suddenly much more secure for me.
u/Bowbreaker [+2] Solitary Locust (13 hours later)
I can then sell extravagantly rare beverages from my house with warnings that they'll fade away in a week's time
Nope. Everything created by the house (other than golems) disintegrates immediately upon leaving the premises. Then again the afformentioned golems are your best moneymakers/world conquering tools anyway.
u/FreelanceJake [+1] (13 hours later)
Oh. Sorry, misread that.
u/RandomDamage [+1] (14 hours later)
What about information?
u/Bowbreaker [+1] Solitary Locust (14 hours later)
Is fine I think? Not specified at least.
u/gameboy17 [+1] Canterlot Campaign (19 hours later)
Just make beer golems. They'll last a whole year.
u/gameboy17 [+1] Canterlot Campaign (19 hours later)
Fisher King: I create microscopic golems that build microscopic structures extending in every direction, including down and later up, increasing the size of my house to a ridiculous degree. The golems have to be large enough to see, but they don't necessarily have to be large enough to see with the naked eye. By stretching the definition of 'you', I can leave the house while remaining inside it with the use of clones. This leaves me free to leave the house for any length of time and still respawn even if killed outside the house. When both cloning and time travel are invented, I share this technology with my past self, allowing me to do this even before such technology would otherwise exist. If this proves nonviable for any reason, I can simply create golems that are perfect physical duplicates of myself, hook them up to be remote-controlled by my brain, and use those when I want to go outside. Since the house can generate any material, I can produce infinite energy by creating and harnessing antimatter. This will also allow me to indefinitely prevent the heat death of the universe. Eventually, the human race can be moved entirely inside my house, and prosper indefinitely within. Once this happens, I will effectively be a god.
u/Bowbreaker [+2] Solitary Locust (22 hours later)
By stretching the definition of 'you'
What allows you to do that? That would be like saying you and your twin are the same person.
This leaves me free to leave the house for any length of time and still respawn even if killed outside the house.
Disregarding the above, you being killed outside while also being inside (i.e. the clone was inside at the time) does not constitute you being killed inside insofar I understand the English language. You are alive inside by your definition of you. Can't both have the cake and eat it too.
When both cloning and time travel are invented
If both cloning and time travel are invented. The first is very probable but I wouldn't be so sure about time travel. The fact that there aren't any time travelers walking out and about would be one indication against it.
I can simply create golems that are perfect physical duplicates of myself
Only if you perfectly understand your own body. Human bodies are pretty damn complicated.
hook them up to be remote-controlled by my brain
I didn't know that remote human/golem mind-interfaces were existing technology.
Since the house can generate any material
It can contain any object that exists. It can only create food at will. Also, I don't know if safe anti-matter isolators are existing objects.
The rest seems doable.
u/Igigigif [+1] IT Foxgirl (2 days later)
Fisher King:
- Plant house on a detached piece of rock
- Create thruster with house powers and enter orbit
- Use house powers to create a space elevator 3.1- in the interests of remaining alive when inviting other into the house, build airlocks set to vaporize their contents via plasma furnace and explosives unless you give a password
- Expand house
- Move humanity to House or Move earth into house
- Propel house to a region of empty space
u/mhd-hbd [+1] Writes 'The World is Your Oyster, The Universe is Your Namesake' (2 days later)
The Road Eternal: Become an astronaut.
Dominion: Make your twelve nemeses involuntary astronauts.
Fisher King: Large structures created by man: Great Wall, Burj Dubai, LHC tunnel. I'll live.
u/EliezerYudkowsky [+1] Godric Gryffindor (3 days later)
Fisher King: Hyperbolic Time Chamber. FAI research.
u/SoundLogic2236 [+1] (4 days later)
What level of gift would you need to NOT do FAI research (Besides a working FAI)?
u/Muskwalker [+1] (3 days later)
Fisher King:
They can be made in any shape or material, but cannot be more complicated than you can understand
"Okay, but I don't have a lot of mechanical knowledge, so these are going to be mostly inert lumps..."
They will obey any commands you give them
"All right, so... because I explicitly can't create a golem more complicated than I can understand, you're telling me I understand how to make inanimate matter respond productively to voice commands? How about I use this ability on something outside the house that won't decay after a year?"
sentient if you choose
"All right, so... because I explicitly can't create a golem more complicated than I can understand, you're telling me I understand how sentience works and how to bestow it on inanimate matter? How about I use this ability on something outside the house that won't decay after a year?"
Can I make the house of a size and shape that it could function as a suit of power armor? Certainly it can't be moved from where it's planted, but perhaps I can find a way to plant it on my person. If the house were wearable and I had mobility this would be considerably reduce the disadvantages.
u/Charlie___ [+1] (13 hours later)
Nakama: Is there some way to force your magic to give you technological breakthroughs? There are two reasonable options here - the promise that you will reunite with your friends, and the promise that your pet will live as long as you.
So what if you put your pet in a machine that would kill it unless an attached computer randomly generated a better AIDS vaccine? To be extra safe, do this before reuniting with all your friends. Or what if hired accomplices detained you from meeting your friends pending some key breakthroughs in regenerative medicine?