19 KiB
You wake up tomorrow morning with the powers of Albus Dumbledore. How much wealth and power can you amass by the end of your very long life?
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Author: u/pizzahotdoglover *
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URL: https://www.reddit.com/r/rational/comments/3q7jqh/you_wake_up_tomorrow_morning_with_the_powers_of/
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Score: 3
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Created: 2015-10-25T23:22:35
Post:
You are the only one with magic powers. Everything else remains as it is right now. Feel free to start a religion but try not to get disected by the government.
Comments:
u/NotAHeroYet [+11] City of Angles Municipal Government (an hour later)
hmm... so i have a large pool of dubious magics, undefined by canon. i have magic enough to be tied for most powerful wizard in combat, and i have transfiguration. presumably, i can cast every spell in canon, or very close. If transfiguration is permanant... use that to launder gold and other, more useful, raw materials. sell them, probably on the black market at first, or other places. eventually, upgrade to making them consistently.
If transfiguration can change one chemical into another, at any time i can cause massive devastation with FOOF or other explosive chemicals, in addition to standard combat techniques, for self defence.
I suspect I'll eventually accidentally commit suicide by chemical accident, but until then... I'll make money by turning something into something else.
Imperio has potential as well, as does aparation, but most techniques aren't that useful, at least not in HP canon. Edited in new ones after a good night's sleep: Cheering charms, now that i think about it, could make a reasonably effective depression-retardant, if they don't create a dependency.
While the limitations on portkeys are unknown, these are fanon ones that sound likely- (portkeys are two way- so i could create a portkey to mars, but i'd need to send it there. portkeys can only go to a destination you can visualize accurately- so portkeys don't work unless there's a highly functional map with excessive detail- how convenient that these things might exist.)
take a career making magical paintings, and paint at least four copies of myself. test for sentience, as well as memory retention. if this is the case, see if i can make magical cameras that make fully functional paintings, capable of interacting with the outside world. (photographs are clearly inferior to paintings in harry potter canon, they cannot talk, to start with. they might pass a turing test anyways, but it needs to be checked.) If not, upload my freinds and family anyways, but wait to upload anyone else, save the most useful- i might have more important things to do then add a few centuries to someone's life, and this isn't immortality- only the lifespan of a very well cared for painting.
u/eaglejarl [+9] (2 hours later)
Renegade!Me: Imperio every important person on earth -- easily accomplished given Disillusionment, Polyjuice, and teleportation.
Paragon!Me: Use Geminio curse to create massive (albeit temporary) numbers of materials / objects for science and money.
u/pizzahotdoglover [+2] (5 hours later)
What would you do once you imperioed them?
u/JackStargazer [+6] Primordial Apologist (6 hours later)
Force cooperation in a game-theoric sense on the world scale. Eliminate sectarian conflict, invest in infrastructure, food production and distribution, basic standard of living for all humans. Eliminate major negative influences such as organized crime, terror groups, or drug cartels, eliminate partisan political whining.
Find some way to increase intelligence. If Wit-Sharpening Potion or Felix Felicis actually works, make a ton of it, distribute to researchers. Force lawmakers to indicate monthly under Veritaserum that they are operating without improper external influence, bribes, or under duress. Failure to do so will result in temporary and then permanent removal of office.
Randomly check those who pass with Legilimency, just in case.
Design new spells: fixed Tranfiguration for example to permanently and safely transform cotton into carbon nanotubes, like the spells to turn glass into steel.
Design a magical item which uses Aguamenti as a combination infinite clean water source/perpetual motion machine by running conjured water over a hydroelectric generator.
Then play it by ear. Hell, if I have Dumbledore's powers, I have Fawkes too. Cure as many incurable patients as possible, triageing for those with useful skills or potential who would otherwise be lost.
u/masterax2000 [+9] Chaos Legion (3 hours later)
Not much, I still dont have a wand.
u/kaukamieli [+4] (10 hours later)
You think he can't do wandless magic?
u/NotAHeroYet [+2] City of Angles Municipal Government (16 hours later)
He can, but wandless magic is less powerful, and harder. A large number of spells could follow conservation of energy subtly, preventing defeating entropy. I don't know that he can do wandless transfiguration or any of the other really useful spells.
u/pizzahotdoglover [+2] (5 hours later)
Hahaha I didn't think of that. Powers include the wand. Phoenix would be useful too
u/Geminii27 [+2] (16 hours later)
Hmm. If you get the inherent magical knowledge as well, I have to wonder if Dumbledore knew enough to be able to construct a wand, even if it wouldn't have been Ollivander-standard. Presumably there's not just one single source of wands in the world.
u/Quillwraith [+2] Red King Consolidated (17 hours later)
They all have cores from a magical being, so unless wizard hair is valid, it's probably a no-go in this scenario.
u/Geminii27 [+3] (17 hours later)
Or whether enough wandless magic could be put together to recreate said magical beings, although that sounds difficult. I wonder if it's possible to create wands with nonmagical cores, even if they're less powerful?
u/None [+5] (16 hours later)
[deleted]
u/Transfuturist [+1] Carthago delenda est. (3 days later)
I have now beaten entropy and heat death.
You don't know that until you understand magic.
u/None [+1] (3 days later)
[deleted]
u/Transfuturist [+2] Carthago delenda est. (3 days later)
there's no evidence for that in canon, its never mentioned.
That doesn't mean that the energy comes from nowhere. To say you've "solved" heat death, you would have to prove that in-universe. It doesn't even matter what canon says, because you don't know that J.K. Rowling's stories are the consistent canon that perfectly describes this hypothetical world. J.K. Rowling's stories are neither obviously consistent nor perfectly precise as descriptions of a world. The point of HPMOR is that you have to do science to magic because what is real is not always apparent.
Relying on appearance and intuition to say things like "objects move on their own," "the only cost of magic is concentration," "Reparo reverses object-local time," "this fire burns forever, even though we have not tested that assertion and can't," "mass-energy is not universally conserved when transfiguring, conjuring, vanishing, replicating, shrinking, growing, etc.": all of these hypotheses are entirely reliant on that which is apparent being the only fact of the matter.
The observations you're claiming as evidence are still consistent with a world where conservation of mass-energy and the second law of thermodynamics hold true, and there's no evidence for those principles being violated in canon. You cannot say that magic simply "fixes entropy" in the space of canon-consistent worlds. You can already disregard entropy as a problem without resorting to rejecting it without justification.
u/None [+2] (4 days later)
I agree with you its possible HP canon is a world where actually thermodynamics is followed. It's just so much more parsimonious to assume that what we see in canon is actually what's happening.
I can't prove HP magic overcomes entropy-- I can say pretty categorically that the magic in Harry Potter gives every appearance of disregarding physics as we know it entirely.
Why should we posit complicated hypotheses to explain the apparent violation of thermodynamics in canon as really just an elaborate technology when we can go with the perfectly reasonable explanation of "Physics as we know it in our universe is subordinate to magic in HP's universe. "
Well HPMOR suffers from the flaw that it makes Harry the only real scientist in Harry Potter world, which doesn't gel with canon. In-canon, there is an active academic community making advances in magic-- there's at least one magical scholarly journal we know of, "Transfiguration Today", that presumably is constantly advancing the field.
So I'm not sure why you're bringing it up as if it proves anything. In canon, Harry isn't interested in the academic side of magic-- so we don't see it. We do see obvious hints of a world where magic is constantly being advanced, hinting at some sort of scientific community.
u/Transfuturist [+1] Carthago delenda est. (4 days later)
Why should we posit complicated hypotheses to explain the apparent violation of thermodynamics in canon as really just an elaborate technology when we can go with the perfectly reasonable explanation of "Physics as we know it in our universe is subordinate to magic in HP's universe. "
By what metric are you comparing them? I guarantee you it isn't math. Saying that physics is subordinate is faux simplicity; you're using associative intuition to hide the actual complexity of the hypothesis. We have two very elegant descriptions of reality in comparison, and many hypotheses that are well-supported even outside those theories, like the second law of thermodynamics and conservation of mass-energy. A world of magic does not "supersede" some "natural order," because a world of magic has magic written into its physics. Magic is natural. The unifying theory has to account for magic, and it has to account for the petabytes of physical data we've gathered.
Apparent deviations from things like the second law of thermodynamics have to be explained, because without magic (and there's no way to know if the observations were actually performed without magic without developing a theory of magic!), we have observed massive amounts of evidence for a specific set of world-states, and somehow no data for this massive expansion of configuration space, and it is very important that we ascertain that magic "reverses entropy," or whatever crap you're assuming in your OP. You cannot simply say that magic disregards all of that data; you have to verify it. Even if you as a worldbuilder wave your wand of Authorial Fiat over the setting, you as a character do not know it to be a fact, even if you assume it in the unjustified way you're claiming is justified.
What we see in canon is actually what's happening.
Tautologically. That doesn't mean that all that is happening is seen.
And if you're bringing up academia in Harry Potter, might I point out that you can't actually conjure permanent objects or transfigure food? There is evidence in canon for magic's non-world-breaking properties!
u/TimTravel [+3] (9 hours later)
Luck Potion
Decide further actions based on dice roll
u/Sceptically [+3] (14 hours later)
Only if you also have Dumbledore's access to reference materials and reagents. Power means little without the knowledge of how to use it effectively and the means to direct it appropriately, and to make a luck potion from memory would require the use of a luck potion.
u/captainNematode [+3] (17 hours later)
Assuming this is canon Dumbledore.
Step 1. Amass a moderately large amount of wealth via conventional means (transfigure or Geminio rare materials, use Reparo to mend expensive machines, use the luck potion for anything money related, generate energy in any of a bajillion ways, such as through the use of reducio and engorgio, heal otherwise incurable injuries or diseases, scry for lost treasure or mineral deposits or whatever, become a celebrity).
Step 2. Bribe Rowling to change canon to include an "infinite wealth" spell.
u/TK17Studios [+1] Author of r!Animorphs: The Reckoning (4 days later)
+1 for Step 2.
u/DCarrier [+2] (8 hours later)
I don't want to die, so I'd presumably just lose my body and be a ghost. If I live that long, and given what I'd manage to do near the beginning, I'm pretty sure I can take over a good chunk of the visible universe.
u/protagnostic [+2] (a day later)
I'm gonna go with "all of it".
u/Jinoc [+2] (a day later)
Honestly, I'd probably start with using polymorphic magic of whatever kind, as well as transfiguration (stuff to platinum should get a bit of money, though there are much better ways), to fulfill pretty much every hedonistic desire I have. Shouldn't take too long.
After that, try to nudge policy in a low-conflict direction, basically. Eliminate nuclear weapon stockpiles (not in a widely advertised manner) in the hands of regimes I don't trust (i.e. pretty much every non-western ones). Get Putin to self-destruct, just in case. Possibly create a mass hallucination in two or three ISIS locations to get them to radically alter their religious beliefs towards more peaceful ends.
After that, it's nudging different government to a) get increased funding for AI research and b) pass a few legislations I like.
And once that's done, basically back to hedonism. I can get everything I want with a flick of my finger, life isn't hard.
u/None [+2] (2 days later)
##ACCIO WEALTH.
Done. I'm Dumbledore.
u/None [+4] (58 minutes later)
[deleted]
u/NotAHeroYet [+2] City of Angles Municipal Government (3 hours later)
How? elaborate, please?
u/Nevereatcars [+4] The Greatest Is Behind (3 hours later)
The answer to this question is honestly... magic.
u/rineSample [+1] (3 hours later)
Well, for the first one, a Portkey.
Stopping climate change is, again, dependent upon finding the right spell, but I imagine that there are other spells out there which are "magic amplification" spells, or at least something which would allow me to industrialize a process to stop climate change. After that, it's just the act of applying it safely.
As for magical computing, I'm the only one with magic in the entire world. I don't know how it works; nobody does. I imagine I would have to make a base magical language, then a debugger/compiler, then a "Hello World" just to be sure, then we would all have to take several months with the best of the world's AI programmers to create a functional FAI, and at this point I would basically be treated as a magical version of VS or Eclipse, since I'm the only way to communicate with (and program in) the language (By the way, this is assuming there's no Creatus FriendlyAIus spell which lets you modify it). As for mind uploading, it's more or less the same issues.
u/Nevereatcars [+2] The Greatest Is Behind (9 hours later)
Several... months.
To analyze, utilize, and optimize newly-discovered magic to create a FAI.
u/rineSample [+3] (11 hours later)
Well, okay, what's your guess?
u/NotAHeroYet [+6] City of Angles Municipal Government (16 hours later)
Mine is several decades. You're overestimating magic- in potency, flexibility or simplicity, i'm not sure which. As you only have one person who can perform the experiments, or use it, and no one has accidentaly built a growing inteligence in canon or hpmor, it's not easy. I mean, I'd think a dark wizard wouldn't hesitate to use inteligence boosting spells, or duplicate themselves into a portrait or something similar. despite the number of mind-uploads (pictures are sentient in canon, if incapable of proper memory.), there are no above-human AI in canon. It might work anyways, but i think it'd be at least measured in units of years not months.
u/rdalex [+4] (9 hours later)
Amassing wealth and power? Are you kidding? Magic can get you those, but managing them, that's waaaaay too much work. As demonstrated by Dumbledore himself, in fact.
As the only one with reality-bending stuff, I 1) become immortal, 2) stay under the radar and 3) concentrate on a solution to the "hey, this guy looks exactly like his long line of ancestors" classic problem.
u/Geminii27 [+3] (16 hours later)
That's why you have field-effect spells cast on national, economic, and military capitals which constantly nudge all the people in them towards supporting, maintaining, implementing, or at the very least not acting against your long-term goals.
(Or create a telepathically-spread and magically boosted memetic virus which does the same.)
While there might still be a significant spread of individual personalities and thoughts, on average the world will be more likely to do things you want done.
u/rdalex [+3] (21 hours later)
Unless it's basically like making a wish (supply a more or less well-formed thought, no effort to cast, no effort to maintain, no time limit), such AoE spells still sound like a way too much work to develop, set up, cast and maintain. Not to mention that you'll condemn yourself to a lifetime of fighting against humanity's inherent stupidity, and let's be honest here, if you're doing it you've already lost.
I guess you could cheat and continually tweak the global population's minds, with whatever self-sustaining method you can think of, but frankly I'd like to think that even with near-omnipotence I'd still retain some measure of moral integrity. As my current position is that my self is defined by my thinking patterns fed by my memories, the very concept of manipulating people's minds in the shadows is abhorrent.
So to summarize, I'd be too lazy to set up such a worldwide affront to my sensibilities.
(Sometimes I wonder what I would do in a supervillain's shoes, and then I realize that I'd probably stay at home with a good book, and the story would be over in two pages)
u/Nevereatcars [+2] The Greatest Is Behind (9 hours later)
Be one of those fanfiction!Dumbledores that's a metamorphmagus. Then you'd only have two steps.
u/Transfuturist [+1] Carthago delenda est. (3 days later)
Now I kind of want to read a fanfic where Dumbledore is actually being impersonated by a Metamorph. I don't know if they could pass themselves off as Dumbledore without Dumbledore-level amounts of power, but that's exactly the sort of thing I want to see written.
u/Nevereatcars [+2] The Greatest Is Behind (3 days later)
Dumbledore is killed in the Seaside Cave, and the Order of the Phoenix has Tonks impersonate him during Year Seven to keep an edge over Voldemort and make Voldemort more cautious about his war.
AND THEN SHENANIGANS.
u/None [+1] (6 minutes later)
Kill Flamel, take his stuff, live forever.