2.1 KiB
Xpost ask reddit - Douchebag Genie
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Author: u/wren42 *
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URL: https://www.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/9kfmtz/youve_been_granted_one_wish_by_the_douchebag/
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Score: 4
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Created: 2018-10-01T18:29:35
Post:
Comments:
u/wren42 [+2] *
I'm sure some of you have seen this, but the OP did a cute job of replying. Any takers?
u/LupoCani [+5] *
It's a common wisdom in these circles that no, regardless of how airtight you think your wording is, you should expect a magical, nearly-all-powerful genie to find a loophole. However, for the purposes of cornering humans acting the part of malicious genies, I'm partial to /u/Quarkeey's rather elaborate contract from about four years ago. I've posted a (attributed and credited) copy to the /r/AskReddit thread in question.
u/wren42 [+3] *
even if granted perfectly, a trillion dollars seems like a poor choice. the first comment has it right - even if you get the money with no strings attached, the impact to the money supply would be terrible. if you can make an airtight contract might as well wish for something more tangible.
u/LupoCani [+1] *
Indeed. When reposting it, I usually change the wish for something more reasonable.
u/causalchain [+2] *
Hypothesis: Any wish can be arbitrarily evil since while a finite set of specific details can be guaranteed by the wish, the wish-granter can take any method to achieve them.
Is it possible to produce what is effectively an infinite set of criteria? An example that comes to mind is: Grant me the wish that will maximise my utility function. This runs into the pitfall that the method used to confirm that outcome (our senses and brain) are easily satisfied with things that weren't our original intent, or worse, were our original intent but had side effects that we now dislike.