How to "Make a wish" without consequences

[Icarus]

I was watching a horror movie the other night - "Open Graves". At the end of the movie the winner was granted his wish.

The wish was "I wish we could go back to a week ago before we started playing the game." All his friends who died in the game ended up dead in real life.

Well, being a horror movie, of course there was a twist to how the wish was granted. Sure, they went back in time to a week ago and all his friends were alive, but of course all the events that originally took place up to the wish were now doomed to be repeated.

"Twilight Zone" and other TV shows / movies have also played with this twist to the wish.

I know there aren't any real rules to making wishes, but I think we can establish some accepted guidelines from the movies we have all seen, or the games we have played, etc. The "moral" almost always seems to be "Be careful what you wish for..."

So in that spirit, given that the wish granter is unscrupulous, i.e. your wish will be granted, but watch out for the consequences...

What would you wish for - and how could you prevent the consequences?

Maybe you can post your wish, and others can try to come up with "logical" consequences - see who can come up with the "best" wish without consequences?

[Courk]

World peace would result in anyone working in any military now being jobless

End of hunger could be turned bad in a couple of ways, at least

Money could also have several ways of going bad.

[itisally]

I think in most cases wishes are twisty things because of unintended consequences. I may wish to be independently wealthy, but I would need a qualifier like, without any detriment to myself or others.
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I could agree with you, but then we would both be wrong.

[Antrax]

http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/JackassGenie and its companion article about "Literal Genie" both have a lot of great examples for this.
I've often toyed with the notion of wishing life were fair
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After years of disappointment with get rich quick schemes, I know I'm gonna get rich with this scheme. And quick!

[itisally]

That reminds me of a prayer, "God help me get what i want, God help me if I get what I deserve"

I often remind the kids that fair dosen't mean equal.
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I could agree with you, but then we would both be wrong.

[Icarus]

[Death Mage]

See, my default wish is simply that:

From now until I legally purchase the only winning lottery ticket for over 350 million dollars, there shall be no jackpot winners for the Powerball lottery.

Nobody gets hurt (since odds of winning the lottery are slim anyway), 350 million is a high amount but not a record ($365 million is), since the ticket was legal there's no ramifications of the money being acquired illegally, etc.

My other wishes are exceedingly complex, as in in order to make them, I would have to sit and spend time crafting the exact wording to avoid the genie tropes.

Is it "cheating"? Maybe. But, as bad as lottery odds are, SOMEONE wins them. Would be nice if it were me.
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[groza528]

To be nitpicky (which really is the point here, isn't it?) That wish does not state that you *will* purchase a legal ticket. Just because not X "until" Y does not mean Y. Maybe Powerball will close down entirely. Or maybe it will just never again have another winner, in which case you would actually lose out on the deal because you would be buying tickets that you normally wouldn't have, expecting to win at any time. Granted, not quite the same caliber as the negative consequences could be in other cases.

Also, the clear best way to combat jackass genies is indifference.

[Death Mage]

Hey, that's just the off-the-top-of-my-head wish. And I'd do what I can to make sure I bought a ticket.

The other option is simply to wish for some horrible beast to come and wreck havoc on the world. Only becuase, the genie may be a dick, but that doesn't mean *I* have to care any more than he does.
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[MatthewV]

"If a man could have half his wishes, he would double his troubles"


Anyones, a joke that I like.

So the genie hovers above the man and asks, "So what will your third wish be?"
"Third wish? I thought genies gave three wishes!"
"We do. You just wished for something. Then you wished everything was back the way it was before that wish. And now, what will your third wish be?"
"Hmmm.... Well.... I wish to be irresistible to women!"

"Funny, that was your first wish also."

*Poof*

[Antrax]

[Poisonium]

[quote="Icarus"]

[Zag]

No, because cannibalism would never have gone out of style.

The definition of a disease is a tricky one, too. There are microbes living in our bodies that we need for digestion.

[Sentran]

This is a topic I've thought about a lot. I believe I have a wish that would benefit all of mankind, although it would simultaneously produce a detrimental effect.

"I wish stupidity was painful."
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Sentran
"Speaking of double negatives, I haven't read greylab yet today." - Lifeinmomland

[groza528]

Interesting, but perhaps too subjective. Is refusing an invasive medical treatment stupid? How about carrying a gun?

[Sentran]

I never said my wish was without flaws, but I still think if people felt physical pain when on the verge of stupid decisions, the world would become a better place. For example, after a few too many drinks, a guy decides he's ok to drive home from the bar. Then, on his way to the car, he experiences such mind-searing pain that he is physically incapacitated.
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Sentran
"Speaking of double negatives, I haven't read greylab yet today." - Lifeinmomland

[raekuul]

"I wish everybody had common sense" is a much better wish than something that coerces people into behaving a certain way, from my point of view anyway. The force-behavior wishes prevent people from really learning why something is a bad idea - it would reduce us from being sapient to merely sentient.

[Sentran]

[Poisonium]

"I wish the entirety of humanity will never be wiped out by a supernova explosion."

I think this works.
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I tried apt-get install lifebut it only returned E: Couldn't find package life

[Zag]

[Zag]

[Sentran]

[Death Mage]

The way I see it, true stupidity is when someone SHOULD know better, but doesn't. The "mentally retarded" would probably be the least effected by that definition.
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[Zag]

Yeah, I realize that was what he meant. That gets even harder to determine, however.

It actually comes up in poker. One piece of advice that helps a lot of people if they apply it is: "If you're saying to yourself, as you call, 'I should fold, but...' then fold."

[Thok*]

I wish to be content with the results of my wish.

Alternatively, I wish for somebody to publish a valid proof to an unsolved Clay Math problem to a respected journal in the next five years.

Also, there's a thing called the Open Source Wish project that tries to throw wiki-fu at this problem. I don't know if it's still alive, though.

[Zag]

[raekuul]

I wish that genies had never come into existence.

The fundamental problem with wishing stupidity away is the same fundamental problem with giving a kid a whack on the head with a ruler every time he gets an answer wrong, or says he doesn't know the answer. Animals do what's right by them as a result of the instinct to avoid pain. We do what's right by us because we believe what we're doing to be the right thing - it works for us because we as a species are capable of learning through the consequences that others experience, and not just from our own. It sounds callous, but if we never see the consequences of the action, we never know why it's a bad idea in the first place.

The other problem I have with it is that it forces one person's morality upon everybody, without taking the intermediate step of "is my way really the best way to handle his situation?" For example, if I were to wish pain upon anyone about to violate my own personal code of ethics, then you'd experience blinding pain for smoking a cigarette.

[MatthewV]

But once in awhile, it is nice to give more than you deserve.
I wish for invisible text!
I wish to know what to wish for with my next wish.

[bgg1996]

I wish that I get exactly what I want.
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The one member below 18

[Zag]

[Antrax]

Smoking is unethical?
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After years of disappointment with get rich quick schemes, I know I'm gonna get rich with this scheme. And quick!

[Icarus]

I wonder what would happen if your wish was for the wish granter to be stripped of all their powers?

[bgg1996]

[raekuul]

[Antrax]

Yeah, I get it. I'm trying to figure if you (and Zag) really consider smoking unethical.
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After years of disappointment with get rich quick schemes, I know I'm gonna get rich with this scheme. And quick!

[bgg1996]

[Antrax]

Could you elaborate?
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After years of disappointment with get rich quick schemes, I know I'm gonna get rich with this scheme. And quick!

[MatthewV]

I wish for a perfect right dodecaoctahedron with a volume of 100 cubic inches
and no more invisible text.

[bgg1996]

[Antrax]

It's quite simple, and quite devoid of content. If you define what you mean when you say "random", I'll have a better idea of whether or not I agree with you. Many people would define the result of a coin toss as "random" and you would disagree. This is probably because their "random" means "that which cannot be controlled or predicted by the participants" and yours is probably a variation of "that which cannot be predicted at all". So, please define exactly which definition of "random" you're talking about.
As an aside, I hadn't realized asking you to elaborate meant that I'm asking you to simplify.
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After years of disappointment with get rich quick schemes, I know I'm gonna get rich with this scheme. And quick!