Skip Navigation

Comic Strips @lemmy.world

EfreetSK @lemmy.world

10mo ago

You have 3 wishes

Source: facebook

Mastodon: @a_smeriglia@mastodon.uno (https://mastodon.uno/@a_smeriglia)

67 comments

Doesn't work, since they are fulfilled sequentially.
Do the opposite of my next wish. -> Fulfilled, he is set to do the opposite next.
Don't fulfill my 3rd wish. -> Fulfilled, the wish does effectively nothing and he's got one left that will be fulfilled. All instructions from the first wish are done with and discarded.
Ignore my first wish. -> Fulfilled, there is nothing left to be ignored about his first wish anymore since it's already done. The wish does nothing and he successfully wasted all 3 by trying to be a smart ass.
- I wonder if genies are subject to numerical integer underflow.
  
  They can be. If you wish for it.
- Also if the genie is a thinking agent or even just capable of detecting an infinite loop this falls apart.
  
  Imagine trying to ward off a genie by yelling: "THIS STATEMENT IS FALSE!"
  
  You are now stuck in an infinite loop with a rabbit and turtle.
- Yup, the genie just did that last bit to make him feel like he actually outsmarted him or something. In reality he's just glad he doesn't have to be around him any more.
  
  I like it, it's a love story, everyone goes home happy.
- I feel like this guy plays mtg
- Weird too, cus you could destroy the universe with 2 or even just 1 wish maybe?.
  2 wishes: Repeat wish 2, repeat wish 1. Universe ends in magical overload.
  1 wish: Don't fulfill this wish. I feel like that's less magical end of the universe and just death of the genie I guess?

First rule: don't fuck with djinn, hags, or fae. Demons maybe, at least you know what they want.
- what?
  
  🤮
- When the demon tries to trip you up by asking for tea and cookies to be left out at night:

Gratz, you played yourself and get no wishes.
- maybe the real you played yourself was the wishes they made along the way

You could have had fame, riches or beauty but instead you chose to be a dick.
- Do you think I asked for a 10 inch pianist?
  
  My smartass genie response would be to summon a severed 10 inch penis in their hands.
- It's for the ~~lulz~~ science!
- If you ask for fame, they make you the FBIs most wanted child abuser.
  If you ask for riches millions of dollars in other people's money is wired into your account, again, fbi most wanted.
  If you ask for bueaty you see your reflection in a lake and can't look away, the lake is at Area 51, you are black bagged and dropped into a 50ft abandoned mine shaft and you survive the fall, there's water pooled at the bottom, you drink it for nearly a weak waiting to die of starvation, a mule deer falls in, you eat it raw for a month even when it's rotting you're too desperate to stop yourself as all this does is prolong your misery waist deep in filth, total darkness, the voices come... you talk to them... they talk back... you fade in and out of consciousness... a light... noise... meaningless.... who is talking.... it means nothing... what is this terrible burning light...

Those aren't wishes, just commands.
- This is also assuming the Genie isn't a spiteful PoS that will just kill the Asker. There's no rule against that.
  
  Yeah, genies typically aren't in the wish-granting business. The only reason why people associate genies with wish-granting is because of the story of Aladdin.
- Ever heard of "your wish is my command?"
  
  Yeah... That presumes you made a wish and not a command.
- And yet... Monkey paw curls

Then on the third wish he just says "nah, that won't work" and you've just burned 2 and confused yourself.

Genies hate computer software developers

Even if any of the three wishes are deemed valid or invalid the net result will be nothing happens, no?

Does everyone not understand this yet? The only winning move with a genie is to not play.
- Wrong, and geniephobic.
- I wish to know the true name of the genie who is granting me wishes.
  I wish [genie's true name] to be freed, mortal and without magical powers, now and henceforth.
  
  You are now trapped in a bottle.
- I think I saw a video once explaining how the only winning move is to make your wish be to let the genie grant you what you desire most.
  Because only the genie as the wish granter has access to all possibilities a wish good grant, but you don't, so your wish could always be misinterpreted, while the genies knowledge cannot be.
  
  You are now dead. Killed by 100 million dollars, in gold, falling onto your head.

Again, from the last time this was reposted, none of these are wishes.
- Why not? If I wish that someone ignores something, that's a valid wish IMO.
  
  Because they never say "wish", they just issue commands.

Wish 1 cancels out wish 2, leaving us with the default state of granting the third wish. The genie grants the third wish by biting his tongue and ignoring how stupid the first wish was.

Wish one, genie give me a copy of your private key for the wish granting API
- Granted, you are now a genie with access to the wish granting API private key. Make all the copies you like.

- XP boot screen 😍

I liked the one from that classic twilight zone episode better wherte the (i believe mathematician) told the genie to "get lost"

That oughta teach him a lesson
- How dare he try to grant my wishes

Genies hate this one trick.

There's often a rule about not wishing about wishing, either directly or indirectly. This rule's not in the story of Aladdin (at least, not Disney's version) because that would prevent what happens with Jafar at the end.
It's also not a rule in Douglas Hofstadter's book Gödel, Escher, Bach..., where Achilles and the Tortoise - characters Hofstadter frequently borrows as protagonists; his Tortoise is sapient and can talk - contrive to wish that a wish not be granted, or something like that.
And if that last paragraph (with its nested asides) gave you a headache, you'll love the book.
- The Genie does say "and ixnay on the wishing for more wishes" after listing the three main rules.

Couldn’t you just use the first two wishes for immortality and omnipotence and then wish the gene into an infinite loop or something?

Genies are magical, omnipotent beings. They are fully capable of existing in a universe with paradoxes. Guess who can't do that? A pasty little nerd that think he is clever.

Ignorance aint always Bliss

67 comments