The genie grants you one wish...

[Speck Tater]

I was thinking about the late great Tony Randall and recalling his classic movie The Brass Bottle (with Burl Ives as the genie). Remembering what a mess resulted from his wishes I pondered what I might wish for if I got one wish from the genie in the brass bottle.

Here's what I came up with.

Universal perfect empathy. Every member of the human race would henceforth feel the effects, positive and negative of the consequences of his or her actions. If you make someone happy you will feel her happiness. If you hurt someone else, you will feel his pain. If you take a life you will feel all the grief of all of those who loved and were loved by your victim.

If you love someone you will feel the effects of that love. If you comfort someone you will feel that comfort as well. But if you kick your dog you will feel his pain. If you feed the hungry you will feel their gratitude. If you allow a child to starve, you will feel her pain.

I figure with that one minor alteration in human nature all the other problems of the world will pretty much take care of themselves.

What would you wish for?

[brokensymmetry]

1. Heh, heh.

The permanent and irrevocable ability to quickly, easily, and efficiently edit all elements of reality throughout all dimensions including, but not limited to, space and time.

How's that? :)

[Speck Tater]

5. Ahhh.

In other words, you want God's username and password.

But that doesn't do a lot of good if you don't know how to use the system-level commands. Better wish for a reality users manual to go along with that.

On the evidence, our universe was created not by a divine being, but by a physicist hacker.

[Kenneth ken]

2. well,

I was gonna be selfsih, but after reading your post, I think I'll just wish for the genie to visit you. :)

[DustMolecule]

3. Well, THAT's a very cool thought you have .....

If you love someone you will feel the effects of that love. If you comfort someone you will feel that comfort as well. But if you kick your dog you will feel his pain. If you feed the hungry you will feel their gratitude. If you allow a child to starve, you will feel her pain.

There's only one problem with it. It would still be rooted in 'self-interest'. (i.e., I won't do such-and-such because it will cause ME pain/suffering.) There's the higher thought that "even though it may cause me 'pain/suffering/discomfort'...I'm gonna do it anyway b/c it's the 'right' thing to do. I love my fellow man more than I love my own self-interest."

[Speck Tater]

4. Hmmm

Interesting points.

One the practical level, the human race is in such a mess right now that maybe harnessing self-interest to a worthy purpose is the best we can hope for while we wait to evolve further.

[DustMolecule]

8. We were already 'there'...

...we have 'dis-evolved' in our ways and our thinking.

Harnessing 'self-interest' to a worthy purpose is just plain b*llshit (that most people will believe - because it's EASY). It doesn't/won't work!! That's the kind of thinking that gets us into QUAGMIRE's like the Iraq debacle.

[Hemprus]

6. I like the imagination it take to think that one up,

but I'm going to try another one. Since I come from a background with no family, I think I would wish for eternal youth. I know people will say that you would be really bored after a few centuries, but I think it would be an awesome adventure. I could watch my kids grow up and their kids and their kids. With all of those years of wisdom gain, I could stop each generation from making mistake of the past. I know there is also the effects of watching your loved ones die. That would be my sacrifice to gain the knowledge to make each one of my ensuing generation excel in life and be able to instill the wisdom I would gain. My wife would be happy because with the passing years my grammar and vocabulary would increase. Since this is all wishing, I thought this wish would be best for me at this time.:evilgrin:

[DustMolecule]

7. You'd have to be 'careful' with this one.....

...and live up to your stated responsibility of 'always learning' as the years went by. A saying that I heard several years ago that sticks with me went like this:

"Wisdom comes with age, but sometimes age shows up all by itself."

I know I can easily think of some people who would fall into this 'group'.

[moof]

9. Civilization

[LastKnight]

10. i like that idea...

hell, if you cant have people being good cause its the right thing to do, then i guess being good out of fear of pain for themselves is the next best option.


well, for me... i guess i would just ask for something larger than me, i donno what that would be, but as i was formulating this post i had typed out a selfish 'me' wish, but then erased it. i donno, i think you got a pretty good wish.

-LK

[put out]

11. I'm sort of embarrassed to say this, but I would

be able to stop time, at least for 24 hours and do this whenever I needed. And take a long nap. And then another. And get some stuff done, and undo some other stuff.

[7th_Sephiroth]

12. i'd wish for the last

decent member of the bush family (he was a preacher) to have been born infertile

[TrogL]

13. Universal empathy would lead to immobility

You would be afraid to do anything for fear of hurting someone.

You'd be afraid NOT to do anything in case someone was hurt by inaction.

[Don_G]

14. Bearing In Mind That Any Change Has To Come From Within

An UCLA/MIT/Yale/Harvard level of edcuation for every citizen of the US.

We'll still fight---that's human nature---but maybe we can confine our attacks in the fields we know best like science, engineering, law, math, business, therotical physics, medicine, law....