Three Wishes

[Rawne1980]

A junior manager, a senior manager and their boss are on their way to a meeting. On their way through a park, they come across a wonder lamp.They rub the lamp and a ghost appears.

The ghost says : "Normally, one is granted three wishes but as you are three, I will allow one wish each"

So the eager senior manager shouted : "I want the first wish. I want to be in the Bahamas , on a fast boat and have no worries." Pfufffff, and he was gone.

Now the junior manager could not keep quiet and shouted : "I want to be in Florida with beautiful girls, plenty of food and cocktails." Pfufffff, and he was also gone.

The boss calmly said : "I want these two idiots back in the office after lunch at 12.35pm ."

 

[OutcastBOS]

I'm not sure exactly what I would wish for, but I'd make sure to make it as clear and exact as possible, to avoid the asshole literal genie described before, ala Calypso.

 

[RaNDM G]

Penn & Teller actually covered this in How to Play in Traffic. This one is a twist on that.

1. "I wish that from now on, you must grant any wish I make, regardless of whatever laws you follow."

2. "I wish for the correct phrasing of infinite wishes in a way that will not cause harmful repercussions."

3. [small](see step 2)[/small]

It's a foolproof system. The most important thing to worry about is remembering it.

 

[Rowan93]

1: I wish for a vacant Cybran ACU (from Supreme Commander) to appear outside my house, on empty land, without producing the explosion it usually makes when it teleports into an area, for it to be biometrically locked to me and have the complete instructional manual in the cockpit, and for there to be a securely attached rope ladder strong enough to support several times my weight and correctly proportioned for a human to climb positioned so that it allows access to the cockpit from the ground.

2: I wish for half a dozen people around the world to get fictional robots of their own (e.g. an Evangelion, a 40k Titan, a Gundam...) having wished for them in more mundane circumstances (wishing upon a star, for instance), so that the government can group us together to fight an alien invasion, and suddenly everyone's up to their ears in super robot tropes.

I'd detail that wish a lot more when actually making it - specifying the personalities of the people, specifying the mecha and fixing individual details for each, specifying a lot of things about the aliens and their invasion plans, listing specific tropes I want to see, and naming some changes to the laws of physics to make the universe more in-genre. It might be too many things in one thing to count as one wish, but it's worth trying.

3: Assuming wish 2 can actually be granted, my third wish is for selective amnesia so I no longer remember making my wishes, meeting the genie, or moments like this one right now when I've thought about making these wishes (times I've thought about what I'd wish for but not considered this possibility would stay in my memory).

That way, the adventure is more fun, and I don't feel guilty about wishing the evil aliens into being, and there's no existential thing about the friends I make being people I just wished into being.

 

[Rowan93]

This one is a twist on Penn & Teller's strategy.

1. "I wish that from now on, you must grant any wish I make, regardless of whatever laws you follow."

2. "I wish for the correct phrasing of infinite wishes in a way that will not cause harmful repercussions."

3. [small](see step 2)[/small]

It's a foolproof system. The most important thing to worry about is remembering it.

Whatever laws prevent you from making a wish for unlimited wishes will also prevent you from making the first wish.

 

[RaNDM G]

Whatever laws prevent you from making a wish for unlimited wishes will also prevent you from making the first wish.

Actually no. It was specifically stated in the wish that all wishes must be granted regardless of whether it is against the rules. If there is no special condition that keeps me from wishing that wish, it counts as a wish. Whether or not that lands me in trouble is a different story.

If there is a condition, worse case scenario I still end up with at least two wishes. It's worth asking even if it cannot be granted.

 

[Sansha]

After making absolutely sure that the genie will grant my wishes as I intend them and won't twist them into some horrible interpretation,

1. To remain at the pinnacle of mental and physical health and fitness for eternity. This means no aging, no illness, no injury or death.

2. To make my superhero persona reality - to be able to take 'shadowform' and sprout wings at will, become virtually weightless, fly stupidly fast and fit through any non-airtight space. Think Raven meets Iron Man meets Shadow Priest from WoW.

3. For to be granted my first wish, except without mental fitness.

Protip for everyone: don't wish for money, that's a waste. Wish for the ability to make tons of money ad infinitum, something that's really fun and awesome.

 

[Rowan93]

Whatever laws prevent you from making a wish for unlimited wishes will also prevent you from making the first wish.

Actually no. It was specifically stated in the wish that all wishes must be granted regardless of whether it is against the rules. If there is no special condition that keeps me from wishing that wish, it counts as a wish. Whether or not that lands me in trouble is a different story.

If there is a condition, worse case scenario I still end up with at least two wishes. It's worth asking even if it cannot be granted.

The wish can't change the rules. Otherwise, the rules wouldn't be there anyway. If the genie has to obey them because of some authority, obviously the wishes he can grant aren't powerful enough to make that authority go away, because the wish is just him doing magic when you tell him to.

And if they're just principles he follows, principles don't have loopholes and you're not getting unlimited wishes.

Still, yeah, you're right, worst is that it doesn't get granted. Well, or the genie says "wish granted", but actually can't comply and is still bound by the rules. Or he decides you're being greedy and turns you into a newt.

But come to think of it, the OP didn't say anything about unlimited wishes, so you can just go for it right off the bat, and my post was irrelevant.

 

[Scarim Coral]

1 Have the genie mindset match to my (sure it's a waste but you never know if the genie will twist your wish).
2 Fine true love.
3 Make my dreams come true.

 

[Souleks]

1. All wishes I make can not be twisted in anyway to do anything but what I intend.
(yeah, I read this thread I see what your doing here.)
2. I wish to win lottery. (All my problems I could pretty much solve from there)
3. Give us a third season of Haruhi Suzumiya already dammit.(Come on Blizz what you doing?!)

Edit:
Actually for the fun of the thread I wish for
1.World Peace
2.A million Dollars
3.The Genie as my eternal slave.

 

[Vuliev]

1) My wishes cannot be misconstrued in any way, and must be taken only at their literal value.
2) The power to grant my own (or anyone else's) wishes, with none of the restraints that the genie faces.
3) Free the genie, because hey, I need competition after wish #2, right?

 

[Xaio30]

That all now and future people around the world used common sense, logic and pacifism.

 

[Rowan93]

1) My wishes cannot be misconstrued in any way, and must be taken only at their literal value.
2) The power to grant my own (or anyone else's) wishes, with none of the restraints that the genie faces.
3) Free the genie, because hey, I need competition after wish #2, right?

Taking wishes at face value is the "standard" way for a genie to screw you over.

Maybe one of the restraints the genie faces is his own will - he doesn't want to grant you infinite wishes because of ethical principles, for instance - and dropping those restraints for yourself makes you mindless, granting any wishes you or anyone nearby even thinks about. Hello, Azathoth!

See, what you want is for them to be taken as what you meant, not what you said.

 

[Rowan93]

That all now and future people around the world used common sense, logic and pacifism.

Granted. We develop advanced technology, contact alien civilizations, and get massacred by the arachnoid empire who then steal our advanced technology and wipe out half of the galaxy.

 

[Vuliev]

1) My wishes cannot be misconstrued in any way, and must be taken only at their literal value.
2) The power to grant my own (or anyone else's) wishes, with none of the restraints that the genie faces.
3) Free the genie, because hey, I need competition after wish #2, right?

Taking wishes at face value is the "standard" way for a genie to screw you over.

Maybe one of the restraints the genie faces is his own will - he doesn't want to grant you infinite wishes because of ethical principles, for instance - and dropping those restraints for yourself makes you mindless, granting any wishes you or anyone nearby even thinks about. Hello, Azathoth!

See, what you want is for them to be taken as what you meant, not what you said.

Oh, well, I guess I was trying to go with the "what I meant not what I said thing" when I said that the genie couldn't misconstrue them and do the whole "haha I gave you something bad lolololol."

Also, I suppose I'd only need to add a qualifier to wish #2: "the power to consciously grant wishes" yada yada yada. There, now I'm not Azathoth.

 

[Flamezdudes]

1) Unlimited money to use in my bank.

2) That I could be a way more intelligent.

3) That I could be immortal, the conditions are that I cannot age, be physically harmed, be affected by any diseases or go mad. I also can command myself to die when I finally want to.

Fuck world peace. because you know what? Wishing for it from a genie would restrict our free will and intelligence. Conflicts also cause advancement.

 

[aegix drakan_v1legacy]

Teehee this is fun. My turn:


1) Die horribly in atomic fire

2) A Nuclear Holocaust that ends humanity

3) Render my first two wishes void.

Come at me bro

CHALLENGE ACCEPTED.

You and the rest of humanity dies in a series of nuke strikes that kills the entire world.

You and the rest of humanity are brought back to life.

You and the rest of humanity die very quickly due to intense fallout left over from the blast. Or starvation if you're lucky.

Rocks fall everyone dies.

 

[Xaio30]

That all now and future people around the world used common sense, logic and pacifism.

Granted. We develop advanced technology, contact alien civilizations, and get massacred by the arachnoid empire who then steal our advanced technology and wipe out half of the galaxy.

Tst tsk. You forget the Peace Rays we'll develop instead of destructive weapons. Imagine the world's weapon budget focused on creating peace wherever we go. We'd also have the best shields possible if we were to go deeper into space.

 

[Rowan93]

That all now and future people around the world used common sense, logic and pacifism.

Granted. We develop advanced technology, contact alien civilizations, and get massacred by the arachnoid empire who then steal our advanced technology and wipe out half of the galaxy.

Tst tsk. You forget the Peace Rays we'll develop instead of destructive weapons. Imagine the world's weapon budget focused on creating peace wherever we go. We'd also have the best shields possible if we were to go deeper into space.

But that's not something that common sense and logic gives you. We'd just have boring, practical technology.

For peace rays and energy shields, you need a humanity that does crazy shit, with no respect for logic or common sense. Seriously, why would you want to handicap humanity like this?

 

[Xaio30]

That all now and future people around the world used common sense, logic and pacifism.

Granted. We develop advanced technology, contact alien civilizations, and get massacred by the arachnoid empire who then steal our advanced technology and wipe out half of the galaxy.

Tst tsk. You forget the Peace Rays we'll develop instead of destructive weapons. Imagine the world's weapon budget focused on creating peace wherever we go. We'd also have the best shields possible if we were to go deeper into space.

But that's not something that common sense and logic gives you. We'd just have boring, practical technology.

For peace rays and energy shields, you need a humanity that does crazy shit, with no respect for logic or common sense. Seriously, why would you want to handicap humanity like this?

That does not make any sense. What would make sense is to protect humanity when searching for other advanced lifeforms in outer space. Not wanting to die makes perfect sense.