Maybe myself (as an experiment), or the genie about if I should get more wishes or something. Wasting universe-altering magic on convincing one person seems like a waste.
Edit: To be more clear about the self argument:
You can do a lot of funny stuff with logical constructs. If you say “exclusively, [wish] or this statement is false” it’s a paradox unless the wish is true. If I argue with someone else, them misunderstanding could count as a victory, but if I’m on both sides that’s a bit harder. It’s possible I just die or explode or something, but maybe it will actually work, too.
You can get way more sophisticated with that, and probably should if you only get one shot. Godel’s incompleteness theorem is a famous example of that kind of tortured self-reference. Magical evaluation of a single arbitrary statement is just way more OP than it may seem at first.
Well, you may win the argument against the genie, but it doesn’t guarantee that the genie would be granting you more wishes–because maybe they just can’t (the universe itself might not let it or something).
Just like some convenience store clerk agreeing that your coupon should be accepted, but the higher-ups won’t–and she can’t pay for it because she’s got even less money than you do.
Even if there’s a risk of failure, it seems worth it. No one person is very important, and even then the more powerful a person is the less accessible they are. (Since nobody has mentioned it, Xi Jinping probably has the most power right now, not Trump. The US is stronger, but Trump still has the remnants of a democracy in his way, and is not personally intelligent)
If there’s genies, maybe there’s a chance arguing with God would work.
Maybe myself (as an experiment), or the genie about if I should get more wishes or something. Wasting universe-altering magic on convincing one person seems like a waste.
Edit: To be more clear about the self argument:
You can do a lot of funny stuff with logical constructs. If you say “exclusively, [wish] or this statement is false” it’s a paradox unless the wish is true. If I argue with someone else, them misunderstanding could count as a victory, but if I’m on both sides that’s a bit harder. It’s possible I just die or explode or something, but maybe it will actually work, too.
You can get way more sophisticated with that, and probably should if you only get one shot. Godel’s incompleteness theorem is a famous example of that kind of tortured self-reference. Magical evaluation of a single arbitrary statement is just way more OP than it may seem at first.
Well, you may win the argument against the genie, but it doesn’t guarantee that the genie would be granting you more wishes–because maybe they just can’t (the universe itself might not let it or something).
Just like some convenience store clerk agreeing that your coupon should be accepted, but the higher-ups won’t–and she can’t pay for it because she’s got even less money than you do.
Even if there’s a risk of failure, it seems worth it. No one person is very important, and even then the more powerful a person is the less accessible they are. (Since nobody has mentioned it, Xi Jinping probably has the most power right now, not Trump. The US is stronger, but Trump still has the remnants of a democracy in his way, and is not personally intelligent)
If there’s genies, maybe there’s a chance arguing with God would work.
I agree~ And thus I would agree that arguing with God (“I can do a better job than you!”) might be worth a shot.
I’d be careful with the wording - God could agree you’d be better but do nothing about it.
Maybe you could write an open letter calling for people to be altruistic in general and that would count.
Yeah, that’s a good point. Maybe I can just cut to the chase and outright assert “You did a bad job, hand all your power to me.” 😅