October 4, 2007
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What would you do with an unbounded number of wands of reification?
Related to my last post about the Save Me Plz story broadcast on escapepod, I was just wondering what would you do if you had an infinite number of wands of reification? What should you do with such power?
If you haven’t heard the story, I suggest you go listen to it right now, but here’s what you need to know to answer my query. Basically what these wands allow you to do is twist reality however you please. They are sort of like wands of wishes. That is they enable you to bring whatever your wishes are into being. But they only have three charges so normally you can’t do a lot and you have to save them for special circumstances.
However, one the main characters in the story finds a loophole that he can use to get an unbounded number of those wands. And what does he do with this astounding extraordinary power?
He turns the real world into the equivalent of World of Warcraft. In other words he just turns reality into a big video game that he can play.
How incredibly stupid is that? That was my first thought when I heard this story. Not just that it was totally evil which of course it is. But also so very very stupid. Why would anyone come up with such a cheesy way to use that ultimate power? There have got to be a billion better and more interesting uses and a great many of them would also be a lot easier to justify morally.
So what would you do if you had that power? You can rework the world into whatever you want it to be slowly over the span of a some years. Can you come up with a more moral use? How about just a more interesting use?
Me? I’m not entirely sure. I have a million ideas. But I know one of the first things I would do is bring back lots and lots of the most famous and interesting thinkers trhoughout history from the dead so that they can help me to make better decisions. I’d have Einstein and Newton and Darwin and King and Ghandi and Plato and Kant and Hume and Socrates and Frued and Jefferson and Lincoln and Franklin and Proust and Marx and Vonnegut and Descartes and Shakespeare and Russell and Niestche and Aristotle and Homer and Adam Smith and John Locke etc etc. I’d haeve all of them to consult with when making decisions, them and many many of the smartest people ever to do anything of significance in their lives throughout history. I’d recruit them to help me to figure out how to use my godlike power for the best of everyone. I’d even consider bringing back Jesus himself, though I might be a little afraid his own godlike powers might get in the way of mine. Anyway that’d be step one I think. I’m not sure what else I would do.
What would you do?
