Three Wishes

[BigApplePi]

You are walking down the street and spy a bottle. You pick it up, uncork it and out pops a cloud of pink smoke and a genie. The genie thanks you for releasing it and in gratitude grants you three wishes.

Now's your chance. What do you wish for? Something for yourself? For others? Why did you pick your choices and do you think they will be of benefit or just a fantasy?

Edit: Wishes about wishes can lead too easily to contradictions. Let's restrict that. No wishes about wishes. When I thought about this as a kid, the first thing I'd wish for was unlimited wishes. But after a while suppose I got disgusted with something and impulsively said, "I wish I was dead." That could restrict the next wish, lol. The 2nd wish I'd wish for (as a kid) was that I would have only good wishes. That would avoid impetuous wishes like, go f### yourself which I might regret later. After all the idea is to see what one's wish fantasies are and not to trick the genie.
+++++++++++++++++++++++

Edit #2. To make this more interesting, take a look at the previous poster's wishes. See if you can say why their wishes may or may not get them into trouble. They might wish to revise what they wished for.

There is a famous saying, "Be careful what you wish for."

 

[Tyria]

1 - I wish to have absolute knowledge - to know both everything, and what everyone else is thinking

2 - I wish for absolute power - to change and form reality to my will and desire

3 - I wish to trade places with the genie - its freedom for my imprisonment

 

[aaaw]

1000 more wishes.

 

[a detached retina]

a peanut butter and jelly sandwhich

 

[Gather_Wanderer]

The first and most obvious one to me would be to find out if the wishes could be replenished by wishing for unlimited wishes, or more genies.

If not:

1st wish - I'm very tempted to say that I would wish for the power to alter reality according to my will and architectural skill, but being able to change the world (and the universe at that, since you would eventually be able to tread into new territory, wherever you wanted) may make life seem....I'm not sure I have the word for it. If you're essentially Dr. Manhattan amongst men in this world, won't you just eventually get bored and also leave it? Everyone would know that you're "that guy", just like him, and I don't want that kind of pressure in my day to day life. I don't think, either, that I want that kind of day-to-day advantage over everyone else in life.
....just realized I'm heading down the path of a "Isn't God majorly bored with everything?" line of thinking...
I don't want to be a God, don't think I'd want to live forever and that wish would make that happen eventually.

I'd make a wish to always have enough currency or influence to get whatever material item I needed, and be content with the fact that I never have to work a job again. That's the only personal wish I really need granted.

2nd wish: A complete overhaul on the way the U.S. govt is run and politics are handled. Obviously if I knew the way for this utopia to really work, I wouldn't be sitting here now but I can say that I'd want for every position in the offices to be intelligence/merit based and recycled often.

3rd wish: To instantly gain and forever have epic talent in music, be whatever kind of one man band I wanted to be. Coupled with wish 1 (always have enough money), I'd travel the world and play for free, do huge concerts, private shows, whatever and wherever I wanted to play.

One could be quick to say my second wish would obviously immediately bring good for the world, but how much do any of us really know how the world is really run behind closed doors? Sometimes I think I'm not so sure a bursting economy (relative to the world outside of the U.S.) can be maintained without a bit of corruption somewhere. Every tree that grows in the forest, can't reach it's full height, you know? One is going to block the other at some point.
I sort of think the third wish could end up doing the most "good" here. A legendary, supremely-talented and hungry artist who traveled the world in search of nothing but expression could be of major inspiration to the lives of many around the world. A lot of art works would be crafted, fights broken up, babies made after listening to the lyrics and instrumentation of yours truly.

 

[BigApplePi]

Three Wishes: see edit in OP

See edit in OP for restrictions.

 

[Gather_Wanderer]

Re: Three Wishes: see edit in OP

See edit in OP for restrictions.

Well my first proposition for a wish I actually denied myself, so no worries.

1st: Always have enough money for any material item I need.

2nd: Government and political system overhaul

3rd: Legendary musical talent



Just so I'm clear.

 

[A22]

In "Der Jude im Dorn", a Brothers Grimm tale, the wishes were:

1 - A gun that hits everything you aim on
2 - A violin that makes everyone around you dance when it's played
3 - The power to make unrefusable wishes

With the first wish you may end up killing someone in a moment of stress - like killing yourself in the "no wishes about wishes" rule - so it's off. I loved the second wish, I'de only switch violin for something more conventional, like an harmonica. The third wish is about wishes, so it's off too.

...

I was doing this list:

1 - The ability to heal/regenerate (voluntarily) any living organism (including myself) from any wound or disease without necessarily interacting with it (thinking about healing the wound would heal it)
2 - The ability to control matter and energy without necessarily interacting with it (by thought control or whatever) - Like the ability to make nuclear fusion or to turn rock and gas into planets.
3 - The ability preview, voluntarily, any action and it's predictable consequences. Like knowing the output from a command in terminal or dos.

When I realized that if you joined and simplified "1" & "2" that would be omnipotence. And the "3" is omniscience. And I'de probably wish something like omnipresence if I had a 4th wish. I guess I'm too ambicious. I think I've spent more than half an hour thinking about what I would wish. Maybe a reasonable list would be the healing thing, the music that makes everyone dance thing (with an adendo: I'm, the owner of the harmonica, am the only person who is able to use it) and... The hability to be invisible and return to visibility.

 

[Solitaire U.]

Cure a certain relative's mental disorder
Lives of contentment for my boys
A place of her own in the Mexican sun for my mom.

 

[BigApplePi]

In "Der Jude im Dorn", a Brothers Grimm tale, the wishes were:
2 - A violin that makes everyone around you dance when it's played

That sounds great until you think about beloved grandma if she has a heart condition.

Your story makes me think and wonder if playing God with these wishes ALWAYS can get one into trouble or not.

Here are a couple of my wishes:

1. Baseball. That I would bat 600 for the season. But when I got up to bat I wouldn't know if I'd get a hit that particular time.

2. That I'd have a printing press for money that would not be counterfeit or along the same lines, that I could pick winner at the stock market 2 out of 3 times.

3. I never got to three because I was waiting for 1 & 2 to work for me, lol.

 

[BigApplePi]

1 - I wish to have absolute knowledge - to know both everything, and what everyone else is thinking

2 - I wish for absolute power - to change and form reality to my will and desire

3 - I wish to trade places with the genie - its freedom for my imprisonment

Tyria -
1. Then you wouldn't have anything to learn. What would you do?
2. After playing with that for a while, wouldn' t you get bored?
3. Why imprisonment? What's the benefit?

 

[a detached retina]

yum. I just satisfied my wish.

 

[Tyria]

Tyria -
1. Then you wouldn't have anything to learn. What would you do?
2. After playing with that for a while, wouldn' t you get bored?
3. Why imprisonment? What's the benefit?

1. I would sit somewhere peaceful under a tree and rest. I would travel and wander. Help others make connections. I would exist in nature, and would do as I please.

2. I didn't intend on using it if I didn't have to.

3. I prefer that the genie be allowed to go free it that is what it desires. I believe I would be more powerful than the genie at that point, and power like that should not exist in a free roaming form.

Besides, someone is needed to grant wishes. It's something that gives people hope.

 

[Yet]

I wish my friend cancerfree (it's her liver which is pretty bad)
I wish my brother to be able to be happy and 'get a life'
I wish for me, my partner and daughter a long and happy life without too much sorrow and at the end a sudden painless death

wishes have a sell by date ... this is what it is now
I might meet the genie again some time for some more cheerful ones

 

[Stoic Beverage]

1.)I wish myself immortal and free from pain, assuming I don't end my own life.

2.)I wish I had a universe that, from my perspective, could fit in the palm of my hand (unless I choose to enter this universe)

3.)I wish to have complete and total power over any and all aspects of my personal universe.

As soon as the universe we reside in becomes boring and I'm floating through the cosmos, I'll have fun being God.

 

[xbox]

1. Ability to morph (might get me killed though
2. Invisibility
3. Breathing under water

 

[Konrad13]

1 - That this wish, and the next two wishes granted me, are granted in a fashion that I would see fit, and cannot be skewed, altered, or otherwise bent in a fashion I would not expect, anticipate or want. (an example is wishing to have the ability to fly. I would imagine the wish being granted so I could fly like Superman, but the genie would instead make me a wasp or something)

2 - That I had the ability open portals to other realities, allowing myself and only those I choose through either way, and cannot be coerced by force or mental manipulation into letting those I would not want through in either direction, and before entering other realities, I may choose what kind of power I have over said realities (basically, I could use this spell like the holo-deck, creating alternate realms of reality that are bendable to my will)

3 - That this genie, and all genies, and all supernatural forces save mine be removed from this reality, never to return (pretty much banning the genie and other powers that could rival mine into another reality, anc can never return.)

 

[BigApplePi]

3. I prefer that the genie be allowed to go free it that is what it desires. I believe I would be more powerful than the genie at that point, and power like that should not exist in a free roaming form.

Besides, someone is needed to grant wishes. It's something that gives people hope.

Those are good thoughts, but you would be able to grant wishes only if you were set free.

 

[BigApplePi]

I somehow have in mind wishes that mask their magical (assuming impossibilities are involved) nature.

Here are a couple of my wishes:

1. Baseball. That I would bat 600 for the season. But when I got up to bat I wouldn't know if I'd get a hit that particular time.

2. That I'd have a printing press for money that would not be counterfeit or along the same lines, that I could pick winner at the stock market 2 out of 3 times.

For the 1st one I could get into a hitting slump just like anyone else but I'd make up for it with a hitting streak later. I could donate my hitting ability at any time so someone else on the team could find themselves hitting 400 better, but my average would go down by 400. I would refuse to go on talk shows and would say, "so what" to interviewers. There was a movie close to this theme. It was called, "The Natural" with Robert Redford:
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0087781/

For the 2nd one the printing press would be limited to $20 U.S. bill size. That would prevent my becoming a billionaire, but I could buy unlimited smaller items and would have unlimited handouts for people who needed it. Since such a printing press would be extremely valuable, it would have to be kept secret so as not to be stolen. I would print only an amount not noticable. One has to be practical about these things, don't they?

 

[Tyria]

Those are good thoughts, but you would be able to grant wishes only if you were set free.

But if I was set free, I would be more powerful than any genie and be able to grant amazing wishes. How awesome would it be to find someone like that?

Besides, even if I wasn't free I could create almost anything within my confined reality. Being trapped in your own paradise isn't so bad, is it?

 

[digital angel]

1) infinite wisdom;

2) wealth; and

3) a fabulous career.

 

[LPolaright]

1st -
An ability to move through dimensions (Like sliders, only unlimited in use and being able to just maneuver back to my home dimension).

2nd -
An ability to move through time (Unlimited use)

3rd -
Immortality - just to make sure that I wont die, even though they probably invented such a thing already in one of the dimensions in the future.

(; Nice interesting thread mate,

 

[Trebuchet]

a peanut butter and jelly sandwhich

A very sensible wish. That is the kind of thing that can't get you into too much trouble, or deprive anyone of anything, or destroy all that you hold dear. Plus, you didn't need a genie to get it!

 

[Rook]

1. A Kitten
2. Some weed
3. Complete control of everything, thus this universe and all possible others.

 

[TBerg]

The ability to stand outside time.

Indefatigability.

And flying, just for shits and giggles.

 

[Pyropyro]

1. Be unrestricted by the laws of the Universe
2. Immortality
3. A mind upgrade to handle all the stresses of #1 and #2

 

[BrainVessel]

1. The ability to remember anything I choose to.

2. The ability to accurately internalize all that is remembered.

3. The ability to communicate perfectly to the needs of the person to be well-understood and for them to have a better understanding.

 

[StevenM]

1. A nice long break from differing major crises. Basically, a good year or two with just challenges that I find confident to manage.

2. Some security, so that I have a good feeling that I'll be all right and things are going in a positive direction.

3. Some more meaningful and fulfilling social interactions.

 

[Cavallier]

My very own Tardis, comfortable sensible shoes that never wear out, and a tough stylish warm jacket that protects me from the elements.

I could be so happy with just those three things.

 

[Cognisant]

Molecular CAD/CAM software.
Molecular universal fabricator.
To be restored to a state of perfect physical health.

Immortality is one of those things that you really don't want to be vague about so being restored to a state of perfect physical health should keep me alive at least until my eighties, while the afore mentioned technology will both turbocharge the rate of technological progress and make me personally very rich.

 

[Evel]

1st wish: MONEY, all the money I'd need to do all the things I'd like to do.
2nd wish: Health duh, without it I wouldn't be able to most of those things.
3rd wish: The ability to teletransport myself wherever the hell I'd like to, whenever I'd want to