The rule could be anything, as funny or as serious as you want. The universe will progress in a similar way that it has up until this point, unless your changed rule prevented it from doing so.
Some examples might be:
- The invention of currency is not allowed.
- Iron is slightly less stable.
- The Ancient Greeks are able to cultivate Silphium, which does not go extinct now.
Pi = 3.
I’m going to keep this for when I have to explain non-Euclidean spaces during game night.
I always use Chess boards to describe non-Euclidean spaces when I “need” to (aka when I get even a narrow chance to)
By all means, explain it to me! My best way so far was siting the chase in call of Cthulhu and really it’s not a great example.
Heck yeah, I’ll try my best!
So on a euclidian chess board, moving your king one space left would be 1 space, one space up would be 1 space, and one space diagonally would be √2 spaces (some simple trig gets us there).
Chess however, does not obey the laws of Euclidian geometry nor does its physical representation show us things to scale. A king’s move diagonally is the same amount of space as a move side to side, 1 space.
It’s silly, because spaces weren’t directly supposed to represent distance or anything, but it’s funny that it works out this way
This is a problem I’ve always had with Square grids in D&D and it never occured to me that from character perspective a character is warping space to move slightly further for the same amount of movement.
Also non Euclidian! Hexagons (the bestagons) also tesselate and fix that problem nicely
That was great, thanks
I think this one might end up winning.
It would change the topographical nature of the universe. We would probably have to exist in like the 3.1415th dimension or something to make it work.
Fuck it, I’m in. Can’t be any worse than regular 3 dimensions.
You son of a bitch
Instant karma. Weighted based on intent. E.g. If CEO cuts benefits to improve his stock value, then his balls explode. If a driver accidentally cuts someone off but feels bad about it, a full mosquito hits the windshield.
Like…a mosquito that just ate a large meal? Or like “one whole ass mosquito”
Never go full mosquito
I assume a mosquito that just had a meal even though it wasn’t hungry and only wanted to give someone malaria.
So an average mosquito lol
CEO […] balls explode
Now this is the kind of justice we need
I mean, we’ve already got Elon musk we don’t really need any more eunichs with nothing left to lose
Everyone knowing they could live healthily vegan but don’t: <chuckle> I am in danger.
Greed is removed from the list of possible emotions/personality traits.
Great. Now everyone’s horny.
You say that like it wasn’t intended.
Welcome to my world.
That was gonna be my change
Everyone horny all the time
So bonobos become the dominant species?
I’m already in that universe; it’s pretty good
Nobody is horny and humanity dies hornyness = greed for sex.
Native Americans are immune to European diseases.
Boom! /thread right here. This is a goooood one.
Oh shit I really like this one.
My question is, do we get native American diseases that Europeans are immune to?
Cats speak french, except in any situation where they can be recorded or transcribed, or when a french speaker can hear them. They also aren’t very good at speaking french, but it’s impossible for anyone to know that.
What if two English speakers are listening to a cat speak French, when suddenly they are joined by a third companion who speaks native French?
The cat stops talking.
All sentient beings have photographic memories and, through DNA, they can store and recall all of their previous ancestors’ memories. All the way back to their oldest sentient ancestor.
Basically Assassin’s Creed
is born
immediate ptsd from the memory of my parents plowing passionately which ended with my creation
crawls to the roof and jumps
It wouldn’t be weird if you just always knew
Sounding like Richard Rahl and The Sword of Truth now. (Please don’t hate me the first 3-4 books were good…)
You don’t want to know others memories; including those of your ancestors. Not photographically at least.
Or they upload to the resurrection ship
A necessary requirement for higher intelligence is proper, functioning empathy. If you lack this, you’re just… Incapable of intelligent thought beyond that of a particularly stupid dog
Humans do generally have proper functioning empathy
dogs, too. such a strange take
a moral impetus, informed directly by empathy, that is so overwhelming that the feelings of others are tantamount to one’s own
I’m guessing this is their meaning. Sounds interesting. Maybe that version of humanity would have far fewer nukes and a lot more good sex.
Sadly, I have a hard time believing this.
The problem is that basic empathy only goes so far. But we [almost] all have it.
CEOs and similar psychopaths don’t, though.
(Though those already tend to have the intelligence of a particularly stupid dog anyway, so I don’t really see how this would change anything.)
I thought the thing about psychopaths is not that they don’t have empathy or that it’s something that’s completely bizarre and alien to them, but rather that they have a switch where they can turn it off.
Like most of us would recoil in horror at watching a video of somebody being beheaded on the internet and many of us have had that unfortunate experience, but a psychopath has the ability to not feel anything at all about it if they don’t want to.
Have to say this wouldn’t affect me, not because I don’t have any empathy but only cold, logical political solidarity, but also because I wouldn’t really class myself as particularly intelligent. I’m just walking here
I feel like we would still have many of the same billionaires if not all
Being bad or evil is literally bad for your health.
The better you act, the better your health - great teeth, good muscle, low fat, high fitness, good looks, and longevity (to a point), no addiction or mental health issues, selfless with no crazy ego. Ie Mother Teresa looks like a supermodel!
Health can fluctuate based on behavior but it always drops 3x faster than it improves. So if you fuck around on your wife, your teeth go bad, or you start balding etc. cheat on your taxes, or lie maliciously (excl. good lies like Santa) you start to get fat n ugly.
If you’re a miserable prick who fires staff, scams people, bribes, hires children for sweatshops or harms people just to increase profit or boost share price you get cancer. But if you help those people then you may be cured provided you handle it really well and undo all the damage.
You attack someone, pedal harmful drugs or hoard unnecessary wealth, you go blind/deaf until you earn it back, more than once and it becomes permanent, each time after that you lose a limb for good.
You intentionally harm or kill someone via murder, drink driving, rape etc then it’s game over via a slow, long, painful debilitating disease that’s contagious to anyone you like or care about, ensuring you die alone.
To help identify the good/bad, your gut instincts are 10,000x more powerful and obvious to warn you of the dangers or benefits of each choice.
How is “being bad” decided?
If it’s decided internally (“bad” is what you believe is bad), then all the objectivists get a free pass for being assholes. Hitler is a supermodel, etc.
If it’s decided externally (there’s an universal definition of “bad”), how far into the future does it propagate? If I rescue from drowning someone who will genocide all the Dutch in the future, when do I go bald?
That said, beauty pageants would be much funnier, with trolley problems instead of talent competitions.
This is why this one wouldn’t work in any meaningful way. Good and bad is a human creation subject to the individuals perception.
I think they are saying that in their revised universe there would be an absolute humanity spanning moral code.
And the things that that moral code decide are bad are bad always for everyone regardless.
I think they are saying that in their revised universe there would be an absolute humanity spanning moral code.
I think what we have is something much better. A flexible morality which is taught from generation to generation and adapted as needed. An absolut moral code wouldn’t work.
Funny enough, that’s exactly the way it actually is. And I believe this system still works; not that we could change it anyway.
And the things that that moral code decide are bad are bad always for everyone regardless.
Still, this is how it is. It discourages immoral actions even when nobody sees them happening, because the person doing them still knows and feels bad/shame/worries.
Mother Teresa looks like a supermodel
Mother Theresa was a monster who got off on the suffering of others.
Why do you think she looked like that?
A disease that kills everyone a bad person knows, even if they don’t do anything wrong, is a Bible level of justice.
Disney rules.
No quantum mechanics. Things have concrete properties even when no one’s watching, and they can all be observed at the same time. The universe is complex but understandable.
Also, P=NP and π is 3.33 repeating, just for the lols.
Karma now has a maximum of one hour turnaround time.
Base 36 counting becomes predominant.
0 1 2 3 4 5
6 7 8 9 A B
C D E F G H
I J K L M N
O P Q R S T
U V W X Y Z
Also the point at which hundred changes over to thousand gets pushed back by a power, so 6KL2 is Sixty Kay Hundred Elty Two, while 8,A59G is Eight Thousand Ayty Five Hundred Ninety G. Same with the changeover to Millions, Billions, Trillions, etc.
Probably wouldn’t change that much practically, but it’d make “Ten” a square that’s also the product of two prime squares, and it’s divisible by a lot more ways than the current number base, and it makes “One Thousand” the square of “One Hundred” the same way “One Hundred” is the square of “Ten” and that “One Million” is the square of “One Thousand.”
Found the nerd
Okay but now you only have 3 fingers on each hand
No religion.
There should be at least 6 more ducks this time.
This must be a reference I’m missing.
In our current world, people don’t seem to have any ducks left to give, and that’s a problem.
The the field would always have six more ducks.
I’d increase the speed of light.
What difference would that make
I guess that would mean we can travel faster between planets. Communication would be much faster also.
Unless this gets me faster internet, I’m not interested
Good news! Internet would be technically faster.
Time would be faster also so you wouldn’t be able to tell it but compared to us your internet would be faster
Yay!
Aw!
This kind of gets at that (I think? I’m dumb, someone smarter than me may have something better/more relevant):
I prefer my causality dilated.
Silphium was recently rediscovered so it’s no longer considered extinct just highly endangered.
Aside from that, I would make it so that instead of having mental illness you would have magical powers.
Schizophrenic? Nope you just talk to the Dead. Adhd? Nope, you’re an elemental wizard. Bipolar? Nope, you’re either a healer or a necromancer. Depressed? Nope, you’re just low on mana. (Major depression means that you’re suffering from a curse) Psychotic? Nope, you’re suffering a mana storm Narcissistic? Nope, you are an illusionist. Autistic? Nope, you’re an enchanter.
Silphium was recently rediscovered so it’s no longer considered extinct just highly endangered.
I must eat it now!!!
Maybe instead of schizophrenics talking to the dead they would just fit into the class of spiritualists and diviners, oracles and the like.
I’m open to interpretation.
After a little more thinking on this:
Gender dysphoria? Nope! Shapeshifter. Furry? Nope Werebeing
Basically, anything that is a deviation from bog standard human would have a magical reasoning behind it.
