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What Monkey Paw Wish would you be willing to take? (lemmy.world)

submitted 4 days ago by Lumisal@lemmy.world to c/asklemmy@lemmy.world

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For those who don't know, a Monkey Paw Wish is when you get your wish granted, but in an unexpected usually negative way.

Example:

I wish human caused global warming would stop.
It does, but because WW3 leads to Nuclear Winter.

The question here though, is what wish would you be willing to take even though it'll get monkey paw'd?

So basically you don't care if the consequences, or would be willing to take the sacrifice for it.

Others can come up with the negative scenarios if they want and the original wisher can decide if it's still worth it

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[-] dditty@lemm.ee 94 points 4 days ago

I actually just had this happen to me irl. My old office was colloquially referred to as "The Dungeon" bc it was in the basement of an old dark campus building and to get there you had to take a somewhat circuitous path. I pleaded with my boss to move us to a new space with windows.

A few years later, we were able to move into a new suite in a different building with the rest of my department. Our new office even has windows! Except they're interior windows that face out into other surrounding rooms, instead of exterior windows bringing in natural light which unfortunately I didn't specifically mention in my wish. 😂

[-] BuboScandiacus@mander.xyz 1 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

I wish to be able to wish 3 times from an omnipotent genie that will understand and make come true my wishes the way I intended them to be undestood.

Then I'll use the genie to negate the effects of the monkey paw.

[-] Lumisal@lemmy.world 2 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

Granted, but right after you get the wish to wish 3 times from a perfect genie, you get a heart attack and die before you can make additional wishes. The monkey paw is then found by the person you were closest too, and a finger on the paw curls...

Edit: Alt: you get the heart attack and are taken unconscious to the hospital, and someone else gets your perfect genie and steals your idea. Except this person is extremely malicious and makes wishes that makes life for everyone on earth terrible.

[-] BuboScandiacus@mander.xyz 1 points 1 day ago

I’ve accounted for that ! If you read my wish it says that I wish to wish three time from the genie, thus for my wish to be granted I have to be able to wish three times.

[-] AutoPastry@sopuli.xyz 20 points 3 days ago

I wish for a turkey sandwich, on rye bread, with lettuce AND mustard. And I don't want any zombie turkeys, I don't want to turn into a turkey myself, and I don't want any other weird surprises, got it?

[-] son_named_bort@lemmy.world 19 points 3 days ago

Granted. The turkey is a little dry.

[-] AutoPastry@sopuli.xyz 17 points 3 days ago

THE TURKEY'S A LITTLE DRY???

[-] habitualcynic@lemmy.world 7 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago)

Oh foul accursed thing! What demon from the depths of Hell created thee?!

[-] CiderApplenTea@lemmy.world 3 points 2 days ago

You bring it to work at the museum and your coworker eats it

[-] Jarix@lemmy.world 6 points 3 days ago

Got it. It disappointing and unsatisfying

[-] UltraGiGaGigantic@lemmy.ml 4 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago)

Don't you have 3 more wishes?

1 - I wish everyone had a monkeys paw

2 - I wish everyone had a genie that granted 3 wishes

3 - I wish everyone who saw a falling star could make one wish come true

4 - I wish the person who broke off the big end of a wish bone could grant one wish they desired

5 - I wish every cat and dog had a safe loving household to live in

[-] WhereGrapesMayRule@lemmy.world 44 points 4 days ago

Donald Trump bumps his head and wakes up as an objective and rational person willing and capable of acting for the good of his country and the world instead of his own unintelligent, narcissistic ways.

[-] Joshi@aussie.zone 72 points 4 days ago

He leaves office to use his fortune to set up a charitable foundation leaving a JD Vance presidency

[-] Cold_Brew_Enema@lemmy.world 9 points 3 days ago

Fuck that is worse

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[-] IDKWhatUsernametoPutHereLolol@lemmy.dbzer0.com 8 points 3 days ago

He gets impeached and convicted for abuse of power (because he is unwilling to cave in to corporate demands).

Now you have President Vance!

🙃

[-] andrewta@lemmy.world 13 points 4 days ago

The down side is his rational arguments and rational way of thinking is always opposite of what you want. He also convinces the state and federal legislators to repeal the twenty second amendment and he stays in office for several terms.

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[-] vinnymac@lemmy.world 40 points 4 days ago

I wish it was the year of Linux, and they get 90%+ market share overnight when Gabe Newell announces you can play Half Life 3 exclusively on Steam OS, which includes in-game copies of The Winds of Winter, Doors of Stone, an English translation of Mother 3, and footage of 10 seasons of Firefly that had secretly been produced in private for Gabe.

The downside is they start the enshittification process immediately. The DRMs get worse, then the ads come, and finally the lawsuits and psyops on distros that treat us well and give us options.

[-] Valmond@lemmy.world 18 points 3 days ago

A solar storm wipes out almost all computers and all tech to build chips.

In a bizarre twist of fate, a couple of houndreds linux pcs, a handfull of steam decks and a windows millennium survived the blast.

[-] WoodScientist@lemmy.world 6 points 3 days ago

I would make the money's paw consequences similar, but slightly different.

A bad microsoft update somehow manages to permanently brick every windows computer on the planet overnight. Linux is now the dominant operating system, but mass societal chaos results from 90% of computers being permanently bricked.

[-] lime@feddit.nu 6 points 3 days ago

that was just crowdstrike.

[-] Lumisal@lemmy.world 9 points 3 days ago

Oh, that is an interesting one.

Linux beats Windows, but also some become Windows eventually?

The other perks make me lean towards it being worth it, because this also implies the downfall of Microsoft.

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[-] Meltrax@lemmy.world 29 points 4 days ago

I wish housing prices were actually reasonable and my generation (tail end of millennials) could afford to buy a house in the cities we have to work in.

[-] WhereGrapesMayRule@lemmy.world 26 points 3 days ago

Granted. All houses are now 18sq ft and only available in cities where all jobs require you to clock in at 5AM and clock out at midnight.

[-] andrewta@lemmy.world 19 points 4 days ago

The housing prices crash no one builds decent homes and all you can buy is a trailer house.

[-] sxan@midwest.social 19 points 4 days ago

You just described

The situation for many Americans
A situation that's still an improvement for the country's 650,000 homeless
A situation that's really still not worse for the ultra-rich, who can afford to hire peasants to custom-build their homes to whatever quality they want
It doesn't harm the wisher, who doesn't own a home and so wouldn't lose an investment from a market collapse.

It's a nice try, but it's going to have to be a far worse consequence to really make them want to take the wish back.

[-] i_dont_want_to@lemmy.blahaj.zone 10 points 3 days ago

Hey trailer homes aren't anything to sneeze at! Too bad they're so fucking expensive now though.

[-] andrewta@lemmy.world 6 points 3 days ago

They cover your head when it rains.

They have no resale value. They don’t have a very long life span compared to an actual house. They have crap for insulation. You do not want to be in one during a tornado or most other serious weather event. Their ability to block out outside noise sucks.

If it’s a choice between homeless or trailer house, fine I’ll take one.

[-] WoodScientist@lemmy.world 11 points 3 days ago

I'm pursuing a PhD in structural engineering and wood science. Here's my perspective on manufactured homes, and why they lack the long-term durability of stick built homes.

The problem with manufactured homes is that they're value-engineered to the point of fragility. A stick built home is built by hand on site. They're built from whatever generic lumber is available from local lumber yards. They're built by imperfect human beings using their own imperfect hands. To compensate for imperfect materials and imperfect human labor, they have a lot of redundancy built in to them. The structure of stick-built homes vary more between each home, so every piece of wood hasn't been optimized down to the absolute minimum. Standardized lumber sizes (2x4, 2x6, 2x8) are used, instead of using custom-milled lumber to produce the absolute minimum cross section for every piece in a home.

But if you're making ten thousand of the same identical manufactured home, you can optimize the hell out of them to make construction as efficient as possible. Instead of imperfect human hands, you use robots to place every piece precisely, and install every fastener perfectly. Instead of using industry-standard lumber sizes, you get lumber mills to custom mill you oddball sizes for particular columns, beams, etc. Instead of buying 2x6s, you get the mill or mill up your own custom "2x5.358." You also do a lot more structural engineering. When you're building ten thousand copies of the same building, it's worth putting in more engineer hours to wring every last pound out of a building's frame. On a normal residential home, it's not worth spending an extra hundred engineering hours just to save a few hundred pounds of wood. But if you're making 10,000 of the same home, those hours can be worth it.

Manufactured homes are, from an engineering point of view, far more efficient than a stick built home. Like airplanes, they have every extra ounce of material optimized out of their design. But as we saw in supply chains during the pandemic, efficiency and resiliency are often inversely correlated. The problem with over-optimization is that it's only ideal as long as the building will never face circumstances beyond what the structural engineer initially estimated. Let's say you design your building to survive a 70 mph wind undamaged. If you have a lot of redundancy, that structure may also be able to withstand an 80 or 90 mph wind undamaged. The over-optimized structure will be a lot more efficient at surviving the 70 mph wind, but if the building ever has to face worse conditions than were assumed during its design....well then you're in trouble.

Finally, stick-built homes will inevitably be far more repairable and upgradeable than factory built homes. Stick build homes are built by actual human hands on site. Factory built homes may be constructed in ways that, while cost effective, are only possible in a factory environment. That which is built on site can be repaired on site. That which is built from mass market generic components can be repaired with mass market generic components. Stick built homes cost more up front, but they inevitably have long-term advantages in terms of resiliency and repairability.

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[-] rustyfish@lemmy.world 10 points 3 days ago

Are you saying I get my very own trailer house? Woah! Look at me! House owner extraordinaire 🧐

[-] Meltrax@lemmy.world 8 points 4 days ago

Hey man, if they were putting trailer houses on Beacon Hill in Boston I'd take one.

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[-] RandomVideos@programming.dev 6 points 3 days ago

I wish lootsnake and hollow knight: silksong released tomorrow

[-] Lumisal@lemmy.world 8 points 3 days ago

Done, but they're a buggy mess.

Would it be worth it?

[-] RandomVideos@programming.dev 6 points 3 days ago

Yes.

[-] JackbyDev@programming.dev 7 points 3 days ago

Unless I have some sort of guarantee about what sort of twist the paw is doing, I'm not going to take it. Example: If the paw twists big, greedy wishes more than small, selfless wishes then I might be willing to do a small, selfless wish. If the paw is just an asshole who twists everything as much as possible, I'll pass.

[-] Lumisal@lemmy.world 3 points 3 days ago

It twists them both equally, but up don't know exactly how the twist might be usually. Sometimes it could be something that takes years to take effect. Sometimes minutes. Sometimes you might notice the effect yourself into later.

[-] GreenKnight23@lemmy.world 10 points 3 days ago

I wish Donald Trump a short productive term and long health.

[-] aviationeast@lemmy.world 16 points 3 days ago

Granted. Trump succeeds in ending the USA republic and leads to a racist empire lead by the tiger king.

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[-] megane_kun@lemm.ee 4 points 3 days ago

I wish that no life in the entire universe has and will ever attain civilization.

[-] dream_weasel@sh.itjust.works 4 points 2 days ago

Granted.

Life is now characterized as any entity that extracts energy from its environment, replicates, and has EXACTLY 3 nipples.

Civilizations are now comprised exclusively of nonliving animates.

[-] megane_kun@lemm.ee 3 points 2 days ago

Touché! I didn't expect this. What are the nipples made of? Are they lactating? Just for display? Also, are they erogenous?

[-] dream_weasel@sh.itjust.works 4 points 2 days ago

Fine. The nipples are erogenous and also made of lead. That should help.

[-] Nyxicas@kbin.melroy.org 5 points 3 days ago

Groceries will be affordable. But Nearly all Restaurants will be out of business.

Abortion Rights would be restored and codified, LGBTQ Rights would be codified, Workers Rights would be strengthened and we'll adopt a newly christened Migrant Rights But getting into certain job fields will be harder

American Politicians will no longer be corrupt But we will enter a World War to make it happen

Your privacy will be stored as an act will pass for companies to no longer mooch data off from you You will have to endure a life of nothing but verification checks

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[-] AngryCommieKender@lemmy.world 2 points 2 days ago

Summer did it pretty well.

https://youtu.be/0JkmVFchJ6Y

[-] moonlight@fedia.io 8 points 4 days ago

I meet a beautiful intelligent woman, we are the perfect match for each other, we fall in love, get married and live happily ever after.

[-] palordrolap@fedia.io 19 points 3 days ago

we fall in love

Missing specifier. You each fall in love with other people.

get married

Missing specifier. You each marry neither your perfect matches nor the other people you each fell in love with.

live happily

Mental illness can provide happiness. This seems almost good, and yet...

ever after

Insufficiently specific. You both die in the same mass road accident, travelling in separate vehicles with your respective spouses, not long after you're each married.

[-] moonlight@fedia.io 10 points 3 days ago

Excellent monkey's paw. I thought I was being specific, but apparently not even close. Definitely not worth it.

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[-] dream_weasel@sh.itjust.works 12 points 3 days ago

Ok take two, the wish is actually granted:

Your beautiful wife is incredibly intelligent and is perfect for you... as a result of profound psychopathy. She has chosen you specifically as the next in a chain of husbands with whom she has meticulously crafted idyllic relationships for the purpose of complete psychological and emotional control. Once sufficiently in her intoxicatingly romantic grasp, she convinces you of the simple joys of homicide. You eliminate her previous husband together, then your own family as a gesture of pure devotion. You fall into a pattern of orphanage arson, elderly abuse, and kitten stomping before she ultimately gets you both positions as mid level managers at united healthcare.

You couldn't be happier.

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[-] dream_weasel@sh.itjust.works 8 points 4 days ago* (last edited 4 days ago)

It is all the result of paranoid schizophrenia. She doesn't exist, you estrange your family, and you ultimately die from a slow descent into indigence and squalor because you are unable to escape the prison of your own mind.

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this post was submitted on 22 Dec 2024

106 points (96.5% liked)

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