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

submitted 2 months ago by Lumisal@lemmy.world to c/asklemmy@lemmy.world

76 comments fedilink hide all child comments

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

top 50 comments

sorted by: hot top controversial new old

[-] dditty@lemm.ee 29 points 2 months 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. 😂

[-] AutoPastry@sopuli.xyz 20 points 2 months 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 2 months ago

Granted. The turkey is a little dry.

[-] AutoPastry@sopuli.xyz 17 points 2 months ago

THE TURKEY'S A LITTLE DRY???

[-] habitualcynic@lemmy.world 7 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)

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

[-] Jarix@lemmy.world 6 points 2 months ago

Got it. It disappointing and unsatisfying

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

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

[-] WhereGrapesMayRule@lemmy.world 13 points 2 months 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 19 points 2 months ago

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

[-] Cold_Brew_Enema@lemmy.world 5 points 2 months ago

Fuck that is worse

[-] Monument@lemmy.sdf.org 5 points 2 months ago

I think it was Leeja Miller who said Vance is a dark horse in that he can rationalize and communicate significantly better than Trump - making the insane sound reasonable.

One of my fears is that while I disagree with Trump on practically everything, a JD Vance replacement of him would lead to greater competence to execute and justify the same agenda.

[-] habitualcynic@lemmy.world 2 points 2 months ago

Upvote for a fellow Leeja Miller fan

[-] IDKWhatUsernametoPutHereLolol@lemmy.dbzer0.com 8 points 2 months 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!

🙃

[-] papalonian@lemmy.world 3 points 2 months ago

Granted. Nothing changes. He is willing and capable, but his incentives for keeping things the way they are are too good.

load more comments (7 replies)

[-] vinnymac@lemmy.world 12 points 2 months 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 11 points 2 months 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 4 points 2 months 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 5 points 2 months ago

that was just crowdstrike.

load more comments (2 replies)

[-] Meltrax@lemmy.world 9 points 2 months 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 9 points 2 months 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 5 points 2 months ago

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

[-] sxan@midwest.social 7 points 2 months 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 3 points 2 months ago

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

[-] andrewta@lemmy.world 3 points 2 months 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 5 points 2 months 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.

load more comments (1 replies)

[-] JackbyDev@programming.dev 7 points 2 months 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 2 months 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.

[-] RandomVideos@programming.dev 6 points 2 months ago

I wish lootsnake and hollow knight: silksong released tomorrow

[-] Lumisal@lemmy.world 8 points 2 months ago

Done, but they're a buggy mess.

Would it be worth it?

[-] RandomVideos@programming.dev 6 points 2 months ago

Yes.

[-] Nyxicas@kbin.melroy.org 5 points 2 months 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

load more comments (1 replies)

[-] megane_kun@lemm.ee 4 points 2 months ago

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

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

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

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

[-] GraniteM@lemmy.world 3 points 2 months ago

I work for a little mom and pop business that basically operates like an anarcho-syndicalist collective; the boss more or less does his own thing full time and lets us all run things on our own. It's mostly fine but I've had a few times where I've... almost... wished that we had an actual manager to help keep things in line.

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

Summer did it pretty well.

https://youtu.be/0JkmVFchJ6Y

load more comments

this post was submitted on 22 Dec 2024

41 points (93.6% liked)

Ask Lemmy

28552 readers

674 users here now

A Fediverse community for open-ended, thought provoking questions

Rules: (interactive)

1) Be nice and; have fun

Doxxing, trolling, sealioning, racism, and toxicity are not welcomed in AskLemmy. Remember what your mother said: if you can't say something nice, don't say anything at all. In addition, the site-wide Lemmy.world terms of service also apply here. Please familiarize yourself with them

2) All posts must end with a '?'

This is sort of like Jeopardy. Please phrase all post titles in the form of a proper question ending with ?

3) No spam

Please do not flood the community with nonsense. Actual suspected spammers will be banned on site. No astroturfing.

4) NSFW is okay, within reason

Just remember to tag posts with either a content warning or a [NSFW] tag. Overtly sexual posts are not allowed, please direct them to either !asklemmyafterdark@lemmy.world or !asklemmynsfw@lemmynsfw.com. NSFW comments should be restricted to posts tagged [NSFW].

5) This is not a support community.

It is not a place for 'how do I?', type questions. If you have any questions regarding the site itself or would like to report a community, please direct them to Lemmy.world Support or email info@lemmy.world. For other questions check our partnered communities list, or use the search function.

6) No US Politics.

Please don't post about current US Politics. If you need to do this, try !politicaldiscussion@lemmy.world or !askusa@discuss.online

Reminder: The terms of service apply here too.