Jake

Important If True 19: Pearls Before Slime

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Important If True 19:

Important If True 19


Pearls Before Slime
The most deeply important questions on your minds, advised and distilled by us. This week: Why are genies skeptical of your perfect wish to save mankind from itself? Does a robot that eats and poops have a favorite food? Does it feel shame? Is it you? And is there anything more nostalgic than getting the chicken pox from some kid's homemade slime?

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Discussed: Ecobot III (official site, approving researchers), nostalgia nostalgia, homemade slime, elementary school fads, constructing a genie-proof wish, accidental end of civilization

Chris' Endorsement: Sherlock Holmes Consulting Detective board game (More info at BoardGameGeek, buy at Amazon)

Nick's Endorsement: Lookwell TV pilot

Jake's Endorsement: Philo and Pem Farnsworth's favorite tunes playlist (Spotify, Apple Music)

 

Sponsored By: Hover domain name registration, Quip electric toothbrushes

 

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As a brit, it took me too long in the genie proof wish section to realise that "10 pounds of food" meant how much the food weighed rather than the value of it in GBP, like, 'You can have fish and chips but no caviar.' Is it written as lbs?

 

Please post the text of the email for easier dissection of it's watertight-ness.

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I work for a family science museum. Borax and Elmer's glue is an old, classic slime recipe. I am happy to answer any slime-related questions.

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1 hour ago, Paul Smith said:

I work for a family science museum. Borax and Elmer's glue is an old, classic slime recipe. I am happy to answer any slime-related questions.

 

I realized after we recorded that I made classic slime as a kid, as well as corn starch goopy slime.

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Chris, I love you. But there's no way your shoe-hornin' buckwheat tea-drinkin', salt-pig enorisin' ass has 30 years before you're going to be a magnifying glass wielding old man. You'll be endorsing that old man's whole getup in 3 months, tops.

 

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Jake is in good company with his worries regarding the total mass of poo. In Douglas Adams' radio play Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy there is a beautiful planet (the name of which escapes me) with massive tourism. Because so many transient people eat and excrete, the difference is surgically removed from your body at the spaceport. The Adamsian closing on the bit was about needing to remember to get a receipt at the toilet.

 

I miss the possibility of new Douglas Adams. Or am nostalgic towards it.

 

However, I'm more dubious of Jake's postulation of uneaten food disappearing causing the net effect also disappearing/fading. So what happens to those people you club to death with your frozen meat clubs and coconuts? Do they become zombies? Can zombies still wish for food? Do they wish for brains, or do their merely eat yours as a revenge?

 

I also want to say I never realized how relaxing it is to listen to an hour of jovial banter with nonsense digressions. The only negative is that some people on my commute look at me strangely when I can't help but to grin and laugh thanks to the show.

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I will be back with a long-ass explanation of barely remembered high school classes about power plants and power plant design.

 

Also, I second the request for the complete text of the genie sentence in question 

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FYI, Chicken pox is caused by the Varicella-Zoster virus (VZV). There is a vaccine that was developed (in 1995), and every child should get it, for this reason: the chicken pox virus stays latent in your body after you recover from the symptoms and can later emerge as an incredibly painful body rash known as Shingles. Typically this happens when your immune system becomes impaired for whatever reason.

 

More information: https://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/pubs/pinkbook/downloads/varicella.pdf

 

I understand why people might become nostalgic, but everyone should understand that it's only because they're remembering beloved memories and/or people to the exclusion of the hellscape that was going on around them at that time. The world is better than it's ever been; human misery, although still present in large quantities, is the lowest it's ever been.

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On 6/23/2017 at 9:41 AM, DocRandal said:

I understand why people might become nostalgic, but everyone should understand that it's only because they're remembering beloved memories and/or people to the exclusion of the hellscape that was going on around them at that time. The world is better than it's ever been; human misery, although still present in large quantities, is the lowest it's ever been.

 

Yeah, it's also worth pointing out that people in the 1920s nostalgic about the not-so-distant pass were being nostalgic for the Gilded Age, probably the most brutal period of economic and social unrest and inequality in American history until the present day. Like with the fifties, the post-WW1 economic boom allowed for a lot of nostalgia for terrible times from the comfort of wealth and security.

 

EDIT: And Jake pointed it out, like, five seconds later. That'll learn me to post before finishing the podcast episode!

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If Jake is worried about power generated from genie food, you don't need to burn the food to generate the energy. If you have a series of people generating their allotment of food at some point where that food has potential energy, then it can be used to power turbines and still disappear entirely. Hell, it can even be dropped down the power chute and then collected at the bottom and eaten, thus providing unlimited free energy and still working within the spirit of the wish. 

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1) i can't believe the only thing that's been keeping jake from serial murder is the general inaccessibility of bludgeons? 

 

2) i think you guys are overlooking the obvious problem, which is an unknown outcome of breaking the 1st law of thermodynamics. if wishes always come with with a dark backlash, it's coming from this.  i'm going to say whatever material is being converted (dark matter, whatever) into food will destabilize known reality, or possibly infuriate whatever trans-dimensional beings rely on that dark matter. though given the scale of the universe, one would have to wonder if it would register? it's probably a one strike rule, because i doubt even the total heat death of earth would really register on a galactic scale. 

 

3) if you took all human intervention out of food production, the energy markets would be totally shaken. every factory farm, every ocean shipping container, every stove and grill... there would so much energy rebated back to the system that energy costs would plummet.

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Universe saving idea: The food is created from energy stored in our fat cells, and will be extracted at some optimal rate for health, to prevent Feast Shock as a result of extracting too much too fast. This potentially creates issues for the most starving of populations, but it could positively affect the treatment of high BMI folks, who could be the greatest aid givers.

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I think when it comes to legal defense, any sentence is going to have to be way more baroque and involved than that to make the meaning completely clear and unambiguous to a judge. You're basically writing a contract, there's a reason people study for years to do that kind of thing. Also, it doesn't have to hold up to human law, it has to hold up to genie law, so good luck making your human language sufficiently secure. It's a fun exercise though.

 

But let's assume you get exactly what you wish for. The other issue is, as you guys pointed out, anything can be a weapon, and anything can be misused to screw people over. The problem isn't so much providing ammo, but that it disappears, leaving no trace. So basically whatever evil uses I can come up with for any food-based items, I can use them repeatedly and anonymously.

 

On 6/22/2017 at 10:40 PM, SL128 said:

Also, this article is relevant to your vision of the future!

 

Keep dreaming on!

 

That's a neat trick, unfortunately you have to heat and pressurize it a lot...which takes energy...way more energy than you can get back out, sadly.

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14 hours ago, Turgid said:

I think when it comes to legal defense, any sentence is going to have to be way more baroque and involved than that to make the meaning completely clear and unambiguous to a judge. You're basically writing a contract, there's a reason people study for years to do that kind of thing. Also, it doesn't have to hold up to human law, it has to hold up to genie law, so good luck making your human language sufficiently secure. 

 

Yeah.  And then the more clauses you add, the more opportunities for weird bootstrapping interactions between clauses.  As I was listening to Harvey's description of his intentions with the proposed wish to submit to the jinn, my first thought was: this is exactly why people so hate and so need us lawyers.

 

My SECOND thought was: oh, no, this is actually the origin story for Lord Hoistmas.  Chris remarked upon this later, but there's only one way "ironic twist-proof" ends. I'm way ahead of you, mythical creature renowned for always being way ahead of people who think they're way ahead of you, said the man as the entire world turned into an enormous petard.

 

Then I heard the language for the wish, and it's pretty tightly worded, all things considered, but sadly, humanity is still fucked in fifteen words or less.

 

Paraphrasing, the sentence begins: "I wish that every human being - the definition of which will still include everyone affected by this wish - alive today and born at any point in the future..."

 

It's at this point that the jinn's eyes light up like a god-damned christmas tree and the sky starts swirling purple and red.

 

The definition of "human being" is left up to interpretation*, EXCEPT that it will include "everyone" affected by the wish.  OK, says the jinn, and implements the wish to apply to robots. 

 

I leave it as an exercise for the reader what then unfolds as a result of these "human beings" who can now summon from nothing any "foodstuffs" required to "maintain optimal functioning" of their "systems," so long as those functions don't harm THEMSELVES.

 

*To be fair to Harvey, I think that it's clear by the reference to "human being" and "alive" and "born" and "human body" what the intent was: human being means homo sapiens, and the language about "still include" means that beings that seem to be homo sapiens, but now have this new magical ability, don't result in some kind of paradox because "human beings" can't do magic.  But just because it's clear that's what he meant doesn't mean that's what it says, and this is a jinn.  If the jinn says hey, OK, man, that's a weird definition, but I guess "human beings" must include birds, because I just made this wish apply to birds! there's not going to be any recourse for the rest of us.  And then say hello to what we've wrought: a nightmare scape of rotting flesh and worms, capriciously willed into being ten pounds times however many birds there are at a time.

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I just wanted to point out that Consulting Detective was originally developed in 1981 in your fine city of San Francisco by a company called Sleuth Publications. The authors credited are Gary Grady, Suzanne Goldberg, and Raymond Edwards. I have two different early 80's printings of the game (one softcover, one loose-leaf), and they list the following addresses:

 

Sleuth Publications

2527 24th Street

San Francisco, CA 94110

 

and

 

Sleuth Publications, Ltd.

689 Florida Street

San Francisco, CA 94110

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The link for Sherlock Holmes Consulting Detective in the show notes is not particularly helpful, seeing as there's one copy available and it's $149 (albeit with free shipping!).

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5 minutes ago, TychoCelchuuu said:

The link for Sherlock Holmes Consulting Detective in the show notes is not particularly helpful, seeing as there's one copy available and it's $149 (albeit with free shipping!).

Oh whoops, it looks like the original edition is no longer available. I've replaced the link, the one there now is the one I recently bought.

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Maybe I'm crazy, but why, if we are in the realm of magic wishes, not just short circuit the whole eating process altogether and say humans don't need to eat to live?

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The the genie will make it so that if you don't eat, you survive, but you get progressively hungrier, until you feel like you're starving to death, even though technically you're fine. Maybe the genie will even make it so that if you eat, you die, because "if you don't eat, you live" turns out to be the same as "if you live, you don't eat," so everyone is cursed to eternally be starving. Like the pirates in the first Pirates of the Caribbean movie.

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"I wish human beings didn't need to eat to live nor ever got hungry." is still a way shorter sentence than what we got going.

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