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PaperclipPerfector  7mo ago (text post)   3266 thread views

Friday Fun Thread for April 5, 2024

Be advised: this thread is not for serious in-depth discussion of weighty topics (we have a link for that), this thread is not for anything Culture War related. This thread is for Fun. You got jokes? Share 'em. You got silly questions? Ask 'em.

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(EDIT: PDF version from ToaKraka for people with bad internet.)

Which of the following would you rather have? CYOA - In general, people pick Comfort or Power. But the Motte is built different (laughs). As a fun exercise, pick your option and predict what the Motte will choose.

Me: YOUR CHOICE. The motte: Pleasure 20%, Adventure 20%, Comfort 20%, Good Works 20%, Power 20%

Wrap this part in || to spoiler, please. (And try to pick your honest choice rather than the socially desirable one if at all possible)

Me: Comfort. The motte: sorry, I read everyone else's comments before replying.

/

Similar to the last super power thingy I saw here, all of them have really obnoxious downsides except one which is basically just free good things. The downside of comfort is basically that the upside isn't as strong as the others. Realistically I think all of the others would be awful (pleasure from an existential standpoint. It would be pleasurable to experience but I'm not convinced that the person in it would still be "me" in a meaningful way), at least done long term. I'd probably enjoy them for a few years, but then end up going insane from the horrible constraints they impose. Comfort is the only one where I could basically live an actual normal human life and do stuff I like doing, just with some extra advantages.

Surprised by what everyone else is saying. Power sounds very difficult! An oil-rich country with what, some S-300s and Mig-21s and no allies? Could LARP as Equatorial Guinea's fantastically corrupt ruler but you couldn't even play the race card when someone decides to launch some regime change. And what about threats from within - there are going to be ministers and officials. Governing a country is hard, how would you know to deal with the locals? Do they speak English? This is the kind of thing an air force colonel or a baron could pull off, I doubt many of us have the right management skills.

For me it's Pleasure, though I was tempted by Comfort. Pleasure is literally maximum fun. Normally I'm a power and adventure man but they seem high-risk, high risk in the sense that you'll have tedious and/or crushing problems to deal with.

I thought I'd pick comfort, but it's description in this completely sucks.

Their idea of comfort is to start at the top of the social heap, and to feel an obligation to do something with that position or at least do a lot to maintain it. How is that comfort? I'd describe that option as the "head start in life".

Some of the other options get freaking super powers. The power option actually sounded like a better option for achieving a life of comfort.

The life of comfort as id imagine it:

Live in Elysium a mostly post scarcity society that is in an orbital habitat. No one there needs anything. Whether that is medical attention, resources, etc. Your body will be maintained in near perfect health until you are 100 years old. At which point you will die peacefully in your sleep.

People on earth live in terrible conditions, you can do nothing for them except selflessly offer up your spot on Elysium.

There are five year age gaps between generations, so if you stick with mostly your generation you won't have to deal with the death of friends.

Basically just live out some fun social settings, drink and eat whatever you want for a hundred years. But ultimately you live a meaningless life of ease. That is comfort.

power, would be fun to try to be the lee kuan yew of the Indian ocean

My answer is 100% Power. Ironically, the others are just a little too masturbate-y to me; Adventure might as well be as unreal as the pleasure machine specifically due to the constraints of the question- in that sure, you'll have adventure and some absurdly long lifespan, but you'll never have the opportunity to share it with anyone... would be hell. So is Good Works, for that matter, but for different reasons- sure, you'll be immortal, but you're also stuck in limbo. So, Power it is; it's basically a limited-time version of the others on Hard Mode anyway, which speaks further to it being the only correct choice.

As far as the Motte answer, I'm predicting 10% Pleasure, 0% Adventure, 20% Comfort, 0% Good Works, 70% Power because most of the users on this site are generally reality-focused anyway and the highest-percentage one there has the best ROI for those kinds of people.

Good job predicting the motte. I really thought people here, being rationalists, would go for the idea that a chemical reproduction of well-being would be equally worthwhile to eudaimonia from real accomplishments.

It's a shame there wasn't a Knowledge option, otherwise we could re-create that scene from HPMOR.

It's a shame there wasn't a Knowledge option

Maybe, but the only thing Knowledge rewards you with is Lamborghinis and I'm dreaming a little bigger than that.

|| Good works. I have people in my life with diseases that aren’t really curable, just treatable. So I’d cure them, then I’d break the taboo to lose my powers so that my family can remember my existence again.

All these options seem terrible, but that’s the least so. ||

Congratulations on being the only non-power-hungry one of us.

Friend, I’m hungry for the only power that really matters to me. The mightiest king is powerless to exile tumors, or outlaw Alzheimer’s. No tyrant can face down death.

Superior PDF rendition (with XHTML source attached)

Myself: Power, if I don't convince myself in the moment to pick Pleasure (permanent virtuality is quite aesthetically unappealing to me, even if it feels like a "rational" choice). I would probably make a half-hearted effort of transforming the place into a mining-and-production haven, offering huge subsidies and promises of safety to foreign specialists, and spend the other half of the effort having a harem. Adventure sounds immediately unappealing. Piloting a Star Trek Enterprise with a crew of hundreds, sure. Alone? No. Good Works is too much constant effort and limits (mostly about having to move around) for too few external rewards. Comfort I'd pick if transforming myself into a stereotypical square-jawed blonde gigachad wasn't mandatory. I like my looks mostly as they are, and would prefer to remain "myself but looksmaxxed".

The Motte: Pleasure 15%, Adventure 10%, Comfort 30%, Good Works 10%, Power 35%

Also, I have to agree with those who whinged about the massive picture in the CYOA I posted earlier: this shit took a solid 2 minutes to load over VPN. I felt like I was in the internet of the 90s, and I wasn't even on the internet in the 90s.

Me: Power. The motte: Pleasure 50%, Adventure 20%, Comfort 10%, Good Works 10%, Power 10%

I bet most of The Motte will (correctly) see that the pleasure machine can provide every feeling the other options might. You could even program the pleasure machine to fool you into thinking you chose something else. And arguably, the existence of the pleasure machine solves any external suffering that Good Works or Power might fix; when others hook up to the grid, the moral dilemma of choosing Pleasure goes away.

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