I wish for one electron to disappear from every atom. The net result would be that all atoms would now have a positive charge.
True, it would not only end all life on earth, but also destroy the entire earth. But everything would be positive.
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I wish for one electron to disappear from every atom. The net result would be that all atoms would now have a positive charge.
True, it would not only end all life on earth, but also destroy the entire earth. But everything would be positive.
Mandatory XKCD, sort of.
TL;DR
It breaks the whole universe. That's a lot of charge density over a very substantial area.
Simple. True empathy for everyone. Literally feeling what others feel
Iโm trying to focus this answer on something that seems like a really small change:
I wish everyone is slightly more empathetic.
I feel like this could give us a lot of small nudges toward being better people and a better society. I wonder if a small nudge could end up having a profound effect.
With a baseline minimum empathy. Cause damn, some people really bottom out that needle.
Everyone religious wakes up tomorrow realizing that it's just a social club and none of the god stuff is real.
So in this scenario where you have a magical Genie, you would use a supernatural being to stop others from believing in supernatural beings?
Whoa dude. I just woke up and was not prepared for philosophy!
They would still pretend. And, though it would solve a lot of problems, it would remove purpose for so many people.
Eradicate all mosquitoes
People can no longer share or post something on social media unless it is objectively true.
No more cavities!
As in teeth cavities!
Thanks for clarifying!
Not bum cavities or wall cavities, I feel they have a purpose.
Everyone is gifted with the ability to control their own fertility. You're only fertile if you want to be. The only chance for pregnancy to occur is if both partners want it to.
I imagine that would cause a severe population decline, and I'm fine with that. There's too many humans on this planet already.
Every one gets a strong moral compass that they can't ignore.
Sure we won't all have the same morals but I believe that most bad things in the world happen because people ignore morals and act selfish and only a small part of our issues stem from actual moral differences.
Edit: Seems I am much more optimistic than I thought.
Rates of religiously based terrorism would go through the roof. The problem is that people that, e.g., bomb abortion clinics believe that they are doing the morally correct thing, because it's better to murder a few people than to allow those people to "murder" thousands of innocent "babies". Likewise, you'd suddenly have people that are casually racist now immediately turn to full-on race war shit, because if you believe that nonwhite people are causing harm to the "white race" simply by existing, and you have a moral compass that you can't ignore, then the moral thing to do is to prevent that harm by killing the people committing the harm, esp. when you believe that they're irredeemable by virtue of genetics.
Make everyone's interpretation of "small thing" slightly more similar.
Pull a gazilion tons of carbon out of the atmosphere, crystallise it into gigantic diamond shards, and drop them from the stratosphere onto the 95th percentile by wealth in each country.
Wouldn't work. If there's so many diamonds, they'd just kind of lose their value. Also, who are you gonna sell them to, if everyone has them?
Although it could kind of be a new currency that excludes the rich, making their wealth at least a little useless.
I fully agree on the premise, but I think it needs refining.
I don't plan to use them for wealth, it's just a nice stable form of carbon that's sharp and heavy.
Agreed, but looking in the bright side: it would kill the diamond industry, which is a fucking awful blight on the world :)
Normalise the phrase: "I don't agree with your opinion and that's fine"
Metacognition becomes routine for humans. We are able to better de-fuse from our thoughts, and recognize them not as reality but as thoughts about reality.
Not a very small thing maybe, but: All people gain ability to instantly recognise bullshit (at work, in media, interpersonal relationships, etc)
The invention of a small easily producible power source that never runs out and has enough power to power vehicles/planes/vessels of all kinds.
Not sure if it's a small thing but I think I would change it so good deeds make a bigger impression on people than the bad.
It's a bit of a rainbow sunshine kind of wish but it's human nature to remember bad things easier than the good, it's a survival instinct to protect ourselves. But with all these conflicts and discrimination, big or small, if people don't let fear dominate, everyone would cut each other more slack.
Of course this requires everyone to have the same mindset to work, that's why I think making that small change in human nature at its core is the only way, and only a genie could pull that off.
To remove the desire for power over others.
OP asks for small thing, most replies ask for huge things.
I guess the opposites of small thing and biggest positive impact on the world makes it hard to answer.
Every figure leading every cult of personality is now seen as an imposter pretending to be themselves. For example, people think some orange-faced lunatic keeps trying to get on stage at a Trump rally, but Trump himself just disappeared.
Make everyone understand basic propositional and predicate logic.
Elimination of the tribal parts of the brain that want to go to war.
"You are a human too" for all people.
Compassion