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[TheFerrett]

The goal of the Open-Source Wish Project is to create perfectly-worded wishes, so that when the genie comes and grants us our wish we can get precisely what we want. The genie, of course, will attempt to interpret the wish in the most malicious way possible, using any loophole to turn our wish into a living hell. The Open-Source Wish Project hopes to use the collective wisdom of all humanity to create wishes with no loopholes whatsoever.

The Open-Source Wish Project was inspired by this comic on Home on the Strange.

This wish's intent is to give the user the power to relive his life in infinite ways, exploring various branches and undoing them so that he can wind up with the most perfect possible present experience.

And this is how what we would tell the genie to get it:

"I wish to be able to control time for the entire universe or any desired subset or subsets, generally but not necessarily excluding my own subjective experience, in the manner of a VCR: pause, rewind, fast forward, including the ability to undo any changes I make to the time continuum."

1) If you think you have found a loophole (or "bug") in the current Wish wording that could backfire significantly, cut-and-copy the precise phrase you have issues with and post your suggested fix thusly:

BUGGED PHRASE:
…the erroneous part of the phrase.

POTENTIAL MISINTERPRETATION:
An explanation of how the phrase could be twisted to serve that genie's evil ends.

SUGGESTED FIX:
…the reworded phrase. Note that if you do not provide an alternative wording, you are merely wasting our time with nitpicking. Be a part of the solution!

2) If you think the current Wish wording is lacking something that could be disastrous, then post it thusly:

WORDING OMISSION:
…the suggested phrase you think should be in the wish.

POTENTIAL MISINTERPRETATION:
An explanation of how, without this added clause, our wish could come to ruin.

3) If you think the entire Wish wording is so hopelessly botched that you would need to wish for something else entirely to get what you'd actually want, post it this way:

BUGGED WISH WORDING:
Your new wording, rewritten from the ground up

REASON FOR NEW VERSION:
An explanation of why the foundations of the current Wish wording are so frotzed that it'd be better to start over, with a list of why your changes are better.

Periodically, all of the changes will be looked over by the moderators, and the most reasonable of the suggested changes will be incorporated into the official Wish text, at which point this thread will be closed and the new Wish version will be put open for discussion.

There are other Wish wordings for different goals, which you can see here. If you want to suggest a new Wish goal, go here. You may cut-and-copy the wish with attribution to its original source on Home on the Strange.

That said, let's wishulate!

[Aliza]

BUGGED WORDING:

in the manner of a VCR:

FLAW:

VCR tapes wear out after they've been played too many times, can be eaten by a broken machine, etc.

PATCH:

With no changes other than those I choose to introduce.

[StephanCom]

Oh! Cool! I made the cut!

[trainer343]

WORDING OMISSION: Add slow-motion to the fast forward, rewind, and pause.

POTENTIAL MISINTERPRETATION: "I wish to be able to control time for the entire universe or any desired subset or subsets, generally but not necessarily excluding my own subjective experience,...

Time is relitive based on speed. To go forward the genie could make you go so fast as to be ripped apart or "Splat"

SUGGESTED FIX: Add in somthing about not being subject to Ensteinan physichs.
_________________
Anosmia makes every thing smell like dog poop.

[wrincewind]

I wish to be able to control time for the entire universe

addition: i think that the universe should be changed to 'this' entire universe, as the genie may decide to allow you to control time in another, parallel universe, or a tiny universe trapped in a ball, which he would then give you.
also, i think that the mechanism for your time control should be elaborated upon. what if he gave you the ability, but no clue as to how to use it? say for example, you could only stop time by holding onto the third toe from the inside of your left foot, spinning around three times, and reciting the full oxford dictionary backwards?
I think some kind of indestructible, homing remote control (like the one in the movie click [i think it was called click]). the reason for it being homing and indestructible is to stop you being trapped in your current time state, i.e paused, slow mo, etc. the remote would also have to be subject to the same subjective time as you, to prevent it vanishing as soon as you went back in time. the remote, however, should never automatically fast forward, skip etc. unless it is to prevent death or some other terrible fate befalling you. another useful addition would be the ability to input a date into it, and automatically 'hop' there. what if you decided to go to the 11th century BC, and it ran time backwards at normal speed until you arrived?
Also, the device should always find its way to you specifically, and should only work for you. if you want to take other people with you, you have to specifically input the number of other people you wish to take with you. (this would avoid 'hitchhikers').

Wow. My first post on a new forum, and also my longest ever. Don't worry, I'm not usually this verbose, but I've been thinking about this stuff for quite a while. you could say that it's my speciality.
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how many web comics is too many? 30?

[Quark]

I think it would be useful to know how does matter behaves while time is stopped yet one is not. Can we manipulate matter ? if we do, how ? if we drop a glass of water does it stay afloat, does it fall down and break, what about the molecules around us ? do they move ? how don't we die from oxygen deprival.

Either nothing moves, and the world becomes like a block of cement with us inside it, or things do move when affected by us and therefore anything we touch comes "out" of the time stop, like we are.

[Digix]

if you stop the time ant try to move something you will not be able to do that, because that object will have to move at infinite speed in normal time.

so basically if you stop time you will end being confined into solid piece of air molecules. and soon will die because of overheating or suffocation.

[Ronfar]

[MJamesK]

I think the current wording is pretty sub-optimal, as people pointed out the manner of a VCR is pretty restrictive, as you'd want the ability to "pop" into any place in time, and safely, and never encounter situations where you get trapped or die. My new suggestion might sound silly at first, but think about it.

BUGGED WISH WORDING:

I wish I had the ability to control time at will as portrayed in the 2007 Television show Heroes (season 1) through its character Hiro Nakamura. However, unlike Hero Nakamura I wish I was a master at controlling my ability and did not require an item to maintain my power.

REASON FOR NEW VERSION:

In the show you see him using the ability in every way a person thinking about these wishes dreams of. He can go forward or backward in time subjectively by jumping from moment to moment, he can slow down or even completely stop time while still maintaining the ability to breath and survive, and he never has matter-splicing issues, etc. Basically I think its easier to use an example like this show then to try and word out everything.
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"Overwhelmed as one would be, placed in my position. Such a heavy burden now to be the One
Born to bear and bring to all the details of our ending, to write it down for all the world to see."

-Tool, Rosetta Stoned

[Anomaly]

Well, it seems like everyone says this wish was buggy in one place or another, and it just so happens that this is the wish I've thought most about. I'll try posting my own version, and see what everyone thinks of it...

I wish to have the ability to control time for this or any other entire universe, as well as any subset or subsets I so desire and share any chosen effects of this time manipulation with any other objects or individuals I so desire, whether this sharing will allow them to act within frozen time, experience time as moving at a different relative rate, or any other effect I can cause through this ability, while neither I nor they suffer any of the negative consequences coupled with such time manipulation in regular physics, with this ability accessed and controlled through my own simple use of imagination and non-strenuous mental effort, and the manipulations of time possible through this ability including but not limited to the following: first, the alteration of my subjective experience of time's flow to be either slower or faster, while I remain moving at my own usual speed from my relative perceptions, with the exact rate of time being exactly as I desire; second, the stopping of all activity by all objects and beings besides myself, except in those cases in which I am sharing the time-stop effect with others, while I and those I share with are still capable of normal action as we would be were time not stopped; third, objective reversal of events while keeping my thoughts and knowledge intact, with the speed and extent of reversal being exactly as I desire; fourth, instantaneous travel to any point in time I choose, whether that travel is objective - that is, bodily travel through time while remaining in the same point in space as relative to the planet I am on, or subjective - that is, mental travel through time to temporarily displace the mind of my self of that time with the mind of my self that initiated the travel, with all my thoughts and knowledge intact and current with when the travel was initiated, as well as gaining all memories gained by the other self in the mean time in cases of subjective travel to the future, and the displaced mind is to be replaced upon my subjective time travel departure; all these time control abilities are to remain available to me even should manipulation in the time stream causes this wish to never be made, or if I travel to a point in time before this wish was made, and I am to be given memories and knowledge of these abilities immediately should any event occur to cause said memories and or knowledge to be lost.

- The "share any effects of this time manipulation with any other objects or individuals I so desire" clause would counteract the problem of air becoming a solid, unbreathable wall in the case of a time freeze, because you could just bring it up to your speed, as well as allowing you to still interact with objects as normal.
- The "my own simple use of imagination and non-strenuous mental effort" clause allows a simple, relatively easy method of controlling the new ability which is exclusive to you, to head off the genie from giving control to someone else entirely.
- The "this or any other entire universe" clause will stop the genie from granting you time control in an irrelevant universe, as Wrincewind suggested, as well as keeping you from losing the ability if alterations of past events leave you in what would be considered a parallel universe.
- The "this ability is to remain" clause will keep you from losing your ability by stopping yourself from meeting the genie, and keep you from being stranded in time by going too far back.
- The "same point in space as relative to the planet I am on" is to keep you from landing yourself in deep space by time-travelling wrong.
- I said "as I desire" or some variant several times. This was to make the finer points of your manipulations in line with what you want, and not the phases of the moon, what clothes you're wearing, what the genie feels like at the time, or any other conditions he could make up.

*whew* So, what's everyone think?

[Rory]

SUMMARY:
Death reversal clause: when you die, you are automatically brought back to a time before you died, so you can prevent yourself from dying. You can turn this off later.

WORDING OMISSION:
Whenever I die through any means, I revert to one hour before my moment of death, with all of my powers and memories, including memories of the death, intact, and with time frozen for everything but me. I can disable this by willingly repeating the phrase "no time rewind on die" ten times in no more than two minutes subjective to myself, and can enable it again by doing performing the same act of repeating the phrase, but without the word "no" in the phrase.

POTENTIAL MISINTERPRETATION:
This clause would be optional, as it is not necessary for the main function of this wish. It would prevent you from ever being killed so fast that you wouldn't have time to pause time and react to it. You are rewound to one hour before, but since time is frozen, you can jump to any other point in time to change whatever made you end up dying. Using a password that is hard to accidentally set off, you can disable it if when you get tired of immortality. Without this, if you wanted to keep yourself alive, you'd have to spend your life either in slow motion, or pausing and looking around you every second, just to make sure you weren't in danger.

[LotusMegami]

Too many different wishes. You could ask for time control, time travel, or the ability to "save game" with your life, but not all of them.

[Gilboron]