Fantasize: You're given powers of a demigod but with some limitations...

Treating this like a game where we need to find a way to abuse the rules, and not a serious thought experiment:
that you're not allowed to kill anyone--so no nuking or Thanos-snapping,
How indirect of a kill can the actions be before they're allowed, given the whole butterfly effect situation? Can I magic someone's car keys away so they find themselves walking to work instead, except if they do so they happen to be killed in a traffic accident? If I can see into all possible futures someone has, then I can guide them towards a swift death through indirect means.

Like say I made sure Seth McFarlane didn't accidentally miss his flight back in 2001. Would that count?

nor can you banish anyone to another dimension.
Can you banish someone to a desert? What about to Africa? What about to Detroit? What about into a coffin underground? What about into a building that's about to be demolished?

In fact, anyone who is harmed--directly or indirectly--by your actions is now guaranteed to live precisely one hundred years.
One hundred years from when I last harmed them, or one hundred years total? If it's the former, then I can keep all loved ones alive as long as they desire by inflicting some trivial harm to them every few decades or so. If the latter, then if an enemy target is older, the extra decade or two of lifespan is of no significant consequence when they're able to be endlessly fucked with.

What constitutes 'harm'? Would making someone infertile count? What about magicking away all of their assets? What about giving them a revelatory vision (or maybe a sequence of carefully manipulated events) which overthrows their entire system of belief?

Why not bring upon a woeful mental illness on your enemies that leaves them completely unable to function (and put them all in some barren location together while we're at it)? Whether or not they live another 100 years is a triviality when you can offset whatever drain in resources they cause.
 
you're not allowed to kill anyone
I'd get a car with a big trunk and a deserted WW2 bunker in the middle of nowhere. I'd fit the bunker with thick grates and add a tall shaft that narrows towards the top over the center. The top of the shaft would be covered with a sound-insulated hatch.

Then I'd kidnap certain people and drop them down the shaft, with no supplies. They have no way to escape. Surely, I am not killing them, they'll do it to each other on their own.

I may or may not drop some melee weapons and hard booze too, to accelerate the process.
 
I think I'd get bored quickly and life would become meaningless when I can do whatever I want without any limitations. It's not difficult to get around the no kill rule. Got an enemy? You can just make them intangible and invisible, effectively making them unable to interact with anything ever again. Enjoy your 100 years as an inert ghost drifting through space. It shouldn't count as dimensional banishment either, since I didn't actually send them anywhere myself. You could also be more "benevolent" and simply go into their minds and change their thoughts on you.

Ultimate Chaos option: There's nothing in the rules that says I can't grant power to others, so I'd grant the God powers to everyone else as well. Caring is sharing after all, and things certainly wouldn't be boring anymore.
 
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Other than that though, you're literally free to rule Planet Earth in whatever way you see fit.

I wouldn't actually be able to rule the planet, because I'd tell people what to do and they'd say "Nah fuck you, what you going to do make me live a 100 years?!".
Every single government rules through force. Laws are enforced through force, national sovereignty and borders are enforced through force. To have all the powers in existence except the ability to harm others is to not have the power to rule.

Unless I can directly infringe upon free will... but that's slavery and I'm constantly told slavery is harmful.
 
So I can do literally whatever I want but I can't kill anyone?

I would literally spend every goddamn waking second torturing everyone who has ever so much as slighted me in unspeakable ways while also condemning them to live forever by the virtue of me causing them harm ala I Have no Mouth and I Must Scream only with a lot more pointless trolling.
 
I'd recreate the our entire solar system in another galaxy. except I'd create an earth where people never existed. then I'd live there occasionally checking in on earth to see how they're doing. It's not that I wouldn't want to help people. The problem is that anything I do will lead to someones indirect harm. causing a chain reaction of indirect harm that ends in a bunch of immortal people begging for a death that will never come. Assuming they get one hundred years added to their lifespan every time I indirectly caused them harm.
 
Okay, so some of you are indeed pretty nasty.

CLARIFYING THE 100 YEARS THING: The rule is anyone you harm gets to live to be exactly 100. After that, they can die. I'm not sure what the rule should be in case you harm someone who is already more than 100, but people can't become perpetually immortal by this rule.

MOST DISAPPOINTING SO FAR: The people who were like "if I can't kill anyone that means I can't do anything!" Seriously? There's nothing else you can think to do with that level of power?

That said...
ROUND OF APPLAUSE TO: The people who immediately realized the rules here could easily be gamed and that the "100 years" thing could indeed carry some horrifying implications.

THE CONFUSING: The guy who said God granting you power would be blasphemy. Umm, no. Nothing GOD does can, by definition, be blasphemy. You seriously think God can blaspheme against God?

.....................................

So here's what I was thinking personally:

ONE - Make a new landmass where I transport all the "muh oppression" types to (and have it hanging over the head as a threat to anyone else). I'm too nice to make it a desolate shithole... but I would make it so these guys can receive content but never export it. Meaning they can see what the rest of the world says, does, believes etc but be absolutely unable to comment on or interact with it in any way. The only exception I might make is them being allowed to contact friends and family members, and even then the call can't be recorded (so that this can't act as a work-around for posting lefty shit on Youtube).

TWO - Take over all the world's governments and force fixes to their various issues, I'd also make it clear that if I disagree with any of their policies or actions, I change it, and they don't get to veto.

THREE - Establish a new school curriculum where one of the required courses is living in a VR simulation (or magical equivalent of same if it can be done without violating the "no sending people to the Shadow Realm" rule) in which they have to experience what actual oppression is like. There is NO opting out, and ideally I'd like for it to be one of those "its only a moment but inside the simulation you think a year has passed" things, sort of like the Hyperbolic Time Chamber from DBZ.

FOUR: Clones of myself everywhere, except without my own lazy personality and instead their only desire is to help people.

Anyway those were the first things that came to my mind. More are forming but I'll let the spergery build up for a moment.
 
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Treating this like a game where we need to find a way to abuse the rules, and not a serious thought experiment:

How indirect of a kill can the actions be before they're allowed, given the whole butterfly effect situation? Can I magic someone's car keys away so they find themselves walking to work instead, except if they do so they happen to be killed in a traffic accident? If I can see into all possible futures someone has, then I can guide them towards a swift death through indirect means.

Like say I made sure Seth McFarlane didn't accidentally miss his flight back in 2001. Would that count?


Can you banish someone to a desert? What about to Africa? What about to Detroit? What about into a coffin underground? What about into a building that's about to be demolished?


One hundred years from when I last harmed them, or one hundred years total? If it's the former, then I can keep all loved ones alive as long as they desire by inflicting some trivial harm to them every few decades or so. If the latter, then if an enemy target is older, the extra decade or two of lifespan is of no significant consequence when they're able to be endlessly fucked with.

What constitutes 'harm'? Would making someone infertile count? What about magicking away all of their assets? What about giving them a revelatory vision (or maybe a sequence of carefully manipulated events) which overthrows their entire system of belief?

Why not bring upon a woeful mental illness on your enemies that leaves them completely unable to function (and put them all in some barren location together while we're at it)? Whether or not they live another 100 years is a triviality when you can offset whatever drain in resources they cause.
All very good questions.

First thing I should say is people have wondered whether or not the public at large will know about you and God and these rules and stuff... They would only know what you choose to tell them. Meaning the only way anyone knows about the 100 Years thing is if you chose to divulge it.

On that note:

I already said this in an edit, but just to reiterate, the 100 years thing is not perpetual immortality. It means 100 years exactly--as in, if you find a 25 year old and shoot them in the crotch, they get to live to be 100.

But that does not mean they drop dead the minute their 100th birthday comes around. And like people have glommed onto, they aren't exactly invincible for those 100 years. Weird issues like "what if you harm someone who is 101?" or "what if I harm them when they're fifty but then they're at ground zero during a nuclear attack when they're 70" are probably things God would have to handle on a case-by-case basis (and if you think that sounds like a lot of work, keep in mind God is literally immortal and can be in multiple places and times at once).

And yeah, God's gonna be monitoring this, because of course God is gonna be monitoring this.

This probably answers a lot of your questions right there--the fact that there's an intelligent force (in fact the ultimate intelligent force) keeping an eye on things. It's not just a magical algorithm, but an ultimate being making calls on a case-by-case basis... a being that indicentally can totally be in multiple places at once and look directly into your heart, mind, and soul. There's no trying to Rules Lawyer this being.

But to answer one more important question: You don't have future vision. You are not the Kwisatz Haderach (though you can still terraform Arrakis if you want to--fuck the Bene Gesserit).

From what I understand of God (and keep in mind God's the mindreader, not me), a few things matter a lot: One is what was actually going through your head when you made a choice. Two is the end effect. Three is how the people on the receiving end felt about it.

So..... stealing the guy's car keys and forcing him to walk, but he gets hit by a car? You couldn't have known the hit by a car would happen. So its ultimately gonna come down to why you took the keys. If you had an actual good intention somehow--say "I wanted to help this guy lose weight and get healthy"--then you're probably off the hook. Probably.

If it was nothing more than you wanting to dick with the guy though? He gets to live to be 100. Certain niche situations ("what if ten years later, the guy gets his head blown off?" or "what if I hurt someone who is already 101?" for example) will likely be a case-by-case basis.

But for cases like:

"Yeah, I teleported Anita Sarkeesian straight into the Marianas Trench, but that technically wasn't me killing her--" not gonna fly. This is God you're dealing with, not Johnny Cochran. The very minute you've started trying to spin technicalities, God's already undone your action and did I mention the Almighty (never underestimate what that term "Almighty" means) is a mindreader? I think in this case, God wouldn't give Anita 100 years, because God would make it so you just never tried to teleport her at all.

"I teleported Anita into the middle of a mob of antifeminists--" Anita gets to live to be 100. God might even give her benefits just because you were nakedly malicious.

"I casted a spell on one of her speaking engagements where suddenly anyone who heard/witnessed this speech had lie detector powers for just this one engagement..." This is a tough one. My guess is Anita would get the years but not any other benefits. As for the audience that got the temporary lie-detector powers? Case by case basis, but I would imagine none of them are getting 100 years.

"I forced her to live on an artificial island where she's the only feminist--" This one will depend on how Anita herself comes out of it. Like if she came back and she was all like "this was the best thing that ever happened to me!" then no harm, no foul, she does not get the guaranteed 100 years. (And like I said, God is a mindreader... God would know if she's faking it just for the lifetime benefit).

.... I'm not sure if there's any questions left to answer, honestly.
 
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"I forced her to live on an artificial island where she's the only feminist--" This one will depend on how Anita herself comes out of it. Like if she came back and she was all like "this was the best thing that ever happened to me!" then no harm, no foul, she does not get the guaranteed 100 years. (And like I said, God is a mindreader... God would know if she's faking it just for the lifetime benefit).
Good stuff. With those clarified rules, I have a new way to game the system. Everyone I don't like is teleported to some far off place (say an exoplanet I have made suitable for humans) where they can be strapped into some sort of matrix-like system and live in a dull, artificial and fake reality which isn't harmful and only tedious and boring (with life support only lasting 100 years); meanwhile, the people I do like are all given a meaningful and ultimately fulfilling blissful lives in the real world as best as I can make it happen. If someone I like (under the age of 100) is about to die and they want to live, I harm them trivially - so they can all live out their years for as long as they reasonably can within the limitations.

I think that's all within your newly-proposed rules. I know I've left some detail out, but only because that detail should still easily fall within those rules.
 
Maybe with such power I would remake this world as described in these old posts, by transforming it quickly and of course safely?

In the dystopia thread, I said Earth IRL is worst dystopia.

In contrast, the ideal world to me seems to be incredibly unrealistic: a "high fantasy" (fairy tale) world IRL. Technology evolves to be indistinguishable from magic. Or actual magic -- that somehow evaded science for thousands of years -- is somehow discovered. Evils of the past like child abuse, disease, poverty, slavery, torture, and war are more or less dark memories. Evil has far less of a stranglehold on the world as it does now. Humanity "calms the fuck down." No more Current Year Clown World.

Technology no longer erodes humanity. No Elon Musk-esque merging with machines. No pollution. Cities and towns are beautiful places in harmony with nature, where buildings are works of art. No more ugly corporate-looking buildings, cheap cookie-cutter houses, "commieblocks," or strip malls. Industrialized travel is no longer needed as the average person can just fly or teleport about, so no more motorist infrastructure, airports, or rail. Food and drink are natural, clean, and plentiful. No GMOs, high fructose corn syrup, "lab chemicals," or pesticides in them.

People are highly independent and diverse, and any nations are merely city states. This means the average citizen has far more power as a voter. There's no more push for a homogenous "one world community." Laws are the minimum necessary (not necessarily libertarianism, just the minimum law needed). Work is like what it was before the 18th century. People can work for themselves and own their own businesses easily again. No more "intellectual property" is needed, just like it wasn't needed before industry. Economies are decentralized, local, and not based on consumerism.

The average person can easily explore the universe quickly, one way or another, even if just remotely. Scientific knowledge of the universe continues, none of it kept secret for "security."

This future is a bright optimistic world, where every day can be a new adventure, and where faith in humanity is not tried daily.
A high fantasy world.

One with a balance between good and evil - or better yet a bias towards good - instead of being seemingly tilted towards evil. Also a world not so full of suffering.
 
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I'd snap a bunch of cash into existence and just pay off my debts. Maybe I'd make a mansion in the woods and make a palatial set of gardens like Versailles. Why not? If someone gets hurt then they get to live a hundred years for it.
 
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