Congratulations. You just wasted three wishes and broke reality.
this post was submitted on 22 Jun 2026
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I remember as a kid I tried forming a logic quandary like this that so I would gain superpowers in the real world via my dreams by canceling out the dream/real world barrier.
The Lathe of Heaven?
Did it work?
Yes
Aw nice, good on you
DjinnOS: An Arch Based Distrobution
Disruption*
again thatβs two loops and a successful exit.
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do opposite of 2.
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complete 3.
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ignore 1
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-ignored-
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do not complete 3.
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-not completed-
all wishes fulfilled, genie.exe concludes
Yup, I remember working through it the first time I saw this comic and there's no paradox here.
You could argue that there is though, since the genie will grant three wishes. In that case, it operates like
granted_wishes = 0
while granted_wishes < 3:
wish = receive_wish()
granted = grant_wish(wish) # True if wish is granted, false otherwise (invalid wish etc)
if granted:
granted_wishes += 1
So we get
- Do opposite of next ->
granted_wishes = 1 - Complete 3 ->
granted_wishes = 2 - Enter time loop (recurse)
-inner loop-
- Do opposite of next (ignored due to outer loop) ->
granted_wishes = 0 - Ignore 3 ->
granted_wishes = 1 - Ignore 1 -> enter time loop (recurse)
-inner loop 2-
- Do opposite of next (ignored due to outer loop) ->
granted_wishes = 0 - Ignore 3 ->
granted_wishes = 1 - Ignore 1 -> enter time loop (recurse)
.... etc.
We get an infinite time-loop recursion, because we never reach the third guess in the inner loops.
Silly human. Genies exist outside of time. So the counter doesn't reset.
Well if the counter doesn't reset (because the genie exists outside of time and therefore grants all the wishes "simultaneously" from its own perspective) we definitely get a problem, because granting 3. makes it impossible for 3. to be granted, and we get the paradox implied by the comic
- Do the opposite of next
- Do not grant 3
- Ignore 1
If you grant 1 and 2, then you cannot grant 3 (since 3 implies not granting 1). If you grant 3, then 2 cannot be granted (since it implies not granting 3). This is the simple form of the paradox.
Correct. The genie grants 1, 2, and 2 in the second loop.
But you said the counter didn't reset? If it grants 2 in the "second loop", that implies 1 was granted (since we didn't invert 2), but you can't grant 2 (uninverted) and also grant 1.
If you're operating with a time-loop recursion, you run into the problem of my initial comment. If you try to grant all three wishes simultaneously, you run into the obvious contradiction. The only way you get out is if you allow a time-loop recursion, but for some reason count the ignored guess as a granted guess in the inner loop(s).
For some reason it feels like there's one though
I think that it is more that they need to be conditionally applied simultaneously, but are contradictory conditions that cannot be met.
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Imprisoning a powerful being in an oil lamp that can be released simply by someone rubbing it is a pretty shitty setup!
Decades of JRPG have taught me those seals on ancient evils are almost always made breakable by a dumb kid that has no idea what he's doing.
You gotta warn someone before sending them down a TV Tropes rabbit hole!
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I really like my friend's justification in his fantasy worldbuilding, which explains it to my satisfaction:
When attempting to seal things of mundane power, mundane objects are sufficient, such as handcuffs and chains. When you try to seal something magically, that extra power needed to seal such a powerful entity has tradeoffs: the more magically unbreakable and irresistible you want the seal to be, the more fragile the conditions holding it must also be. Want to seal all the evils of the world, even for a short time? Well, looks like you're going to need to store them in a top-heavy, ceramic jar with a tiny bottom, like Pandora's Pithos. Trapping a genie? It'll be much easier if you lay the trap with conditions for release, like someone rubbing it three times. Want to bind a violent spirit? Bind it to a fragile mirror, and make it so that she is freed if anyone stares into the mirror and says her name thrice, or if the mirror shatters.
This explains a lot of the folkloric sealing rituals in mythology.
Why don't they ever put the items with the evil beings sealed in them in a heavy container with padding, then drop it into the middle of the ocean? It's like they want them to be unsealed later for story purposes or something!
That's only effective until the saltwater eats away at all of the seals, at which point it's free again. Ancient vaults containing artifacts of fell power and their incumbent curses comprise one of the most popular adventure story archetypes. The point is, it's only gone until someone stumbles across it, and now it's _un_gone, and worse, the hapless stumbler has no idea what's going on.
The bottom of the ocean is pretty inaccessible even if the container rusts away.
But that doesn't stop the thing from getting out when the seal corrodes away...
If the container itself is flimsy enough to corrode away, escaping it is inevitable.
mystical sealing spells require the magic of plot contrivance
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"I'm so smart" - man who wasted three wishes.
"S M R T... I mean S M A R T"
Triggered a bug in the fabric of reality. It's a speed runner taking a crack at god.
Wasted?
Some people just want to break stuff. Wish achieved.
Personally, I'd rather have the wishes to use on anything else. Could cure cancer, become filthy rich, turn into a T-rex, have guns for hands, etc. What's the point of "out smarting" the genie like this? Fuck, I could even understand evil wishes, at least they do something productive (if terrible).
These genie wishes are always monkey paws. Better to do something that wasnβt going to blow back, like crashing the genie.
In the Arabian Nights, the genie tended to grant people's wishes as they were intended, and without any trickery.
The trickery of the djinn is something that has been retconned into the system.
If they didn't like you, they would just kill you right away.
And also technically Aladdin got a second genie originally with just a small ring that granted him unlimited wishes in the form of servitude.
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I don't get it...
- "Do the opposite of my next wish", you have two wishes left, ok will do
- "Don't fulfil my third wish," you have one wish left, ok I will do the opposite and WILL fulfil your third wish.
- "Ignore my first wish" you have no wishes left, ok I don't remember anything about your first wish.
It basically boils down to "do nothing", right?
Exactly. I don't know why people are assuming that genies loop back on granted wishes.
To fulfill the third wish, the genie must ignore the first wish made. The first wish was to do the opposite of the second, so to fulfill the third wish, the genie must now ignore that command, and do not the opposite not the actual second wish. The second wish, now primed to be fulfilled in earnest, not opposite, was to not fulfill the third. But fulfilling the third is how we got into this situation in the first place, so if it's not fulfilled anymore, we shouldn't be in the state we're in.
To fulfill the third wish, the genie must ignore the first wish made.
But these were executed in serial, so the effects have already been committed. Ignoring the first wish at the end had no material effect, because it's already been executed "flipping the second wish".
These commands would need to be actively looping before you encountered a runtime error. But the genie isn't re-evaluating the wish stack after each wish.
Yeah the wording on βignoreβ is not the same as βundo all effects ofβ or βrollback my first wishβ
Even so, I think itβs still just a no-op at the cost of 3 wishes.
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Genie: "I'm a thinking being not a computer, these wishes don't make sense so I'm not granting them."
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Ackshually, he never specified that any of those were wishes.
IMHO, I feel people here have the Disney idea of a genie rather than the true Middle Eastern idea of a djin.
Djins grant wishes more like the MonkeyPaw. It can horribly backfire. The protagonist is basically using logic to neutralize anything bad the djin can potentially do to him.
I'd argue the Monkey's Paw is a bad example because I don't think the Monkey's Paw is actively malicious like a djinn.
I think Monkey's Paw just works off of path of least resistance. What's the fastest way to randomly get rich? Workplace accident causing life insurance payout. What's the least effort way to revive the dead? Just make the corpse start moving again. What's the easiest way to give a shambling corpse peace? Undo the last wish.
I feel like a Djinn wouldn't let you undo the reviving wish. They'd probably just put them in a coma so your son is now in a half dead comatose state forever.
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Recursive double negative.
Some believe there's a special place for such people.
Well, the first wish can be ignored without being "undone", so nothing should have happened.
Simple: 3rd wish unfulfilled, first wish ignored, doing tho opposite opposite of next wish (wish 5): wishes annulled.
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