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There's a Tumblr meme going around asking which pill you'd take, of eight pills that each grant different superpowers. (Red is strength, blue teleportation, etc)
Then there's this excellent short story about them:
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I know in my heart that Black is the best, but honestly I'm *annoyed* when I have to think really strategically and comprehensively, and if I took the Black pill I'd feel obligated to do so all the time.
I think I'd go with either blue (for my own enjoyment) or orange (for some combination of enjoyment + actual-world-saving).
Posts: 4136 | Registered: Aug 2008
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It seems to be a rather clever take on "The Last Question" by Asimov. I liked it.
Kind of annoyed that it took them ~1 quadrillion years to realize that TRP guy is a source of unlimited energy. You would think that thoroughly investigating the nature and capabilities of each person's power would be the first thing they would do. Also, even if they did realize it at the very end, why not just send back a message like they did before: "hey, use TRP guy to start generating insane amounts of energy now so most of the people in the universe don't die."
Posts: 2222 | Registered: Dec 2008
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Loved it. I knew it was going to be a Pandora's Box type of experiment, so rather than picking which I thought would benefit me the most, I tried to pick which I thought would harm me the least. I was stuck between Grey and Yellow, and ultimately went with Yellow.
Also, I enjoyed the Red-Pill/Reddit/PUA joke.
Posts: 1080 | Registered: Apr 2006
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Yeah, the story doesn't work when you think about the problem of 'hmmm power generation and super strong guy', plus the question of 'why wasn't anyone testing the last pill person until the end of the universe?'
But aside from that it was funny and interesting Posts: 17164 | Registered: Jun 2001
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Quite enjoyable but I do have a few issues with it.
Green: Why not just shapeshift into the Hawk? Or the monster great white?
Pink: Description says "can" be turned off with a touch, not "will" or "must." The story clearly makes it out to be a must.
Blue: I think I would have spent some time exploring the possibility of using this power to teleport to a new universe.
Posts: 891 | Registered: Feb 2010
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I think Black or Blue would be my top tier choice.
If there were 8 pills with 8 people and we each got to choose in some sort of order:
Black Blue Orange Grey Yellow Pink Red Green
Although if I thought about it more that might change if you accept the premise that they'd all essentially be immortal.
Posts: 21898 | Registered: Nov 2004
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Blue is also an easy source of anti-entropy, especially if he can teleport anything he is holding. Even if not, he can easily transport to areas of high potential energy from ones of low potential energy and be impervious to harm.
Posts: 10177 | Registered: Apr 2001
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But isn't that just harvesting energy that's already out there rather than generating more energy than is put in?
Posts: 21898 | Registered: Nov 2004
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I think so, yeah. Let's say you had a portal gun and linked two portals such that you got infinite falling. As long as the portals maintained their position relative to the surface, an object dropped into them would constantly accelerate (up to terminal velocity) without taking energy from anywhere else. It would come from its position on a space time curve.
Posts: 10177 | Registered: Apr 2001
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I think my choice would be orange, black, then blue.
Black is limited by what he can think of and do and there's got to be a pretty heavy cost in thinking of all the different scenarios. Orange is the combination of all the world's smartest and most capable people. In a lot of cases orange could pretty much know the future and also would be able to create the future.
Posts: 10177 | Registered: Apr 2001
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