Chapter 30 page 2 ~ The answer to all of them was “Reply hazy; ask again later”
Bianca: How to cure cancer. Wait, does that count as “one” question? Since there’s lots of different cancers? I’d ask about whichever one kills the most people.
Jany: You know those big unanswered math questions? The kind that have million-dollar prizes if someone can solve them? I’d ask one of those.
Sparrow: How to minimize the damage of climate change. Wait — we already know how to do that. How to convince people to minimize the damage of climate change.
Bennett: It would be, uh . . .
Bennett (thinking): Does Stu love me?
Bennett: . . . personal.
Timothy: If you’d asked me that a few years ago, I would’ve gone with “is there a God?” But now . . . I don’t think having that answer would make me happy either way, you know?
I’d rather ask for the best way to find my soulmate. — or rather, since I assume those don’t exist, somebody as close as humanly possible.
“How to fix my health problems”.
It’s selfish, I know- but if I’m gonna do anything to help the people I care about, and the world as a whole, I need to be physically capable of doing them.
Not selfish! Unless your health problems are all totally unique in the whole world, the information itself will already help other people.
“How do we make producing webcomics a viable full time job?”
Ah, there’s the dream…
Of course, the answer might just come back as “be Andrew Hussie.”
I suspect the answer might be “be independently wealthy and live somewhere with socialized medicine” since that makes just about anything a viable full time job. :(
I think the best question is “What is, and how do I attain the closest posible safe thing to omniscience and omnipotence?”. Solves all of those, really.
Might not count as single question.
I was thinking about it and wasn’t able to formulate something in way preventing simple useless answer …
Like, IF P=NP, having proof would be really nice, but what if it isn’t?
How can I become God?
You must first kill him.
“How do we attain and maintain sustainable agriculture that supplies nutritious food for the world’s population?”
That one’s easy: “Kill lot of people.” Time-tried as well. Just not exactly popular between the people who suspect they might end up being killed.
How do we get people to listen to scientific facts and base their decisions off of them?
“First, you go back in time 100 years and convince people at the highest levels that a good school system, that meets kids needs, is the best stabilizing influence on society…”
You don’t exactly need to go back in time. You didn’t specified WHEN do you want those people.
I can’t find The Tiger / Ann’s Being on this page, even though they’re tagged, and that’s making me N E R V O U S
Heh, looks like I just misclicked when trying to add the Arthur Bennett tag. Fixed now!