Google forks Linux to make a mobile operating system, stripping out lots of familiar FOSS software and licensing requirements and replacing it with their own. Also it's written in java.
Granted. You are now spending less quality time with your dog. Your dog now knows you don't want to spend time with him, and feels betrayed that you used an entire wish for it. Over time, you drift apart, and your dog stops loving you.
You can freeze time and move unhindered by the effects of the freeze, but physics still behaves normally meaning your movements cause incredible friction in the air and a sonic boom across any path you take.
you can't even breathe properly, because the air you exhale compresses in front of you. to breathe fresh air, you have to walk while breathing in. everything seems dark, because the light is frozen too. you begin to feel incredibly hot, because your body barely loses heat to the surroundings any more.
Interestingly, light can't be frozen, it's speed is constant for all observers. Instead it gets redshifted. The end result is effectively the same, since it ends up out of the visible spectrum.
In addition, the Earth's sudden stop means that OP's relative velocity is around 220 km/s because of the solar system's orbit around the galactic center. If OP is on the prograde side, they are launched through the air and evaporate before they have a chance to die in the cold of space. If OP is on the retrograde side, they immediately splatter against the planet with a kinetic energy of about 1.5 terajoules (assuming a body mass of 60 kg).
Actually, there wouldn't be a sonic boom. Because time is frozen, even the smallest movement OP takes would accelerate them beyond the speed of light (OP has to move infinitely fast to overcome the infinitely slow passing of time). The result is that OP risks ending the world if they freeze time.
Granted. You blink, and when you open your eyes you're in Germany. You're a full German citizen. You own a lovely flat in Munich. Your phone is full of contacts - people and family and friends throughout Germany. You have a German driver's license, you have a job at a German company, and your bank account is filled with Euros.
You know all those news stories you hear about “Person wakes up and can only speak a language they never knew before”. That’s the cover story for these events.
Time is frozen. And so is the air around you. You can't move.
Earth's rotation is also frozen. What isn't frozen are you and your bestie, who are now suddenly moving at hundreds of mph relative to everything around you.
But since the air around you doesn't move, you are instantly turned into a fine red paste, held in place by the unmoving air, resembling your form for the rest of untime
I read "Mein Kampf." Hitler said something in it that really stuck with me. Basically: The people do not want democracy. They don't feel qualified. If you tell them they need to be the ones to chart the course for the country, they'll get uncomfortable, because they don't feel they have a good grasp of the issues and they have enough on their plate with their daily lives.
What they want is for someone to say: I understand the issues, I know exactly what to do, I'm strong enough to keep you safe and solve the problems. Don't worry about it. I can take care of it if you just put me in charge. I'll get rid of our anxieties about the world and make things good and everything will be fine. That's the type of leader and government they gravitate to, not someone who'll go into all the details or tell them that they get to make the decisions.
I do not agree with his prescription for what makes good government (hopefully goes without saying), but his grasp of how people operate, I think was spot-on.
"Good evening, ladies and gentlemen. The planet, from a human perspective, will die within most of your lifetimes. I'm just here killing time. I have no real ability to prevent the looting of your futures. The people who are profiting are so avaricious and stunted that they're not really even getting any enjoyment from the whole process. It's purely the results of their own pathology, and our system malfunctioned and put them in charge because it was never designed on purpose. It all just happened that way, and so we're all fucked." A small murmur went through the pin-drop silent press pool at the expletive.
"Me too," he continued blankly, as the silence returned. "I'm actually trying to help, but the system makes it impossible for me to produce the level of change that's required. All I'm doing is producing angst and anxiety for myself and my family. I'm simply outnumbered by, basically, millions of malfunctioning AI models in suits trying to maximize a goal number even if it destroys us all. I did my best. I tried, but I'm just as much hampered by my own personal human limits as any of you are. The system is immensely powerful, easily capable of rejecting and replacing anyone who tries to produce genuine change. Each of us in government must either work to strengthen it and be rewarded, or reject it and be cast out, or resign ourselves to working for change within its parameters and therefore accomplishing nothing of lasting value with our lives."
"I'm happy to take any questions. We've got plenty of time today, as ironic as that is to say. Anyone ...? Yes, Hodges? NBC?"
I think there's a lot of variation. I know people who have worked in politics who say the people they worked on behalf of were genuinely good people who got into it because it's a way to produce positive change in the world. I also know other people who have worked in politics who said the people they worked on behalf of were the biggest POSes on a personal level that they'd ever encountered, just absolutely like the worst people in the world, 10 times worse than you think, that made their skin crawl to even have to interact with them.
Whether the guy from my little story is 30% of the people in government or more like 1%, or 0.1%, I think people of good faith can disagree about.
Granted. Everything is now extraordinarily boring and complicated, with every time someone opens their mouth, a long, dry, analytical summary of various problems and different theoretical solutions is given, with a long, nuanced list of potential pros and cons for each, presented in a realistic way where it is made apparent that not everyone can be made happy.
With no drama anymore, active voting percentage drops to the low double-digits for a period. Eventually populism disappears and only policy wonks are left running, and without obstructionism, they begin to actually try new things and solve some problems.
The Monkey's Paw
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