Titles hate me today: This is about genies

The working title of this piece was "Genieus", a tenuous pun achieved by lengthening the pronunciation of the word 'genius' into 3 syllables.  I had to scrap it because whenever I looked at it, all I saw was a portmanteau of 'genie' and 'us'.  Not only is this a terrible portmanteau because of the fact that both words appear in their entirety, which would be profoundly lazy, but it also implies that the core argument of the piece is that within each of us exists the potential to actualize the things we wish for.

It's actually a piece that I wouldn't mind reading if someone were to write it, but I had no intention of attempting it, and therefore had to ditch "Genieus" for the far-more-eloquent title above.

Let's take a hypothetical situation.  For the purpose of this, we establish that genies exist.  This isn't common knowledge, and they are incredibly rare; no one within 3 degrees of seperation of you, perhaps even more, is aware that genies exist.  But the fact remains that they do.

Feel free to take a moment to go rub any lamps...   You never know.

So one day, you're walking with your friend, and a genie emerges from a bottle on the side of the road.  The genie grants the two of you three wishes.  You and your friend immediately use the first wish to have the genie appear identical to Genie from Aladdin, because really, how could you not use the first wish for this?

Perfect.

The genie now looks like Genie, but in two dimensions.  Genies tend to twist your words around, with unexpected results.  This is of course very visually jarring, but it's better than having specified a three dimensional alternative, because if you had, the end result would have probably been this:

It bothers me that this photo is easily accessible outside of the context of this hypothetical. 

You and your friend are now left with one wish each.  I pose two questions of this hypothetical situation: What do you wish for? And what should you wish for?

Before we delve into these questions, a sidebar to elaborate on the dickish nature of genies, prefaced by two jokes, found here and here.

A guy goes into a bar, sits down and orders a drink. While waiting, he sees a guy sitting at the bar who has a very big muscular body but a tiny head. So he asks the guy, "How is it that you have such a huge body and a small head?"The guy replied, "I was walking along the beach one day and I came across this bottle buried halfway in the sand. So I picked it up, brushed away the sand, and out popped this fine female genie. She said she would grant me three wishes for releasing her."For my first wish, I asked for ten-million dollars, and POOF right there on the sand was $10,000,00."For my second wish, I asked for a luxury yacht, and POOF right there on the ocean was a 90-foot yacht."Finally for my third wish, I asked to have sex with the genie, but she said that genies were not allowed to indulge in those kind of activities." So, I said, " c'mon, how about a little head?" 

A man and an ostrich walk into a restaurant. The waitress asks, "What will it be?"The man replied "A burger and a coke."  "I'll have the same," the ostrich replies. They finish their meal and pay. "That will be $4.50." The man reaches into his pocket and pulls out the exact amount. They do this every day until Friday."The usual?" she asked. "No, today is Friday. I'll have steak and a coke.""Me too." says the ostrich. They finish and pay. "That will be $10.95"The man reaches in and pulls out that exact amount, just as he had all week.The waitress is dumb-founded. "How is it that you always have the exact amount?""Well," says the man. "I was cleaning my attic and I found a dusty lamp. I rubbed it and a genie appeared." Wow!" said the waitress. "What did you wish for?""I asked that when I needed to pay for something, the exact amount would appear in my pocket." "Amazing! Most people would ask for a million dollars. But what's with the ostrich?" "Well," said the man. "I also asked for a chick with long legs."

Genie lore seems to have sprouted from the Islam faith, which tells of the Jinn, creatures who lives in a parallel world to humans, who have free will, and are generally painted as wanting to tempt humans (to whom they are invisible) with evil.

The crux of both of these jokes (and they are far from the only two) is that the person who found the genie spoke in an ambiguous manner when wishing, and as such, the genie saw fit to mess with them.

With the knowledge that genies will take any opportunity to fuck you over in mind, what would you wish for?  And more importantly, what should you be ethically compelled to wish for?

I'll examine the second question first, and then provide my answer to the first.  This question came up in a discussion I had, and the first thing I thought when asked what I should wish for was 'Probably something that would improve the world'.  The person with whom I was discussing said their wish would be for all the Earth's water to become clean, which is an incredibly admirable, selfless wish.  But it would cause problems.

Firstly, there's always the possibility that we would then re-pollute our water supplies, assuming that it would become clean once more.  I certainly wouldn't put that past human beings.  The larger problem, in my opinion, is how would this phenomenon be explained?  Remember, to the rest of the world, this would appear to have been magical.  We know it was a genie, yes, but the rest of the world doesn't.  And if you were to come forward saying "Oh, it was just my genie wish," you'd never be able to convince the majority.

"Guys... my genie.  I'm telling the truth... Why won't you listen to me?"

Further, something on such a grand scale would discredit a lot of scientific knowledge, because, thanks to science, we know that you can't just un-pollute the world's water supplies.  I feel that, while noble, it would be detrimental to wish for something like that.

So, what should one feel obligated to wish for?  If it's personal gain you're after, I'd suggest phrasing your wish much like the guy in the second joke did.  When I have to pay for something, I wish to have that exact amount in my pocket.  (on a side note, that second joke is made far weaker by the fact that he was smart enough to phrase his wish in such a sophisticated way, but also wished for "a bird with long legs".  Hmm, is there any way this could be misinterpreted?...)

Giggity.

I'm not saying one shouldn't feel obliged to use their wish in a way that benefits the world though, in fact, I would encourage it.  Through the process of writing this, I decided that a wish should be used for something like "I wish that people would open their eyes to the fact that the belief that there isn't enough food to feed the world is a myth".  Something that would profoundly change our collective outlook on the world, but that doesn't violate the laws of how we understand the world.

To address the first question I posed, when I identified my now-circumvented problem of wishing for something large-scale, I settled on I wish to read the Harry Potter series without context again.  I was advised to include a clause that established that Alzheimer's was not a factor in any way.  I am a big fan of this clause.

My mind would orgasm if this were possible.

The thing that interests me is what would one wish for?  And is there a disconnect between that and what one feels they should be obliged to wish for?  For me, it would be awfully hard to turn down getting to read "The Prince's Tale" and having my mind blown a second time.  And besides, we don't need a genie to realize there is enough food on this planet to feed everyone.  Stop being complacent in being told there isn't!