1d ago

Like Neo in The Matrix and "I know kung fu", what one ability would you choose to upload directly to your mind?

120 comments

Polyglotism. Being able to speak every language would be practically a superpower.
- This is a neat idea until you're in a situation where you remember 38 different words for a thing, just not the one in the language you need
  
  I only speak one language fluently and one language extremely poorly.
  The number of times I’ve been able to come up with the word I want in my second language and completely blanked on it in my native language baffles my mind.
- If I could 'cheat' and say 'I know every language in the world', and that included programming languages and things like scientific notation as a language, I'd take that in a heartbeat. If not, I'd take programming, as at least then I can create things and make money.
  If speaking every language included dead and forgotten languages too though, then it would be a very tough choice.
  
  This is probably super pedantic (bloody programmers right?) but I really feel like it would depend on what is meant by “know every programming language”. Like being able to remember every syntax and construct is sort of useful but not all that practical. Understanding how to implement the language in a useful way is the valuable part, not just knowing the keywords.
  I guess I would kind of compare it to the difference between being able to read Shakespeare and being able to write Shakespeare,
- I'd make tens of dollars as the scholar to decode the Harrapan/Indus Valley script!
  Or I make makes millions as a YouTuber decoding the Voynich manuscript...
  Our society is broken:(
- I can't even imagine how powerful I would be if I could be ignored in every language.
- If it was just one language and writing system as a choice, I might say Japanese.
  There are so many different characters in their writing as symbols instead of phonetic sounds, that bookstores in Japan are divided into sections, in which one has books that use... say 500 characters, then another section with books that use 1200 characters, or 5000, or 10,000, or more!
  To read Japanese or Chinese with a mastery of over 10,000 symbols might be my choice. The richness and depth of those writings must be something incredible.
  My second choice, for shits 'n' giggles, might be something like Sumerian or Akkadian, in the original Cuneiform!
- The rpg munchkin in me hopes polyglot misleading includes computer languages.
- This sounds very useful until you realize you still don't want to talk to people in any language.
- Yea, the best option.

"I know how to make myself do the thing I planned to do."

The ability to upload any ability into my mind that I can think of and be amazing at it.
Shashahshaaa!
Runs away and throws pocket sand
- Found the guy that wishes for more wishes

How to people.
I have great ideas and am horrible at explaining them.
- Rizz download complete
- I wanted to say how to happy, but I think how to people would fix that as well.

Download more RAM. My working memory is shit (ADHD).
- You will just be more (less?) Efficient and being efficient.
  
  I might be a little obsessed with efficiency. Possibly due to my issues making me inefficient by nature, I tend to seek efficiency wherever I can, like some mirage in the desert of my mind.
- I thought the issue there was the processor not being able to run a single core long enough.
  Or maybe it's just how the operating system works?
  Have you tried Linux? I use Arch btw.

I'd love to know how to dance, I mean really properly dance for every situation, not just a generic two foot shuffle. I've seen some people who can dance properly and they looked cool as fuck.
- You can dance if you want to!
  
  we can leave your friends behind!
  
  I do, and I love it! But I also need to face the fact that I'm not very good at it 😁

Read and write all languages. Be it swahili, mandarin, latin, hieroglyfs, python, c++ or java. ;)
- You had me until Java.

Psychotherapy
- "he's been going all night, he's a machine!"
  "....I know healthy emotion regulation"
  "...show me"
  
  "Stop trying to forgive your father and forgive your father!"

Musical ability — perfect pitch, great rhythm. I'm an okay musician after years working at it, but I'd love to be better.

Playing the piano and other instruments like a master. Music conveys feelings we can’t convey otherwise.

The ability to make an ability uploading tool.
- Sounds like you need to download pretty much everything ever written on mathematics, physics, biology, and medicine. That info dump would also have to include a bunch of stuff that hasn’t even been invented yet, and probably won’t be within the next 500 years.
  Once you have all that in your mind, you’ll be incredibly frustrated that modern day technology is at least 500 years away from what you actually need. You would need to build a bunch of quantum electronics fabrication factories so that you can build the real factories that actually produce the machines you need for assembling the very first brain reading and recording machine.
  Although, since you have all that revolutionary science and tech in your head, you should use that to fix global warming, world hunger, cancer and a bunch of other stuff so that you can raise the trillions of capital needed for building the main project.

Ability to fold a fitted sheet.
- Poke your hand until you hit the corner of a seam. Do the same with the other hand on an adjacent corner.
  Bring hands together so both corners touch.
  Now unfold the corner in one hand onto the other hand.
  Smooth it out. Repeat with the untouched corners.
  You can do it one more time or just fold from there
  
  That's all seems pretty complicated.
  Im just gonna stick with the tried and true half fold mostly ball method.
  
  You say that but when you put the four corners together you get a trapezoid or triangle instead of a square or rectangle. I’ve even watched videos and tried to copy but failed at this.
- Ok, that would also be a great mundane wish for me!

If I could have something magical: I'd like to be able to accelerate my thinking so I can have as long as I want to think things through
If it's gotta be real: easier to use memory, I feel like I have no idea what's going on bc I forget shit, but it's not forgotten I just didn't remember that memory at the right time even though I had it..
Talking to people hasn't been going well lately
- Following your lead: mystical/magical healing abilities, for self and others. Mundane, photographic memory.

I want to understand, intrinsically, and be able to manipulate to my liking, all the financial systems of the world.
At worst, I'd quickly become a well-paid accountant. At best, I'd become an extremely talented, untraceable, modern Robin Hood.
- I've thought about that a lot. If I won a near bn or more lottery, could I stay grounded enough, after hiring a reputable financial planner, to found a Montessori school of high global academic standards or free health clinic, including pharmacy, that includes plant medicines, organic foods diets, where appropriate, and/or a smaller side project or two? Or would I be irresponsible and do an Elvis-type thing for my primary caregiver and for my child that's still in my life, rather than set them up with a trust, so they would be able to be truly financially independent, should their spouse pass before them? It's easy to think the best of ourselves until the moment of truth arrives. I'd hope I'd be financially responsible, hire the planner, give to my community in a meaningful, probably anonymous way (because of sudden best friends clamoring for Fendi bags and Lambos), and buy myself an old Volvo or Audi, dependable and unostentatious.
  
  I can't reasonably spend more than like 100m, including giving millions to friends and family. Like what the fuck would I even buy? I could buy 4 lambos and 2 houses for every friend I have and every family member I talk to and barely make a dent.
  Probably just donate it to whatever the best charities are for a variety of things.
- This would be a pretty dope tv show for about a season.

Skateboarding. Looks so fun

"I know how to understand and speak every language with the proper accent. Wöáh."
- Monkey's paw curls: You understand the literal meaning of all the words, but not the context.
  Willsch fei ebbes von dä Buabespitzle?

Kung Fu

The ability not to forget all things when I grow older.

I'd upload a few languages. Instantly being able to speak and read an array of languages and traveling the world would be fun.

The ability to deal with the rush and then persistence of negative feeling whenever anything bad happens, my routine is thrown off, or even I have to do something I'd rather not, because I do not cope well with any of those, and it causes me to shut down.
The usual advice is to "bury it", "hold it" or "suck it up" for some unspecified later time, but that was basically my old coping mechanism and It Does Not Work™ any more.
So I'd like the upgraded version of that. Whatever it is. Preferably a version that won't break or occasionally malfunction (we call those "Warning signs", kids) like the original one did.
- The upgrade is get a good therapist, and that can be trickier, more or less depending on your place of residence. Someone who can help you gather new tools and the skills to apply them. I wish you the best.
- This is an issue CBT (not that one) can help with.

Speaking Korean, I live here for 4 years already and despite pushing moderatelly to learn it, I don't speak it at all. Everything I learn I forget very fast again.

The ability to perform high level mathematics and computer science tasks including programming languages and logic.

Time travel
- You'd need both time travel and teleportation, or else you'll find yourself in space when you travel forward or back in time. The Earth isn't a stationary object
  
  Time (and relative dimension in space) travel
  
  This assumes an absolute reference frame, which does not exist in this universe.
  
  Time travel already is teleportation.
  Actually, teleportation would be more powerful than time travel, since you can travel through different times as well with teleportation as an ability, but you can only teleport to a different time with time travel.
  
  Nothing is or everything is. There is no absolute motion.

The ability to sew anything. I love to binge sewing vids so being able to take some scraps and make cool shit would be amazing.

being able to inspect/ appraise any item and get comprehensive details about it.
it would be great to spot antiques and famous works from garage/ lawn sales.
- Ha! I'm imagining a DC comic book about "appraisal man"!!

Auto maintenance and repair
OR
household maintenance and repair; handyman stuff

Psychology.
I assume psychology is very useful for social interaction, but complicated and mid-impact enough that I personally wouldn't bother to analog-learn it.

Deduction, at superhuman speed of course just like neos kung fu speed.
Deduce the optimal stock market traction to gain a big chunk of capital so I can than deduce the best proper services to provide, or find the proper projects

I did Brazilian Jiu Jitsu for a while untill after the 3rd injury I realised this isn't going to be good on the long run and I stopped doing it. However, it was long enough to see what a magical power that is so I'd say that being able to posses the skills of a black belt without going thru the training would be quite nice.
People don't realise how helpless you'll feel trying to wrestle with someone who knows what they're doing. Being bigger and stronger will not save you unless you get really lucky.

maths.
I never had enough brains to not suck at maths.

Whatever skills would result in what the deep mediators to control autonomic functions like heartrate and could mimic death. I don't just want the control thing though I want the whole kit that comes with it which would likely have some martial arts. figure like and ideal shaolin type of thing.

Guitar sounds fun

Playing the piano, or just singing at a professional level. Would be amazing to know, but takes years of constant practice and teaching to learn.
- Seconding Piano. I'm a reasonably decent guitarist, but there aren't many everyday situations where this comes in handy unless you're a professional musicians.
  However, Pianos are casually placed everywhere, intended for public use. Especially in airports for some reason. I would love to woo random people passing by by flawlessly playing Hiromi Uehara or Jordan Rudess.

Medicine. If I could get an upload to make me an instant doctor, that would be amazing.

Being able to feel joy/happiness. I really don't understand or know what those things are but everyone says it's wonderful and awesome. So It would be awesome to experience it at least once.

I moderate amount of control of my mental health

How to fluently speak a foreign language. I'm A2 with French but I could live with Spanish or German as well.
- If you managed French Spanish is a fucking breeze. You know most of the nouns already and the pronouns are incredibly straightforward.
  
  A2 is still a novice. I can read it reasonably well. Generating words on the fly is hard. Listening is harder.

Is Charisma an uploadable skill? If so, I'd love to upload the entire library to displace my Charisn'tma.
- It is but its a 20 sided dice roll after that. And you critically fail....
  
  Pick your battles, so to speak.

Knowing every tree, plant, insect, ...
- Yeah, Billy 780164 as I like to call him, is an ant living in the basement in a swedish suburb near the sea, just besides the grass Gras9534795.
  
  :) not what I intended, but that would be cool too
  
  That ability is known as Dave😁

If I had that technology, I would upload everything available on file. The common fictional notion that you could "fill up" your brain is wrong.
- Soooo..... you think the brain has unlimited data storage capacity?
  
  The plasticity of the brain also gives it near unlimited storage capacity. There's a great episode of Curiosity on what obstacles would have to overcome to achieve immortality, and one of the topics it goes into detail on is brain capacity and functionality.

Ability to play the guitar like Gilmour, EVH, Page and Hendrix.

Sex probably

Mind control.

C2-niveau francais, s'il vous plait.
edit or as translate google would put it: niveau C2 de francais, merci.

Math, specifically gambling.

Tell me it doesn't use alien DNA like In Prey (2017)

Having a strong speech skill. I'll have the silver tongue needed to talk and utilize etiquette to get what I need and want. Maybe even pick up someone too.

My first thought was also languages, but all the classes for a bachelors in nuclear engineering would be nice. Huge passion of mine and I can't really pursue a degree at this point in my life

How to speak Japanese. I'd move there in a heartbeat.

NZT-48 + CPH4 = 🧠

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