this post was submitted on 22 Jun 2026
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Comic Strips

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Comic Strips is a community for those who love comic stories.

Rules
  1. 😇 Be Nice!

    • Treat others with respect and dignity. Friendly banter is okay, as long as it is mutual; keyword: friendly.
  2. 🏘️ Community Standards

    • Comics should be a full story, from start to finish, in one post.
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    • Moderators have final say on what and what does not qualify as appropriate. Use common sense, and if need be, err on the side of caution.
  3. 🧬 Keep it Real

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  4. 📽️ Credit Where Credit is Due

    • Comics should include the original attribution to the artist(s) involved, and be unmodified. Bonus points if you include a link back to their website. When in doubt, use a reverse image search to try to find the original version. Repeat offenders will have their posts removed, be temporarily banned from posting, or if all else fails, be permanently banned from posting.
    • Attributions include, but are not limited to, watermarks, links, or other text or imagery that artists add to their comics to use for identification purposes. If you find a comic without any such markings, it would be a good idea to see if you can find an original version. If one cannot be found, say so and ask the community for help!
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      ✅ Correct: https://xkcd.com/386/
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Banned Artists

The following artists are banned from the community.

  1. Jago
  2. Stonetoss
  3. GPrime85

It should be noted that when you make reports, it is your responsibility to provide rational reasoning why something should be removed. Saying it simply breaks community rules is not always good enough.

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Note: This is not a rule, but a helpful suggestion.

When posting images, you should strive to add alt-text for screen readers to use to describe the image you're posting:

Another helpful thing to do is to provide a transcription of the text in your images, as well as brief descriptions of what's going on. (example)

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[–] Sergio@piefed.social 39 points 9 hours ago (4 children)

I don't get it...

  • "Do the opposite of my next wish", you have two wishes left, ok will do
  • "Don't fulfil my third wish," you have one wish left, ok I will do the opposite and WILL fulfil your third wish.
  • "Ignore my first wish" you have no wishes left, ok I don't remember anything about your first wish.

It basically boils down to "do nothing", right?

[–] caradenada@feddit.cl 2 points 1 hour ago

Exactly. I don't know why people are assuming that genies loop back on granted wishes.

[–] iamthetot@piefed.ca 24 points 9 hours ago (1 children)

To fulfill the third wish, the genie must ignore the first wish made. The first wish was to do the opposite of the second, so to fulfill the third wish, the genie must now ignore that command, and do not the opposite not the actual second wish. The second wish, now primed to be fulfilled in earnest, not opposite, was to not fulfill the third. But fulfilling the third is how we got into this situation in the first place, so if it's not fulfilled anymore, we shouldn't be in the state we're in.

[–] UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world 29 points 9 hours ago* (last edited 9 hours ago) (2 children)

To fulfill the third wish, the genie must ignore the first wish made.

These were executed in serial, so the effects have already been committed. Ignoring the first wish at the end had no material effect, because it's already been executed "flipping the second wish".

These commands would need to be actively looping before you encountered a runtime error. But the genie isn't re-evaluating the wish stack after each wish.

[–] panda_abyss@lemmy.ca 7 points 8 hours ago

Yeah the wording on “ignore” is not the same as “undo all effects of” or “rollback my first wish”

Even so, I think it’s still just a no-op at the cost of 3 wishes.

[–] iamthetot@piefed.ca 1 points 5 hours ago (1 children)

I mean, we are talking about a magical genie that can alter the fabric of reality to grant wishes. I trust you can suspend disbelief that the genie cannot change the past to effect those changes.

[–] UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world 2 points 5 hours ago

The premise of the joke is pedantry. I reserve the right to be equally pedantic.

[–] TheTechnician27@lemmy.world 7 points 9 hours ago* (last edited 7 hours ago) (1 children)

It basically boils down to "do nothing", right?

Sort of due to a flaw in the syntax; it (almost) boils down to an infinite loop (we'll fix the syntax to specify "I wish for you to" and use the wish flags '!' = opposite, '~' = ignore/skip (we'll assume this exhausts a wish still even though it shouldn't since it doesn't matter anyway), and for clarity, we'll make '+' mean no flags/execute normally; all 3 wishes are '+' at the start of the first loop):

  • "I wish for you to do the opposite of my next wish." (flag set to do !wish2)
  • "I wish for you not to fulfill my third wish." (flag set for +wish3)
  • "I wish for you to [have ignored] my first wish." (now ~wish1 was set before you made wish 2; notably, this needs to be retroactive for the loop to start, so the syntax in the OP is wrong).

Now +wish2 was set. But then the flag for ~wish3 was set. But then +wish1 was set (i.e. it was never ignored; this is flawed, however, but author's logic). Now !wish2 was set. Now ~wish3 was set. Etc.

Every even loop (0-indexed) will be (+, !, +) while every odd one will be (~, +, ~).

That said, a flaw in this logic is that it should actually stop after Loop 1, since wish3 is no longer an active wish; the genie doesn't have to go back and change anything. You need the wish to be active, not ignored, to break the genie into an infinite loop.

"I wish for you to do the opposite of my first wish." as wish3 should break 'em.

[–] Sergio@piefed.social 3 points 9 hours ago

[have ignored] ... notably, this needs to be retroactive for the loop to start, so the syntax in the OP is wrong

oooh, that makes sense, if you change the wording like that...

[–] cholesterol@lemmy.world 2 points 9 hours ago

If the wishes are prioritized from more to less recent, yeah. -which I guess is the trope's tradition. But it's an attempt at a self-referential paradox akin to the liars' paradox (this statement is false). I think a shorter, but more valid version, would be 'don't fulfil this wish'.