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[Jiharo]

Huh, increasing forested area of Earth by 1% counteracts almost five and a half years of deforestation. It would probably be regarded as a disaster though - trees sprouting in fields, residences and whatnot.

[Sergarr]

Can I increase the humanity's average IQ?

Sure. Yes.

Then I abuse that power every day.
30 days => 135% the intelligence.
365 days of using that power => 3778% the intelligence.

Nothing can go wrong with more intelligence for everyone! Just after one month, there already should be a pretty noticeable effect. After three months, average people exceed Hawking level. After one year, the science will be going at the speed of light.

For bonus points, it should also affect myself. I could use some extra brain-muscle.

ah, but you missed something, it raises the AVERAGE IQ. It may do that by spiking ONE PERSON randomly to well above genius. you don't see any change in yourself or those around you, but random people around the world are getting their heads exploded.

Okay.

How about "increase the median IQ by 1%"?

[Radio Controlled]

I take that chance every day. It's not like gaining a superpower miraculously increases your odds of dying.

That's not the point. The point is that the optimal strategy is that, before you increase your power, you safeguard yourself by making sure you won't die, and then you increase your power.

Hmm. According to wikipedia the 'crude death rate' in 2014 is 7,89 per 1000 people, or 0.789% of people dying (not accounting age and where you live etc). In two weeks you can decrease this to 0.685 (if I'm calculating this correctly).

Hmm. Not great.

However, this would also imply you have a 99.211% of surviving. So, how about we instead word it as 'increase my chance of surviving this year by 1%'.

99.211% *1.01 = 99.211% + 0.992% = 100,203%

And now you're immortal for a year, and can safely start increasing your power.

((manipulating numbers for fun and profit. also pretty sure I made a mistake somewhere in there))

The only problem is assuming you have an averagized "chance" of surviving for a year. It's more likely that either specific people are going to die or not die (in a deterministic universe) or if it's non-deterministic then specific people have a very high chance of dying, and others have very low or no chance of dying. You can't really be sure what your real chance of dying is.

Even then, the idea is the same.


If you're an old man with a week to live, and you get the power. High chance of death within the year, so you decrease that by a percent for a few days, which will maximally increase your odds of surviving. If you're a healthy twenty-something, you increase your odds of surviving, again gaining maximum chance of not dying.

[Radio Controlled]

Well, the issue here is the repercussions of increasing the average rate of survival of humans over 1 year- you're not the only immortal.

Who said anything about increasing the odds of other people? That could be done, of course, but would be something you'd have to do carefully to avoid causing disaster by accident.

For your first few days, you just increase your own odds. Then, once you can safely use your powers, you can decide on what to do next.

[Neonivek]

Assuming that is how percentages work.

The Double of 90% is also 95%

[Graknorke]

You know for all the IQ ones it could just make the test easier? If anything that's the only way I could see it working, since the tests are supposed to be moderated to have an average of around 100, right?

[Radio Controlled]

Well, the issue here is the repercussions of increasing the average rate of survival of humans over 1 year- you're not the only immortal.

Who said anything about increasing the odds of other people? That could be done, of course, but would be something you'd have to do carefully to avoid causing disaster by accident.

For your first few days, you just increase your own odds. Then, once you can safely use your powers, you can decide on what to do next.

Well, it then becomes a matter of raising... well, odds.


What would be the consequence of having a 102% chance of surviving for a year?

Functional immortality? I guess we'll have to ask the OP to be sure.

Hey, Lord of Buckets, what would happen in cases like this, where odds increase above the possible value (like having more than a 100% chance of not dying)? Does it revert to 100% or what?

[Fniff]

A lot of people have a much better power then this.
They are the 99%.

[Caz]

Huh, increasing forested area of Earth by 1% counteracts almost five and a half years of deforestation. It would probably be regarded as a disaster though - trees sprouting in fields, residences and whatnot.

I saw that episode of Doctor Who.

[pisskop]

Yup, can I just have 1% of the net worth of any all of the 1%?

[Neonivek]

Huh, increasing forested area of Earth by 1% counteracts almost five and a half years of deforestation. It would probably be regarded as a disaster though - trees sprouting in fields, residences and whatnot.

I saw that episode of Doctor Who.

And Sam and Max

[Radio Controlled]

I like how Bay 12 was able to collectively come up with an optimal strategy on how to use this power, and that within about an hour of posing the question.

[penguinofhonor]

.

[Culise]

You know for all the IQ ones it could just make the test easier? If anything that's the only way I could see it working, since the tests are supposed to be moderated to have an average of around 100, right?

Indeed; they already recalibrate it rather regularly due to the Flynn effect (that is, the fact that IQ scores are already apparently increasing at a rate of around 3 points per decade).  That leaves aside the question of just how effectively IQ measures something as ill-understood as "intelligence."  Rather than this, I would suggest altering neural plasticity and/or neural interconnectivity.  If nothing else, it would be useful to determining the effects of these on intelligence as well. 

On another note, if you want to blow up the universe, you could try altering some fundamental constants.  For instance, increase the scale variation in the electrical charge of a quark, or the fine-structure constant, then watch the (figurative and/or literal) fireworks as the fundamental underpinnings of atoms comes unglued.  Four days of alteration of the fine-structure constant (4%), and stellar fusion no longer creates carbon; let it increase above .1, and all stars die as stellar fusion ceases to exist. 

[nogoodnames]

Increase the value of 1/0 by 1%.

Also, there's a matter of scale. For example, if it's 10 degrees Celsius out and I say "raise the temperature by 1%" the temperature will raise by 0.1 degrees, but if I measure in Kelvin instead, it raises by 2.8 degrees (in Celsius as well as Kelvin since their increments have the same value). Can I just make up an arbitrary scale to get the results I want?