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[fivex]

"Decrease the amount of time between 1000000BC and the first time a human sets foot on Mars by 1%"
...though that would most likely cause someone to land on mars somewhere between 8006BC and 7907BC, assuming someone would originally do sometime in the next century.

[Neonivek]

I'd be very tempted to try to increase my chances of discovering the origin of this superpower within the month by 1% a few times until I figure it out or get bored trying.

 I tend to be the sort to wonder how things even happen.

That is impossible as you have no chance.

What you DO is DECREASE the chance you won't discover the origin of the super power by 1%. Since that is 100%.

[Caz]

Oooh, new assasination method! "Decrease distance between X and Alpha Centauri by 1%."

Oh god I am just visualizing people suddenly being forcefully propelled towards Alpha Centauri, regardless of where it is. This includes directly downwards, at which point they are simply dragged along the ground at an increasing velocity.

Or eventually you'd get Alpha Centauri colliding with Sol and ripping both solar systems apart. That could be fun, I guess.

[flabort]

My power would be "Increase the energy output of oxidizing or burning carbon by 1% per day".

Eventually, burning pure elemental carbon will yield enough energy to synthesize pure elemental carbon purely out of the energy released  (e=mc²) by burning the same amount of carbon. We wind up with C+O₂+(X Energy units) -> CO₂+(X+Y Energy Units), and (X+Y Energy Units) -> C, or C+O₂ -> CO₂+C+(Ever Increasing amount of energy). This leads to the perfect machine, leads to nuclear power being replaced with far more efficient self-perpetuating coal power, and causes some people to spontaneously combust.

And eventually the energy output is enough that we can spend the energy to separate the oxygen from the carbon again and still have a net profit.

[Caz]

My power would be "Increase the energy output of oxidizing or burning carbon by 1% per day".

Eventually, burning pure elemental carbon will yield enough energy to synthesize pure elemental carbon purely out of the energy released  (e=mc²) by burning the same amount of carbon. We wind up with C+O₂+(X Energy units) -> CO₂+(X+Y Energy Units), and (X+Y Energy Units) -> C, or C+O₂ -> CO₂+C+(Ever Increasing amount of energy). This leads to the perfect machine, leads to nuclear power being replaced with far more efficient self-perpetuating coal power, and causes some people to spontaneously combust.

And eventually the energy output is enough that we can spend the energy to separate the oxygen from the carbon again and still have a net profit.

...You win.

[Leafsnail]

Staying eternally youthful is trivially easy, you'd just have to use it less than 5 times a year to stay in your 20s.  So I think that one's a given.  Money is also not likely to be an issue considering you'd be better than any investment bank if you used your power just 30 times a year or so - just take out a loan every now and then and use it to pump yourself full of money if you're running short.

So we'll move on to making the world better.  Going Death Note is possible, but a bad idea.  Firstly due to the reasons that Death Note itself presents, with it being explicitly intended as a criticism of people who think that the world would be better if only we would arbitrarily kill certain people.  I'd also say it's highly likely that someone else would take over if you killed one individual in a bad organization, or that if you killed an entire organization there would be power vacuum problems.

Changing fundamental rules of physics seems very dangerous.  For instance, screwing with the oxidization energy of Carbon is likely to kill all living things due to their dependence on respiration.  Changing any fundamental force would likely be even worse and would cause the galaxy or matter itself to disintegrate.

I think the better approach is to help boost the solutions rather than attacking the problem.  For instance, taking 1% chunks out of HIV will help people, but will never eliminate the problem as your "1% less" gets less effective every time.  Making the drugs 1% more effective, or 1% more available, or increasing the research speed for new drugs against viruses in general by 1% every day for a year or so though would dramatically boost elimination efforts, and would keep getting better every time you used it.  If you got drug research up to, say, 10,000% of what it is now while also doing similar things to vaccine and drug effectiveness that means you'd also likely be free to address other problems, as new pathogens would likely be stamped out very rapidly by the incredibly quick drug responses.  I think this is the most efficient and sustainable way to fight the world's ills.

[martinuzz]

If I want to decrease the gap between my financial assets, and those of the richest person on earth with 1% per day, how many days would it take me to become the second richest person on earth? Let's say my financial assets can safely be assumed to be zero at t=0, since even if I would have 1000 dollars, it'd be insignificant compared to the 81.9 billion dollars Bill Gates has, if we round the outcome to integer days.

So at t=0 the gap is 81.9 billion dollars. at t=1, day 1, the gap decreases by 1%. I would need to gain 819 million dollars for that.

EDIT: to become the second richest person, I would have to acquire more than Carlos Slim, 74.2 billion dollars, according to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_World%27s_Billionaires

[IronyOwl]

I'd be very tempted to try to increase my chances of discovering the origin of this superpower within the month by 1% a few times until I figure it out or get bored trying.

 I tend to be the sort to wonder how things even happen.

That is impossible as you have no chance.

What you DO is DECREASE the chance you won't discover the origin of the super power by 1%. Since that is 100%.

I'm not sure this would count as "modifying an existing quality," and if so I suspect it'd still be violating the spirit of the question. Similar to how you (probably) couldn't "decrease my mortality" to increase lifespan or "reduce my lack of wealth" to gain money.

My power would be "Increase the energy output of oxidizing or burning carbon by 1% per day".

Eventually, burning pure elemental carbon will yield enough energy to synthesize pure elemental carbon purely out of the energy released  (e=mc²) by burning the same amount of carbon. We wind up with C+O₂+(X Energy units) -> CO₂+(X+Y Energy Units), and (X+Y Energy Units) -> C, or C+O₂ -> CO₂+C+(Ever Increasing amount of energy). This leads to the perfect machine, leads to nuclear power being replaced with far more efficient self-perpetuating coal power, and causes some people to spontaneously combust.

And eventually the energy output is enough that we can spend the energy to separate the oxygen from the carbon again and still have a net profit.

I'm far too lazy to figure out how long this would take, but I do have to wonder if it wouldn't be more efficient to "increase the size of this pile of nuclear fuel by 1%," "increase the yield of this nuclear reactor by 1%," and occasionally "decrease the size of this pile of nuclear waste."

[Caz]

I think the better approach is to help boost the solutions rather than attacking the problem.  For instance, taking 1% chunks out of HIV will help people, but will never eliminate the problem as your "1% less" gets less effective every time.  Making the drugs 1% more effective, or 1% more available, or increasing the research speed for new drugs against viruses in general by 1% every day for a year or so though would dramatically boost elimination efforts, and would keep getting better every time you used it.  If you got drug research up to, say, 10,000% of what it is now while also doing similar things to vaccine and drug effectiveness that means you'd also likely be free to address other problems, as new pathogens would likely be stamped out very rapidly by the incredibly quick drug responses.  I think this is the most efficient and sustainable way to fight the world's ills.

Good plan. I learned from RTS games that the best strategy is to research all the first tier of upgrades before doing the rest. Maybe increasing by 1% through a bunch of pertinent things (1% more peace, 1% less illness, 1% increased knowledge for all, 1% empathy) etc would work better than picking one single thing and jacking it right up. It would also help stop a bunch of unfortseen circumstances like if the world suddenly got 100% more peaceful and so there were no deaths which could cause a sort of apocalypse-type situation in itself via overpopulation.

[Caz]

Increase the speed of light by 1%, and increase energy output by... Some random high mass element rarely found on earth by 1% until you get extreme amounts?
That way quick interstellar travel becomes feasible!

Doesn't this just make time go faster so that it evens out in the end anyway?

[Cheeetar]

I don't see why it would.

[SHAD0Wdump]

I'd be very tempted to try to increase my chances of discovering the origin of this superpower within the month by 1% a few times until I figure it out or get bored trying.

 I tend to be the sort to wonder how things even happen.

That is impossible as you have no chance.

What you DO is DECREASE the chance you won't discover the origin of the super power by 1%. Since that is 100%.

You assume I don't have a chance to begin with. How do you know?

[Moghjubar]

Increase the bond angle between Hydrogen and Oxygen by 1%

[Neonivek]

I'd be very tempted to try to increase my chances of discovering the origin of this superpower within the month by 1% a few times until I figure it out or get bored trying.

 I tend to be the sort to wonder how things even happen.

That is impossible as you have no chance.

What you DO is DECREASE the chance you won't discover the origin of the super power by 1%. Since that is 100%.

I'm not sure this would count as "modifying an existing quality," and if so I suspect it'd still be violating the spirit of the question. Similar to how you (probably) couldn't "decrease my mortality" to increase lifespan or "reduce my lack of wealth" to gain money.

Your inability to discover the origins of the power IS a quality that is quantifiable by a percent. You don't have something you lack, but you have the lacking.

Your "Lack of wealth" however isn't quantifiable.

[Graknorke]

If given the chance, the first thing I'd do is wish for 1% of the world's total money as of 11:59:59 a.m., 19th of December of the year 2014 AD.

Doesn't work that way. Try again.