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[Leafsnail]

But is the banana even or positive?

No.  But it still isn't negative or odd either (if we're using the numerical terms, heh).  Something doesn't have to be the opposite of something else in order to not be it.

[Sowelu]

As XKCD has taught us, though, the potassium in one banana is more harmful than living within 50 miles of a nuclear reactor... for a whole year!  Why do bananas hate America?

[Urist Imiknorris]

xkcd also taught me that coal power plants give off more radiation than nuclear plants.

[Strife26]

The needy want, but never need
Oft declared, never achieved
Many tried, never succeeded
Many died, the past unheeded

Utopia.



I'm going to try rephrasing my riddle again. In hopes that someone'll be able to get it.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

The answer is a number, but it's more than that. It has length. There's something that comes after the number, but it's neither number nor english. When the something after is written, it's rarely even in the language that it is. Of course, some want to change the something after to something else, something more (or less) correct and in English. Some want in front too, for whatever reason.


Now this number, has three elements found within it. It's where half of my name is found. It's where cloaks and 16 tomes of magic spells came into my closet. Elegantly bound books. It's where I got more than Fire, Earth, Water, and Air.

There's a song, a movie, and a game there.

It's neither 13 nor 7, but one is a fourth of the way correct. The other is closer, and half of it is a fourth of the way to correct.

[Nikov]

Strife is close but I was looking for something more specific.

[Urist Imiknorris]

Heaven?

[The Merchant Of Menace]

The needy want, but never need
Oft declared, never achieved
Many tried, never succeeded
Many died, the past unheeded

True Communism?

[Keita]

Something that can be in another thing.
But adds no weight, in fact it subtracts.

[Strife26]

A post scarcity economy?



Empty space, which can be considered to be something contained in something else, while it's always going to decrease the weight of something by some amount, because no space is naturally a complete vacuum.

[Blargityblarg]

Something that can be in another thing.
But adds no weight, in fact it subtracts.

A hole.

[ed boy]

There are a hundred perfectly lgocial pirates in a cave, and one day they find a hundred gold dubloons. They have a strict hierarchy in their pirate society to help them divide up the dubloons. These are the pirate laws:
-Each pirate has a number (1,2,3,etc)
-The pirate with the highest number shall propose a plan to divide up the dubloons
-All the other pirate shall then vote yes or no
-If the majority vote no or there is a tie, then the pirate that came up with the plan is keel-hauled and the next highest number comes up with a plan
The pirates, being perfectly logical, follow this process to determine how to cast their vote:
-They shall first and foremost vote in such a way that preserves their own life
-If both ways preserve their life, they shall vote in such a way that gets them the most dubloons
-If both ways get them the same amount of dubloons, they shall vote "yes"

How will the situation resolve?

[Sowelu]

There are a hundred perfectly lgocial pirates in a cave, and one day they find a hundred gold dubloons. They have a strict hierarchy in their pirate society to help them divide up the dubloons. These are the pirate laws:
-Each pirate has a number (1,2,3,etc)
-The pirate with the highest number shall propose a plan to divide up the dubloons
-All the other pirate shall then vote yes or no
-If the majority vote no or there is a tie, then the pirate that came up with the plan is keel-hauled and the next highest number comes up with a plan
The pirates, being perfectly logical, follow this process to determine how to cast their vote:
-They shall first and foremost vote in such a way that preserves their own life
-If both ways preserve their life, they shall vote in such a way that gets them the most dubloons
-If both ways get them the same amount of dubloons, they shall vote "yes"

How will the situation resolve?

The fewer voters remain, the more doubloons are possible for those who still stand.  So, if all pirates are naive and only consider the current step, they will all vote no each time until there are only three pirates remaining:

Pirate 3 proposes that pirate 1 gets all the doubloons.
Pirate 1 votes yes.
Pirate 2 votes no.
The plan goes through.

Being less naive than that, it's also worth considering that all pirates would always vote yes just to survive, except for the last three pirates, who survive no matter what (as shown above).  Pirate 1 always wants to kill everyone, pirates 2 and 3 don't care because they know they would normally get no cash...Huh.

[ed boy]

A tie counts as a no vote, though. In the three-pirate situation that you gave, the proposal would be rejected and 3 would be killed.

[irmo]

How will the situation resolve?

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

I think there's an error in the setup of the problem. What happens if there's only one pirate left? He proposes giving everything to himself, "all the other pirates" vote, resulting in a 0-0 tie, and he hangs himself from the yardarm.
Therefore, #2 will propose giving everything to himself and #1 will vote yes so that he's not killed.
Pirate 3 needs two votes so he gives everything to #2.
Pirate 4 gives everything to himself. #1 and #3 vote yes because they're getting nothing either way.
Pirate 5 needs three votes. He gives everything to himself, and #1 through #3 vote yes, because they're getting nothing.
Pirate 6 needs three votes, so he gives everything to himself and #1 through #4 vote yes.

And so it goes. Every pirate will try to take all the money, the next pirate in line will vote no, but all the pirates after that will vote yes, because in their current situation they're getting nothing either way. It turns into something like the Bottle Imp Paradox, where if all the pirates resolved to vote "no" on plans that have them getting nothing, they'd get something, but the choice before each individual pirate is always "yes: get nothing; no: get nothing" right up until it's "yes: get nothing; no: try to take everything for myself". Strictly speaking the result will be that #100 takes everything and all of them except #99 vote yes, knowing that if this plan failed, then #99 would be up and everyone except #98 would vote yes.

This problem is very sensitive to the exact wording of the rules. I think the fact that the endgame has pirate #1 unable to propose any plan (because he needs another pirate to vote on it) makes this unsolvable.

[Urist Imiknorris]

I think we can assume that pirate #1 will go "Oh hey, I be the only one left. All for me, and screw yer democracy, ye drunken hallucination. Ye don't get a vote."