If there was an easy button that instantly gave you complete knowledge on how to perform any skill or knowledge of any topic, what would it be?

[Ez-Bri-Z]

Would you be selfish and say something like how to make money easily?

Would you say knowing how to cure cancer?

What about always knowing the passwords to anyone's accounts?

What about knowing instantly how to draw well?

Go wild, but remember it is one particular topic of your choice.

[Anonymous]

There’d probably be a few that I’d be happy with for different reasons.


How to market/sell/promote - how to convince people to “buy” what I do. Now this could apply to business alone, but I suppose it could apply to women and dating, too.


Health/fitness - more specifically have a huge understanding of what to eat to fuel me properly, how to work out inexpensively, how to do it without spending 4 hours a day every day, what “junk food” is better than others so I’m not having to go vegan or eat bland or gross stuff all the time. How to have fun working out. Might make it more enjoyable.


Organization and cleaning. Being less messy would be useful for my family. I learned an “official” way, but it doesn’t work for me and it wasn’t practical for the parents (even though this “ideal” was still demanded). It was time consuming, so it didn’t get done. I’m getting better with a lot of my stuff, but it’s too much to take care of years of my parents mess, plus my own much smaller mess. Too much for one person.

[Leavesbound]

I would choose to be able to cure any disease, especially cancer. Many in my family have died of cancer and I had cancer years ago.

[DocJones]

Cancer sucks

[jennifer_bloom]

I would love to work in computer programming or IT cause I think that is where the money is. It's also a good environment because you can work remotely so don't have to take the car or the subway to work.

[Ez-Bri-Z]

As someone in the tech field, it is pretty nice for the most part but can be very competitive for certain roles

[FoxnEagle]

There IS money here, but keep in mind it is very much a support role (even if half of them refuse to admit it).

[Agape93]

How to achieve apotheosis.

[Ez-Bri-Z]

*searches dictionary*
*blinks twice*

I look forward to serving under your future religion dedicated to your message of everyone leaving everyone else the hell alone and minding their own business.

[Agape93]

I look forward to being your goddess :) love is to be celebrated

[NathanDavis]

I would like to always know, the very exact and precise answer to every random question I've wondered about in my life, instantly...

for example, how many people have every lived, how many steps I've walked in my life, how many times the phrase "bite me" has been used and the receiver has thought to itself "I would" how many bricks have been made but just on Sundays, how many liters of Coca Cola I've punished my body with, or how many songs have been recorded in history... stuff like that.

[HugoThe2nd]

Yeah, I would make a selfish choice.
I would ask the button to teach me a skill I could consistently make money from no matter where I was on the globe.

I always liked to travel, and as I'm getting older I'm realizing that the idea of settling somewhere for the rest of my life is becoming really unappealing to me.
But I have kind of went down a career route that's really inflexible in terms of location, and I know getting into something else now would be very unfeasible.
And I'm afraid the frustration with this will only get worse with time.

Long story short, I want to try traveling and living in an RV!
And, hey, if the button teaches me a skill I can make money from, I'm still providing the world with something of value, no?

[MTC29]

If I had had that button at 18 I'd have opted for engineering knowledge and saved myself 6 years at the university (and 6 years of tuition). I have always wanted to be a novelist, so now I'd ask for writing skills.

This is one of the more interesting (and thought provoking) questions I've seen on the site. Thank you.

[Ez-Bri-Z]

Aww thank you!

Thank you for offering a response as well. It is very appreciated 😊

[DaveToo]

I agree with one of your respondents when they said the journey to gain knowledge is to be embraced. It's like winning the lottery. All that money and having done nothing more than paying for a ticket with numbers. Those who have won tend to squander what they didn't earn through their own hard work.

I studied for ten years while working to gain my first degree and another ten years for my second. If I had been given the knowledge and degrees without the hard work, what would I have done with them? Squandered that knowledge.

[hearvoices]

Mine's kind of goofy, but I would love to be able to read the minds of animals. We think of animals to be brutish and primitive, acting only on impulse and instinct, but I think there's more going on with them than we realize. There's much about them we don't know. We really don't know what they think about apart from reproduction and food. I'd like to be able to get inside their heads. Maybe I wouldn't find much, but then again maybe I would.

[Ez-Bri-Z]

Lol hey its one of the wishes for my corrupt a wish thread!

[hearvoices]

Oh... lol I'll have to revisit that thread and see what happens to them.

[Ez-Bri-Z]

Lol yes! Lol read all of them if you want

[hearvoices]

Okay I read it. Yeah that would suck lol

[Ez-Bri-Z]

Lol thank you. That's honestly the responses I'm looking for. Like "oh god I didn't even think about that "

[hearvoices]

I'm reading the others now. You have a great imagination I must say. I love black humor.

[Ez-Bri-Z]

Thank you! I wanted to get more practice as a writer. I have a long way to go but these kinds of things are great practice

[hearvoices]

Well you have talent. Keep on writing and I'll keep on reading it.

[Ez-Bri-Z]

Thank you 😊

[captain_voidwalker]

I'd pick understanding FTL travel. Not only would it make me filthy rich, but humanity as a whole would benefit from bieng able exploit resources of the whole solar system instead of just earth.
The asteroid belt for example would be a minimal mining expense for materials that are extremely rare on earth.
And jupiter and Saturn are a near limitless source of hydrogen fuel.
Venus could be terraformed as a second home by first making some floating platforms in the upper atmosphere where its not that hot. Then using plant life to begin converting CO2 into oxygen which will reverse the run away greenhouse effect of venuses atmosphere.

[abc3643]

"And jupiter and Saturn are a near limitless source of hydrogen fuel."

If you have FTL, you're not going to need H2.

"Venus could be terraformed as a second home by first making some floating platforms in the upper atmosphere where its not that hot. Then using plant life to begin converting CO2 into oxygen which will reverse the run away greenhouse effect of venuses atmosphere."

Not really.

Each of the planets has the atmosphere that it was destined to have due to the astrophysical properties of the planet combined with thermodynamics working over geologic timescales.

Specifically, with Venus, its atmosphere is dominated by CO2 because the gases lighter than CO2 rose to the top of the atmosphere and then disappeared into space. This was due to the mass of CO2 molecule, the closeness of the sun, and the escape velocity for a planet of that size. Basically, temperature dictates the average kinetic energy of the molecules. But kinetic energy is 1/2*MV^2, so the lighter the M, the higher the V. If the upward component of V, "V_up" > V_escape, that molecule will go off into space, never to return. Over time, all those lighter molecules are going to drift off into space. The heavy molecules like CO2... their V_up rarely > V_escape so those molecules stick around.
This is why Venus is hot and dominated by CO2.

Even if you were to use plants, you'd have to cool the CO2 down greatly for the plants to consume them. And you'd still need a shitload of plants. Finally, you forgot that, at night, plants consume O2. This is why plants are not in hospitals. So, you can't just terraform with plants.

And, sorry to bust your dreams, but, even if you did solo discover and copyright/patent FTL, the real problem is that, once it is known that it can be done, others will work overtime to duplicate the work and not pay you shit. It's just like the Russians with the A-bomb. Once they saw the US use one, they knew it was possible and went full bore to build their own.

[captain_voidwalker]

I think you have a few misconceptions here.
For one I don't think the dtl tech it's self will make me rich. Rather bieng able to exploit the solar systems resources would make me rich.
Also hydrogen would still be useful for smaller localized transport such as cars and planes on a planet. I doubt you want the kind of energy level needed for ftl travel to get involved in a car wreck.
And 3rd planetary atmospheres change all the time. Earth was once atmosperically identical to Venus but the evolution of plant life converted our CO2 into oxygen and cooled our planet considerably. In fact that process caused the longest ice age on earth where even the equater was frozen over. Fortunately the evolution of animal life combined with volcanic activities put methan and CO2 back into the atmosphere and warmed our planet back up.

[abc3643]

This:

"And 3rd planetary atmospheres change all the time. Earth was once atmosperically identical to Venus but the evolution of plant life converted our CO2 into oxygen and cooled our planet considerably. In fact that process caused the longest ice age on earth where even the equater was frozen over. Fortunately the evolution of animal life combined with volcanic activities put methan and CO2 back into the atmosphere and warmed our planet back up."

I understand exactly how planetary atmospheres evolve. I took a class in planetary geophysics in 1983, but it's really basic physics and I got my BS from RPI in 1985.

I quote Spock:
"Gentlemen, if I let go of a hammer on a planet that has a positive gravity, I need not see it fall to know that it has, in fact, fallen."

As for the terraforming, I am not sure you can get enough plants to do what is necessary. I think you'd have to artificially expedite the entire process. Even once it IS terraformed, you have to keep doing it forever because Venus is just too close to the Sun.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f7WpNBDf6og

[captain_voidwalker]

I'm not under the illusion you can terraform a planet over night. Its a process that would take hundreds possibly thousands of years. But it is possible. As for venus bieng to close to the sun it isn't. Venus is well within our suns habitable zone at least for the duration of its main sequence. What makes Venus so hot is the large amounts of co2 or even worse water vapor which causes a runaway greenhouse effect. However in the upper atmosphere of Venus the temperatures are livable and co2 concentrations capable of supporting platlife if not human. So over time you use the plat life to convert CO2 into O2 which will cool the planet. This will cause the water to condense into liquid which will further cool the planet. Over time this can be made ver sustainable. Or at least it's an easier problem to solve as opposed to say mars. Mars's atmosphere is to thin to support any life that we know of and even if you could by some miracle move enough mass into the Martian atmosphere it would be blow away by the solar winds dur to its lack of a magneto sphere. Venus by contrast is an easy problem to solve since you need only convert the gases into the types you need. Prosseses we can and do have an understanding of since this has already occurred on earth.

[abc3643]

I won't disagree, but Earth is different. It's fundamentally cooler because of the distance from the Sun.

Since Earth is 3/2 the distance to the Sun, it gets (2/3)^2 or 4/9 the solar energy that Venus does.

You can terraform, but you'll need to keep at it. Earth has a lot of biospheric control mechanisms (such as the carbon, nitrogen, and hydrological cycles), so it's a lot more than just changing the atmosphere. So, even if you terraform Venus, you'll need additional biospheric control mechanisms. On Earth, those evolved over 4 billion years. On Venus, we wouldn't have 4 billion years because the Sun will be leaving the Main Sequence around then and may even make life on Venus impossible.

I'm not saying it can't be done. I am saying its a Herculean effort that needs to be continuous.

Furthermore, though, why bother?
If you have FTL, you are likely to find many more pre-existing planets in "Goldilocks Zones".

[captain_voidwalker]

Ohh for sure terraforming any planet is a massive effort. Fortunately since earth had given us both yhe knowledge and the tools to do it we can speed the processes up and have it not take 4 billion years. But its a lot of work for sure

[abc3643]

Don't be so sure.
We have a fundamental biological problem already:
Life in space is killing us.
This is because our bodies are evolved to live on a planet with 9.8 m/s^2 gravitational acceleration which also provides us with an "up"/"down" direction. What we are learning is that bodies in space begin to exhibit detrimental effects.
Now, being on a planet is better because there is some gravity and Venus is very good since its gravitational acceleration is only slightly less than ours, but, generally, even if a planet is terraformed, if the gravity is too different, this will be problematic.

[The_Maphio]

Personal invulnerability. No illnesses, can't be killed and age wouldn't be a problem.
I'd be living in discreet luxury as I already do, and observe how humanity slowly extincts itself generation after generation.

[Ez-Bri-Z]

Oh man that would have to suck if you were trapped somewhere. Just waiting for centuries hoping somebody would find you.

[The_Maphio]

People hardly even know of my existence unless I interact with somebody of my own volition.
Nobody wants me trapped for any reason. Being immortal too, if somebody tries to be smart I'd be indulging in some old-school extermination, until the place I live at would be deemed off-limits by the mortals.
I'm a writer, don't you think I'd have some contingency plans?

[Ez-Bri-Z]

I'd like to fancy myself as a writer of sorts as well. You only listed mortal enemies and didn't list anything for natural disasters or events that you may not have a reasonable position to control. What if a plane crashes on you. Sure, you won't die, but you could be trapped.

What if they show up and see somehow despite a plane falling on your head and being in burning jet fuel that you are completely unharmed. Now government agencies might be interested in you. You are invulnerable, but not uncaptureable. A simple net could be enough to stop you. With you secured you are brought back to a facility and placed in a secure chamber where you can be studied. Even if they can't draw blood they choose to keep you there for evaluation anyway. See how long you can go without food or water for example. Maybe they try different experiments like encasing you in a vacuum. Sure you won't die but that would have to suck to not be able to breath.

Iunno, lots of possibilities

[The_Maphio]

Realistically, if anything that disastrous would happen, and there's a house on those premises, the twon hall, the region or the country itself would move to clear the damage and eventually look for survivors. In a non-solitary situation, the chances of remaining stuck under debris is very unlikely.
And this is not even literature, just normal civilized procedures.
In case of capture, I could feign ignorance and pray god for how lucky I have been. Not existing any tangible proof that I didn't die because I'm immortal (and I'm the only one in existence), they'd go for the "lucky motherfucker" approach and I'd be free to live on as nothing ever happened.

[Ez-Bri-Z]

Mmm this day and age skepticism runs high. You'd at the very least be monitored and highly covered by the media as a story of the week. People dig into your background and see "oh man this person has been around forever" well now you are back to being a lab rat

[The_Maphio]

Moving around, changing identity... Stuff that happens on a daily basis, I could partake in that as well.
By the time they found out who I was a good amount of another lifetime would have passed. I could still do well for myself, nevermind the elimination part of the deal. Journos stick their noses, they leave it there and vanish from existence.
If one really wants, vanishing from the radars is not impossible at all.

[Ez-Bri-Z]

Mmm, iunno, people go missing and family members have questions. People leave notes, records, photographs behind. Suddenly you bring more attention on yourself. You'd be better off just getting it over with or not engaging at all.

[Nikolai2004]

Cancer cannot be cured, I was diagnosed with stage 2 melanoma and got it removed but I know it will never be cured and it will one day spread to my lymph nodes. One day it's a normal freckle next day you it's fucking cancerous. I would choose being perfect in skeet and trap shooting because then I can enjoy the sport I love professionally and make a lot of money to host tournaments which would be profitable for me as well.

[Jaylaaa2000]

Nothing something being easy makes it no fun or doesn't make someone appreciate the effort it takes to achieve it.

[Ez-Bri-Z]

Lol who said anything about the journey on this one. Instant gratification to be used for others or yourself that's the goal here

[Jaylaaa2000]

Yeah i didn't read the body till just now. I was in a distracted when answering this question.

[jerdanro]

How to heal the polarization in the U. S. and convince people in power to do what is best, not just do what is best for themselves.

Oh, and how to have a life ling happy relationship with a woman.

[Ez-Bri-Z]

Technically that is more than one 🤔

I'll allow it. Lol

[jerdanro]

Thank you for your indulgence. :)

[alance99]

If its gonna stay with me forever then i will use it for making money but if the button is for limited time then i would take knowledge of high paying profession that way i can earn all my life even after button is gone

[Ez-Bri-Z]

Whatever you learn is permanent

[Static_In_The_Attic]

Interspecies communication would be something & having the ability to communicate with every animal is what I would choose.

[es20490446e]

Not to brag, but I already have that button.

For example today I finished a book for someone. I transcribed part of it using AI, I created a program that makes its images look awesome, I made the greatest cover for it, and I corrected the text to be like prose.

I'm good at everything, I can figure out anything.

[Anonymous]

I reckon someone has just finished watching the Matrix

[Ez-Bri-Z]

I have not, in fact I have never seen it all the way through. I keep falling asleep during the same part everytime where he is asking what pill to take

[ZackBan]

I'd master the art of communication so much that I'd be able to talk anyone into anything

[FoxnEagle]

Going for the Speech (100) options huh? :P

[slatyb]

It would be the stock market or other high-stakes games of skill like poker.

[FoxnEagle]

Oh dang, didn't think of that.
Full knowledge of stock market would probably get you "insider trading" charges :P

[_no_one_]

Quantum computing.
If i master that before that technology is even practical, there's an ocean of opportunities and could even provide jobs to millions.

[TheUniqueOne96]

I'd just go with the money TBH, because with that, you can use it to learn many other skills.

[Joey_007]

Everything about artificial intelligence, it's basically the answer to everything

[FoxnEagle]

Nuclear Physics
There is so much that goes into nuclear stuff, I would imagine gaining a full understanding of it could be used for many other topics.