I’m good, thanks

Just heard this proposed Best Answer to the Genie question (make a wish, and it can’t be for infinite wishes): “I want to know the future”. I didn’t have to think twice to protest. I think that would be the SUCKIEST, most disheartening thing EVER. I don’t want to know that my efforts to do this or that will not pan out. I don’t want to know how many times I’ll need to try something and still fail. I don’t want to know what sicknesses I’ll have, or when my children will die and how. It’s the hope for the best that keeps us alive and trying our best.

To my protests, the proposer replied “no, no, I mean knowing the future as in knowing how any of your actions would play out so you can choose what to do!”. But that to me sounds like trying to trick the genie: a poorly disguised rephrasing of “fine, don’t give. me “wishes”, but give me the means to make happen what I want to have happen”.That’s giving one the means to MAKE their wishes come true, so... it’s still granting unlimited wishes. That’s against the Genie rules. No can’t do.

Besides, I go back to the problem that if you KNOW the future, that means that, by necessity, you CANNOT change it-or you wouldn’t KNOW the future, would you? Either you are poor today and see yourself rich in a future when you win the lottery, or there’s no point in knowing what the winning numbers will be, is there?

Which makes me think that Genies are the antithesis of what brains do. Genies snap their fingers and make things happen; brains envisage a future, then figure out a way to work towards it, and find pleasure in putting in the work to get there. The fun is not in the goal, but in the ride there. Genies would only take all the fun out of life.

Which is why I stand with the young woman in Neil Gaiman’s October tale, one of my favorite short stories ever, who, to the Genie’s inquire, replies simply: “I’m good, thanks”