There won’t be a single church, priest, nun, pastor, reverend or gospel song left on Earth.
Whooo HOOOO!
There won’t be a single church, priest, nun, pastor, reverend or gospel song left on Earth.
Whooo HOOOO!
It will be the end of the human race. By the time women (and men to) will get to the point where they are still willing to have sex with someone, after they have heard the ‘truth’, they’ll all have gone through menopause…
The only solution is to set up large scale migration with places where people don’t speak the same language. Needless to say all English and Spanish speakers will have a tough time; as will anyone who speaks multiple languages.
Well, it would surely simplify the justice system. We could actually take testimony at face value for a change, and maybe even question some inmates to actually let the ones that didn’t do what they are accused of free. That’d free up a little money.
Airport security could actually do what it was meant to do with a few simple questions.
So much hinges on people asking the right questions, though.
In the short term, it would be a very bad thing. People are far too reactionary and impulsive to handle the total truth, and in many cases, I believe a very good case can be made for keeping many truths concealed (sometimes it’s just clearly not beneficial for all knowledge to be made available).
In the long term, I’m not sure what our society would look like, but overall, I do believe in balance. A world with total truth is no better than one with total lies-- and on that note, though lying carries negative connotation, sometimes doing so is for a greater good. Any extreme has the potential to be very damaging, including total truth.
That assumes that they don’t believe what they say.
Now, if the effect prevents people from being wrong instead of just preventing them from lying, on top of all the other chaos you’ve just handed everyone oracular powers. You’ll be able to discover your neighbor’s PIN numbers or the launch codes for nuclear weapons just by trying to write them down.
I think that once the dust of the initial insanity settles we will adjust to new social norms. Asking some questions will become the social equivilent of standing in the middle of a the room naked and singing camp songs.
So in short, wars and mayhem followed by a new social order. Nothing longterm positive or negative however. I expect that the human race will always find a way for the generally evil to hurt society and for the generally good to help it.
There wold be a massive, temporary upswung in violence as part of the overall chaos that would ensue, but there would be no new wars. Wars require propaganda and group cohesion. There would be a lot of uprisings and riots, a fair number of mob actions against ethnic enemies, but it would be very difficult for anyone to take control of anything. It would be an end to authority in almost every sphere.
I think for the most part, we would quickly learn how widespread a lot of things like infidelity and petty theft are, and we’d very quickly learn to adapt, though the immediate aftermath would be pretty bad. It would be interesting to see how quickly things return to normal after the year is up.
It would also be interesting to see how the response to the situation varies between cultures. Shame-based societies, where saving face is a much higher value than truthfulness, would suffer more than guilt-based ones. There would be widespread epidemics of suicide in Japan and many other east-Asian countries.
I think I also want stock in a polling company. I predict a massive upswing in people and groups contracting for polls to learn the truth about all sorts of things.
And ear plugs. I’m betting it becomes the new normal to walk around with earplugs except with ones nearest and dearest. (assuming that one is not compelled to answer unless one hears the question.)
I can’t figure out how to give people using oracular powers with scifi tech; that’d require magic. Anyway, giving millions of people clairvoyance while simultaneously giving them reason to want me shot in the face would be stupid.
Depends. Can we just refuse to answer? Because if not think of this scenario:
Terrorist walks up to military officer giving speech
Terrorist: Excuse me sir, what are the launch codes for the nukes?
Officer:12341234ghklhj321ljh34l1k23hj4lk12hj4
Terrorist: And what location is the most easily broken into, which can also potentially launch nukes?
Officer: Military Base Unicorn Semen (Because why the fuck not, that’s why).
Terrorist: Thank you.
We’d all be kind of screwed
Well, he did say we are compelled to answer truthfully as far as we know, but the whole scenario can simply end with:
Officer: Do you plan to use the launch codes to kill people?
Terrorist:Yes.
Officer: Be on the lookout and arrest him if he tries.
The world could also apparently turn into an episode of Whose Line Is It Anyway…
This is proof that evil doesn’t always mean stupid.
Luckily it usually does however
Or better,
Officer: Arrest this terrorist. And politely ask him to reveal his plans in detail, the names and whereabouts of his fellow conspirators, the locations of his overseas bases, and any other pertinent information you can think of.
I don’t think it even gets that far. Some other officer shoots the interrogator even as the first officer is answering. Then they round up everyone in the room for questioning and do a sweep for recording devices and transmitters.
And this in turn would be followed by:
Terrorist: You know the base and how it operates. What would be the best plan for me to sneak into the base undetected?
I think the more realistic scenario would go like this:
Terrorist: Hi, can I ask you some questions about your nuclear weapons?
Officer: Why are you asking?
Terrorist: I’m a terrorist and I want to steal one of your nuclear weapons and blow up one of your cities.
Officer: Fair enough. What’s your question?
Terrorist: What are the launch codes?
Officer: I’m not going to tell you the codes because I don’t want you to be able to use our nuclear weapons.
Both men told the truth.
I think not being able to lie would be the equivalent of everyone being able to read the thoughts of everyone else.
That’s a poorly phrased question for most auditors. Unless you’ve given that some specific, sustained, directed pondering, the only true answer is “I couldn’t say off the top of my head.”
Not exactly (though neither lied). In the first place, the officer answered the first query with another query; in the second place, he ended by refusing to answer. The OP is clear that the VVV forces people to answer any question given them immediately, truthfully, and literally one they have heard it, so long as they know the answer at all. So Batman, asked what Superman’s Terran civilian identity is, will have to answer “Clark Kent” unless Lex Luthor is foolish enough to ask “Do you know what Superman’s real name is?” instead. (Admittedly Bats will be saying this while breaking Lex’s jaw.) But Jimmy Olsen will be able to shrug and say “I dunno, Lex.”
I predict I’ll be doing a fewer bullshit chest pain work-ups as people who actually just want a sandwich and a place to sleep for the night are forced to say so.
A more realistic scenario would be the terrorist torturing the officer into telling him what he knows. As I said; under this scenario torture is now* highly effective*. There’s no lying, no blurting out falsehoods to placate the torturers and make the pain stop.