A Fun Thought experiment... The witch and the iPhone

JstTheWayIam

I took this thought experiment from a YouTube video I found on line, Joe Scott... I highly recommend his channel...

Assume a witch took away everything man had ever created. Everyone was left standing exactly where they are at this moment with nothing but there memory and health as it stands, no structures just empty fields...

And... A note in everyone's hand explaining that a witch has taken everything away, and the only way we can have everything back is to produce a fully functional iPhone...

The witch will take the phone back to before the spell was cast and if the iPhone works the spell would be broken...

How long do you think it would take humans to produce the phone, do you think we would ever be able to produce it?

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NorthCascades

JstTheWayIam wrote: »

How long do you think it would take humans to produce the phone, do you think we would ever be able to produce it?

Somebody would say "the witch is lying to us" and organize a raid party to kill her.

cee134

Not long if we got to keep what woman has created.

Grace Hopper: The computer

JstTheWayIam

cee134 wrote: »

Not long if we got to keep what woman has created.

Grace Hopper: The computer

And I tried so hard to use "people" and "humans" instead of "man"... Lol

Lounmoun

JstTheWayIam wrote: »

I took this thought experiment from a YouTube video I found on line, Joe Scott... I highly recommend his channel...

Assume a witch took away everything man had ever created. Everyone was left standing exactly where they are at this moment with nothing but there memory and health as it stands, no structures just empty fields...

And... A note in everyone's hand explaining that a witch has taken everything away, and the only way we can have everything back is to produce a fully functional iPhone...

The witch will take the phone back to before the spell was cast and if the iPhone works the spell would be broken...

How long do you think it would take humans to produce the phone, do you think we would ever be able to produce it?

When you say everything man has created does that include domesticated animals and agriculture? Children?
No clothing. No shelter.
Anything that was planted by humans is gone I assume. No wells. No plumbing. No stored food or water.
No medicines or hospitals. Corpses all around.
No weapons or tools other than rocks and sticks. How many people know how to get raw materials and make tools? How much would we help each other?
No books or paper other than the note. No writing utensils.
No transportation but feet. Getting materials and people long distance would be slow.
No quick communication outside your area. So you don't know if you are the only people alive for some time.
Lots of fear, anger, blame, fighting. Religious weirdos stepping up. Maybe witch hunts. Since proof of magic exists maybe efforts would turn to trying to learn magic.
So a very large part of the population is probably dead, dying off or eating each other. Maybe the people who know how to make an iphone would be dead so the process would have to be discovered again.

I don't think making the iphone would be a priority in that scenario even if it would put things back to normal. So probably not at all or at minimum several generations.

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JstTheWayIam

I could see us letting hundreds of millions of people starve to death in order to put all focus on producing the iPhone...

But in a race against famine, lack of water, sanitation, disease... We probably see a dramatic drop in population and may never be able to reproduce the iPhone, or if so... It would be likely hundreds if not thousands of years...

Vikka_V

_har_T_Swallow wrote: »

JstTheWayIam wrote: »

I took this thought experiment from a YouTube video I found on line, Joe Scott... I highly recommend his channel...

Assume a witch took away everything man had ever created. Everyone was left standing exactly where they are at this moment with nothing but there memory and health as it stands, no structures just empty fields...

And... A note in everyone's hand explaining that a witch has taken everything away, and the only way we can have everything back is to produce a fully functional iPhone...

The witch will take the phone back to before the spell was cast and if the iPhone works the spell would be broken...

How long do you think it would take humans to produce the phone, do you think we would ever be able to produce it?

honestly don't think it'd take that long- like 5 years MAX surely. i mean the space race took what like 10 years or so as well didn't it and what percentage of the population was actively working to make that happen you know

so, we don't have any tech or tools on hand, but the people who have the knowledge to develop an iphone from the ground up still exist, and the people who have hands on with making it happen still exist. the big gulf is to produce all the machinery and parts and tools to make that happen.

but you only have to do it once right? make a single iPhone? i suppose then the argument rests on what is considered a "fully functional iphone"...if it powers on and stays running is that fully functional? if she's taking it back in time to test it, then its not like we'd even have to worry about building cell towers or anything. check mate witch.

plus if every single person on earth knew things would go back to normal, as soon as that single iPhone was produced, you can guarantee probably 90% of the earth's population would be willing to slave away at mining materials until it happened. not like there'd be anything good on tv you know?

I agree with this, especially the bolded text.

A part of this situation that I cannot get my head around is with Apple products being so proprietary, would the new phone be an iPhone, or a knock-off and would the witch accept it as an iPhone? I'm stuck on that thought. I feel like it might be a trick, or maybe I am way too literal and easily confused!

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SomebodyWakeUpHIcks

JstTheWayIam wrote: »

I took this thought experiment from a YouTube video I found on line, Joe Scott... I highly recommend his channel...

1) Assume a witch took away everything man had ever created. Everyone was left standing exactly where they are at this moment with nothing but there memory and health as it stands, no structures just empty fields...

2) And... A note in everyone's hand explaining that a witch has taken everything away, and the only way we can have everything back is to produce a fully functional iPhone...

The witch will take the phone back to before the spell was cast and if the iPhone works the spell would be broken...

3) How long do you think it would take humans to produce the phone, do you think we would ever be able to produce it?

1. we would all be naked. I want to be on @MeeseeksAndDestroy team. He and I work well together.
2. How was she able to write a note if paper and pen had been removed
3. 2 minuties. I would just order it online from Amazon.