this post was submitted on 30 Jul 2025
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[–] dragontamer@lemmy.world 81 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (4 children)

Btw: the original Aladdin story had no three wishes rule.

Aladdin just spammed the heck out of wishes. Got everything he ever wanted.


The only part of the Disney movie that's accurate is when the sorcerer returns, teleports the Sultan (of China) palace to Africa, and Aladdin needs to use the weaker Genie of the Ring to steal the Genie of the Lamp back through trickery.

The princess of China (yeahhhhhh) helps Aladdin out a bit IIRC.

But yes, palace teleportation, sorcerer wishing to be Sultan, that's the legitimate part lol

[–] Object@sh.itjust.works 48 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (2 children)

It was me who wished everyone after me to be limited to three wishes

[–] don@lemmy.ca 13 points 1 month ago

I corrected your mistake with the first of my “3” wishes lol

[–] msprout@lemmy.world 5 points 1 month ago

I'd kick your ass if I didn't spend all three of my wishes on churros from 7-11. :/

[–] greenskye@lemmy.zip 25 points 1 month ago (2 children)

The Disney genie was also just a scam. Aladdin explicitly wished to be a prince. Not look like a prince or be as rich as a prince or have a parade like a prince. But actually be one.

Instead he's revealed to be a 'fake prince' because the genie half assed his wish.

[–] FooBarrington@lemmy.world 9 points 1 month ago

"Eh, good enough, ticket closed"

[–] Signtist@bookwyr.me 4 points 1 month ago (2 children)

I always thought he was a "fake prince" because he was the prince of a country that didn't exist. Like, sure, you're the prince of this nonexistent country, see how far that gets you I guess. Otherwise Genie would either have to make new land out of nowhere somehow, or displace people who already lived/ruled in a location, which seems somewhat against the rules.

[–] greenskye@lemmy.zip 3 points 1 month ago (1 children)

If it was impossible he shouldn't have accepted the wish. Aladdin already gets a wish rejected for not being possible. Fulfilling a wish with something different than what was wished for shouldn't be a thing.

And what does being a prince of a non-existent country even mean? That's still not a prince in any capacity (as confirmed by the story). It's just a scam.

Plus an easy way to accomplish this is just to make Aladdin the lost son of someone. It's a pretty common trope for royal kids to end up missing and raised as commoners, especially in Disney stories.

[–] Signtist@bookwyr.me 4 points 1 month ago (1 children)

That's a fair point. I was thinking it was kinda like being the technical prince of the Ottoman empire or some other country that no longer exists - a neat factoid to talk about, but otherwise not really relevant.

[–] greenskye@lemmy.zip 2 points 1 month ago

Oh good point. For a non-benevolent genie story, I suppose being made a prince of a defunct country would work. He would be a prince, but it wouldn't be good enough for what he wants to be a prince for (a good match for the princess). Yeah I see your angle now and that makes sense.

[–] explodicle@sh.itjust.works 1 points 1 month ago (1 children)
[–] Signtist@bookwyr.me 3 points 1 month ago

I mean, if killing a person or making them fall in love with you are against the rules, it seems that you're not meant to use wishes to fuck with people. Sure, Jafar does, but he's the villain - given Genie's good nature, I'd imagine he wouldn't let his wishes do that unless the wisher specifically forced it, which Aladdin wouldn't do.

Fucking with people by making them suddenly be a citizen of a completely new country, or suddenly not be the ruler of the country they previously ruled would probably be something Genie would avoid, and Aladdin wouldn't press him on it, even if it's not specifically covered under the quick list of rules Genie gave.

[–] dalekcaan@feddit.nl 16 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Next you'll tell me Hercules wasn't a demigod because he drank all but one drop of the humanification juice after he was stolen from Zeus, the ever-faithful husband.

[–] dragontamer@lemmy.world 15 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (1 children)

While Hercules is impressively wrong, I knew Aladdin was a fun original read when it began with 'In the Far East Kingdom of China....'

Hercules, for all of its faults, actually takes place in Greece. Which is kinda sorta close to Rome (Hercules is his Roman name lol. Heracles is his Greek name).

On the other hand, Aladdin might be a fake story all together. As in, some French Guy may have made up Aladdin as part of his translation of 1001 Arabian Nights. IIRC, Arabs don't know wtf that story is doing in the (French) book.

So Aladdin might be an entirely fake addition to the 1001 Arabian Nights novel. Canonically fake. So it's in the true spirit of Aladdin (and 1001 Arabian Nights) to screw with the story anyway.

[–] faythofdragons@slrpnk.net 10 points 1 month ago

I love when fanfic gets canonized by public consensus.

[–] caseyweederman@lemmy.ca 1 points 1 month ago
[–] brachypelmide@lemmy.zip 58 points 1 month ago (2 children)

unexpectedfactorial:
"Wish granted! You have 1 wish!"

[–] BarrelAgedBoredom@lemmy.zip 37 points 1 month ago (4 children)

But 0!=1, what am I missing here?

[–] pinball_wizard@lemmy.zip 28 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (1 children)

Genie grants the wish, and then deducts one from the pool of remaining wishes.

Edit 1: And it is implied that the Genie stored the number of remaining wishes as an eight bit unsigned integer, where subtracting one from zero gives 255.

It is worth noting that unsigned integer subtract-from-zero exploits were common in video games from around the time that Disney's Aladdin was released.

Edit 2: No discussion of amusing subtract-from-zero bugs is complete without a link to Nuclear Gandhi. (Even though it is now believed not to have been a subtract-from-zero bug.)

[–] jj4211@lemmy.world 9 points 1 month ago (2 children)

He is saying factorial of zero, so more a math nerd than a computer nerd.

[–] FooBarrington@lemmy.world 6 points 1 month ago

This is why math nerds prefer to talk in a dull tone. The least bit of excitement, and your equation is suddenly wrong.

[–] pinball_wizard@lemmy.zip 3 points 1 month ago

Yes. I caught the factorial reference, but wanted to address the question, in case it was also in earnest.

[–] thirteene@lemmy.world 11 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Its a quirk in binary math with 8 digits. If you "roll the odometer" past 0, it resets to 255

 0000 0011 (3)
-0000 0001 (1)
=0000 0010 (2)

 0000 0000 (0)
-0000 0001 (1)
=1111 1111 (255)
[–] Minizarbi@jlai.lu 16 points 1 month ago

I think you missed the joke

[–] nibbler@discuss.tchncs.de 9 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago)

Not only is 0 != 1, but also 0! = 1.

sadly I don't know which one you mean :D

[–] 18107@aussie.zone 5 points 1 month ago (1 children)

I don't see how the vacuously true statement 0 != 1 has any relevance here.

[–] BarrelAgedBoredom@lemmy.zip -1 points 1 month ago (1 children)

First, "make it 0!" - * Number *! As a "surprise factorial" (as seen in comments in this very thread making this exact joke) is a common joke in threads like this and that was the only connection I could make for this meme, having no previously knowledge of binary quirks.

Second, I don't know if you were trying to be a dick or you're just some overly wordy ass clown high on your own farts, but how on earth is me explaining what I thought a joke meant, showing why it didn't work, and then asking for help to understand it vacuous?

[–] 18107@aussie.zone 5 points 1 month ago (1 children)

I assumed that you understood that the original joke was about having 0 wishes.

I also assumed that you were making a joke about factorials.

I decided to make my own joke about "!=" in your joke being misinterpreted as the programming symbol for "not equal".

My statement should be read as "0 is not equal to 1". This is a vacuously true statement, as it does not rely rely on any input, and is always true.

[–] BuboScandiacus@mander.xyz 3 points 1 month ago

Avarage argument in any science related space:

[–] bestelbus22@lemmy.world 34 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Make it -1 you mean. 0 is still a valid uint_8

[–] Chozo@fedia.io 29 points 1 month ago (3 children)

-1 comes from the wish to make the total 0.

[–] sga@lemmings.world 24 points 1 month ago

but they asked for 0! = 1 wishes, so it should be 1 - 1 = 0 wishes remaining, and not 0 - 1 = -1

sorry, but i had to !unexpectedfactorial@sopuli.xyz

[–] Jerkface@lemmy.world 18 points 1 month ago

Updating the balance after granting the wish is bad practice. This genie is begging for a reentrancy attack.

[–] bestelbus22@lemmy.world 6 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago)

If the genie knows the wish counter automatically decrements after every wish execution, he should set the wish counter to 1 to fullfill a total of 0 wishes. But since he's a genie I'm sure he has unrestricted rights to modify the wish counter.

[–] Deestan@lemmy.world 15 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Plot twist: The dialogue for "You have X wishes!" was not written beyond 3, so he now overflows into unused memory and just screams incoherent garbage at you.

[–] ZkhqrD5o@lemmy.world 13 points 1 month ago
  • Wish 1: Wish for the numeric rule to operate in 64-bit unsigned integer space.

  • Wish 2: wish for 0 wishes.

  • Wish 3: Wish for minus 1 Wish.

Result: now be left with 1.8446744073709551616*10^19 Wishes.

[–] sanderium@lemmy.zip 11 points 1 month ago

For a moment I read it as 0! (zero factorial) and was super confused.

[–] miridius@lemmy.world 9 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Shouldn't it be -1, not 0?

[–] squaresinger@lemmy.world 20 points 1 month ago

Depends. If the wish counter decrements after fulfilling the wish, then it works.

[–] Noite_Etion@lemmy.world 7 points 1 month ago

Missingno appears.

[–] Nougat@fedia.io 6 points 1 month ago (2 children)
[–] sga@lemmings.world 5 points 1 month ago

it is what it would appear to be using the logic that n! = n*(n-1)*...*1, but 0! was "chosen" to be 1

[–] Smokeydope@lemmy.world 4 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago)
  • Wish 1: "I wish that my third wish will retroactively become my first wish instead, but I retain all memories from every timeline."

  • Wish 2: "I wish that every wish I've made after my first wish never happened, except for my memories of them."

  • Wish 2b: Genie... i've come to bargain..." user proceeds to enforce temporal paradox type 1a 'causal-loop' until 'negotiation leveraging favorable terms' for infinite wishes without the monkeys paw BS is complete

  • Wish 3: "I wish to break this cycle and return to normal linear time, keeping all accumulated memories."

[–] Bruncvik@lemmy.world 3 points 1 month ago

I'm having UFO: Enemy Unknown flashbacks.

[–] VinnyDaCat@lemmy.world 2 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago)

Ah, turns out that all genies use the same code as nuclear gandhi.