PW (Parallel World) 1: a world where everyone is like you

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I want to start an occasional series called Parallel Worlds. These questions ask you to imagine and describe a world exactly like our own, but with one important difference.

Today's PW is a world where everyone is like you. I mean, personality-wise. There are yous of different genders and different ages and different classes, successful yous and failing yous, rich yous and poor yous. But essentially everyone has your tastes, proclivities, attitudes, habits.

What is that world like? How does it evolve over time? What's on TV? Are there wars? What kind of products sell well? Does the PW fall behind our actual world? Approximately which century of OurWorld does YourWorld resemble? Are you happy in YourWorld, or are you screaming with boredom?

― Momus (Momus), Sunday, 28 December 2003 17:14 (twenty-two years ago)

How are there failing mes and sucessful mes if we have the same habits?

― Aja (aja), Sunday, 28 December 2003 17:19 (twenty-two years ago)

Oh Hey Momus! I didn't know you were famous.

― Aja (aja), Sunday, 28 December 2003 17:19 (twenty-two years ago)

*starts paying attention*

― t''t, Sunday, 28 December 2003 17:20 (twenty-two years ago)

i would like to answer this properly but i can't seem to

― stevem (blueski), Sunday, 28 December 2003 17:24 (twenty-two years ago)

Lack of diversity --> Darwinian collapse

― Curt1s St3ph3ns, Sunday, 28 December 2003 17:32 (twenty-two years ago)

It would be just the same but with more vegetarian options on the menu

― Sonny A. (Keiko), Sunday, 28 December 2003 17:37 (twenty-two years ago)

'nother likely outcome: no ilXoverse (for no need for)

― t\'\'t (t\'\'t), Sunday, 28 December 2003 17:38 (twenty-two years ago)

How are there failing mes and sucessful mes if we have the same habits?

Is there equality in the PW because everyone is alike? I'm assuming that Power Laws apply here and that, even if everyone starts equal, fortune or accident favours some yous, and their advantage becomes self-sustaining, consolidated by networking with other successful yous, consolidated by success breeding success, until mini You- Dynasties emerge. But I might be wrong. And it would depend on what kind of legal and social structure you had favoured -- an egalitarian one, or an enterprise-incentive one.

― Momus (Momus), Sunday, 28 December 2003 17:43 (twenty-two years ago)

If we have the same habits, will we all go to the store at the same time?

― Aja (aja), Sunday, 28 December 2003 17:45 (twenty-two years ago)

I don't think so. Or the toilet. Think of it as The Sims or a bunch of Aibos. The same basic programming, but you can never quite predict when behaviour X or Y will emerge.

Random notes from MeWorld:

I feel incestuous, like I'm dating my own sister. But the alternative is species death, so I date her and we marry.

I can't do without my habit of projecting idealised difference onto others, but I have to concentrate it on ever-smaller details, which I amplify 'romantically'. 'The way you tie your shoes, well, it's basically how I do it, but with a subtle twist... I can't put my finger on it, but you're just so different, so special!'

There are no wars, but an atmosphere of professional jealousy and backstabbing bubbles poisonously, as predicted by Freud's 'narcissism of small differences' (he said that small differences were the most deadly).

Everyone wants to live in fuuistic orgonic blobs, but no-one has the mathematical ability, or construction heft, to build them. So we all live in ramshackle tents and plyboard structures, a high density shanty town.

There is a fantastic experimental art scene. It's a bit like Bali, with dances and performances everywhere. Industrial output is zero, but people are happy. Indeed, smug.

― Momus (Momus), Sunday, 28 December 2003 17:58 (twenty-two years ago)

I don't know who grows the food. I suspect everyone does a bit of subsistence farming.

― Momus (Momus), Sunday, 28 December 2003 18:00 (twenty-two years ago)

So does everyone have the same pet if we have the same taste?

― Aja (aja), Sunday, 28 December 2003 18:01 (twenty-two years ago)

Oh does that everyone in my world likes the Foo Fighters? Oh, cool! Maybe this isn't such a bad idea.

― Aja (aja), Sunday, 28 December 2003 18:03 (twenty-two years ago)

The trouble is that unless you are capable of being the Foo Fighters, they no longer exist. And if you can be them, are they really still worth admiring and listening to?

More Notes from MyWorld:

There is widespread nomadism and free love. Nobody stays in one place for long, or in one relationship. This makes child rearing problematic, and the population curve goes into steep decline.

― Momus (Momus), Sunday, 28 December 2003 18:06 (twenty-two years ago)

In fact, before long I'm sure tigers, monkeys or amoebas take over.

― Momus (Momus), Sunday, 28 December 2003 18:07 (twenty-two years ago)

Oh man. There is NO DAVE GROHL IN MY WORLD!!!!

THIS SUCKS MORE THAN IF HE DIED!!!!!!!

― Aja (aja), Sunday, 28 December 2003 18:10 (twenty-two years ago)

Note to self: why do I keep changing partner when all my partners are basically the same?

Answer: it must be a leftover behaviour pattern from the days of Darwinian exogamy. Just a tic, a reflex, a useless quest for diversity. It will take millions of years for evolution to correct it -- finally programming my descendents (if there are any) for faithfulness.

― Momus (Momus), Sunday, 28 December 2003 18:16 (twenty-two years ago)

Oh now the Violent Femes are on the radio. They wouldn't be in my world. No Killing Joke either.

NO KILLING JOKE!!!!!

I'm not sure if my personality could pull of as a Jaz Coleman. I could come close.

BUT HAVING NO DAVE GROHL IS THE WORST!!!!!!!!! THE WORST!!!!!!!

― Aja (aja), Sunday, 28 December 2003 18:23 (twenty-two years ago)

But actually, although the partners I trade are all the same, my tendency to romantic projection makes me believe the next one is always better, special, different.

(Look, we're already locked in our respective bubble worlds, Aja grieving for a Dave Grohl who can no longer exist -- and never has -- and me trying to reconcile myself to the fact that there are fewer pretexts for romantic projection of otherness. What's disturbing is not that this applies in PW, but that it might also be the case in This World.)

― Momus (Momus), Sunday, 28 December 2003 18:28 (twenty-two years ago)

Aja grieving for a Dave Grohl who can no longer exist -- and never has

What do you mean by "never has"?

― Aja (aja), Sunday, 28 December 2003 18:30 (twenty-two years ago)

You're speculating here just for the sake of speculating, and now you're making yourself upset. Glad I fought the urge to take a philosophy course...

― Johnny Fever (johnny fever), Sunday, 28 December 2003 18:32 (twenty-two years ago)

No doubt later we can play with PWs where we go backwards and forwards in time, or defy the force of gravity (if we want to get all Dungeons and Dragons). But the thing about this first PW is that it's only different from TW (This World) by a few degrees. People are already something like 99% similar to each other, genetically. The proposition talks about habits, attitudes, tastes. Even here people already tend to agree on the essentials. Love is good, food is tasty, sex is exciting (well, that was recently disputed here), it's nice to relax but a change is as good as a rest, etc. So the interesting thing about this PW is how tiny differences in taste and attitude and behaviour become, over time, incremental, accumulating to produce a really different kind of world. YouWorld.

― Momus (Momus), Sunday, 28 December 2003 18:37 (twenty-two years ago)

These are no tiny differences!

― Curt1s St3ph3ns, Sunday, 28 December 2003 18:41 (twenty-two years ago)

If everyone was me, the world would be no fun and be run by incredibly rich sadcore bands.

― Stupid (Stupid), Sunday, 28 December 2003 18:41 (twenty-two years ago)

In me world no one would ever get laid because they'd all be too paranoid about everyone else despising them and too scared to make the first move. So everyone would die out eventually. None of the paperwork and revenues would get done because everyone would decide to just pop off and go write songs on mountaintops. So world markets would either crash or more likely never get started. It would be a really lame world. But with lots of books about unicorns, or something. But without parties.

Of course this is rather simplified

You know what, at some point Me World might just explode from repressed energy, and there would be tons of bizarre orgies. That might be exciting but not for long. Guilt would follow.

I'm getting into this now. I was going to say something about the religion of Me World, but that is a scary thought. So I'll stop.

― Blood and sparkles (bloodandsparkles), Sunday, 28 December 2003 18:44 (twenty-two years ago)

I'm interested in the pace of change. We haven't really looked at when this world starts or how. Let's say it starts with the world as we know it today being re-populated, tonight at midnight, by the You-clones. Does everything change overnight? I don't think so. I think there's a lot of institutional inertia. Sure, the Democrats or the Lib Dems or the Greens probably win the next election. And sure, there are much more radical programs put forward, and much less resistance to them. But do the Yous keep their election promises, or do they actually sink into the soft chair of power and decide to let things go on as they were? Are they seduced away from the radicalism they felt as outsiders when they become insiders? Does 'he way things have always been done' carry them along? How long for?

― Momus (Momus), Sunday, 28 December 2003 18:54 (twenty-two years ago)

It seems clear voter apathy would increase. 'Meh, they all think like me anyway, why do I need to vote for them?'

― Momus (Momus), Sunday, 28 December 2003 18:59 (twenty-two years ago)

No one in MyWorld has any useful or practical knowledge. We can't cook, mend or build things, or move anything about if it looks heavy. We all share a distaste for cleaning, organising or tidying, so the world is quite a mess. There is no economic growth, but we are all green-minded and convince ourselves that that isn't desirable anyway. We probably never even got round to thinking up the Wheel, or if we did nothing came of the idea and we soon forgot it, and we are rubbish hunter-gatherers. Consequently, there is a high death rate. Children scare us, so the birth rate is probably very low too. None of us really understand Malthusian population laws, so we're totally unprepared for the undoubtedly chaotic results of this. Still, we all try to look on the bright side, and we always get each others jokes.

― Cathy (Cathy), Sunday, 28 December 2003 19:02 (twenty-two years ago)

This is why we need diversity!

SO WE CAN HAVE A DAVE GROHL IN THE WORLD!!!!!!!!

― Aja (aja), Sunday, 28 December 2003 19:03 (twenty-two years ago)

No noticeable change.

Only more people on message boards seeing as how nobody deems it necessary to leave the house and we're all socially retarded.

― GeorgeForemanGrill, Sunday, 28 December 2003 19:08 (twenty-two years ago)

Aja, go start a Dave Grohl thread, for God's sake, or, better, go to a Dave Grohl fansite where everybody thinks like you. This thread is for those of us who want to think about a world where everybody thinks like us. It's quite different.

― Momus (Momus), Sunday, 28 December 2003 19:41 (twenty-two years ago)

Whatever! There are bad things that come out of everyone thinking like you, and that is one of them.

And I'll start a Dave Grohl theard on his birthday!

― Aja (aja), Sunday, 28 December 2003 19:43 (twenty-two years ago)

Thread. sorry

― Aja (aja), Sunday, 28 December 2003 19:46 (twenty-two years ago)

it won't be long, in this scenario, before the individual differences between versions come to exert themselves in major ways. these differences are mostly self-created: i think a world of mes would have no trouble diversifying their interests, collecting objects and reading different things, etc. and mainly, the way the mes act will diversify.

pretty soon, everything would become largely normal, but much suckier.

― mig, Sunday, 28 December 2003 21:27 (twenty-two years ago)

There wouldn't likely be anything on TV, because none of us (them?) would be inclined to tune in. Having said that, some of us would certainly take that very situation as an opportunity to PUT something there, feeling that, as no one's watching, we could do whatever we liked: pointing cameras out windows, making faces, forced-perspective experiments where small things look big, occasional musical numbers, etc. Likely one of us, somewhere, would tune in by accident or curiosity, and from there, watching and making such broadcasts could become terrifically popular in a short time.

― jazz odysseus, Sunday, 28 December 2003 21:56 (twenty-two years ago)

Well, I'd watch that, if your parallel world could beam transmissions into my parallel world. In fact, I'd be ready to watch paint drying, as long as it was a colour someone like me would never, ever choose.

― Momus (Momus), Sunday, 28 December 2003 23:56 (twenty-two years ago)

I don't consider myself to have a single essential nature. I believe that my personality is a collection of random situations and accidents compounded with certain proclivities due to my genes.

The second you separate "me" away from the particular physical body that is typing this message it is no longer "me". I think that if you were to populate a world with 10,000 iterations of Mike Taylor you would come across 10,000 odd permutations of what Mike Taylor possible could have been had he been provided different experiences and opportunity. I could have been a Senator, a family oriented fundamentalist Christian businessman, or a homeless drug addict. Those possibilities are all available in my personality, all those potentials mixed with the world around me created this particular interation of me.

It doesn't exactly answer the question, but I don't think that people posess any one singular essential nature.

― Teen Challenge Drug Addict Choir (mjt), Monday, 29 December 2003 00:29 (twenty-two years ago)

But if I were to take the bait...

It is difficult becayse it is hard to see how your proclivities would play out on a larger scale. It is also difficult to examine yourself and figure out exactly what you motivations and drives are. I am definitely going to think about this a great deal before I post anything else.

― Teen Challenge Drug Addict Choir (mjt), Monday, 29 December 2003 00:44 (twenty-two years ago)

In my parallel universe, no-one wants to do extensive physical labour as it's no fun. We live in huts, die young of various diseases, and spend our lives having fun most of the time, and searching for food and shelter the rest of the time. I am training to be a master drummer. However, I am not very good; and so I am contemplating becoming a drumming theorist instead. The religion is a kind of mystic atheism. The huts are very clean and well-swept.

― the music mole (colin s barrow), Monday, 29 December 2003 00:56 (twenty-two years ago)

its a lot like this world except everyone has an eternal snarl and despite the obvious similarities everyone generally believes everyone else, except a small group of friends, is full of shit. trends in taste would change weekly as everyone tries to force themselves to become part of a minority that no one else understands. or maybe none of htis would happen...if im objective enough to observe it, or invent it, now it might not happen at all.

one question, does this parallel world happen all of a sudden or has it always existed somewhere else? so would i be the "adam and eve" of another universe? then theres no way to tell the possibilities.

in that case, i fear for the future of mankind in PW1...

― tom cleveland (tom cleveland), Monday, 29 December 2003 01:57 (twenty-two years ago)

Everyone in me-world would get together to plan out how we'd make the world operate efficiently and to the benefit of all, and detailed lists and schedules would be drawn up so that everyone did their fair share and got their fair amount of time off. As long as each person felt obligated to do their work to avoid the possible disapproval of the others, things would be great. However, I bet some of them would get a bit lazy and behind their schedules, and although they'd feel really bad about it they wouldn't do anything about it, and then some others would privately think "they're just doing that on PURPOSE, I'm not gonna work either as a protest!" and eventually we'd all just lay around all day and rot to death "just to SHOW those other bastards".

― Poppy (poppy), Monday, 29 December 2003 07:05 (twenty-two years ago)

What does any of this have to do with music?

― may pang (maypang), Monday, 29 December 2003 08:11 (twenty-two years ago)

I'm glad you asked that, May.

The connection is clear: the concept of the parallel universe, as a theoretical hypothesis, is a descendant of the mathematical concept of the music of the spheres. Each sphere can be shown to be a parallel universe, in that there is no logical way they could interact without self-contradiction.

Hang on, I think I hear my mother calling me. *runs*

― the music mole (colin s barrow), Monday, 29 December 2003 09:00 (twenty-two years ago)

"I feel incestuous, like I'm dating my own sister. But the alternative is species death, so I date her and we marry."

"There is widespread nomadism and free love. Nobody stays in one place for long, or in one relationship."

Do you really think you'd actually be able to trust yourself enough to maintain a genuinely open relationship with yourself; or do you think you'd inevitably become too dependent on you and start worrying that you might run off with yourself and leave you all alone?

Would you be prepared to cheat on yourself by having an affair with you behind your own back? Do you really think you're smart enough to be able to get away with it without you ever finding out or do you realise that you're smart enough to spot the tell-tale signs eventually?

How would you react if you started to suspect that you'd been cheating on you? Would you confront yourself immediately with your suspicions; would you secretly follow you to try to find out what you were up to; or would you try to ignore it and convince yourself you were mistaken?

How would you deal with it if you found out that you'd been cheating on you and confronted yourself about this affair? Would you end the relationship; would you try to deny it and lie to yourself or would you admit it, stop seeing you in secret and try to sort things out with yourself and make a go of things?

Do you think you'd ever be able to really forgive you, put this unfortunate incident behind you and start again; or would the pain of this betrayal gnaw away at you until it eventually destroyed the relationship?

Do you think you'd ever be able to enjoy a genuinely meaningful, loving relationship with yourself, knowing what a liing, stinking, cheating, two-timing, untrustworthy, duplicitous, wanker you really are?

― Stewart Osborne (Stewart Osborne), Monday, 29 December 2003 12:18 (twenty-two years ago)

"It seems clear voter apathy would increase. 'Meh, they all think like me anyway, why do I need to vote for them?'"

Hah! Well I'm deliberately planning to allow myself to lapse into just such a state of apathy; then I shall suddenly take myself completely by surprise with a massed tactical vote with which I shall destabilise the government, overturn the status quo, and force some real change onto the political agenda for a change.

Well.... that's if I can be bothered, of course.

― Stewart Osborne (Stewart Osborne), Monday, 29 December 2003 12:29 (twenty-two years ago)

Music of the Spheres
http://web.uvic.ca/shakespeare/Library/SLT/images/LuteSphere.GIF
see...it makes perfect sense...

― tom cleveland (tom cleveland), Monday, 29 December 2003 17:35 (twenty-two years ago)

I read a whole book about this subject but can't tell you a thing about it.

― the music mole (colin s barrow), Monday, 29 December 2003 19:48 (twenty-two years ago)

I don't think I know myself well enough to be able to say what a world populated by people-like-me would be like.

If I could hazard a guess, though, I'd say hell on earth.

― cis (cis), Monday, 29 December 2003 20:14 (twenty-two years ago)

It would be advanced communism .. Everyone would have the drive at times to learn something to progress.. but everyone would also have the sense of duty, as well as the occasional desire to do the shit jobs. (All this assuming the notion of capitalism and inequity are within people's capacity.)

Also, American Idol is not a show.

― dave225 (Dave225), Monday, 29 December 2003 20:24 (twenty-two years ago)

Oh, and never bored because you have to change occupations every year.

― dave225 (Dave225), Monday, 29 December 2003 20:27 (twenty-two years ago)

If the world was full of people just like me it would be a much better place.

― C-Man (C-Man), Monday, 29 December 2003 20:28 (twenty-two years ago)

http://www.judyford.com/clowns.jpg

― Wintermuté (Wintermute), Monday, 29 December 2003 21:20 (twenty-two years ago)

What does any of this have to do with music?

Argh! I posted this thread to a parallel board! That's why I haven't been seeing it on ILE new answers!

Then again, reading Stewart Osbourne's post about one-person adultery, I see why the thread deserves to be on ILM: because it could be the source of some fantastic songs. Stewart, if I give you a credit, can I take that brilliant idea and make a song out of it? If I were you, I wouldn't sue me.

― Momus (Momus), Monday, 29 December 2003 21:25 (twenty-two years ago)

It would have to be called 'I Had An Affair With Myself' and the first lines would have to be:

The reason I didn't tell myself
Is that I didn't want to hurt myself
I'm telling myself now
There's something I need to know:

I had an affair with myself
Behind my own back
When I was away on that business trip
I sneaked myself into the sack
We're sorry, we three, that we did this to me
We're feeling so guilty and dirty
But I just couldn't stop myself touching myself
Dressed up so sexy and flirty

I think it ends up as a transvestite masturbation song... all my songs get there in the end.

― Momus (Momus), Monday, 29 December 2003 21:38 (twenty-two years ago)

I'd like to offer it to Morrissey for his comeback album.

― Momus (Momus), Monday, 29 December 2003 21:41 (twenty-two years ago)

That's brilliant and once again proves Ehrenzweig's thesis of the fertile error. I my parallel universe, it goes to number one and the writing team of Stewart and Momus get enough money to own a houseboat.

― the music mole (colin s barrow), Monday, 29 December 2003 23:02 (twenty-two years ago)

"Then again, reading Stewart Osbourne's post about one-person adultery, I see why the thread deserves to be on ILM: because it could be the source of some fantastic songs. Stewart, if I give you a credit, can I take that brilliant idea and make a song out of it?"

I would be genuinely honoured and delighted (particularly since I've always hated my own attempts at lyric writing!); but only on the condition that you promise to spell my bleedin' name right, Mr. Curry!

― Stewart Osborne (Stewart Osborne), Monday, 29 December 2003 23:32 (twenty-two years ago)

My world is full of angsty hermits dying because they don't like doing work. It was a nice idea, though.

― Maria (Maria), Tuesday, 30 December 2003 22:59 (twenty-two years ago)

'menard, the author of don quixote'.

― cozen¡ (Cozen), Wednesday, 31 December 2003 00:54 (twenty-two years ago)

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