Re: Tell me your disease. I will cure it.

From: Eliezer S. Yudkowsky (sentience@pobox.com)
Date: Mon Oct 23 2000 - 00:06:20 MDT


Scott Painter wrote:
>
> Tell me what is wrong and I will tell you what you did wrong to cause it.
> Try me.
> Don't be an idiot.
> Learn something.
>
> man_immortal@hotmail.com

( From http://www.very.net/~nikolai/naststrg/23diseases.htm )

   I woke up yesterday morning feeling like someone had painted
   my tongue sometime during the night. I went and looked in the
   bathroom mirror; someone had painted my tongue sometime
   during the night. A sort of mottled creamy-pink matte
   finish. Arrrgle.

   My finger-joints felt achy, my mouth felt like renovations
   were going on lower down in my throat, and I felt
   generally not entirely on top of the world. Wonder what
   the biological warfare people call this one, I thought,
   making aaah-noises and trying to see my tonsils.
   Anyway.

   Message on the answering machine. Nicole, from
   Sydney. I called her (Optus) and whined about how
   terrible I felt.

   "I know how you feel," she said. "I had the same thing
   last week. Aching joints, sore throat, itchy eyes," (my
   eyes started itching as she said this,) "general weakness
   ..."

   "I need to lie down for a while."

   "You'll start coughing later this afternoon."

   "Great. How did I catch this from you?"

   She replied in a sing-song voice, "Oh, you know, I gave it
   to Loki, Loki gave it to Megan ..."

   "and Megan gave it to me. I was wondering where she'd
   gone."

   "Well, after the cough passes, you'll get intermittent
   headaches and dizzy spells ..."

   "Let me write this down."

   "and tomorrow, you'll wake up with a strange hankering
   to listen to early Duran Duran."

   "Oh, the humanity!"

   "It gets better. After that, your overall mass will fluctuate;
   you'll spend half the day flat out in bed, the other half
   floating around near the ceiling. After that, general
   synaesthesia - you see sounds, hear smells, feel colours,
   that sort of thing ..."

   "Now that sounds like fun."

   "Go shopping in that state. It's a lot easier than you'd
   think."

   "After that?"

   She giggled, and murmured conspiratorially, "You feel
   unbearably horny for about forty-eight hours. It begins
   to wear off after that, although you might have relapses
   of the mass fluctuation. Carry some rope around with
   you if you're going for a walk, and you'll be right as rain
   in about five days' time. Oh, except for the ..."

   "Except for the what?"

   She giggled again. "Never mind. I think it's best if you
   find out for yourself." Click.

   Ah, damn.



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