The rule could be anything, as funny or as serious as you want. The universe will progress in a similar way that it has up until this point, unless your changed rule prevented it from doing so.

Some examples might be:

  • The invention of currency is not allowed.
  • Iron is slightly less stable.
  • The Ancient Greeks are able to cultivate Silphium, which does not go extinct now.
    • Septimaeus@infosec.pub
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      4 months ago

      a moral impetus, informed directly by empathy, that is so overwhelming that the feelings of others are tantamount to one’s own

      I’m guessing this is their meaning. Sounds interesting. Maybe that version of humanity would have far fewer nukes and a lot more good sex.

    • leftzero@lemmynsfw.com
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      4 months ago

      CEOs and similar psychopaths don’t, though.

      (Though those already tend to have the intelligence of a particularly stupid dog anyway, so I don’t really see how this would change anything.)

      • bizarroland@fedia.io
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        4 months ago

        I thought the thing about psychopaths is not that they don’t have empathy or that it’s something that’s completely bizarre and alien to them, but rather that they have a switch where they can turn it off.

        Like most of us would recoil in horror at watching a video of somebody being beheaded on the internet and many of us have had that unfortunate experience, but a psychopath has the ability to not feel anything at all about it if they don’t want to.