Puddle 🫠

Omelas sits at the center of a n-dimensional space where each dimension maps to one parameter of the Omelas problem. For example, there's one dimension where as you move away from Omelas, you encounter utopias with load-bearing suffering children that are progressively physically smaller.

About 162 cities away from Omelas in this direction, you reach a city where the load-bearing suffering child is about the size of a thumb. This is absolutely no comfort to those who walk away from omelas in this direction; it's not like the suffering of this load-bearing suffering thumbelina is any lesser or less real than that of an average-sized child. By this point they quite regret picking this direction to walk away from omelas in, and think they maybe should have picked the direction that maps to the number of suffering children (in that direction, there's a city right next door to omelas where the number of load-bearing suffering children is 0), but by then they're committed to seeing this through to the end and also rotating one's vector in this kind of n-dimensional space is a big pain in the ass

so they keep going. eventually they reach a city where the load-bearing suffering child is so small you can't even see them. still, they carry on, and continue walking away from omelas in this particular direction.

Eventually they arrive at a city where the load-bearing suffering child is smaller than a Planck length. What happens at this point is unclear. Surely the load-bearing suffering child in this city is completely undetectable. Electron scanning microscopy became useless to detect load-bearing suffering children several cities ago, but in this one not even a particle accelerator could be used to detect the load-bearing suffering child. Some argue that, as this city is a utopia in Omelas space, the load-bearing suffering child must be in place. Some argue that a child of this tiny scale cannot be said to exist at all. Some say that while the child exists, their undetectability essentially sets it apart from the ordinary material universe in such a way that their suffering cannot be accounted for as suffering and has no moral valence.

The ones who walk away from omelas (in this particular direction) contemplate a long hike back towards the n-1 suffering children city.

"Just one kid?" the traveler asked. "Not, like, one out of ten, or one per family, or anything?"

The Mayor of Omelas hung her head. "Yes. One child must always..."

"Just one," the traveler said flatly. "One. Not millions?"

"No, not millions," the Mayor said. "Literally one. But you must understand, this is no accident of fate, we have chosen to..."

The traveler cut her off again. "Just one child suffering from your choices, though? Not thousands? Do you people not realize what you have here?"

"What we have here," the Mayor said, "is sorrow and shame at the heart of our beautiful city."

"Bullshit!" the traveler said. "You have, in both absolute terms and relative, and adjusted for intentionality and severity and whatever else you want, fewer suffering children than anywhere else!" He paused, thought. "That's an amazing per-child yield. Have you considered adding a second?"

These two SHOULD mix together, I can hear it in my fucking head, I can sing it, but I cannot get it to work in a mashup, I'm just not skilled enough at Audacity wizardry lol (Specifically, the chorus of the Nickelback song)

this works way too fucking well. what is going ON

ABSOLUTELY PERFECT

THIS IS EXACTLY HOW I HEARD IT IN MY HEAD

Thank you so much flowers. Someone get siivagunner on the phone!!

HEY SIIVAGUNNER. YOU KNOW THAT SOUND YOU WERE LOOKIN' FOR? WELL LISTEN TO THIS! holds phone up to Chad Kroeger wailing over some boops