The Infinite Genies Paradox

There’s not many people out there who haven’t heard the story of Aladdin–it’s a story with quite a bit of history and has got recognition in many forms, including a cartoon rendition created by Disney. It’s a creative and interesting story, but it’s also quite flawed and most people don’t even notice that.

After finding the genie, Aladdin is told he can wish for anything except “more wishes”. This is obviously an attempt to prevent infinite wishes, but a loophole surfaces later in the story that went largely unnoticed. Jafar wishes to be a genie himself, and the original genie grants that wish, thus genies can create other genies.

Herein lies the paradox; a genie offers me 3 wishes–first I wish for something ridiculous like a trillion dollars, then I wish for someone else to become a genie, and spend my last wish to free the original genie. I now have a second genie with no wishes spent. I make another extravagant wish, make a new genie and then free the old one. Wash, rinse repeat–we have our Infinite Genies Paradox.

Were there only two wishes, the infinite loop could still be done if you chose not free the genies after, but that would have fit better with the moral dilemma at the core of the story. So why three wishes, and not two?

Anyone else have any weird observations like this on popular media? Feel free to post whatever comes to mind. It’s always interesting to see what you might not have seen without someone else pointing it out.