There are two groups of people. They’re each given a magic/alien/divine trinket.
Group A’s trinket can instantly produce any raw resource. A raw resource is anything that could exist without a humor labor process (cooking, blacksmithing, woodworking, etc). If something absolutely requires human labor to be put into it to exist, it can’t be made by the magic box.
Group B’s trinket can make one gain a hypothetically “perfect” theoretical understanding of everything. Essentially, if there was a Universal PhD in Everything (medicine, engineering, etc.), they would obtain it without any effort. It works on anyone, and this knowledge is implanted instantly.
If given all the time in the universe, which group would survive the test of time or come out on top of the other? This has been stirring in my brain for a while, and I want to hear your thoughts.
I personally lean Group B because they wouldn’t have to discover or painstakingly engineer anything, and could immediately set their sails for technologies they know to exist. But at the same time, Group A would never have to worry about scarcity, so they could dedicate all of their time to infrastructure and research unlike Group B which still has to deal with scarcity.
What can group A even create? They can’t make metals but they can maybe makes ores? They can’t make any food except for what can be found in the wild? They can’t even make domesticated animals, they have to summon wild deer or something. They might be able to make stone dwellings if they can summon raw resources in any shape. They wouldn’t be able to make lumber or even timber but could make trees? They could make rain water in any quantity so that’s pretty nice.
Group A would probably fuck up and try to make a new sun (so it isn’t so dark at night) and accidentally destroy the planet because they made it only 1000 miles away.