Like Neo in The Matrix and "I know kung fu", what one ability would you choose to upload directly to your mind?

Polyglotism. Being able to speak every language would be practically a superpower.
- This is a neat idea until you're in a situation where you remember 38 different words for a thing, just not the one in the language you need
  
  I only speak one language fluently and one language extremely poorly.
  The number of times I’ve been able to come up with the word I want in my second language and completely blanked on it in my native language baffles my mind.
- If I could 'cheat' and say 'I know every language in the world', and that included programming languages and things like scientific notation as a language, I'd take that in a heartbeat. If not, I'd take programming, as at least then I can create things and make money.
  If speaking every language included dead and forgotten languages too though, then it would be a very tough choice.
  
  This is probably super pedantic (bloody programmers right?) but I really feel like it would depend on what is meant by “know every programming language”. Like being able to remember every syntax and construct is sort of useful but not all that practical. Understanding how to implement the language in a useful way is the valuable part, not just knowing the keywords.
  I guess I would kind of compare it to the difference between being able to read Shakespeare and being able to write Shakespeare,
- I'd make tens of dollars as the scholar to decode the Harrapan/Indus Valley script!
  Or I make makes millions as a YouTuber decoding the Voynich manuscript...
  Our society is broken:(
- I can't even imagine how powerful I would be if I could be ignored in every language.
- If it was just one language and writing system as a choice, I might say Japanese.
  There are so many different characters in their writing as symbols instead of phonetic sounds, that bookstores in Japan are divided into sections, in which one has books that use... say 500 characters, then another section with books that use 1200 characters, or 5000, or 10,000, or more!
  To read Japanese or Chinese with a mastery of over 10,000 symbols might be my choice. The richness and depth of those writings must be something incredible.
  My second choice, for shits 'n' giggles, might be something like Sumerian or Akkadian, in the original Cuneiform!
- The rpg munchkin in me hopes polyglot misleading includes computer languages.
- This sounds very useful until you realize you still don't want to talk to people in any language.
- Yea, the best option.
- This is a back up power to me. The best power is the power to control time however you like.
  You could learn every language ever created with the ability to control time. As you would also live as long as you wanted.
  You also would be able to timelock any object making it unmoving and indestructable.
  You can heal anyone from anything by rolling them back to when they werent injured
  No end to what you can do with controlling time
  
  You also would be able to timelock any object making it unmoving and indestructable.
  Technically, if you stop something in time and space, it would disappear before your very eyes if it was on Earth, as the Earth would keep on going on its orbit around the sun, around the Milky Way Galaxy, etc. and your object would be floating somewhere. Against what reference point would you lock it?

"I know how to make myself do the thing I planned to do."

Download more RAM. My working memory is shit (ADHD).
- You will just be more (less?) Efficient and being efficient.
  
  I might be a little obsessed with efficiency. Possibly due to my issues making me inefficient by nature, I tend to seek efficiency wherever I can, like some mirage in the desert of my mind.
- I thought the issue there was the processor not being able to run a single core long enough.
  Or maybe it's just how the operating system works?
  Have you tried Linux? I use Arch btw.
  
  If I had to liken ADHD to computer terms, I think I would blame a faulty task scheduler. That's what issues the threads to the CPU. When Ryzen came out and also when Intel moved to Performance and Efficiency cores there were issues with efficient task scheduling.

The ability to upload any ability into my mind that I can think of and be amazing at it.
Shashahshaaa!
Runs away and throws pocket sand
- Found the guy that wishes for more wishes

How to people.
I have great ideas and am horrible at explaining them.
- Rizz download complete
- I wanted to say how to happy, but I think how to people would fix that as well.
- Our ideas are always good to us, but they're highly informed based on our own experiences and needs.
  I had a neighbor who asked me to help them create some form of device that sits on the dashboard of their car and catalog billboards. Apparently, a hole in their life was passing by a billboard with kids in the car and forgetting what exit the food/restaurant was on.
  This was in an era where cell phones and online maps/search existed.
  I had another acquaintance (decades ago) who wanted me to work on a photography simulator in which you had to manipulate people in 3D to compose a picture. I tried to explain the high level of difficulty and the cost per unit being so high that no one would be willing to pay for it. They pushed me until I did some napkin match on arists/developer/marketing costs then they got all pissed off at me because it came in conservatively north of 300k.

Universal language module. Not to translate all into English but to understand all of them.
- Just put this fish in your ear.
  
  Take your pick:
  1980s BBC (Jump to 2:05 if the timestamp doesn’t work).
  2005 Movie
- You're now a protocol droid.
  
  Ok I think - except that I am absolute shit at protocol so now I'm gonna get someone killed.

Ability to complete a household project with only 1 trip to the hardware store.
- Impossible... that would break some fundamental law of physics or something
  
  This skill can be learned once you defeat the final boss of Home Projects https://youtu.be/vu2j62M-ndc?si=MhMNYjzao206eOj_
- When I was driving instacart between jobs or what not I had one for just that. Pick up 4 items from Lowes. Called them and she said they just left there and weren't going back, haha

Read and write all languages. Be it swahili, mandarin, latin, hieroglyfs, python, c++ or java. ;)
- You had me until Java.
  
  JavaIsEasyToReadAsLongAsYouDontEverNeedToTakeABreakToBreathFactoryFactory
  
  I agree. But i want ALL languages ;) even the crappy ones.
- Is Maths a language?
  
  For sure.

I want the entirety of mathematics indellably etched into my mental model. I want to see the math behind everything in reality the way Neo saw the matrix code in the walls of the grubby apartment buildings.
- I'll do the same for physics. Together we shall reign.
- What if that just drives you insane due to the problem described by Gödel's incompleteness theorem? Maybe you'd become susceptible to someone telling you "this statement is false".
  
  Ideally, I wouldn't have to see the proofs for everything, just recognize the observable math.
  The problem with the "This statement is false" could simply be coupled by something akin to imaginary numbers. Paradoxes can be described mathematically without being solvable.
- 11:15, restate my assumptions: 1. Mathematics is the language of nature. 2. Everything around us can be represented and understood through numbers. 3. If you graph these numbers, patterns emerge. Therefore: There are patterns everywhere in nature.
- But also the ability to turn it off at will. Otherwise life will become incredibly tedious.
- And when you discover that free will is an illusion because of deterministic patterns, what will you do then?
  
  Whatever it is physics demands they do, obviously.
  
  Honestly finding out the lack of free will exists would be the most liberating thing ever. I could just let autopilot take its course.

I'd upload a few languages. Instantly being able to speak and read an array of languages and traveling the world would be fun.
- This is a good one. I interact with a lot of East and South Asians in my spare time, and I would love to speak all of their languages. Especially since their English is not the best (in my circle, that is).

The ability to make an ability uploading tool.
- Sounds like you need to download pretty much everything ever written on mathematics, physics, biology, and medicine. That info dump would also have to include a bunch of stuff that hasn’t even been invented yet, and probably won’t be within the next 500 years.
  Once you have all that in your mind, you’ll be incredibly frustrated that modern day technology is at least 500 years away from what you actually need. You would need to build a bunch of quantum electronics fabrication factories so that you can build the real factories that actually produce the machines you need for assembling the very first brain reading and recording machine.
  Although, since you have all that revolutionary science and tech in your head, you should use that to fix global warming, world hunger, cancer and a bunch of other stuff so that you can raise the trillions of capital needed for building the main project.
  
  I suspect it'll be the other way around.
  Our brains must be augmented with tech first, then uploads are trivial.
  Start with a calculator, learn how to manipulate it and read it like proprioception. At some point we have an LLM on a chip in our head and updates to that update our consiousness.

I'd love to know how to dance, I mean really properly dance for every situation, not just a generic two foot shuffle. I've seen some people who can dance properly and they looked cool as fuck.
- You can dance if you want to!
  
  we can leave your friends behind!
  
  I do, and I love it! But I also need to face the fact that I'm not very good at it 😁

Musical ability — perfect pitch, great rhythm. I'm an okay musician after years working at it, but I'd love to be better.

Psychotherapy
- "he's been going all night, he's a machine!"
  "....I know healthy emotion regulation"
  "...show me"
  
  "Stop trying to forgive your father and forgive your father!"

Playing the piano and other instruments like a master. Music conveys feelings we can’t convey otherwise.
- That can be said about any form of communication. Words on a page convey what words spoken can't always.
  The right touch in the right way Can connect you more than any sound or word could ever hope to.
  A painting can make me feel things a book can't make me understand. A performance or dance can show me something i can't hear or speak
  It's different ways of experiencing experiences. What is communicated is not always the same between different subjects and objects. Even if they often do
  But also to your point hearing music IS different from feeling music and different from creating it. I think music as a communication tool is fuzzy and not very good at communicating clearly. Powerfully i dont deny but not everyone can be affected the same way by the same music either so it's not a dependable form of communication.
  And sometimes yes those feelings can be conveyed by other means.
  But you seem like you might enjoy this song
  Ren - Hi Ren (the music video is worth watching if you listen to this one)

If I could have something magical: I'd like to be able to accelerate my thinking so I can have as long as I want to think things through
If it's gotta be real: easier to use memory, I feel like I have no idea what's going on bc I forget shit, but it's not forgotten I just didn't remember that memory at the right time even though I had it..
Talking to people hasn't been going well lately
- Following your lead: mystical/magical healing abilities, for self and others. Mundane, photographic memory.

Ability to fold a fitted sheet.
- I know it's a thought experiment but try to be a little realistic.
- Ok, that would also be a great mundane wish for me!
- Poke your hand until you hit the corner of a seam. Do the same with the other hand on an adjacent corner.
  Bring hands together so both corners touch.
  Now unfold the corner in one hand onto the other hand.
  Smooth it out. Repeat with the untouched corners.
  You can do it one more time or just fold from there
  
  You say that but when you put the four corners together you get a trapezoid or triangle instead of a square or rectangle. I’ve even watched videos and tried to copy but failed at this.
  
  That's all seems pretty complicated.
  Im just gonna stick with the tried and true half fold mostly ball method.

I want to understand, intrinsically, and be able to manipulate to my liking, all the financial systems of the world.
At worst, I'd quickly become a well-paid accountant. At best, I'd become an extremely talented, untraceable, modern Robin Hood.
- I've thought about that a lot. If I won a near bn or more lottery, could I stay grounded enough, after hiring a reputable financial planner, to found a Montessori school of high global academic standards or free health clinic, including pharmacy, that includes plant medicines, organic foods diets, where appropriate, and/or a smaller side project or two? Or would I be irresponsible and do an Elvis-type thing for my primary caregiver and for my child that's still in my life, rather than set them up with a trust, so they would be able to be truly financially independent, should their spouse pass before them? It's easy to think the best of ourselves until the moment of truth arrives. I'd hope I'd be financially responsible, hire the planner, give to my community in a meaningful, probably anonymous way (because of sudden best friends clamoring for Fendi bags and Lambos), and buy myself an old Volvo or Audi, dependable and unostentatious.
  
  I can't reasonably spend more than like 100m, including giving millions to friends and family. Like what the fuck would I even buy? I could buy 4 lambos and 2 houses for every friend I have and every family member I talk to and barely make a dent.
  Probably just donate it to whatever the best charities are for a variety of things.
- This would be a pretty dope tv show for about a season.
  
  How many episodes and his long are they?

Speaking Korean, I live here for 4 years already and despite pushing moderatelly to learn it, I don't speak it at all. Everything I learn I forget very fast again.

Kung Fu

I know how to sew anything. I love to binge sewing vids so being able to take some scraps and make cool shit would be amazing.
- There's a sewing store that is selling everything off in a retirement sale near me. I'm going to check it out as I've never been in the store before. Anything you think i should look for?
  
  Sewing notions like button sets, zippers, interfacing, binding tape etc. All that stuff is nice to have on hand regardless of the project. Other than that I think I’d be looking for patterns rather than cloth unless you have a specific project in mind.

Skateboarding. Looks so fun

Whatever is fun and makes money. Tired of being bored and broke all the time.
- One way is making raytracing shaders for older games. I recall one korean dude whose patreon was raking in ~50k dollars a month, several of his releases/posts were about adding raytracing to Fallout 4
  
  Thanks! Sounds like a significant learning curve.
  Not that I'm opposed. Currently reskilling myself from bored accountant to hopefully some sort of IT wizard. Just learning everything I can get my hands on and doing projects like building / maintaining a home server, building a PC, switched to Linux last year, and coding some small projects in Python.
  I just feel like I'm learning such basic things and won't be able to actually make money with any of this for years. It's frustrating lol
- I too wouldn't mind uploading poll dancing abilities. I feel like that would help lose weight and get great core strength so quickly.
- The crazy thing is that you can literally just do this by studying engineering for a few years. It's not that hard, it just takes some work.

"I know how to understand and speak every language with the proper accent. Wöáh."
- Monkey's paw curls: You understand the literal meaning of all the words, but not the context.
  Willsch fei ebbes von dä Buabespitzle?

The ability not to forget all things when I grow older.

The ability to perform high level mathematics and computer science tasks including programming languages and logic.

Is Charisma an uploadable skill? If so, I'd love to upload the entire library to displace my Charisn'tma.
- It is but its a 20 sided dice roll after that. And you critically fail....
  
  Pick your battles, so to speak.

Guitar sounds fun

Deduction, at superhuman speed of course just like neos kung fu speed.
Deduce the optimal stock market traction to gain a big chunk of capital so I can than deduce the best proper services to provide, or find the proper projects

Time travel
- You'd need both time travel and teleportation, or else you'll find yourself in space when you travel forward or back in time. The Earth isn't a stationary object
  
  Time (and relative dimension in space) travel
  
  This assumes an absolute reference frame, which does not exist in this universe.
  
  Time travel already is teleportation.
  Actually, teleportation would be more powerful than time travel, since you can travel through different times as well with teleportation as an ability, but you can only teleport to a different time with time travel.
  
  That entirely depends on what is being done when traveling in time. Is it localized, regional or defined at the time the lower is used. Does it effect the world around you or is it you in the world that is manipulated.
  Depends if it's a monkeys paw power or a self defined ability
  
  Nothing is or everything is. There is no absolute motion.

Auto maintenance and repair
OR
household maintenance and repair; handyman stuff
- What line would you use for this instead of "i know kung fu"
  
  “I know tool fu.”

I moderate amount of control of my mental health

The ability to deal with the rush and then persistence of negative feeling whenever anything bad happens, my routine is thrown off, or even I have to do something I'd rather not, because I do not cope well with any of those, and it causes me to shut down.
The usual advice is to "bury it", "hold it" or "suck it up" for some unspecified later time, but that was basically my old coping mechanism and It Does Not Work™ any more.
So I'd like the upgraded version of that. Whatever it is. Preferably a version that won't break or occasionally malfunction (we call those "Warning signs", kids) like the original one did.
- The upgrade is get a good therapist, and that can be trickier, more or less depending on your place of residence. Someone who can help you gather new tools and the skills to apply them. I wish you the best.
- or even I have to do something I’d rather not
  What works for me for this: A soundtrack. Back in the day, I used to bike every weekend. I hated exercise but realized I had to do it. I started collecting fast, powerful tracks, found what made me focus rather than go into daydreaming. I slowly over the weeks, months and years, kept at the same soundtrack. Now, when there's busy work, or shit work, or pain i need to endure, i throw an earbud in and i'm back on the long ass boring trail, just focusing on whatever bullshit i need to do.
  Doesn't work well if I need to do something creative, but cleaning and grass cutting, it's like a switch to turn off my "god i ate this" switch.
- This is an issue CBT (not that one) can help with.
  
  Tried it. Have had at least four therapists at this point, and I've reached the limit of what I'm entitled to.
  As for the other one, someone once told me to avoid it because "[I'm] already paranoid enough.", with which I agreed.

Psychology.
I assume psychology is very useful for social interaction, but complicated and mid-impact enough that I personally wouldn't bother to analog-learn it.

maths.
I never had enough brains to not suck at maths.
- I would prove you wrong if i could pay for it

I did Brazilian Jiu Jitsu for a while untill after the 3rd injury I realised this isn't going to be good on the long run and I stopped doing it. However, it was long enough to see what a magical power that is so I'd say that being able to posses the skills of a black belt without going thru the training would be quite nice.
People don't realise how helpless you'll feel trying to wrestle with someone who knows what they're doing. Being bigger and stronger will not save you unless you get really lucky.
- If the disparity in strength and size is significant it can absolutely save you.
  There is not a 10 year old that had ever existed that would win against Magnus Midtbø if for some reason they were fighting.

Playing the piano, or just singing at a professional level. Would be amazing to know, but takes years of constant practice and teaching to learn.
- Seconding Piano. I'm a reasonably decent guitarist, but there aren't many everyday situations where this comes in handy unless you're a professional musicians.
  However, Pianos are casually placed everywhere, intended for public use. Especially in airports for some reason. I would love to woo random people passing by by flawlessly playing Hiromi Uehara or Jordan Rudess.

Medicine. If I could get an upload to make me an instant doctor, that would be amazing.

Math, so so much math...

C2-niveau francais, s'il vous plait.
edit or as translate google would put it: niveau C2 de francais, merci.

Knowing every tree, plant, insect, ...
- Yeah, Billy 780164 as I like to call him, is an ant living in the basement in a swedish suburb near the sea, just besides the grass Gras9534795.
  
  :) not what I intended, but that would be cool too
  
  That ability is known as Dave😁

the ability to think calmly and rationally

Being able to feel joy/happiness. I really don't understand or know what those things are but everyone says it's wonderful and awesome. So It would be awesome to experience it at least once.

being able to inspect/ appraise any item and get comprehensive details about it.
it would be great to spot antiques and famous works from garage/ lawn sales.
- Ha! I'm imagining a DC comic book about "appraisal man"!!

I would immediately download more RAM. No hax. Really works.

Whatever skills would result in what the deep mediators to control autonomic functions like heartrate and could mimic death. I don't just want the control thing though I want the whole kit that comes with it which would likely have some martial arts. figure like and ideal shaolin type of thing.

Sex probably

Ability to play the guitar like Gilmour, EVH, Page and Hendrix.

If I had that technology, I would upload everything available on file. The common fictional notion that you could "fill up" your brain is wrong.
- Soooo..... you think the brain has unlimited data storage capacity?
  
  The plasticity of the brain also gives it near unlimited storage capacity. There's a great episode of Curiosity on what obstacles would have to overcome to achieve immortality, and one of the topics it goes into detail on is brain capacity and functionality.
- Assume the machine breaks after 1 upload.

I would use it as a Total Perspective Vortex and dump the scale of the universe into my mind.

My first thought was also languages, but all the classes for a bachelors in nuclear engineering would be nice. Huge passion of mine and I can't really pursue a degree at this point in my life

NZT-48 + CPH4 = 🧠
- Is this some kind of chemistry reference? What's going on here? 🙂
  
  Not sure about the latter, but NZT was the focal "smart" drug in Limitless (a show on the premise "this drug makes u smart but if u stop taking it bad stuff happens")

Probably the ability to not be an unbalanced idiot 24/7. I literally fell up the stairs twice this week. There are few people who are less scatter-brained than me.
- Have you tried to engage your core more? edit: Sorry in advance for the reddit link, but here you go https://old.reddit.com/r/tifu/comments/1h4j9sl/tifu_by_never_using_my_core_muscles_for_thirty/
  
  I appreciate the concern, but my problem is more on my ability to concentrate on what's in front of me. I'll be walking around or climbing up stairs while my brain is in la la land thinking about something else. That's normally how I end up clutzing out.
  The logic in your post is sound though, I never did think about my core.
  But I do work out and I do core workouts alongside arm day and leg day. If anything my core is the thing I'm strongest in.
- Have you been assessed for add/adhd
  
  I've been diagnosed since I was 7 lol. Glad you noticed.

Mind control.

Either having a complete understanding of modern-day physics or knowing how to play the violin.