Delete a Crab, Flood the World

What's going on

A game developer was doing some routine cleanup — deleting crab entities left over from the earliest days of development. Shortly after, they noticed something strange: the world's sea level was rising. Continuously. With no end in sight.

After digging through the code, they uncovered the truth: the game had two distinct types of crabs — ones that raise the water level, and ones that lower it. These two populations had been locked in perfect equilibrium, silently keeping the world's ocean in check. When the developer removed the crabs without a second thought, the water-raising side had nothing left to oppose it.

The thread went viral almost immediately, and the replies quickly turned into something between a philosophy seminar and a creation myth.

Comments

I casually deleted some crab data I’d made early in development, and suddenly the entire world’s water level started rising on its own. Turns out there were water-raising crabs and water-lowering crabs perfectly balancing each other out — and I just now realized that’s how I’d designed it.

ゲーム開発初期に作ったカニのデータをなんとなく削除したら世界全体の水位が勝手に上がりつづける謎のバグが発生して、じつは水位増加用のカニと減少用のカニが拮抗して水位を保っているという設計になっていたことに今気付いた

Wait, what? WHAT?!

何の何が何！？！？

What in the what

なんのなに

“Water-raising crabs”… what does that even mean

水位増加用のカニってなんだ…

That shouldn’t even be possible…

そうはならんやろ...

Sounds like the opening of a B-movie

B級映画の冒頭かと思っちゃった

You know those beach crabs that move with the waves — this is the case where the crabs came first

波とそれ合わせて移動する浜辺のカニ、カニの方が先に存在していたパターンだ

I’d get it if it were a game about increasing crabs, but then you wouldn’t delete the crabs — so what kind of game even is this

カニを増やすゲームとかなら分かるけどそれならカニ消すわけないしどんなゲームなのか気になる

The world is upheld by crabs.

世界はカニが支えている。

“In the beginning was the Crab, and the Crab was with the Sea, and the Crab was the Sea.”

「初めにカニがあった。カニは海と共にあった。カニは海であった。」

Love a world that’s held together by crabs

カニで保たれてる世界、好き

This is the Gaia hypothesis. (The Gaia hypothesis proposes that Earth’s living organisms and their environment form a self-regulating system that sustains conditions for life — apparently crabs are included.)

これがガイア仮説です

Same as real life then

現実と一緒じゃん

🦀 “Indeed.”

🦀｢如何にも｣

Why of all things does the fate of the world rest in the claws of crabs

なんでよりにも寄ってカニが世界の命運を握ってるんだ

So there were Groudon-type crabs and Kyogre-type crabs keeping things balanced…? (In Pokémon, Groudon expands the landmass and Kyogre expands the sea — the two are in eternal conflict, held in check only by Rayquaza.) Which makes the crabs a Rayquaza-type entity?

グラードン属のカニとカイオーガ属のカニで丁度バランスをとってた…？つまりカニ＝レックウザ的存在か

And God said, “Let there be Crabs.”

神は言われた「カニあれ」

Did you cry “Let there be Crabs” before you created the sea?

あなたは海を創る前に「カニあれ」と叫んだのですか

This is literally mythology

神話みたい

Wait, is this mythology?

神話の話？

Sounds like a creation myth

神話みたいな話だ

I feel like there’s actually a myth out there like this somewhere

そういう神話さがせばありそう

A new mythology has been born 🥺w

新しい神話が生まれたな🥺w

My take

Why crabs though... I mean, crabs are certainly important creatures, but still.

#Funny #Tech

Source & translation note

Comments loosely translated for tone. Reactions collected from Togetter and X threads.

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