Skip to main content

zeroth world problem

Problems caused by adopting bleeding edge technology for common, daily use before it's reliable, such that the technology's imperfections complicate your life. Loosely, problems that most people living in a wealthy, industrialized nation would probably roll their eyes at.
"So anyway, my Twitch stream went down during my peak viewing hours because the beta drivers for my graphics card apparently break the HDCP chain-of-trust, so the video capture software thought I was stealing copyrighted content from myself, and..."
"Man, every week you have one of these stories. You're like a glutton for zeroth world problems."

Zeroeth Law 

A Zeroeth Law is a law that is added to another set of laws at a later date.

It is usually so important that the other laws cannot function without it, yet so obvious that nobody thought it needed stating.
The Zeroeth Law of thermodynamics: If objects B and C are both in thermal equilibrium with object A, then they are in thermal equilibrium with each other.

Isaac Asimov's Zeroth Law of Robotics: A robot may not harm humanity, or through inaction allow humanity to come to harm.

Newton's Zeroeth Law of Motion: If objects A and B are moving relative to object C at velocities v1 and v2, then they are moving relative to each other at velocity v3 which is the difference between v1 and v2. (Note: This law is now known not to be true, especially near the speed of light. That's where Einstein comes in)

The Zeroeth Commandment: Thou Shalt believe all of this and never question what thou art told.
Zeroeth Law by George McBob June 22, 2009

zeroth impression 

The impression that you get from someone before you actually meet them, including impressions made by clothes, style, and rumors.
Bob: From what she was wearing and what I heard about her, the zeroth impression I got was that she was a slut. But when I met her she seemed really nice.

ZeroThree 

A sweet and very kind person. Will do mostly anything for others to help them out.
Oh, ZeroThree she is pog.
ZeroThree by Kaisaan's Lover October 14, 2020
Used to introduce the base point or reason of an argument. Typically used in formal academic settings.
Zeroethly it is unnecessary and firstly it is extremely difficult to implement this experiment.
Zeroethly by Bm911 December 3, 2023

Zeroth base

Anything less hardcore than kissing.
For example handholding
"dude I can't believe I went to zeroth base with my crush today!"
Zeroth base by oingyboingy September 22, 2025