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Does our choosing a cause of death preclude them from dying of other causes? Because you could potentially do some wild stuff to postpone death of loved ones by, for example, deciding they'll die 60 years in the future of old age.
And how much control do you have around the circumstances surrounding their death? Could I specify "dies of heart attack brought on by shock of working out the key to practical cold fusion on paper" or "head trauma due to fall while adjusting to lower gravity in main living area of self-sustaining mars colony" to force us forward in technology and science?
Because that's basically what I'd do.
They say it's like the Death Note, and the Death Note has a time limit of something like 20 days in the future. If the Death Note cannot make whatever you wrote happen, then the victim simply dies instantly of a heart attack as a backup. As a result, you wouldn't even be able to experiment with it, because you'd be caught at the scene if you pushed the limits. You wouldn't be able to discover any technology with it.
Point being, the Death Note is simply a very sophisticated type of murder weapon. So, if this ability is like the Death Note, then it is also a type of murder weapon.
I don't think death note ever quite fully explored the possibilities of what it can and can't make happen.
My mars colony example is probably more than a 20 day project no matter what, so that's probably out.
But I don't think it's totally clear whether it would be able to make someone have an out-of-the-blue eureka moment about cold fusion, hole up in their bedroom writing out the scientific proofs for a week not eating or drinking, then keel over dead of dehydration (I figure that's maybe a bit more realistic than my heart attack from shock example)
It can certainly make people do things they otherwise wouldn't, but I don't know if it's clear that it could plant that kind of knowledge in someone's head.
I think if your cold fusion idea were possible, Light would have used that idea. Part of the reason L got onto him was that he obviously needed to see the results of his experiments on prisoners, and the only way to see those results would be to have access to police records.
But if Light had the ability you're talking about, all he'd have to do is to tell them to do it in public. A death row inmate who escaped and then drew a giant pentagram before dying would make the news. And if the victim has access to whatever inaccessible knowledge is necessary to complete the task, then escaping would be a breeze.
Light would have been dumb to overlook something like that. He was surprisingly dumb in a lot of ways, but I think that for discovering the capabilities of the death note, he's not supposed to be dumb.