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How do you feel about crazy "What if..." questions?

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T

Two Words

Member
Do you feel they are interesting since they push your sense of ethics? Do you feel like they are crude and turn a real issue into a game? Do you feel like they are a waste of time since it will never happen? Here is an example:

"What if all women in the world suddenly decide they do not want to have children. And by all women, I mean all women. If no action were to take place to counter this, then the human species would cease to exist within a human lifetime. In this situation, are forced pregnancies justified?"
 
M

MIMIC

Banned
They're fun in that they force you to consider extreme scenarios when you never would have otherwise. Kinda like forcing the devil's advocate position onto you and seeing how far you're willing to go.
 
H

haxamin

Member
Two Words said:
Do you feel they are interesting since they push your sense of ethics? Do you feel like they are crude and turn a real issue into a game? Do you feel like they are a waste of time since it will never happen? Here is an example:

"What if all women in the world suddenly decide they do not want to have children. And by all women, I mean all women. If no action were to take place to counter this, then the human species would cease to exist within a human lifetime. In this situation, are forced pregnancies justified?"
Click to expand...

We will make babies in pods.
 
P

PSqueak

Banned
They are fun to explore.

As for the example, the bornig answer is, it would be impossible for all womans to actually enforce/commit to this, specially when the biological clock starts ticking.

The fun answer: there would be a gigantic flow of investment into the field of cloning and genetic manipulation as to seek an alternative to breeding, eventually it could cause the creation of a proccess for asexual reproduction via cloning and splicing, making pregnancy and procreational sex completely obsolete.

"In the year 3535! There won't no husband, no wife. You pick your son and your daughter too, from the bottom of a long glass tube!"

dity said:
I'll answer 'em unless it's framed in a way to make me look bad depending on how I answer.
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But it's the Terrorist law!
 
P

Puruzi

Banned
They're neat sometimes.

I hate it when the person you ask is all "Hurrrr but that would never happen"

Duh, it's just a hypothetical.
 
Maxey

Maxey

Member
Humans are curious by nature. Asking hypothetical questions is a part of how our brain works and is what has made us such an advanced culture on this stupid planet.
 
Elitist1945

Elitist1945

Member
I like them. Gets ya thinking. I always recommend VSauce for in depth "What if..." scenarios - most scientific based, though.
 
E

ElTorro

I wanted to dominate the living room. Then I took an ESRAM in the knee.
Hypothetical thought experiments are a valuable tool to get to first principles.
 
S

Sho_Nuff82

Member
Hypotheticals are important mental exercises for applying logic. If you hold that a hypothesis is always true, being able to defend it against the unexpected should be easy enough. On the other hand, acknowledging that a hypothesis has exceptions helps you provide better caveats.
 
Arkos

Arkos

Nose how to spell and rede to
If a killer put a knife to my throat and said "have sex with your mother or I'm gonna kill your father while having sex with you," I would have sex with myself.
 
HoldenGatsby

HoldenGatsby

Member
While not necessarily "fun" questions like this are incredibly important. Our ability to look past the current nature of the world and into the hypothetical helps prepare us for the future.

I also desperately hate how people react to them a lot of the time. It seems they often lead into either a pointless argument about how "but that's not how things are, so why does it matter?" or people get upset by the very question itself.
 
G

gaiages

Banned
I like fun questions like that, but hate it when people move the goal posts, so to say. If I give an answer to the question, you can't just say "oh wait you can't do that WHAT NOW", that's just annoying.

But yeah, it's mostly fun to think of what you'd do and think in an extreme scenario.
 
R

Rabbi_Vole

Banned
I feel they're pretty worthless. Most of us are our own protagonist and would like to think we would do the right and honorable thing regardless of the situation.
 
M

Michael F. Assbender

Banned
I had someone pose this stupid one to me a long time ago:

First, imagine you've found a soulmate (assuming you haven't already found him/her). You and this person love and trust each other deeply, on a level you had never imagined possible and you know neither of you would ever find another love like this again. You have children together (or adopt if unable, I'd assume). You're an amazingly happy family.

What if a mad bomber threatened to blow up a city bus full of people (men, women, and children), unless you agreed to have sex with a total stranger, and do so in such a way that your significant other is going to walk in on it. When they walk in, you have to continue the act, and you have to tell your significant other that the years you've spent together mean nothing to you anymore. When it's all said and done, you can never talk about the incident with your significant other, only ever saying you don't want to talk about it. Nobody else knows about the bomber, and you have no proof he's real (although he absolutely is). You're being monitored for the rest of your life, and if you ever spill the beans, a bus full of innocent people explodes. Same if you decide on suicide.

I'm sure there were other stipulations, but that's the best I can remember it. I remember saying I'd have to break my soulmate's (and my own) heart because I can't just let innocent people die.
 
A

Air

Banned
Depends on the context for me. Usually if it's not rooted in some kind of realistic scenario I just mentally check out.
 
Carnby

Carnby

Member
My friend comes up with the strangest What Ifs...

"What if you could have anything you want in the world but you have to live in a bubble under the sea? There would be a dolphin for sexual pleasure, so you wouldn't be completely alone. Would you do it?"
 
E

Eggbok

Member
I'm literally having a "what if" conversation right now. The question was "What if you went to a strip club while being in a relationship." That turned to "Is it cheating if you watch but don't touch/be touched.
Some people feel that it is, some don't. It's interesting hearing both sides and kinda funny.
 
G

Gaz_RB

Member
gaiages said:
I like fun questions like that, but hate it when people move the goal posts, so to say. If I give an answer to the question, you can't just say "oh wait you can't do that WHAT NOW", that's just annoying.

But yeah, it's mostly fun to think of what you'd do and think in an extreme scenario.
Click to expand...

Like this?
Two Words said:
I don't like this. You can't side-step the actual question.
Click to expand...
 
A

Alandrus Sun

Banned
I got you fam:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xm6GiHomqG4

743376.jpg
 
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