Reddit Reddit reviews HYPERtheticals: 50 Questions for Insane Conversations

We found 16 Reddit comments about HYPERtheticals: 50 Questions for Insane Conversations. Here are the top ones, ranked by their Reddit score.

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HYPERtheticals: 50 Questions for Insane Conversations
Hypertheticals: 50 Questions for Insane Conversations
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16 Reddit comments about HYPERtheticals: 50 Questions for Insane Conversations:

u/TallAmericano · 77 pointsr/casualiama

On behalf of Chuck Klosterman...

  1. Let us assume you met a rudimentary magician. Let us assume he can do five simple tricks--he can pull a rabbit out of his hat, he can make a coin disappear, he can turn the ace of spades into the Joker card, and two others in a similar vein. These are his only tricks and he can't learn anymore; he can only do these five. HOWEVER, it turns out he's doing these five tricks with real magic. It's not an illusion; he can actually conjure the bunny out of the ether and he can move the coin through space. He's legitimately magical, but extremely limited in scope and influence. Would this person be more impressive than Albert Einstein?

  2. Let us assume a fully grown, completely healthy Clydesdale horse has his hooves shackled to the ground while his head is held in place with thick rope. He is conscious and standing upright, but completely immobile. And let us assume that--for some reason--every political prisoner on earth (as cited by Amnesty International) will be released from captivity if you can kick this horse to death in less than twenty minutes. You are allowed to wear steel-toed boots. Would you attempt to do this?

  3. Let us assume there are two boxes on a table. In one box, there is a relatively normal turtle; in the other, Adolf Hitler's skull. You have to select one of these items for your home. If you select the turtle, you can't give it away and you have to keep it alive for two years; if either of these parameters are not met, you will be fined $999 by the state. If you select Hitler's skull, you are required to display it in a semi-prominent location in your living room for the same amount of time, although you will be paid a stipend of $120 per month for doing so. Display of the skull must be apolitical. Which option do you select?

  4. You meet your soul mate. However, there is a catch: Every three years, someone will break both of your soul mate's collarbones with a Crescent wrench, and there is only one way you can stop this from happening: You must swallow a pill that will make every song you hear--for the rest of your life--sound as if it's being performed by the band Alice in Chains. When you hear Credence Clearwater Revival on the radio, it will sound (to your ears) like it’s being played by Alice in Chains. If you see Radiohead live, every one of their tunes will sound like it’s being covered by Alice in Chains. When you hear a commercial jingle on TV, it will sound like Alice in Chains; if you sing to yourself in the shower, your voice will sound like deceased Alice vocalist Layne Staley performing a Capella (but it will only sound this way to you). Would you swallow the pill?

  5. At long last, someone invents "the dream VCR." This machine allows you to tape an entire evening's worth of your own dreams, which you can then watch at your leisure. However, the inventor of the dream VCR will only allow you to use this device of you agree to a strange caveat: When you watch your dreams, you must do so with your family and your closest friends in the same room. They get to watch your dreams along with you. And if you don't agree to this, you can't use the dream VCR. Would you still do this?

  6. Defying all expectation, a group of Scottish marine biologists capture a live Loch Ness Monster. In an almost unbelievable coincidence, a bear hunter in the Pacific Northwest shoots a Sasquatch in the thigh, thereby allowing zoologists to take the furry monster into captivity. These events happen on the same afternoon. That evening, the president announces he may have thyroid cancer and will undergo a biopsy later that week. You are the front page editor of The New York Times: What do you play as the biggest story?

  7. You meet the perfect person. Romantically, this person is ideal: You find them physically attractive, intellectually stimulating, consistently funny, and deeply compassionate. However, they have one quirk: This individual is obsessed with Jim Henson's gothic puppet fantasy The Dark Crystal. Beyond watching it on DVD at least once a month, he/she peppers casual conversation with Dark Crystal references, uses Dark Crystal analogies to explain everyday events, and occasionally likes to talk intensely about the film's "deeper philosophy." Would this be enough to stop you from marrying this individual?

  8. A novel titled Interior Mirror is released to mammoth commercial success (despite middling reviews). However, a curious social trend emerges: Though no one can prove a direct scientific link, it appears that almost 30 percent of the people who read this book immediately become homosexual. Many of these newfound homosexuals credit the book for helping them reach this conclusion about their orientation, despite the fact that Interior Mirror is ostensibly a crime novel with no homoerotic content (and was written by a straight man). Would this phenomenon increase (or decrease) the likelihood of you reading this book?

  9. You are watching a movie in a crowded theater. Though the plot is mediocre, you find yourself dazzled by the special effects. But with twenty minutes left in the film, you are struck with an undeniable feeling of doom: You are suddenly certain your mother has just died. There is no logical reason for this to be true, but you are certain of it. You are overtaken with the irrational metaphysical sense that--somewhere--your mom has just perished. But this is only an intuitive, amorphous feeling; there is no evidence for this, and your mother has not been ill. Would you immediately exit the theater, or would you finish watching the movie?

  10. You meet a wizard. The wizard tells you he can make you more attractive if you pay him money. When you ask how this process works, the wizard points to a random person on the street. You look at this random stranger. The wizard says, "I will now make them a dollar more attractive." He waves his magic wand. Ostensibly, this person does not change at all; as far as you can tell, nothing is different. But--somehow--this person is suddenly a little more appealing. The tangible difference is invisible to the naked eye, but you can't deny that this person is vaguely sexier. This wizard has a weird rule, though--you can only pay him once. You can't keep giving him money until you're satisfied. You can only pay him one lump sum up front. How much cash do you give the wizard?

  11. For reasons that cannot be explained, cats can suddenly read at a twelfth-grade level. They can't talk and they can't write, but they can read silently and understand the text. Many cats love this new skill, because they now have something to do all day while they lay around the house; however, a few cats become depressed, because reading forces them to realize the limitations of their existence (not to mention the utter frustration of being unable to express themselves). This being the case, do you think the average cat would enjoy Garfield, or would cats find this cartoon to be an insulting caricature?

  12. You have a brain tumor. Though there is no discomfort at the moment, this tumor would unquestionably kill you in six months. However, your life can (and will) be saved by an operation; the only downside is that there will be a brutal incision to your frontal lobe. After the surgery, you will be significantly less intelligent. You will still be a fully functioning adult, but you will be less logical, you will have a terrible memory, and you will have little ability to understand complex concepts or difficult ideas. The surgery is in two weeks. How do you spend the next fourteen days?

  13. You have won a prize. The prize has two options, and you can choose either (but not both). The first option is a year in Europe with a monthly stipend of $2,000. The second option is ten minutes on the moon. Which option do you select?

  14. Your best friend is taking a nap on the floor of your living room. Suddenly, you are faced with a bizarre existential problem: This friend is going to die unless you kick them (as hard as you can) in the rib cage. If you don’t kick them while they slumber, they will never wake up. However, you can never explain this to your friend; if you later inform them that you did this to save their life, they will also die from that. So you have to kick a sleeping friend in the ribs, and you can’t tell them why. Since you cannot tell your friend the truth, what excuse will you fabricate to explain this (seemingly inexplicable) attack?

  15. For whatever the reason, two unauthorized movies are made about your life. The first is an independently released documentary, primarily comprised of interviews with people who know you and bootleg footage from your actual life. Critics are describing the documentary as “brutally honest and relentlessly fair.” Meanwhile, Columbia Tri-Star has produced a big-budget biopic of your life, casting major Hollywood stars as you and all your acquaintances; though the movie is based on actual events, screenwriters have taken some liberties with the facts. Critics are split on the artistic merits of this fictionalized account, but audiences love it. Which film would you be most interested in seeing?

    Edit: For those wondering, these questions are a subset of Chuck Klosterman's Hypertheticals. I'd have included more but Reddit only allows 10,000 characters per reply.
u/BeanBone · 17 pointsr/funny
u/SloanStrife · 5 pointsr/CGPGrey

I've always thought Hypertheticals could be interesting podcast fodder.

u/Professor_Lavahot · 4 pointsr/AskReddit

HYPERtheticals. Bring it on, u/shoppingbot! I got this for my girlfriend at some Christmas, is fun on road trips.

u/BIGwilliamSTYLE · 2 pointsr/WritingPrompts
u/ElwoodDowd · 2 pointsr/movies

That was precisely its point, I think. I recall trying to compare it to many moves; Pick something like The Shawshank Redemption - which is fantastic - and you have an absolute right and an absolute wrong. At the end of Gone Baby Gone you are starkly reminded that many, many situations are not so black-and-white.

Also: If you enjoyed the ensuing conversation, I highly recommend this set by one of my favorite authors. 50 questions designed to have no wrong answer, tons of fun to share with a bunch of friends... or smart people who disagree with eachother.

u/iammyproblem · 2 pointsr/datingoverthirty

So I have this card game thing based on Chuck Klosterman's essay about weird questions to ask people that are better than small talk. For a while I started using questions from this game as openers. I wouldn't say it was super successful, but at least it was different. Small tangent: I sent one of these to a girl on OKC once and she came right out of the gate at me aggressively asking if how the other women I send the same thing to respond. We ended up having an exchange in the vein of maybe dating might be more fun and fruitful if you didn't go around immediately treating every guy like he's an asshole that deserves to be smacked down. The convo ended friendly and with a better understanding of each other, but she also successfully locked herself in as a "fuck no".

> Wonder why that awesome guy might not be messaging you? Maybe he's too worried he'll come off as a creep, or his bumbling nervous opener will be posted to a site and mocked mercilessly, even though he's just trying his best.

Thanks for mentioning this. I have felt similar things reading this sub, myself.

u/TheVloginator · 1 pointr/TheCreatures

They got them while they were on their Road to E3 trip last year, but here they are on Amazon.

u/Tsara1234 · 1 pointr/pics

A reader of Hypertheticals I see! I love these conversation starters.

u/mikeyam · 1 pointr/AskReddit

I just bought [these] (http://www.amazon.com/HYPERtheticals-50-Questions-Insane-Conversations/dp/0307587924) out of a vending machine in the Cosmopolitan Hotel in Las Vegas. They are pretty interesting. I'm a sucker for Chuck Klosterman, though, so your mileage may vary.

u/theriotismagic · 1 pointr/CharlotteHornets

Yeah, he's definitely one of my favorite authors. You should check out his card 'game' HYPERtheticals.

u/jellicle_cat21 · 1 pointr/funny

It's Chuck Klosterman IV. It's excellent, but then, I love CK and own everything he's written. I heartily recommend his books!

Also, if you like weird questions like this, try Hypertheticals

u/PooveyFarmsRacer · 1 pointr/IAmA

Hi Chuck, I regularly take your "Hyperthetical" question set to group settings (weekends away, tour group vacations, or even hanging out with friends I already know) and it's an incredible way to get to know someone's worldviews and mindsets. They initiate thought-provoking Rorschach tests of conversations, especially if there's booze present or the answerer doesn't realize the larger, more personal implications of whatever they're saying.

Do you use your own hypothetical and philosophical questions to analyze people, like a rhetorical Greek play where you have a specific outcome and plan of action in mind? Have you ever made snap judgments based on your hypertheticals and been wrong, or dead-on accurate? Have they ever caused trouble in your relationships or friendships?

Do you have more probing hypotheticals you haven't shared with audiences, or are those retired in favor of Ethicist columns?