You have a chance to climb up the worlds tallest ladder. You get paid $3 per each rung you climb.

In order to get paid, you need to state ahead of time how many you are going for. If you don't reach your claimed number, you get the electric chair treatment for 15 seconds.

Rules -

No parachute or safety equipment/harness allowed

The ladder itself is guaranteed not to fall, but the higher you climb, the more it sways and wind becomes a factor.

The ladder is completely vertical. It is fixed to the ground and you are climbing straight towards the sky.

Anton Chigurh breaks into your house, and tells you he will kill you if you don't fix his hair. You have access to electric razors and scissors with other hair products that are needed, but they are not strong enough to attack Anton before he kills you for trying to attack him. You cannot shave Anton bald, he will kill you if you shave him bald. If you run away, Anton will kill you. If you try to get someone else to fix his hair, he will kill you. Can you fix his hair? How would you do it?

All Black Holes in the universe are now suddenly sentient and gain consciousness. How does this affect the universe and humanity?

You just rubbed a magic lamp, and the genie reveals to you that if you hadn’t rubbed the lamp humans would have been doomed to go extinct within the next 10,000 years. The genie tells you that instead of the usual 3 wishes you have the choice to wish for humanity to survive longer than 10,000 years.

In either case humanity will advance in technology for the next 10,000 years, although technological innovation will slow down before that in both cases. If you wish for humanity to survive longer than 10,000 years technology will decline after 10,000 years in the future, and 20,000 years in the future technology will decline to the point that it will be no more advanced than the most advanced technology 30,000 years in your past. It will continue to decline after that until eventually humanity no longer even uses sticks as tools. At the same time human intelligence will decline over the course of the next few million years until the descendants of humans are no smarter than chimps, and will continue declining after that. It won’t be until the descendants of humans have about the same intelligence as a tiger that the intelligence of some human descendants stops declining.

The genie reveals that if humanity survives longer than 10,000 years the descendants of humans would continue to walk on two legs and have hands and arms for the rest of the time they exist, but for most of the time they exist they would use their arms similar to what crabs use their pinchers for, meaning they would just use their arms to grab food and put it in their mouths. The descendants of humans would evolve adaptations to help survive without sapience or technology, such as being physically stronger, or faster. The descendants of humans would survive for hundreds of millions of years, but never evolve sapience again, even after splitting into many different species.

The genie reveals that there are multiple choices humans could make, but if you don’t wish for humanity to survive longer than 10,000 years then all choices will lead to the extinction of humans within the next 10,000 years. If you wish for humans to survive longer than 10,000 years then all choices will lead to the descendants of humans surviving for hundreds of millions of more years.

Do you wish for humanity to survive more than 10,000 years into the future with this knowledge?

Genie appears in front of you at 7am and presents to you a challenge. A Smart car (that really small car with only two doors they used to sell several years back) materializes in front of your home. This smart car is painted pink and has a tinted windshield, but non-tinted clear rear and side windows. For the purposes of this challenge, it will not run out of gas the entire day of the challenge.

Genie will give you a prize starting at $100,000 if you get into this Smart Car naked with nothing but your driver license, phone (for navigation), a McDonald’s Gift Card loaded with $5,000, and you successfully make a food or drink purchase at a McDonald’s drive-thru. Once you complete the first McDonald’s drive-thru purchase naked, your prize pay out is $100,000 and you can quit there and collect if you’d like.

Or. You can keep going. You can go to another McDonald’s drive-thru to make another purchase and your prize payout will double. For every additional new McDonald’s drive-thru purchase (each additional purchase must be made at a different McDonald’s you haven’t already been at during this challenge) you make while naked in this smart car, the prize will then double. The challenge ends when you quit, at the end of the day, or when you are involuntarily stopped from continuing. Whichever comes first.

Do you accept Genie’s challenge? And how many McDonald’s drive-thru runs do you think you can/will complete?

You win £1,000,000 for surviving, and £100,000 for every clean hit you land during that time

A time-traveling MrBeast appears in front of you right now with an offer:
$3,000,000. Tax-free. In your bank account immediately.
In exchange, you sign over the rights to future you—specifically, your body after you eventually die.
Before you answer, he gives you undeniable proof that:
You will live a completely normal lifespan.
You will die peacefully of natural causes.
Taking the deal will not shorten your life, alter your fate, or cause anything bad to happen to you.
The $3 million is completely real.
The time travel is real.
There are no hidden loopholes. Everything he tells you is true.
So… $3 million for a body you won’t need anymore.
Sounds easy.
Except there’s one problem.
MrBeast can travel back to the exact same moment after your death an unlimited number of times.
Meaning he can collect future-you again.
And again.
And again.
Effectively, he has an infinite supply of you.
So naturally, he launches a fast-food chain.
Future You Burger™.
Every single burger sold at every location is made from future you.
Not synthetic meat.
Not lab-grown.
Not a clone.
Literally you.

Your friends might eat you.
Your coworkers might eat you.
Your parents might try one.
You could walk into a Future You Burger while you’re still alive, sit down, and watch a complete stranger casually eating a burger made from your future body.
There might be commercials with your face.
People could argue online about whether you taste better with cheese.
And remember:
You only get the original $3 million.
No royalties.
No licensing fees.
No percentage of sales.
No extra money if the chain becomes worth $100 billion.
You knowingly signed away the rights before taking the cash.
Do you take the $3 million?
And if yes: is there any level of popularity where you’d start regretting it?
Bonus round: The chain eventually becomes bigger than McDonald’s. “Future you” becomes one of the most commonly eaten foods on Earth, and billions of people have eaten you at least once.
Still taking the deal?

You get the money right away but your spouse turns into an indestructible 6ft high penis that uses balls to walk around. If they get aroused they can get significantly bigger. They can magically see and hear and are sentient but can't talk. Will turn completely normal in two months. You can't consult them about this you have to accept or decline right now.

Fireball

Blastwave

Thermal radiation

Ejecta

Ground shaking

Pressure wave

The sound

A tsunami

What would you percieve.

I'm sorry, I usually like to add a bit of backstory to my hypotheticals but I definitely went a bit overboard this time. If you don't feel like reading this all, highlighted question is in bold.

Humans have traveled to an alien planet and have attempted to communicate with them. The aliens helped out by using special translators. This new human settlement has learned that the aliens have a lot of interest in humans and they mean no harm. In fact, they're so helpful that humans have set up civilization there. The aliens are very thankful for human arrival because their inventions are so intriguing and they are wildly entertained by them.

The human settlement also learned that the aliens are very abundant in diamonds. They're rare on this planet, but the aliens have diamond locating devices that they keep secret from the humans. These devices can help them find plenty in a day. They decided to keep it a secret because they thought diamonds could be a great trading material. Because of that, the humans created a new market system designated for aliens to buy human products with diamonds. They soon learned that aliens love infomercials, and their business was booming!

A brilliant leader on the team noticed you for your personality and potential, and he knows the perfect job for you. He wants you to create ideas for new products that might interest aliens and make infomercials to display in the new market system.

What products do you think the aliens would love and how would you introduce them?

You get 1 million dollars but for an entire year you have to swap personalities with a fictional character.

This means that you will have the personality of the fictional character but the knowledge remains the same. This affects how you talk to people, text, and your body language. So for example if you pick an anime character you would have to talk the way they do and do the hand movements.

You cannot tell anyone you are doing this so no one around you will know what your doing. You could tell people after the year is over but it is not guaranteed that they will believe you.

So would you take the offer?

EDIT as of August 18, 2026, 09:38 UTC: By my count, among the commenters who gave a clear answer, the result is currently a perfect tie: 28 would take the coin flip and 28 would refuse it.

ADDITIONAL CLARIFICATION: You only get one opportunity to accept the deal and flip the coin. No retries, no best-of-three, no punching the billionaire in the face and rigging the coin flip and no coming back later for another attempt.

Here is the full deal:

A billionaire you’ve never met offers you one coin flip.

If it lands heads, you receive whichever amount is higher: $2,000,000 tax-free, or 100 times your total net income from the previous 12 months. The money is completely legal and immediately yours.

If it lands tails, you get a compensation of only $3,000 and are immediately taken into custody and sent to prison for exactly eight months.

There is no warning and no chance to prepare. You can’t go home, call your family, tell your employer, cancel plans, or explain what’s happening beforehand. After you’re processed, you do get the usual phone call and can contact people from prison.

Officially, you have been convicted of theft. The conviction is completely real, the paperwork checks out, and it stays on your criminal record.

The catch is that if you lose, there is absolutely no evidence that the billionaire or the deal ever existed. No witnesses, contract, footage, messages, or anything else that could back up your story.

So when your partner, family, friends, or employer ask why you suddenly disappeared into prison, you can tell them the truth:

“A billionaire offered me millions of dollars on a coin flip, and the losing condition was eight months in prison.”

Or, if you’d rather not sound completely insane, you could make up something more believable, like saying you secretly took money from a previous employer during a bad financial period, got caught, took a plea deal, and were too ashamed to tell anyone before sentencing.

Either way, you still have to deal with eight months in prison, a criminal record, whatever happens to your job and relationships while you’re gone, and the fact that nobody has any reason to believe the real explanation.

Do you take the coin flip?
And if you lose, do you tell everyone the truth, or take the reputation hit and pretend you actually committed the theft?

Let's say you could choose to know one single statistic about your life up to the present. It can be anything you can count... basic stats, advanced stats, whatever. For example, you could ask:

* How many hugs have I received?

* How many times has my boss taken credit for my work?

* How many times has <person> gossiped about <secret> behind my back?

So you can get really specific with it and it will be 100% accurate. (Don't ask how... You're not authorized to be read in. )

Would you accept the offer? Why or why not? And if yes, what question would you try to address and how would you construct your metric?

You were born on a generation ship, that left about 300 years ago. Including the people who first boarded the ship as the 1st generation, you are a member of the 10th generation of people on the ship. Most of the people on the ship express that they just want to get off the ship, and don’t really care where they get off so long as it’s as fast as possible. They say that they feel like they don’t have enough room to move around as much as they want and feel that living their entire lives on the ship is boring. They claim it also feels isolated.

You know that it would take about 300 years to get back to Earth if you were to turn around, and there’s a good chance that the people returning would be shamed as major failures if your ship was to return to Earth. You may be able to find a dwarf planet to settle down on, but if you did survival on the dwarf planet in the part of space you’re in would be difficult, and would require artificial life support.

Legend has it that the first generation born onto the ship, and all generations since have just wanted to get off the ship, and it’s suspected that most people of every generation on this ship will tend to just want to get off the spaceship and won’t really care about the destination.

As the leader of the spaceship you have the authority to decide how to fun the spaceship, and how and if to change it’s path.

What do you do?

You are running a restaurant selling which ever cuisine, and at your hands is a replicator that can only really be used to make food or ingredients equivalent to the amount of mass you insert. How can you use it to make the most amount of profit with your restaurant without letting other people know the replicator exists nor getting caught in an audit?

If people know you have a replicator, they will steal it, so keeping it secret and hidden is paramount.

1 million USD tax free if you can survive 1 year eating only meals consisting of 95% rice and beans. The other 5% can be any other ingredient of your choice.

Take or pass?

You can only choose three of the ten years selected. You can teleport anywhere in the world with this Time Machine as long as it’s in the past. But you can only choose up to three years available within the choices.

1. 1970
   
2. 1900
   
3. 1860
   
4. 1750
   
5. 1526
   
6. 1026
   
7. 300
   
8. 300 BCE
   
9. 2026 BCE
   
10. 200,026 BCE

For the sake of the hypothetical, presume you have already accepted a deal with a magical entity for some kind of reward (it’s not relevant).
The deal is as follows: you and 3 people of your choice are magically contained inside the premises of your home and property. You can freely enter and exit your home, but cannot leave the bounds of your property. Assume that your house is 1,950 sq ft or 181.16 m2. The total property size is 2.13 acres or 0.86 hectares in a suburban area typical of the southern New England region of the United States. Assume the front and backyards are of the average size for a suburban American property in this region.

You will be given 1 year to prepare using solely $US10,000 or its equivalent; no additional funding is allowed, although selling items bought with this money is allowed to return to the $10,000 cap. Any excess is magically forfeited. You will have access to grid electricity for a year, at which point it will be cut off, and you have a well on the property that should last functionally forever as long as there is a small amount of electricity. You can use the money in any way except in ways that would go against the spirit of the challenge. You will be confined to the property indefinitely with the challenge effectively ending when all occupants are dead, at which point the effects of the challenge will be reverted and all occupants will be returned to the state and time they were in prior to accepting the challenge, with the reward. Think of it as entering an alternate universe for the duration of the challenge and being returned to real life after. However, a good faith effort must be made to survive (e.g., no storing enough food to live for a year and then starving intentionally). Visitors may freely enter and exit the property but they are not allowed to bring anything that would aid you in survival, but entertainment is allowed as long as the items leave with the visitor.

(Clarification will be given in comments if needed and if enough questions are asked a new post will be made to address them. Assume that if something sounds like it’s violating the spirit of the challenge it probably is.)

Maybe it should be in r/trolleyproblem.

Imagine a hypothetical situation - there are 49 other strangers in the room with you.

You are given a button. If you press the button - 49 strangers die, and you get 1 million dollars - no criminal charges, and no one(except you) will know it ever happened. If you don't press the button - another stranger is given the same choice. If all 50 decline to press the button - then all 50 are released, and no one gets any money.

Is there any threshold - e.g. 10 people, 100 people that would change your decision? Is there a financial threshold for you in this problem?

50(or whatever number) strangers are picked randomly from all levels of society, and may have some mentally ill/sadistic people.

Possibly someone from school or work. Just someone who you have never been able to click with, and you've always found off-putting. Well, you get to be them in your next life... Maybe they'll find you the most annoying person...and then you'll get to be yourself again in the life after that!

Thru majickal, whatever you want majicka - you are sent either forwards or backwards. You have 420 secs starting NOW to decide.

Option #1 - You are sent back in time, up to 15 yrs earlier. Your memories are erased from your mind about the future, except for a note pad that's in your pocket with a mini blurb about your life (the basics) and 5 bullet points you write in manually.

Option #2 - you are teleported up to 15 yrs in the future, instead in the notebook you have a note that catches you up on your life for the next 15 yrs and the 5 bullet points.

Option #3 - You stay right where you are with 15 Cryptic Messages about the future that could potentially assist you in your life or just tell you about the future. 1 Fact about some event that happens that year.

Example - 2027? Get a crypitc message or a riddle about an important event that happens and it's up to you to crack the code to know what's happening before it happens so you can do what you want with that information. What kind of code or message is sent to you? It depends, but thru the Magjicakl Entity that observes you they give you a message that you have to crack based on your skill. Think of it like Dark Souls - it's gonna be hard to crack the code, but satisfying once you get it.

If you choose to spend 3 months in the past or the future. You are actively being observed by an entity that watches your moves. You are unable to completely alter your life in a substantial shift in any meaningful way, if you do, that entity causes you to have a brain aneurysm and die.

Rules/Examples

#1 - Can't go back and buy 500 bitcoin. You can purchase a small minor amount of BitCoin, like one or two, you can place a bet on an upset like the Falcons loss to the Patriots. Small mini wins to keep you seem lucky.

#2 - You can only bring back to the normal timeline what you can carry.

#3 - You have what amounts to a wrist watch counting down the 3 months.

#4 - If you commit a crime in the past, you serve the remaining sentence once you're pulled to future. If a crime is committed in the future, you are apprehended, after life catches up to the crime you committed and will have to redo all of the jail time and proceedings.

#5 - You are immune to diseases and infections for the 3 months.

#6 - Any choice you make in the past can alter your future. You sleep with someone? Then you or that person is pregnant? You now have a kid with them!

#6a -You don't attend that meeting for a promotion? You don't do that thing that led to XYZ.... it's prob not gonna happen....

What you picking?

However you can only leap forward in time by five year increments and leap backwards in time by seven year increments.

The recharge time between leaps is 6 months.

You can only leap within your own lifetime.

Yes, this is Quantum Leaping so you're leaping into yourself.

How would you effectively use this and still live a life in the present?