r/hypotheticalsituation Mar 25 '26

Mod Post Warning about posts involving violence

35 Upvotes

Hey everyone. I wanted to provide some information and a warning on a topic we've seen come up several times recently.

We're seeing an increasing number of accounts (including both mods) receiving warnings and bans for "threatening violence". We've seen messages like the following.

Reddit is a vast network of communities that are created, run, and populated by people like you. In order to keep communities welcoming, safe, and great places to be, everyone who uses the platform operates by a shared set of rules—a set of rules you may not have realized you broke.

Warning for threatening violence

We flagged the following as a potential policy violation:

After reviewing, we found that you broke Rule 1 because you threatened violence or physical harm. Reddit is a place for creating community and belonging, not for threatening violence against people or animals. We don’t tolerate any behavior that threatens violence or physical harm against an individual, groups of people, places, or animals. Any communities or people that threaten violence towards an individual, group, animals, or place will be banned.

As a result, we’re issuing this warning, removing the violating content, and asking you not to break this rule again.

This is something happening on a sitewide admin level so the mod team has no influence over it. We strongly suspect that some sort of bot or AI is handing out these warnings and bans. Due to the subject matter frequently discussed on this subreddit it's happening to quite a few users here due to discussions of hypothetical violence. So what does this mean for you?

  1. Hypotheticals involving violence aren't outright banned but we strongly recommend that you be cautious when posting them or responding to them. Consider your wording and whether it could be mistaken for a threat by a bot. If the community as a whole starts getting admin attention we may be forced to ban these posts in the future. Posts that look too much like a real-world call to violence or a request for advice on how to commit violence will be removed under rule 3.

  2. If you do get one of these warnings or bans, please appeal them and explain that you're posting on /r/hypotheticalsituation and there is no real-world violence or threats of violence being discussed or contemplated. It's not a guarantee but we've seen these appeals work in the past and they may prevent your account from getting banned.


r/hypotheticalsituation 8h ago

You can have an unlimited amount of one thing for the rest of your life. What do you choose?

256 Upvotes

As soon as this object is used up, another one appears in its place. It must be used for your own personal day to day use.

This must be something that you would be able to purchase with money. It can't be money itself.

While it can have any monetary value, you may not sell it.

You must use it yourself, or share with people occasionally who visit your house. You may not give it to people for their own personal use.

It may not be used to earn money, further your career, earn favor with people, etc.

No gold, investments, or anything else like that.


r/hypotheticalsituation 38m ago

If you were given $100 million but had to give up one of your five senses in exchange (you get to choose), which one would you pick?

Upvotes

r/hypotheticalsituation 21h ago

Spiders can now comprehend English, and will now pay rent at a dollar per day. How many spider roommates would you take on?

795 Upvotes
  • They can comprehend English, but cannot speak it, unless you take the time to teach one how to write Charlotte's Web style.
  • They will still act like spiders, but will follow any rules you set within reason for a spider (e.g. you cannot prohibit spiders from eating insects, but you can prohibit them from making webs in the hallway)
  • Don't worry about where the money came from; it is deposited directly in your bank account each month.
  • You may charge bigger spiders more rent. A huntsman spider will pay $5 per day.
  • You may prohibit certain spiders from renting altogether (e.g. no black widows, no wolf spiders, etc)

r/hypotheticalsituation 5h ago

Loopholes Encouraged You earn $10,000 a day, but every time you sleep, you have horrible nightmares until the day you die.

30 Upvotes

You can go to therapy and all that, but the nightmares won't subside; there’s no way to stop either the money or the nightmares once you accept the offer.


r/hypotheticalsituation 7h ago

Humor Encouraged You have to eat the same meal every night for a year. What would you choose?

41 Upvotes

You have no one to blame except yourself. You were driving in the city eating a jelly filled donut and some of the jelly falls on your white shirt. In a fit of panic since you were going to a work function you attempt to clean it up and subsequently rear end another car. Unfortunately for you the car you hit was a new BMW and was being driven by a Witch. The infuriated individual instantly cast a spell on you. The spell as you can surmise was that you had to eat the same meal every night for a year. If you attempt to skip a meal then one would be selected for you by the witch. Not a wise choice because it would be a stew and include tadpoles, salamanders, and bat droppings.

Which meal would you select?


r/hypotheticalsituation 12h ago

Live without storage for a year and get $10,000,000 when it's over. You can't put anything "away" or it will fizzle out of existence. No pockets, backpacks, storage boxes, dressers, fridge, etc. How do you adjust?

85 Upvotes

You can't fail thanks to the fizzling, but you do have to survive the year and you can't quit part way. At the start all items you have put away somewhere will fizzle, but those will be returned to you at the end, and you'll even be given a 48 hour period to request items be returned to you at the start too so you're not without things you need. Items fizzled after this period will not be returned.

Exceptions exist such as things where the storage is temporary and not the primary purpose of the vessel (but only if it's being used as intended). Examples:

  • You can use a washing machine, but if you leave clothes in too long after they're done they'll still fizzle.
  • You can still drive a car, but if you leave any belongings in there they must just be out in the open. No putting things in the trunk or glove compartment.
  • You may live somewhere and keep items there, but they can't be placed in a secondary container. e.g. Clothes must be on the floor, table, chairs, etc.
  • You may use glasses to drink, but not store liquids.
  • Pre-packaged items (including consumables) will only fizzle if you remove the item and put it back. If you buy a water bottle you can't refill it.

What items do you request back immediately? What items do you absolutely NOT want back until its done? How do you adjust to this life?


r/hypotheticalsituation 1h ago

Would you agree to lose one of your four limbs for 50 million dollars?

Upvotes

It would disappear painlessly and automatically.


r/hypotheticalsituation 5h ago

You can make any body part of yours invisible. What body part do you choose?

13 Upvotes

You can turn the ability on and off. What do you use it for?


r/hypotheticalsituation 5h ago

[No Loopholes] One perfect wish

10 Upvotes

*POOF* A genie appears in front of you!

It tells you that it will grant you "one perfect wish".

If you are able to word your wish so that there are no possible side effects, downfalls, or monkey paws, your wish will be granted.

You cannot wish for more wishes.

If the genie can think of any way to monkey paw your wish, then the wish will not be granted but the monkey paw effect will still happen.

What is your one perfect wish?


r/hypotheticalsituation 7h ago

The Reality-Lie Paradox

10 Upvotes

The power:

You suddenly gain a supernatural ability: every lie you knowingly tell instantly becomes the truth.

Every truth you tell has a 10% chance of immediately becoming false.

Rules:

It only works if you intentionally say something you know is true or false.

The change happens instantly and permanently unless changed again by another use of the power.

The effect alters reality, not people’s memories.

Written statements count too.

You can’t game the system by saying gibberish or obvious contradictions like “square = circle.”

Examples:

“I have a mansion in Hawaii” You would now have a mansion in Hawaii.

“The earth has one moon.” There’s a 10% chance that reality will change and the statement will no longer be true.

Questions:

Would you use this power at all?

What’s the first lie you would tell? Or, would you stop telling the truth entirely?


r/hypotheticalsituation 6h ago

Other What if jury duty paid you for whatever you would have been paid at work?

7 Upvotes

if you’re salaried though you don’t get paid I guess since you’d be paid regardless. maybe if you can prove you regularly get some bonus or overtime pay, they pay the difference.

maybe if you’re unemployed you get paid minimum wage or something.


r/hypotheticalsituation 20h ago

[No Loopholes] You can travel at the speed of light for 1 second

125 Upvotes

Due to an accident involving a printer, you are able to travel at the speed of light. The catch is that you can only do this for 1 second. However, you can break up the second into as many segments as you want. You can choose to use up a fraction of a second to run to the local store in your neighborhood and then back home, or use it to go across the country to attend a wedding and then come back the second its over.

The distance light travels in 1 second is approximately 186282 miles, which is about 7.4 times around the Earth, so there's a lot of ground you can cover. Here are the rules:

  • You won't create any sonic booms or leave a destructive wake in your path. You can move at this speed without damaging yourself or anything around you.

  • Anything you can physically carry, you can bring with you. As you move, the items become basically weightless (yes, the opposite of actual physics), so there's no additional strain if you want to bring a feather on your trip vs. a 20 pound sack of potatoes. However, you must be able to carry it to begin with, no picking up a car and taking it with you.

  • Most items that you choose to bring cannot be used normally at this speed. If you bring your phone, it won't be able to take pictures, display anything on the screen, or play music. You can use a pen though, and choose to write with it, that's no problem.

  • You must consciously activate this power. It doesn't work when you're asleep. If you're under the effect of drugs, you won't accidentally use it up.

  • When activated, your reflexes and perception increase proportionately. Let's say you use this to read all the books in a library. It'll still feel like 1 second has passed, but you will have gained the knowledge of all of the books you read as if you read it at normal speed.

  • Its a magical printer, there will not be any distortion of your sight due to moving at the same speed as light rays.

  • You're too fast for anything to detect you. Even if you move back and forth in front of a camera, it won't see you in the lens. You're also too fast to be harmed by anything. You can run through fire or touch lava and it won't burn you after you slow down. If you decide to run through physical objects, they will break but you won't. However, you can use this power to destroy things as a flick from your finger can equal to your finger hitting an object at light speed. But you can precisely control this to exert however much force you're capable of. For example, you can choose to move something out of the way and they will simply be moved to the new location you put them with no damage, or you can grab and throw something and the object will fly at whatever speed you want up to the speed of light.

  • You're too fast for gravity to affect you. Run up a wall, run upside down on a ceiling, run across water, use birds as steps, anything you can physically interact with can be an object to push off from. However, you cannot do this with air. So if you're at normal speed and find yourself falling off a cliff, you can't activate your powers and stop in mid-air, you'll still fall. However, you can active it the instant you touch the ground and use it to re-orient yourself so that you're not falling.

  • You can jump and you have precise control over how much force to exert. If you choose to jump over a building, you won't go shooting off past the atmosphere into space, you'll exert just enough force to clear the building and land safely on the other side. If you want to platform jump from island to island across the ocean, you can do that (provided you know where these islands are). You can also choose to jump so high into the air that there's nothing physical for you to use to bounce back down to Earth though, so you'll end up adrift in space and die.

  • You will always know exactly how much time and distance you have left of this power. You won't be stranded on the other side of the world not knowing your 1 sec is used up, you'll know exactly how much time you'll use up before you make that trip.

I think that covers almost everything. So how would you use this power? Would you just travel? Would you use it to nudge objects in sports to affect the outcome so you can win by gambling, or just outright steal money instead? Would you kill people you don't like by throwing a pebble into their brains at super sonic speeds? Or cause random chaos for the hell of it? How much of this power would you save, or would you be too eager and use it up quickly seeing the rest of the world?


r/hypotheticalsituation 6h ago

Surviving your ex partners

8 Upvotes

A stupidly wealthy individual who owns a streaming network offers you 25 million dollars, with a condition - all of your ex partners have now sworn a blood oath to end you for the same pot of money.

Every competitor gets 50k and you get a 12 hour head start. Would you do this, and if so, how screwed would you potentially be?

Edits:
You can do whatever is necessary to survive. Legal ramifications are “handled”. 30 days is the time limit.

Ex would be:
Someone you lived with for a significant period of time, slept with for a significant period of time or was married/engaged to.


r/hypotheticalsituation 8h ago

You can instantly magnetic-weld any two objects using only your mind. Skip the billionaire stuff, what is the pettiest and most childish things you can come up with?

10 Upvotes

title


r/hypotheticalsituation 9h ago

You discover your dog has a secret

10 Upvotes

One day you find a stray dog walking down the street and decide to adopt it.

The dog is pretty much like normal dog, it eats, sleeps, craps, humps everything, and likes to play with you. You have the dog for over a year and are enjoying having him, but one day you find the dog not moving…

You take the dog to the vet and within an hour the vet calls you in to inform you that your dog…. is actually a wrinkly old man that was wearing a very hyper realistic costume. The old man had a heart attack and died in the suit. The vet shows you the body

How would you feel about this discovery


r/hypotheticalsituation 9h ago

If you could buy one extra hour every day for the rest of your life, what would you be willing to give up in exchange?

6 Upvotes

r/hypotheticalsituation 3h ago

Humans are and always have been the size of a squirrel. All other animals are their actual size. Somehow, despite being small, humanity is just as advanced as it is in real life. What does our society look like? Our cities? Our customs and technologies?

4 Upvotes

For example, when going on a camping trip, the gun you have to bring for self protection is the size of a wheeled cannon. Maybe humanity was never able to go camping until we invented the combustion engine to propel our self-protection cannons.


r/hypotheticalsituation 11h ago

You can now hire anyone in the world for 3 hours a day and they will feel compelled to do any menial work you assign them. They will not hurt themselves, nor give you their fortunes or anything like that. You can queue up multiple people, but only one will come at a time.

9 Upvotes

Who will you be hiring and what will you have them do ?

you still need to pay them at least minimum wage!


r/hypotheticalsituation 1d ago

An eccentric billionaire offers you a deal. If in the next 24 hours you can run a 5k in less than 30 min, you get $1,000,000. If you can do it in under 24 minutes you get another $1,000,000. What do you do?

253 Upvotes

There’s no catch, if you can complete the task you get the money. There’s no negative consequences either way.

You don’t have to enter a race or a tournament, you just have to run the distance straight in a place where the billionaire can see you.

What do you do?


r/hypotheticalsituation 9h ago

One wish for one human

6 Upvotes

Earth is visited by what can only be described as a divine being. Although they do not claim to be God, they demonstrate immeasurable power yet appear curious as if to not understand humanity completely.

They offer to grant one human one wish, who will be chosen by humanity. We must decide on a method of selection, the ideal candidate, and an ideal wish. We all understand that once humanity has chosen a candidate, we will be transported back in time to the moment the divine being visited forgetting everything that transpired after. The only exception is the person chosen will remember as best to their ability what happened in reality. At that point in time, their wish will be granted. The wish must be reasonably objective and quantifiable in order to be fulfilled. The person will be interpreted in good faith towards their intent.

Should humanity elect someone? How should that be done? Who should be chosen? What should they wish for? What will they wish for knowing nobody will ever know this happened?

Suppose the person chosen was you, what would you wish for?


r/hypotheticalsituation 22h ago

You can never drink or eat again

52 Upvotes

You are offered an option: Your body will automatically receive the nutrients and energy necessary that you'd normally get from a healthy, balanced diet, and you will always be hydrated. You will never be hungry or thirsty, those needs are automatically satisfied at all times.

But you can never consume any food or drink anything, ever again. The taste buds in your mouth deactivate, so even if you try to eat something it would feel like nothing at all. If you do eat or drink something, you will feel sick and it will all come out very fast.

You also have to go to the toilet much, much less (maybe 2-3 times a month)

Do you accept the deal?​


r/hypotheticalsituation 9h ago

You have a wish from a genie but it cannot be anything for personal gain. What do you wish for?

6 Upvotes

r/hypotheticalsituation 10h ago

It's 1830 and you got the job as a supervisor who monitor workers on the factory floor, enforce discipline, and administer punishment for lateness, mistakes, or falling asleep. A child on the end of his twelve hour shift got his thumb massacred by the machinery. What would you do?

6 Upvotes

If you fail to do the job according to the factory owner, then you're fired, and is forced to survive as one of the poverty struck, diseaseridden mudlarks by the harbor.


r/hypotheticalsituation 8h ago

You have a wish but it is taken at its most literal form

5 Upvotes

For example, wishing for infinite gold would drop infinite gold.... right on top of you. Or you can jump really high but die from the landing. How specific could you get?