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HYPERtheticals: 50 Questions for Insane Conversations
This addictive collection of outlandish hypothetical questions from an acclaimed pop-culture journalist is sure to stimulate unconventional conversations and unexpected debates.
• You are in an unfortunate situation in which you must consider cannibalism in order to stay alive. Would you rather eat babies or elderly people?
• You are offered a Brain Pill that will make you feel 10 percent more intelligent, but you will seem 20 percent less intelligent to everyone else. Would you take the pill?
• You wake up inhabiting Bruce Springsteen’s body. Your voice sounds just like Bruce’s, but your musical abilities are still entirely your own. You are scheduled to perform a huge concert that night. What would you do?
How do you think your mother would answer these questions? Your best friend? Your significant other? Get ready for some insane conversations!
• You are in an unfortunate situation in which you must consider cannibalism in order to stay alive. Would you rather eat babies or elderly people?
• You are offered a Brain Pill that will make you feel 10 percent more intelligent, but you will seem 20 percent less intelligent to everyone else. Would you take the pill?
• You wake up inhabiting Bruce Springsteen’s body. Your voice sounds just like Bruce’s, but your musical abilities are still entirely your own. You are scheduled to perform a huge concert that night. What would you do?
How do you think your mother would answer these questions? Your best friend? Your significant other? Get ready for some insane conversations!
- GenresHumorNonfiction
51 pages, Cards
First published January 1, 2010
7 people are currently reading
973 people want to read
About the author
Chuck Klosterman
112 books5,048 followersCharles John Klosterman is an American author and essayist whose work focuses on American popular culture. He has been a columnist for Esquire and ESPN.com and wrote "The Ethicist" column for The New York Times Magazine. Klosterman is the author of twelve books, including two novels and the essay collection Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs: A Low Culture Manifesto. He was awarded the ASCAP Deems Taylor award for music criticism in 2002.
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Displaying 1 - 19 of 19 reviews
June 4, 2017
This is the best board/card game on the planet, hands-down.
These are tough hypothetical questions, and as the author puts it, the point really isn't the answer, but the thought process. Seeing how someone thinks about this is really what the game is about, not their one-word answer.
And in the interest of the thought process, I'm going to answer my favorite, not because the question is my favorite, but because I'm the ONLY person I've polled who answered the question the way I did:
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?
Please consider the question and come up with your own reasoning. I'll wait.
...
If you're like most people I've asked, you said Europe. If you're unlike most people I've asked (and unlike me) you said "The Moon."
First, let me dismantle the most common arguments I hear in favor of Europe when this question is asked.
1. A year is a lot longer than 10 minutes
This is true. It's mathematical fact. However, it doesn't seem, to me, that the truth of the difference between a year and ten minutes really speaks to the quality of those experiences. Also, you'd presumably have to reassemble your life after being away for a year. 10 minutes is a mildly long amount of time to be in the bathroom.
2. There's nothing on the moon to see/do
I couldn't disagree with that more, but at the very least, you could see the entire planet Earth. Also, being on the Moon is definitely something that happens to you more than somewhere you go to do stuff. You are there as opposed to seeing what else is there. It's a very different human experience, perhaps only having modern equivalents in Antarctica or at something like the Grand Canyon if you're the sentimental type. Plus, there are bags of shit left by the Apollo 11 astronauts. Nothing to see? That stuff, as Indiana Jones would put it, belongs in a museum.
3. A year off would be so nice and relaxing
I'm not much of a relaxer. That's not my thing, really. Sitting around doing very little just isn't that interesting to me. Now anxiety, THAT'S my thing. I know myself well enough to know that I wouldn't really relax, ever. I would be like a kid during summer vacation, counting down the remaining days until I was swept back into a normal, hellish life that I hate. And I would also be constantly fretting about the way to squeeze as much as possible out of this trip. I'm confident that I can fully enjoy 10 minutes on the Moon to its full potential without checking my space watch even once. In Europe, I'd be constantly oscillating between trying to relax and feeling like I was squandering the time.
4. People have been to the Moon before.
If people being there or not before was a primary argument, then Europe would lose that argument, hands-down. Also, lots of people have summited Everest. That doesn't seem to stop lots of other people from doing it.
Here are my reasons for answering that I would hit The Moon
1. At the end of 10 minutes, I would know whether the moon was life-altering.
Internally, I'm different. Externally, I'm the same. I could start and finish this trip during a coffee break at work. It would take me less time to visit the moon than it would to rewatch the episode of The Simpsons where Homer becomes an astronaut. While it's impossible to say whether the moon might be more life-altering than a year of Europe, ten minutes on the moon would make it very easy to know whether the moon is a life-changing experience or not. I would have spent a very small amount of time there. I wouldn't have aged much (and in fact would have aged slower than I would have had I spent that 10 minutes on Earth, I believe). Whereas the European experience would be mixed. Was I changed because I've aged? Because I didn't work for an entire year? Because of the individuals I met or because of the larger cultural experiences? It's a bad experiment in personal change as it would seem almost impossible not to change over the course of a year where my life was that different. It's the classic problem when someone goes backpacking in Europe. Did the trip change them, or do those folks simply have a more easily contained context in which they could make their personal changes, changes most of us go through at around the same age people would tend to backpack in Europe?
2. I could go to Europe
A $2,000/month stipend is a little less than $25,000. In theory, if I really made it my life's ambition, I'm confident that I could save that money and make the trip. I paid off a $20,000 student loan in less than ten years, so it would stand to reason that I could save $25K over that same period and make the trip. It's never occurred to me to do this, which says to me that it's not a big personal goal. I have zero confidence in my ability to save the amount of money it might take to visit the Moon, if that were even an available option, which it currently is not. Ultimately, the Moon is a closed door regardless of my physical ability, age, and savings potential. Europe is wide open. Selecting the Moon does allow for the potential for both.
3. The physical, lasting sensation of low gravity is not something I would ever experience otherwise. Mary Roach talked about this in her book, Packing For Mars, that zero gravity makes you realize how heavy your organs are, and even the way your hair pulls down from your head. It's not until you experience the change that you realize the physical sensation of gravity. It's such a fundamental change in something very visceral and difficult to explain that I think it would offer the more interesting physical experience.
4. Parties and meetings are so much easier after that.
It doesn't matter if you're at a bar, a party, wherever, being on the Moon trumps everything. I'll be 100% honest with you, I'd rather spend 10 minutes talking to someone who has been on the Moon than I would any former President. No matter where you are, no matter what the situation, you have the best story. Unless that dude with the two penises who did the Reddit AMA is around. In that case I'd be willing to concede a tie.
These are tough hypothetical questions, and as the author puts it, the point really isn't the answer, but the thought process. Seeing how someone thinks about this is really what the game is about, not their one-word answer.
And in the interest of the thought process, I'm going to answer my favorite, not because the question is my favorite, but because I'm the ONLY person I've polled who answered the question the way I did:
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?
Please consider the question and come up with your own reasoning. I'll wait.
...
If you're like most people I've asked, you said Europe. If you're unlike most people I've asked (and unlike me) you said "The Moon."
First, let me dismantle the most common arguments I hear in favor of Europe when this question is asked.
1. A year is a lot longer than 10 minutes
This is true. It's mathematical fact. However, it doesn't seem, to me, that the truth of the difference between a year and ten minutes really speaks to the quality of those experiences. Also, you'd presumably have to reassemble your life after being away for a year. 10 minutes is a mildly long amount of time to be in the bathroom.
2. There's nothing on the moon to see/do
I couldn't disagree with that more, but at the very least, you could see the entire planet Earth. Also, being on the Moon is definitely something that happens to you more than somewhere you go to do stuff. You are there as opposed to seeing what else is there. It's a very different human experience, perhaps only having modern equivalents in Antarctica or at something like the Grand Canyon if you're the sentimental type. Plus, there are bags of shit left by the Apollo 11 astronauts. Nothing to see? That stuff, as Indiana Jones would put it, belongs in a museum.
3. A year off would be so nice and relaxing
I'm not much of a relaxer. That's not my thing, really. Sitting around doing very little just isn't that interesting to me. Now anxiety, THAT'S my thing. I know myself well enough to know that I wouldn't really relax, ever. I would be like a kid during summer vacation, counting down the remaining days until I was swept back into a normal, hellish life that I hate. And I would also be constantly fretting about the way to squeeze as much as possible out of this trip. I'm confident that I can fully enjoy 10 minutes on the Moon to its full potential without checking my space watch even once. In Europe, I'd be constantly oscillating between trying to relax and feeling like I was squandering the time.
4. People have been to the Moon before.
If people being there or not before was a primary argument, then Europe would lose that argument, hands-down. Also, lots of people have summited Everest. That doesn't seem to stop lots of other people from doing it.
Here are my reasons for answering that I would hit The Moon
1. At the end of 10 minutes, I would know whether the moon was life-altering.
Internally, I'm different. Externally, I'm the same. I could start and finish this trip during a coffee break at work. It would take me less time to visit the moon than it would to rewatch the episode of The Simpsons where Homer becomes an astronaut. While it's impossible to say whether the moon might be more life-altering than a year of Europe, ten minutes on the moon would make it very easy to know whether the moon is a life-changing experience or not. I would have spent a very small amount of time there. I wouldn't have aged much (and in fact would have aged slower than I would have had I spent that 10 minutes on Earth, I believe). Whereas the European experience would be mixed. Was I changed because I've aged? Because I didn't work for an entire year? Because of the individuals I met or because of the larger cultural experiences? It's a bad experiment in personal change as it would seem almost impossible not to change over the course of a year where my life was that different. It's the classic problem when someone goes backpacking in Europe. Did the trip change them, or do those folks simply have a more easily contained context in which they could make their personal changes, changes most of us go through at around the same age people would tend to backpack in Europe?
2. I could go to Europe
A $2,000/month stipend is a little less than $25,000. In theory, if I really made it my life's ambition, I'm confident that I could save that money and make the trip. I paid off a $20,000 student loan in less than ten years, so it would stand to reason that I could save $25K over that same period and make the trip. It's never occurred to me to do this, which says to me that it's not a big personal goal. I have zero confidence in my ability to save the amount of money it might take to visit the Moon, if that were even an available option, which it currently is not. Ultimately, the Moon is a closed door regardless of my physical ability, age, and savings potential. Europe is wide open. Selecting the Moon does allow for the potential for both.
3. The physical, lasting sensation of low gravity is not something I would ever experience otherwise. Mary Roach talked about this in her book, Packing For Mars, that zero gravity makes you realize how heavy your organs are, and even the way your hair pulls down from your head. It's not until you experience the change that you realize the physical sensation of gravity. It's such a fundamental change in something very visceral and difficult to explain that I think it would offer the more interesting physical experience.
4. Parties and meetings are so much easier after that.
It doesn't matter if you're at a bar, a party, wherever, being on the Moon trumps everything. I'll be 100% honest with you, I'd rather spend 10 minutes talking to someone who has been on the Moon than I would any former President. No matter where you are, no matter what the situation, you have the best story. Unless that dude with the two penises who did the Reddit AMA is around. In that case I'd be willing to concede a tie.
October 11, 2015
Apparently, this counts as a book. I forced myself not to buy this for several years because it seemed like a party-themed card game was an obnoxious cash grab from one of my favourite authors, but the completist that lives inside me eventually won that battle and I bought the cards for a Cancun trip with my girlfriend and I'm glad to admit I was mostly wrong about them. They are well-written, extensive, fun and they do lead to insane conversation.
All the questions of HYPERtheticals function basically the same way: they put you in front of an elaborate (and completely hypothetical) dilemma that forces you to affirm your values about complicated subjects in front of a group of people. I had a lot of fun playing it for the first time, but I have a feeling that it'll change and evolve the more I will play it with different people. It's a bizarre, amorphous thing, but it's a lot of fun like everything Chuck Klosterman touches.
All the questions of HYPERtheticals function basically the same way: they put you in front of an elaborate (and completely hypothetical) dilemma that forces you to affirm your values about complicated subjects in front of a group of people. I had a lot of fun playing it for the first time, but I have a feeling that it'll change and evolve the more I will play it with different people. It's a bizarre, amorphous thing, but it's a lot of fun like everything Chuck Klosterman touches.
March 2, 2013
SIX WORD REVIEW: There are some doosies to consider.
March 18, 2012
i use these on an almost weekly basis.
Read
June 9, 2016Not sure how this fits into Goodreads, but these are actually pretty fun questions.
November 3, 2017
my wife and I tried this out at home and on a road trip. these can germinate a conversation and are the zany and clever suggestions with pop culture allusions I expect from the author.
March 29, 2020
Before the internet answers, we had Chuck ponderings. Gosh, very very good.
September 2, 2016
My partner introduced me to these when we first started dating and it was undoubtedly one of the best ways to get to know someone. Over 3 years later we brought them on a camping trip, and I still felt like we were learning so much about each other and, of course, having a really good laugh. Some favourites include: the Alice in Chains dilemma, the Moon Bears, and Breaking your significant others collarbone every year.
January 7, 2011
Every night, my husband and I draw a card (or 5) from this deck and it's true, hilarious conversation ensues. Some of the topics are a pretty quick yes/no, some basically get to the heart of "are you selfish?", but others definitely require some verbal exploration. A really awesome gift to give and/or receive!
June 22, 2011
This is mainly a collection of the quasi-intellectual cannon fodder found throughout Kolsterman's books. So I like them, but there are a whole bunch of old questions. Didn't find the Gorilla playing for the Raiders question, but I bet its in there.
I think I will remember reading these to my wife, brother and his fiancee more then I will remember any particular question.
I think I will remember reading these to my wife, brother and his fiancee more then I will remember any particular question.
Read
July 24, 2010Some are ok, but some create the weirdest and best conversations you will have all week.
Read
January 18, 2011This is a fun game. Although I need to find more friends who DON't think the same way I do in order to make the conversation more interesting.
Read
July 12, 2011Oops....I mean TO READ. My bad.
April 29, 2019
Just finished "reading" it. Come on Chuck! You are better than this. The only one I liked was the one about a gorilla playing in the NFL.
April 6, 2013
Expected a bit more but it served its purpose!
May 28, 2013
This is much much more of a game than a book, but it's made for some fun times at a few different gatherings.
February 25, 2025
Love! Very much enjoy playing this with friends and family. Only question I have for Chuck is: Kiss, Marry, Kill - Live Laugh, Love?
November 20, 2015
Good hypothetical questions to discuss with friends while driving.
May 4, 2016
Perfect for my coffee table
Displaying 1 - 19 of 19 reviews