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Hypotheticals for Hat Chat ep.124

Added 2023-01-27 10:29:55 +0000 UTC

Hello! You may not have seen a poll like this before if you're new on Patreon!

We do a Hat Chat podcast weekly, and we like to discuss hypothetical situations, and we always prioritise the ones you vote on first! So, here's this weeks selection:

Option 1

If your boss's daughter bribed you to "take the day off," how would you react?

Imagine you're the chauffeur/assistant to a wealthy businessman, being paid a modest hourly wage. He's not difficult to work for or anything, but often makes you take on "extraneous" tasks (outside of the office) with scant extra pay.

Now imagine he has assigned you to chaperone his daughter's 15th birthday party. The party takes place at the family's holiday home in another state (boss covers the cost of your round trip ticket). He expects you to be present during the entire evening, just supervising. You would be the only adult there.

When you arrive, the daughter offers you $800 in cash to "take the day off" (in other words, leave her with her friends).

WWYD?

Option 2

If Earth had rings like Saturn, would it impact life in any discernable way?

This assumes that Earth has always had rings, or at least in written human history. Obviously if Earth suddenly gained rings, people would be freaking out.

Option 3

The bugs all become sentient at once, and are frighteningly intelligent.

One day out of nowhere, every creature that's clearly visible to the naked eye and that one would casually consider a 'bug' gains the cognitive abilities of your average 10 year old child, in addition to the ability to telepathically communicate with any human brain within about a meter of itself (a very quiet signal can be heard up to 90 cm away). Bugs are acutely aware of pieces of human culture which have been relevant in the public mind over the course of the past 40-60 years as a side effect of their psychic power.

They beg for mercy when they're about to be killed, ask for directions when lost, request food when starving, and otherwise act like humans would. The bugs are intuitively aware of the range of their psychic communication, but will not try to hide their presence -- even when it's strategically advantageous for them to do so. They can't communicate with any other species and can't even communicate psychically with each other. However, when sending normal biological signals, they'll also send matching psychic signals of the same contents (i.e. when a cricket chirps, it'll talk about how lonely and horny it is).

Examples of bugs for clarification: