u/Sereomontis

Your job is to work at an adjustable table (sitting or standing) in a 25 square meter room in the back of an otherwise empty restaurant, which happens to be within a 15 minute walk of where you live, and slice an assortment of fruits and vegetables coming through via a conveyor belt. No one else will be allowed in the building. There are 2 roof windows above you allowing for natural lighting, which can be opened or closed via a button at your desk, should you want some fresh air.

The produce can be tomatoes, cucumbers, mushrooms, eggplants, asparagus, carrots, bell peppers, as well as other relatively easy to chop fruits and vegetables.

The fruit or vegetable you are meant to slice is delivered on a plate automatically via a conveyor belt from your left, one item at a time, your job is to simply cut it into more or less uniform slices, and place the plate with the sliced item on the conveyor to the right. That's it. That's the whole job. You are provided an assortment of professionally sharpened, high-end chefs knives. A chopping board can be provided should you desire one, but you can also just chop the fruit or vegetable directly on the plate.

The moment you place the plate on the conveyor to the right, a new one magically spawns on the conveyor to the left, with no delay.

The downsides are, the job will be boring and repetitive, and you will have no social interactions while working. No electronic gadgets are allowed on the premises as it interferes with the magic-based produce spawning conveyor system, so no phone, no tablet, no television, no radio. You can leave your phone in a lock-box at the entrance, which is 100% guaranteed to be safe when you return.

The benefits are as follows:

You get 8 weeks of unpaid vacation per year. Unspent weeks *will* carry over to the next year.

You have a *very* flexible schedule. Basically, you can work at any time of day, any day of the week, as long as you meet the minimum required 24 hours worked per month (outside of vacation time). You could work a single 24 hour shift on the 1st then take the rest of the month off or you could work 20 hours a day, 7 days a week, or anywhere in between.

Someone is keeping track of the number of fruits and veggies you're cutting, and, for each cut item that leaves through the conveyor on your right, you will receive $3, or the equivalent in your local currency, tallied up and paid out at the end of each day. So for example, if it takes you 15 seconds to cut one fruit or veg, you're making $12 per minute, which is $720 per hour.

You are not allowed to hire someone else to do the job for you.

The job comes with full health and dental insurance if you live in a country without it.

Are you taking the job? If so, how long are you keeping it?

This isn't about a fight between Jessica Jones and Reacher. This hypothetical is about who could solve a murder fastest.

To set the scene; Reacher/Jessica is going for a walk, enjoying the evening air in New York city, when they hear a woman's scream.

They run in the direction of the scream and, in an alley in the distance, see someone with a knife, about to commit a murder. They've just stumbled upon a random serial killer in the middle of taking his next victim.

They shout to get the killers attention, and it works, briefly. The killer makes eye contact with Reacher/Jess for a few moments, before turning his attention back to the woman. She is stabbed 5 times in her torso, marking the points of a pentagon. (let's assume this is the killers signature)

This woman marks his 7th victim in 2 years.

Our protagonist runs to the scene, but the killer is too fast and gets away. Reacher/Jess promises the woman, who is dying on the ground, that they won't stop until they've caught the person who did this.

It was too dark to ID the killer, no cameras in the area, but they know it's a man of roughly average build.

The killer is above average intelligence and fitness, has a military background and currently works in cyber security. His targets are all toll blondes in their late 40's to early 50's.

Who solves this murder first? If they both fail, who gets closer?

So the prompt is fairly simple; all currently growing/living edible plants, fruits, vegetables as well as all living creatures, except humans, suddenly disappear one day. This includes all types of seed needed to grow more.

However, animals that are already dead, plants that have already been harvested, food that is already prepared, will remain, things like stored grains, dried and frozen foods and things of that nature, will continue to exist and will expire at normal rates.

Already harvested foods that contain seeds, such as apples, watermelons, etc. will remain, however the seeds inside those foods will disappear. As will foods where the food itself can be used as a seed to grow more of itself, such as potatoes and garlic.

Assume enough inedible plants, trees, algae, etc, remain to produce enough oxygen to sustain us.

How long before humanity goes extinct? Could we somehow survive?

Bonus Round: Humanity is warned and we have a decade of prep time. Assume everyone accepts the warning as being genuine and true. Can we somehow find a way to survive? Is there anything we could do?

So the prompt is fairly simple; all currently growing/living edible plants, fruits, vegetables as well as all living creatures, except humans, suddenly disappear one day. This includes all types of seed needed to grow more.

However, animals that are already dead, plants that have already been harvested, food that is already prepared, will remain, things like stored grains, dried and frozen foods and things of that nature, will continue to exist and will expire at normal rates.

Assume enough inedible plants, trees, algae, etc, remain to produce enough oxygen to sustain us.

How long before humanity goes extinct? Could we somehow survive?

Bonus Round: Humanity is warned and we have a decade of prep time. Assume everyone accepts the warning as being genuine and true. Can we somehow find a way to survive? Is there anything we could do?

Teleportation: 2.5 km range. You can only teleport where you can see, direct line of sight. 60 sec cooldown.

Flight: Top speed 150 km/h. No added resistances to impact or temperatures. Flying is as tiring as running, it burns calories at the same rate. (for example top speed of 150 km/h is equal to full sprint, 50 km/h equal to a jog, etc)

Self cloning: You can make clones of yourself. Clones are exact copies of you and will live for 1 week, 168 hours, after which they decay, turning into air. Creating the clone takes 10 minutes of concentrated effort. 12 hour cooldown. You and your clones are connected via hive-mind, sharing memories and experiences. Clones are capable of individual behavior, and would behave the same way you would, however, as the original you have the ability to take control of a clones mind and make them do whatever you want.

Telepathy: You can read, not control, minds. Only one mind at a time. You can stay connected for up to 10 minutes, during which you are instinctively aware of every thought, conscious and unconscious, the person has. Only works on people you can directly see in person. If you lose line of sight the connection is terminated. 4 hour cooldown.

Invisibility: You can become completely invisible across the entire electromagnetic spectrum. (Yes, you can still see even though your eyes are invisible. It's a super power, logic doesn't have to apply) You are also muted, so no one can hear you. can turn on and off at will, lasts up to 30 minutes, unless you turn it off sooner. Cooldown is 12 hours. Cooldown will start when invisibility ends, even if you only used 30 seconds before turning it off. (you do *not* phase shift. You can still touch things and people can still touch you)

Invincibility: You can become completely impervious to any physical damage at will. Literally completely invincible. Activate or deactivate at will, lasts up to 5 minutes. 8 hour cooldown. (same cooldown rules as invisibility)

Telekinesis: You can exert up to 1,000 kg (1 metric ton) of force with your mind. Max distance of 500 meters from yourself, only directly on things you can see. Can be focused on an area as small as 1 square MM, or spread the force out over as much as 100 square meters. No cooldown.

Which one are you picking and how are you using this power/what are you using it for?

Teleportation: 2.5 km range. You can only teleport where you can see, direct line of sight. 60 sec cooldown.

Flight: Top speed 150 km/h. No added resistances to impact or temperatures. Flying is as tiring as running, it burns calories at the same rate. (for example top speed of 150 km/h is equal to full sprint, 50 km/h equal to a jog, etc)

Self cloning: You can make clones of yourself. Clones are exact copies of you and will live for 1 week, 168 hours, after which they decay, turning into air. Creating the clone takes 10 minutes of concentrated effort. 12 hour cooldown. You and your clones are connected via hive-mind, sharing memories and experiences. Clones are capable of individual behavior, and would behave the same way you would, however, as the original you have the ability to take control of a clones mind and make them do whatever you want.

Telepathy: You can read, not control, minds. Only one mind at a time. You can stay connected for up to 10 minutes, during which you are instinctively aware of every thought, conscious and unconscious, the person has. Only works on people you can directly see in person. If you lose line of sight the connection is terminated. 4 hour cooldown.

Invisibility: You can become completely invisible across the entire electromagnetic spectrum. (Yes, you can still see even though your eyes are invisible. It's a super power, logic doesn't have to apply) You are also muted, so no one can hear you. can turn on and off at will, lasts up to 30 minutes, unless you turn it off sooner. Cooldown is 12 hours. Cooldown will start when invisibility ends, even if you only used 30 seconds before turning it off. (you do *not* phase shift. You can still touch things and people can still touch you)

Invincibility: You can become completely impervious to any physical damage at will. Literally completely invincible. Activate or deactivate at will, lasts up to 5 minutes. 8 hour cooldown. (same cooldown rules as invisibility)

Telekinesis: You can exert up to 1,000 kg (1 metric ton) of force with your mind. Max distance of 500 meters from yourself, only directly on things you can see. Can be focused on an area as small as 1 square MM, or spread the force out over as much as 100 square meters. No cooldown.

Which one are you picking and how are you using this power/what are you using it for?

In this post I'm not looking for the worst, instead, I'm looking for the nicest hells.

Some settings have hells filled with unending suffering and horrors too cruel to imagine.

Yet others seem relatively mild by comparison.

Which fictional hell would you least mind being condemned to?

As a note, the small Norwegian town of 'Hell' is not applicable.

You're offered a choice; you will receive €15,000 per year in monthly installments of €1,250 (Tax free, will adjust for inflation) but you can no longer use any cutlery. Once per year, on January 1st, you are given the option to cancel this arrangement. You will receive no punishment and you get to keep what money you've made so far, however the offer will never return.

No more knives, spoons, forks, sporks, chopsticks, or anything of the sort can be used to feed you directly.

No using things that aren't technically cutlery as cutlery either. For example you are not allowed to fold up a piece of paper and use it like a spoon.

You can't have other people feed you using cutlery either. If someone is going to feed you, they have to do it by hand. (they can feed themselves with cutlery of course, just not you)

The only way you are allowed to bring food to your mouth is either directly by hand, by pouring it into your mouth from the bowl or plate, or diving in face first and eating it straight off the plate.

You can still use utensils to prepare and cook your food of course, just not for eating. If you wanna taste something while cooking to see if it needs more seasoning or whatever, you're gonna have to use your fingers.

Let's say that Voldemort traveled to America to get his hands on a magical artifact of great power to further his evil schemes of taking over the wizarding world.

He heads to a small town in a non-specified state that happens to be ripe with magical energy. Some innocent bystanders get killed in the process of tracking down the aforementioned artifact.

Meanwhile, only a couple hours drive away, Sam reads a news story about some people in a small town that are dying in weird and unusual ways, he tells Dean about it and they decide it's worth checking out, so they hop in Baby and start heading in that direction.

Sam and Dean have their standard gear including an Angel Blade, the Demon Killing knife, and several witch killing bullets. They also bring the grenade launcher, just in case.

Voldemort traveled light and only has his wand and a couple of Death Eaters with him, because he didn't wanna pay for more plane tickets than he needed to. (Yes I know, they don't need airplanes, it's just part of the setup)

Who wins this fight?

Bonus Rounds (BR) if Sam and Dean lose:

BR1: Peak regular (non-purgatory) Castiel joins them.

BR2: They have the colt.

BR3: Peak Rowena is with them.

BR4: Peak Nephilim (not God) Jack joins them.

The Predator (Yautja) from the 1987 movie arrives on Earth, but something goes wrong with his navigation system and instead of dropping down in Central America, he ends up somewhere in an African forest.

The first creatures he runs into are a family of around a dozen Western lowland gorillas. The leader of the group, a 170 kg silverback gorilla, aggressively pounds his chest and approaches the Yautja, seeing him as a threat and potential challenger.

The predator decides he wants this fight to be as fair as possible, so he drops his weapons and strips off his armor, including his helmet and goes in for a straight hand to hand fight.

The rest of the gorillas will not get involved.

Who wins?

Let's say we live in an alternate reality where the Chicxulub asteroid just missed earth, and other subsequent asteroids and other cataclysmic events were also somehow avoided, and the dinos never went extinct.

Yet somehow, our human ancestors, the genus homo, manage to evolve in the same places around the same time, some 2 million years ago.

Does humanity still evolve to conquer the Earth? Does our adaptability and intelligence overcome the evolutionary benefits bestowed on dinosaurs, or are the dinos taking us out?

So you're given a choice.

1: You'll be twice as good at everything.

Every skill you have, you can now do twice as well. You're twice as good at all sports, you're twice as good of a chef, you're twice as good of a parent to your kids and partner to your significant other, twice as good at your job, twice as good at games and so on.

2: You become one of the top 5 best in the world at any one skill of your choice.

For example, if you pick football you'll be on par with CR7, Messi, R9, Ronaldinho, etc. You could pick intelligence and be as smart as Hawking or Einstein or Newton. You could become the best driver in the world, rivaling Schumaker and Hamilton. If you pick an artistic skill, like painting, you could be as good as Da Vinci, Van Gogh or Picasso.
(Keep in mind that skill alone is not a guarantee of success)

Which do you choose and why?

If you pick 2, what skill are you going for?

While holding your breath your head-hair becomes prehensile.

Which means you can move your hair around like it's another limb, with the same dexterity as your fingers. It's as strong as your hair normally would be.

The ability activates after 1.5 seconds of holding your breath. As soon as you stop holding your breath, your hair goes back to normal.

Your hair will also grow 10 times as fast while you're holding your breath. Average hair growth is roughly 15 centimeters per year, or 0.4 millimeters per day, you get 10 times that.

All hair on your body will grow 10x faster, but only the hair on the top of your head becomes controllable.

What do you do with this (mostly) useless superpower?

Bit of a strange one, but let's say there's a speedster hellbent on wiping out all humans.

Let's assume all of humanity is willing to put aside our own differences and share resources and intelligence in order to combat this speedster.

The speedster will be able to accelerate to top speed in roughly 20 seconds and has enough stamina to maintain that speed for multiple hours at a time. Their reflexes would match their speed of course, and they'll have enough durability to resist their own speed and all consequences from it.

What's the highest top speed this speedster could reach where humanity can still win?

Obviously we're not beating a superluminal speedster.

But could we beat a speedster whos max speed is 10% of light speed? 1%? Mach 100? Mach 10?

Thoughts?

A random average central-European man in his mid 20's is mysteriously granted a superpower.

Every time he dies he will automatically resurrect, and with each resurrection he gains a compounding 2% increase to strength, speed, durability, stamina and intelligence, as well as specific unlocks at certain death milestones.

A resurrection takes 1 day (24 hours) at which point the body is fully refreshed and reset to it's new normal, healed of any wounds, poisons, tranquilizers, etc.

If he is captured, he has a built in self-termination-switch which he can activate simply by concentrating for a minute or so. He is also the only one with the ability to permanently terminate himself should he, for whatever reason, choose to.

Death milestone unlocks:

25: He can breathe under water.
50: Invisibility. Up to 30 minutes with an 8 hour cooldown. Invisible across the EM spectrum.
75: Telekinesis, with a max lifting capacity of 1,000 kg.
100: Can indefinitely survive in space.
125: Selective eidetic memory. Can remember anything, but can also erase memories. Like a computer storing and erasing files.
150: Flight. Top speed of 300 Km/h.
175: X-ray vision.
200: Intangibility. 15 minutes of intangibility, 24 hour cooldown. (He will not fall through the ground due to plot armor)
250: Instant teleportation. Max range of 200 km, 12 hour cooldown.
300: Biological immortality: He cannot die of age. (can still permanently self terminate)
350: Telepathy. He can read any mind within 20 km. Can do a full deep dive of anyone's entire life as they remember it. 4 hour cooldown.
400: Self cloning. The man can now make clones of himself. Up to a maximum of 5 clones can exist at the same time.
500: Mind control. Can control the minds of others. Up to a max of 3 people.

Clones take 30 minutes of concentrated effort to create, 24 hour cooldown. Once unlocked the max number of clones will go up by 1 for every 10 of the original mans future deaths. (410 deaths is 6 clones, 420 deaths is 7, 430 is 8, by 500 it'll be 15, etc) Same rule for mind control. 1 more person controlled for every 10 deaths.

Clones have the same strength, speed, durability, etc, as the original at the moment they are cloned, however clones do not resurrect.
Clones do have the unlocked abilities except self cloning and mind control.
The clones and the original man are all telepathically connected via a sort of hive mind, but they also have individual freedom.

All unlocked abilities will also increase in power/duration by a compounding 2% per death once unlocked. Cooldowns reduced by 2% per death. (multiplied by .98)
The man is innately aware of all his abilities, how many deaths he needs to unlock each ability as well as how many times he has died so far.

Humanity does not know about his powers, but are not prevented from figuring it out.

His goal is to rule humanity as a world-wide, universally accepted benevolent (hopefully) dictator.

Could he take over the world? How long would it take him? How many deaths? What's his best strategy?

A random average central-European man in his mid 20's is mysteriously granted a superpower.

Every time he dies he will automatically resurrect, and with each resurrection he gains a compounding 2% increase to strength, speed, durability, stamina and intelligence, as well as specific unlocks at certain death milestones.

A resurrection takes 1 day (24 hours) at which point the body is fully refreshed and reset to it's new normal, healed of any wounds, poisons, tranquilizers, etc.

If he is captured, he has a built in self-termination-switch which he can activate simply by concentrating for a minute or so. He is also the only one with the ability to permanently terminate himself should he, for whatever reason, choose to.

Death milestone unlocks:

25: He can breathe under water.
50: Invisibility. Up to 30 minutes with an 8 hour cooldown. Invisible across the EM spectrum.
75: Telekinesis, with a max lifting capacity of 1,000 kg.
100: Can indefinitely survive in space.
125: Selective eidetic memory. Can remember anything, but can also erase memories. Like a computer storing and erasing files.
150: Flight. Top speed of 300 Km/h.
175: X-ray vision.
200: Intangibility. 15 minutes of intangibility, 24 hour cooldown. (He will not fall through the ground due to plot armor)
250: Instant teleportation. Max range of 200 km, 12 hour cooldown.
300: Biological immortality: He cannot die of age. (can still permanently self terminate)
350: Telepathy. He can read any mind within 20 km. Can do a full deep dive of anyone's entire life as they remember it. 4 hour cooldown.
400: Self cloning. The man can now make clones of himself. Up to a maximum of 5 clones can exist at the same time.
500: Mind control. Can control the minds of others. Up to a max of 3 people.

Clones take 30 minutes of concentrated effort to create, 24 hour cooldown. Once unlocked the max number of clones will go up by 1 for every 10 of the original mans future deaths. (410 deaths is 6 clones, 420 deaths is 7, 430 is 8, by 500 it'll be 15, etc) Same rule for mind control. 1 more person controlled for every 10 deaths.

Clones have the same strength, speed, durability, etc, as the original at the moment they are cloned, however clones do not resurrect.
Clones do have the unlocked abilities except self cloning and mind control.
The clones and the original man are all telepathically connected via a sort of hive mind, but they also have individual freedom.

All unlocked abilities will also increase in power/duration by a compounding 2% per death once unlocked. Cooldowns reduced by 2% per death. (multiplied by .98)
The man is innately aware of all his abilities, how many deaths he needs to unlock each ability as well as how many times he has died so far.

Humanity does not know about his powers, but are not prevented from figuring it out.

His goal is to rule humanity as a world-wide, universally accepted benevolent (hopefully) dictator.

Could he take over the world? How long would it take him? How many deaths? What's his best strategy?

An eccentric billionaire wants to test your stamina.

He offers you a one time deal. Once the deal is active, you'll get 10 cents for every meter you walk, however, the twist is the money will double for every exponential multiplier of 5 meters you walk, starting after 10 meters.

To clarify, since I'm not sure I'm using the right math terms, what this means is: From 0 to 10 meters you'll make 10 cents per meter, from 11-50 meters you'll make 20 cents/m, from 51-250 you'll make 40 c/m, from 251 to 1250 you'll make 80 cents per meter, and so on.

The rules are as follows:

1: You have to walk outside, on the ground, not on a treadmill.

2: You'll get a 5 minute break every 3 hours. (Bathroom break, for example) The time carries over if you don't use it. You can get 1 hour of sleep at the 24 hour mark, should you make it that far.

3: A minimum speed of 1.5 km/h must be maintained at all times.

The billionaire has hired someone to follow you to make sure you're following these rules and to track your distance.

He will alert you if you do drop below the speed limit, (He'll repeatedly say "beep" quite loudly) if you remain under 1.5 km/h for more than 10 seconds, the deal ends.

You have a week to prepare before the deal activates. What preparations do you make and how far do you think you're walking?

Let's say you had low tier super powers.

Low tier super-strength, ~4 times the strength of a professional weightlifter, with matching durability.

Low tier Super speed, let's say you run 5x faster than Usain Bolt, matching reflexes. As for stamina, you could maintain a dead sprint for a few minutes, or jog at half that speed for several hours.

Low grade telekinesis. You can move up to 900 Kg with tremendous effort, lift 450 Kg with a bit of difficulty, while 50 Kg would be very easy to move.

Flight, max speed of ~350 Km/h, cruising speed is around half that, can fly for a couple hours at cruising speed, can push to max speed for a few minutes at a time.

You have a minor amount of temperature resistance, to the point you'd be as comfortable at temps ranging from 0 to 45 degrees celsius as an average person is at 20.

These are the baselines of all your powers. With the exception of temperature, the rest of them work like any other muscle in your body, the more you use them the stronger they get. The upper limit with exercise is 2 to 3 times the listed numbers. Temp resistance is a static number.

For the purposes of this hypothetical, we'll say everyone knows you have powers. No governments or billionaires will try to kidnap you for study, but you also are banned from competing in all professional physical sports because your powers give you an unfair advantage. You could still do chess for example, since you have no intellectual powers.

What would you do to make money the fastest?