r/whatif

Would we be better off as a country or would we plunge into a depression?

How would US policy under Trump (term one and term two) be different, not only in regards to the war, but for his first impeachment as well.

Like the title says, every human (including children and babies) gets 10mg of straight THC put into their system at once. What are the immediate and long term consequences?

You know the old TV show Knight Rider?

I started wondering about all those scenes where KITT drives straight through walls or barriers. Let’s assume the car itself is basically indestructible and can survive the impact.

But what happens to the driver?

Even if the car doesn’t take damage, wouldn’t the force of the impact still transfer to the person inside the car? I can imagine KITT smashing through some flimsy wooden wall like in the show, but what about a brick wall or a concrete wall?

Would Michael Knight survive that, or would the sudden deceleration inside the car be fatal even if KITT itself was fine?

Had an amazing thought like i used to in school days. What would happen if a million of us in a corner of the earth (my state/country) do a couple of jumps at exact same time? Would it actually do anything? I am VERY serious. If anybody has a scientific answer, id appreciate it. If no, I'd rather actually go ahead and plan it to see if it does anything.

If I see enough upvotes, I'd plan it either on a call, on some broadcast, or just plan a day and time down to a second when everyone will jump 3 times in 6 seconds. That'll be easy to coordinate. 🤙🤙🤙

As many of you know, one of the first names of the virus that caused the pandemic was "SARS-CoV-2". Then it was also called diffrent names and the public eventually adopted the all known "COVID19" name.

What if scientists started straight away naming it SARS2 (or alternatively SARS19), and the name would stick?

Since many people remember the original SARS virus, would it increase people's perception of it? Would it improve vaccination rates?

What if the astroid that hit the dinosaurs didn't hit the coast but rather somewhere more inland how different would it be historically

They arrive to the island, do their white people nonsense, go back to sea, get caught in a storm and all die.

What’d happen next?

What will Spain do without him? How does the history of the Americas change?

Also with them arriving old world diseases would be in the Americas now, how far would it spread and could the Americas fight back colonialism?

I mean people stopping working at faang or other large corporations.

Being he was not born a citizen of the U.S. he is constitutionally ineligible to run for president. However what if a U.S. born person ran on the platform of “I will do everything at the direction of Zohran Mamdani.” Would there be any constitutional clause preventing this from happening.

They can only do the things you agreed on beforehand.

The common gripe is that the rich don’t pay their fair share of income taxes. Also that they don’t pay taxes on their assets, such as stocks or bonds or real estate or whatever. How about instead of an income tax or capital gains tax, we just tax sales of everything? Wanna buy food? Sales tax. Wanna buy a house? Sales tax. Want to buy a stock? Sales tax.

True for business as well. Need to buy supplies for your company? Sales tax. Want to buy real estate for your company? Sales tax.

However, your income will not be taxed, and no other tax deductions allowed.

Thoughts?

Like, what if the dinosaurs were discovered in the remote parts of Russia, the jungles of Brazil, the Sahara desert, or something? What would we gain from that?

Would the universe implode? Matter cannot be created or destroyed, only change state. Does that mean it's intricately balanced with existence itself? Maybe if even 1 molecule exits our universe, the balance is thrown off and we'd be doomed.

The United States has a president as both head of state and head of government.

Israel has a president as head of state and a prime minister as the head of government.

A random octopus in the world is given sapience and intelligence equalling a human with 120 IQ. This octopus can understand, read, and write (not speak) in the language of the country it first visits and knows it must destroy the world. Any other human knowledge it has to learn on its own. In the first scenario the normal lifespan of an octopus. In the second, it has the normal lifespan of a human.

What happens?

Also yes, the aliens immidately reveal themselves to humans after and begin their plan to turn humans into livestock.

i am just curious wouod it be better than having a period for 7 days

I remember a few months ago, when Elon Musk was still in DOGE he made some posts on X saying "Mars will be USA" or something similar.

I was thinking, what if I claim that I am the ruler of the whole known universe except your tiny blue dot planet earth? Since no nation will be allowed to own space, it will be a pointless dispute with USA.

But I have to say I have been into the game of "micronations" and I know about Emperor Norton, it will be some sort of Emperor Norton move and makes me somehow a "cinematic" figure more than an actual politician.

What do you think?

For argument sake, let's just say that the person has a place to stay and eat for exactly one year, after that year they'd have to rent/buy a place to stay like any other person.

Let's set the location to Paris, and this person would try to enroll into École des Beaux-Arts in Paris. Assume that person also is fully fluent in french.

Finally, assume that the AI Image generation tool doesn't need internet. And every time the person uses it, it "takes control" of the user's hand, making an exact replica of the AI image.

How far would that person go as an "artist"? Would their peers discover that there's something wrong?