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1500 questions
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7 answers

If accelerated natural healing were to occur, what would happen to the human body?

The Details: The human body is capable of impressive acts of self-repair, but such processes take a lot of time, and can take a toll on the body. Infection or other complications can also develop, and sometimes a wound/inflammation may not heal…
Crabgor
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How can we catch a teleporter?

Some Background The government is very good at catching people. Even the few who can keep away from them are forced into a life of running. But there is a new threat that all of Earth's governments face together, Dave the Teleporter. He was born in…
TrEs-2b
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Is Honesty always the best policy? What could go wrong if a society valued honesty over every other virtue?

Let's say you have a culture which is pretty much like ours, except honesty is the highest virtue. In particular, being honest about something is always better than being dishonest, no matter the consequences. It has been like this since the…
Christopher King
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Are there any real world examples of where a desert and a swamp meet each other?

I am building a world with many deserts and swamps. So a simple question: Are there any real world examples of where a desert and a swamp meet each other? Deserts and swamps are vastly different types of terrain (one containing hardly any water and…
Jimmery
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Ridiculously Fast Supercomputer

Let's say that somehow, Earth suddenly acquired a computer with ridiculous speed. This computer can run a program described in a language of your choice, which can be described by a readme file that comes with the device. This device can have the…
vero
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I have a superpower that no-one can say "no" to me. How can I get informed consent?

I have a character who has a super power that gives them what can be best described as perfect pheromones, and when in their presence, anyone will volunteer for anything they want. (Eg in existing fiction: Lucius Lavin) The proposal need not be…
Ash
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Proper use of a coma in a criminal sentence

If inducing long-term comas was medically trivial and safe, and ignoring potential problems with muscle atrophy or bed sores or the like, would this come to be considered the only reasonable way to jail people? Or would "experienced imprisonment"…
Jedediah
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How to realistically deal with a shield user?

Fantastic universe, but not necessarily magic involved in the process. You face a guy who has a shield (tower shield or not). You do not have a shield, but you are a better swordsman. How do you win? According to Dark souls, your best option is to…
Eric Juste Hernandez
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When will the last unambiguous evidence of mankind disappear?

Humanity just disappears tomorrow, let's say it is like the Thanos-snap but it kills everyone. How long until the last unambiguous evidence of our existence disappears? What was this last relic? The faint spectres of electromagnetic signals which…
TheDyingOfLight
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Pressure inside an infinite ocean?

Handwaving the origin of one such place, imagine a universe where every part of space is filled fully and evenly with liquid water (at, say 1 degree Celsius). What would be the experience of a solid object in that universe? Intuitively, it may seem…
user289661
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How to not starve gigantic beasts

If I create dragons to be castle-sized animals, how am I supposed to let them eat? Won't they need too much for an earth-like planet? I'm currently trying to build a world where a whole lot of gigantic beasts (à la Monster Hunter) co-exist. But how…
LamaDelRay
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What injury would be of little consequence to a biped but terrible for a quadruped?

Let's imagine a group of people who can turn from human to wolf at will. Wolves are quadrupeds, and humans are biped, so I guess their weight is differently shared in their body, notably when they walk. Assuming that, if one such person receives a…
Spooikypok_Dev
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Is it harder for an intelligent octopus to live on land, or a human to live in space?

I have a race of octopodes with the same intelligence distribution as humans. I want them to “colonise” land to a similar extent as we have “colonised” space; have regular transport between the ocean and land, and have a permanent settlement.…
Tim
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Given immortality can animals become intelligent?

The animal in question starts off with reptile like intelligence, classic gecko and is a singularity, the only individual of his species to be immortal. It can die and be killed but for the sake of the question we exclude that. Degradation by…
Koume
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Could a mouth-mounted gun be fired without damage to the shooter?

The world where the question spans over a 100 years between 1945 and 2045, the story beginning just at the end of WWII, and proceeding in such a way that never saw the end of the Cold War all the way to 2045 and is centred around it. Many spy movies…
Ivan T.
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