Would you rather be objectively, inarguably, perhaps unbearably attractive?
Or undeniably charismatic?
They might be similar. They are not the same.
You can only be one.
Or how about…
would you rather be spine-tinglingly ugly?
Or have all your lies immediately corrected by
a booming omniscient narrator’s voice
that everyone within, let’s say, a 3-mile radius can hear?
Those actually might be the same thing.
Still, pick one.
If you never lie, this will be easy.
If you’re a vain liar, good luck.
Would you rather be filthy rich?
Or world famous?
Or politically powerful?
Or spiritually at peace?
Just one, though.
Would you rather be MacArthur Genius Grant-level smart?
Or UFC championship-level tough?
Again, just one.
Oh, and for the sake of this thought exercise, you are only that level.
You don’t actually get the MacArthur grant and
you never get into a bar fight
much less a single UFC match,
nor do you get the attention
that those particular talents might normally bring you.
You fix snowblowers somewhere in snowblown Canada.
You’re a pre-Robin Williams Matt Damon in Good Will Hunting but you never meet Robin Williams and keep the custodial job1 at MIT.
Would you rather have daily real-life, one-on-one, back-and-forth
conversations with God while you’re living
and, when this life is over, go to Hell?
Or live a life that feels frustratingly untethered from divinity,
like God has blocked/muted you on social media, abandoned and alone,
but, when all is said and done,
end up in Heaven?
Oooh, or…
would you rather live your whole life, knowing with empirical certainty,
that there’s no Heaven?
Or live your whole life, with that same empirical certainty,
that there’s a Hell
and you’re going there?
Would you rather eat one thing for every meal
for the rest of your life?
Or eat something different for every meal
for the rest of your life (no repeats)?
Would you rather feel constipated
for the rest of your life?
Or sexually frustrated?
Would you rather pay taxes to help feed underprivileged kids at school
and pay teachers more?
Or pay taxes to send kids to foreign countries to fight debatable wars?
Oops. You caught me.
That’s a false dilemma fallacy. A false dichotomy.
It’s not one or the other. Or is it? It might be neither. It could be both.
Just play along: pick one.
What if the taxes just sent fancy, way-good-at-killing weapons
but not kids?
Would you rather pass out flyers all day on a busy urban street
for the cause you care most deeply about and have no one take one?
Or make uninterrupted eye contact with someone living on the street
who hasn’t eaten for six days
while you carry a couple heavy bags of groceries down the block?
Would you rather invent
(insert mind-blowing, world-changing thing here)
but somehow all the credit (and money) goes to
the person in the world who bothers you the most?
Or get credit (and money) for inventing
(insert mind-blowing, word-changing thing here)
but it was actually invented by the person you love the most
who now hates you?
It’s not your fault.