Today’s hypothetical

Standard

(An aside: I don’t think I’ve mentioned that I started coming up with these because I heard Jonathan Goldstein do an episode about them on his radio show WIRETAP. They came from Chuck Klosterman’s book Sex, Drugs and Cocoa Puffs, A Low Culture Manifesto (Now With a New Middle), and he claims he asks these questions to determine if he could really love someone. Here’s a list of them. Today’s question is adapted from one of his.)

You have won a prize. The prize has two options, and you can choose either (but not both). The first option is one year touring any continent on Earth (your choice) with a monthly tax-free stipend of $5,000. Additional funds can be added to the stipend to accommodate immediate family members, if necessary. The second option is ten minutes on the moon, a trip you must take alone.

Which do you choose?

5 thoughts on “Today’s hypothetical

  1. That’s a tough one, Harry.

    I could go for either–to be either one of the few people who have stood on the Moon or to tour Asia for a year. Gah.

    By a hair, I’d go for the “Tour Asia” trip. A year in Asia would fill my Flickr page for a long long time…

  2. LabRat001

    One year touring with family beats a solo ten minutes you can’t talk about without looking like a member of the tinfoil hat brigade.

  3. Tom

    This is the easiest one yet – The Moon!

    I can go to the rest of the world any time I like! They have planes and things to get you there.

  4. I heard there’s a new restaurant on the moon – the food is great, but there’s no atmosphere.

    What the hell would I do on the moon? Sure, I’d come home famous I guess, and I would have done something few have done… but what *pleasure* is there is going to the moon?

    So, I’m taking that year long vacation and seeing the sights and eating a ton if food that is bad for me. I have no idea what continent I’d pick, but I’ve always wanted to do the Orient/Trans-Siberian railroad.

  5. Michael B Sullivan

    On a purely practical basis, a year abroad, with a decent but-hardly-princely amount of money (though I guess it’d go a lot further in continents not named “Europe”) would create a lot of job problems. Surmountable, but… meh.

    Whereas going to the Moon for 10 minutes would put you in a very exclusive club and potentially give you some nice benefits going forward, if people were interested and whatnot.

    And, well, I’ve been to Asia. I plan to go to Africa. In rather more flexible ways that correspond with how I live my life, rather than spending a solid year doing it.

    So, “to the moon.”

Comments are closed.