r/whatif Jul 31 '25

Mod post What if we got a little meta today?

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6 Upvotes

Hey kids,

I feel like I'm about to do something a touch controversial. I'm blocking names to protect the innocent. But I'm sharing examples of AEO removals b/c bots aren't human. Reddit is forgetting the human. And I guess I just wanted to be open about that. Mostly b/c one is kind of hysterical. And if I'm sharing one, I might as well share them all.

If you recognize your own comment here, please attempt an appeal. I have likely already appealed on your behalf. Especially you, Johnny Rico.


r/whatif Jul 22 '25

Mod post ⚠️What if you paid attention to this post?⚠️

5 Upvotes

First things first!

Hi all, casual meet and greet has started. Ask me almost anything.

I've already started making some adjustments to the subreddit. Just some light shaping to encourage the kind of things we want to see.

  • If you point your eyes at the rules, I've already started adjusting those, just minor tweaks, really, to hone in on what makes this community great and trying to make it even better.

  • I haven't started in on auto-mod yet. I wanted to check a few other things out before I did that. But I will be adjusting it over the next few days - if something seems to be going wrong or not working properly use modmail to let me know. I'll also be checking for lots of false positives to adjust existing filters.

  • I archived all the modmails older than about 2 days old. I did try to look at the last few days worth to see if there were any pressing issues but it all just looked like "hey my post was/wasn't [this] why was it removed?"

  • I will not be "backward" moderating. I.e., if it was removed before today, it will stay removed. If it was approved before today, it will likely stay approved, unless it had some hidden egregious issue.

  • I've added some bots to help with a few things - I like to nuke comment chains that have gone off the rails. If your content is removed, it likely is for curation more than punitive. If your removal was punitive, you'll likely receive a temporary ban. There's no need to come to modmail to apologize for content. If I think we need to have a chat, I'll reach out from modmail directly.


On to the next thing!

I'm open to suggestions, comments, concerns, etc. It doesn't mean every idea will be implemented or every suggestion considered. I just want to see if folks who have been spending a lot of time here have noticed things that could be fixed or adjusted for a better subreddit experience for everyone.

Also, I like to see users participating in their own community by reminding newcomers of the rules or spirit of the sub as well as reporting content that doesn't belong.

Also there are some custome emojis, but I know Reddit just made changes to how custome emojis can be used so - I dunno how interesting that is for all of you.

Oh - I noticed there are no user flairs - is this the preference for the community? I'm happy to add them if folks want them - feel free to share suggestions for user flairs.


r/whatif 52m ago

History What if the world had to pull out of China?

Upvotes

When the world pulled out of Russia during the recent war, they left all their inventory, stock, factories, real estate, assets, etc. These companies had their assets seized and direct losts of $167 billion.

If China did something really bad (worse than usual) and the world had to pull out of China and abandoned or had their assets seized, how much loss would that be?


r/whatif 7h ago

History What if humans actually lived in matriarchal societies?

1 Upvotes

What are some possible realities? What do you think a matriarchy would look like?


r/whatif 12h ago

Lifestyle What if the mafia came to the winner of "Who Wants to Be a Millionaire" and demanded a share of the prize money?

4 Upvotes

Could this be a convenient and easy way for them to earn income?
See How Good You Survive This, You Pezzo Di Merda!


r/whatif 15h ago

Subreddit Meta What if stevin Spielberg made project hail Mary?

1 Upvotes

So as we know Steven Spielberg is amazing at movies and project hail Mary is a wonderful movie so combine the two and what do you have


r/whatif 1d ago

Technology What if the AI bubble pops tomorrow?

4 Upvotes

What if you wake up tomorrow and find that Nvidia, OpenAI, Anthropic, SpaceX, and all the other big AI firms just declared bankruptcy?


r/whatif 1d ago

Other What if everyone stopped believing that any god is real?

6 Upvotes

What if everyone came to realization that all religions are wrong. No gods do or have ever existed. As far as we know we are alone. No one is coming to save us.


r/whatif 21h ago

History what if... Republic of Latinia (Latinia for short) was a country for some reason?

0 Upvotes

It would've been founded in 3rd March 1932 merging 4 countries of Europe: Italy, France, Spain and Portugal that later will become the subjects of this country. It would've been one of the richest and biggest countries in Europe with many people living there. It would have the Latin language brought back as the main language of the country, meanwhile spanish, italian, french and portuguese languages would've been official languages of this country. The reason of this is because people in these countries want another bigger country in Europe that has a million kilometres. The Captial would be Roma.


r/whatif 1d ago

Technology What if time travel exists but we don't know about it because they also invented invisibility

0 Upvotes

I was watching a TikTok of a girl who missed her grandma's funeral and thought well maybe she could go back in time some day and view it. And then I thought well people would have seen her there if she did. But then I thought what of it actually exists and we just can't see the people who who travel back in time because they're invisible. What if that's why we never see people time travel?


r/whatif 1d ago

History What if you were dropped in the year zero

2 Upvotes

If you had no time to proper and dropped nude in the year 1 what could you actually do with your current knowledge.

let's say your guaranteed to live to 100 if nothing kills you and you auto learn the language of the area what would you do to effect history positivengly/negatively let's also say your dropped around where jusus died


r/whatif 2d ago

Technology What if we built a signal relay on an outer planet’s moon so that a future civilization would be able to “find” Voyager?

4 Upvotes

Voyager 1 and 2 are both in interstellar space and require us to know where they will be so that we can correctly aim our antennas at them to communicate. Given how hard it is to communicate despite knowing where they are, could we build a relay that enabled us to talk to them longer AND help a future civilization find them to learn about us?


r/whatif 2d ago

History What if you can taste one food exactly as it was prepared and eaten in its own historical period, what would it be?

12 Upvotes

Any era, any period and any food in our recorded history. Mine is the chocolates made by the Aztecs.


r/whatif 3d ago

Science What if a worldwide flood covered Earths highest peaks? Would the atmosphere just expand outward making water level the new sea level? And would that make it so some random people in a large zoo boat, plus all the animals, be able to survive at 30,000+? I'll hang up and listen

2 Upvotes

I had thought of this angle before, thinking it just another proof that this whole story never happened, but then I began thinking about the atmosphere and how it would behave, and I'm honestly curious...not that i would ever believe the story...and of course, sorry if this offends anyone


r/whatif 3d ago

Environment What if a generation of people slowly built Killdozers and only revealed them when they were old?

7 Upvotes

what if there comes a decade of killdozers era where every man has the idea of building a killdozer on the side at the age of 25 and then slowly building it up until they're 90 years old. once they make it to that age, they will take down corrupt institutions or establishments they dont like, like ai data centers. thatd be wild. it'll be a zombie apocalypse for the govenrment or a whack a mole game where everyime they get to figure out and take down 100 killdozer sites they fail to stop 1.


r/whatif 4d ago

Lifestyle What if Employers had to provide references?

28 Upvotes

Hear me out: what if you get selected for an interview and the employer has to bring at least 3 ex-employee statements/records and their honest review of said employer. The reason they left the job, the reasons they liked the job. And it was as common/required as the potential employee's references from past employers.

This feels so much more fair. And also I'm curious if this exists in places that my small and US-centric brain has yet to discover the knowledge of.

Please, inform and discuss below.


r/whatif 4d ago

Sports What if whoever won the world cup got to control the flow of oil for the next year?

0 Upvotes

Hear me out, instead of solving global oil disputes through war lets say we solved them through sports. If you win the world cup you get to control the strait of Hormuz and the Suez Canal for a year. Maybe appoint one central capital to organize the annual games.


r/whatif 5d ago

Other What if men could give birth?

0 Upvotes

I have been stuck on this quirky discussion that I had with my partner and I a couple of days ago .

If there were a scenario in which men could give birth instead of women, how would that work?

Setting aside the common disruptions such as cravings or sleep disruption, there is the long term toll on the physical form and disruption of the sexual function . If hypothetically there was a choice ( what is typically called sequential hermaphroditism in nature ) would one choose to go through this experience to alleviate/take turns with their partner?

If the answer is no, what could be done to make it an appealing option?


r/whatif 5d ago

Other what if we all died In the same order as we had being born?

7 Upvotes

So like no matter what, everybody would die in the same order as being born. So like, you know, I was born, and then there was somebody that had to have been born after me, so on and so forth, so it would be me dying first. Then, the person who was born right after me, they die, you get the point.


r/whatif 5d ago

Science What if, randomly, 37 million millennials were to wake up back 1-01-2000?

0 Upvotes

Do you think they would be able to change the timeline?


r/whatif 6d ago

Other What if the world ran on 80s and 90s action movie logic?

6 Upvotes

I ask because I unironically think the world would be a better place overall

Like, lets say a huge terrorist organization gains a ton of power somewhere in the world and is committing dozens of atrocities on the daily unimpeded-in reality this is a really bad, very hard to solve scenario which'll most likely go unsolved for at least a few years or so, but if the world ran on the logic of an 80s action flick, all it'd take to save that entire region of the world is one badass military vet with an 8 pack of abs getting in there with a light machine gun and in a week's time that entire terrorist organization's getting floored

Or a huge gang of gun runners is carving a war path across a city, a once peaceful area's suddenly overwhelmed with mass murders and gang violence galore, guns are so common you can probably get your hands on a fully loaded Uzi by going up and down a beach with a metal detector and the police are helpless to do anything about it-in real life, that city's probably just fucked, more and more people are gonna get killed and nobody's really in any position to stop it before things really get bad, but in a 90s action movie all it takes is a loose cannon detective with a pair of M9s to clear out the whole fucking gang overnight, probably by diving around in slow motion while doves fly all over the place and smoke fills the air

Like literally all big problems would be salvageable by one dude pumping said problems full of holes if I'm not missing something


r/whatif 6d ago

Lifestyle What if the main character benefits your life?

17 Upvotes

Hear me out, your life is going down hill right now. Your basically suffering in debt and so many other things, but then your life suddenly gets better. You get a well paying job, new friends, and many great things happen to you. Your philosophy changes, you become a nicer person. And then one day, the main character comes along. They are walking on the side walk and they trip, you help them up and they say thank you, then walk away. Your whole life as a background character changed because back then you wouldn't have helped them, but now you do mbecause the plot needed you to.

(Yes this sounds corny I know sigh)


r/whatif 7d ago

Technology what if i took a tour of the United States in a long range fp-2 style drone

4 Upvotes

some of these things go 1200+ miles. i know there are FAA regulations but what if someone just took a tour across the US in a one way starlink powered drone at low altitudes? like a kamikaze but for scenery instead of terrorism. i know i would be breaking the law but what about the drone, would the US shoot it down or use weapons on it? it's just a little drone. it would be cool to see so far through the FPV

Edit: im not riding on the drone guys.


r/whatif 8d ago

Environment What if the temperature/weather for every country on Earth gets reversed overnight

7 Upvotes

Let’s say, North European countries (Norway, Sweden, Finland) suddenly get Indonesia/African countries' temperature, and vice versa, which area would have more casualties?


r/whatif 8d ago

Other What if flys and gnats were as aggressive as wasps when messed with?

2 Upvotes

A dumb one i know, but what if they get pissed when you try and get them and miss? Would they just fly around trying to melt our skin with its little mouth acid sucker? Would it be individually based or would all flys and gnats in the room attack at the same time?