I saw this question posed on tiktok, but I think Tumblr would really enjoy it too.
If a fae creature offered to give one million dollars for a bone chosen at random, how many bones would you allow them to take?
Light clarifications; The fae is not the one choosing the bones. The bone is taken at random. Each bone, no matter the size or importance, is worth a full million dollars. You must also declare the exact number first, you can't go bone-by-bone. You either say 2 or you say 10, you can't work your way up to a higher number. The bones are removed instantaneously, and the money is given immediately as well. You will not get in government trouble for acquiring the money.
Tell me in the tags/replies how many bones you'd let the fae take. And as always, reblog for bigger sample size.
if you want to test your luck, this site lets you choose a random human bone :) https://randomlistgenerator.com/human-bones
None. Here's my thought process. I have 206 bones and I could probably do without some of em. But if I lose my skull, that will kill me instantly (or within, like, two seconds once I turn around or touch my head and thus jostle my brain slightly), and I would not take a 1 in 206 chance of Kills Me Instantly even for a million dollars.
I like how your mental process entirely mimics mine.
On top of that, the loss of any of the vertebrae would leave you either paraplegic or quadruplegic, very quickly. So, we've moved from 1/206 to somewhere between 1/10 to 1/20 very quickly.
Yeah! Also not ideal!
I picked 2-5 and then got the largest bone in the skull from the generator, so RIP me.
Imo the only smart options in this poll are None or All - totally reasonable to kill yourself for 200 million dollars in the right context and do some crazy things with that in your will, but once you move into any real quantity of bones the death rate skyrockets and All Bones becomes dominant. (I'll accept 1 Bone if you are in rough economic straits, assuming the "median American" on this one)
I think the major case against 2+ bones (beyond just increased likelihood of skull) is that medical disability is compounding, like, losing a humerus is bad, but it's way worse if you lose a humerus AND a tibia, or losing both hands as opposed to a hand and a leg. I didn't realize how common important bones were and went for 3 bones and got two wrist bones and the nose bone, so I think I still made at least a mill in profit with just a major deformity and the loss of a hand. Not entirely worth it but not terrible compared to current sitch.
Yeah, and people don't really appreciate that losing a bone is a "very rare" event, its not the same as a broken bone - a lot of bones are going to break bone chains or induce compounding injuries, and resulting in needed surgeries, infection chances, reduce blood cell production, etc. Obviously it can "work out" but you very quickly run into very high risks I wouldn't take.
