Box specially reinforced for furious, drunk moral arguments.

Suppose you were living in a developing country with two distinct classes: the Watsis and the Utsos.

The Watsis live a simple existence, but are often subjected to brutalities by the oppressive Utsos. All Utsos are required to contribute personally and directly to the oppression – beatings, humiliations, deprivations – of the Watsis.

Watsis are very rarely killed, but certainly suffer. Utsos live privileged lives, but these lives routinely involve torturing Watsis. Utsos are reviled by the rest of the world; Watsis are considered noble martyrs.

Your father is a Watsi, your mother an Utso. On your 18th birthday, you are forced to pick a class for the rest of your life and live with that parent. Which do you pick?

How about men – if you could exchange height inches for penis inches, how many would you swap, if any? (This hypothetical doesn’t quite work for women, since bust inches and arse inches are routinely affected in tandem by cake and the CSIRO diet).

These are the sort of brain-squeezing dilemmas that pop culture antagoniser Chuck Klosterman has slipped into his compendia of essays (like the excellently titled Chuck Klosterman IV: A Decade Of Curious People And Dangerous Ideas). Like a exasperatingly complicated version of the ‘Would You Rather?‘ game, readers’ answers and explanations may just explain their desires and morals. That is, if you can work out what the hell he’s getting at half the time.

Of course, Klosterman’s are far more inventive that the ones I dreamt up above. They involve unexpected Canadian football appreciation, cursing your friend to repeated broken collarbones, and magicians.

Now, for those who have loved agonising over the bizarre imaginary dilemmas in his books, Klosterman has announced the release of a complete set of what he calls “Hypertheticals” (see: three-year old website calling them hypertheticals). Chuck’s mind-mashers come in the form of a set of cards called Hypertheticals: 50 Questions for Insane Conversations.

As much as I sound like a PR hack for the damn thing, the hypotheticals are something I’ve particularly loved about Klosterman’s often infuriating but always vibrant writing.

So for those who have run out of patience with home renovation and baby gab, grab a deck and test the wits and motives of your friends by watching them squirm as they try to rationalise their decisions. Red wine required.