Or only the blessed get crushed by The Hand. The crushing transports you straight to the heavenly hand realm. You will get worshipped as a god for generations in your village after getting crushed.

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NaibofTabr 20 points 18 days ago

Blasphemy! Only the wicked are punished by The Hand! Crush the heretic!

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tetris11 11 points 18 days ago

Guys, guys, it's not about morality. It's about appendages. Tom had a big dick. Harry had a big dick. That's why you're still here, Dick.

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Technus 71 points 18 days ago

One extra death a day wouldn't even move the needle, it sounds terrifying but there's lots more likely ways to die.

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MurrayL 63 points 18 days ago

Humans are awful at probability, so yeah - there would be an entire highly-profitable industry centred on hand detection and protection products.

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apex32 32 points 18 days ago

Yup. I just looked up car fatalities in the US. It's 120 people per day. Source

I think it's funny how if this was caused by a giant floating hand that only targets people in cars, people would be absolutely terrified to get on the road. But since it's caused by cars, people are just like, "meh, that's just the way it is."

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idiomaddict 17 points 18 days ago

It’s the illusion of control. We all know logically that the best driver in the world can still be killed by a really negligent fellow driver, but people don’t really internalize that. If there were a giant hand that sometimes killed people on staircases, people would be more worried about staircases than they are now, even though plenty of people already die on them (about a tenth as many die on the stairs as occupants of cars die in accidents). We know what the risk factors are, and we can reduce our own risk by using a bannister, carefully clearing snow or ice from outdoor steps/making sure there isn't a loose carpet on indoor steps, and arranging our homes to use stairs less frequently as we get older. Doing those things makes us feel like stairs are less dangerous, even though our statistics reflect a world in which people already know to do those things.

It’s why aneurysms are so scary to some people- we don’t really know how to diagnose what causes them until they’ve already happened, so they feel random to people

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schnokobaer 24 points 18 days ago

But knowing humanity it would be a spectacle

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rtxn 13 points 18 days ago

It would be the single most active gambling economy.

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jaybone 4 points 18 days ago

I suppose you would gamble on location? Country/state. Age and gender of victim? And then they read it on the nightly news like lotto numbers? “Male. 40s. Mexico.” You win the Hand Jackpot.

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whyNotSquirrel 13 points 18 days ago

the size isn't that big if its index can crush one person and nothing else around, so you're in luck if you see it once in your lifetime I think

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EvilHankVenture 5 points 18 days ago

Does it pick one person randomly on the planet then travel there in one day? Then you'd probably see it a few times moving from person to person. Especially in high population areas. It would be a fairly common sight traveling between China and India. It would definitely be unusual to witness a crushing or to know anyone who was crushed.

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LORDSMEGMA 64 points 18 days ago

Only 1 per day? I think that would make the hand one of the safer things on Earth

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CrabAndBroom 24 points 18 days ago

Presumably the odds of getting squished by the hand is 1 in 8 billion-ish, if it's properly random. The odds of winning the Powerball lottery is apparently 1 in 292 million, so it's probably not something to really worry about lol.

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LaLuzDelSol 21 points 18 days ago

I wonder if it picks a truly random person, or if it sort of stays in one geographical area and sort of makes its way across continents slowly, like over the span of weeks? If its the former, it would be distinctly unsettling to see it hovering over your city like a thundercloud. If its the latter, it would be quite the spectacle to see it breaking the sound barrier as it hurtles around the world.

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yetAnotherUser 22 points 18 days ago

It wouldn't need to break the sound barrier. Killing someone once a day should mean one death every 24 hours (assuming the hand uses its own hand time zone).

The Earth's circumfrence is about 40,000 km, meaning the hand would need to travel at most 20,000 km in 24 hours which requires a speed of 833 km/h, whereas the speed of sound is 1235 km/h.

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LaLuzDelSol 17 points 18 days ago

You are right, thank you! Unless the Hand wants to get there early so it can spend 12 hours hovering ominously over the person its going to kill.

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CrabAndBroom 4 points 18 days ago

I suppose if it's the former it would be even safer, as you could somewhat plan to stay out of it's way. Or like, if it's over Europe and you're in Africa, you know you're 100% safe for the next little while.

For the latter, maybe it exists in a dimension above our own. By which I mean... imagine if you were a 2D circle on a piece of paper, with a 3D hand pressing it's finger on the piece of paper. When the hand lifts it's finger off the paper, it effectively vanishes from your field of reference, then when it presses down somewhere else on the paper it looks like it magically came from nowhere.

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NeatNit 3 points 18 days ago

What if the target person is indoors or underground? Does it just smash through?

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Eq0 42 points 18 days ago

If The Hand had always been there, it’s basically like being struck by lightning. There would be people claiming to have survived, people telling the tale of having seen the squishing, but overall such a minuscule occurrence not many would really care about it

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musubibreakfast 4 points 18 days ago

I think it would have more significance, imagine there was a single immortal entity that looks exactly like one of your body parts. I guarantee you people are chopping off each other's hands and offering them to the "hand god". And don't even get me started on feminism, is it a male hand, is it a female hand? What does it mean?

Philosophy, science and even art would all be vastly different. Imagine you're Martin Heidegger and you try to reason that mortality makes an authentic and meaningful life possible. Yeah sure Marty, then why the fuck does this giant hand squish people? This giant hand is immortal, and it's giving all of our lives meaning. Do you not think the fucking hand knows that? Do you know why the hand is doing what it does? Do you think we're somehow better than the hand because we die?

Or maybe you're Frederick Nietzsche. And you are wondering about eternal recurrence. Would someone willingly live the exact life forever? I don't know dumb ass, have you considered asking the big giant floating hand?

These are just a few examples but you are vastly underestimating the significance of the giant floating hand.

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IronBird 1 point 17 days ago

we would imprison the hand somehow, the gods must be destroyed

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Donkter 1 point 17 days ago

I think the main thing about it would be the destruction it caused on its journey. Ploughing through cities and into buildings. Still an extraordinarily rare occurrence but with a lot more evidence for its presence.

And God forbid it chooses someone who spends time underground.

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f314 34 points 18 days ago

It would be added to the list of things not covered by your insurance, that’s for sure!

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Amnesigenic 30 points 18 days ago

We would have killed it thousands of years ago along with all the other megafauna

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idiomaddict 9 points 18 days ago

Damn, we’re the scary ones, aren’t we?

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Amnesigenic 10 points 18 days ago

At least since we figured out ranged weapons, yeah. We went from being mid tier to apex overnight and have been wrecking shit ever since.

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chunes 25 points 18 days ago

One per day? Lawn mowers are about 5 times more lethal than that.

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homik 4 points 17 days ago

The hand works in mysterious ways.

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fibojoly 1 point 17 days ago

Right, but how many billionaires die by lawnmower? It's about the message.

(sorry, that was if we go with this ideabof crushing the wealthiest person every day. OP's proposal is, yeah, not very interesting haha)

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empireOfLove2 23 points 18 days ago

Someone played Black and White a little too much

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Ingiald 6 points 18 days ago

deeeeeaaaath...

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ArmoredThirteen 6 points 18 days ago

Soundbyte fused into memory. What a great game

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tetris11 4 points 18 days ago

SMACK MY BITCH UP!

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Evil_Shrubbery 3 points 18 days ago

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RickyRigatoni -1 points 18 days ago

would

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solidsmoke 2 points 18 days ago

"We've got this notion, that we'd quite like to sail the ocean..."

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hOrni 19 points 18 days ago

Some people would deny its existence.

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tetris11 8 points 18 days ago

"It's probably just a freak weather accident caused by microclimates, Susan. A giant hand isn't just going to come down and -"
*smush*

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SkaveRat 12 points 18 days ago

That smush didn't even come from the hand. Susan just had enough of the bullshit

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cosmicrookie 16 points 18 days ago

There would be a TV show about it, featuring the chase every day

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tetris11 4 points 18 days ago

Guy on a dirtbike trying to outrun it on the freeway but the hand just goes up and hides behind a cloud, waiting

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rmuk 2 points 18 days ago

So it'd be kinda like NOPE?

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Agent641 15 points 18 days ago

What if instead of a hand it was a giant dick and it jizzed gallons of cum onto the victim until they suffocated?

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dubs 4 points 17 days ago

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flippinfreebird 2 points 17 days ago

Don't threaten me with a good time.

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samus12345 14 points 18 days ago

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Zozano 14 points 18 days ago

The hand spend 1/3 of the year in China + India alone.

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DarrinBrunner 14 points 18 days ago

Also, the next victim's name is displayed on the palm. So, everyone knows you're it, no one will help you, or let you come inside to hide, because then the building would get crushed.

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SkaveRat 13 points 18 days ago

historically accurate Master Hand

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MutantTailThing 12 points 18 days ago

A significant portion of the population would deny The Hands existance despite overwhelming evidence and blame all hand related crushings on the Jews or brown people.

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JordanZ 12 points 17 days ago

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Donkter 4 points 17 days ago

I'm sure there would be many books and religions trying to put reason to The Hand and why it killed the people it did.

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zoltanshields 3 points 17 days ago

Creating nonexistent patterns in an attempt to understand it. There was a cluster of hand killings near a small town in Kyrgyzstan and there's no way that could just be random chance.

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_stranger_ 4 points 17 days ago

There was a duck tails episode like this.

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GiraffeNeckInKnot 1 point 16 days ago

Start doing it from most wealthiest and work it's way down. So we get to see those rich douchebags frantically trying to spend their wealth away, competing with each other. And probably for good of humanity.

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witty_username 11 points 18 days ago

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Sir_Premiumhengst 7 points 18 days ago

Numberwang?

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Sendpicsofsandwiches 5 points 18 days ago

THAT'S NUMBERWANG

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rmuk 2 points 18 days ago

How about cucumberwang?

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Sendpicsofsandwiches 1 point 18 days ago

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3daybanwithdrawl 10 points 17 days ago

Everyone is saying it is the least probable cause of death out of all probable causes...Knowing people though, it would easily the most feared and talked about cause of death. There would be an entire lucrative industry of products to "protect" yourself even though they would all be useless scams. People would ignore learning actually valuable information and learn as much about the hand as possible.

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P1k1e 10 points 17 days ago

Black & White flashbacks

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fibojoly 4 points 17 days ago

B&W old schmucks represent!

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rmuk 9 points 18 days ago

Anyone else remember an eighties or nineties cartoon like batman or something that had an episode with a flying hand like this? IIRC it looked like a mouse cursor... I can't remember anything else about it.

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BlueberryWalnut 8 points 18 days ago

Holy shit yes and Batman had to tear it open and rip out wires to... take control of how it flew? Was it in a Minotaur maze maybe and they cheated by flying on the hand instead of going through the maze properly?

Edit: found it maybe

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rmuk 3 points 17 days ago

found it maybe

No, that's definitely it. Amazing result, thanks!

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tetris11 3 points 12 days ago

"I linked it to my palm top computer"

There's even a scene where they show how he pulled out two leads and presumably connected over I2C or UART. A lot of detail for a kids cartoon

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Salamanderwizard -2 points 18 days ago

"In the Arab world, you always eat with your right hand."

Not to shit on Bats, even Bats of the "Times" as he strikes me as a dude willing to learn and change his views.

That shit just slapped me in the face a little. It slightly shallow racism right? Crazy to think the things we heard and watched when we were kids.

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mojofrododojo 6 points 17 days ago

it's based on islamic values.... https://islamqa.info/...

maybe culturally simplistic, but I dunno if I'd go as far as racism. it certainly paints with a wide brush....

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Salamanderwizard 1 point 17 days ago

Thank you for the link. Will check it out.

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FluidBeef 9 points 18 days ago

This is basically way less lethal than cancer.

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nop 8 points 18 days ago

Bigby's Smushing Hand?

https://forgottenrealms.fandom.com/...

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BoosBeau 8 points 18 days ago

Question: Can we bribe the hand for sexual favors?

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lessthanluigi 2 points 18 days ago

It does have that Macro/Micro vibe

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Diplomjodler3 7 points 18 days ago

Does the hand reach people that are underground or inside buildings?

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tetris11 5 points 18 days ago

if it sees them.... with its eyes....

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jaybone 4 points 18 days ago

Hand eye coordination

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sirico 6 points 18 days ago

Hand insurance

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TootSweet 6 points 18 days ago

Wallmaster fanfic.

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4am 6 points 18 days ago

This is how you get Super Smash bros

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melsaskca 5 points 18 days ago

It turns out the invisible hand was always seen and used by those with lots of money and power. Not so invisible.

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JcbAzPx 5 points 17 days ago

We would evolve to be very good at dodging. Also, underground cities would be a thing.

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ZILtoid1991 5 points 17 days ago

How long until someone makes analog horror based on this?

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SCmSTR 5 points 17 days ago

This is religion.

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Imgonnatrythis 5 points 18 days ago

Who's going outside in 2026?

Politicians would brag homeless rates are going down.

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frankenswine 5 points 18 days ago

reality tv were significantly more relevant

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four 4 points 18 days ago

I assume that there is a point in the past (though it would be pre-history), where the Hand would have been enough to wipe out the humanity. But we would have to have a clearer definition on what a person is

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Derpenheim 4 points 18 days ago

4 people are born every second. Not too much would really change, it would just be another force of nature we've come to accept.

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kandoh 1 point 18 days ago

There's ample chance for the person who ended up squished to be important for something.

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Derpenheim 2 points 18 days ago

1 in 8 billion? Thats worse than the lottery

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kandoh 1 point 17 days ago

Over all of human history, so at scale it will get a few freak occurrences

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dontbelievethis 4 points 18 days ago

What if the next hand victim gets shot into space and it would take the hand more then one day to reach that person?

Or if its relative, because the hand is slightly faster so it moves always relative with the person, what if it takes more then one day to get back? Does it just respawn on earth?

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tetris11 2 points 18 days ago

I imagine the hand has a getaway island where it lies on a sunny beach to get a tan, has a nice little patch of forest to act as a scratching post, and jerks off oil tankers causing occasional spillage

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dontbelievethis 4 points 18 days ago

Sounds reasonable.

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Aeri 1 point 14 days ago

If you push a spacecraft to nearly the speed of light. Will the hand trigger a black hole

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Peppycito 4 points 18 days ago

It'd attract a crowd of Blue Meanies to help it.