HypoEthicals

HypoEthicals turn abstract questions about life, love, and human nature into wildly imaginative scenarios that will test your values, relationships, and sense of humor. IQ-altering pills, zombie-spawning viruses, humor-proof spouses, world-transforming technologies, even vengeful garden gnomes... They'll all get you thinking, talking, debating, and laughing for hours on end. Beautiful, hand-drawn color illustrations and 100 scenarios from the outlandish to the all-too-real make for much more than a simple collection of questions. HypoEthicals will make you rethink how well you know yourself, your family, and your friends.

The real world can be painfully predictable. From infancy, we’re taught right and wrong, good and bad, and acceptable and unacceptable. Each stage of life thereafter introduces new rules and lessons intended to teach us the “right way” to think and behave. We like to consider ourselves independent thinkers, fully conscious of our choices and actions, but most of us are essentially following a script written collaboratively by our parents, teachers, and religious, cultural, and institutional leaders. HypoEthicals™ are imaginary scenarios that pull you out of your real-world comfort zone and make you really think about your values, beliefs, and relationships with other people and the planet. The scenarios range from plausible to preposterous, from serious to silly. But even the seemingly silliest of them will reveal something about the answerer. Read the book with a group of people you know, or think you know. The responses will surprise you. HypoEthicals are meant to be shared, deconstructed, and debated. We’ve seen single scenarios launch heated hour-long conversations. Be sure to share the illustrations, too. They often add an additional layer of emotional depth, humor, or clarity. We hope the book gets you thinking, talking, and laughing, and that you learn a bit about yourself and the the people you’re close to in the process.

Michael Forge was born in Detroit, Michigan in 1966. Over the last 20 years, he has worked as an award-winning copywriter for The Washington Post and video game maker Epic Games, and, most recently, as an advertising agency Creative Director. Studying how people think, or fail to think, in the world of advertising, led him to write the provocative, assumption-challenging book, HypoEthicals™. A board game based on the book is currently in development.