Superheros and Superpowers

[Harry61]

My spouse wanted me to post this...

Could there really be people out there with super powers? We watched the promo for Handcock with Will Smith in it. He thinks so, I think not.

He thinks extra super sensory reception is a power, I think not.

You can see anyone bend spoons (magic) or read their thought (people skills) or see ghosts (whatever)... But no body can stop a bullet, or derail a train or fly... except for the post fut did.

Would the world be better off if we did have them?

Or what if we had too many. So many questions... So few superheros to answer them..

[Mezurashi]

my first twitch thought to this was, "What if there are people with superpowers of one sort or another and They're the reason everything is so screwed up?"

means - the whole concept of Superhero is incumbent on the notion that the person who has super powers is also morally and ethically 'positive' (I didn't want to bring in good or evil). but human nature is just that - and I wouldn't trust the people around me with super powers any more than they'd trust me ...

could you imagine if an impressionable teen who's into Hitler Youth crap suddenly developed a super power? or an impressionable teen who's the child of Evangelical types? or any teen who wants to be *insert current bad-ass media pop star here*

methinks we just might be better off without -- the odds are just too stacked in the Chaos direction for my taste.

[Ruthless1]

I see something very similar to the Xmen movie. We would consider anyone with superpowers freaks at first and persecute them and lock them up. Once we understood them more, we would sell them to a corporation and exploit whatever gifts they have for profit.

[lycanox]

Didn't Discovery once aired a program about it.

I believe it had people that could bend peoples mind, are magnetic or extra flexible.

[Harry61]

my first twitch thought to this was, "What if there are people with superpowers of one sort or another and They're the reason everything is so screwed up?"

means - the whole concept of Superhero is incumbent on the notion that the person who has super powers is also morally and ethically 'positive' (I didn't want to bring in good or evil). but human nature is just that - and I wouldn't trust the people around me with super powers any more than they'd trust me ...

could you imagine if an impressionable teen who's into Hitler Youth crap suddenly developed a super power? or an impressionable teen who's the child of Evangelical types? or any teen who wants to be *insert current bad-ass media pop star here*

methinks we just might be better off without -- the odds are just too stacked in the Chaos direction for my taste.

You are right... Human nature has to play a factor here.

But then again, I think I don't want to be one with superpowers. What if I was having a bad day and a bus of school kids when over an bridge into water. Would I say, I don't feel like saving them all right now?

I mean, I guess I need to see the movie. But knowing Will Smith, it will probably be funny. But that was just a tickler for this thread.

[Lightmind]

I like your topic threads Harry..... They're intereting subjects.

Marvel comic type Superpowers (heroes).... naah
There are superpowers but some are not particularly useful....Eg Firewalking
Useful Superpowers.... there's some very good Hypnotists around... some through simple conversation.

I think a Superpower is something that almost all people don't possess, so it is Super. If you brought a (example) Roman forward to our present day, he would see us performing many miracles that we take for granted..... Eg Resusitation after breathing/heart failure..... Raising the dead. It's not Super, just beyond his understanding.

Even 200 years ago, our modern education and wisdoms would place most of us in the "leader of men" class. Whereas that same knowledge and sophiscation we now treasure would, if taken forward 200 years, definately place us in the "non-achiever" class.

Occasionaly, we meet Superpeople. Wether it's Sporting, Looks, Charisma, Perception, Vision, or just simply the ability to see a new market and make a fortune. I don't think there's anything "Super" there, though their effects can be dramatic. Very often they have some quite serious drawbacks in other areas.

Can we become Superpeople? If you take a personal strength and "polish" it, you can easily be better than most. If you focus solely on it, you may become a leader in your field, possibly even within the Top 10 bracket. If you can identify your weaknesses, and strengthen those, so that you may not particularly excel, but are balanced and rounded, sometimes that could be considered stronger than the "specialist".

The commonality is it takes effort to achieve.

Just some ramblings.....

[Harry61]

I like your topic threads Harry..... They're intereting subjects.

Marvel comic type Superpowers (heroes).... naah
There are superpowers but some are not particularly useful....Eg Firewalking
Useful Superpowers.... there's some very good Hypnotists around... some through simple conversation.

I think a Superpower is something that almost all people don't possess, so it is Super. If you brought a (example) Roman forward to our present day, he would see us performing many miracles that we take for granted..... Eg Resusitation after breathing/heart failure..... Raising the dead. It's not Super, just beyond his understanding.

Even 200 years ago, our modern education and wisdoms would place most of us in the "leader of men" class. Whereas that same knowledge and sophiscation we now treasure would, if taken forward 200 years, definately place us in the "non-achiever" class.

Occasionaly, we meet Superpeople. Wether it's Sporting, Looks, Charisma, Perception, Vision, or just simply the ability to see a new market and make a fortune. I don't think there's anything "Super" there, though their effects can be dramatic. Very often they have some quite serious drawbacks in other areas.

Can we become Superpeople? If you take a personal strength and "polish" it, you can easily be better than most. If you focus solely on it, you may become a leader in your field, possibly even within the Top 10 bracket. If you can identify your weaknesses, and strengthen those, so that you may not particularly excel, but are balanced and rounded, sometimes that could be considered stronger than the "specialist".

The commonality is it takes effort to achieve.

Just some ramblings.....

Not rambling LM, just stating some facts. I was talking to one of my office guys who's wife is expecting their first kid in August. He is 6'4 and she isn't a tiny thing either. I asked him what he thought about having a boy first. He said that kid is gonna be drafted by the NFL at the age of 16 he is gonna be so big and strong. To me that would be a super kid.

Oh well, I guess I will just have to see. Providing I stay at that job long enough to see him grow up...

[phedrereine]

I have some crazy thoughts about this. I don't really believe in obtaining powers by means of magic or sprituality, so I like to think about this in terms of evolution. I don't think human beings could possibly be mentally or emotionally capable of having or handling super powers right now. By super powers, I'm thinking of classic mental supernatural abilities like telekenesis or telepathy. I believe that if we had unlimited time and nothing hindered our intellectual advancement, we might evolve billions of years from now to be able to do things like that. As it is, I think our sun will die and the earth will end before we could possibly have enough time to evolve to such a stage. We as a race will probably be wiped out by some asteroid or gama ray or supervolcano or from our own stupidity long before then.

But if we had that unlimited time and luck, I think it could be possible. In this scenario, perhaps it would work out for us. We could branch into a new species. If you think about it, we've only been homo sapiens for about 160,000 years, but Cro-Magnons didn't even come onto the scene until around 45,000 years ago. That's not very long. If we had billions of years, maybe we could evolve so that we were above competition and power and greed, because I believe our brains would have to be that advanced in order to accomadate such incredible power in the first place. Maybe we wouldn't abuse it because our brains would be capable of implementing it objectively and sanely into our lives after eons of evolutionary progression and adaptation.

But we wouldn't really be humans anymore, would we?