33 KiB
[BST] How Powers change Perceptions.
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Author: u/None *
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URL: https://www.reddit.com/r/rational/comments/4lmquk/bst_how_powers_change_perceptions/
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Score: 13
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Created: 2016-05-29T23:08:57
Post:
[BST]Thinking about writing a series of short stories on how having different superpowers would change your perceptions/experience of conciousness. For example, how the ability to perceive other minds would change how you see the world/how you feel in your own mind or how the power of teleportation would change how you view distance, and other such things. Any ideas for how other powers would change other perceptions?
Comments:
u/LesserWrong [+15] (3 hours later)
I think one of the biggest things comic books get wrong is the idea that only evil people would want to take over governments. Generally speaking most people in the US don't think the government is doing a great job, have ideas about how it could be done better, and don't think they could achieve those changes himself or that it could be easily done. Change that last part to thinking it's easily achievable because you have super powers and I think the situation would drastically change.
The idea that you would have non-powered politicians controlling superheroes or superpowered people is absurd, it would very quickly become the other way around even with the absolute best intentions and possibly especially with the best intentions.
edit Added in parts with the stars to clarify.
u/None [+14] (5 hours later)
I think one of the biggest things comic books get wrong is the idea that only evil people would want to take over governments.
I just had a discussion where I had to deal with someone going "well...there'll be a few ambitious malcontents but most people won't..." which is absurd. Comics have really tainted the conversation.
People are inherently embedded in a political system. The idea that the system would allow them to escape first of all is not guaranteed and probably optimistic, let alone that they would go about never using their new powers to their advantage.
And why not? At the end of the day human societies have a "cost of doing business" where we accept that certain people will be crushed. Certain people will be fucked by judges, be executed on the orders of foreign-backed dictators, get hit by cars shoddily designed and fail to get recompense, have to deal with a shitty municipal body. People talk about the glorious nature of the system but a lot of it is inconvenient, and annoying and runs cause no one can take it apart.
Superheroes completely flip this on its head. The super won't be crushed, at the worst society will be.
And these are just reactive supers. As you say, I certainly wouldn't tolerate a lot of the bs you have to tolerate if I was one of those supers basically approaching complete independence like Superman and I don't think all the self-serving bleating about "freedom" from American tv would change anyone's mind. Should your family suffer, starve or be inconvenienced for movie speeches?
I do disagree that it'll be easy to effect good change though, especially in the real world. Well...perhaps change'll be easy if you have a big enough stick, but in terms of just effecting political change, the massive distrust would immediately put the brakes on most things you can achieve within the system.
Think of Caesar and Rome; sometimes he wasn't necessarily wrong about a problem so much as people didn't want him to be the one dealing with it
u/CCC_037 [+8] (11 hours later)
I think one of the biggest things comic books get wrong is the idea that only evil people would want to take over governments.
A person who starts out good might want to take over a government. But doing so by short-circuiting the defined processes to do so means you're morally at the same point as a military coup - there will be good people who will honestly think you are evil and attempt to remove you even if at the cost of your (or their) lives. At that point you either have to step back or do some fairly reprehensible things...
...or, in other words, it may be true that a good person might want to take over a government using superpowers. But, aside from being voted in, how can one do so while remaining a good person?
u/imuli [+6] Seeker (12 hours later)
Good is not the same as lawful. A good person is perhaps someone who takes actions with net good consequences. Also, there's no need to be the head of state to take over a government.
u/CCC_037 [+1] (12 hours later)
Hmmmm... you can definitely take over a government while maintaining a Lawful Evil alignment with the right superpowers (e.g. mind-control people to vote for you). You might be able to do it while maintaining a Lawful Good alignment, but not without doing at least some Evil actions (unless you go the route of working entirely within the system, at which point even people without superpowers can do the same).
Also, there's no need to be the head of state to take over a government.
But once you have taken it over, then are you not de facto head of state? No matter what your actual title, if any, is?
u/imuli [+2] Seeker (a day later)
Let us take the superpower of Persuasion. They can convince anybody of pretty much anything by talking with them for a while, and later on just through letters. Conversations and letters don't have first order effects that are especially positive or negative, so I imagine you conside the actions neutral, not good or evil.
If this person were to converse and write letters to the all the key people in a government I would consider that to be taking over the government outside of the system (and without being the head of state). Agreed?
The policies that this person lobbies for depend on their alignment, but any alignment seems compatible with this position.
u/CCC_037 [+1] (a day later)
Conversations and letters don't have first order effects that are especially positive or negative, so I imagine you conside the actions neutral, not good or evil.
Not necessarily. Persuading someone to (say) commit murder would still be an Evil act, and using said power to Persuade someone to give you a lot of money could well be morally equivalent to robbery (if said power completely prevents the victim from refusing your request).
Similarly, Persuading a supervillain to release his hostages would be a Good act, and there's a whole spectrum between.
If this person were to converse and write letters to the all the key people in a government I would consider that to be taking over the government outside of the system (and without being the head of state). Agreed?
Without actually taking the official title of 'head of state', yes (though at that point the title is just window dressing). Now, how does he deal with the police officers who want to arrest him for Use of a Superpower to Exert Undue Influence over the State, and who are very much not interested in negotiating about it (presumably to the point of wearing white-noise headphones)?
u/None [+1] (16 hours later)
I wouldn't limit the discussion to just "take over" in the traditional sense of a military coup setting up shop in the capitol.
Someone can completely undermine it, by returning the world to some old-fashioned system of patronage and so on.
If Superman lands in a country and starts doing favors for people he considers good, while ignoring the bleating of this or that regulatory body, he is undermining the system.
The better he does, and the stronger he is the worse it is, until people may rely on him more than the system.
u/trekie140 [+2] (a day later)
I have yet to read a comic that tackles this question, but bigger fans than I have said it is one of Superman's reoccurring internal conflicts. Apparently there's a comic where he says he only does everything he needs to instead of everything he can so that people don't come to depend on him. Superman: Red Son is a What If where he landed in the USSR and, having been raised a communist, did do everything he possibly could to help people and it all backfired horribly in a way I found believable.
On the opposite end of the spectrum, All Star Superman heavily implies that he has changed the world by working with scientists to advance technology to the point where transhumanism is becoming a reality. Later in the story, he even finds a way to use the resources at his disposal to cure cancer. The same author even wrote another alternate universe comic where Superman was the President and used his powers and connections to pressure a middle eastern country into a nuclear treaty, which I personally found horrifying.
u/kaukamieli [+1] (22 hours later)
Well, if the power is mind control, it would be easy and you could make everything better.
If the power is something that can make money, you can just buy the politics. :p
The latter one might not be "good", but if they are already bought by more evil people...
u/CCC_037 [+1] (a day later)
The first will be easy, but I think it's even less Good than the second...
u/Geminii27 [+8] (14 hours later)
The idea that you would have non-powered politicians controlling superheroes or superpowered people is absurd, it would very quickly become the other way around
Not unless the superpower directly related to the political process in some way, or the superperson was already politically-minded and used the power to show off, draw attention, or otherwise make people think they were pretty cool and voteworthy.
Most powers, though, or at least the standard ones, don't really help directly with politics. You can't bench-press a policy and smear campaigns don't care if you're invulnerable. Politicians would absolutely still be able to control most people with superpowers in the same way they control people without them - through social structures and policy. If you're willing to follow the law and you want people to like you, that's half the battle won for the politicians to start with. And most random people aren't necessarily going to be super-smart or super-witty or actually want to be a politician if they get powers.
(Reverse example: politician Nathan Petrelli from Heroes went out of his way to not reveal he could fly. No point in making the voters jealous or scared. Nothing to see here, just your totally normal representative who is totally a normal person just like you.)
Someone who did want to get into the political process, though, either through running for office themselves or influencing existing politicians, might be able to do so via powers like mind control/influence, super-charisma, or (I guess) powers which let them rig the voting process. But honestly, those are effects which can largely be bought with money anyway, at least to a degree.
u/None [+2] (16 hours later)
Depends on how strong the super is. Sure, a lot of -TV especially- supers and so on can be held in check.
There comes a certain level of power though where a super does what they want, collects clients and followers and moves to defend them.
might be able to do so via powers like mind control/influence, super-charisma, or (I guess) powers which let them rig the voting process. But honestly, those are effects which can largely be bought with money anyway, at least to a degree.
Degrees are important. You cannot buy the mind control powers of Professor X or the ability to fuck with people like Puppetman from Wild Cards. Seriously, look up some of the stuff he did to fast track himself to the presidency.
Now, Donald Trump may have skewed perceptions right now but it's not as easy to outright buy the presidency as it is to use magic or superpowers to get it.
u/eaglejarl [+5] (a day later)
The idea that you would have non-powered politicians controlling superheroes or superpowered people is absurd,
You know, I hear this view a lot, and it always baffles me. It assumes that no superpowered people are law-abiding. In a rational world I would assume you would have some supers who consider themselves ubermensch and try to take over the country. You would have far more supers who believe in the rule of law and try to prevent the evil supers from taking over the country. This is your standard hero / villains split. It's exactly why only villains want to take over -- because the social contract related to appropriate methods of regime change is one of the most fundamental parts of a civilized nation. Once you use force to effect regime change you demonstrate that that's okay. Pretty soon you'll have revolutions brewing, other supers wanting their shot, etc.
Yes, you can construct worlds where it happens anyway -- if you have a world with one amoral God-level super and a bunch of bush-leagues, then the big one can take over. He'll still have to deal with passive resistance and coup attempts, but he can do it. The point is that these worlds were constructed to allow it. "Supers will inevitably take over" is not an always-true statement unless you choose it as an axiom.
u/Jakkubus [+3] (3 days later)
Not exactly. Even though so many people boast about toppling the government, they don't actual revolt against it, despite often having access to "superpowers" (firearms, home-made explosives). The reason is simple: there is always a fish bigger than them, which is army.
Similar situation would take place in a world with superpowers. People on the higher end would be most likely integrated into the upper class of society as celebrities or just rich guys, since their abilities may be easily turned into cash.
If a power would let you live comfortable and prosperous life, would you really throw it away for a small possibility of ruling a city, country or the world?
u/trekie140 [+2] (15 hours later)
Squadron Supreme explores the idea of heroes trying to overthrow governments to change the world, though I haven't read it and have only heard very good things about it. However, I have seen Superman vs The Elite (an expanded adaptation of the better named What's So Funny About Truth, Justice, and The American Way?) that successfully deconstructs and reconstructs Superman's ideology when he encounters some new heroes that have good intentions but no respect of the law. It single-handedly managed to turn me into a Superman fan, so I highly recommend it.
u/None [+3] (16 hours later)
I despise Superman vs. The Elite. It's a cynical take-that at The Authority, which is kind of okay, even if they're right they do have their issues and are themselves pretty cynical.
But, as a concrete argument for why you should act like Superman it's just bad apologia. Basically, you should act like Superman cause people who don't act like Superman are monsters.
It's the same dichotomous thinking that gave us "if you kill him you will be just like him"
u/trekie140 [+2] (19 hours later)
That is absolutely not the impression I got from it. I didn't agree with everything Superman did and didn't think I was supposed to. The Elite weren't monsters, they were well-intentioned extremists that pointed out Superman's failures and forced him to ask difficult questions about what he stood for. The movie is an indictment of moral simplicity from both the Lawful Good and Chaotic Good perspectives.
What I love about the film was that it allowed me to understand what Superman represents and why he is so important. He's pure idealistic compassion and he has become a cultural icon because of that. That doesn't mean he can't deal with morally complex issues or that his methods are the only answer, it just means he exists as an ideal we can look up to and try to reach for. Superman gives us hope for tomorrow.
u/None [+2] (20 hours later)
Let me see if my memory of the Elite's actions is clear:
They decided to go out and massacre the leaders of two countries cause they're going to war with one another.
They execute a criminal they've defeated cause a victim voted for it.
They decide to sadistically hunt and kill Superman cause he punched one of them.
How exactly is there a balanced portrayal here? Yeah, Atomic Skull hurts people but it's partly cause of the situation the government put him in after Superman caught him, the Elite directly kill the leaders of two opposing countries for fighting, and just sorta expect it to work out, then decide to kill an iconic hero cause of an insult.
There's little morally threatening to Superman here, Superman's actions don't always work out, but the Elite's actions looked deranged at times. Just on a personal level, Superman can be trusted, the Elite cannot.
The story is there to validate Superman's position. Which is a thing that should always be noted with these sorts of stories; Superman is not going to become the Elite (or whatever they're supposed to represent), so the work finds a some strong-looking version of the arguments against his beliefs for him to defeat.
u/trekie140 [+2] (22 hours later)
I feel like your complaint is that the movie did exactly what it set out to do. You're right that the Elite are untrustworthy loose cannons that exist to validate Superman, but the Joker only exists to validate Batman in The Dark Knight. Superhero stories exist so that heroes can do heroic things, it's an escapist fantasy meant to emotionally resonate with the audience. Even dark deconstructions of the genre like Watchmen or Worm are about characters who keep trying to do what's right despite obstacles both internal and external. What did you want from the film that it didn't give you?
u/None [+2] (a day later)
Superhero stories exist so that heroes can do heroic things, it's an escapist fantasy meant to emotionally resonate with the audience.
Right. But that doesn't mean it it makes a good argument just cause it's defending its genre conceits,presumably that's not all you'd want in a r/rational discussion.
I don't mind characters trying to do the right thing, I dislike the narrative around this one I dislike it cause it keeps showing up in discussions like these, often cited as a definitive argument. Along with that "jet powered apes" quote.
u/trekie140 [+3] (a day later)
I get where you're coming from, but that's kind of the problem with fictional evidence. You can only use it within the logic of its own universe. That's something I had to get past when I first got into comics, but once I did I saw that they had artistic value for what they are. Even if Superman vs The Elite isn't rational, I still think it's a well-written story that respected my intelligence and challenged my views while completely changing my mind about a fictional character I'd always found rather boring. If anyone would like to watch it, you can find it for free on KissCartoon.
u/eaglejarl [+1] (a day later)
My memories of it are pretty hazy, but I think the central idea was that the Elite were willing to do morally bad things like murder (of criminals) in order to prevent what they felt would be greater harm later. (The crimes those criminals would have committed later.) Superman won't do this; is he right to respect the rule of law, or wrong to not prevent greater harm when he could easily do so? I don't find that a simplistic question at all.
u/None [+1] (a day later)
The simplistic element is that the Elite are unhinged. So it's not a competition between two strong viewpoints but a relatively trustworthy Superman and people who show signs of sliding off the slippery slope.
If the Elite hadn't been unhinged and had assassinated a few top leaders and had an actual plan for peace instead of silly,brutal nonsense , if they hadn't reacted to an insult from Superman by trying to kill him we might have had a better argument.
The Elite are standing in for the argument you're thinking of, but they're horrible representatives for it, cause the point is for Superman to definitively win by the end of the story.
The film pretends that it's making the argument youre thinking of, but it ends up making the argument that the Elite -and thus heroes who kill- cannot be trusted. So Superman almost wins by default.
u/trekie140 [+2] (a day later)
I think the reason I was okay with the Elite being unhinged was that I thought it made sense. What kind of person is actually willing to kill people? I also didn't get the impression that they challenged Superman because of an insult, but because he attacked them for killing people. He made himself their enemy and clearly intended to oppose their actions, so they decided to end him just like they promised to do with every "cancer".
u/None [+1] (a day later)
What kind of person is willing to kill people?
Cops, soldiers,spooks,generals, and the very politicians we elect, the unspoken promise being that they'll kill the right people when it comes down to it.
At the end of the day killing is not some alien act committed by purely unhinged types
If the only people who kill are unhinged...you see the issue for a frank moral argument right?
And yes, Superman lost control and punched one member if the Elite. He didn't seem to injure him yet this apparently demanded a fight to the death. It seemed like killing someone over an insult to me.
u/trekie140 [+2] (a day later)
I meant personally killing someone, not just saying it should be done, and it actually is surprisingly rare. I've seen plenty of statistics indicating that police and soldiers go out of their way to avoid killing, to the point where the military recently changed internal policies to combat the problem. Police officers are also required to take leave and go to therapy after killing someone, since it's considering abnormal for a person to not be phased by the act.
u/None [+1] (a day later)
Yet they do, and no one questions their right to do so.
The situation with the Elite could easily have been shaped to make it so they had little choice.
And this is before we get into how superheroes change the equation.
If you were going to challenge the army or police on the validity of killing as a solution you wouldn't just focus on the slightly deranged cases. That doesn't get to the heart of it.
u/LesserWrong [+9] (3 hours later)
Being a speedster sounds maddening socially.
Being able to see the future would make everyone else's choices seem highly irrational due to hindsight bias.
Being able to split into multiple bodies would likely strongly disrupt how you view productivity, individuality, and more.
Being able to float around as a ghost without body would change your impression of the mind body problem.
u/None [+5] (5 hours later)
Just having perfect memory (like, really perfect) will make the little editing touches people do seem odd.
u/captainNematode [+2] (a day later)
For speedsters, I'm reminded of this comic page featuring Quicksilver, as well as The Ballad of Barry Allen by Jim's Big Ego.
u/chaos-engine [+1] (4 days later)
One thing about speedsters I haven't seen much of is how fast their brains must be. Yes they have to have unbelievable reflexes, but there's enough evidence in cannon to show that they are comprehending to the world around them and not simply acting on reflex.
For example, a speedster who can read a book in a second and remember all of it must have crazy high intelligence. If the want to, they could easily bring about a scientific revolution since they'd be able to study every field out there in depth and would be uniquely situated to cross pollinate those ideas and apply the breakthroughs of each field to many others.
u/Chronophilia [+4] sci-fi ≠ futurology (4 days later)
Such a person would be limited by their memory in places where most people are limited by speed. I can't read a thousand books in a day because I don't read that fast. A speedster can't read a thousand books in a day because by the time she finished the last one she'd have forgotten everything about the first one.
Certainly that would affect the way they think. It's sort of the opposite problem to caching. A speedster might prefer to do the same calculation twice when most people would do it once and memorise the result, because repeating work is nigh-instantaneous and memory is the bottleneck.
u/mhd-hbd [+3] Writes 'The World is Your Oyster, The Universe is Your Namesake' (11 hours later)
The Fall of Doc Future has a girl who can circumnavigate the globe in a second or so, and who can think fast enough that crowds become galleries of statues and bullets hang in the air. She has strange habits because she can always take time to think things through, and she can always go look at things, no matter where they are in the world.
u/Rhamni [+1] Aspiring author (25 days later)
How does she not rule the world or get assassinated with polonium?
u/mhd-hbd [+2] Writes 'The World is Your Oyster, The Universe is Your Namesake' (25 days later)
Her adoptive father is the smartest man in the world. He has, on several occasions, had to talk her out of just assassinating despots. In short, she doesn't rule the world because that would be text-book fascism.
Someone did try to kill her by infecting her with a targeted bioweapon-virus. They succeeded in an alternate future, and she took Humanity with her out of spite.
u/Rhamni [+1] Aspiring author (25 days later)
Her father and her are responsible for all the horrible things she could easily put a stop to but doesn't.
I don't mean to be rude to you. Thank you for explaining. But this is the kind of setting breaking power that can't be excused for not breaking the setting.
u/mhd-hbd [+2] Writes 'The World is Your Oyster, The Universe is Your Namesake' (25 days later)
Lemme just quote you the part where they discuss it.
[SPOILERS FOR THE MAKER'S ARK CHAPTER 2.]
It's in the third book: so far they have killed a god who did some nasty stuff with oracular time-travel, and thwarted an alien invasion/crusade with the purpose of killing all domesticated macrofauna. They are discussing what to do next, and the topic comes up:
“It was what I didn’t do,” said Doc. "To take an example not at random, she wondered why I was okay with Jumping Spider assassinating a highly placed person in the domestic intelligence community, but, for a number of other powerful men–she had a list–I wasn’t willing to 'kill them with death robots, feed them to starving hyenas in Africa, or, at the very least, strand them somewhere they can subsist on bugs and tubers for the rest of their lives and not hurt anyone else ever again.’“
"Oh.”
“Which leads into what I wanted to talk about. Several of the people on that list are still in positions of power or influence, none have ever been prosecuted, and they would be very unlikely to be convicted even if they were. Wealth, connections, and corruption in political culture go a long way.”
Doc turned back to face Flicker. "And you eventually accepted that you didn’t have the skill to remove them yourself without causing too much damage.“
"Yeah,” she said. "No point in burning down your house to kill the bugs. But I never really got why you didn’t do anything about them–I just had to accept you weren’t going to.“
He nodded. "As I said at the time, just as there are things superhumans can do that normal humans cannot, there are things normal humans do that superheroes shouldn’t. And that’s become important for you to understand better, because you’re more socially skilled and you’ve become quite popular. Saving the world tends to do that.”
“So, I might think I can get away with something I can’t?”
“No, because you might succeed.” Doc smiled tightly. "No government can stop you by force, so you could, say, ignore the legalities, grab the people you consider the cause of a political problem, stash them somewhere, tap someone competent to run things temporarily, then appoint people or hold elections while keeping the 'wrong’ sort of person out, and quite possibly end up with something fairer or more functional than before. And some people would object, but a lot wouldn’t.“
"And that would be bad?”
“Yes, that would be very bad. Because it would set a precedent. What would you do the next time? You’d have experience, and a track record. You’d be the strong leader, supported by the people, coming in to sweep away the corruption and set things right. And there would always be people urging you on, telling you it’s the only way to fix real problems, the only proper thing to do–your duty, even.”
“Oh, shit,” said Journeyman. "That’s mythology, and not the good kind.“
"Yup,” said Doc. "Not religious, but ideological. And the ideology has a name that’s been diluted by overuse, but this is its original form. It’s called 'fascism’. It’s bad enough with normal humans, and I consider it the single greatest hazard to a superhero getting involved in politics. The only reason we haven’t had more of a problem is that the first superhero established a strong tradition against it.“
u/Rhamni [+1] Aspiring author (25 days later)
Thank you for the quote! I disagree with the author that that's a reasonable position, but that is not your fault and I thank you very much for showing me the case they make!
u/draykhar [+8] (24 minutes later)
Have you read the "pick a pill" short story? Each one providing a different superpower, and how the person who chose one, lived their life. It's got examples of both the specific things you asked about. :)
http://slatestarcodex.com/2015/06/02/and-i-show-you-how-deep-the-rabbit-hole-goes/
u/None [+2] (12 hours later)
yeah I read that; though its not quite what I want :)
u/xamueljones [+2] My arch-enemy is entropy (15 hours later)
Anything by Vernor Vinge or Peter Watts. Also the tropes on the Starfish Aliens page. I know that this isn't what you are asking for, but writing about the mindset of an alien is simply a more extreme case of writing how super powers can oddly affect the human mind. So these references should be good for a starting point.
u/None [+1] (17 hours later)
Also: read/watch Watchmen.
u/trekie140 [+1] (3 hours later)
I think preventing this is one of the reasons superheroes have secret identities. They started using their powers because they wanted to be good samaritans and don't want to stop being normal just because they want to use their power to help people. Even if they aren't necessarily human, they still want to maintain a connection to humanity and view themselves as part of humanity.
u/LesserWrong [+1] (3 hours later)
That makes it sound like most superheroes have a funky cognitive bias called the human bias or something.
u/trekie140 [+2] (4 hours later)
Considering what superheroes would be capable of if they were not constrained by human values, I think it's a bias we can tolerate. There's also more than a couple stories about this idea, even the Superman: The Animated Series had an episode where he admitted "I have to be Clark. I am Clark. I'd go crazy if I had to be Superman all the time!"
u/None [+1] (5 hours later)
This seems a bit of a stretch. There are other means of maintaining a connection to humanity that don't require the stuff heroics does. Especially since heroics forces you to use your power more than anything.
And we're not just talking about broader social ideas here, but fundamental thinking. I cannot stop perceiving optical illusions. However, if I got a perception power I might be unable to perceive them. There's no amount of heroing that'd change something so basic.
u/trekie140 [+1] (15 hours later)
What would you suggest as an alternative?
u/None [+1] (17 hours later)
I don't know that I would tbh. I dislike this particular explanation, but it's an open question for me how much comics' framing makes sense.
That said, I think we can all recognize the desire for someone to go "Dr Mayhem has a ray that turns cities full of people into gerbils, I should stop him!"