43 KiB
[D] Saturday Munchkinry Thread
-
Author: u/AutoModerator *
-
URL: https://www.reddit.com/r/rational/comments/8taios/d_saturday_munchkinry_thread/
-
Score: 23
-
Created: 2018-06-23T15:06:39
Post:
Welcome to the Saturday Munchkinry and Problem Solving Thread! This thread is designed to be a place for us to abuse fictional powers and to solve fictional puzzles. Feel free to bounce ideas off each other and to let out your inner evil mastermind!
Guidelines:
- Ideally any power to be munchkined should have consistent and clearly defined rules. It may be original or may be from an already realised story.
- The power to be munchkined can not be something "broken" like omniscience or absolute control over every living human.
- Reverse Munchkin scenarios: we find ways to beat someone or something powerful.
- We solve problems posed by other users. Use all your intelligence and creativity, and expect other users to do the same.
Note: All top level comments must be problems to solve and/or powers to munchkin/reverse munchkin.
Good Luck and Have Fun!
Comments:
u/Kaos_Dragon [+8] Ankh-Morpork Guild of Assassins (an hour later)
What's some interesting stuff you could do with earthbending/geokinesis?
u/None [+8] (3 hours later)
depends on the limitations... I guess avatar limitations?
Ideally any power to be munchkined should have consistent and clearly defined rules. It may be original or may be from an already realised story.
from breaking and entering through walls, to making areas only accessible with earthbending
finding minerals deposit
using it to make electricity (with a generator) maybe moving a generator wheel with your earthbending
make sculptures (probably needs special earth)
built tunnels
farming
earth bullets/spears instead of earth disks or bolders
u/TheJungleDragon [+6] (4 hours later)
Depends on power and finesse.
Low power, high finesse
-Lift clouds of very fine dust off the ground to create dust bombs.
-Cleaning museum pieces and such without breaking them.
High power, low finesse
-Crush a whole bunch of matter into a small area. Depending on specifics and range, you could create explosives or armour.
-Tilling large fields.
High power and finesse
-Mass construction of basic housing.
-Atomic manipulation for science and fun.
And, of course, lethality for opponents is large. After all, bones could be considered minerals.
u/Ironsides1985 [+2] (2 hours later)
If the power is well known and unfeared by the population, then you could make money as a one man construction team for foundations/landscaping. Also maybe if your power is detailed enough, you could sort different minerals or metals out of the ground. Like panning for gold or cleansing an area of a chemical spill.
u/Kuratius [+2] (3 hours later)
Bore holes. Mining. Undersea tunnels. Tunnel from Japan to Korea? No problem, won't take decades, just a few months. Edit: Mars/Moonbase made out of rock tunnels? If you can get there somehow, that is.
u/babalook [+2] (10 hours later)
So long as you're capable of levitating pieces of earth heavier than yourself, you could use smaller pieces of rock as platforms (or rock armor idk) for flight.
On a weirder note, vibrating the ground beneath someone's feet at specific frequencies could cause a number of symptoms (bone/joint damage, nausea, visual damage, basically anything sound weapons can do).
You might also be able to create something like a rail gun with a large group of Earth benders standing in formation.
Using grains of sand to scratch someone's cornea or other soft sensitive parts of the body like those within the ear.
u/keeper52 [+5] (14 hours later)
Borrowing from Marginal Revolution, what if sleep was a commodity that could be bought or sold?
e.g., I sleep for 15 hours and then sell 8 of those hours to you. You get all the benefits of having had 8 hours of sleep (and therefore get to go a full night without sleeping, without costs) while I get the benefits of having 7 hours of sleep.
Anyone can buy or sell sleep at any time; it's a fungible commodity. More details at the link.
u/vakusdrake [+7] (a day later)
I think the obvious consequence is that nobody in a developed world would sleep except as a luxury and nearly all sleeping would be outsourced to third world countries.
u/munkeegutz [+3] (18 hours later)
Well, if you further suppose that we have the same work/play split of 8h/8h, then anyone making over 1.5x minimum wage will likely pay someone to sleep for them - that will effectively be their job full-time. If this can be performed at a distance, I foresee some low-income country like inda/china establishing a "sleep farm", providing the high income citizens with sleep surrogates.
u/Gurkenglas [+3] (22 hours later)
The painless injection or drink can surely be shipped around the globe. Note that newborns are much cheaper to the unscrupolous sleep farmer than humans raised and taught to no good end.
u/fortycakes [+2] (2 days later)
Well, that got even more horrifying fast.
u/Kinoite [+2] (3 days later)
Even an “around-the-clock” sleep-worker could only net 16 hours of saleable sleep per day. The other 8 hours would have to go to meeting their own sleep needs.
This implies some kind of "safe coma" which would be a pretty amazing trick on its own. And you could probably set up a 'dorm'-style living arrangement that's suitable for sleep-sellers.
One option might be a weight-loss spa. People could sign up for a 3 or 4 month stint. Then they'd spend 22 hours / day sleeping, with a couple hours for hygiene, food and exercise. University students might do this over the summer and get back to their university thin toned and rested. Depending on the costs, you might even have some extra spending money.
Something similar would be good for long-term care facilities. If I'm recovering from a car-accident, I'd be OK with a facility that let me sleep most of the day while i waited for my bones to knit.
u/CCC_037 [+1] (a day later)
Does it have to be human sleep that's bought and sold? Can a person take sleep from (say) a dog, or an ape?
Can sleep be artificially created in a laboratory?
u/RMcD94 [+3] (13 hours later)
Munchkin a hive mind in human bodies
Say one day you become a North Korea hivemind. All current citizens of nk are a single entity, any new ones born from the womb of a current hive mind will also be hive mind
Do you hide this? What do you do? What are some things you can do that you wouldn't be able to otherwise (get rid of inefficiencies like multiple houses, everyone eats together, etc)
u/Gurkenglas [+3] (21 hours later)
Emigrate. Western machines are better at food, I am absurd at skilled labor.
Work for upkeep, research AI safety for technological victory.
Political defense: "I didn't ask for this! I'm just trying to make the best the world can of the situation. I will happily let the South Korean citizens speak to what I remember of their loved ones."
u/RMcD94 [+2] (21 hours later)
I was thinking anything you learn, the hive mind learns. A tech victory is a great idea since all your coding is written as if by a single person.
u/vakusdrake [+2] (a day later)
Firstly I would fake a cou and then use my massive knowledge to emigrate across the world, since all of my "members" would be skilled enough to earn work visas. People may think it's weird that such a disproportionate number of North Koreans were so incredibly motivated but it would hardly make anyone raise the possibility of a hivemind.
I'd also use eugenics on myself pretty extensively rom the get go to both increase the number of geniuses coming up with new ideas and to reduce the cost of health problems, plus of course all the women in the hivemind with decent genetics would have an extremely large number of kids effectively increasing our power.Long term many of us would arrange to end up "Orphaned" so nobody knew where we came from and then secretly use our competence to effectively take control of a massive number of institutions within a generation or two. Meanwhile we'd be using genetic engineering extensively and hiding a substantial technological lead in AI.
So however long AGI might have taken otherwise we'd develop it vastly sooner and have enough of a lead to take our time on safety. Once I develop FAI it will have my preferred utility function and it can probably figure out a way to use its tech to restore the identities of all the people taken over by the hivemind.
u/RMcD94 [+1] (a day later)
People may think it's weird that such a disproportionate number of North Koreans were so incredibly motivated but it would hardly make anyone raise the possibility of a hivemind.
That's true enough, only if you played sports and didn't hide your capabilities would people start contemplating something up I think.
Firstly I would fake a cou and then use my massive knowledge to emigrate across the world, since all of my "members" would be skilled enough to earn work visas.
Are you intending to just subserviently unite with South Korea?
I'd also use eugenics on myself pretty extensively rom the get go to both increase the number of geniuses coming up with new ideas and to reduce the cost of health problems, plus of course all the women in the hivemind with decent genetics would have an extremely large number of kids effectively increasing our power.
This is a great idea. If you have one male part who has great genetics you can just have him go around impregnating all your female parts. You could even get your genome sequenced of likely candidates to make sure there's nothing lurking.
Long term many of us would arrange to end up "Orphaned" so nobody knew where we came from and then secretly use our competence to effectively take control of a massive number of institutions within a generation or two.
By that do you mean a bunch of NK workers applying for management positions in McDonalds, and then before you know it they have the board of directors?
u/vakusdrake [+3] (a day later)
Are you intending to just subserviently unite with South Korea?
I would have a massive portion of the population emigrate across the world, which is exactly what people would expect anyway after a major regime change.
However I would still have much of the population stick around with me making the remaining country appear like a semi-authoritarian state like China or Russia which nonetheless doesn't start shit. So given countries usually only care about blatant violations of human rights or international aggression other nations should be perfectly happy to work with me. Plus I would be able to make my government extremely opaque and accomplish my plans much better than pretending to be a democracy (plus it would be harder to fake being a democracy).This is a great idea. If you have one male part who has great genetics you can just have him go around impregnating all your female parts. You could even get your genome sequenced of likely candidates to make sure there's nothing lurking.
Exactly, however I would go further and rely pretty extensively on foreign genetics since that would let my people further infiltrate other parts of the world and I could get more genetic diversity. I wouldn't even be beyond secretly collecting genetic samples from geniuses then using them to create sperm cells.
Plus now that I think about it I would probably also use surrogacy such that only a small minority of my female population would be having their own genetic offspring. Not to mention I would also start using things like sperm selection and embryo selection as extensively as possible from day one. So effectively the first generation born after the formation of the hivemind would be constituted entirely of attractive (good for PR, and people would probably not imagine this was the result of a massive rapid eugenics program) geniuses with good health.By that do you mean a bunch of NK workers applying for management positions in McDonalds, and then before you know it they have the board of directors?
No I mean they would be earning scholarships at universities across the world and working their way into prestige that way. Plus we would be using our collective knowledge of social skills to work our way into high society through our extreme charisma.
u/CCC_037 [+1] (a day later)
All current citizens of nk are a single entity, any new ones born from the womb of a current hive mind will also be hive mind
This is massively munchkinnable. It'll be lonely, but with care I can probably be the entire planet within a dozen generations without ever killing anyone. (I should probably leave a number of people outside the Hivemind just so that I have someone to talk to).
And after that? Well, effectively, everyone will have the equivalent of multiple doctoral-level degrees in everything. I don't know enough about everything to be able to tell what I'd do beyond that - not in any sort of specific - but one of the first things I'd do would be to automate every boring manual-labour type job. And then... I'm not sure.
I'd pretty much do whatever I wanted at that point. Probably go out and explore the universe, looking for alien life. (And persuade the remaining non-Hivemind people to become authors of various sorts, so that I'd still be able to get new and interesting stories to read).
u/None [+2] (5 hours later)
How would you munchkin Luke Cages powers (super strength and bulletproof)?
Seems also like he gets tougher if he gets wounded in the new season on Netflix.
EDIT: Also how would you beat him?
u/None [+10] (9 hours later)
I think super strength and bulletproof invulnerability, at Luke Cage´s level, aren´t necessarily that powerful as munchkin tool in a modern society, even if Luke could make tons of money in private security.
The truly remarkable thing about Luke Cage´s powers, is that he was granted them by science, not natural mutation, and the man that gave him his abilities is dead. The science of giving normal people superpowers is still in it´s infancy because, as the Jessica Jones series shows us, it is really hard, the failures die, and the successes have a habit of breaking out and disappearing.
If I were Luke Cage, the way I would munchkin my ability would be to retrain in the biomedical sciences, and use the fact that I have unlimited access to one of the only successfully created superheroes (myself) to try and learn how to recreate the process in others. I would analyze my own tissue samples, run experiments, do anything and everything in order to try and find out how to make more people super, because selling that would make me very rich, and a little trans-humanism never hurt anybody.
Marvel in general has a problem of introducing technologies capable of creating super-humans, and then just kind of... ignoring them. By the time Captain America wakes up, the US government should have entire elite squadrons of super soldiers; the lead scientist dying does not mean the entire idea is suddenly irreproducible, that`s not how science works. It´s why I like the Marvel Netflix series, especially Jessica Jones season 2, because it explores a world where science can create superheroes (or Enhanced or Powereds), and companies and corporations are, quite rationally, trying to corner the market.
If I were Luke Cage, the best way to munchkin my power I can see, is to try and corner that market first.
But honestly this is the same answer I would give if the question was about Jessica Jones, or Daredevil. Especially Daredevil. Scientifically cracking the code of his ability could potentially give who knows how many disabled people access to an alternative mode of "sight", greatly boosting their autonomy; when it comes to get-rich-quick potential it doesn´t get much better than that.
u/vakusdrake [+1] (a day later)
Especially Daredevil. Scientifically cracking the code of his ability could potentially give who knows how many disabled people access to an alternative mode of "sight", greatly boosting their autonomy; when it comes to get-rich-quick potential it doesn´t get much better than that.
Wait is it actually established that he has any superhuman sensory abilities? I mean I always assumed he just used "normal" echolocation like the sort that lets actual blind people do things like dirt biking.
u/Kelpsie [+4] (a day later)
It has been established without a doubt.
In the flashback sequences that take place from the chemical spill that blinded him to shortly after Stick became his mentor, you can clearly see him suffering due to the sensory overload.
The feats he regularly performs are clearly superhuman. He hears conversations while sitting on rooftops a block away, can pick specific people out of a crowd, opens combination locks, and dodges arrows.
u/vakusdrake [+0] (a day later)
The feats he regularly performs are clearly superhuman. He hears conversations while sitting on rooftops a block away, can pick specific people out of a crowd, opens combination locks, and dodges arrows.
Ok well some of those aren't actually superhuman, opening combination locks by sound for instance is a well known trick and dodging arrows is if its the result of superhuman abilities (depends on speed/range) the result of superhuman reflexes not sensory abilities.
However most importantly here the ability to hear conversations from a block away is so blatantly useful for nefarious ends that I'm not sure helping some blind people live normal lives is really worth the overall impact it might have on society.
u/DangerouslyUnstable [+3] (3 days later)
it would be reflexes if HE WASN'T BLIND. The fact that he even knows about the arrow (along with position, speed, etc.), just from hearing, in time to dodge even WITH super human reflexes, is absolutely super natural.
u/vakusdrake [+1] (3 days later)
along with position, speed, etc.
Well yeah I haven't actually seen the scene so I was saying based on the information in your comment that some versions of the scenario described wouldn't requiere superhuman hearing.
u/DangerouslyUnstable [+1] (3 days later)
I would love to hear the hypothetical situation in which dodging an arrow, while blind, does not involve superhuman hearing (assuming he didn't just get lucky and dodge randomly)
u/vakusdrake [+1] (3 days later)
Well if he knew from echolocation the person was about to fire an arrow then it wouldn't even necessarily involve superhuman reflexes since arrow catching is something people have demonstrated.
u/DangerouslyUnstable [+2] (3 days later)
and you don't think that echolocation good enough to not only know someone is there (and far enough away that dodging the arrow is possible), but also knowing they are holding a bow and arrow AND when they fire it isn't superhuman hearing? Demonstrated human echolocation can, just barely, identify large objects close to people or the rough shape of rooms. Telling that someone at arrow firing range just fired an arrow is absolutely superhuman hearing. Completely ignoring the fact that Daredevil seemingly does not use echolocation (at least not that generates, he appears to use reflections from ambient noise).
-edit- you seem to be hung up on the dodging part. The superhuman part is even recognizing the arrow is there at all. That is well beyond any demonstrated human hearing abilities.
u/vakusdrake [+1] (3 days later)
Well it's hardly easy but one could tell the arrow was about to be fired based on vague changes to body posture or the sounds made by people changing their stance (as in the steps) and these are quite plausibly the sort of bad guy goons who telegraph their attacks with pointless grunts.
Plus depending on range and conditions there might be a sweet spot where you could hear the bow being fired but still have enough time to react at least a little to it, this would be vastly easier if you already knew where to expect arrow fire coming from for instance if they'd already fired arrows and missed.
u/None [+1] (a day later)
When he gives his "world on fire" speech, I feel like what he describes and "sees" goes beyond the normal human "echolocation" can do. What he describes is something beyond human, and so is what is shown; his brain literally creating a simulation of his environment that he actually "sees", using everything from touch to heat sense to hearing. Human echolocation, but taken to the next level. But I guess that even if I´m wrong, the fact that he apparently gained this ability almost instantly after he was blinded could still be a great boon for medicine, worth looking into. The ability to induce Daredevil level sensory abilities in blind people (skipping the training period associated with human echolocation), or even sighted people, so quickly would still be worth a lot of money.
u/vakusdrake [+1] (2 days later)
Yeah though as I mentioned in response to another comment it may actually be advisable to keep this potential tech under wraps/not develop it because the potential for abusing these forms of surveillance may have a negative impact on privacy which make the help to blind people not remotely worth it.
u/None [+1] (2 days later)
but at the same time, if everyone could do it, then surely privacy technology would adapt? Selling it selectively to corporations would be bad, naturally, but I don´t see that as an argument against selling cheaply to the public; especially to the blind people that need it most.
This isn´t like normal technology or other surveillance systems, this kind of thing enhances individual people. At worst it would result in a few elite super spies, but that wouldn´t be a major survilance concern in the same way wire tapping is. Also, at least in the Daredevil Netflix Series, Matt doesn´t have incredibly powerful supernatural hearing, just enhanced hearing and the supernatural ability to process what he hears (as shown when can´t hear when someone is saying on phone to Foggy unless he focuses).
Soundproofing against people like Matt should easily be within the grasp of any company capable of creating a soundproof room; again, hardly a threat whose potential risks outweigh the benefits.
u/vakusdrake [+1] (3 days later)
Well firstly it may not be supernatural hearing but another comment mentioned him hearing conversations from a block away so that's certainly super_human_.
I think you're also really focusing too much on this sort of hearing being used for spying. The rather larger issue is that anyone who wants any privacy whatsoever will now have to soundproof everything to a massively greater extent and people listening to others conversations will become vastly more common due to it's incredible ease. So other than helping a proportionately small population of blind people, the main result of this is that everyone feels less comfortable talking anywhere that isn't soundproofed because privacy is suddenly much harder.
u/None [+1] (3 days later)
but at the same time, that would just lead to more soundproofed houses, wouldn´t it? If everyone has a superhearing, then many of the rules havent actually changed; people will adapt and relearn how to gauge when people can hear them, houses will be better insulated, etc... Sure society would have to adapt, but society has always had to adapt. The invention of almost every surveillance technology made privacy that much harder, and we still found ways to preserve privacy (even if sometimes it has been a struggle). People will know when whispering is ok, just like how right now we can know when whispering is ok. Maybe we´ll all get really good at reading lips, or maybe schools would start teaching sign language? Or maybe people would just talk really, really quietly; I don´t remember seeing Daredevil being able to listen in to whispers from a block away (but who knows, maybe he did and I forgot). I understand where you´re coming from, but I think people would be able to adapt pretty quickly to the change, and that the benefits of such a spread of superpowers (especially superpowers that can´t be so easily used for mass destruction, like Daredevil´s), would far outweigh the costs. I think such a spread would be beneficial- not without risks and challenges, and maybe not entirely ok to introduce quickly- but ultimately beneficial. Seeing where how far we´ve come from being hunter gatherers, humans have already adapted to many, many things; why not super senses?
u/vakusdrake [+1] (3 days later)
See you seem to realize quite well that there's major downsides here that require society to adapt to the existence of these powers.
However I suspect the psychological effects would be greater than you're letting on since people likely evolved to gauge privacy based on an instinctual estimate of people's hearing ability which suddenly wouldn't work very well.Ultimately the proportion of people who would benefit from this just isn't that great and you would be massively impacting society in a mostly negative way for everyone else. I mean daredevil doesn't have supernaturally good senses or anything so all the benefits of his senses can be gotten through tech so it's not clear civilization would gain much from this other than a loss of privacy for average people.
u/None [+1] (3 days later)
but I feel like that instinctual estimate would adapt pretty quickly, once everybody has super-hearing, wouldn´t it? If the human brain can adapt to the extent that human echolocation is viable in real life, I don´t see why this also couldn´t be easily adjusted. So I don´t think that psychological effect is a problem worth halting a spread over; people would relearn how to gauge privacy pretty easily. It would only be a problem if only some people got super senses, which has so many other problems associated with it even I can´t defend it.
And from the way Daredevils "world on fire" speech was portray din the show, the benefits to humanity definitely can´t be replicated by tech. The way Daredevil perceives the world (as seen in the Netflix show) would be a qualitative expansion in the human experience that would impact everything from the science´s to the arts, in the same way giving deaf people hearing qualitatively changes their world. Daredevil´s power isn´t just super hearing, it´s also a superhuman ability to integrate and use sensory information to understand the world around him; "super senses" to such a degree that it basically becomes new "6th sense" all together. And that could have many, many positive benefits, from the arts to even maybe the sciences. I think empowering people naturally leads to improvements in any field where personal ability is important, to the outdoorsman who can now be unafraid of being snuck up on by wild animals, to athletes, whose performance would naturally skyrocket after such a change, to musicians, who would enjoy the same increase in ability. All in all, I think every negative listed so far is something most average people would be able to easily overcome, and that the benefits are still definitely worth it.
u/vakusdrake [+1] (3 days later)
but I feel like that instinctual estimate would adapt pretty quickly, once everybody has super-hearing, wouldn´t it? If the human brain can adapt to the extent that human echolocation is viable in real life, I don´t see why this also couldn´t be easily adjusted. So I don´t think that psychological effect is a problem worth halting a spread over; people would relearn how to gauge privacy pretty easily.
See I don't think you can assume that. It's entirely possible our privacy gauge is mostly inborn, which would explain why people often stupidly overshare online even when that ends up having real world consequences. However the bigger issue is that gauging privacy just won't be anywhere near as easy even in people more "adjusted" to dealing with these powers. When people can overhear your conversations from a block away the idea of any privacy when you're not in the middle of nowhere or in a soundproof room becomes absurd, since knowing whether there's somebody within audible range of you becomes incredibly difficult.
You could do better detecting people with these super senses, however the range for detecting conversations is still going to be farther than the range for detecting people not making noise.There's also the additional very serious possibility that for people who aren't blind the sheer amount of sensory feedback is uncomfortable, however enhanced senses are likely to be the kind of thing that ends up making itself somewhat mandatory for everyone once a critical mass of people start using it, since otherwise you have a vastly diminished ability to know if anybody's listening to you..
The way Daredevil perceives the world (as seen in the Netflix show) would be a qualitative expansion in the human experience that would impact everything from the science´s to the arts, in the same way giving deaf people hearing qualitatively changes their world.
See there's no real reason to think it would benefit science and saying it would benefit the arts is a cop out because any change to society could be framed that way.
I think empowering people naturally leads to improvements in any field where personal ability is important, to the outdoorsman who can now be unafraid of being snuck up on by wild animals, to athletes, whose performance would naturally skyrocket after such a change, to musicians, who would enjoy the same increase in ability.
The fact the groups of people you mention are a vanishingly small proportion of people illustrates my point; that some people would love these new powers but most people wouldn't receive any major benefit (and would suffer the drawbacks mentioned).
u/None [+1] (3 days later)
I never learned how to do the whole quote thing on Reddit, so this may be hard to connect to the points you made, but I´ll try.
I have to just straight up disagree with you on the inborn privacy gauge thing. I just believe people would be able to adjust, and you don´t. Your point on the range for detecting conversations being farther than the range of people making noise has more merit, and I will concede the point that, when walking on the street, it would be pretty damn hard for people to judge whether they are being listened in to or not. So I will concede that point. However, in Daredevil Matt did state that his ability was something he had to "focus" to actively use, otherwise he was incapable of even hearing what the person talking to Foggy over the phone (when Foggy was in the same room as Matt) was saying. So at the very least people will be able to toggle the power on and off, and slowly get used to/overcome any discomfort. And while I do understand why you rejected my point against sciences, I don´t see how you can look at a power that directly increases our ability to process sensory information, then look at the arts, a medium that usually directly relies on the senses during it´s creation and it´s enjoyment, and say that stating that this power would benefit the arts is a cop out. As for how I think it would help the sciences; I´ve been on a couple field expeditions where enhanced senses could have been serious help. A lot of scientific fields that involve outdoor work, would be positively impacted. And this leads into my other point that you refuted; I could keep listing groups that would be affected positively by the power, and all the ways the power could benefit society, but that would just drag on and on and overpower anything else I wanted to say. With a power like this, there are so many ways to apply it that finding a group of people that wouldn´t be benefited is the greater challenge.
Almost every "improvement" to society has come with downsides. The spread of cars resulted in more pollution and vehicular crime. The invention of sites like Facebook hurt privacy. The rockets that got us to the moon also resulted in Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles. I think the spread of superpowers would be improvement. And just like the other improvements, it would come with it´s own problems and risks and challenges. But I think people would adjust, just like they´ve adjusted to everything else, and in the end everything would work out for the better. Maybe having intimate conversations on the street stops being a thing, but that´s not so bad. Now we live under the threat of nuclear annihilation, but on the flip-side we also have a space program!
u/vakusdrake [+1] (4 days later)
I have to just straight up disagree with you on the inborn privacy gauge thing. I just believe people would be able to adjust, and you don´t.
The evidence for something like this does seem pretty good; after all how many people that rant about insane shit on their personal twitter would feel comfortable doing that in "public", despite less people hearing them, and it being less likely to personally affect them (since employers check people's social media)?
Your point on the range for detecting conversations being farther than the range of people making noise has more merit, and I will concede the point that, when walking on the street, it would be pretty damn hard for people to judge whether they are being listened in to or not. So I will concede that point. However, in Daredevil Matt did state that his ability was something he had to "focus" to actively use, otherwise he was incapable of even hearing what the person talking to Foggy over the phone (when Foggy was in the same room as Matt) was saying. So at the very least people will be able to toggle the power on and off, and slowly get used to/overcome any discomfort.
Firstly I'm not sure what your point about people having to focus to pick out conversations is supposed to be, after all that's literally how hearing already works, if you're in a crowd you have to focus to listen to a particular conversation, and how this is supposed to remove the constant sense of being "watched" is unclear.
I think another point you're seriously underestimating is cost, since good soundproofing is expensive (if you've ever had it put in you know it's also always less effective than you thought it would be) and thus while people will be basically forced to get these powers they may not really be able to afford soundproofing. Additionally the soundproofing required to deal with these powers is likely to be incredibly expensive compared to normal soundproofing.This is massively important because (well maybe less so for extraverts) knowing you're being potentially "watched" is mentally taxing and this ratchets that up by at least an order of magnitude. For instance that's a massive complaint of open offices which employees seem to mostly hate, so given businesses aren't likely to bother with soundproofing effectively every business might as well be extremely crowded.
Though I suspect it would be even worse than that because privacy is also based on perceived proximity and if you know everyone in the office can hear every single minute noise you can imagine why that's uncomfortable (for one farting becomes infinitely more embarrassing which actually a serious issue from a QOL perspective).
A metaphor would be that it would be like working in a open air office constantly surrounded by crowds of people.Given this powers asymmetry when it comes to noticing other people who might hear you, as I said before you effectively end up with people only ever feeling alone if they're miles from civilization or in their expensively soundproofed house. Soundproofing elsewhere is unlikely to happen for the same reasons open offices become increasingly prevalent.
I don´t see how you can look at a power that directly increases our ability to process sensory information, then look at the arts, a medium that usually directly relies on the senses during it´s creation and it´s enjoyment, and say that stating that this power would benefit the arts is a cop out.
The issue here is just that it's not clear there's any actual reason to think the changes to art would result in any kind of long term QOL increase for people. It would certainly be very novel at first, however that wouldn't last and eventually this would just become the way things are and you need to consider what QOL looks like at that point because that's where it will end up and stay from then on.
A lot of scientific fields that involve outdoor work, would be positively impacted.
Again I seriously doubt that because if it were true I would expect people in those areas to spend a lot more money on equipment which lets you hear/record sounds you would otherwise never notice (say those dish microphone things). Technology seems to pretty clearly have already surpassed daredevils sensory abilities and will only continue to do so, so the best advantages sensory abilities grant is maybe their immediacy.
I could keep listing groups that would be affected positively by the power, and all the ways the power could benefit society, but that would just drag on and on and overpower anything else I wanted to say. With a power like this, there are so many ways to apply it that finding a group of people that wouldn´t be benefited is the greater challenge.
Easy I can list literally the largest group of workers in countries that could afford these powers, white collar workers. If you job is working on a computer all day super senses don't help. Though of course as I said before they certainly suffer drawbacks from these powers.
Almost every "improvement" to society has come with downsides. The spread of cars resulted in more pollution and vehicular crime. The invention of sites like Facebook hurt privacy. The rockets that got us to the moon also resulted in Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles. I think the spread of superpowers would be improvement. And just like the other improvements, it would come with it´s own problems and risks and challenges. But I think people would adjust, just like they´ve adjusted to everything else, and in the end everything would work out for the better. Maybe having intimate conversations on the street stops being a thing, but that´s not so bad. Now we live under the threat of nuclear annihilation, but on the flip-side we also have a space program!
See only one of those things actually fundamentally changed the human experience in a way remotely comparable to this hypothetical change. And studies do seem to pretty consistently indicate that social media lowers people's QOL. It's hard to argue if twitter facebook and the like were no longer used there would be any downsides whatsoever.
u/None [+1] (13 days later)
I went away, and gave this some further thought, and I came to the conclusion that, despite the fact that you make some extremely good and interesting points, and I find most of your arguments correct... I just don't think I can actually be convinced to change my mind.
I seem to just have this automatic response that sees any improvement to the abilities of capabilities of individual humans as "good", and the "right thing to do", which I guess probably comes from spending days and years arguing with my fairly Luddite grandparents, that even now, after reading all of your posts and thinking about the issue a lot, I think, if given the power, I would just make everyone Daredevil and damn the consequences. I think I'm beginning to understand how my grandparents felt when they would hear all my arguments about the benefits of some new technology, and were unable to refute them except to keep repeating that they felt "bad" about it, only in this case I just feel "good" about things.
I hate guns, and strongly believe that all they've really given us is the ability to slaughter animals and each other with even more impunity, and yet if I was given the chance to wipe guns from history, I wouldn't do it. Because even though I think guns only made life worse, for everyone, I also think they increased the individual power of a single person, and that just gives me that "good" feeling again. That sense that "this is the right thing to do", and I just can't see why yet. The closest I can come to expressing it is the idea that "guns may be bad now but one day aliens might invade and we'll wish we had guns then!" or "we aren't responsible enough to handle guns now, but one day we might evolve as a species to a place where guns really are a net positive, somehow!"
So while I don't agree with all of your arguments on the arts and sciences, or on who would or wouldn't benefit, you have made enough good points that I've realized I can't really be completely rational in this debate, and that maybe what I'm trying to communicate isn't something I can put into words yet.
Thanks, for such a productive discussion :)
u/Kelpsie [+1] (3 days later)
skipping the training period
Matt Murdock had to undergo serious training just to not be debilitated by the sensory overload.
u/None [+1] (3 days later)
I know I´m basing my opinions off the Netflix series, which naturally has less information then in the comics, but in the Netflix series the power was almost instantly useful, even before the training (which I don´t remember taking that long/being that big of a deal, but I may have skipped past that montage). And when Foggy asked Matt how he could have possibly not been able to overhear both sides of Foggy´s phone conversation, Matt said that he had to "focus" to activate his power, indicating that, unlike Superman, this was somehow something he could toggle at will. So even if it is debilitating without training, it wouldn´t be an instantly fatal flaw.