Super Powers Would Suck: A thought experiment

[Dendrek]

Pick an "awesome" super power, then figure out all the reasons why it would be absolutely terrible to have.

If you think about it, I suspect every super power you can come up with would be dangerous, impractical and impossible (for more reasons than the obvious). You might even be surprised by some of the ways it simply wouldn't work. The obvious reasons most powers couldn't exist is that they defy the laws of the conservation of matter and energy (producing something from nothing). But the other possible consequences of those powers might be more subtle.



Here are a few that come to mind:

• Super Strength - You'd be scrawny as hell. Muscle comes from physical exertion. If lifting a car is easy for you, where's that exertion going to come from? Bench pressing trains? Lifting mountains?

• Super Speed - Depending on your speed, any of the following might become an issue for you: 1) black outs from loss of blood flow to the brain, 2) your skin being torn from your body, 3) your skin melting by super heated air, 4) a nuclear explosion by the rapid compression of atoms (assuming you're going near light speeds).

• Stopping Time - You'd be blind. Sight comes from the absorption of photons after they've been reflected off of objects. No moving photons means no way to see. Oh right, and you'd suffocate (no oxygen flowing into your lungs). That might be bad too.

• Energy Projection - Congratulations: you're a battery now. You can create energy out of nothing, why have you fight crime when we can stick you inside a chamber where you can use your power to crank an engine and power a city nearly indefinitely and practically for free?

What other reasons for these and other powers would make them shit to have?


[Edit] I'm being criticized for not auto-accepting comic book explanations for super powers or for not automatically assuming the super human's body would be suitable for their powers (like a speedster automatically having super endurance and strength, etc). I'll provide context for my motivation in creating this thread:

My point of making this thread was in the vain "What super power(s) would you want?" but taking it a step further "Are you really sure you'd want that?"

[May90]

How about slowing time down by a factor of 1000?

[chubbybunny]

With great power comes great responsibility!!

[Simulacrum]

Blacking out from blood flow is a problem with super speed, but e.g. your muscles tearing your body apart isn't a problem for super strength? These are some pretty arbitrary and inconsistent problems. And calling them "subtle" is a bit ridiculous. They're more "extremely obvious things that people ignore for the sake of the story".

[Dendrek]

How about slowing time down by a factor of 1000?

Still going to suffocate. Fluid dynamics.

Then you also have an issue with relativity. Does light still travel at the speed of light for you? I'm not sure what the consequences of this would be.

[Deleted]

Telepaty, superintelligence, telekinesis...?

[Deleted]

Omniscience, my personal favorite; downsides - none

[Dendrek]

Blacking out from blood flow is a problem with super speed, but e.g. your muscles tearing your body apart isn't a problem for super strength? These are some pretty arbitrary and inconsistent problems. And calling them "subtle" is a bit ridiculous. They're more "extremely obvious things that people ignore for the sake of the story".

I don't get why you felt the need to be condescending.

[Independent voter]

Ant man did something in Avengers movie and he grew to like 100 feet tall. He would weigh so much even with his muscles growing that he wouldn't be able to move. Unless he was floating in water.

[Deleted]

With great power comes great sub powers

The speedsters usually have some speed shield, and increased brain speed/power whatever to understand stuff going on around them.
Super power depending on the source might have nothing to do with your muscles.
Stopping time can be tricky. Can't think of any explenation why you'd survive.
Energy projection. Sure you can be a battery, but you can also fire lightning bolts at people. Why not both?

[Eazy]

There's something wrong with your thinking.
If you think that someone can be super-fast then they have totally different bodies, maybe their hearts would pump blood much faster, their muscles have much bigger efficiency etc.

Overall, that thread is a big failure and I tell you why - what's the point of adding Super Powers to normal human organisms and then trying to solve what could happen? That's a nonsense.

Ant man did something in Avengers movie and he grew to like 100 feet tall. He would weigh so much even with his muscles growing that he wouldn't be able to move. Unless he was floating in water.

That's easy to solve. Bigger space between his atoms. Also - do you know that there are so many place between atoms in the human body that you could get entire humanity in a cube which is 1cm x 1cm x 1cm?

Source: Quantum physics.

Omniscience, my personal favorite; downsides - none

Killing yourself because you know what's going to happen to you and everyone you love and that's the life has no sense at all...

I don't see a downside to being able to heal people's wounds

Obamacare would be destroyed and America would bankrupt. xD

[PlatedPriest]

I don't see a downside to being able to heal people's wounds

[Magicalcrab]

how about the power of super shut up
stop ruining things that are cool shhh


Shapeshifting - Yay! I can't wait to have to concentrate on maintaining every minute detail of my appearance every hour of every day until I eventually lose my composure and turn into a shapeless gloopy mess. Aside from that, there are plenty of consequences of shapeshifting into a mouse or any other animal that'd effectively result in your brain devolving. Even shapechanging into a different human could potentially turn you into a completely different person with a whole new personality, and the risk of enduring significant brain damage as a result of a transformation going wrong is extremely high. It could even result in you losing your power to change back, because you've rewritten your own biology too much.
Whoops, now you're stuck looking like a mix between Ted Cruz and a llama. Forever.

[Dendrek]

Omniscience, my personal favorite; downsides - none

Are you sure about that? You'd know all possible current, future and past events. How can you enjoy any new experience when you already know about every experience out there? There's no joy in discovery because there's no more discovery to be had. You'd also know every bad thing that exists too. Your mind would be filled with horrible nightmarish versions of reality.

- - - Updated - - -

There's something wrong with your thinking.
If you think that someone can be super-fast then they have totally different bodies, maybe their hearts would pump blood much faster, their muscles have much bigger efficiency etc.

Overall, that thread is a big failure and I tell you why - what's the point of adding Super Powers to normal human organisms and then trying to solve what could happen? That's a nonsense.

You're suggesting they have more super powers than are stated. You've basically just given the speedster super strength and super endurance. Comic books hand wave this (the flash has the "speed force" to protect him, etc).

[Ishayu]

Omniscience, my personal favorite; downsides - none

I can think of many, many things I don't want to know. For example, I don't want to know the exact details of what went on in that child rape down the street 3 years ago in cinematic detail.

[schwarzkopf]

Immortality - when the world ends, and you are floating in space bored to death, but without the death.
Invisibility - crossing a street
Omniscience - the knowledge of what is going on, but not being able to do anything about it.
Omnipotence - having to choose between what 'good deeds' you will do on a minute by minute basis. How many people will die because you want to rest for 5 minutes.

[Deleted]

Are you sure about that? You'd know all possible current, future and past events. How can you enjoy any new experience when you already know about every experience out there? There's no joy in discovery because there's no more discovery to be had. You'd also know every bad thing that exists too. Your mind would be filled with horrible nightmarish versions of reality.

I would know how to filter unwanted information off

[Eazy]

You're suggesting they have more super powers than are stated. You've basically just given the speedster super strength and super endurance. Comic books hand wave this (the flash has the "speed force" to protect him, etc).

Ah, okay, we're only talking about "one super power".

What about flying then? Wouldn't we die because there are not beneficial conditions for humans in the upper parts of atmosphere?

[Dendrek]

That's easy to solve. Bigger space between his atoms. Also - do you know that there are so many place between atoms in the human body that you could get entire humanity in a cube which is 1cm x 1cm x 1cm?

Source: Quantum physics.

That's not really that good of an explanation. There are a lot of reasons the Ant Man explanations are horrible:

1) When he becomes super small, you compact all of that matter into a smaller space. Once he becomes small enough, he will collapse into a black hole. Schwarzschild_radius.

2) When he becomes super big, the forces that hold his molecules together become weaker (or non-existent) and would no longer be able to keep him intact.

[ItachiZaku]

Being able to read minds, manipulate thoughts aka Parkman from heroes.

Go on, delete your thread. No one is reading it, don't you feel such shame... shame.