How would you feel about a world with superheroes?

[Morning Glory]

based on the answers so far about police power, I wonder how people would feel about these types of authority figures that are above the law and public reproach.

would you think that it was cool? would you really feel safer? or would it suck?

[malcolm]

"you die a hero or live long enough to see yourself become the villian"~Harvey Dent,dark knight.
that about sums it up.

[Amelia G]

"you die a hero or live long enough to see yourself become the villian"~Harvey Dent,dark knight.
that about sums it up.

I just finally got around to watching that on On-Demand last week. My expectations were high and the movie still hugely exceeded them. What an awesome flick!

To a certain extent, I think we do live in a world with superheroes. Egalitarian as American ideology wants to be, some people are just more capable than others. And the disparities between individuals are HUGE. The difference between a person with an average IQ and a person with 180 IQ is big. The difference between say Forrest Griffin or Michael Phelps' physical ability and say mine is big. It sounds trite, but some people use their powers for good and some . . . not so much. World leaders are generally people capable through clever manipulation or force of charisma or plain force, of running such game on their people that most have no idea what they've even been influenced to do or why.

That said, if the most extraordinary among us were more flamboyant and used their abilities to either fight crime or commit it . . . I guess I kind of think this is going on anyway and I do appreciate panache and a great outfit.

[malcolm]

I just finally got around to watching that on On-Demand last week. My expectations were high and the movie still hugely exceeded them. What an awesome flick!

.

i thought so too. personally though i think if they had more face time with twofac ein it he would have stolen the movie completely from ledger's joker.

[OliX]

That said, if the most extraordinary among us were more flamboyant and used their abilities to either fight crime or commit it . . . I guess I kind of think this is going on anyway and I do appreciate panache and a great outfit.

Now I'm puzzled, who is fighting the crime and who's committing it in the system that legally enslaved us all?

[nathanmbailey]

If there were superheros, I'd be a super villan.

[Lady Alias]

As long as I get a cool superpower, I'm alright.

[Aza]

If a 180-or-higher IQ counts as a superpower, then I'm already hooked up! Let's see if I live long enough to see myself become the villain... or if I already have and just haven't fully committed myself yet.

It's hard to say how long our society would last with a bunch of costumed vigilantes running around knocking one another off rooftops. Unless we'd operated that way from the very beginning, I don't think it would go over so well with the already-established law enforcement, particularly pertaining to beings actually possessing "superpowers." What we'd end up with would be a situation much like that portrayed in "X-Men" and other comics, where the general populace treats would-be heroes like villains, either pushing them into becoming so or forcing them to prove otherwise. There'd be government registration and monitoring of all "superhumans," and they'd be treated only slightly better than sex offenders. After all, who wants to live next to Captain Awesome if his mere presence threatens his neighbors with collateral damage? You see, the respect humans show towards power is nothing more than fear. The majority of people who believe in God only do so because they're afraid not to, the same way people respect cops for fear of fines or jail time. Personally, I'd rather fear the cops... despite the very good point that an existence among real-life superheroes would be infinitely more adventurous.

[OliX]

Wonder twins super powers would be supercoolawesome.

[Morning Glory]

wow. some really thoughtful posts on here.

what about if the only superhero we had was aquaman? would that impress anyone? haha

[Raza]

It'd be cool if everyone was above law and public reproach. A few people would really just be rolling dice; the results depend entirely on who they are and what they do with it.

[Mr Karl]

I'd work for damage control

[Mr Karl]

If a 180-or-higher IQ counts as a superpower, then I'm already hooked up! .

really?

[OliX]

If only 2% of population has 131 IQ and if 150+ is fucking rare then how rare is 180? My guess is like one in million. Those persons are discovered at early age and put in good hands. Probability of mental disorders goes up together with IQ.

You gotta be a nut job with IQ of 180. I'm glad I'm only 130+

[Raza]

You and everyone else on the internets...

You didn't happen to take an online test, did you?

[OliX]

Online tests give me 150+.

Military one gave me 136 when I was 19. I really have no idea how smart I am but I'm guessing definitely over 130.

I gotta pay visit to Mensa and finally clear this out once for all. IQ changes over years... it can go up and down and is highly depended on iron level in your blood and your overall condition.

[Amelia G]

Online tests give me 150+.

Military one gave me 136 when I was 19. I really have no idea how smart I am but I'm guessing definitely over 130.

I gotta pay visit to Mensa and finally clear this out once for all. IQ changes over years... it can go up and down and is highly depended on iron level in your blood and your overall condition.

Mensa is a support group for people who are not okay with having superhero brains.

[Raza]

All I ever noticed when I got smarter was an increase in irony levels.

[Amelia G]

All I ever noticed when I got smarter was an increase in irony levels.

My mom once told me, at an impressionable age, that whether or not a person understood sarcasm was like an impromptu IQ test.

[OliX]

My mom once told me, at an impressionable age, that whether or not a person understood sarcasm was like an impromptu IQ test.

Test of a certain type of intelligence. Don't forget there's many types. That's why full evaluation of psychologist is needed for a qualified IQ test.

[Raza]

My mom once told me, at an impressionable age, that whether or not a person understood sarcasm was like an impromptu IQ test.

So, did you pass?

[Amelia G]

So, did you pass?

I don't think she realized that I would then value sarcasm. Oopsie.

You've got the superhero outfits all set to go.

I feel this all proves my point.

(Oh and my parents did not rely on sarcasm. They had all of their offspring tested at Columbia University like normal psychopaths.)

[Mr Karl]

so, uh, what's a high intelligence good for anyway?see, I figure I must have an average intelligence, I'm not drooling and I can't do quadratic equations........now if I'm correct average IQ is 100, now I've come across a lot of people who supposedly have IQ's well over 100. I also know a few cretins too. Now useing me as an example of an typical average guy and looking at the cretin to genius ratio and applying it on a more global scale it seems to me that there should be millions of genius', so many in fact that it's suprising that things are such a mess right now................

whatever, I'm just muttering to myself..............

[Morning Glory]

If your Intelligence Level doesn't equal you blowing up shit with your mind, then I don't care.

[Aza]

You gotta be a nut job with IQ of 180.

An objective assessment, not entirely lacking in truth or relevance.

[malcolm]

a few things i was thinking about over this topic was let's look at all the negative sto having a superheor or heros in the world.

as of late, comic book companies have been trying to humanise their comics in some form or another. i shouldnt really say as of late because they've been doing it for a while now but anwyay, with a superhero, you're going to have a great deal of property damage. being as most superheros out there ar enot properly traine din hand to hand combat or use their superpowers as a weapon and if they're a gun toting vigilante like the punisher or a gadget wielding one like bat-man and iron-man you're gonna eventually hav side causalties as well. people ot in the way of a stray bullet, stray batarang etc.

also, there's the problem of a superheor inspiring people so much that they spawn irrseponsible counterparts or copycats. that's one fo the things i liked about dark knight was the opening fight where scarecrow was duck and covering over all the gun toting batmen in hockey gear who thought they were helping when in actualilty they wer emakign the situation worse. and then ofcourse, super-villians.

most super villians are designed or inspired by super heroes because they really want to see that hero fail and they want to be the one to do it. so in a heor being created so too does he create villlians. do you really think the joker would exist if batman wasnt around? (allan moore went into that)
what about the green goblin and venom? green goblin came to be because he was originally a villian designer for a government organization to keep heros in check and got tired of the villians he created failng against spider-man (that's the official origin by marvel now) and venom was created out of revenge for spidey casting it aside the abomination was created to stop hulk, violator was sent to earth to keep spawn in line, the white violin was created because she wasnt good enough to be an active member of the umbrella academy,

so with every hero comes atleast ten or more people trying to stop them, tons of property and lives damaged or gone in the cross fire and a huge deficit on building repairs. plus i would imagine the fella who had his car lifted up by both super-man and super-girl and the clone of super-man probably didnt have super hero insurance damage on it so that probably came out of his pocket.

[Wickedanima]

It would be fun for all of five minutes to get some drifting romantic thought that we'd all be safe. Then I'd realize I don't agree at all with the values of this superhero, and end up gofering for a supervillian until I lost enough weight to fit into a fabulous spandex villaness set.

[OliX]

An objective assessment, not entirely lacking in truth or relevance.

It's a scientific fact, they wouldn't teach it in behavioral psychology.

It's funny, I knew a professor that was one unique guy, very smart, had a photographic memory. He could remember your scores exactly from couple years ago. One day he just snapped. He's still in asylum, not talking to anyone at all.

[inox]

You and everyone else on the internets...

You didn't happen to take an online test, did you?

Srsly, every third person on the Intarwebs supposedly has an IQ that's far to the right on the bell curve.

Also, everyone on the net is amazing in bed and can kick anyone's ass.

[Dusk]

If I could develope superpowers that would be awesome, but I dont really know where to start. I got tested for my IQ when I was in year 5 and got 174 (exactly the same as my mums), but Ive slacked of majorly since then so I might start working on it.

[Aza]

It's a scientific fact.

Oh, everything's a scientific fact until the exception(s) to the rule are discovered.

Point blank; I appreciate and accept why you're having a hard time believing me, but I'm sorry at the same time that you feel the need to reject my claims out-of-hand. Part of being "smart" is knowing that we don't know everything... that we'll never know everything. I don't know why my numbers registered the way they did, nor do I know why I'm still walking around free to mingle with the world at large rather than locked inside a padded room enjoying free drugs and solitude. I've never exactly been what I or anyone else would call "sane." On the other hand, as has been said, IQ's fluctuate. Mine has all-too-likely gone down since my last psychological examination, given that it's been slightly over a decade. Regardless, if I'd known that revealing it (or what it used to be) would result in this type of sneer-inciting, close-minded skepticism, I'd have kept it as secure a secret as my parents once kept the results of my first IQ test from me.

In fact, I don't think we could have better illustrated my earlier point about the ridicule, fear, and hatred that real superheroes would receive from society. Any ability or talent a being possesses that raises them above the standard would only serve to make them a target for resentment and persecution in our world.

[inox]

Having a high IQ does not directly correlate with the sort of mental problems that get one institutionalized. People with high IQs are far more likely to be neurotic and/or quirky than they are to be some gibbering, Renfield-esque character eating bugs off the wall.

If you honestly happen to have a 180+ IQ, good for you, honestly. However, since I don't really know you at all, I hope you can appreciate that someone posting that they have a high IQ is a rather common and commonly false claim.

[FedorasBox]

bring on the sexy men in tight black clothes, flexing their abs and saving me from *gasp* danger.

[OliX]

Oh, everything's a scientific fact until the exception(s) to the rule are discovered.

Point blank; I appreciate and accept why you're having a hard time believing me, but I'm sorry at the same time that you feel the need to reject my claims out-of-hand.

Oh Aza, you got it all wrong. I'm not rejecting anything. Honestly, I don't believe my self enough. so how do you expect me to believe anyone else on the internet. It's not just you but generally. I hope you understand that. I have impression that you got me all wrong. Don't. I'm a good guy

[ROGIZOID]

I would feel super jealous because i didnt have powers.

Honestly, i think i wouldnt be down with that.
IF we had a hero you know there would be villians.
There is too much shit going on in this world and the last thing we need is super-beings.
:]

[VoltaireBlue]

actually, I think it would suck. most superheroes just can't mind their own business.

[Valerian Reign]

I hate it. They seem to be the only subject of movies these days. That, and crappy remakes.

[Ajax Knucklebones]

wow. some really thoughtful posts on here.

what about if the only superhero we had was aquaman? would that impress anyone? haha

Communicating with fish? Maybe Greenpeace would be excited. I think if he were real, he'd probably just end up as the greatest fisherman who ever lived or a main attraction at a freak show. After that, who would give a shit.

Aquaman: "I communicate with fish".
Stranger:" Yeah, and I pour concrete for a living. What's your fucking point?"