Coolest Superpower for the Real World

[ShadowWarrior]

Which is my point. Active powers sound cool but in real life they'd lose almost all their appeal.

I would think super strength wouldn't be a burden unless I don't know how to control it.

Once I do, it would help me in a pinch in most life and death scenarios you can think of.

Especially in self-defense.

[Sol_M]

We live in a world where every single day somebody somewhere is killing somebody else because they pray to different gods, were born in a different place or for some other idiotic reason. So with that in mind, it isnÂ’t hard for me to believe the world wouldnÂ’t take the discovery of a superhuman very well. Granted it may take the world a while to accept something like thatÂ’s real but all it takes is catching the attention of the wrong person. But that a different discussion entirely.

I can see how you'd come to that conclusion, sure. I personally feel that it's a false equivalence here, but YMMV.

As for why I’m applying real world stuff to super powers ... well isn’t that the point of the thread? The title is literally called “the best super power to have [B]in real life[B]. Which is why I feel most powers would just be worthless at best or a burden at worst because a lot of them lose any appeal when you fully consider what it’d be like to have those powers in the world we live in today. I don’t understand what’s so confusing about that?

Actually, it's literally called the "coolest superpower for the real world". :P

But no, the point is to apply super powers in the context of real world scenarios to see which one you feel has the most utility/which one you prefer, using things like basic logic and pretend rules (the same kind of stuff you use to debate fictional battles). The point is not to apply real life science to it, because then the superpowers just fall apart in a million ways that don't even have anything to do with control.

There's a sense of responsibility, sure. My objection was more to the phrasing of Tami's "You decide who lives and who dies," statement.

To my mind, even if I were to dedicate my whole life to becoming a wandering healer, going into hospitals and just curing everyone in there, there are thousands of people who would still be unwell or die in the world at large. The only time where the binary choice would come into play would be if I was equidistant between two people who had just suffered equally traumatic fatal wounds and I didn't have time to save one and then the other. Then it would be my call but, since this is real world and not a Telltale video game, that sort of thing doesn't really happen.

It's not my choice who gets hurt. It's not my decision who dies. If I am there and someone is sick or hurt then I can heal them. That's their fortune for encountering me. I would make a trip to the hospitals in my city and heal sick kids or something because it's grossly unfair for a parent to bury their child.

Not to take anything away from what you just said, but what you've described is literally a case of you deciding who lives and who dies, for any given sample of dying people that you have access to (if both spacial and temporal criteria are met).

But yes, I agree that the whole deal about feeling like you're responsible for people dying because you chose to save other people instead reeks of the stuff like the Trolley Dilemma (complex from a cognitive perspective, but you're not going to lose sleep over it) or the silly attempts that video games these days make to try to make you feel like there's some meaningful binary choice you can make.

[Sharpandpointies]

Especially in self-defense.

Do you anticipate having to defend yourself in a life-or-death situation sufficient amount of times in life, so that some lesser-destructive but still incredibly useful power (that might still be fairly handy in a life-or-death situation) wouldn't be a better choice?

If you do, then I would not want to live where you live. O_o

[Sol_M]

To be fair, if there's even a small (as opposed to insignificant) risk of it happening to you due to where/how you live or work it's probably worth picking up something with the capability of guaranteeing survival in the face of life and death situations. Even if it only comes into play once every 5 years, it'd be worth it.

That said, I was thinking of superstrength as something that would help you make things less physically taxing on yourself and easily perform activities that you normally need the help of tools or people for.

If you need to survive life and death situations, there's far better stuff.

[Arsenal]

I would think super strength wouldn't be a burden unless I don't know how to control it.

Once I do, it would help me in a pinch in most life and death scenarios you can think of.

Especially in self-defense.

Super-strength + self-defense = bad combo imo

You gonna accidentally kill some people that way.

[The Chou Lives]

Super-strength + self-defense = bad combo imo

You gonna accidentally kill some people that way.

Depends on the situation. Like you know in every Light.

[Arsenal]

Depends on the situation. Like you know innevery Light.

I'm not going to pretend that I know what that's supposed to mean.

All I'm saying is it'd real easy to misjudge how much strength you use and might put somebody through a wall instead of getting them away.

[The Chou Lives]

I'm not going to pretend that I know what that's supposed to mean.

All I'm saying is it'd real easy to misjudge how much strength you use and might put somebody through a wall instead of getting them away.

All you got to do is grapple them, but baring real strength and maybe they will chill the hell down.

Now if you literally falcon punch the attacker, that’s deliberate killing to point. Or like using a hell of a improv weapon as well.

Because having super strength helps depending on siruation. But so that murder does not happen, treat everything like cars board or a egg.

[Arsenal]

All you got to do is grapple them, but baring real strength and maybe they will chill the hell down.

Now if you literally falcon punch the attacker, that’s deliberate killing to point. Or like using a hell of a improv weapon as well.

Because having super strength helps depending on siruation. But so that murder does not happen, treat everything like cars board or a egg.

Grappling is dangerous enough with normal strength, I don’t even wanna think about the damage you can do when you factor super strength in there

[ShadowWarrior]

Do you anticipate having to defend yourself in a life-or-death situation sufficient amount of times in life, so that some lesser-destructive but still incredibly useful power (that might still be fairly handy in a life-or-death situation) wouldn't be a better choice?

If you do, then I would not want to live where you live. O_o

I work in the south bronx, one of the worst areas in nyc. and even worse, sometimes I stay overtime and usually clock out near midnight.

Yeah, you don't want to work where I do. It will raise your anxiety to a whole new level.

[Sharpandpointies]

I work in the south bronx, one of the worst areas in nyc. and even worse, sometimes I stay overtime and usually clock out near midnight.

Yeah, you don't want to work where I do. It will raise your anxiety to a whole new level.

Sounds less-than-pleasant. Stay safe, if possible.