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The Batman: Pics, Videos, and Other Awesomeness

Discussion in 'General Chat' started by Bowser, Sep 1, 2016.

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  1. Killer Angel
    Slann

    Killer Angel Prophet of the Stars Staff Member

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    I would take batman everyday. ;)
     
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  2. NIGHTBRINGER
    Slann

    NIGHTBRINGER Second Spawning

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    Nah, I'll take the god-like powers... please & thank you.
     
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  3. Killer Angel
    Slann

    Killer Angel Prophet of the Stars Staff Member

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    I'm a humble person. I'm fine with the multibillionaire empire and the superior intelligence.
     
  4. Scalenex
    Slann

    Scalenex Keeper of the Indexes Staff Member

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    First I would make sure I have Superman's restraint. I'd hate to accidentally kill someone while saving them.
     
  5. NIGHTBRINGER
    Slann

    NIGHTBRINGER Second Spawning

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    I think the real issue is the old adage: "Power corrupts, absolute power corrupts absolutely". Superman's powers in the real world would be godly. No kryptonite, no super weapons, no other super heroes or villains, etc. Just you with the ability to do nearly anything. Imagine being untethered from natural and human law. Imagine answering to no one. It's a very slippery slope.
     
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  6. Scalenex
    Slann

    Scalenex Keeper of the Indexes Staff Member

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    No I fine with that part. I'm sure I'd eventually be the benevolent Ruler of Earth. The world made of cardboard is a different problem.



    Frank Miller actually stated that Superman could only be romantically involved with Wonder Woman and no one else because every other woman on Earth was "too fragile", but none of the other comic/movie/TV writers gave Superman that problem. That was part of Superman having "the talk" with his daughter and if it wasn't awkward enough.
     
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  7. NIGHTBRINGER
    Slann

    NIGHTBRINGER Second Spawning

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    I think 99.99% of people would be corrupted. A friend and I had this discussion, and I eventually convinced him that the only way to avoid such a fate would be to isolate yourself from society.

    Even people with the best of intentions could be made to fall if the wrong circumstances came about.

    I don't think this would be a problem at all. He clearly as the ability to modulate the force he applies. Otherwise he couldn't write with a pencil or open a door without breaking them.

    Think of the world's strongest man, while much weaker than Superman, he has no issue holding an infant without injuring it (even though his strength is many times greater than what is needed to inflict said injury). Or an example in our hobby, we're able to paint miniatures because we can very precisely control the amount of force we generate in our muscles. A stroke of the paint brush is applied with an extremely small percentage of our muscles' maximum.
     
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  8. Scalenex
    Slann

    Scalenex Keeper of the Indexes Staff Member

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    Well the post asked what the first thing you would do. The first thing I would do is verify that I can open a door and hold a pencil before I start interacting with people.

    I was being facetious when I said I would be the benevolent ruler of Earth. I'm pretty sure I wouldn't stay benevolent very long.
     
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  9. NIGHTBRINGER
    Slann

    NIGHTBRINGER Second Spawning

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    I'm guessing the CCP would be in trouble :p
     
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  10. Scalenex
    Slann

    Scalenex Keeper of the Indexes Staff Member

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    Joseph Kony would be first. He needs to die, ideally I would do what Iron Man did and give him to his victims.

    Dismantling the CCP would be tricky since it's an institution not a person. They are like the Borg. I'm not sure how many of the Borg drones are morally responsible for the evil the Borg do collectively.

    Super Scalenex would at least initially avoid killing people. I'm sure I'd fall down the slippery slope of violence eventually.

    If I could have godlike superpowers, I would rather have god like knowledge rather than godlike might. I would really love the ability to conjure recordings of any event that ever transpired and have them play anywhere I choose.

    I would then would expose the dirty laundry of about a hundred or so evil people in power and broadcast it to the all the people who are in a position to get vengeance. Then broadcast "To all the rest of you evil people in power, if you step down now, I will keep your secrets, unless you are a genocider or child rapist than you need to start running."
     
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  11. NIGHTBRINGER
    Slann

    NIGHTBRINGER Second Spawning

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    Unexpectedly, from the sounds of it, your morale decline seems like it would be steeper than mine.

    The only problem with that is that they might decide to take you out instead. Even with compliance you'd be a constant threat to them.
     
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  12. Killer Angel
    Slann

    Killer Angel Prophet of the Stars Staff Member

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    My multibillionaire empire appears to be a solid pick. :D
     
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  13. NIGHTBRINGER
    Slann

    NIGHTBRINGER Second Spawning

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    With Superman's abilities you could have a multi-trillion dollar empire if you really wanted to.
     
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  14. Killer Angel
    Slann

    Killer Angel Prophet of the Stars Staff Member

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    I recall a similar debate. It went sexual, and at a certain point someone pointed out that superman would likely kill a normal woman. Not because he's incapable of controlling is strenght, but because the speed and strenght of his sperms would break any condom and likely cause critical internal damage to the woman. :p
     
  15. NIGHTBRINGER
    Slann

    NIGHTBRINGER Second Spawning

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  16. Scalenex
    Slann

    Scalenex Keeper of the Indexes Staff Member

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    I actually put a lot of thought into this. I also daydream about what I would do with super powers (though I usually give myself super powers far short of Superman), but I have yet to figure out to use super powers against the CCP. The CCP is an evil institution not an evil person. That's a lot harder to fight.

    I often think of the Milgram experiment. It is surprisingly easy to coerce ordinary people into doing cruel things and the CCP has generations of indoctrination-based pro-party education backing up obedience.

    As for the individuals, it would be very hard to sort out which CCP members are truly evil and which ones are puppets. I'm not sure how to redeem a puppet but I don't think killing or imprisoning the entire party (which is about 1% of the Chinese population) would be ethical or feasible even with Superman's power. I don't think taking out Winnie the Pooh would fix things. A decapitation of the party leadership could cause more hardship among the normal Chinese population.

    It would it also not be satisfying to murder thousands of people even if they are agents of evil. Though it would be fun to fly after the CCP's illegal fishing fleets and pick up and carry all their ships and dump in the Sahara desert. Super Scalenex could wreck their finanicial plans without shedding blood.

    I once heard that that it is painful to leave an abusive relationship because even an abuse relationship does something good. This could apply to an abusive government. As my dad once said, even a corrupt police officer will still redirect traffic after a car accident or chase a pick pocket. Extrapolating this, I'm sure the Chinese people would suffer with no government at all.

    In the real world, the CCP has a long time of strategy "Don't challenge us on _____, or we'll do something you won't like." Then the Western world caves and the CCP does the bad thing anyway.

    But in anyway, even superman can't be everywhere at once. It's a lot easier to punish bad guys than protect the innocent. Hypothetically if I flew in with a phantom zone projector and started tossing the worst CCP members (either by targeting the upper leadership or the staff of the genocide camps) into the phantom zone, their confederates could still retaliate against civilians.

    Lets say I did use my super powers to shut down every genocide camp by force. What next? Do I fly every Uigher, Mongolian, and Tibetan to safety two people at a time. Where can I safely keep ten million+ refugees?
    In the real world, I believe the best way to defeat the CCP is to starve them of money. If we stopped investing in CCP shell companies and stopped buying "Made in China" products as much as possible.

    State planned economies suck at making money but they have good spy programs. The CCP has kept themselves afloat financially by stealing intellectual property and carefully bribing or blackmailing key individuals that can set them up with lots of investment money and long term trade deals while leeching the companies and nations these individuals are theoretically supposed to be representing.

    So let's say Super Scalenex starts out as a vanilla superhero. I fly around saving people and puppies from accidents and natural disaster in mostly First World countries. I wouldn't charge people to save their lives, that's not very heroic. But I would hire a PR team and start a Kickstarter for voluntary donations.

    Once I had a couple million dollars, I would fly around the world's least desirable land looking for gold, oil, and diamonds and what not that no one is aware of. Then I would buy the cheap land, mine the resources, and become the richest man on Earth.

    Then I could buy land, buildings, and hire staff to provide shelter, food, and protection to millions of refugees. I could also use oil and other natural resources to subsidize financial institutions and nations that financially decouple from the CCP.

    Then I would really go after the CCP, wrecking their most expensive toys. I could also fly to the South Pacific countries where the CCP buys the president or prime minister and then augments their police force so that bought leader can defy the entire will of the people, I could fly in and take away all the CCP's puppets money and toys in a single afternoon.

    Heck, with my super great wealth, I could rebuild a damaged Pacific Islands nation's infrastructure. I think all of the Pacific Island countries the CCP have been flexing on have smaller government budgets than Jeff Bezos.
     
    Last edited: Sep 22, 2022
  17. Tk'ya'pyk
    Skar-Veteran

    Tk'ya'pyk Well-Known Member

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    At least you have a plan. That's more than most people would come up with.
     
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  18. NIGHTBRINGER
    Slann

    NIGHTBRINGER Second Spawning

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    Do evil Chaos-inspired plans count? :p
     
  19. NIGHTBRINGER
    Slann

    NIGHTBRINGER Second Spawning

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    [​IMG]
     
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  20. Killer Angel
    Slann

    Killer Angel Prophet of the Stars Staff Member

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    I could be among the cheering crowd... :p

     
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