Would you choose invisibility or teleportation?

You could turn invisibility on and off as you like and there would be no time limit. Your clothes would turn invisible too, and you could decide whether the items you are holding would be visible or not.

There would be no limits on how many times or where you could teleport. The items you hold while teleporting would be teleported too. You would also have the ability to know if the place would be safe to teleport to, so you wouldn’t teleport and get impaled by an icicle or teleport inside a wall and get your insides filled with concrete or something.

Personally, I don’t know which one would I pick. Invisibility would be awesome for pranks and stuff, but teleportation probably would be more useful for everyday life.

BruceBeer,

Ha, I’m already invisible for all non nefarious purposes, I choose teleportation.

RBWells,

Teleportation by a long shot, though I would be afraid it would make me fat and unhealthy (never walking just teleporting everywhere).

If you are saying I can hold another person and teleport us both? Abso-damn-lutely teleportation, can you imagine the savings on travel?

wooki, (edited )

Thinking too small.

Contract out to nasa or highest bidder and transport goods and people to ISS. Transport goods and people to mars. Get spacesuits and transport asteroids to the highest bidder. Become richest person on earth.

Lemminary, (edited )

Plot twist: The conspiracies are true and NASA drugs you and abducts to you experiment on you and learns to milk that sweet teleportatium out your ears while tied up in an underground warehouse somewhere in Area 51.

wooki,

Oh great now it’s a horror story.

PowerGloveSoBad,

Invisibility. Ever been the only person in a friend group who owns a truck?

“Oh, I guess the family and I will need to book some expensive flight tickets… unless PowerGloveSoBad wants to just give us a ride”

“Oh, I guess my administration will need to invest billions in foreign aid… unless PowerGloveSoBad wants to just carry all the boxes”

ExtraMedicated,

Your country needs you(r truck).

ace_garp, (edited )
@ace_garp@lemmy.world avatar

Grandma got a new phone… . . . -=Invisibility on=-

AeroLemming,

Just charge people for it. You could say $100 per teleport and then give your friends a “discounted” rate of $50. That’s still like $300 to move half a dozen people and all you have to do is show up and spend a couple of minutes going back and forth.

PowerGloveSoBad,

PowerGloveSoBad’s Mom: PowerGloveSoBad? It’s Mom. I was talking to Aunt Kathy and she said you charged her $50 to move that stuff in her attic. Call me back or I’m coming over.

AeroLemming,

Oh no! Anyway…

TheBananaKing,

Even better, portals.

All the benefits of teleportation, plus you could slap a portal to the sun in front of people you don’t like.

AeroLemming, (edited )

I feel like opening a portal to the sun would result in lots of highly pressurized, super-heated plasma shooting through and fucking annihilating everything in a massive area around the portal. I guess you could do it if you wanted to blow up, like, an entire building with a tiny and short-lived portal. Same thing in reverse when opening a portal into space.

TheBananaKing,

“Don’t like” was kind of understated.

Xariphon,

Teleportation, hands down.

southsamurai,
@southsamurai@sh.itjust.works avatar

Yeah, teleportation solves way more real life problems than invisibility does.

Invisibility in the real world, for a civilian, is really only good for pranks and crime. Which isn’t exactly a bad thing, but teleportation can do all of that and more.

Tedesche,

You could use your invisibility to become the most effective citizen journalist in the world though. Get footage of Exxon execs scheming with politicians to fuck the planet or get world leaders on tape dismissing the Geneva conventions, that sort of thing.

AeroLemming,

You could do that just as well with teleportation, possibly even better depending on what security measures you need to bypass. Teleport in, plant a bug, dig through their computer for anything incriminating, teleport out.

Of course, obtaining evidence in this way makes it illegal to use in court, but that doesn’t really matter because the people you’re after will never be taken down in court anyway.

Tedesche,

Of course, obtaining evidence in this way makes it illegal to use in court

That’s why I said citizen journalist. Exposing corrupt people in the news is a major step towards criminal court, and even if there is no case, public opinion can be swayed and that’s a death sentence in many ways.

uberkalden,

You could in most cases so the same with teleportation

Gamerman153,

Assuming they don’t have access to thermals…

Tedesche,

Good question whether or not invisibility extends to the infrared and ultraviolet spectra. That’d be pretty clutch.

RegalPotoo,
@RegalPotoo@lemmy.world avatar

Teleportation would be neat assuming you can just totally disregard basic laws of physics like conservation of momentum - otherwise you end up either as a red smear somewhere, or accidentally turn yourself into a kinetic energy weapon

jol,

I would be afraid of accidentally teleporting into a wall.

Maalus,

That’d be covered by the “you know if it’s safe” clause

intensely_human,

Yeah but then the wall is fucked up.

qyron,

I always understood teleportation as a accelerate-decelerate sequence to reach the end point, as in not A to B but A to B to C, where B is the midpoint where you have enough momentum to naturally stop at your destination.

RegalPotoo,
@RegalPotoo@lemmy.world avatar

A lot of depictions of teleportation seem to imply that you instantaneously move between two distinct points in space without having moved through the intervening matter - if that’s the case you have to deal with a whole lot of complexity to ensure that you are moving at an appropriate speed at your destination - it depends a lot on your reference point, but imagine teleporting from the equator to the north pole without accounting for the difference in velocity of the ground due to the earth being a sphere. If you were standing still on the equator but preserved your momentum through the jump, you’d be moving at 1600km/h when you arrived. Air friction and the sonic boom alone would mess you up, let alone if you collided with something.

You are right, you could solve it by having the teleportation move you through some sort of hyperspace and making the jump almost instantaneous so you have time to accelerate and decelerate, but even then you’d need to hand wave away where the energy goes. Imagine the same set up, you’ve accelerated through hyperspace towards the pole, then decelerated back down to end up going 1600km/h slower than you started. For an average person this is about 8 MJ of excess kinetic energy that has to go somewhere

Neil,
@Neil@lemmy.ml avatar

deleted_by_author

    •
    Eylrid,

    You could still be naked. Who’s going to know?

    Kolanaki,
    @Kolanaki@yiffit.net avatar

    Teleportation. Doesn’t matter if you can see me when I can just pop in and out in an instant.

    Snorf,

    If you can pop in and out fast enough then you can be there and not be there at the same time.

    seanziepples,

    Wear clothes that cover your identifying features

    killeronthecorner,
    @killeronthecorner@lemmy.world avatar

    I’ll teleport to where you can’t see me. Checkmate legtards

    ohlaph,

    Teleportation. Hands down

    Thorny_Insight,

    Invisibility.

    I don’t know why but I love the feeling of being able to watch people without them knowing about my presence. I spend a lot of time in nature and intentionally dress to blend in and I love that often when I hear/see people near me I can just stand there in plain sight and they still often don’t notice me.

    RogueBanana,

    I don’t know if this is creepy or cute but uh keep doing but not next to me

    Asudox,
    @Asudox@lemmy.world avatar

    What if he’s already invisible and saw you typing this comment?

    Lemminary,

    Does the teleportation come with a bampf noise or do I have to carry my own bluetooth speaker and a button? This is make or break for me.

    qyron,

    Do I sense Nightcrawler vibes?

    Tedesche,

    No, that super sense wasn’t one of the options.

    qyron,

    The best teleporter ever created, regardless the drawback.

    Lemminary,

    Yes! Although someone requested an Elderman sound and now I want the sound effect to be customizable via an app.

    Mostly_Gristle,

    I want the H2G2 Krikkit robot teleportation noises: the sound of 100,000 people saying “WHOP!” when you appear, and 100,000 people saying “FOOP!” when you disappear.

    AeroLemming,

    I only want teleportation if it makes me sound like an Enderman!

    JawnZ,

    Teleportation solves the world energy crisis, invisibility does not.

    hungryphrog,

    How could teleportation solve the energy crisis? I’m too lazy to think myself so pls elaborate.

    qyron, (edited )

    Scratch costs with transportation. No need for any means of transportation.

    Also a lot more free time. No commuting, no early leave to get somewhere on time. Just blink and you’re there.

    JawnZ,

    In addition to what the other commenter said: from the description of OP, the teleportation is basically “magic”, ergo free potential energy (by moving objects from one place to another).

    Create a large magnet in a generator that’s very tall, free transport the magnet up to the top, let it fall slowly creating electricity. It’s basically how hydro works: the sun “transports” water, in the form of clouds, to a higher point, gravity pulls it down, we use that to make energy.

    gmtom,

    What if you could only teleport yourself and not other objects?

    JawnZ,

    There would be no limits on how many times or where you could teleport. The items you hold while teleporting would be teleported too.

    Sure, if you choose to change the parameters from what OP said, it might change the outcome.

    That said, the other guy already answered you. It would become less efficient if you only had your body weight, but it still a solve of unlimited (though small volume) energy.

    blackstampede,

    Build a flywheel with a bunch of places to stand positioned around the wheel, teleport to the higher platforms as the wheel turns.

    Chobbes,

    I don’t think that’s necessarily true. It could use energy proportional to the energy that could be gained by moving an object somewhere.

    JawnZ,

    There would be no limits on how many times or where you could teleport. The items you hold while teleporting would be teleported too.

    Sure, if you choose to change the parameters from what OP said, it might change the outcome.

    otter, (edited )

    It could help in a lot of other crises too

    During a natural disaster, you could jump back and forth carrying aid in, and the wounded people out. In any time sensitive crisis, you could get people out of harms way. This bit is more complicated, but you could potentially help out during floods and fires, depending on how far the ‘teleport other stuff with you’ extends to.

    A reasonable limit might be ‘Only what you could physically carry yourself’, in which case you’d need to be a lot more strategic. In that case, you could work on personal strength and be a one-human-rescue-team. When there isn’t a disaster, you could probably shuttle light weight (but important) stuff for a fee, then use that money to fund your own charity to do good

    As for this prompt, you could probably just teleport away when someone might see you, or teleport to spots that people can’t see. So you could do most things that invisibility would allow

    Tedesche,

    If I could somehow be assured that the world wouldn’t immediately turn in me when they discovered my super power and try to capture me for its own ends, teleportation. If not…definitely invisibility. Much easier to hide the power, not just myself.

    Stern,
    @Stern@lemmy.world avatar

    Most of the things you want to do with invisibility you can do with teleportation, but likely better. The only exception being hiding in the lockerroom of your preferred gender but bruh, c’mon this isn’t a 80’s movie. Also maybe faking a haunting since the invisibility lets you make stuff “float”.

    Wanna be rich or just have loot? Teleport somewhere you know has it. Grab and go.

    Wanna kill somebody? Teleport to their bedroom while they sleep and shoot them. Or for the less messy alternative, teleport in, grab them, teleport a hundred feet above Point Nemo, drop 'em, and dip.

    Wanna live a life unbothered by anyone? Teleport to the middle of nowhere and slowly bring in supplies. Pop out and back in whenever you feel like it.

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