Pretty much the title. I’ve been watching more realistic super hero shows like The Boys and Invincible. The reoccurring themes is that with great power comes great immorality.
I think it’s easy for us normies to respect other people and their property because there are clear consequences for violating social norms. But what would the average person do if they had super powers?
There are multiple ways to approach this, but first some context
I identity as an agonistic atheist/ex-muslim and am gay men living in a muslim country. Right now my fear of consequence relates to being found out and killed/losing my job/ put in prison/ becoming homeless or becoming braindead /paralyzed/living with agonizing pain if i try to kill myself, plus the guilt of leaving my family with no money, so yeah. Historically for me, trying to make sense of human nature has been hell itself. There is my sister who identifies as a leftist communist progressive Muslim and then there is mom who calls Black people slaves and servants and think women shouldn’t be allowed to drive(also has on multiple occasions has called my sister then 13 years old daughter “jokingly” a slut). Trying to put the whole of humanity, from all over the world, from all of time into one of two binary boxes is dumb. We do’nt to that to other spices, so why humans. We don’t label all cats, all dogs or all birds as ultimately good or bad, they just are.
Ironically, this is the same argument alot of reglions/reglious people use to control thier followers, enternal damnation and all. In fact, i have personal experience with this way of thinking. Were i am from, we are tough that the west is all hedonist and only care about this plane of existence and we are morally superior and so on.
Another point of view is, the opposite can also be true, when i am in a bank and filling in a forum and someone needs a pen, i give them an extra pen i brought with me or when i finished my business and lingerie a bit if someone else needs a pen or when i get into the elevator and hold the door open for a little bit in case someone comes or when holding the door open for people or just saying thank you. Its little things but they make a difference in my day.
Also as some other commenters have said i just don’t think about raping people, like if the only thing stopping me is consequence, then it make sense to think that is all i ever think of . Its not like i don’t have impulsive thoughts like slapping someone while in a moving bus and have thought about killing my abusive father in the past more times then i can count. Those things are either very tame and uncommon thoughts or brought on under extreme circumstances and even then, i didn’t act on them.
It should also be pointed out that such narratives benefit those in power. As zoe bee said in her video governments don’t panic, people do. Also nulear Apocalypse was only avoided due to the dystopian threat of mutual destruction which was going to be caused in the first place by an error.
Lastly, saying that those are realistic heroes is cringe, you are a least 30 years late to the party.
It’s weird how a person will believe they have all license to choose to be terrible version of themselves and think everyone else is just holding back. Rapists think this of all humanity. That underneath it all everyone would just be raping each other if they could get away with it. It never occurs to them these thoughts might not even occur to a person or that if it does it doesn’t really appeal. Or that people have other things they find fulfilling that just doesn’t involve hurting other people and just aren’t fixated on shit like this.
People don’t need super powers for that, it’s so easy. Crack open the way for the ego drug and they do anything. Nobody is immune. The “holier” the person, the easier it is.
My morals wouldn’t change at all, my behavior would change since I don’t need to worry about consequences of fixing systemic injustice by doing “sick crimes”
Usually how it works is time for you is active, but what is you? Usually thar includes clothes and stuff, and other matter inside of us that isn’t usually considered a part of us. If we extend this logic, it’d include the air in us and maybe toughing us. I think this would be more fun, because it’d leave a vacuum behind us and superheat any air we move, because it’s instantly moving without any time passing. Basically when time unfreezes there’s be a massive sonic boom on out path with superheated air all around.
Looks up social control theory. It basically argues that we all are well behaved because we worry about the social consequences of our bad actions. You remove social control. The moral behaviours goes out the window. It’s pretty well supported framework for understanding human behaviour.
I feel like this doesn’t adequately explain why I can’t manage to force myself to do an evil playthrough of Baldurs Gate 3…like the social sphere there isn’t even real. Nobody bloody cares and I am missing out on a fair chunk of game content that I purchased but I feel too bad about being a dick to imaginary people who don’t exist to betray or kill them.
I have the feeling that if I ended up with a sort of superpower that made me able to stop time I would barely use it for anything like mean spirited pranks and probably just use it to get to work on time, take breaks when I feel like and have more free time to read.
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