But Barry’s office mates had the option available to them to practice softball for four hours a day since early childhood. Even if they had done so, they might still not be as good as him, but they’d certainly be able to give him some stiff competition. However, your competitors presumably did not have the option offered to them to choose any three superpowers.
That said, I really liked the scene at the end of The Incredibles where (spoiler) Dash got to compete against ‘normal’ kids in a running tournament. (end spoiler) Strictly speaking, it might have been unfair to the other competitors. But then again, it’s not like he’s playing by different rules than the others, so why shouldn’t he be allowed to use his natural gifts? Let the others compete for second place if they want to.
In fact, the entire theme of that movie is pretty closely linked to the theme of this thread. Bricker, if you haven’t seen it yet, you really owe it to yourself to do so – it should provide enough food for three or four other long car trips.
Ethical or not, superheores would make pro sports incredibly boring. Lance Armstrong is compelling because his victories are the result of incredible training and overcoming horrendous adversity. And he could still lose. He certainly will lose if he’s overconfident and doesn’t prepare or work hard. If the Flash entered the Tour de France, He’d complete it in a day and without much effort. No one would watch sports, the money would dry up, and pro sports leagues would go out of business. The leagues would probably ban superheroes from competing.
Superman could probably make a ton of money in various other areas: Construction, Space exploration, or national defence. Communication companies would pay him huge amounts of money for satellite installation and servicing. Xavier could work as a corporate consultant, a lawyer, an intelligence officer, or a host of other gigs. Both would have a lot of free time left over to help the innocent and do good.
How about the analogy of the different sporting categories? The aim of sport is not only to win, but to win when competing against people with whom you are grouped, presumably by expected ability to win.
There is not a easy metric such as “ability to win” quantifiable, therefore, a close approximation is male/female, age groups, weight groups. When looking at these groupings, the aim is to ensure a “fair fight” within the group, so to speak, where each member of the class has a reasonable expectation of winning based on measureable characteristics; it would be pointless to organise a boxing match with all weights in one class.
If “superism” were to break out, then I believe the sports would gradually take them into account and create a seperate class for them, much as there are seperate classes for men/women etc, as “superism” directly affects the ability to win. The only problem would be if “superism” could be detected and assigned a metric.
But in this hypothetical scenario, Bricker isn’t “simply” better at something – he got three magical superpowers from a magical superpower fairy. It is at least arguable that that changes things.
Again it would make the sport boring, but it wouldn’t be ‘cheating’… I have the training, education, and expirence to build a RADAR system; does that mean I am cheating to do so? What about all those other poor souls who want nothing more than to be able to build RADAR systems?
Now… what if I were able to do it better than other RADAR engineers? Is it unfair to them, that I get the ‘good’ job?
If Lance Armstrong is winning because he’s got a fix in–say, he transforms into an alien while casting up an illusion of being a human and ridings with inhuman strength–then he’s acting unethically. Any time you enter a competition with an advantage taht would be immediately banned were the competition’s organizaers to know about it, you act unethically if you conceal that advantage. It’s for the same reason that all deceit is unethical: you’re depriving people of their ability to make informed decisions.
Everyone knows of Lance Armstrong’s advantages, again. The Tour De France organizers can therefore make an informed decision on whether to ban him from the race, to put him in a different category of race, etc. They’ve made an informed decision not to do so, and that’s their right.
If you enter without telling them of your advantage, they can’t make an informed decision whether to ban you. That’s why your hiding your advantage is unethical.
Competing in sports is obviously different from competing professionally. Your employer doesn’t care how you obtained your ability, only that you have it. If you got your RADAR-designing knowledge from a magical RADAR fairy instead of having to work for it, more power to you!
Sports is different: that’s why competitions are routinely segregated by weight, age, sex etc. It’s also why motorbike races and bicycle races do not take place at the same time at the same race-track. It would be pointless to the competitors and pointless to the audience. And a boxer manipulating their weight measurement in order to compete in a lower weight race, or Lance Armstrong secretly hiding an electromotor in the frame of his bike, would indeed be cheating. But you knew all that.
“This is not the proceeds from you selling illegal drugs on this street corner to children, give the money to me and turn yourself into the police. Move along.”
Mind reading, suggestion/domination and one super power to be named later.
So let’s go back to a scenario I touched on before: I tell the fine folks at World Series of Poker: I can read minds. I intend to use this ability to win, although not every hand, because then no one would play with me. But I have the ability, and I will use it.
Does that satisfy my ethical obligation? Even if they obviously don’t believe me? Or must I go out of my way to prove it to them?
Say, that’s an interesting way to make money. Take money from crooks like drug dealers and make them forget all about you and be filled with a desire to find the nearest cop and confess all their misdeeds.
Interesting. I’d say it does satisfy your obligation, as long as your intent is for them to believe you (i.e., if you do it in a fashion designed to get them to think you’re a nutjob, complete with nervous laughter or declarations that you’re Marie of Roumania, it doesn’t count).
To some extent, I’d say it’s your obligtation to make sure your opponents know, although I’m not an expert at poker. Everyone who enters the tournament does so with the reasonable expectation that nobody they’re playing with reads minds. It’d be fair of you at each table to say, “Heads up, folks I"m telepathic, so I’m going to know what you have in your hand if I want to.” They can then decide whether they want to continue in the tournament, seek a ruling from the judges, etc.
I’m going out on a limb to say someone as flexible as Elastigirl could make a good deal more than $20, and without having to handle any pus… I’ll be in my bunk.
I am still not clear on why it is unethical to use telepathy in poker. Sure the other players won’t play with you - they would make the same decision if they knew you were just much better at poker than they were. Same for the previous point about reading body language and “tells” and so forth. And card counting.
Back in the 80s, Mike Bridges used to win the world powerlifting championships by a couple of hundred pounds. Was that unethical? He was just much better than anyone else.
Isn’t that the same for Brickerman? You are just much better at one aspect of poker than anyone else.
And I still haven’t made up my mind whether I would love being trapped in a car for six hours with you, or wind up wishing for the superpower of remote-control strangulation.
That would be a violation of their minds, and their free will if you believe in that. Highly unethical.
My wish for a power would be precognition, then I’d play the stock market. I’d consider that ethical. First, I’m not stealing information from anyone, like insider trading or telepathicly spying on them. Second, it’s a business, not a game. The ethical pursuit of business IMHO is about making a profit without hurting people ( except competively, by cutting into their business ) and without breaking the law. Ethically, it’s no different than using a computer to detect stock market trends, just more effective.
I’d consider precognition in games of chance to be cheating, since it undercuts the underlying premise of the game; that it’s chance.
Northstar (I can’t remember his real name at the moment, Jean-Pierre something?). He made it on to the Canadian Olympic team. He won some gold medals. He was forced to give them all back when it was revealed he had mutant powers giving him the ability to fly and to move at superhuman speeds. Northstar maintained that he had never consciously used his powers while competing (he pointed out that if he had, he would have crossed the finish line before the gates had finished opening).
As others have said, the key is to avoid competition especially competition under a clear set of rules. A psychologist who can read their clients’ minds, a doctor who can speed his patients’ healing with a touch, etc. To satisfy your ethical standards, you need a situation in which you are not working against some one, but with them.
Oh, and and in regard to telepathy and other powers in poker, I have to repeat a comment I heard once, that William Riker from ST:NG has to be the best poker player who ever lived. On a regular basis, he plays with a woman who can read emotions, an android who can calculate the odds and proper strategies a billion times over, and a guy who can see through back of the cards and see the face; despite this, he’s still competitive with them. That’s good poker playing.
Riker uses cards that Geordi can’t see through. I can’t remember the name of the epsiode, but when Whorf hosts the poker game Geordi tells him ‘I didn’t peak until after I folded. But, next time you might want to use cards that aren’t transparent to ultraviolet light.’
