To LOOK like a supermodel, or to actually have the supermodel job?
Nothing worng with your scenario. The kind of thing I mean is where something is not actually illegal, but you personally believe it is morally wrong, and impose your morals on everyone else. Punishing adulterers or whatever.
Assuming my Super-ness allowed me to do it in the first place, I’d just keep doing it. Eventually, the costs of repeated failures would cause them to stop.
Of course, if I’m Robin’s apprentice instead of The Spectre’s boss, I’d need a different plan.
With unlimited power like that, I would be beyond caring if people thought I was being good or evil.
Hmm…you seem to be answering a question that I didn’t ask. My OP may have been unclear, so I’ll phrase it differently: Under the circumstances described above, how likely do you think you would begin to behave in a fashion that YOU, currently, think to be immoral?
ok, putting it another way and answering the question from the OP, would I have the fortitude to only use the power unselfishly or not at all? And the the answer is no. I have ultimate power, why in hell would would I have to worry about being selfish or not?
I don’t see that as being corrupted though, I see it as having unlimited power and therefore being unconstrained by the limits of mortal views of morality.
I’d destroy the ring in an instant.
No matter how good you are, you just know that one day it will fall into the hands of some idiots, perhaps politicians of a powerful nation or some religious lunatic.
You may notice that, while I asked one question, you answered a completely different one. The ring is just a metaphor, casdave. Pretend that the ring is so constructed that it can only be used by you and will self-destruct, harming no one, at the moment of your death. Could YOU be trusted with it?
I think this sums up much of the way I feel. The more powerful I am, the more free I would feel to act independently. If I’m Superman in the modern world, first I ditch Clark Kent, then when someone gets pissed at my actions, I can answer, “What the fuck are you going to do about it?” However, if I’m ‘only’ Batman, I’ve got to be much, much more careful.
I would use the power for what I considered “ultimate good”, not the stuff normally described as “personal gain”, so in that sense I’d be pretty incorruptible. But I’d very rapidly be about the business of reconfiguring how our species does business. There’s not the faintest ghost of hands-off “prime directive” within me to slow me down. So you better hope my idea of utopia doesn’t overlap with your vision of hell…
C’mon, I answered you, now gimme the ring, dammit
I’d try to avoid it, but I’m certain I’d fall prey to my own moral turpitude eventually. “The road to Hell is paved with good intentions.” Or to put it another way, “Once you start using the cheat codes, it’s hard to go back to playing the game the normal way.”
I could resist initially, but every time you use the power to fix something, it becomes just a little easier to use that power for a more morally ambiguous way, until eventually you use the power whenever you feel like it. I don’t feel I could resist that, no matter how much I tried.
[Not entirely on topic:]
There is one thing for which I am nigh incorruptible: money. I’ve been both very poor and very well off, so I know both ends of the spectrum. But you could set me in a room with millions of dollars, say, “There’s a few million in here. I don’t really know how much, and I’m not going to count it when I return, but would you watch it for me?” and there wouldn’t be so much as a dollar missing. If I were absolutely starving with no hope of getting food in the near future, or someone I loved desperately needed something (like a surgery, not a DVD player), then I might be tempted to steal.
What makes you think I would give the ring to anybody but me? I’m ON RECORD as wanting to conquer the world for my own selfish sexual pleasures.
Now if you’ll excuse me I need to get back to my control-Natalie-Portman’s-mind device.
I could be trusted for all of about 6 minutes of “seeing what this baby can do” in a harmless Adam Sandler in that stupid new movie way before I became hopelessly insane and twisted, doling out great injustices and harm for my own whimsy. For verily I am a foul and vengeful god. :eek:
I’d get myself some law enforcement training and become duly deputized. Then I’d spend my time fighting crime and becoming immortal.
Controlling a mind is wrong, no different than using a date rape drug.
Enough gorgeous women willing to do nearly anything you can dream of are attracted to fame and power (see “Rock Groupies”). No mind control necessary. Hope Super Sexual Stamina is one of my powers!
We in the evil commuity do wrong things all the time. Hence the term “evil community.”
We in the hero vigilante community are honor-bound to stop you…by any means necessary. I personally have no qualms at being judge, jury, and executioner - and my execution methods are the type to really send a message!
Cool, I have my first arch-villian!
It never takes long…
::considers explaining the tactical folly of declaring to a murderous super-villain your intent to stop his evil plans and execute him before setting said plans in motion::
::decides instead to quietly unleash my legions of genetically engineered flesh-eating winged fire-breathing howler monkeys and wait until your charred corpse is visible via repeater scope, then place explanation in Villain’s Log::
::pressed the “release legions of genetically engineered flesh-eating winged fire-breathing howler monkeys” button, goes out to really hopping pizza joint on randomly chosen alternate earth till murderous plan is successful::
You’re sending minions against your arch-nemesis? Tsk tsk. You should know better. When have minions ever succeeded?