For whatever reason, you have been gifted with the Medusa Touch. What do you do?
For those unfamiliar with the film, you can cause accidents and disasters just by thinking about them. You can only use the power to cause harm, and the intensity of thought determines the severity of the accident or disaster. You do not have total control of the power, but you can use it deliberately. For instance, a flash of annoyance at waiter being slow or whatever might cause her to drop the dishes she’s carrying. Getting mad at the slow driver in front of you might cause them to crash - and I hope you maintained a good stopping distance. In the film he deliberately brings down an airliner.
Sure you could help the world by inflicting disasters on Kim Jong-Un, Vladimir Putin, et al, but you’re still working ill. Would, as in the film, that wear on you?
Wait a second. Do I consciously have to will the disasters to occur, or is there a chance that any kind of horrible thought that happens to enter my mind will manifest in the real world?
If it’s the latter, then I’ll have to kill myself ASAP, or all hell is loose for most of my neighbors, friends, family, coworkers, or people that I happen to stand in line behind at the supermarket.
Well, I literally have Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder, so…yeah, pretty much suicide as soon as possible, to protect everyone and everything I’ve ever cared about, and human civilization in general. :eek:
At lat! A cheap, easy way to deal with barking dogs!
Luckily, I’ve lived long enough to be quite mellow with fellow humans.
And I’d rather do a bit of corrective training on the assholes in high places, rather that kill them outright - I don’t want to create power vacuums when I don’t have the people and forces in place to assure a better outcome.
Now, if I can figure a way to trace words back to their authors…
Followed eventually by going all Shao-Lin monk; very calm and patient and One with the Universe. But with a serious wicked counterpunch.
Seriously, I don’t think it would be all that hard to learn to control reacting to the petty annoyances of everyday life. Most of us don’t do that now because there’s no obvious upside to it. Saintly patience and forgiveness is nice and all, but depending on where you live, actually living that way means being stomped as a schmuck. Once you learn to control your response to a nicely tuned level of Karma-promptly-teaches-the-jerk-a-lesson, your serenity will be reinforced by every karmic beat-down you administer.
I was thinking about this thread when I was outside earlier, and I was wondering just how much harm I actually do wish on my fellow citizens in the course of a normal day. It turns out that I ran into a bit of a problem with the “don’t think about an elephant” phenomenon. Being conscious of the issue made terrible ideas pop into my head constantly. I can see this being a potential issue, unless the Medusa powers filter those out. “Well, I don’t actually want a roof tile to fall on that poor woman… oops! And I really don’t want to see a massive pile-up in that intersection… damn it! Anyway, I certainly don’t want that guy over there to be attacked by a flock of suddenly insane pigeons… oh, crap, I should just stay indoors.”
I think you may be onto something more than I had at first appreciated.
Despite having had some violent jobs I’m not much into violence and especially not into anger. It was all just just business to me. So my individual mentality is not much driven by thoughts of come-uppance or revenge. Certainly it seems like many people are much more anger- & revenge-driven than I over causes great and small.
But I am pretty driven by/toward women. If I had a power like the OP supposed but it applied to sex instead of to destruction I could see my subconscious unbidden thoughts about the women around me would produce a lot of … errm … side effects.
And it’d be darn hard to learn to curb that. Especially not after I discover the benefits it confers.
With that self-knowledge I now see your point about the OP was written. Certain folks are going to have a real hard time with it. And like politicians and power, exactly the folks who’re least able to use it well are the ones who’ll most want it.
For my own part, I think it would wear terribly. Sure, Kim Jong-Un’s a wrong-un, but what about all the sailors on the ship he’s on twhen it sinks in shark-infested waters? What about the people nearby when that building collapses on Putin? That idiot who cut me up on the road likely has a spouse and children. Etc.
You definitely do not want to give me this power. Because I am 100% non-violent to anything larger than a spider, and I am generally considered a very nice person, people are sometimes surprised to learn that in my head I have wished all kinds of death and destruction on people who annoy me. I think of it as a harmless way of blowing off steam, but let’s just say that if it ever became real there would be a lot of people suddenly having gruesome accidents.
