Speaking as a scientist, I can’t imagine anything cooler than finding out that there was such a huge, previously-unsuspected gap in our knowledge. Scientists don’t think the same way as most folks, on this sort of thing: We’re always trying to prove ourselves wrong.
Asimov had a great short story on this topic (I think it might have been “Belief”). The premise was that a physicist wakes up one morning, and discovers that he has the ability to fly, through a mechanism unknown to him, and details how he tries to prove it to others, and to study the phenomenon. The key comes when he flies publicly in a full lecture hall, but then denies having done so, putting the burden of proof on his naysayers.
On a similar, but more personal note, I often dream that I’m flying, but once (while dreaming) devised an experiment to study how, precisely, I was flying. The basic idea was to cover my body inside and out with small thermometers, and then execute a controlled descent of a controlled distance. Whichever organ in my body was responsible for the flight ability would then be converting potential energy into (presumably) heat, and would therefore increase slightly in temperature and be identifiable by the thermometers. Similar experiments could determine how efficient my flight is, by measuring heat produced in a controlled ascent. I’ve also come up with other experiments, but those were all while awake.
What if this super person lived not in the USA or some other western country, but instead came from Iran or otherwise deeply involved with Osama bin Laden?
Is this assuming the skepticism stage has been bypassed? Because I think that’d be the most overwhelming response, and what came next would depend on what the person himself did and how intent he was on getting everyone to believe him.
I do wish I knew whether the governments really do have a secret superperson contingency plan.
I always figured, that if a person could suddenly fly like Superman, he would be screwed. Not only would they not want people to know that he could fly, he wouldn’t want anyone to know it was even possible, or he would be searched for.
Scientists, govenrments, industry, crime lords - everybody would want to know who they were and how they did it. The knowledge would be the biggest news story of all time and there would be no place on earth they wouldn’t be recognised and sought.
Everybody would want to know if they could obtain this power for themselves, or barring that, use the superpower persons power to their own design.
If anyone knew where you lived, they would be looking for you. All kinds of people. Maybe you could fly at night and avoid being easily seen, but there would be people looking for you with infra-red and nightvision. Some would want to shoot you down believing you to be some terrible evil, or maybe just wishing to suddenly be famous for killing the most famous person on earth. There would be “people”, both individuals and groups, that would do everything they could to capture you, test you, be with you.
You would have a wonderful superpower that you could never reveal or use overtly without fearing for your life. It would be cruel beyond belief.
I am sure this scenario would hold true for most “conventional” superpowers, such as invisibility, super strength, etc.
I generally agree with you. Either our scientific concepts are wrong, or they can be somehow switched off with a certain zone within which lies the superhero. And having such a zone exist also seems to violate the basis of our understanding the universre; ie, we base our understanding on the supposition that the same laws apply everywhere.
It might be less of a shock if the superhero was not human – perhaps made of exotic unknown materials that act in ways never before seen.
When I was an undergrad, professors gave extra credit if you volunteered as a guinea pig in their colleagues’ experiments. Would a university be willing to hire someone as a professional guinea pig?
Of course, Lockheed and Boeing would probably be willing to pay more than any university could afford.
If he didn’t allow research, he might be able to make money in the private sector. If he could fly fast enough, he might sell his services as a courier. Super-strength might come in handy in the construction or demolition industries.
Invisibility would have lots of possibilities. Unfortunately, most of them illegal. He could probably get a job as a detective or a spy. Espionage would probably cause fewer legal hassles.
Unless it was a power where you could make enough money to buy yourself some privacy life would be pretty damned annoying. As others have indicated there would be no privacy at all as innumerable persons & groups with agendas would be in your shit 24/7. You can also bet there would be plenty of mentally disturbed people would want to kill you or be your BFF.
Unless this power allows near god like options for personal enjoyment (time/space travel etc) it might not be worth it.
If someone suddenly developed superpowers, their family, friends, neighbors and acquaintences would all be doomed. Dead. Kidnapped for leverage, tortured for knowledge, killed for revenge. Everyone you knew, everyone you loved. Gone.
That might tend to piss me off. The rest of my Super Career would be devoted to tracking down these people, killing them, their organizations, their sponsors and everyone even remotely connected to killing my loved ones. The World would just have to hope that I had Telepathic Powers to ensure that I got the right people, because otherwise I could see people trying to frame others for their actions.
I thought about what would happen if Superman appeared in our world, and concluded that, sad as it is, people would be terrified of him, and there would be serious efforts to kill him or drive him away. He’s just too dangerous. This is a being that could, in fairly short order, kill every major world leader, obliterate the military power of any nation he chose, or cause massive death and destruction in a variety of ways (re-directing asteroid to earth, causing tidal wave, etc.). And, unless you’ve got a battery of super-fast guided kryptonite missiles or something on standby, there’d be no way to stop him.
Even if he appears to be noble and helpful, people will constantly be thinking, “what if he flips out, or turns evil for some reason?” It’d be like having a neighbor with a nuclear weapon in his house – no matter how reliable he seems, you just don’t want a single individual to have that much power.
This is just not at all true. Did the discovery of quarks “throw away” understanding of protons, electrons, and atoms? Did relativity invalidate Newton’s laws of gravity? Did the discovery of the strong nuclear force make the theory of electromagnetism all wrong?
If it came to be that a human being could fly, that alone would not invalidate or throw out anything. It would just mean that we would then have a demonstration that our current understanding of physical laws is incomplete. That, for example, perhaps there exists some force or substance or process that can interrupt or control gravity. That such a force/substance/process exists, though, would not make our current understanding of gravity somehow wrong, just incomplete.
The apple will still fall from the tree, even if it’s the wind of a man flying by that breaks the stem.
This premise was explored in one of my favorite books Supreme Power, which is an update to Marvel characters that were deliberately loosely based on DC’s Superman, Batman, Green Lantern, Flash, Aquaman and Wonder Woman.
I find it interesting that almost all of you spoke of a male superhero. Why not a woman? Because they already have superpowers; they made each one of you out of nothing more than milk, brownies, pickles and such,
But they couldn’t have done it without the sperm from a man, so that doesn’t really mean anything. A woman can eat all the pickles and brownies she wants but without that sperm inside her, all she’ll do is get fat.
To take it a step further - what if he were not the only super-powered being? The existence of one such being implies the possibility of more, some of whom could have a grudge against our super being and would do their best to hinder him or destroy him without concern for property damage or death and injury to innocent civilians. If Superman didn’t exist, would Luthor be the greatest scientist of our time? Or a philanthopic businessman a la Bill Gates? Or the greatest President in U.S. history? Or whatever his occupation du jour might be. Would Mr. Mxyzptlk stay in his own dimension if there were no Superman to torment? A super being, no matter how benevolent his actions or good his intentions are, can innocently have a negative impact on the existing society merely by drawing the attention of someone eager to take him down.