Never mind… I missed the part in the OP about how nothing can kill you except another superhuman.
A lot of people saying they couldn’t do it without permission. Not gonna lie, that gave me pause. But knowing these people would be hale and healthy to the ripe old age of 150 would make me happy enough, even if none of them ever spoke to me again. And I do think in the end they would all be glad I had done it. My two best friends would each be so grateful for the other one’s health that they would forgive me pretty quickly. My daughter would be instantly consumed with the problem of how best to make the world a better place with her new powers. And I do believe Senator Warren would just get on with the next task ahead of her - possibly getting more sleep now that traveling to and from DC was so quick.
Luigi Mangione, and others like him.
Also AOC getting them would be great like others have said. Watching all the fascists get upset would be well worth it.
Great question. I wish I had more than an hour to choose, because after I choose my husband and son (of course), I’d like to pick three stalwart, highly moral leaders in the public sphere (I don’t think I’d pick AOC, but yeah, I can see why she’d be on some people’s lists).
Anthony Fauci is the closest I can come to what I’d be looking for, off the top of my head. If I choose him, I still have two more slots to fill. I’d like to have at least one woman, one naturalized US citizen, one person who isn’t Caucasian, and one representative of the LGBTQ+ community. And they have to be squeaky clean - not a whiff of bigotry or hypocrisy in their backgrounds.
You can see why this is gonna take me more than an hour.
I picked people who have already acquired power, and seem to be mostly using it for good.
AOC and Warren have some power, but not as much.
My wife (whose growing dementia would immediately go away), my three kids and my sister.
My three daughters, then Barack & Michelle Obama, because it would drive the Republicans crazy.
That is precisely the potential nightmare. The referenced great power great responsibility bit. Why I don’t think I’d want them myself. In some CS thread there was mention of a superhero story where that was precisely the premise: the hero has the power to save so many lives in every moment, and how do you then live with wasting time, with lazing about, with relaxing, knowing that each of those moments were moments you could have saved lives? The hero lived a nightmare of living with that knowledge and constantly trying to as efficiently as possible do the most good.
I don’t think I could live up to that but would be tortured by what I was choosing to not do. I’d need some super SSRI to deal with the anxiety I’d have! Would I wish that on my children?
The other thing that comes with power is corruption, and the nearer that power approaches absolute…
You very laudably are concerned that you’d crack under the terrible responsibility of using your power for good.
My concern is… different. I believe I live a more or less moral life, particularly with respect to interpersonal relationships, involvement in crime etc. But I’ll be honest and say that I am also lacking in opportunities to be anything else. I don’t have the physique to be a physical bully, for example, and I’m too much of a coward to try out e.g. armed robbery. But with these powers those restraints fall away, and I’m left with the question of what would I stop myself from doing if no one else could stop me.
I don’t think I’d fall off the cliff immediately. But I can imagine a gradual shifting of my lines around what are and aren’t appropriate ways to deal with really annoying people, or earn a living etc.
I’m thinking this because I’ve been reading Nick Harkaway’s excellent Titanium Noir series, which is set in a world where a select few thousand individuals have access to a drug that grants them long life and physical superiority, who consequently find it easy to get very rich, and completely believably posits that most if not all of those people would go off the rails quite badly because not only do they lack restraints but that various systems would bend to their whims rather than stand up to them.
So me and my family of superior beings would probably do ok for a while, but at some point would start attracting toothless protests about the way we keep getting away with some pretty outrageous behaviour.
On which note I probably wouldn’t give the powers to my teenage kids because although they would rightly regard this a hurtful snub, I simply cannot imagine the combination of adolescence and super powers (another Titanium Noir theme) to be a healthy for anyone involved.
So to answer the OP, me, my wife and my four siblings probably. But with trepidation for our souls.
The Boys for another take.
Which would bring up the other bit - the only restraint on “me” and my selected five others, are the rest of us. We are also imposing the need to be the enforcers against each of us, including me, abusing our power, against others who could and might be motivated to kill each other as threats to that absolute power. With a long time of having no one else who has any power to stop any of us from doing whatever we each decide is right.
It’s a lot.
I would choose five women I know that I’m friends with or know they likely wouldn’t abuse their powers. If I had to choose people I didn’t know I would choose Ms. Rachel, Susan Sarandon, Abby Martin, Musing Mira ASMR and Naomi Klein.
Yes - who do you trust to use the powers in a way that means you won’t have to fight/kill them, and also to fight/kill you if you go off the rails.
So offering it to family is actively bad because it means creating a group of uberfolk whose loyalty to each other could conflict with their moral responsibilities to the rest of humanity.
The OP doesn’t allow time for competitive interview, psychological assessment or even much in the way of bribe solicitation (see, my moral degradation is happening already!) so… random passers by or famous people I can pretend to myself I know well enough to judge, I guess.
I’ve been assuming that the “perfect physical and mental health” part would take care of self-flagellation over taking a little R&R, vs spending every waking moment saving the world. And that this fine mental health would mean those of us granted superpowers would be able to steer clear of corruption and evil.
I guess it depends on whether you think that it’s possible to be evil and mentally healthy at the same time.
Anxiety, sadness, worry, fear of not doing enough, fear of making the wrong choices, regret over wrong choices, greed … are not necessarily mental illnesses. One could even argue that to not experience some of those things in that context would be possible only for someone who is unmoored from reality?
True. And it is probably possible to be mentally healthy yet immoral.
But I guess I think of being “in good mental health” as more than just “not diagnosable according to DSM5.” A person with a healthy mental outlook won’t feel self-loathing for occasionally taking some “me time.”
So I think a mentally healthy person would have sufficient coping mechanisms to manage any anxiety or guilt caused by having been bestowed the superpowers.
Something like greed, though … that’s a worry. Which is why I want only demonstrably upright souls to have the superpowers.
David Attenborough, Obamas Barack and Michelle, Dolly Parton, and Mrs Mangetout
I can’t decide. I have two children and I would like to choose my wife and the children.
However, they are in high school and soon will go out and get partners of their own so would happen to them?
Of course they would simply outlive of their partners. Do they want to do that?
I’m close to two of my siblings. My sister is divorced so that would be an easy fourth choice.
However, the other sibling is with their long-term partner, and I wouldn’t have enough slots for everybody. Would my sibling be happy without their partner?
It seems to be that this is too big of a choice to make for someone else. I don’t know how it could be ethical.
I’m not going to play god and try to select a politician. If you give someone superpowers, will it change them? I have no idea.
You just described my twenties without any super powers. Everybody has that conundrum. There is so much good we can do and once you get started doing charity work you realize that the need is overwhelming. Same problem, new scale.
Is this like Amway? Do those 5 people need to pick 5 people each? If not, why do I???
