# Your morality as a Super **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [April 11, 2011, 4:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-morality-as-a-super/577971 "2011-04-11T16:58:11Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 14\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![EvilTOJ](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/ee59a6/32.png) [@EvilTOJ](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/EvilTOJ)\ **Post date:** [April 13, 2011, 10:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-morality-as-a-super/577971/41 "2011-04-13T10:00:23Z")
I vote Death Incarnate. What’re they gonna do, stop me? You never said that getting superpowers means I have to be the good guy. ---
**Author:** ![Double\_Foolscap](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/85e7bf/32.png) [@Double\_Foolscap](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Double_Foolscap)\ **Post date:** [April 13, 2011, 10:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-morality-as-a-super/577971/42 "2011-04-13T10:18:14Z")
The problem for me is the actual super powers I covet limit my abilities to kill. What good would Linguo (mild-mannered palaeographer and textual critic by day, Master of All Tongues by night) be in a fight? I’d be in a high-tech facility somewhere supporting Punches People Man and Guy With Fire For a Face behind the scenes. My moral choice basically boils down to: how evil a corporation do I work for? I think I’d have to work for a superhero team who acted as vigilantes within the limit of the law, allowing the authorities to act after the initial apprehension. I wouldn’t want to work for The Punisher, for example. In all honesty, I’d probably stay out of the whole fighting crime thing and just help out at the UN - they’re the real heroes! [Freezeframe on me giving a thumbs up in front of a waving UN flag] ---
**Author:** ![Ranchoth](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ranchoth/32/1066_2.png) [@Ranchoth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ranchoth)\ **Post date:** [April 13, 2011, 10:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-morality-as-a-super/577971/43 "2011-04-13T10:48:19Z")
Like **Skald** said, it would depend on the powerset—if I’m basically just a Super Brawler, I’d probably just try and stay out of trouble, or just go in it to make money in the civilian market. If we’re talking Kryptonian-level powers, though…[to blazes with it all, I’m going on safari](http://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/uber.jpg). Just hope I don’t snap and start taking things[not so seriously.](http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_DajgHyHwzXo/SEAYsT87uuI/AAAAAAAAANc/bA-tisEKx8A/s400/whatif-superjoker-diburros.jpg) ---
**Author:** ![Steve\_MB](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/steve_mb/32/5339_2.png) [@Steve\_MB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Steve_MB)\ **Post date:** [April 13, 2011, 2:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-morality-as-a-super/577971/44 "2011-04-13T14:04:29Z")
> [@Balance](#): > > We’re discussing superpowers. The literature in this field includes examples of both telepathy and precognition, so it is possible that the superpowered individual in question could be objectively certain of these things. Psi powers would be particularly scary – both in terms of looking into certain minds and deciding that some so-called people are just wild animals that walk on two legs, and in terms of what one might be tempted to do to them: [QUOTE=Lyta Alexander, Babylon 5] Somewhere on Beta Colony there is an institution. In one room of the institution there is a man who spends his days and nights screaming at things that only he can see. Things we planted in his mind. They have to keep him in a straitjacket 24 hours a day or he’ll claw his own eyes out just to make it stop. [/QUOTE] ---
**Author:** ![Giraffe](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/giraffe/32/129_2.png) [@Giraffe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Giraffe)\ **Post date:** [April 13, 2011, 4:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-morality-as-a-super/577971/45 "2011-04-13T16:11:36Z")
I would be like Brock Samson. Relaxed most of the time, but once my ire is up I’d go on an insane killing rampage. ---
**Author:** ![Attack\_from\_the\_3rd\_dimension](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/b38774/32.png) [@Attack\_from\_the\_3rd\_dimension](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Attack_from_the_3rd_dimension)\ **Post date:** [April 13, 2011, 4:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-morality-as-a-super/577971/46 "2011-04-13T16:16:15Z")
I misread the title as ‘Sniper’. Then I realized it, and had to change my vote. Then I had to think about the similarities between the two roles. Then I had to lie down. ---
**Author:** ![Lemur866](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lemur866/32/434_2.png) [@Lemur866](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lemur866)\ **Post date:** [April 13, 2011, 5:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-morality-as-a-super/577971/47 "2011-04-13T17:26:08Z")
If you’re Superman there’s no need to murder-death-kill Gadaffi. The problem with Gadaffi is that he’s a dictator. Just swoop in, grab him, and take him somewhere nice for a vacation. I hear Machu Pichu is nice this time of year. Or heck, any nice Caribbean island. Then tell him that if he goes back to Libya, you’re just going to pick him up and bring him back. Once he’s gone from Libya for a few months, somebody else is going to be running Libya, and then you explain the deal to the new guy: no being a supervillian, or you’re going to be living on Aruba for the rest of your life. If your powerset is more like Spiderman, then your choices are a lot more limited. Spiderman can beat up muggers, but there’s no way he can reform the planet. I suppose he could sneak into Libya and assassinate Gadaffi. But so could a SEAL team. The fact is, superpowers don’t change the moral calculus. I can imagine circumstances where I’d be forced to kill, but that depends on circumstances where there are no other choices. If you’re Superman you have dozens of other choices. A cop might have no choice but to shoot a bad guy before the bad guy hurts other people. Superman isn’t in the same position, so even if it would be moral for the cop to shoot, it wouldn’t be moral for Superman to shoot. ---
**Author:** ![Projammer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/projammer/32/559_2.png) [@Projammer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Projammer)\ **Post date:** [April 13, 2011, 5:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-morality-as-a-super/577971/48 "2011-04-13T17:36:27Z")
I am created Shiva, the Destroyer, Death, the shatterer of worlds. Who is this dog meat that challenges me? I’m sorry. What was the question again? ---
**Author:** ![silenus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/silenus/32/166_2.png) [@silenus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/silenus)\ **Post date:** [April 13, 2011, 5:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-morality-as-a-super/577971/49 "2011-04-13T17:49:16Z")
We read the same books. (see Post #22) 😉 **Lemur** , if I terrorize my neighbors, can I go live in Aruba too? The Caribbean is much too nice a place. I hear Saint Helena works quite well for ex-dictators. ---
**Author:** ![Attack\_from\_the\_3rd\_dimension](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/b38774/32.png) [@Attack\_from\_the\_3rd\_dimension](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Attack_from_the_3rd_dimension)\ **Post date:** [April 13, 2011, 8:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-morality-as-a-super/577971/50 "2011-04-13T20:19:22Z")
> [@Grumman](#): > > Both of these are bad, IMO. For the first, you’ve got Superman strengthening his monopoly on power, setting himself up as de facto dictator of Earth. For the second, you’ve got Superman “fixing” solar energy in when the problem is thermal energy out. We need that solar energy, you know - it’s the reason we have food to eat and oxygen to breathe, and rather vital to the operation of a number of forms of renewable energy. This is an interesting point. A number of things have been proposed to sort out global warming, but nobody is really too stoked about putting them in practice, simply because it’s the whole world that is benefited or harmed. If the US produces a cloud belt that modifies earths temperature and overshoots, well, it’s very much their fault. Being Superman and doing the same thing would make him Scapegoat man. It helps put the problem in perspective when you think about yourself doing it. ---
**Author:** ![AClockworkMelon](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aclockworkmelon/32/10803_2.png) [@AClockworkMelon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AClockworkMelon)\ **Post date:** [April 13, 2011, 8:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-morality-as-a-super/577971/51 "2011-04-13T20:20:57Z")
> [@Der\_Trihs](#): > > I’d probably go out and start killing. Not street criminals though; we already have cops and a legal system to deal with those and flawed as it is, it does a better job than vigilantes. I’d go after dictators and such; people who have enough power as to be beyond the law. It just makes more sense to do the jobs that normal people or organizations can’t or won’t do, instead of doing something that normal people are already doing for themselves. Bingo. This is exactly what I’d do. ---
**Author:** ![Oredigger77](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/oredigger77/32/3181_2.png) [@Oredigger77](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Oredigger77)\ **Post date:** [April 14, 2011, 12:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-morality-as-a-super/577971/52 "2011-04-14T00:07:38Z")
I wouldn’t care enough about righting the world’s wrongs to be a killing machine. If the situation came down to it I’d take someone out but I doubt I’d even be a crime fighter if I had Supes powers. More then likely I’d generally try to lay low and make enough money quietly usig my powers to buy my own country and then be my own little God-king. I’d still try to keep my power use quiet but I’m sure most other countries who needed to know would find out. ---
**Author:** ![Acid\_Lamp](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/d6d6ee/32.png) [@Acid\_Lamp](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Acid_Lamp)\ **Post date:** [April 14, 2011, 12:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-morality-as-a-super/577971/53 "2011-04-14T00:32:40Z")
My arms would be dyed red with the blood of evildoers until the planet gets with the program. While I can’t be everywhere at once, a few extreme examples ought to control the worst of the abusers handily. It’s no so much that I would go about righting every wrong, it’s that when I DO something, people die and their shit gets demolished back to the stone age. You wouldn’t like me when I’m angry, stop fucking with free elections motherfucker. ---
**Author:** ![Love\_Rhombus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/love_rhombus/32/10694_2.png) [@Love\_Rhombus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Love_Rhombus)\ **Post date:** [April 15, 2011, 5:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-morality-as-a-super/577971/54 "2011-04-15T17:33:35Z")
Depends-are there people around who could actively threaten my super-life? Then only if it was needed. Besides, kiling is for amateurs. Make the first evil dictator a truly memorable object lesson and the rest will fall into line. And never tell anyone your powerset or weakness. Do it big and dramatic, and people will pay attention. Evil dictator laughing at the world and killing his own folks? Then I will **walk** into his capitol city, cape flapping, bullets bouncing off, and nicely ask him to cut it out. He doesn’t? Burning ring of fire around his headquarters. Still doesn’t, and gets meaner? I burn my symbol onto his forehead. I’d keep ramping it up, so the NEXT villianous jerk gets his arms and legs lasered off. You’d be amazed what you can live through. I’d not try to make things better, just stop them from getting worse. For example-you’re not invading another country (and not without a good reason) unless I come along, both as a watchdog and to prevent too many unneeded fatalities, such as war crimes. (You want a war? People are gonna die. I will not shield you from that). I am not a babysitter. Local Problems? I’d have a nice house in the capital of most states, and randomly move between them. If I’m in town (_and you’ll never know when that is_) be nice. Can I stop all crime? No. Wouldn’t try, too 1984. But I can stop the really bad stuff. Not sure how I’d pay for all of this, since taking a goverment job seems a little too close to being the President’s hired muscle. Maybe work for the UN. Would I keep a secret identity? Hmm… [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-morality-as-a-super/577971.md?page=2)