Be honest: if you had the power to stop time, your morals would go out the window.
Be honest: if you had the power to stop time, your morals would go out the window.
Pretty much the title. I've been watching more realistic super hero shows like The Boys and Invincible. The reoccurring themes is that with great power comes great immorality.
I think it's easy for us normies to respect other people and their property because there are clear consequences for violating social norms. But what would the average person do if they had super powers?
If I had the power to stop time I'd stop it, travel all around the world putting live grenades in the pockets of every type of evil greedy cunt I could find, then start it again and wait for the fireworks to ensue. Every time someone starts making psychopath money again? Suddenly a grenade appears in their pocket. Funding wars, poison and incarceration? Every person with a finger in haliburton or monsanto, turned into red mist at a board meeting. Shareholders, exploding in hot tubs, saudi princes splattered in their shitty lambos. Every jordan belfort wannabe fuckstick exquisitely morphed into charcuterie.
Grenade morality.
Your morals wouldn't be changing.
Your behavior would.
Those kind of darker 'realistic' shows have a very cynical view of human nature where people are inherently bad and the social contract is what keeps us at bay from becoming monsters. I dont agree with that assessment (though I did as an edgy teenager)
The rich and powerful act the was they do not because they can but because they have nothing to strive for. IMO people require a certain amount of conflict and struggle in order to truly attain happiness and a fulfilling life. You also need to learn new skills to have fresh experiences. See this excellent documentary on the mouse utopia experiments.
You cant really appreciate success until you've failed miserably and earned it through blood sweat and tears. If you live your whole life being too rich to fail, and get everything you've ever wanted without having to work and struggle for it, then you eventually run out of things to want and life becomes hollow. Food looses its taste, drugs no longer get you high, regular and even kinky sex looses its appeal, luxury and convinence becomes meaningless as does social status. The only thing left is the thrill of depravity.
Time powers wouldn't make a normal person with proper life goals and average moral values instantly go off the deep end. Only people who think money and power buys happiness.
Losing my morals? Goodness no! My morals would be the only thing left, as there would be no one who could stop me. Justice for the wronged, help for the needy, and punishment for the wicked that knows no limits.
Is there a tyrant that threatens peace? Bound and delivered to the United nations. A disaster trapping civilians? Every injured person into the first hospital bed available, worldwide in a moment. Hell, I could read every medical book ever and become the most studied doctor ever.
Consequences aren't the only thing that cause people to act they way they act. It's certainly one reason some people don't do certain things.
One reason Homelander is the way he is is because how he was raised. If tomorrow I got all Homelander's powers, I wouldn't instantly become a psychopath. I mean it might occur to me that any action I might take, and no one could stop me or punish me. But as Homelander observed (at least in the prior season, I'm not entirely caught up) that alienation from his fellow supers is actually a consequence he deals with.
I think it depends. Most people could already get away with a lot of immoral or antisocial behaviors without super powers, but most of us still don't.
The Boys is an interesting one because there are hundreds of supes out there, enough to have a community of depravity. If you were the only one with super powers and you decided to majorly abuse them, you'd be a social outcast, even if you didnt face strict punishment, which most of us would really not want.
I genuinely believe it'd depend on the person.
First: Most people who use cheats in video games eventually either stop using them or stop playing the game altogether, because it gets boring.
Many people who win the lottery get a bit of splurging out of their system, then invest the rest into financial security but keep living their loves mostly like before.
So there genuinely might be some people who will eventually settle into just fixing their most glaring problems and then just keep living "regularly", possibly with the occasional minor indulgence.
Then there's people who are willing to go to extreme lengths to enforce their beliefs even without superpowers - imagine super-powered criminals and terrorists, but also super-powered firefighters, doctors or scientists.
And then there's everything in between.
So, if it's just one (or maybe five) people getting superpowers, it'd probably be a roll of the dice. Maybe there'd just be one person going through life easier. Maybe we'd get lucky and someone solves a major problem for us. Maybe we get unlucky and every president that doesn't reinstate segregation gets assassinated.
If it's more people getting powers... well, there's already a lot of fiction exploring that in-depth.
Well, a lot of people would suddenly find themselves with their pants down in public. So better put on clean underwear, people. The Timestopper is in town.
Ah, the Christian argument.
Me, personally? My morals are not defined by my own ability to weild power. Except maybe where the power to make someone else's life better is morally right.
The average person is a fuckingidiot and would expertly execute the "time travel" equivalent of taking a shit with their pants on.
You get that power, you use it on people who are making the world a shittier place first.
Now, that's not precisely moral, but let's be honest, beyond a bit of minor larceny there's not a whole lot of personal gain you can realistically achieve.
Steal a truckload of cash? Sure, but then you've got to launder the heck out of it, and I've seen Ozark, that's more drama than I want in my life even if I had the skills, which I don't. And nobody pays cash even for groceries any more, have to wait for one of the non-card registers to open up and it's a pain in the ass. Maybe you could rig a horse race or something, but the people involved in serious gambling are very good at spotting anomalous wins, and your life wouldn't be worth dick the second time you tried it.
That pretty much leaves pranks and murder, and you're a damn fool if you bring that within a dozen miles of any kind of personal connection.
Which pretty much only leaves assassination of high-level assholes as something that would a:) make a noticeable difference, b:) keep you under the radar and c:) be immensely satisfying.
I'm a little tired of everyone being such a doomer all the time tbh. No they wouldn't, and The Boys isn't realistic, it's cynical. Maybe you believe you would start doing immoral things given this power, but that doesn't mean that everyone else would. If the only thing stopping you from doing it was the potential consequences, then you didn't have those morals in the first place; you always wanted to do those things, you just didn't have the ability.
That being said, I would totally do things that are illegal but not against my own morals. Do you know what you could do with that kind of power? You'd be like Dr. Manhattan, the only superpowered individual in the world. Anything you want to be the case (physically), given enough time, you could make it happen. Whether your desires are good or bad, there's really no reason not to enact them. TL;DR: Things go very differently depending on who gets this power.
This one time in high school...
(I didn't want to declare my gender, because 'the site that shall not be named' is an absolute dick to women, but I'm feeling like that might not be as much of a thing, here)
... I came across a group of 5 or 6 huge 6ft footballers, in a circle, kicking this small indigenous kid around and taunting him, I'm half their size, a girl ,probably 12, and just about the shyest quietest kid in school, but when I saw that, the pure rage that welled up in me, has no equivalent on earth, my muscles all lock up and knot and I (somehow) came out with a deep booming growl of a voice, that made all a these blokes just freeze dead, I boom at them, "what the fuck do you all think you're doing!!" , and in a slow angry tone I add "do you all feel like big men, a heap of you, beating up on one guy" . And I stood there, all rage, staring them down. The indigenous boy noticed they were all frozen and scattered along the ground and grabbed his bag and pelted.
I realised this needed to end, and he had escaped, so I tried to throw out some finalising statement of 'do you feel proud' or'this better never happen again' or something, I don't really know, because by this stage, I'm gripped with ultimate terror of what I've done. These guys are twice my size, and happily beat up kids smaller than them. If they snap out of this and realise, I'm easy prey, I'm done for. I fake a hold on my rage, turn and (painfully) slowly walk away and proceed to lock myself in the girls toilet and cry for the rest of the day, expecting a mob of footballers to be out there, after snapping out of their trance, ready to dust me. But I made it home, unscathed. Those footballers gave me death stares, the rest of high school, but none of them ever spoke to me or gave me trouble, really. A taunt here and there, but always when surrounded by classmates. The indigenous boy came and found me and thanked me, later, I asked him if that had happened since and he said, yeah. But he still really appreciated me sticking up for him, that day.
I didn't really think about what I did that day, those words to those footballers just fell out of my head, they rose up from the depths of my soul, I didn't really feel like I controlled it.
But also, I know I'd do immoral shit, if I got superpowers, I'd go around and kill all the billionaires and dictators. I'd probably give them an ultimatum, give away your money or die.
I feel like the boys just represents a more realistic subsection of humans, there would be a percentage that are narcissists and have powers, and a percentage that are highly moralistic, like in gen v. And I could see capitalism being the real bad guy, in real life, just like in the boys.
Studies suggest that autistic folks would be much more likely to stick to their morals. So there's that.
My morals wouldn't change at all, my behavior would change since I don't need to worry about consequences of fixing systemic injustice by doing "sick crimes"
For some I’m sure that’s the case and would behave pretty remorselessly.
Others have a conscience.
Others still would engage in shitty behavior but probably destroy themselves pretty quickly dealing with the mental problems of doing what they know is shitty.
Be honest? Yeah, I’d do stuff I shouldn’t. But nothing I couldn’t sleep at night over. But one thing I know I’d do is find some way to bring down everyone fucking over regular people. Even if it’s as simple as stopping time, placing a recording device in a boardroom, and letting it record them plotting to fuck over whoever, and then retrieving it for public display.
Don’t know how much good it would do.
My morals would go out the 'Robin Hood' door.
Uh… no they wouldn’t.
For sure. I wouldnt outright hurt people but id definitely do things to improve my own life. Assuming it's the kind of time stopping power where I am not affected and can still interact with objects I'd use sports or roulette gambling to get rich. Easy to manufacture winning with time stopping powers in either.
If I wanted to be ethical I guess I could put on some sort of circus/magician act with tricks and feats abusing the power but I don't know how rich you can get off what would be perceived as a really good trick.
Id also like to know the extent of the ability, if I stop time indefinitely, do I still age or am I immortal in a paused world? Can I stop time travel the world and see every sight and read every book then restart everything having lost nothing aside from my own sanity?
This is important because it determines if it's worth trying to be a super hero with this power imo. If I can stop time and help people avoid death all while being able to go right back to where I was losing no true time it's worth it, otherwise I'd still be aging and I'd grow older faster than everyone around me. Id die earlier in real time if I continue to age while I stop time for everything else. If that's the case I'd only use the ability really for my own benefit.
Just don't get lost in the Sauce. That was the problem with death note. Keep it subtle and set boundaries.
Not really - if the only thing stopping you from doing bad things is power, you're a bad person inherently.
I would die of old age immediately
This is an idea that has been around for very long time. Plato used the Ring of Gyges to talk about it - which went on to inspire Wells' The Invisible Man - and influenced Tolkien among others.
No, they wouldn’t. Because real life isn’t like superhero shows.
Everyone in this thread, "what's this, I am a bastion of morality and its extremely important I convince anons on the internet about this."
But for real when I dream about stopping time I dream of a pocket universe where I am the only person present. That way I can speed (I know I know I'm evil) on highways, explore, and learn without weird frozen bodies getting in my way. I would mostly use it for naps and cheating on tests (I know super evil).
I can totally agree with the whole
with great power comes great immoralityway of thinking.But I view it in the adaptation angle. Like, how many "average" people can adapt to such a huge shift in power? Pro athletes tend to have bad spending habits because of sudden shifts of wealth. Country laws and legislations stay for generations because the lawmakers are stuck to their own bubbles of how things are progressing.
Being able to adapt is a general trait for people, but not everybody can do it as quickly. I think that part causes conflicts that may or may not lead to immorality.
I have a theory that moral traits, like many other things in nature, follow a normal distribution. If I'm right, we can make some estimates of who would violate social rules given the chance. The bottom 5% of the distribution are going to do some terrible things. About 45% are going to be kind of shit, maybe not terrible. The remainder will be some level of decent to pretty well behaved, actually. Admittedly, that depends on what we think the mean level of morality really is. Having observed many a group of kids playing, I don't think it's that bad. Honestly that's why so many teenage edgelords and doomers get told to go touch grass; reality will almost never be as bleak as we think it will be. There's a well documented cognitive bias towards negative events, but it IS a bias.
The Boys isn't realistic so much as it's a deliberate deconstruction of the genre and a bit of speculative fiction ("What if Superman was a sociopath" seems to be the question it asks). It has elements of satire too, so it's not really concerned with being fair so much as creating the story conditions that allow it to show us its narrative.
If you want a more "realistic" superhero show I think the 2012 movie Chronicle is more plausible. And yeah it does go badly for some but not for others.
In classic philosophy, this is the Ring of Gyges, in which Plato suggests that we'd be tempted to wrongdoing if we had the capacity to evade harmful consequences.
In 21st century moral philosophy, it's more complicated than that. What we do with super-powers depends largely on our need. Normally, someone doesn't steal resources when they have the means to attain them legitimately, but it's our precarity or even poverty and hunger that drives us to steal, largely due to a society that recognizes property rights without assuring the safety and provisions of those who, well, don't have any property. Precarity leads to renegade behavior, or as our states like to call it crime. †
So what happens when our ring-wearer finds themselves no longer in desperate need for stuff. This is the point of opportunity, where they can choose to use their power to rescue others from their misfortune, or they can isolate themselves from the squalor and bask in their own luxury.
One of the terrible secrets of moral philosophy is that no code of ethics, no religious commandment really matters. Most of us do what we feel like anyway, whether right and well meaning or wrongful and malicious. It just happens that we're generally affable. That is, eons of evolution have instilled us with social values and the drive to engage peaceably when we're not starving, and as such we allow total strangers to merge into our lane in traffic and try to telegraph our actions to keep other drivers at ease. When we're well fed, healthy, warm, well rested and getting laid once in a while, we're pretty easy to get along with. Keep a whole society in precarity, however, and it turns into social unrest and eventually civil war.
But then, when we're driven by fear, we tend to think of others in antagonistic terms. Our billionaires have the capacity to improve society on a global scale. Musk or Bloomberg could adopt Haiti and drive the nation into industrial development, and have his statue in bronze adorn every state park countrywide. Not big on that opportunity? $30 Billion will feed the world (That is, all the humans in it) including processing and freight. Less than that could create a free high-speed WiFi internet infrastructure that covers all populated parts of the world (Including Mt. Everest, but not much of the Himalayas).
But none of them do. Not one billionaire is thinking about their legacy on this scale. Rather, they're all very miserly with their charitable works, and then engage in them only for marketing and tax-haven purposes. Considering how consistent billionaires are about this, the Ring of Gyges may be that corrupting an influence after all.
Superhero narratives are typically about a desperate need and someone with the means to fulfill it in daring fashion. OSP noted The Scarlett Pimpernel who rescued aristocrats from the guillotine during the Reign of Terror during the French Revolution. (Superheroes are not always on the side of aging well). When someone has super-powers and acts in a more immoral fashion, we regard them instead as monsters. Case in point, Count Dracula or The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde
SPIRIT: This boy is Ignorance. This girl is Want. Beware them both, and all of their degree, but most of all beware this boy, for on his brow I see that written which is Doom
SCROOGE: Have they no refuge or resource?
SPIRIT:〈mocking Scrooge〉Are there no prisons? Are there no workhouses?† I generally avoid using the word crime unless talking specifically about things that are illegal as decided by regional law. Many acts of wrongdoing are not criminal. Many crimes are not immoral. Same with sin which are proscriptions according to religious institutions.
I've felt similarly ever since watching the movie Clockstoppers as a kid
I imagine a lot of people would end up like homelander. Only playing the superhero role to get likes or feel loved but being very evil when no one would know.
Personally, I think I would give the superhero thing a go as I do like helping people, but very likely I'd end up like Red Son or Injustice Superman. It would depend on the powers and if other supes exist, but it is very believable to end up going to extremes to just try and make the world a "better" place if no one could stop me. What's a few lives here or there when you believe you are saving so many more?
I feel like the average asshole would steal, probably trespass in Area 51, or the White House or whatever. In the former case if you steal from a big enough place its effectively a victimless crime. In the latter, you're just not supposed to be there, so even less in the way of real victims.
Murder though? Thats when stuff gets real. I feel like no matter your stance everyone has a person or people they'd have to think long and hard about not taking out of the equation, whether for personal reasons or to make the world an overall better place in their opinion. Doubt most would even consequence free but some (not so) subtle influence here and there would likely happen.
Also if you're a comic guy, give Irredeemable a go. It's the same vein of plot as The Boys and Invincible.
I'd pause time, slap people acting a fool, go back to what I was doing, and unpause.
That is actually wrong. Countries with death penalty and free weapon carrying show that both assertions are wrong.
If course you need the power to commit a crime in order to commit it. But most people who have the power don't commit crimes.
Society didn't appear out of nowhere. And crimes are a much more complex matter than "can I do it without consequences"
People don't need super powers for that, it's so easy. Crack open the way for the ego drug and they do anything. Nobody is immune. The "holier" the person, the easier it is.
No
Is there a question here?
It’s weird how a person will believe they have all license to choose to be terrible version of themselves and think everyone else is just holding back. Rapists think this of all humanity. That underneath it all everyone would just be raping each other if they could get away with it. It never occurs to them these thoughts might not even occur to a person or that if it does it doesn’t really appeal. Or that people have other things they find fulfilling that just doesn’t involve hurting other people and just aren’t fixated on shit like this.
Maybe talk to a professional about NPD.
I think many people act decently until the stakes are high. The higher the stakes, the less people you will find sticking to moral principles.
Prove it. Give me the power.
The reoccurring themes is that with great power comes great immorality.
I mean, this is a thing irrespective of superpowers. Just check out the latest headline about billionaires or how your country's government is doing.
With great power comes great responsibilities, but also makes it very easy to skirt accountability, regardless if you are "super" or not.
My only hope is that the first time I stepped over the line when using my powers, I’d feel so bad about it afterwards that it would prevent me from doing it again… mostly.
I’m stealing within the first day, pulling off the most ridiculously elaborate pranks within the week, and suicidally bored once the dopamine kick is killed after a month of world-befuddling shenanigans that will hopefully destroy even the conceptual understanding of bureaucracy. Loathe me some bureaucracy.
I might do some questionable things, but come on, I'm not gonna do that.
Depends on the person. You can see a clear discrepancy in what a person does without super powers. Some work toward a better planet, others toward a more secure life for the self. Adding super powers would just amplify existing MOs.
I'd just help people about to fall or get hit and not yell after my dog to come back anymore. Also do some woodwork while kids are sleeping unbreathing and Americans are patiently frozen waiting to get burgers.
Not really.
Rob a bank? Thanks to serial numbers they can tell it's you who is using the money.
Steal from your neighbor? Same deal. Someone will notice.
It's all risks and consequences. Most big acts of "evil" still have those risks and consequences even if you can stop time or whatever else. And your ability is going to be worth so much fuck you money to scientific and other use cases that you really won't have reason to steal or whatever.
It would depend on how the power actually functioned, but my descent into time-stopping degeneracy would probably happen in stages. I would take care of money first, doing whatever to get my house paid off and. Basic needs taken care of for life. Not really sure the quickest and/or easiest way, but robbing a bank maybe? Though that seems a bit too out there for me. Maybe money doesn’t even matter when you can freeze time, you can just grab whatever you want anyways, apart from paying your rent/mortgage. I’d still work my job, but my weekends would probably last awhile. Hell, I’d probably take a day off in between each day. Probably the biggest danger with time-stopping is that I’d prematurely age from all the extra time I’d be taking off (assuming I aged normally while time was still).
Nah... well maybe... a little 😁.
What if everyone could do it?
Can I stop it for myself as well? Because if so, score.
Completely unrelated, but we definitely need more Space Battleship Yamato memes
This is basically the premise of the show The Boys.
Yes
I know that if I had powers, I would be a straight up self serving villain. No question.
I'd mabye steal things i dunno
There's a film called Hollow Man that explores this. But the guy becomes invisible rather than being able to stop time.
Does Wowbagger the Infinetly Prolonged ring a bell?
I'm not sure my mind could handle it. I think I'd lose my sanity and my grip on reality.
Time is a measurement of change, and is inextricably linked to space, so stopping time stops change of any kind. You wouldn’t be able to move even so little as a falling speck of dust from its (now) absolute position in space. You wouldn’t be able to move, and consequently even breathe, since your diaphragm has to change position for respiration to happen (nevermind the fact that matter can no longer be moved anyway, so air is now fixed in place.) Stopping time stops you, completely.
But since we’re talking about imaginary powers, if I could stop time, I wouldn’t even bother with anything in this multiverse, I’d just walk over to explore a different one a few trillion multiverses away. After all, I’d get there in no time.
Yaknow I just thought of one technicality that would make time stopping a very miserable super power. What if you are also paused. Or what is the physics of paused time. Like do you need time to make stuff move. If that's also the case wouldn't your clothes stop you from moving in paused time. That's not even mentioning air is also mass. That needs to move to let you move about. Edit: also if mass doesn't require time to move. What about energy. Would everything feel like it has a shit ton more momentum than normal. How tiring would walking be.
True, but you know what would really make them go out the window? If I were invisible.
There are multiple ways to approach this, but first some context
I identity as an agonistic atheist/ex-muslim and am gay men living in a muslim country. Right now my fear of consequence relates to being found out and killed/losing my job/ put in prison/ becoming homeless or becoming braindead /paralyzed/living with agonizing pain if i try to kill myself, plus the guilt of leaving my family with no money, so yeah. Historically for me, trying to make sense of human nature has been hell itself. There is my sister who identifies as a leftist communist progressive Muslim and then there is mom who calls Black people slaves and servants and think women shouldn't be allowed to drive(also has on multiple occasions has called my sister then 13 years old daughter "jokingly" a slut). Trying to put the whole of humanity, from all over the world, from all of time into one of two binary boxes is dumb. We do'nt to that to other spices, so why humans. We don't label all cats, all dogs or all birds as ultimately good or bad, they just are.
Ironically, this is the same argument alot of reglions/reglious people use to control thier followers, enternal damnation and all. In fact, i have personal experience with this way of thinking. Were i am from, we are tough that the west is all hedonist and only care about this plane of existence and we are morally superior and so on.
Another point of view is, the opposite can also be true, when i am in a bank and filling in a forum and someone needs a pen, i give them an extra pen i brought with me or when i finished my business and lingerie a bit if someone else needs a pen or when i get into the elevator and hold the door open for a little bit in case someone comes or when holding the door open for people or just saying thank you. Its little things but they make a difference in my day.
Also as some other commenters have said i just don't think about raping people, like if the only thing stopping me is consequence, then it make sense to think that is all i ever think of . Its not like i don't have impulsive thoughts like slapping someone while in a moving bus and have thought about killing my abusive father in the past more times then i can count. Those things are either very tame and uncommon thoughts or brought on under extreme circumstances and even then, i didn't act on them.
It should also be pointed out that such narratives benefit those in power. As zoe bee said in her video governments don't panic, people do. Also nulear Apocalypse was only avoided due to the dystopian threat of mutual destruction which was going to be caused in the first place by an error.
Lastly, saying that those are realistic heroes is cringe, you are a least 30 years late to the party.
The Boys
realistic
Ooooh boy do we tell them?
The tl;dr is: just because you suck, doesn't mean everyone else automagically does.
Here's the thing about the power to stop time: if it doesn't come accompanied by a lot of secondary-required powers (2RPs) , then it'd become so cumbersome and harmful in short order that your morals wouldn't have time (stopped or not) to flush down the toiler in the first place. Plusminus the "if you'd do it, you never had high morals in the first place" argument.
Simplest cases:
- No 2RP power to start time. Ooopsie there goes your life as soon as your start your first experiment.
- No ability to transfer movement / moventum to things, including air, in stopped time. You could stop time to think over a plan, but not to take prep steps for it. Forget about going to bed to take a nap: even if you could move, the bed, the carpeting and the pillow would explode into plasma as soon as time resumed.
- If time is stopped, that means you are blind, right? Photons going around are stopped, and they can't interact with your body that way.
- Breathing too, for that matter. Dragon Ball Z actually toyed with that idea with a character who could stop time but only while holding his breath.