Slashdot Mirror
Study Finds Most Would Become Supervillians If Given Powers
It probably comes as no surprise, but researchers have found that most of us would gladly put on a mask and fight do-gooders if given super powers. From the article: "But power also acts like strong cologne that affects both the wearer and those within smelling distance, Galinsky noted. The person gains an enhanced sense of their importance, and other people may regard them with greater respect as well as extend leniency toward their actions. That combination makes for an easy slide into corruption."
One man's villain is another man's hero.
Murphey's fighting Occam, and we're in the stands.
For the vast majority of people, the most heroic thing they could do if ever presented with Superman-like powers would be to immediately reject them. A real human presented with such powers would likely be a much greater threat to the rest of humanity than a help. Sure, he might start out rescuing cats from trees and people from burning buildings, but how long before he has a mood swing or a temper tantrum? How long before he succumbs to narcissism and the kind of arrogance and paranoia that god-like powers would bring. How long before he comes to resent humanity for not loving him enough, or worshiping him at the level he has come to believe is sufficient?
And all that's not even factoring in the reality that this is a human being with sexual desires, greed, etc. How would this real life Clark Kent react the first time a girl turned him down for a date, or he didn't have money to pay his credit card bill? You can get into some VERY dark territory there.
Again, such a superhero would almost certainly be way more of a threat to humanity than a help. Unless there was an alien invasion or giant meteor strike imminent that he could stop, he would be much more likely to cause us way more harm than good.
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
I would destroy ACTA, DRM, IP and all the rest monsters. Anyone with me?
The fact that you value intelligence over morality already makes you the villain.
Also: Doctor Manhattan > Ozymandias.
How about just being selfish and pretty amoral? I bet a lot of folks could do that. It's not plotting-to-take-over-the-world villainry, but it's not good either.
Maybe, but that's not what those studies say. You seem to assume that someone has a conscious choice to be hero or villain and intentionally choose villain.
Most people seem to have that kind of delusion. For them you're either clearly doing good and you know it, or you're aware that pillaging and burning is wrong but you deliberately chose evil. Their world has some people who basically chose to be villains and know they're villains.
You can even look at fictional organizations like SPECTRE (SPecial Executive for Counter-intelligence, Terrorism, Revenge and Extortion) in otherwise non-parody movies. And it comes easy to swallow that someone would come up with a business plan like, basically, "I know, let's make an organization that's all about placing bombs and extortion, 'cause that market hardly has enough supply to meet the demand." And then a bunch of people would basically go, "yay, I always wanted to be an evil minion! Where do I sign up?"
In reality what these studies show has nothing to do with choosing to wear tights or twirl a moustache and cackle manically. They just show that most people, if given power, or even if role-playing a position of power, find it increasingly easy to rationalize bad behaviour. They're not choosing to be evil, they just rationalize being a complete dick as _good_ or at least excusable.
And not just business decisions. That's the fun part. Sure, you can rationalize evil business decisions via what I call an "argument from capitalism": being evil is good if it makes some investor money. But it extends beyond that.
E.g., in a study people role-playing some executive-level boss with a posh office would find a $100 bill. And most would not just pocket it and forget about it, but actually lie if someone came asking about it. Whereas those role-playing the peons would be less likely to.
Or like in that baker's statistic that folks on the executive level were more likely to take a sandwich without paying for it, than the peons on the cubicle floor.
The illusion that now you're above those pesky peons and their judgments extends not just deciding if to cut costs by dumping radioactive waste in the Mediterranean (actually happened, btw), but even to that kind of stuff. It's not even about fiduciary responsibility to the shareholders or anything, but basically about being a dick. Those in positions of power can rationalize it better and for being more of a dick.
It applies to heroes vs villains only in as much a case can be made that if they suddenly found Plato's ring and could be untraceable whenever they want, most people wouldn't think "yay, now I can do some serious good with this power", but rather "yay, let's steal some money from the bank" or even "yay, now I can take revenge on the boss/ex-gf/whatever".
Granted, as TFA points out, not all people. Some actually go in overdrive with applying higher standards to themselves when given power or an illusion of power. So I guess you'd get some heroes too. Most just start rationalizing more of what they want and now can take and be de facto villains.
But the fun part is that neither would actually consider themselves villains. Someone could be just in the process of leaving with a sack of cash from the bank and just think it's the due that society always owed them, or that they're actually doing a good thing because they might give a tiny portion of that to charity, or really whatever rationalization.
A polar bear is a cartesian bear after a coordinate transform.
Hancock went to the middle of cities and stopped car chases.
I think what GP has in mind is more of a Dr Manhattan "War is obsolete, have free energy, I sure hope there's no super-smart guy who can make this into a bomb" kind of change the world.
Consider that the only outcome at the end of both the film and the original graphic novel is indeed "world peace." Either under the guise of mutual self interest in stopping Dr Manhattan / alien race, or an end to world hunger and war brought about by free and abundant energy. Viedt's manipulation of Dr Manhattan, and his underhanded scheme was moot. Hence Dr Manhattan's last line to Viedt in the graphic novel.
In other words, to change the world you need to think big. Hancock failed at that.
Finally had enough. Come see us over at https://soylentnews.org/