Be honest: if you had the power to stop time, your morals would go out the window.

balderdash@lemmy.zip to Ask Lemmy@lemmy.world – 248 points –

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?

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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.

travel the world with time stopped? sounds like a lot of walking

True but if you had potentially infinite time, why not? I suppose nutrition and hydration maybe an issue depending on how the ability works too. It would be annoying to have to lug around supplies.

would be a bit awkward to have godlike power and still die of thirst in the desert

Would time ever start back up then? With great cosmic power comes great cosmic responsibility.

Thing is if you stop time you would also stop yourself, so either you can move stupidly quickly(or even FTL, which means physics just goes out the window, since the entirety of your body can't convert that much energy to go even 1% the speed of light, so either you would have to somehow inject massive amounts of energy into your body which will still only grant you a short amount of time, not to mention medical complications; or you literally generate energy out of nowhere, which at that point you might as well be a god);

or everything else stops, which means you can't breath unless you also control air around you, and if you can control air particles around you, why not other types of particles? And once you can control any types particles you might as well be a god since what's stopping you from literally doing bloody nuclear fusion and turning the entire planet into a star?

So basically if you can stop time you are literally a god Or you defy the laws of physics which also makes you basically a god Or you die while stopping time which would kinda be weird as you just kinda suffocated to death out of nowhere

Stealing money from gambling organizations is ethical what are you talking about

You might want to read it again

I read it again and it says the same thing, what am I missing

It in no way says that stealing from a casino is ethical. In fact, they even say "if i wanted to be ethical..." after the casino bit.

Ah, i see, you are the one who needs to re-read my comment then

Ah, i see. Without punctuation it can be read as a question or a statement.

He did not outright tell that it would be unetical but he implied it.

...gambling lottery... But if I wanted to be ethical

Imply that the roulette part is unethical.

He said he would do it tho, so I guess it's not unethical enough for him not to do it. Stealing is unethical but yeah, it's casino, so it's not that bad.