Maintaining your secret identity

[Ruin Explorer]

The question is not what Superman could do, it’s what you would do. And it sounds a lot like you’re saying that you’d turn into psychopath!

If the state killed or tried to kill my friends/family in order to punish me for not doing what they wanted? Sure. At that point they've proven they're completely amoral and monstrous. This is something covered extensively by Invincible and other comics. It's not like this is some shocking original thought I've come up with lol. It's also demonstrated by real life - once people come to regard another as monstrous, they can justify doing whatever they want (c.f. present events).

Why not? Wouldn't you? You acting like this makes what I'm saying exceptional rather than typical is pretty funny to me, given how clearly most comic-book authors don't really agree. All of human history says that once the gloves are off, they're off, from prehistory to the modern day. The state killed your family because you, say, refused to go and eye-laser Tehran into the ground, or throw Jeremy Corbyn into the sun or whatever, would you just shrug and say "Well I'm not a killer, so I guess they can just keep on doing their thing!". I mean, incredible Buddha-like nature if you would but I'm confident most people wouldn't. Most people would consumed by emotions, principally hate and rage, and normally the limitations of being a human and living in a society stop them from doing much (though many parents dedicate their entire lives to doing what they can to find justice for those who harmed their children, for example), but a superman is not constrained by being a human, nor by being part of society (he doesn't even need to breath).

The other issue is, they just don't know.

You could be Buddha-natured. Or you could be your average emotion-propelled human. Your personality will be of insane interest to the state. The best way to control you will be to manipulate you by appearing to be your friend, not by being arm-twisting thugs.

 

[jian]

I don't think the intelligence services are quite as outright stupid as you suggest. If they didn't "react well", can you explain, in detail, and with specifics not generalities, what you think they could possibly do? They certainly don't know anything about Kryptonite or Earth's Yellow Sun, because you (superman-like person) don't either. Yeah Kier Starmer might throw a tantrum because you weren't willing to throw Zack Polanski into the sun for him, or whatever, but what power-play options does he have? Absolutely none. The only choice is negotiation.

I think they’d find it very easy to get leverage on Superman. Even if there is no Kryptonite, they’d find out quite quickly who he is and who his loved ones are, what he cares about, etc. - that would be an absolute immediate priority. Once such leverage is found, they would try to use it.

It’s not about who the PM is - it’s about the intelligence services. In my experience (I’ve known a couple) these are people who have served as the suspicion of the nation for decades, who think they’re more clever than anyone else, and who have very few professional standards and a lot of frustration about budget cuts, larger powers, and how little they’re paid. They will have developed and cultivated personal and cultural foibles such as racism and nationalism. Given an unprecedented Christmas present and/or disruption like a Superman they can maybe control, their reaction will vary between unholy glee and enraged paranoia (the latter is more likely if Superman is a woman or not white). Either way, it’s a terrible idea to trust them with this.

(Obviously, threatening Superman is a bad idea - you either end up with one-time reluctant obedience or outright rebellion, and then you decide to do something stupid as a warning, and then who knows what will happen - but I suspect it’s a bad idea they can’t actually conceive as working out badly because they’re too fixated on the potential reward. They can’t actually conceive the loss framing so they’ll go with the gain framing.)

 

[soviet]

I've met humans.

When they get upset enough, bad things happen, and for most people, the only things ultimately stopping them from doing worse are:

A) They care deeply about people around them.

and

B) They're afraid of the consequences of doing something bad (for themselves and others).

For some people personal morality independent of the above may factor in, but power corrupts, and we can see from billionaires today that morality is not a major factor in any of their personalities. In fact it would be straightforward to describe most of them as "totally amoral".

I don't think people are as craven as you suggest.

I also don't think that billionaires are a representative sample of people's morality. I suggest that even being a billionaire is a fundamentally evil, immoral act. You are choosing having a third golden toilet over three thousand children having enough to eat this week. I also suggest that the route towards being a billionaire requires a certain drive and willingness to step on people and step beyond or around common ethical principles.

You keep proposing that governments could twist their arms or whatever, but that's a limited path. The moment you threaten a kind, rational person's family with harm, is the moment that suddenly they're thinking about a lot of options available to them which were not previously available to them.

How do you think you, as say, some civil service bureaucrat, or worse, god-help-us, half-witted soundbite-spewing politician, would successfully blackmail Superman? What leverage do you have, exactly? How many times can you use that leverage? Bearing in mind, this Superman is not god's own boy scout, but a normal human being. Better hope Supes-equivalent is a Quaker, I guess!

I would guess that if you wanted to blackmail superman it would revolve around selective leaking to poison the public perception of them and/or threaten their family and supporters. But, as Morgan Freeman would say, good luck.

 

[soviet]

This appears to be your answer to everything in this thread. As I said before when you commented that the answer was extreme violence--no, I'm not going to level any cities or murder any anybody. Honestly, you're starting to sound a little dangerous!

I think if you have the power of superman then you have a moral imperative to topple certain regimes through violence.

All the comic book superheroes are evil people. To have the power to solve world hunger and topple fascist regimes, but to choose not to do so, is evil.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

I think they’d find it very easy to get leverage on Superman. Even if there is no Kryptonite, they’d find out quite quickly who he is and who his loved ones are, what he cares about, etc. - that would be an absolute immediate priority. Once such leverage is found, they would try to use it.

It’s not about Starmer etc - it’s about the intelligence services. In my experience (I’ve known a couple) these are people who have served as the suspicion of the nation for decades, who think they’re more clever than anyone else, and who have very few professional standards and a lot of frustration about budget cuts, larger powers, and how little they’re paid. They will have developed and cultivated personal and cultural foibles such as racism and nationalism. Given an unprecedented Christmas present and/or disruption like a Superman they can maybe control, their reaction will vary between unholy glee and enraged paranoia (the latter is more likely if Superman is a woman or not white). Either way, it’s a terrible idea to trust them with this.

It seems like your position is "The intelligence services as a whole, are morons who would do the dumbest thing possible as fast as possible". Now if we're talking about the 20th-century CIA, well, I can't argue with that, but I don't really think MI6 and MI5 are quite as keen on rushing towards stupidity as a breakneck pace as you describe, nor the same for most countries. Like, why do you want to start a fight with superman so badly?

Also, you haven't answered the issue that they will find your identity out, so it's not really a matter of "trusting" them with it, is it?

I would guess that if you wanted to blackmail superman it would revolve around selective leaking to poison the public perception of them and/or threaten their family and supporters. But, as Morgan Freeman would say, good luck.

Explain how that's a winning strategy, and doesn't just push you into conflict with the superman? A conflict you cannot win, and would in fact, probably lose 80-90% of your country's military capability within, say, 6 hours of starting (even the nicest superman who doesn't kill soldiers kills machines).

No-one has explained an actual full strategy here yet.

The only one I can see is manipulating/appeasing superman. Which, let's be clear, is how humanity has always operated with gods. You give them what they want, you tell them what they want to hear, you beg them to save you or destroy your enemies, you don't try and order them around.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

I think if you have the power of superman then you have a moral imperative to topple certain regimes through violence.

All the comic book superheroes are evil people. To have the power to solve world hunger and topple fascist regimes, but to choose not to do so, is evil.

You mean the mainstream DC/Marvel heroes, right? Because outside of the mainstream, stuff like The Authority is about exactly this. This is something comics authors have been putting in since the 1990s or earlier.

 

[jian]

Of course, my answer is “I won’t work with any government unless I really have to and I would work to prepare people I loved about my secret becoming public.”

Should I get into the situation of working with a government and having my loved ones threatened, I would comply but refuse to do anything immoral. If I am ordered to do anything immoral, I would take my chances and go to the press as a whistleblower, having secured my loved ones as well as possible. I would then obtain a brightly coloured costume and be as public as possible in my heroism. I would accept that I would never have a private life again and would become a highly divisive person.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

I also don't think that billionaires are a representative sample of people's morality. I suggest that even being a billionaire is a fundamentally evil, immoral act. You are choosing having a third golden toilet over three thousand children having enough to eat this week. I also suggest that the route towards being a billionaire requires a certain drive and willingness to step on people and step beyond or around common ethical principles.

That's an interesting question - does power attract the corrupt or does power inherently corrupt? I tend to think both are true myself. But I could see your argument that it's just the former.

 

[soviet]

You mean the mainstream DC/Marvel heroes, right? Because outside of the mainstream, stuff like The Authority is about exactly this. This is something comics authors have been putting in since the 1990s or earlier.

Yeah I'm aware of the Authority (and Planetary), two very good reactions to this concept.

 

[soviet]

That's an interesting question - does power attract the corrupt or does power inherently corrupt? I tend to think both are true myself. But I could see your argument that it's just the former.

My argument isn't that it's just the former, my argument is it's both. Your argument seemed to be that it's just the latter.

Also I didn't say power, I said billionaires. I don't think most (non-US) politicians are corrupt.