Maintaining your secret identity

[Morrus]

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.

I don’t know why you’re saying the state killed my family. The proposition we’re discussing here is that they ask you to do something you don’t agree with. At which point, you’d apparently level a city and murder millions?

 

[MarkB]

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.

That's one thing I liked about the Fantastic 4 movie. It presented a world in which the resident superheroes had actively taken a role in improving things on a worldwide level and had largely succeeded, introducing new technologies, negotiating peace between hostile powers, establishing new platforms for international cooperation.

 

[soviet]

That's one thing I liked about the Fantastic 4 movie. It presented a world in which the resident superheroes had actively taken a role in improving things on a worldwide level and had largely succeeded, introducing new technologies, negotiating peace between hostile powers, establishing new platforms for international cooperation.

Yeah! That was kind of the most fantastical part of the movie - the idea that the FF say 'OK everyone in the world cooperate' and the world says 'OK'. But it was refreshing.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

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.

Okay, that was a bad assumption on your part, and I don't see where you got that from, but consider that cleared up. My position is that power corrupts and the corrupt particularly seek power.

I don't think most (non-US) politicians are corrupt.

I do. Not all, but most, to at least some degree. A lot of MPs are very lightly corrupt though. But not without sin here, and the closer they get to the top, the worse it gets.

As long as we allow rich companies and individuals to fund political campaigns, to give rewards and jollies to politicians, they will be corrupt. Certainly that's true in the UK. Just look at the "revolving door" between politicians and business (worst of all, politicians and civil servants and the arms industry). They're not all corrupt to the same level, but relatively few haven't either received money from people they then make decisions to benefit, or made decisions planning their post-politician career (which is almost always far more lucrative than their political career is).

And it's not just at a high level, either - local politicians can often be very spectacularly and hilariously corrupt (listen to "No gods, no mayors" sometime!).

 

[Ruin Explorer]

I don’t know why you’re saying the state killed my family. The proposition we’re discussing here is that they ask you to do something you don’t agree with. At which point, you’d apparently level a city and murder millions?

No, and I don't think that's a reasonable read of what I said.

What I said was:

I mean, where does an 800lb gorilla sit? Wherever it wants.

It's the same situation here. You say "No" and they say "Ok" or they try and politely and like grownups make their case to you until you either agree (or agree to some limited form of it) or get bored and leave. What are they going to do, blackmail you?

So explain to me how that's "murdering millions" lol?

My point is, all their avenues of blackmail and arm-twisting terminate in harming your friends and family. They can't imprison you. They can't kill you. So they have two choices:

1) Logically/morally convince you to cooperate, including potentially manipulating the hell out of you, but in a fairly positive "We'd like you to..." kind of way, with no attempts at "consequences" for you not agreeing.

or

2) Attempt to twist essentially a god's arm, whilst knowing they have no way to harm this superman or even stop him, and knowing that he's human, the consequences if he loses his rag (which he probably would) would be potentially very dire.

I don't honestly think a committee of people discussing this is going to so stupid as to pick 2 over 1, unless you really have a truly spectacular gathering of idiots, the sort rarely seen outside party conferences.

 

[Morrus]

No, and I don't think that's a reasonable read of what I said.

What I said was:

So explain to me how that's "murdering millions" lol?

THAT isn't "murdering millions" lol

They push that even an inch too far and not only are they potentially personally dead (and remember, 95% of people are massive cowards, including the sort of people who would be sent to negotiate with you, even if you're terribly nice, they're probably going to constantly be thinking about how you could kill them with a glance), but you might level cities if they pushed your buttons hard enough.

THAT is murdering millions lol

To avoid misunderstanding, when I talked about you talking about murdering millions, I was referring to the bit where you talked about murdering millions, not the other bit in the same post where you were talking about something else lol

 

[Ruin Explorer]

That isn't "murdering millions" lol



THAT is murdering millions lol

To avoid misunderstanding, when I talked about you talking about murdering millions, I was referring to the bit where you talked about murdering millions, not the other bit in the same post where you were talking about something else lol

No, you didn't.

You said:

I don’t know why you’re saying the state killed my family. The proposition we’re discussing here is that they ask you to do something you don’t agree with. At which point, you’d apparently level a city and murder millions?

Which is not supported by your quotes from me at all. You're skipping the entire functional part.

Also, you're ignoring any kind of nuance in a topic that's all about nuance.

There's a difference between them knowing you could do something, and fearing you would. But they're interrelated. It behooves them to negotiate with you rather than to try to manipulate or blackmail you, do you disagree? You don't have to actually do it - they just have to think you might.

Also to clarify "push you an inch too far" isn't like, "have a disagreement over whether hotdogs are a sandwich", it's like "threaten to kill your family in an attempt to blackmail you into assassinating someone they don't like". I'm talking about people who are trying to manipulate a super-being to, as you said, do something that you disagree with - and I assume the disagreement is reasonably profound, like life and death.

 

[Morrus]

Which is not supported by your quotes from me at all.

You said "but you might level cities if they pushed your buttons hard enough."

Gaslighting doesn't work when the text is right there for everybody to read.

This exchange has become weird and uncomfortable. I'm exiting.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

You said "but you might level cities if they pushed your buttons hard enough."

Gaslighting doesn't work when the text is right there for everybody to read.

This exchange has become weird and uncomfortable. I'm exiting.

To quote the great drag queen Mistress - "Have a blessed night, as will I!"

 

[MoonSong]

IMO the best way to avoid getting entangled into poliitcs is to avoid calling unwanted attention. Being discrete, never repeating the same outfit twice in the same area (even cosplaying as a local folklore figure). Work mostly at night. Avoid the large cities. Leave the phone at home. The best way to keep the Government off your trail is to never give them a reason to notice you in the first place.