The idea of gaining and using super powers has been a dream of most people for as long as comics have existed. It would make so many things easier in our daily lives and gives us a one-up on our competitors. But what would it really be like to have super powers, not in the comics universe where other rules, considerations and laws of physics get thrown out the window, but in ours where these rules still exist (unless of course your powers are to defy these laws.
5. Psychic Powers
The concept of having the ability to read other peoples thoughts is a fantastic idea. Knowing what other people were thinking, know their secrets, desires, fears and to play on those for your own gain. Getting pulled over for a speeding ticket? Simply read the cops mind, find out his sympathies and play on those to get out of the ticket, or perhaps put the notion in his head to let you off with a warning; sounds pretty good right?
Actually, psychic powers in the real world would suck. People don’t think in complete sentences, try it, and write down all the things that pop into your head in the next minute. You wouldn’t be able to write it all down. What’s worse is that you know the complete idea in your head; your brain doesn’t have to complete a thought because you’re aware of what you’re thinking about. Every time you look at something or are typing something you’re unconsciously thinking about what you’re doing. You don’t concentrate on a single idea long enough for someone to make sense of it. Someone trying to read your thoughts would get bombarded by so much additional flak information of what the subject is looking at or other thoughts in their mind; you couldn’t actually use any of it as an advantage. Well what about thought manipulation you may think? Put thoughts in other people’s minds? Well even with a super brain, you probably couldn’t overcome free will, just like verbally trying to convince someone to do something, they still have enough will to know what they are doing is wrong or against their better judgment. But I’ll give you the benefit of the doubt. Maybe you do have a super brain and you can convince others to do something that they otherwise wouldn’t do. Now think about how many times you’ve had to slam on your breaks because someone merged onto the freeway going 25, or cut you off in traffic; and without even thinking, you immediately thought to yourself, that you wished that the person would just die or drive off a cliff. You wouldn’t even realize that you had thought it, until the car suddenly swerved off the road toward the cliff. Would you be able to realize what you had done and convince the person to turn back before it was too late? Maybe you could, maybe not. Perhaps instead of driving off a cliff the person in the car holds the suggestion until they come to a cliff in a hundred miles and they drive off it without you even realizing it.
4. Duplication
Here’s another great power, the ability to separate yourself into multiple copies in order to accomplish many tasks at once. In keeping with the rules of the game, you get one power, and you can duplicate yourself. You’re not a hive mind you aren’t controlling or receiving any of the knowledge of the other-you(s) while they’re out doing their thing. Well so what? Well the you that was sent to school, while you slept in, you won’t gain that knowledge that they’re gaining. Do this for years and you’ll find yourself flunking out of school unless you use the same duplicate every time, in that case they have all the knowledge for a career while you have an 8th grade education. Perhaps the other you, having its own consciousness realizes that it’s getting short shafted and wants to stay home playing videogames too (hey if you want to skip school for games, he does too). Now your clone is mad at you and you’ll have to get rid of him, meaning a different clone every few days or months. Perhaps it’s work, you have your other self going to work doing your job while you’re having fun. It’ll be the same thing, what will they find out at work that by you missing out on will hurt your ability to stay on top of things. What if your boss sends work home with “you” and you reabsorb your clone before getting that info. Well now you’ve lost your job. Once again, I’ll give you the benefit of the doubt and say that you have a hive mind ability. It’ll be like the picture-in-picture effect that televisions have, except for your brain. You’ll be experiencing things in two(or more) different places at once, you would have sensory overload as your brain processes the events of the videogames and the events at school/work. You would maybe last a week before you suffer a mental breakdown and end up in a hospital for the rest of your life.
3. Telekinesis
Actually, no rebuttal, this would be a very good power for our real world aside from the mental strain and the concentration to move things, which could be built up with lots of practice.
2. Super Strength
Think of how many times in a day when you’re stressed or use too much strength for anything and then multiply that by 100. Sometimes when the toilet paper won’t come off the roll and you violently slap it, spinning it around to get a little centrifugal force to pull the paper off. Didn’t even realize that with super strength you would have tore a large hole in the side of the bathroom doing that huh? What about when you’re driving in snowy conditions and you’re gripping or pulling on the steering wheel without even realizing it. What about when you’re responding to a Troll on the internet and you’re angrily banging on the keys while you type a response. I can’t count how many times I’ve slammed a door, or yanked on a door knob to see if a door was locked, slammed the refrigerator door or any number of other things. Super strength would be great in many cases, but after you’ve accidentally destroyed thousands of dollars worth of stuff, you would wish to be normal again.
Now there are two ways to think of super strength, either you have some super ability to apply excessive force to anything or you’re simply physically super strong. Well if the first is true, let’s think about Newton’s Second Law of Motion. With this in mind, you would exert a super force to everything you do. Sitting in the chair, you would super-sit and destroy the chair; walking or jumping would damage the ground everywhere you went. You would be forced to do everything in a normal world so slow and carefully that it would make you miserable. On the flip side, if it’s due to your physical body, you would be so massive that you couldn’t fit in regular clothes, through regular doors or in regular cars. You would you like 2 of those steroid freaks mashed together.
1. Super Speed
If you could run as fast as lightning, I have to admit, it would be awesome. Now think of that swishing motion and sound your pants make every time to walk as your legs rub together. Yep you would have to replace your pants every time you ran just from the friction effect. Unfortunately I have to reset to the rule again of only one power. You’re not resistant to the fires and burns you will get every time you move fast and your clothes rub together so fast that they catch fire. So super fast, but burns to most of your body and extensive hospital bills. Even if you can avoid the burns, think of the shoes you will go through moving at those speeds. You would be buying new shoes every day, not to mention the grip your shoes have on the ground. If you ran along carpet or dry grass you would leave small fives behind every step you took. Doing a report that’s due in 5 minutes for school? Well the friction of the pencil on paper would have the same effect. Lastly, your body is exerting a lot of force, and because of that you’ll have to recover those lost calories or else wind up passing out due to malnutrition. All the time that you save from running you’ll end up spending eating to regain your energy. So with the cost of clothes, shoes, medical bills, food, and the damage you would cause, speed doesn’t make much sense either.
Honorable mention
Flying
I’m surprised this one’s not on the list. Everyone wants to fly. But I’m going to ruin that for you as well. Flying as a single power doesn’t include resistance to cold, and that’s what flying will be is really, really cold. Did you know that the temperature drops 2 degrees Celsius per 1000ft, which winds up being short of 4 degrees Fahrenheit . Big deal huh? Well you’ll also have the wind resistance you’ll pass through and depending on how fast you fly, will depend on how cold it gets. Well lets shoot for a typical spring day, right in the middle of the hottest of summer days and the coldest of winter days. Just for argument sake we’ll say that it’s 65 degrees outside. Well unless you want to risk flying into a radio tower, smoke stack or tall building, you’ll be at around 1000ft up or more if you’re over a large city with lots of tall buildings. Well, now it’s only 60 degrees outside. Still it’s no big whoop, just take a jacket. Well, you don’t want to fly slowly do you? No reason to have the ability to fly and fly only 35mph. So for it to be useful, you’ll fly 60mph. Well at 60 degrees and 60 mph wind chill, the temperature is now around 40 degrees. At that temperature you can expect frostbite within 30 minutes. If it’s any colder, you’ll freeze to death that much faster. So on a 60 degree day, you’ll be flying in so much cold protection gear, you’ll feel kind of foolish when you land, and you better not fly anywhere that takes more than 30 minutes to get there or else you’ll have to stop and take a break for a half an hour to warm up. Anything faster and the cold air gets worse at an extreme pace. As for 60mph, you’re better off driving if it’s a long distance. If you live in a big city and you don’t mind looking like a skier even in warm spring days, then it’s awesome.