this post was submitted on 04 Dec 2023
164 points (97.7% liked)

Ask Lemmy

27049 readers
1709 users here now

A Fediverse community for open-ended, thought provoking questions

Please don't post about US Politics. If you need to do this, try [email protected]


Rules: (interactive)


1) Be nice and; have funDoxxing, trolling, sealioning, racism, and toxicity are not welcomed in AskLemmy. Remember what your mother said: if you can't say something nice, don't say anything at all. In addition, the site-wide Lemmy.world terms of service also apply here. Please familiarize yourself with them


2) All posts must end with a '?'This is sort of like Jeopardy. Please phrase all post titles in the form of a proper question ending with ?


3) No spamPlease do not flood the community with nonsense. Actual suspected spammers will be banned on site. No astroturfing.


4) NSFW is okay, within reasonJust remember to tag posts with either a content warning or a [NSFW] tag. Overtly sexual posts are not allowed, please direct them to either [email protected] or [email protected]. NSFW comments should be restricted to posts tagged [NSFW].


5) This is not a support community.
It is not a place for 'how do I?', type questions. If you have any questions regarding the site itself or would like to report a community, please direct them to Lemmy.world Support or email [email protected]. For other questions check our partnered communities list, or use the search function.


Reminder: The terms of service apply here too.

Partnered Communities:

Tech Support

No Stupid Questions

You Should Know

Reddit

Jokes

Ask Ouija


Logo design credit goes to: tubbadu


founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] [email protected] 83 points 1 year ago (6 children)

A lot of them assuming you don't get the required secondary powers.

Super speed, if your perceptions aren't heightened it rapidly becomes impractical, if they are things are going to get painfully boring real quick. Even thinking at double speed means you are going to be waiting for the world to catch up a lot. Never mind what even relatively low G-forces can do to someone.

Super-hearing. Imagine if you really could hear conversations a block away, it can be hard enough discerning one conversation in a crowded room, imagine it being like that everywhere. All the rats and insects you will be hearing, the sound of people's clothes rubbing together. Even if normally loud things aren't deafening just focusing on one thing will be taxing.

If you don't get secondary powers then super strength is going to suck. The human body is already capable of injuring itself with its own strength. How many fastball pitchers get arm or shoulder injuries just from throwing something really fast, or power-lifters who have something break or burst. Modern sporting records are starting to push up against the structural limits of the human body.

[–] [email protected] 41 points 1 year ago (3 children)

Super-hearing. Imagine if you really could hear conversations a block away, it can be hard enough discerning one conversation in a crowded room, imagine it being like that everywhere. All the rats and insects you will be hearing, the sound of people’s clothes rubbing together. Even if normally loud things aren’t deafening just focusing on one thing will be taxing.

Super hearing would essentially be tinnitus with some variety in the inescapable noise.

[–] [email protected] 16 points 1 year ago

Also it would be similar to the experience a lot of autistic people have with their sense of hearing. Feeling overwhelmed by the background noise of every nearby animal, bit of noisy clothing, conversation, and heavy machinery is par for the course for me.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago

Duuude what if tinnitus is the superpower trying to happen? 🤯

[–] [email protected] 11 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I think the superhearing power is going to be different than you think. You can already hear your clothes rubbing against skin, the air conditioning blowing, etc. Your brain is pretty good at filtering those out. Now, the conversations will be more difficult, but think about your experiences at a party. Most of the time you can hear another group's conversation if you listened and focused on them, but you can tune them out (most of the time, ignoring the cocktail party effect stuff for now). Unless you have focus issues already, it wouldn't be a big deal. The issue would be the initial period where your brain has to learn what exactly to filter out. Right now, a rustle to my right would be a bad sign, and hearing a rat crawling through the wall would freak me out. After a few weeks though, I bet I'd have adjusted.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Yeah, I don't mean my own clothes, (though I do quite often hear them). I mean everyone's. I've also spent quite a bit of time living in a building where you could hear the rats moving about rather clearly (through a combination of a rat problem and some poor construction decisions.) Yes it goes from a 'what was that?' alert to a 'oh it's the rats' but you still notice. It's very different to continuous background noises like AC or traffic.

Loving one's life as if always at a loud party is exactly the thing I'm seeing as the problem. Yes you can actively focus on something specific, but always having to do that is going to be unpleasant. Never mind all the stuff you are going to overhear that you don't want to overhear.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago

Yeah, as someone with misophonia, I can't imagine my hearing getting better than it is. Already I can't tune stuff out, and it's not just people talking. It's ALL the lawn work in my neighborhood! It's the bunny rustling leaves in my backyard from my bedroom. It's the fan in the fridge that everyone else just blocks out. The gurgle of the fish tank. Lights make a high pitched noise, as do other electronics. That's all before people. The amount of noises people make that others tune out is so much! Rubbing your fingers together. The spit in your mouth right before you speak. If I'm cuddling with you, the liquid squish your eyes make when you blink. The creaking and popping of your joints! Even just breathing is a loud constant. Most everyone else is filtering all this out, but it's not something you can learn to time out. You either can or you can't, and if you can't you end up literally moving because your neighbor coughs too much and it wakes you up in the middle of the night.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 year ago

Super speed would come with similar issues as super strength. You would get less than a block, and you'd just be a skeleton.

Not to mention, the concept of saving someone from being hit by a car, likely results in 1 or (more likely) both of you being turned into paste from the impact.

Superpowers really only work in comics and movies, in real life there's just too many variables.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

I think there is no situation where you gain super speed without extreme forces resistance, because if you exert the force to move at the speed of sound but aren't resilient then your muscles, bones, and tendons will immediately shred themselves with that first step.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Honestly the best super power IMO is the ability to open gateways in time and space

[–] [email protected] 1 points 11 months ago (1 children)

Seeing as the earth is constantly moving at 1600 km/h I feel like it would be incredibly difficult to actually open a portal on earth in the past or future

[–] [email protected] 1 points 11 months ago

Seeing as position is relative, why not?