12 November 2008, 1:38 am
How would society and the world really respond if, tomorrow morning, all around the world, thousands of people woke up with superhuman powers? I don't mean some comic book world, or some sci-fi or TV or movie, but I mean in real life, in our physical, actual real world in which it's 2008 AD, Barack Obama is the president-elect of the United States, the global economy is going south, etc, the real world. If tomorrow morning, Thursday, November 13, 2008, all around the world, on every continent, random people from every walk of life, from American politicians to Bantu tribesman, awoke to find they suddenly possessed incredible superhuman powers and abilities. The how doesn't really matter. This is a hypothetical situation, so just imagine, it could be anything. It could be supernatural, genetic, alien, extradimensional, magickal, it could be a vacuum metastability event, whatever. The point is, it happens. For the purposes of this thought experiment, it's irrelevant how. My question is, based on the real psychology of people, what are they going to do once it does? They're not going to put on spandex costumes and become superheroes and supervillains, I'm pretty sure of that. But what would they do? Would most people simply use their power to rob banks, con people, try to get as rich as they could as quick as they could? Would they go on a power trip with delusions of grandeur (or actual, accurate perceptions of grandeur, as the case may be), feeling that even money itself was no longer necessary and simply taking whatever they wanted? Murder people they didn't like? Would there be conflicts between individuals or groups of these new superhuman people? How would the rest of the world react? Would they try to hunt them down? What would the major countries do? Would there be a war? Would people sympathize with them? Would governments of non-powered people be slow or quick to react? Would some powered people be loyal to the non-powered governments? Would some powered people reject and not want their powers? Assume there would be many different types, varieties, and levels of power among the different people who wake up tomorrow with abilities; they don't know how powerful they've become until they start trying out their newfound powers. Many of these people have powers that have made them sufficiently durable that bullets can't harm them, it takes an air strike or possibly even a nuclear weapon to put them down, others are no harder to kill than any normal human but perhaps can teleport from place to place, control the weather, disintegrate any matter they touch, travel through time, fly, control people's minds, or project blasts of energy that a can shatter objects to splinters. Assume also, however, that a small number are even MORE immune to harm, even to air strikes and nuclear weapons, such that not even a direct hit from the world's entire arsenal of hydrogen bombs could kill them. Also assume that there is a roughly equal distribution of ability to cause destruction among these people's powers as there is to survive it.... Read More »
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