2011-02-13

mmcirvin: (Default)
2011-02-13 02:49 pm

I lost my superpowers, I was invisible

Via Jamelle Bouie: Preferred superpowers of polled Americans.

I agree with Bouie that these results are really quite odd. Mind-reading and time travel seem like the most potentially dangerous of these superpowers by far; do people really prefer them? I suppose I do fantasize sometimes about being able to go back and fix mistakes, or have more hours in a day. But if I were really offered time-travel powers, I would be terrified by all sorts of science-fictional worries.

None of the powers really gets a majority.

For me, I think it'd be a close call between flight and teleportation. I'd probably pick teleportation because of its immense practical utility. Of course, a lot depends on how it works. Do you have to apply Besterian mental disciplines to avoid teleporting into a wall?

And it's odd that the poll doesn't offer super-strength or physical invulnerability, which are sort of the baseline superhero powers. Flight becomes much more useful if you also have invulnerability, of course, and I suppose immunity from temperature extremes and asphyxiation would help as well.