1y ago

Be honest: if you had the power to stop time, your morals would go out the window.

Pretty much the title. I've been watching more realistic super hero shows like The Boys and Invincible. The reoccurring themes is that with great power comes great immorality.

I think it's easy for us normies to respect other people and their property because there are clear consequences for violating social norms. But what would the average person do if they had super powers?

273 comments

Power does not corrupt. It reveals. If you have the power to do whatever you want, it becomes apparent what you wanted to do. If having this power makes you do evil deeds, it means you already wanted to do evil deeds but lacked the power to.
- Just like tequila!
- For anyone who wants to learn more you should read The Power Broker by Robert Caro
  
  That's it! I knew I learned of this from something but forgot the name of it.
  
  God damn Moses
- I think the issue is that it's impossible to have "perfect morals" and morals are subjective. Once you have absolute power there will no longer be someone or something to keep you in check when it comes to more questionable morals. Sure you might not think you are doing anything wrong, but you can still look like an evil villain to everyone else.
- Sounds a lot like Kant with his morality of principals to me.

Dude. they ain't morals if the only thing stopping me is consequence
- Also, lazyness and procrastination.
- So you're a consequentialist, then. That's just one short step to utilitarianism, which is a pretty solid moral foundation.
  
  Ehhhh, Consequentialism judges the morality of an action by its consequence. I'm simply not stealing shit because the inconvenience of hassle.
  
  I think OP is guided by virtue ethics actually.

Honestly I think I would mostly use it for naps. So many naps.
- Honestly. This.
  There is so much that I would want to do that requires time to be "flowing" that the only things I could probably get done would be some cleaning, reading, and some rest.
  Food doesn't cook without time. Computers and other electronics need time to process inputs. If I want to get anywhere I'm walking.
  The only immoral stuff might be some shoplifting, maybe. But even then I wouldn't really be motivated if I could afford whatever it was otherwise.
  
  I'd definitely fuck with people who were being shitty, not straight up evil, just mischievous:
  Park in a bike lane? Oh no, all your valve stems have disappeared!
  Attack someone? Your shoelaces are now tied to your belt, which is also now fastened around your arms.
  Steal from a person? Your shoes are now hanging from a lamp post and the stuff you stole got unstolen.
  Be a shady company that screws everyone over? Your infrastructure keeps breaking and funds keep disappearing, how weird!
  Invade Ukraine and commit hundreds of war crimes? Oh no, you fell out of a window and also I have now been "recruited" by the CIA because they found out about my ability to pause time. Now I'm forced to do morally ambiguous things under the guise of national interests.
  Oh shit, OP was right!
  Also, hey Netflix: Hit me up if you wanna do a series, I know you'll literally hire anyone. I do comedy too.
  
  There is so much that I would want to do that requires time to be "flowing"..
  If we're talking about physics-accurate superpowers, please add partial blindness - photons are frozen in place, they can't reach your eyelids, unless you walk into them. And suffocation due to completely still air.
  And ... now you can't even nap in peace 😐.
- Would be pretty cool for transport too: Arrive anywhere instantly; you'd never be late.
  
  You would think so, but once you get used to it, you'd be like, 'What's the hurry? I can be there immediately' and start traveling at the nick of the moment, and then eventually start showing up late, even with the superpower. If you were late to begin with, you'd be late all the way through. I know I would be.
- You are truly the best of us.

This is an awful lot like the idea that the only thing keeping people from raping and murdering is belief in god. It says a lot more about the person claiming it than anyone else.
- Wups, I meant to reply to a comment about the Mongol/Huns on another post (hence the mention of nomadic tribes). I was wondering why my comment got downvoted lol

your morals would go out the window.
Why would they? I don't enjoy hurting people, and I wouldn't start enjoying it if I could magically get away with it.
- The counterargument for this line of thinking is that it's just theoretical. You don't have actual experience with the scenario, so you can't truly know how you'd behave.
  We all like to think we're paragons of virtue. But when the chips are down, most people behave in ways they never expected to.
  In the words of an eminent poet, "Everybody got a plan until they get punched in the mouth."
  
  Sure, I don't know how I'd react. I know for sure I'd do dodgy, illegal things. I also know that legal and moral are not synonyms. And I also know that the only person I have no choice but to live with is myself, and I have no intention of doing anything that makes me hate myself. Stopping time doesn't change that.
  
  If I can't truly know how I'd behave, then this discussion is pointless.
  I claim that you don't know how you'd truly behave, and that people are generally decent and wouldn't harm others if there were no consequences

If I had the power to stop time I'd stop it, travel all around the world putting live grenades in the pockets of every type of evil greedy cunt I could find, then start it again and wait for the fireworks to ensue. Every time someone starts making psychopath money again? Suddenly a grenade appears in their pocket. Funding wars, poison and incarceration? Every person with a finger in haliburton or monsanto, turned into red mist at a board meeting. Shareholders, exploding in hot tubs, saudi princes splattered in their shitty lambos. Every jordan belfort wannabe fuckstick exquisitely morphed into charcuterie.
Grenade morality.
- that would be extremely time consuming, imagine traveling around the world with every major transport frozen
  and imagine the time It would take to actually find everyone who needs a pocket granade
  
  I think one of the necessary secondary support powers would be for time to flow normally for anything you touch.
  Otherwise air would be frozen and you'd suffocate.
  
  How can you consume time if it is stopped?
  
  I feel like after a while, and maybe with a few notes left behind, it would begin to have a chilling effect.
  
  Would it really be time consuming? Depends on the ruleset of thw world I suppose. Do you age in this time frozen state?
  
  If you can breathe and are not locked into your own clothes, you can surely use motor vehicles as well
- The "Death Note" style of super powers lol
- Grenade morality.
  Big grenade diplomacy
- I'd vote for ya
- you paint a vivid mental image
  I like that
- You’d need both the ability to stop time, create a time pocket for yourself and the ability to fly on your own

The measure of a man's true character is what he would do if he knew he would never be found out.
- “Our character is what we do when we think no one is looking”
  
  Huh, my character is apparently about itching orifices.
- The shopping cart test.

Weird self report. The only thing stopping you from being evil is social pressure?
- I think someone else in this thread said it best. The more power you have the more temptation there is to fulfill your whims. Why do you think billionaires live the way that they do?
  At least, that's how I see human nature. I made this post because I think there's room for reasonable debate.
  
  Why do you think billionaires become billionaires? They were already messed up before the money and had no morals to stop them from doing immoral things to get it.
  If I knew I'd never be caught, I'd hope I would do things that billionaire brown-nosers think is immoral. But it's things I believe are moral. Like reclaiming stolen wealth from billionaires.
  
  It’s easy to be cynical about human nature when the extreme negatives are so amplified and given so much publicity. You have to remember the vast majority of people do still possess empathy.
  
  Reasonable debate about what? That most people would be evil if they had the power because the people who have power are often evil? That inference does not follow. That’s not a logical claim, it’s a self report at worst and a fallacy at best.
  
  Yeah but think about it: you could check someone's ass fully instead of stealing glances, put random dirt smudges on people's faces.. it's hard to resist such a power.

If I had the power to stop time, my morals would suddenly become enforced.
- day one: pantsed every pro-life god botherer outside of every planned parenthood, all at the same moment.
  day two: watched the internet take in day one. picked charities to give stacks of drug money and swiss nazi money to.
  day three: etc
- I feel the same way. Trying to be a moral person is quite time consuming, and people seem to love short circuiting it by relying on various rules of thumb. But once you start investing those, it’s like peeling an onion, there’s always another layer to it that you haven’t considered.
  When is giving money to someone in need helpful and when is it enabling their helplessness?
  How can you tell the difference between someone who needs your help and someone who just wants to take you for a ride?
  Don’t forget that your time is literally the most valuable thing you can choose to give someone. If you had unlimited amounts of it you’d be a billionaire. Then again, perhaps it would just end up making it worthless because you don’t need to ration it anymore.

Your morals wouldn't be changing.
Your behavior would.

Just because The Boys is gory and pessimistic doesn't mean it's realistic
- Sure, but given the state of things, I think we're closer to the boys than we could ever be to the avengers

Those kind of darker 'realistic' shows have a very cynical view of human nature where people are inherently bad and the social contract is what keeps us at bay from becoming monsters. I dont agree with that assessment (though I did as an edgy teenager)
The rich and powerful act the was they do not because they can but because they have nothing to strive for. IMO people require a certain amount of conflict and struggle in order to truly attain happiness and a fulfilling life. You also need to learn new skills to have fresh experiences. See this excellent documentary on the mouse utopia experiments.
You cant really appreciate success until you've failed miserably and earned it through blood sweat and tears. If you live your whole life being too rich to fail, and get everything you've ever wanted without having to work and struggle for it, then you eventually run out of things to want and life becomes hollow. Food looses its taste, drugs no longer get you high, regular and even kinky sex looses its appeal, luxury and convinence becomes meaningless as does social status. The only thing left is the thrill of depravity.
Time powers wouldn't make a normal person with proper life goals and average moral values instantly go off the deep end. Only people who think money and power buys happiness.

Losing my morals? Goodness no! My morals would be the only thing left, as there would be no one who could stop me. Justice for the wronged, help for the needy, and punishment for the wicked that knows no limits.
Is there a tyrant that threatens peace? Bound and delivered to the United nations. A disaster trapping civilians? Every injured person into the first hospital bed available, worldwide in a moment. Hell, I could read every medical book ever and become the most studied doctor ever.
- Lmao yeah but what about when somebody pisses you off? Like that's kinda the whole point of this question but good job taking some weird moral high ground ig?
  Also, what if your ideas about "wicked" and "good" aren't the same as mine?
  For example one of us could see Xi Jinping and the Chinese government as quite evil and actively carrying out a genocide, while the other of us might believe that to be western propaganda and that the Chinese government is generally benign.
  What about when the death of the wicked means a power vacuum and strife for a region a la American imperialism?
  Anyway just trying to get some interesting conversation related to the topic at hand.
  
  I mean think of if someone pisses you off now, you don't automatically go and fuck with them anonymously, even though it's infinitely easy to do.
- Bound and delivered to...
  Bruh you're a better person than me. Aint nobody got the time to drag over some weak ass hitler wanna be halfway over the world. Much rather just grenade diplomacy them wherever they are, as another lemming mentioned in this thread.
  EDIT: Just occurred to me that this would actually entail investigating and confirming their crimes beyond all doubt. Now I understand the appeal of just dropping them off somewhere with people qualified and trained to do that.
- Goes to show that morals aren’t a hindrance, but a guide. Without morals, who are we?
- Yeah but you'd walk through the occasional locker room too. You know, when it makes sense for like, justice and stuff.
  
  What are you, twelve? You have a superpower like this, you're going to get all the partners you want

I've been watching more realistic super hero shows like The Boys and Invincible. The reoccurring themes is that with great power comes great immorality.
You know that those were still written by humans to tell a story, right? I wouldn't derive any universal laws from them.
- Kind of a misunderstanding. Its not "law" they lay down, its archetypes. If it is realistic it means more like it is more relatable.
  Immortality and immense power is meant to give a sandbox view of the world with lowered consequences. Also the naive inheritor in case of Invincible.
  In case of The Boys, Homelander embodies the establishment that is not only more powerful, but hailed as the hero of all mankind.
  Thats lots of peoples vibes. You are not the hero in shining armor. You are an insurgent at best. You dont just get on a suit and start saving lives, but you have to go up aganist THE establishment and fucking prove yourself first. The very thing that is being actively hailed.
  
  I think you misunderstand my point. I'm not saying those shows lay down any laws. I'm saying you (the viewer) shouldn't derive any universal laws from consequences or situations depicted in stories made up specifically for entertainment.

If you're honest with yourself about your morals, they wouldn't change
Mine wouldn't
Honestly, I'd primarily use the power to sleep
- I'm on the same page as you, dude! My first thought was that I could take naps ANYWHERE at ANY TIME. It'd be a dream to never feel tired and always refreshed. Also to have absolutely no pressure from time commitments. I'd just be a happy guy most of the time.
- Honestly I'm having trouble imagining what terrible things others here seem to be considering doing if they had the power to stop time. Hopefully it's not more than stealing money from a bank vault?
  
  That's the fun thing about morals, everyone is operating with a different set of morals. Often similar, but some are drastically different.
  And sometimes the things that fit within their moral outlines would shock other people
  Some people need the threat of terrible consequences to not do terrible things
  
  I suppose it depends a lot on the nature of said time-stopping power. Using it to threaten some of the most powerful people on the planet into using said power to do good (or at least not bad) would be on the list of stuff to do.
  For instance - a note threatening Putin with the loss of a toe or something (and further escalating consequences) unless he makes a public statement announcing the intent of Russian Armed forces to withdraw from Ukraine.

Consequences aren't the only thing that cause people to act they way they act. It's certainly one reason some people don't do certain things.
One reason Homelander is the way he is is because how he was raised. If tomorrow I got all Homelander's powers, I wouldn't instantly become a psychopath. I mean it might occur to me that any action I might take, and no one could stop me or punish me. But as Homelander observed (at least in the prior season, I'm not entirely caught up) that alienation from his fellow supers is actually a consequence he deals with.
- I'm not a violent person and never get into trouble but if I suddenly became superman I'd immediately punch Putin to death. And a bunch of other politicans / plutocrats that have made the world 100x worse.
  
  This is exactly what happens in The Boys too
  Spoilers for the first few seasons: the righteous non supers find drugs to give themselves superheroes so they can battle the corrupt super heroes. Yes, this cheat code to power begins to corrupt them too.
  Further, the super hero Council and corporation works hard to replace the roles the military covers. They then become an unaccountable shadow agency that the people want to keep doing the work of the government.... But then democracy is slipping away.
- A good example of this is asking yourself if you would kill your immediate family if you could do so with impunity. For most of us the answer is, of course, no. That's because of familiarity, and how we think of them as our "in group." Same goes for anyone else. If you're morally developed then no one should be afraid of you, except maybe the truly vile.

I think it depends. Most people could already get away with a lot of immoral or antisocial behaviors without super powers, but most of us still don't.
The Boys is an interesting one because there are hundreds of supes out there, enough to have a community of depravity. If you were the only one with super powers and you decided to majorly abuse them, you'd be a social outcast, even if you didnt face strict punishment, which most of us would really not want.

I genuinely believe it'd depend on the person.
First: Most people who use cheats in video games eventually either stop using them or stop playing the game altogether, because it gets boring.
Many people who win the lottery get a bit of splurging out of their system, then invest the rest into financial security but keep living their loves mostly like before.
So there genuinely might be some people who will eventually settle into just fixing their most glaring problems and then just keep living "regularly", possibly with the occasional minor indulgence.
Then there's people who are willing to go to extreme lengths to enforce their beliefs even without superpowers - imagine super-powered criminals and terrorists, but also super-powered firefighters, doctors or scientists.
And then there's everything in between.
So, if it's just one (or maybe five) people getting superpowers, it'd probably be a roll of the dice. Maybe there'd just be one person going through life easier. Maybe we'd get lucky and someone solves a major problem for us. Maybe we get unlucky and every president that doesn't reinstate segregation gets assassinated.
If it's more people getting powers... well, there's already a lot of fiction exploring that in-depth.
- The funny thing is that humans are pretty much "the animals with superpowers" in this planet.
  We can practically do almost fucking anything we want with almost any animal in the world.
  And there is no animal resistant group to attempt to stop us.
  It's other humans that keep us in check. So you definitely have a point!

Well, a lot of people would suddenly find themselves with their pants down in public. So better put on clean underwear, people. The Timestopper is in town.

I'm a little tired of everyone being such a doomer all the time tbh. No they wouldn't, and The Boys isn't realistic, it's cynical. Maybe you believe you would start doing immoral things given this power, but that doesn't mean that everyone else would. If the only thing stopping you from doing it was the potential consequences, then you didn't have those morals in the first place; you always wanted to do those things, you just didn't have the ability.
That being said, I would totally do things that are illegal but not against my own morals. Do you know what you could do with that kind of power? You'd be like Dr. Manhattan, the only superpowered individual in the world. Anything you want to be the case (physically), given enough time, you could make it happen. Whether your desires are good or bad, there's really no reason not to enact them. TL;DR: Things go very differently depending on who gets this power.

Ah, the Christian argument.
Me, personally? My morals are not defined by my own ability to weild power. Except maybe where the power to make someone else's life better is morally right.
The average person is a fuckingidiot and would expertly execute the "time travel" equivalent of taking a shit with their pants on.

Honestly I'd love the power of being able to see any point in space and time. To witness the birth and death of stars and look around alien shores. To peek at the absurdity of the diversity of life eons before human history.
I'd probably go mad pretty fast but hey, it'd be pretty neat.
- This is actually one of the things I would wish for if I had a magic lamp.
  The ability to grant or take away perfect immortality to any living thing.
  To be the most intelligent human to ever exist (so far)
  The ability to see any point in space and time.
  You're right that it would likely have psychological ramifications (probably end up like Brandon Stark from GOT). But it would be fun for a couple thousand years.
  
  Can you imagine how it would be like to see Theia about to hit proto-Earth just above you? Then "pause" the scene and look at it a few hundred kilometres away...
  Or just peek inside the clouds of the gas giants...
  Or the depths of frozen moon oceans...
  Or stars being slingshot'ed near supermassive black holes ...
  Dang, it almost feels like a curse to know how big and vast the universe is while being confined inside a single body for a few decades...
- As long as you could control what you see, you'd probably be okay.

Yes but I would take out every dictator on earth I could before. A knife and a bicycle, go right over the DMZ and then make sure Putin gets his.
- See for me it'd just be the richest 1% of people in the world.
  
  You would never be able to enjoy it or explain how you got it. Someone would eventually noticed all this money went missing from a bank and there is some rando with all this money with the same serial numbers on it spending.
  I like my plan. You could even leave notes on the dead bodies of the dictators. Or leave warnings. Imagine Winnie the Pooh blinks and there is a knife on his desk with a note telling him that you want the genocide to stop.

You get that power, you use it on people who are making the world a shittier place first.
Now, that's not precisely moral, but let's be honest, beyond a bit of minor larceny there's not a whole lot of personal gain you can realistically achieve.
Steal a truckload of cash? Sure, but then you've got to launder the heck out of it, and I've seen Ozark, that's more drama than I want in my life even if I had the skills, which I don't. And nobody pays cash even for groceries any more, have to wait for one of the non-card registers to open up and it's a pain in the ass. Maybe you could rig a horse race or something, but the people involved in serious gambling are very good at spotting anomalous wins, and your life wouldn't be worth dick the second time you tried it.
That pretty much leaves pranks and murder, and you're a damn fool if you bring that within a dozen miles of any kind of personal connection.
Which pretty much only leaves assassination of high-level assholes as something that would a:) make a noticeable difference, b:) keep you under the radar and c:) be immensely satisfying.
- If you had super powers you probably wouldn't have to steal anything or commit crimes to be rich. You'd just make money the same way people like the Kardashians do or worst case sign up to some sporting team and absolutely trounce everybody else then sign endorsements.
- Oh, so you are going with the whole "I am not a selfish idiot" response... respect.
  
  Well, not a selish idiot, that's the trouble.
  If I could think of a way to become comfortably well-off without eitehr getting in trouble or living in crippling anxiety that I was going to get in trouble, that might be another story.
  It's just that getting away with shit is for rich people with powerful connections, and bootstrapping into that state without passing through an uninsulated trouble phase is pretty damn nontrivial. They don't let just anyone into the club, and they stomp anyone who dares to try.
  I don't actually know about the international-super-assassin club, but I'm willing to bet it's either a fair bit more porous, or a lot more discreet, to the point that you never have reason to suspect they're onto you.
- That's a fairly good point, but I'd argue that it'd depend on how subtle the application of your superpower is.
  My overall assumption would be that any application that doesn't raise red flags will probably require enough work and moderation that it'd be more like a job - but it could be a very well-paying job.
  I.e. for the time freeze: You could acquire a well-paid reputation as a freelancer troubleshooter for a certain type of WFH desk job (analyst? translator?) that can finish any overdue project in record time. Or, easier, become a stage magician.
  You'd probably still eventually wind up in a situation where you watch some sort of unacceptable crisis on the news and think "well, I could do something about this" - be it removing a mass-murdering dictator or dismantling a hostage situation.
- Why do you have to conceal what you do? You can stop time, for crying out loud. That's almost unlimited power.
  You see a bunch of law enforcement run to you, you can easily get the fuck out - with all their guns and car keys.
  Edit: if you downvote me, then it's a good thing you don't have this power, for you would waste it unnecessarily.
  
  Snipers are a thing. And at best, who wants to spend their life on the lam? I want to play video games and eat toast, it's hard to do that if you can't spend an entire day in any given location.

This only applies if your morals are based on nothing more than consequences, which I would argue is no moral code at all.
- RIP religion

I feel like the average person wouldn't become immoral but they would probably become kind of a jerk. At least personally I wouldn't hurt anybody but damn would I use super speed or invisibility to pull some incredible pranks.
- I think I would probably be a jerk a few times, and it would escalate until I hurt someone unthinkingly, and seeing the results of that would shock me back to reality and I'd feel so uncomfortable with myself that I'd hopefully go back to being less of a jerk.
  
  Bro planned out his whole character arc
- Yeah everyone in this thread spouting social control theory forgets that humans have millions of years of evolution for social living, and the scale of moral ambiguity definitely scales with that to some degree. Most people would likely stop short of things which would seriously harm their community, and the knock-on effects of fairly small amounts of deviance would likely become apparent enough to keep most people from anything more than victimless crimes and simple mischief.
  It's really no different than the time travel paradox in a way. You assassinate a tyrant, and see the horrific civil war it causes and then try to intervene to correct that mistake and it all spirals out of control until it's legitimately way worse than before. Most people would take that lesson and build a much more limited moral code around their powers, if they didn't do that from day one.
- I'd put a fruit loop on 16 billion pinky fingers

This one time in high school...
(I didn't want to declare my gender, because 'the site that shall not be named' is an absolute dick to women, but I'm feeling like that might not be as much of a thing, here)
... I came across a group of 5 or 6 huge 6ft footballers, in a circle, kicking this small indigenous kid around and taunting him, I'm half their size, a girl ,probably 12, and just about the shyest quietest kid in school, but when I saw that, the pure rage that welled up in me, has no equivalent on earth, my muscles all lock up and knot and I (somehow) came out with a deep booming growl of a voice, that made all a these blokes just freeze dead, I boom at them, "what the fuck do you all think you're doing!!" , and in a slow angry tone I add "do you all feel like big men, a heap of you, beating up on one guy" . And I stood there, all rage, staring them down. The indigenous boy noticed they were all frozen and scattered along the ground and grabbed his bag and pelted.
I realised this needed to end, and he had escaped, so I tried to throw out some finalising statement of 'do you feel proud' or'this better never happen again' or something, I don't really know, because by this stage, I'm gripped with ultimate terror of what I've done. These guys are twice my size, and happily beat up kids smaller than them. If they snap out of this and realise, I'm easy prey, I'm done for. I fake a hold on my rage, turn and (painfully) slowly walk away and proceed to lock myself in the girls toilet and cry for the rest of the day, expecting a mob of footballers to be out there, after snapping out of their trance, ready to dust me. But I made it home, unscathed. Those footballers gave me death stares, the rest of high school, but none of them ever spoke to me or gave me trouble, really. A taunt here and there, but always when surrounded by classmates. The indigenous boy came and found me and thanked me, later, I asked him if that had happened since and he said, yeah. But he still really appreciated me sticking up for him, that day.
I didn't really think about what I did that day, those words to those footballers just fell out of my head, they rose up from the depths of my soul, I didn't really feel like I controlled it.
But also, I know I'd do immoral shit, if I got superpowers, I'd go around and kill all the billionaires and dictators. I'd probably give them an ultimatum, give away your money or die.
I feel like the boys just represents a more realistic subsection of humans, there would be a percentage that are narcissists and have powers, and a percentage that are highly moralistic, like in gen v. And I could see capitalism being the real bad guy, in real life, just like in the boys.
- But I want to be a billionaire one day. I want to start a company and grow it, as ethically as I can but still survive in capitalism. Would you still kill me? Will people hate me if I fulfill my dream? I want to raise incredible capital, invest it in people, their bright ideas, and trade schools for autistic kids, and retire to a private island. Am I still in your hit list just because I'm a billionaire?
  
  How will you make your billion dollars ethically, without exploiting a fuck ton of people and a fuck ton of land?
  
  Yes. Your taxes could achieve all that anyway. You just want dragon-level wealth and would throw peanuts of charity to maintain a good image.
  
  You are probably safe for multiple reasons. Not the least of which is, unless you are already on the winning side of the rigged game, you will not become a billionaire. Millionaire maybe.
  
  If you become a billionaire. When I get my superpowers, I'll be coming for you. Maybe I'll do a "Christmas carol / Scrouge" style montage and show you how many dead tiny Tim's are in your trails.
  
  I wouldn't bother with trying to argue these points on Lemmy. It's like being leftist who thinks anyone who makes more money than them is the devil is the mandated religion on this site.
  And I live in Argentina I know what "redistributed" wealth ends up looking like so I do understand where you're coming from. But people on Lemmy have no interest in even considering any other point of view in this regard

Studies suggest that autistic folks would be much more likely to stick to their morals. So there's that.

Not at all. It's easy to get away with things even without superpowers. If I don't do something, it's because I don't want to be a person that does that thing.
- This.
  There are already people who are doing selfish/immoral/illegal things because they can get away with it.
  And there are people who don't.
  Giving either of those superpowers would (mostly) only increase the magnitude of things they would or would not do.

My morals wouldn't change at all, my behavior would change since I don't need to worry about consequences of fixing systemic injustice by doing "sick crimes"

I would certainly have alot of fun, but i wouldn't feel comfortable in hurting others, with or without their knowledge. But that's just me...
- Yes. And i actually believe most people would not harm others. I believe people hurt others because of fear and superstition. If you are in the priviliged position to feel empathy you would feel disgusted when hurting human beings. Becomming a god might even make you more empatic, because you dont have to struggle to survive.
  
  I would also like to believe most human beings are good people.

For some I’m sure that’s the case and would behave pretty remorselessly.
Others have a conscience.
Others still would engage in shitty behavior but probably destroy themselves pretty quickly dealing with the mental problems of doing what they know is shitty.
Be honest? Yeah, I’d do stuff I shouldn’t. But nothing I couldn’t sleep at night over. But one thing I know I’d do is find some way to bring down everyone fucking over regular people. Even if it’s as simple as stopping time, placing a recording device in a boardroom, and letting it record them plotting to fuck over whoever, and then retrieving it for public display.
Don’t know how much good it would do.
- Or robin hooding it to weath transfer from the ultra rich as a form of wealth redistribution. I'd definitely pass my own pocket a little thicker, to your point, but the main thrust of power focusing on personal benefit would be very narrow and short lived in scope.

You have the power to stop time.
🐵🐾 It stops for you, too.
- Soooo who starts it again? Guess that's a lesson you only learn once lol
  
  Everyone kills Hitler their first trip
- Since time is motion, the atmosphere would freeze solid around you, suffocating you instantly.
  
  Aha! But you won't be affected until time restarts. And since time has stopped for presumably the whole universe, nothing can happen to restart it.
  
  Usually how it works is time for you is active, but what is you? Usually thar includes clothes and stuff, and other matter inside of us that isn't usually considered a part of us. If we extend this logic, it'd include the air in us and maybe toughing us. I think this would be more fun, because it'd leave a vacuum behind us and superheat any air we move, because it's instantly moving without any time passing. Basically when time unfreezes there's be a massive sonic boom on out path with superheated air all around.

Not really - if the only thing stopping you from doing bad things is power, you're a bad person inherently.

Looks up social control theory. It basically argues that we all are well behaved because we worry about the social consequences of our bad actions. You remove social control. The moral behaviours goes out the window. It’s pretty well supported framework for understanding human behaviour.
- Isn't that the thesis of Lord of the Flies?
- I feel like this doesn't adequately explain why I can't manage to force myself to do an evil playthrough of Baldurs Gate 3...like the social sphere there isn't even real. Nobody bloody cares and I am missing out on a fair chunk of game content that I purchased but I feel too bad about being a dick to imaginary people who don't exist to betray or kill them.
  I have the feeling that if I ended up with a sort of superpower that made me able to stop time I would barely use it for anything like mean spirited pranks and probably just use it to get to work on time, take breaks when I feel like and have more free time to read.

For sure. I wouldnt outright hurt people but id definitely do things to improve my own life. Assuming it's the kind of time stopping power where I am not affected and can still interact with objects I'd use sports or roulette gambling to get rich. Easy to manufacture winning with time stopping powers in either.
If I wanted to be ethical I guess I could put on some sort of circus/magician act with tricks and feats abusing the power but I don't know how rich you can get off what would be perceived as a really good trick.
Id also like to know the extent of the ability, if I stop time indefinitely, do I still age or am I immortal in a paused world? Can I stop time travel the world and see every sight and read every book then restart everything having lost nothing aside from my own sanity?
This is important because it determines if it's worth trying to be a super hero with this power imo. If I can stop time and help people avoid death all while being able to go right back to where I was losing no true time it's worth it, otherwise I'd still be aging and I'd grow older faster than everyone around me. Id die earlier in real time if I continue to age while I stop time for everything else. If that's the case I'd only use the ability really for my own benefit.
- travel the world with time stopped? sounds like a lot of walking
  
  True but if you had potentially infinite time, why not? I suppose nutrition and hydration maybe an issue depending on how the ability works too. It would be annoying to have to lug around supplies.
- Stealing money from gambling organizations is ethical what are you talking about
  
  You might want to read it again

Just don't get lost in the Sauce. That was the problem with death note. Keep it subtle and set boundaries.

My morals would go out the 'Robin Hood' door.

I would die of old age immediately

Not really, because you wouldn't be able to see anything or hear anything if time stops. Even light particles would stop moving, and your eyes would just see flashes of light as you move through space.
- Which would be perfect. To probably get the best sleep of your life.
  
  None of the cleanup in your brain that takes place when you actually sleep is going to happen either, so you'd wake without getting any of the benefits of rest too, right?
- Huh. Well then, your point is clearly right, i never thought of that. Case closed on pondering about that question for the rest of my life.
- I mean we could just assume it to be like what 1/100 seconds per seconds perceived by user and everybody else would be moving and perceiving so slowly that it accomplishes pretty much the same thing right? Bullets might be a bit tough to dodge now at ~12ft/s (for handguns) but not impossible so still seems pretty useful
  
  At 1/100 speed, light would be so redshifted that you wouldn't be able to perceive it. However, some X-rays (1-10nm) would be redshifted into the visible range (400 to 700nm).
  I guess this means you would have x-ray vision. But you would see little to nothing since our environment normally does not include significant levels of X-rays.

This is an idea that has been around for very long time. Plato used the Ring of Gyges to talk about it - which went on to inspire Wells' The Invisible Man - and influenced Tolkien among others.
- The Ring of Gyges is a hypothetical magic ring mentioned by the philosopher Plato in Book 2 of his Republic (~375 BC). It grants its owner the power to become invisible at will. Through the device of the ring, this section of the Republic considers whether a rational, intelligent person who has no need to fear negative consequences for committing an injustice would nevertheless act justly.
  So many ideas trace their roots back to ancient Greece/China. I guess there's nothing new under the sun.
  
  I guess there’s nothing new under the sun.
  And that's some old hebrew wisdom 🙂
  
  They go further back than that for sure, but a lot of stuff has been lost to history.

Uh… no they wouldn’t.

Everyone in this thread, "what's this, I am a bastion of morality and its extremely important I convince anons on the internet about this."
But for real when I dream about stopping time I dream of a pocket universe where I am the only person present. That way I can speed (I know I know I'm evil) on highways, explore, and learn without weird frozen bodies getting in my way. I would mostly use it for naps and cheating on tests (I know super evil).
- Oh I would totally only stop to sleep and vacation.
- My man
  My first thought was literally how much evil sleep I could get.
- Not me. There would be so much murder. But we'd be able to take action on climate change and have way fewer billionaires, for starters.
  
  Does it have to be murder. Can't you just move them to a secluded island away from all communication technology and if they are found just move them again? I promise it would be more fun.

Finally some time to read
- You don't happen to need glasses, do you?

I have a theory that moral traits, like many other things in nature, follow a normal distribution. If I'm right, we can make some estimates of who would violate social rules given the chance. The bottom 5% of the distribution are going to do some terrible things. About 45% are going to be kind of shit, maybe not terrible. The remainder will be some level of decent to pretty well behaved, actually. Admittedly, that depends on what we think the mean level of morality really is. Having observed many a group of kids playing, I don't think it's that bad. Honestly that's why so many teenage edgelords and doomers get told to go touch grass; reality will almost never be as bleak as we think it will be. There's a well documented cognitive bias towards negative events, but it IS a bias.
The Boys isn't realistic so much as it's a deliberate deconstruction of the genre and a bit of speculative fiction ("What if Superman was a sociopath" seems to be the question it asks). It has elements of satire too, so it's not really concerned with being fair so much as creating the story conditions that allow it to show us its narrative.
If you want a more "realistic" superhero show I think the 2012 movie Chronicle is more plausible. And yeah it does go badly for some but not for others.

No, they wouldn’t. Because real life isn’t like superhero shows.

About Time is a pretty wholesome movie about a man that can go back in time at any point in his life.
- one of my favorite movies! loved watching it with my dad especially. it’s a gem for sure.

I can totally agree with the whole with great power comes great immorality way of thinking.
But I view it in the adaptation angle. Like, how many "average" people can adapt to such a huge shift in power? Pro athletes tend to have bad spending habits because of sudden shifts of wealth. Country laws and legislations stay for generations because the lawmakers are stuck to their own bubbles of how things are progressing.
Being able to adapt is a general trait for people, but not everybody can do it as quickly. I think that part causes conflicts that may or may not lead to immorality.
- This is an interesting point. And I think you're the only one in the thread to bring it up.

I've felt similarly ever since watching the movie Clockstoppers as a kid

In classic philosophy, this is the Ring of Gyges, in which Plato suggests that we'd be tempted to wrongdoing if we had the capacity to evade harmful consequences.
In 21st century moral philosophy, it's more complicated than that. What we do with super-powers depends largely on our need. Normally, someone doesn't steal resources when they have the means to attain them legitimately, but it's our precarity or even poverty and hunger that drives us to steal, largely due to a society that recognizes property rights without assuring the safety and provisions of those who, well, don't have any property. Precarity leads to renegade behavior, or as our states like to call it crime. ^†
So what happens when our ring-wearer finds themselves no longer in desperate need for stuff. This is the point of opportunity, where they can choose to use their power to rescue others from their misfortune, or they can isolate themselves from the squalor and bask in their own luxury.
One of the terrible secrets of moral philosophy is that no code of ethics, no religious commandment really matters. Most of us do what we feel like anyway, whether right and well meaning or wrongful and malicious. It just happens that we're generally affable. That is, eons of evolution have instilled us with social values and the drive to engage peaceably when we're not starving, and as such we allow total strangers to merge into our lane in traffic and try to telegraph our actions to keep other drivers at ease. When we're well fed, healthy, warm, well rested and getting laid once in a while, we're pretty easy to get along with. Keep a whole society in precarity, however, and it turns into social unrest and eventually civil war.
But then, when we're driven by fear, we tend to think of others in antagonistic terms. Our billionaires have the capacity to improve society on a global scale. Musk or Bloomberg could adopt Haiti and drive the nation into industrial development, and have his statue in bronze adorn every state park countrywide. Not big on that opportunity? $30 Billion will feed the world (That is, all the humans in it) including processing and freight. Less than that could create a free high-speed WiFi internet infrastructure that covers all populated parts of the world (Including Mt. Everest, but not much of the Himalayas).
But none of them do. Not one billionaire is thinking about their legacy on this scale. Rather, they're all very miserly with their charitable works, and then engage in them only for marketing and tax-haven purposes. Considering how consistent billionaires are about this, the Ring of Gyges may be that corrupting an influence after all.
Superhero narratives are typically about a desperate need and someone with the means to fulfill it in daring fashion. OSP noted The Scarlett Pimpernel who rescued aristocrats from the guillotine during the Reign of Terror during the French Revolution. (Superheroes are not always on the side of aging well). When someone has super-powers and acts in a more immoral fashion, we regard them instead as monsters. Case in point, Count Dracula or The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde
SPIRIT: This boy is Ignorance. This girl is Want. Beware them both, and all of their degree, but most of all beware this boy, for on his brow I see that written which is Doom
\ SCROOGE: Have they no refuge or resource?
\ SPIRIT:〈mocking Scrooge〉Are there no prisons? Are there no workhouses?
† I generally avoid using the word crime unless talking specifically about things that are illegal as decided by regional law. Many acts of wrongdoing are not criminal. Many crimes are not immoral. Same with sin which are proscriptions according to religious institutions.
- “Let me tell you something about Hu-mons, nephew. They’re a wonderful, warm, sociable people. But take away their creature comforts, take away their food, their holosuites, and put their lives in jeopardy over an extended period of time and those same warm, wonderful people...will become as nasty and vicious as the most bloodthirsty Klingon.”

I feel like the average asshole would steal, probably trespass in Area 51, or the White House or whatever. In the former case if you steal from a big enough place its effectively a victimless crime. In the latter, you're just not supposed to be there, so even less in the way of real victims.
Murder though? Thats when stuff gets real. I feel like no matter your stance everyone has a person or people they'd have to think long and hard about not taking out of the equation, whether for personal reasons or to make the world an overall better place in their opinion. Doubt most would even consequence free but some (not so) subtle influence here and there would likely happen.
Also if you're a comic guy, give Irredeemable a go. It's the same vein of plot as The Boys and Invincible.
- I suppose with that kind of power you wouldn't really need to use violence to influence them. Just leave a notes in the field of vision constantly until they give all their money to charity or whatever. Maybe upgrade to random cream pies to the face in public if they're not getting it.
  
  Knife stabbed into your least favorite government official's pillow with a note on it that says "RETIRE" would probably be a rather effective deterrent to most, and if the first one doesn't get the message across the second one after all the cops are watching every nook and cranny definitely will. Or just leave pineapples laying around for them, if you want to do things the funnier way.

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