Okay rule#1 it has to be unorthodox. No “flying” or “superhuman strength” lest I bust out my superpower on you….
My superpower would be the ability to reach through my computer screen and slap people. I thought of this after telling a friend of mine that she needed the superpower of reaching through the phone and slapping people. Both these powers would come in very handy, methinks, and I’m generally a pretty nonviolent person. But hey, we’re talking about superpowers here.
Erik Kain
Erik writes about video games at Forbes and politics at Mother Jones. He's the contributor of The League though he hasn't written much here lately. He can be found occasionally composing 140 character cultural analysis on Twitter.
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on Open Mic for the week of 10/28/2024My poll doesn't match everyone else's, ergo there is a good chance that I'm wrong and everyone else…
on The Way Through is Donald Trump for PresidentThe vast majority of voters are incapable of forming an informed opinion on whether there should be…
on Open Mic for the week of 10/28/2024"herding may make individual polls more accurate" I see what he's trying to say here but I don't thi…
on Open Mic for the week of 10/28/2024What I have to keep reminding people is that it isn't just Trump, as if he is an isolated oddity. Le…
on Open Mic for the week of 10/28/2024Oh yeah, if the baseline polls are cooked...so are we.
on The Way Through is Donald Trump for PresidentThus proving my point.
on The Way Through is Donald Trump for PresidentI'm sure that's exactly how Justice Alito will see it.
on Open Mic for the week of 10/28/2024Here's the line that should make you take a little bit more of the covers tonight: "The irony, as I… on Open Mic for the week of 10/28/2024It's pretty sad that people's inability to understand poll results leads directly to polls purposely… on Open Mic for the week of 10/28/2024Nate Silver has a post on herding. I knew that something like this was happening but I never knew it…
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The ability to induce an itch in any bodily location I desire of any magnitude I desire in anyone at any distance.Report
Wait! I changed my mind. Now I want the power to never have to sleep.
What a waste of time.Report
I would have the perfect soundtrack for whatever I was doing automatically emanate from myself. Say I’m walking into a job interview or meeting: the Peter Gunn theme throbs around me as I walk in and sit. Getting all romantic: Barry White or Marvin Gaye is suddenly playing all around me. Whatever the best sounds for my task would just start playing all around. That would, in many common situations, make me unstoppable.Report
I second this superpower. That would AWESOME! (And yes, I spent far too many hours in my college years think about how to accomplish this in real life).Report
My superpower would be the ability to magically revise stories, movies especially, if I didn’t care for the plot, characters, dialogue, direction, music, etc. My superpower would include the abilities to recast actors and to continue discontinued television shows.
My wife would have the power to think of a meal and create it instantly. Much more practical than mine.Report
The ability to understand the inner compulsions that permit American conservatives unblinkingly to couple “social conservatism”, violent interventionism, and an unquestioned adulation of state capitalism.
Too esoteric? (I also like yours, E.D.)Report
Funny story–for a second I misinterpreted the title of the blog post and I was going to say: “I’ll name my superpower: AMERICA! F*** yeah!”
But I guess my answer to the question would be the power to heal. I’m surprised that it rarely comes up, but healing AIDS and the like would be both a lucrative and noble gig.Report
Lev – healing is not unorthodox. There are many, many super heroes who can heal. Now, since you said “lucrative” I will not use my superpower on you, but I just can’t accept heal as sticking to rule #1.Report
The power to determine at a glance the true internal meaning of any text, as well as the precise tone, the author’s intended meaning, and the complete set of structuring oppositions upon which the text relies.
Barring that, the power to kill a yak from 200 yards away with mind bullets.Report
Ooh I like that one. Super reading comprehension!
Second one doesn’t count as unorthodox though. That’s telekinesis, William.Report
Eidetic memory combined with direct mental access to the Internet…from anywhere.Report
I think I’d not mind having the superpower to free myself from the Internet, rather than to access it mentally from anywhere.Report
Well my thinking is that if you could access it anywhere, anytime (while awake, anyway) it would be more of a life-enhancer than time-waster, and thus not something you’d feel much need to be free of.Report
The pimple ray.Report
“Bob.”
Or rather — it’s a tie between Google-fu (the ability to instantly find the answer to ANY question I have via a quick Google search) and a fifteen-second autosave function for life, so if I do something really stupid like pour coffee down my front, I can undo it and not ruin my clothes.Report
CTRL-Z for life would be kind of amazing.Report
Take that power to Vegas.
I think there was a Twilight Zone about it.Report
I’d have to say the ability to conjure Family Guy style vignettes at will, so when I encounter the truly absurd others can share in a truly hilarious visual.
A close second would be the ability to make the fictional non-fictional and vice versa, which would result in Cylon bodyguards for me and Dick Cheney joining the next season of 24…or House. I’m unsure which.Report
House, for sure. I don’t wish death on anyone; misery, on the other hand, is fair game – I don’t think Dr. House is any more torturous than waterboarding.Report
The ability to make you people stop drinking my friggin’ wine. Buy your own damn bottle.Report
My Super Power, Well i’ve always wanted to ability to pull an object from a picture out and into reallity. Even if it were only a temporary incarnation, the usefullness would be unending. Specially on lonely nights 🙂Report
I pick the ability to download knowledge and skills directly into my brain on an as-needed basis, the way an iPod downloads music or a Kindle downloads a book. When getting into a scrape, I could say, “Whoa. I know kung fu,” and it wouldn’t be ironic.
A money cheat key for life would be good, too. As long as only I had it, so as to avoid the inflationary side-effects of the rest of you having one, too.Report
The ability to type telepathically. I’d never again have an unfinished post.Report
I think I’m violating the rule, but I’m going to try to excuse it a little. I have always, always wanted telekinesis. And not in the usual superhero sense: unlike Jean Grey, I will not be throwing cars at bad guys with my mind. I just don’t want to have to get up to get the pencil on the other side of room. I still think I fail, though.Report
Hmmmm. Well, I think severely limited telekinesis might actually be kind of interesting. It would make you a lot less powerful for one thing, which would require you to be a little more creative with the power. No hurled cars, but you could lock a door or drop a banana peel – things like that. Stuff Bugs Bunny might do if he had super powers.Report
Another one: the ability to cook food with my eyes. I’d probably use it more for defrosting purposes since I actually enjoy cooking, but on those days where getting takeout or fast food doesn’t seem like a bad option…it’d be pretty sweet.
One more – the ability to kill weeds at a single glance. God, I hate weeding (doubly so since I seem to get poison ivy every time I do it…right now my arms and legs look like they’ve undergone a mustard gas attack).Report
But weeding is good for you. How about a power that turns weeds into one-dollar-bills? Then you’d still have to do all the work, but you’d get paid for it. Or you could have the neighbor kids come do it and it wouldn’t cost you a penny.Report
It ain’t good for you if the result is a couple weeks of poison ivy!Report
myn is cing how people dieReport