What Would the Setbacks Do?

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Superpowers

February 28th, 2006

Karl Pilkington writes:

Morning guys,

If you could have one superpower, what would you choose (and why)?

If I could have one superpower I'd want invisibility so that I could sneak into HMV before they closed and then sneak back out before they opened the next morning.

Trevor	Listen PILKINGTON! Super powers are awesome! This is a great, and very important question. It is something that everyone should think about. While invisibility would definitely be awesome, it raises some questions: like what becomes invisible? Just you? Do your clothes become invisible? If so, does that mean anything you touch becomes invisible? If not, do you have to get naked every time you decide to become invisible? These are important things to consider. I think I might be tempted to choose super speed as a super power. Much like Steve, I do not foresee using my superpower primarily as a life saver, I see it being more handy in everyday life. I would become really useful in sports of all kinds. Plus think of the face melting guitar solos! I cringe just thinking of the possibilities. Of course, super speed does have it’s pitfalls. The law of Conservation of Energy really throws a stick in the spokes. In order to say, run from my house to the store 3 blocks away in 10 seconds, I will be burning all sorts of energy. I’d need to stock up big time on calories before using my power. Now, these are just preliminary calculations (I haven’t really run the numbers completely, and have added a factor of safety to ensure I eat enough), but to run 10km in 1 minute (that’s an average speed of 600km/h – SUPER SPEED!) I would need to eat 7.75 horses. I don’t know if I have the stomach to eat 7.75 horses just to get to Paul’s house really fast. So maybe I’ll just choose the ability to change my shape into anything or anybody.
Steve	Ahhhh... the age old debate of which superpower to choose. To me, it's always a toss-up between the two greatest powers that a superhero could possibly have - invisibility and flight - because all others simply pale in comparison. But if I had to choose just one, I think I'd probably go with the ability to fly with invisibility as a very close runner-up. No matter which power I chose I can tell you one thing for certain and that's that I wouldn't use it to do good or fight crime. Screw that. What would I use it for? Good question. Here's a few scenarios where the ability to fly would come in useful: 1. Playing ball hockey 2. Running away from people 3. Chasing people 4. Postering for shows 5. Playing german ball As with everything in life, there would be cons to having the ability to fly. Like, if people saw me flying around they'd expect me to use my superpowers to help them out of sticky situations. Now, on top of the fact that it would be annoying to have people bugging me there's not a lot you can do if your only superpower is flight. It's not like people are going to ask you to fly over to the store and grab a quart of milk. If they ask for help it's because they need a truck lifted off them or there's a bank robbery in progress. If you don't have x-ray vision and super strength (at a bare minimum) you're sort of a useless superhero.
Paul	Awaiting wisdom...
Chris	Man that is an awesome way to use invisibility. I'd choose the superpower of flight. I've always liked flying, and often dream of soaring the skies, gracefully. One of my favorite movies as a child was "The Boy Who Could Fly". Man.

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