MJ keeps talking about being "That Guy". The guy who does what needs to be done because nobody else can. I'm watching Smallville on DVD. (Superman's childhood) Superman has powers beyond reason, and so uses them to guard the earth. Superman is "That Guy". What kind of a man would he be if he didn't do anything? Why he doesn't use those powers to rule the earth instead of guarding it, I'll never understand, but I digress. My character has powers beyond reason. What kind of a man would he be if he be if he doesn't do anything? I think I'm starting to understand involvement a little. Just thought you'd be interested.
(Doing Therapy)
"With great power comes great responsibility" -can't remember author
"With Maugwai, there is great responsibility."
Old Chinese Dude in Gremlins.
"If knowledge is power, and power corrupts, does knowledge corrupt?"
Author unknown.
(Doing Therapy)
Brock - Those are (most famously) the words of the immortal Stan Lee, as spoken by Uncle Ben in Spider Man. I'm told it existed as a saying before then, but everybody who knows it nowadays knows it as Stan Lee writing it in Spider Man.
A1Nut - What would happen if Superman went evil and took over the world?
This.
In the show, his father Johnathan Kent is often "That Guy" as well, and has to bail Superman out of trouble. Kryptonite doesn't affect humans in the same way, after all. Good show.
(Doing Therapy)
That was actually in a Spiderman comic issue before the movie (I think), and it was around before then too, as my grandmom used to say it. Said she read it somewhere. As far as I know, it originated a few centuries ago. The true author is unknown to me.
The true author is unknown to me.
And probably to all of history as well.
To,..
"If knowledge is power..." the Ladyfaire points out that makes Libraries to be corrupt. I'd say centers of corruption.
For what it's worth, I managed to track the expression to an 1817 debate in the British House of Commons, where something very like it was stated by a Minister Lamb: "that the possession of great power necessarily implies great responsibility." He, however, was referring to the power of the press, and claiming that they had often used that expression with reference to the government and ought also to consider it with reference to themselves; it is indicated as a quotation in the records of the debate.
The Stan Lee version also was a bit different in the original, which apparently was in the first Spiderman story in Amazing Fantasy in 1962 as "WITH GREAT POWER THERE MUST ALSO COME - - GREAT RESPONSIBILITY!" It was shortened in later versions.
But indeed, if there are sins of omission and you have the power to help someone and refuse to do so, would that not be one?
--M. J. Young
But indeed, if there are sins of omission and you have the power to help someone and refuse to do so, would that not be one?
I didn't say it would be a crime or a sin to not help someone. If that were true, then we sin every time we pass a beggar on the street and don't give him the change in our pocket. I just asked what kind of a man would Superman be if he didn't do anything. It was a rhetorical question. What kind of a man would you be if you had all of these awesome powers, and let the world fall apart around you? I'm trying to figure that one out. I'm beginning to understand why some players get involved.
(Doing Therapy)
I do not give money to every beggar I pass on the street (and although there are not many I do get hit up for change when I run out late to the drug store or somewhere). That, though, is based on a number of carefully reasoned factors, including:
- My own resources are limited, and ought to be used intelligently to help as many as possible. I do not even have the time to investigate carefully every request for my assistance. Therefore to some degree I am dependent on the wisdom and resources of others to help manage my own charity. I help where I am confident it will be beneficial.
- That does not always include the beggar along the road. One test of this (and I have done this) is to offer to buy the man food instead of giving him money. (My excuse is that I have no cash, but can get a sandwich from the all-night fast food place using my debit card.) Many beggars won't accept an offer of food because what they want is cash for drugs or alcohol, and that would be feeding their problem. Particularly if someone has the same need for phone money or gas money or some other excuse more than once, I figure it's a story invented to part me from my cash for purposes the beggar knows I would not support. (No beggar ever asks if you can give him a few dollars to buy liquor or drugs, but that's where it goes very often.)
However, noting that we should make intelligent use of our resources, it is certainly selfish not to use those resources--be they money or influence or ability--to help others.
Ask Dolly Levi why money is like manure.
--M. J. Young
Ask Dolly Levi why money is like manure.
"Money, pardon the expression, is like manure. It's not worth a thing unless it's spread around, encouraging young things to grow."
MJ, I kind of wanted some thoughts on exactly what kind of a man Superman would be if he didn't do anything. What kind of a man do you think he would be?
Two
"The beatings will continue until morale improves."
Doesn't you life feel like sometimes MJ?
(Doing Therapy)
Um--a corpse?MJ, I kind of wanted some thoughts on exactly what kind of a man Superman would be if he didn't do anything. What kind of a man do you think he would be?
You can't do nothing. The question is not whether you are going to do anything, but what you are going to do.
There are those who suggest that it is possible to do whatever pleases you without hurting anyone else; I doubt that. We sometimes hurt people with our most unselfish acts; it is sometimes necessary to hurt someone to avoid hurting someone else.
When I was in high school, there was a news report of a woman who was raped and, I think, murdered on the streets of New York City, screaming for help. Hundreds of local residents heard her. No one helped her. No one so much as called the police.
Had Superman been there--a man who could not have been hurt by a mortal attacker, who would not have broken a sweat breaking up the assault, who could have ended it all during a commercial break from his favorite television show--and had he done nothing, what would we have thought of him? We thought very poorly of all those people who did not so much as pick up the phone, knowing that had even three or four of them simply stepped outside intending to intervene they would have outnumbered the attacker and probably saved the woman, guessing that they simply figured someone else would make the call and they would not have to be involved (all those questions about what happened and everything, and somehow "I heard screaming so I called the police" hardly seems sufficient). If we knew that there was someone who could have intervened with so little trouble as that, what would we think of his failure to do so?
Does that mean that Superman has an obligation to intervene? Somehow we all inherently think he does. He would be a very bad person if he had all this power and never lifted a finger to help anyone with it, even if he did not use it for any evil purpose, nor even for his own benefit. Somehow we think that Peter Parker trying to make a living as a professional wrestler specializing in cage matches is a waste of his ability, when he could be catching criminals and making the streets safer.
We don't want to say that these super beings are obligated to use their powers for the benefit of others, because the moment we do so we realize that we, too, are obliged to use our powers--whether it is our money or our talents or our skills or training or education or time or whatever we have--to benefit others as well. We try to avoid this by suggesting that what they do costs them so little--Superman does not risk being injured or killed when he attempts to stop the rapist/murderer, and the risk to Spiderman is minimal. So we say that those who have greater abilities have obligations that we do not. Yet it must be rather that all have those obligations, proportionate to our abilities. Either that, or none do, not even the superheroes, and when they, like Eric's Multiversal Man, retreat to a private penthouse and ignore the world below, we have no claim on their assistance or attention. Maybe they just don't want to help. Maybe it's true that we can't fix everything, so why bother trying to fix anything.
But if you believe that it would be wrong for Superman, or even Spiderman, to take his powers and live his own life and let the world consume itself in its own evil, not trying to do anything to help, then you must admit that the same applies to you. You can't do what they can do, but you can do something, and if they have any kind of obligation, moral or otherwise, to act, then you do as well.
--M. J. Young
When I was in high school, there was a news report of a woman who was raped and, I think, murdered on the streets of New York City, screaming for help. Hundreds of local residents heard her. No one helped her. No one so much as called the police.
Yeah, I read about that. Her name was Kitty something or other, and she was raped outside the very bar that she owned. As far as why no one did anything, I can offer an insight. Almost a year ago, I heard a bunch of commotion going on outside, so I looked out my window. I saw about a dozen or so guys and gals outside yelling at some guy in his apartment. It looked like something was about to go down, so I called the police. Someone in the crowd must have seen me looking out my window, because 2 days later, I got a letter in the mail. "Move away from us. Get out now. Get a job you pervert." That's all it said. I didn't move out, and I never heard another thing about it. However, needless to say, it was the last time I'm going to call the police for something happening around here.
"The only thing necessary for evil to prevail is for good men to do nothing."
Sorry, don't remember who said it, but that's the quote.
--M. J. Young
"They say 'Evil prevails when good men fail to act.' What they should say is 'Evil Prevails.'"
That's the way I heard it, from Lord of War with Nicholas Cage. He says it after his younger brother is killed unsuccessfully trying to stop the massacre of a small village. A good man acted, and evil still prevailed.
Two
A man dies and goes to see Saint Peter at the gates of Heaven. Peter says "Have you ever done any good deeds?" the man says "Well, once I was driving along, and I saw these 6 biker guys harassing a woman. She was screaming for help. So, I stopped my car, got the tire iron out of the trunk, walked right up to the gang leader, and hit him square in the face with the tire iron and told them to leave the girl alone." Saint Peter is impressed, and says "When did this happen?" The guy thinks for a second and says "About 10 minutes ago."
Three
I was about to ask exactly the same question as before, but with Mr. Miyagi instead of Superman...... I just wanted to note that.
(Doing Therapy)
Soliton: the Multiversal Man. He was practically invulnerable (stuff like standing at ground zero when a nuke went off was probably not a big deal), and he had a massive amount of destructive power as well. So Doctor Zhorbhakian, the uber villain of Northgate City who doesn't think he's a villain (He just wants to help people who don't annoy him, and if that involves sucking out their brains and putting the brains into invulnerable robot bodies while they sleep without their permission, well he is The Smartest Person on the Planet (tm)...and yes, that's trademarked in Northgate City), was worried about such a hugely powerful and unpredictable do-gooder.
So he arranged for Soliton to do something by laying out some clues, and then when Sollie did it, he revealed that it was the massively wrong thing to do (actually it was the right thing to do, but Dr. Z led Sollie around by the nose without Sollie ever being aware of it.)
Soliton's response is Massive Guilt followed by Fear of Action followed by a retreat, not to much of a penthouse, but to an apartment where he eats pizza. His compromise with the world is No One is allowed to do bad things inside a block of his apartment. The criminal underworld and the gov't and such is more than willing to allow him this. He gets not to see any evil done, and he bothers no one.
Rent on that block is fairly high as no one steals or mugs....
In the movie Zodiac, based on the Zodiac serial killer, the cartoonist for the newspaper is The Guy who figures out the Zodiac Killer's coded messages that he leaves behind. When the cartoonist's girlfriend asks him "Why do you need to do this?" he replies "Because no one else will." That Guy. I'm starting to understand involvement a little.
(Doing Therapy)