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4 comments
March 20, 2018 at 5:16 pm
bleatmop
Meh, Disagree with almost everything he said. The idea of super strength is not simply having it, but also having the ability to use it. Therefore the dexterity, the durability, and everything else you need you can assume the super hero would have. Otherwise the writers would have ensured that they let the reader know that this was a curse and not a blessing. So no, Superman would not be accidently ripping door handles off all the time.
Some of his examples are ridiculous as well. A car jack can lift up my car. A car jack does not punch a hole through my car. Therefore Superman can lift my car without punching a hole through my car. Same goes for punching bad guys. Superman would punch a hole through them, or punch something off, only if he chose to hit them that hard. Which he does with robotic bad guys all the time, just not the flesh and blood ones. Thus demonstrating that Superman has the ability to control how much force he punches with.
Also, the idea of punching someone causing you to be driven into the earth doesn’t seem true for a superhero either, although I am not educated in physics enough to specifically refute that. Seeing as though this guy has made some pretty questionable This article, while a summary of what is wrote in a book, at least has a physicist that disagrees with that contention.
https://www.inverse.com/article/12692-the-physics-behind-superheroes-and-punching-professor-james-kakalios-weighs-in
Also, I think I’ve put too much thought into this. I should really do something constructive with my time.
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March 23, 2018 at 10:55 am
Mystro
@bleatmop
Agree with almost everything you’ve said. Except the last bit.
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March 23, 2018 at 2:03 pm
The Arbourist
@bleatmop
“So no, Superman would not be accidently ripping door handles off all the time. ”
I see the problem are talking about here in a semi relatable way. The comparison is with different volume switches when it comes to playing music or videos on a computer using your speakers.
You have a volume control inside windows, it goes from 0 – 100. But also, inside the program, say ‘youtube’ for example, there is also a volume slider. Finding the places to put the various settings can be a little challenging sometimes because fine adjustments on one scale translate to major changes to the volume of the sound being produced.
I mean, certainly if a video is really quiet we simply turn up the analog dial on our speakers to make it louder. But what if in the windows settings we’re only set to “1”. Hypothetically now, changing the setting in windows from “1” to “2” will have a massive effect on the volume output controlled by the analog dial of your computer speakers.
So, what if super strength did not have enough graduations or even was digital (like the windows sound bar) and when set to 0 (not doing anything) and then 1 was ripping off peoples hands while shaking them. We assume that these graduations exist because we relate them to how we exert force in the world, but it does not necessarily imply that these graduations would exist with the same granularity when dealing with the logarithmic level of strength exhibited by superman.
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March 23, 2018 at 5:53 pm
bleatmop
@sardeth I think it is safe to assume these graduations exist for the comic book world because the characters in the comics seem to have them. We can give some literary license here to assume that even if the character creators didn’t actually consider all the points brought up in the video that they would indeed grant Superman the ability to fine tune his use of strength to whatever amount that would still make him a superhero.
There are literary references where an ability that might seem super ends up being a curse. Such as King Midas not being able to touch anyone for fear of turning them to gold. One Punch Man kills any opponent with one punch causing him ennui at the lack of ability to have a meaningful opponent. So yes, you could consider super strength to be how it is in the video, but given those conditions could such a character even exist? Surely they would murder their mother with the first kick against the womb, ultimately destroying themselves in the process. So maybe the only fictional characters with super strength left are those who can control it from conception, everyone else having died with their mother at around 16 to 25 weeks gestation.
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