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42 Comments
- SWCarson, on 10/12/2007, -2/+9I like the list of possible professions for Superman:
Payload delivery
ABM defense
Emergency response
Tectonic repair
Weather control
Oil discovery / drilling
Diamond production
Medical diagnosis
S.W.A.T. team
Weapon of mass destruction
Professional thief
Schoolteacher
Food delivery
Athlete
Touring entertainer
Hibachi chef
Reporter - 0siris, on 10/12/2007, -1/+8King of the world
Moon Sculpter
giagalo
Nascar Race watcher (no one else has the endurance)
not to mention
star player on the American Soccer team, so maybe just maybe we can win one day - justok, on 10/12/2007, -0/+5He's still an illegal immigrant and shouldn't be allowed back in our country
- CharlesDarwin, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3The crappy old superman movies didn't even drag on as long as TFA did...
- Misesean, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2Did you read the article? His goal is to help people: that's precisely why he needs an agent, to let him discover the best ways to help people!
- dreamcaster, on 10/12/2007, -1/+3Damn... I've never really thought about it like that. Superman really DOES needs an agent. Imagine that. But think about it... although he needs an agent, do you really want him to have one? I mean, come ON!!! It's Superman! Whoosh!!!
- ahawks, on 10/12/2007, -1/+3Some good points. It wouldn't hurt Superman to open a bank account and make some money on the side doing specialized stuff (working with hazardous materials, dangerous situations, x-ray vision, etc)... but I think he should avoid anytihng that would stiffle human creativity, large number of jobs, etc. Sure, he could launch every single Shuttle mission, but that would unemploy thousands at NASA, and give humans a lazy attitude on accomplishing things on their own.
Obviously, lower-level service jobs such as chef, athlete, delivery, etc would be a waste of his time. - hbchrist, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2That should read "financier" instead of economist. An economist sees value in terms of costs, which is not necessarily money.
- Metabug, on 10/12/2007, -2/+4Here's an answer straight from the article:
"... For example, suppose Superman's own value scale informs him that providing food for hungry children is far more important than providing crystal-clear conference calls to capitalists. Nonetheless, it doesn't follow that Superman should devote his time to planting crops. Depending on the relevant prices, Superman could probably generate far more food by putting satellites into orbit (and charging as much as the market will bear), and then using the generated funds to pay other people to grow more food."
Makes sense to me. - ThndrShk2k, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2The only problem is: Why would he want money for it? He does good things for the sake of doing good thing.
That and If he does too many things, humans will rely on too much him and they will fail to progress.
Sure having an agent would be good for people who make money off from him. To them they might not understand the moral standards that he places upon himself and what he does. Thus only helping the general person, not the general public. Not a boyscout thing to do. - Kiel, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2"He would also prove excellent in hostage situations, because of his super speed and teleportation ability."
teleportation ability ?! - LMRuane, on 10/12/2007, -2/+3Well, Superman and his agents can always try to make as much money as possible, so that Superman knows he's doing whatever has the highest value (i.e. is most important), but then donate most or all of the money to charity.
As for humans failing to progress, see my comment above. The fact that we rely on nature (the sun, the oceans, the minerals we find in the earth, rainfall, the land, etc.) mean that we are failing to progress? I don't think so. Superman would be like nature. - tryferos, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1"He would also prove excellent in hostage situations, because of his super speed and teleportation ability."
teleportation ability ?! -- Think back to Superman II, in the Fortress of Solitude when Superman and General Zod's gang were kinda teleporting all around inside. - inactive, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2Classic Robert Murphy!
- Durinthal, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1The concept kind of reminds me of this site..
http://www.superdickery.com/ - geekee, on 10/12/2007, -2/+3Should Superman be paid for taking a job fighting crime and saving lives for natural disasters, etc., or is Superman expected to do good deeds purely for altruistic motives?
- mandarin, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2If he did all that stuff, he wouldnt be super wont he?
- ramfree17, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1"Diamond production As demonstrated in Superman III, Superman can use his bare hands to transform a piece of coal into a beautiful diamond in mere seconds.[3]
...
[3] It occurs to me that even with superhuman strength, one really couldn't make a diamond this quickly. Then again, it's also implausible that someone could be more powerful than a locomotive and leap tall buildings in a single bound."
i always thought that superman just saw that the coal has a diamond inside so he just crushed the coal that is covering the stone.
ciao! - stosh, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Magic hurts him too.
- dreamcaster, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2Super speed? Yeah.
Teleportation? No. Just no.
Superman NEVER had a teleportation ability. He was uber fast... almost like he teleported, but not.
Sorry, I had a fit of nerd. - velo, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2"Weapon of mass destruction
Although it would not be consistent with his strong moral code, Superman would of course make an excellent weapon in the service of a government. He could single-handedly wipe out rival armies, or, if secrecy were paramount, he would be the ideal assassin."
Good thing he's just talking about the movies... in a Fleischer Cartoon from 1942, he kind of did that. Here's the episode: http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-1279543310601624332 - ExCornelius, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1@fjvwing
"The assumption here us that The Market catches all variables and is able to express them in monetary value so as to maximizing Good."
The Market is just an incredibly complex network of individual exchanges. It's not perfect, but it works better than anything else.
"As we can see by plainly looking around us and noticing how financiers get away with poisoning the environment and exploiting workers in sweatshops because these things are not expressed in pricing, this is obviously a flawed assumption."
The only flaw here is your assumption that we live in the free market so described.
"The Market tells you about price. Not about benefit. "
No, the market system uses prices to tell you about what people want; prices are information that results from market activity. This is one of the reasons why fiddling with prices (e.g., gas price caps, rent-control) never work as intended; it's simply trying to kill the messenger. - rdot, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1superman actually DID have teleportation powers for a while, back when they revamped the character and he had a blue and a red version. and no, it wasn't just super speed. he became a sort of energy entity and could actually disappear in one place and reappear in another.
- CornStarch, on 10/12/2007, -1/+1All those reasons are why superman fails as an interesting character. Despite what Hollywood thinks the "will he get away from the kryptonite this time" formula does get old.
- LMRuane, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0"So nature comes along and makes it easier for us to do thing so we don't have to progress and do it ourselves?"
No, I'm saying that's NOT the case. Even though some aspects of nature makes life easier (or even possible), we still do progress.
"Since when was the last time nature did anything to make ***** easier for us?"
I should have said (as I did just now) that *some aspects* of nature make life easier. You're right that that's not true of all aspects, such as hurricanes or floods. But obviously it's smart to advantage of the sun's light, instead of shutting ourselves in so we can produce more jobs making artificial light. So in this sense, the sun makes life easier. Same with other parts of nature.
"Without a superman, we'd be fine and forced to progress with more hardship, thus building character. Letting society grow up more than just relying on an alien being."
You may have a point there. I think it depends on Superman's philosophy about helping us. As an analogy, I do think that when the government does things for the poor, the poor end up worse off; it hurts their character development. But I think the problem with the government helping the poor is that the help only comes as long as they stay poor. So the poor have an incentive to stay poor.
If Superman acted like the government, and only did stuff for us that we didn't (but should) do for ourselves, then that's a bad thing. But if Superman keeps doing the same job no matter what the rest of us do, then he's like nature (its good aspects), and that's a big net plus to the rest of us. - tryferos, on 10/12/2007, -1/+1Exactly, and I can't imagine the paycheck Clark Kent gets is all that big. What about rent, bills, clothes, food? Supes should be getting something, heck if not for the freaking dry cleaning and suit repair bills alone!
- ManOfTomorrow, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0Funny stuff, but does guy needs to read Superman: Peace On Earth by Paul Dini and Alex Ross.
- LMRuane, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0We don't have to worry about this. Superman would be like automation, which is constantly destroying jobs. But people find other jobs to do. There's a potentially infinite number of things people want, so there's no limit to the number of jobs they can do.
Or, Superman is like something provided by nature, such as the sun. Suppose for some weird historical or cultural reason a society shut out the sun from coming indoors. Someone says, hey, why not take advantage of the sun and let it in? Using your logic, people would object, saying this would destroy most of the jobs that provide artificial light. But obviously, in real life, we let the sun in and that does not cause any unemployment at all. (I got this example from Bastiat.)
Yes, there would be dislocation if Superman started doing all this stuff, and some people may suffer, but only until they can find other jobs to do. Unless the government screws it up (which they do on a regular basis, unfortunately), there's never a shortage of jobs. - dreamcaster, on 10/12/2007, -1/+1As messed up as that is... it's true.
Kudos. - geekee, on 10/12/2007, -3/+3I'm reminded of a Star Trek episode where a think tank went around saving planets, but were cast as opportunists because they expected to be paid for averting catastrophies. Then the writers assumed that they were not beneath kidnapping, even though this doesn't logically follow. The questions the writers ignored are:
1. How much is it worth to you to save your planet from catastrophe? Why do you expect someone to work for you for free?
2. Where is this think tank supposed to get resources to continue to work if they aren't paid? In the episode they didn't have unlimited resources.
3. Why not get paid to do what you're good at, especially if it's worthwhile work that people value? Why should you be forced to do a lesser job to make enough money to devote your remaining free time to something that is more important? Aren't you wasting time on the lesser job that could have been better used on the more important job?
Our society has been infused with the Christian ideal that self sacrifice is a virtue, and expected, even when less practical than trade. - bkmarcus, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0This is one of my all-time favorites! Really brilliant, Mr. Murphy.
- nemoder, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0Why does he need an agent? With his power he could simply rule the world. He could force all the rich people to give their money to the poor.
- fjvwing, on 10/12/2007, -6/+6Economist sees endeavor only in terms of money, ignores human suffering for lack of being able to put a value to it. Film at 11.
- uday0210, on 10/12/2007, -1/+1brilliantly enumerated.
- fjvwing, on 10/12/2007, -1/+1@Metabug: The assumption here us that The Market catches all variables and is able to express them in monetary value so as to maximizing Good. As we can see by plainly looking around us and noticing how financiers get away with poisoning the environment and exploiting workers in sweatshops because these things are not expressed in pricing, this is obviously a flawed assumption.
The Market tells you about price. Not about benefit. That is why that article simply makes no sense considering Superman's value system is not price- or market- or money-oriented. - ExCornelius, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0True. But then what? Barring theft or fraud, people accrue wealth by producing something of value to others, and echanging it for something they themselves value more. Your suggestion would destroy the incentive to produce beyond ones own immediate consumption, effectively encouraging the human race to return to subsistence levels not seen since the Dark Ages. Death and misery lie down the road you propose.
- ExCornelius, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0Correction, such horror has been wrought since the Dark Ages, most notably under the rule of Stalin, Pol Pot, and Mao Zedong. Not the company I would expect Superman to keep.
- ManOfTomorrow, on 10/12/2007, -1/+0Um, yeah.
- LMRuane, on 10/12/2007, -1/+0ARRG, it did show up in the right place after all, sorry.
- LMRuane, on 10/12/2007, -1/+0(oops, my comment just above was meant to be in reply to fjvwing above)
- ManOfTomorrow, on 10/12/2007, -2/+1Superman is the ultimate "good guy" in fiction, like it or not. His ONLY goal is to help people, and that's it. He saves lives, no matter who or what you are. Many people do not understand or even know this explanation of Superman, and it doesn't suprise me since many movies/TV shows and yes comics have shown Superman as a facist, America's bitch, a brainless lug, Christ-like, and so on. Superman is not does things, and doesn't strive to be. He's everybody's friend.
- ThndrShk2k, on 10/12/2007, -3/+1"As for humans failing to progress, see my comment above. The fact that we rely on nature (the sun, the oceans, the minerals we find in the earth, rainfall, the land, etc.) mean that we are failing to progress? I don't think so. Superman would be like nature."
So nature comes along and makes it easier for us to do thing so we don't have to progress and do it ourselves? Since when was the last time nature did anything to make ***** easier for us? I mean. I live living and all, but still. Nature is not an alien force that shows up and puts spacestations into orbit. We use nature to progress, without nature, we wouldn't even be alive. Without a superman, we'd be fine and forced to progress with more hardship, thus building character. Letting society grow up more than just relying on an alien being.
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