The power I really need...

[jducoeur]

One of those games mildly popular among geeks is "Which Superpower Would You Want?". I've been through a few iterations of it over the years (once or twice here on LJ), and have found that people usually gravitate towards the obvious: Flying, Superstrength, Invisibility, stuff like that.

But y'know, as I look at my life, I find that the one I really *want* is that of Jamie Madrox, the Multiple Man. He splits into many independent bodies, which later rejoin with him. He's recently become a semi-major character because Peter David (a popular author) is now writing a book starring him -- Peter starts the story out just as Jamie is rejoining his selves, after sending a bunch of them out for a year to specialize in various things -- everything from Buddhism to learning piano.

It's really a delightful piece of fantasy for the Age of Busy. As I go along, I'm becoming acutely aware of the tension between sampling many things, and being able to do a few of them well. It's pretty clear that I desperately want to have my cake and eat it too -- there is so much I want to do and learn, so many projects that I would desperately love to be able to devote enough time to. But there just aren't enough hours in one life to do them all, and that's astonishingly frustrating. (My own fear of mortality is deeply bound up with the notion of dying with so much unlearned.)

Wish-fulfillment games like this can be startling in how they illuminate oneself; certainly this one is. I am so fond of being a generalist, but damn -- there are times that I dearly wish I could send four of me out to be specialists for a year or two...

Comments

[rufinia.livejournal.com]

Justin, Justin, Justin, if there were multiples of you, you'd *still* be over-committed, only more so. And people would feel even less guilty about asking you stuff. "Sure he can teach dance at my event while he autocrats yours and does a feast for the one in Maine. He'll just split off another copy..."

[umbran.livejournal.com]

If tnose multiple copies are going off having lives of their own, there's the original Rogue problem - reintegrating them all would be heck on the psyche. They've each gone off and developed their own likes, dislikes, loves and hates.

I mean, what happens if one of them goes off... and becomes a Republican? :)

[jducoeur]

That's actually one of the major plots of the book, as our hero discovers that he's getting a wee tad schizophrenic...

[msmemory.livejournal.com]

Hmmm.... one of you to stay in bed with me, one to bring us breakfast, one to go tend the yard, two or three to go to work (and earn two or three salaries)... oh! the possibilities!

[gyzki.livejournal.com]

Only two or three salaries, to feed and clothe how many? :-)

[alexx-kay.livejournal.com]

The food and clothing budget would be multiplied, yes, but you probably don't need any extra rent (merge before bedtime), and you might well spend a lot *less* on entertainment items.

[eclecticmagpie.livejournal.com]

David Brin's new (ish) book "Kiln People" explores this concept in depth, and also looks at the question "and what if *every*body could do it?" I think it's a great book.

[alexx-kay.livejournal.com]

I enjoyed that book a lot.

I share this fantasy, but...

[metahacker.livejournal.com]

Reading a book involving duping (can't remember the author; a relatively new SF author, and the book was written in the past 5-7 years), it occurred to me that the hard part isn't the fissioning; after all, we can imagine giant photocopiers that reproduce brains intact. It's the merging. It's just as bad as merging source code, but even worse, because ideally the brains would still be running while you merged, and in almost every case you'd want *both* versions of stuff, leaving all kinds of weird redundancies.

I mean, I have enough trouble remembering where I parked as the five work days in a week merge into one big blur. Can you imagine doing that with forty Tuesdays!? Not to mention pronoun troubles. You(3) and I(5) had dinner on Tuesday, right?

And...is it the doing, or the having done, that we crave? After the merge, all you're really left with is memories of the having done; actions by another, who is sort of you, but probably slightly different, especially after the split starts acting on your mind. They might be frustrating memories of someone else doing something *you* want to do, but slightly differently. Sort of like the first story in Mind's Eye.

But then, I'm fascinated by identity issues...

Re: I share this fantasy, but...

[jducoeur]

Honestly, much of it is the having done. The essence of the problem is the feeling that there is so much I *can* do, and therefore I *should* do, but I *can't* do, because there just isn't enough time.

Obviously, I'm going to have to deal with the problem other ways. (Mostly, I'm just going to have to get past this odd sense of guilt over opportunity cost.) But it's fun to dream...

Re: I share this fantasy, but...

[siderea]

Obviously, I'm going to have to deal with the problem other ways.

Time Turner. Obviously. :)

Re: I share this fantasy, but...

[siderea]

P.S. I've come to the conclusion that I have all the superpowers I need; what I really want is a TARDIS. This simultaneously solves the Rent problem, the Transit problem, the Opportunity Cost problem, and the Not Enough Sleep problem all in one swell foop.

Ooooh. I was just about to say "Then all I need is a high-speed internet connection" when it occurred to me to wonder, "Wow, routing packets from outside the space-time continuum would need a special protocol" and then my brain started to go there...

Re: I share this fantasy, but...

[alexx-kay.livejournal.com]

what I really want is a TARDIS. This simultaneously solves the Rent problem, the Transit problem, the Opportunity Cost problem, and the Not Enough Sleep problem all in one swell foop.

That has long been one of my fantasies for precisely the reasons you state :)

[richenza.livejournal.com]

Right now I'd go in for the "instant healing" superpower.

[rickthefightguy.livejournal.com]

Yeah, immortality would do that better, wouldn't it? By which I mean permanent perfect health of course. That's my superpower o' choice. That or extreme wealth which would also serve a similar purpose: more free time.

[corwyn-ap.livejournal.com]

If you have permanent perfect health and can't manage extreme wealth you are doing something really wrong...

[alexx-kay.livejournal.com]

Yeah, immortality would do that better, wouldn't it? By which I mean permanent perfect health of course.

Yeah, that was what I settled on long ago for "If I ever get offered a wish by a genie".

[cellio]

I sometimes crave this too, but get hung up on the merge problem. I think it I remain the "real me" and the job of the others is to (1) do distasteful tasks and (2) download acquired knowledge into me, that can work -- but as soon as I have to deal with the dupes' altered psyches and whatnot, things get challenging.

Still, it would sure be handy sometimes!

[hfcougar.livejournal.com]

I often find myself wishing it were other people I could split, so the world had more of them. I think if I split myself I'd have a bunch of mes arguing over who had to go do the most distasteful or boring thing on the list.

Superpowers would be nice. I'd settle for the ability to teleport between any 2 Dunkin' Donuts locations. (Seriously, when is one ever that far from anything?)