Asymmetrical Information

Which one would attract least attention from the plaintiff's bar? Being invisible, one could get on commercial jets and fly anyway. Not to mention the benefits of being anonymous, lurking around in the White House or in CBS editorial meetings, etc.

I would choose the more transparent power: the power to fly. The problem with invisibility is that it's only useful to be subversive. To have to walk around knowing what someone else is really up to without being able to confront them about it (or else give up the power of invisibility which is most powerful when nobody knows about it) would stink. Not only would they not know that you know, but they would be pretty sure that you don't know and that would taint every breath of conversation. Doesn't this happen enough already in everyday life without invisible people?

I demand more information! Fly how fast? For how long? And is my invisibility only visual, or am I invisible to radar and heat signatures too?

Surely no informed decision can be made without this critical information.

Wasn't this covered by 'This American Life' a while back? I think it went along with that Superman-Wonder Woman joke....

To answer the question, fly. It'd make commuting so much easier; do you get to burn calories while you fly?

Which one has the most creative sexual uses?

Assuming consensual sex, invisibility can be simulated by blindfolding your partner(s).

But flying... now that sounds like fun, even if it didn't come with enough super strength to fly my partner with me.

To fly. To soar when feet are tired of walking, to see another viewpoint of the world. Invisibility? Most of us these days already feel we are.

Invisibility only allows you to break the bonds of social acceptability, but flying allows you to break the bonds of gravity. (Okay, not really, physicists.) Unless there's something I haven't considered in my one minute answer, I'd have to say flying.

Invisibility won't keep me from having to sit in traffic.

Uh, shell, that's part of the Superman joke.

Invisibility would mean getting run over, walked into, doors slammed in your face. Dogs would still smell you, and you might have to be naked. (Would your clothes be invisible? Things you picked up, drank, etc.?)
Flying would fulfill a primal fantasy, you could take great photos, and it would keep you from hurting yourself by falling. Also, you could win bets at parties.

Ah, the Superman/Wonder Woman joke where the Invisible Man is like "Ouch!"
Good one.
:-)

Are they mutually exclusive ? Can't we have both ?
Is the invisibility permanent or can you turn it on and off at will ?
Does the ability to fly come with immunity to colds ?

The problem with invisibility is that if light is passing through you, it's also passing right through your eyeball, which means none of it hits your receptors. An invisible man is thus also a blind man.

But if we assume that this obstacle can be overcome, then invisibility is by far the more useful power. Who needs to fly when you can sneak on to any airplane you wish? And imagine how much useful information could be gathered surreptitiously.

I concur on the complications of invisibility, and am prone to acrophobia. I want Green Lantern's ring.

I concur on the complications of invisibility, and am prone to acrophobia. I want Green Lantern's ring.

With Alan Scott’s ring, you’re vulnerable to wood.

With Hal Jordan’s ring, you have a 24-hour time limit but can use it indefinitely as much as you want during that period and you’re vulnerable to a particular part of the electromagnetic spectrum (i.e. color yellow).

With Kyle Rayner’s ring (IIRC it was actually Alan Scott’s with some modifications by Ganthet), there are no particular vulnerabilities or time-limit but it has a finite charge (i.e. can only use so much of it before you have to recharge).

Sign me up for being invisible. The CIA can't wait to hire me with my super power for sneaking around!

Sign me up for being invisible. The CIA can't wait to hire me with my super power for sneaking around!

I must say I’m impressed that no one has yet mentioned the obvious B-movie usage for the power of invisibility (although the Superman-Wonder Woman joke came close ;) )

I would pick invisibility, if only because I could pretend to be Frodo. That, plus I could be like a fly on the wall, which would be a huge asset for a blogger. And not to mention that Winona Ryder and Natalie Portman would be helpless to keep me from stalking them!

By the way, what the hell brought this topic up, anyway?

When I was a kid, I wanted to be able to see through walls like Superman. That would give me some of the benefits of invisiblity, but since that wasn't one of the choices, I'll choose the ability to fly. If I were into that voyeur thing, I could fly over clothing optional beaches.
Mover Mike

I work in finance in New York. I'll take invisibility. I'd become one of the richest risk arbitrageurs in the city fairly quickly

I would much rather be able to fly. It just has more uses, even if the speed were not great. For one, you should be able to live longer. Just imagine how many dangerous situations you could get out of if you could fly? You'd never have to worry about falling, for example. Plus, it would be extraordinarily fun.

I remember from Bewitched that problems with flying include bugs in teeth, messed up hair, near collisions with planes, etc. During the debates I amused myself be thinking how much fun an invisible man would have by standing behind Kerry and tickling him :).

Fly. No question.

James

Definitely invisible. Provided I could turn it on and off. Lots of things I would enjoy doing with that power. All for good and the betterment of the world of course. Really. Trust me on that.

Having driven over 400 miles this week in order to fulfill a distant contract job, I'll take flight, assuming I have a decent cargo capacity.

As the others stated, inivisibility has only a limited number of uses, most of them subversive or pornographic, and it's only a matter of time before an invisible man gets run over by a visible bus.

I am reminded of an X-Files episode, with the Djinn, who could grant three wishes. One guy wished for invisibility, then took off across the street and promptly was run over by a truck. Be careful what you wish for!

Those people already exist....where you' been Galt?

No question: flying. The freedom would be incredible.

However, if it was an option, I would also prefer Green Lantern's ring. Definitely. Not only could I fly, I could do all sorts of other things, too.

Getting leaves out of the rain gutter would be a lot easier with flight. ^_^

But if we're expanding this so that we can pick *any* power from the DC universe then I would want Brainiac 5's power of super-intelligence. Once I had that I'm willing to bet I could pick up on a lot of the other nifty stuff! ^_~

Ever read _The Weirdstone of Brisingamen_ by Alan Garner? A tolkienesque fantasy set in contemporary (1950s) England; the premise being that wizards and elves and dwarves and black sorcerers and goblins are still around, just keeping a very low profile out in the countryside. One character, the dwarf Durathror, tells how he gave the Tarnhelm, greatest treasure of the dwarves, for Valham, the magic feather cloak of the elf-prince Atlendor - exchanging invisibility for flight. (Wonderful book, BTW - Garner, like Tolkien, was deeply read in the original medieval legends.)

Invisibility, clearly.

Not for the purposes of personal gain, but to be able to get away and not be found when I just want to be totally alone.

Come to think of it, I could be totally alone in a crowd, provided I don't make physical contact with anyone - assuming that the invisibilty isn't accompanied by an ethereal component.

The power to fly. Unless it was really bad flying like in the old tv show, "Greatest American Hero", where the instruction manual was lost.

Good points on the "X-Files" and "Buffy", though.

The only problem I could see with it would be neck pain. Keeping your head up while flying majestically through the air has got to hurt.

And since the DC universe was brough up, what about the Marvel universe? Jean Grey's telekinetic abilities let her levitate everyone, including herself. Although not so much in the X-Men movies.

Flying, obviously. (I'm not the sneaky sort, so I'd have trouble using invisibility, except for the ability to sneak up behind Democratic candidates and tickle them during public appearances - and since I live 200 miles north of the cities, when the heck could I get enough time off work to do that, anyway.)

But there's one problem. The first time my boss noticed we flying up to the door at the shop, I'd have the job of stringing network wires through the overhead added to all my other duties.

OTOH, maybe I'd just look for different jobs. Maintaining radio towers. Installing satellite dishes. Roofer, chimney sweep, and tree-trimmer. ;-)

I'd vote for invisibility. Then you can find out what people REALLY say about you when they think you aren't there.

--Cobra

Flying for me - then I wouldn't have to go through the hassle of getting on and off a commercial airplane ever again.

Cobra: I REALLY don't want to know what people REALLY say about me. On this topic, ignorance is bliss. :)

And since the DC universe was brough up, what about the Marvel universe? Jean Grey's telekinetic abilities let her levitate everyone, including herself. Although not so much in the X-Men movies.

But if we’re makin’ mine Marvel, I’d opt for Quasar’s powers of quantum bands (analogous to GL’s power ring without the weakness) plus cosmic awareness that would let me see or know anything at anytime in the universe.

Sort of a sidenote: has anyone read Psion – it’s a story about a psionic mutant named Cat (a telepath) who was a human-alien hybrid. In the book there was a super-mutant character named Quicksilver (no relation to the Marvel character of the same name) who had the powers of telepathy, telekinesis and teleportation.

Ok, I'm pickin flying. Now answer this question. Will I have to flap my arms up and down?

Man, am I getting old and boring. I assumed that flying was (or at least included) simple levitation, and that I could lift not only myself, but anything that I could normally hold up while standing. Things that need doing that would be so much easier if I could levitate that way immediately starting coming to mind: paint the two-story entry way in my house, clean the gutters, take down the Christmas lights, put boxes back in the above-rafter storage in the garage, prune the tall trees myself,...

It's kind of sad when you get to the point that someone offers you a super power like flying and you think about how useful it would be for mundane chores, rather than exciting things like scaring the hell out of people by wearing a vampire outfit and tapping on the window outside their 37th-floor window at night...

Dunno, both have their drawbacks... I don't relish the idea of getting accidentally sucked into jet engines or being hit by cars. And either way, birds would fly into you, or you might get shot down either way.

And what if the ability to fly required having to look like the Flying Nun? Definite minus.

The interesting thing is that technology has moved quite a ways on light refraction and can make things appear transparent whereas as far as I know, we're still nowhere on personal jet packs.

I can't believe this - a discussion of invisibility where the words "Frodo" and "Tolkienesque" make their appearance before "girls locker-room" does.

Obviously, I choose invisible.

Brian, none of us guys wants to let Megan know that we think like that.

Jeez, I didn't think like that until you brought it up. Gray hair and five grandkids don't necessarily mean I'm getting old, but this....

I remember the first time I got to sit in the copilot's seat in a Bell helicopter (you know, the one with a transparent front), and it satisfied a dream I didn't know I had, to fly. And oh, to fly silently, to soar and hover....

So flying, obviously, for me, is wonderful. Invisibility is less attractive, unless you can put it on and off at will, like Frodo. Otherwise there is the desire to be seen, to be recognized, that has to be held in abeyance. I think the charms of invisibilty would soon tarnish.

Posted by John McCrarey :

Definitely invisible. Lots of things I would enjoy doing with that power. All for good and the betterment of the world of course. Really. Trust me on that.

Giving new meaning to when someone says, "I don´t know what hit me..."

Bill: "I work in finance in New York. I'll take invisibility. I'd become one of the richest risk arbitrageurs in the city fairly quickly"

So what would be the top easiest ways to get rich real quick because you were invisible?

Probably getting paid to spy would yield more money than stealing things (actual objects). Although you could probably walk off with a diamond or two that way and nobody figure out how it disappeared.

Actually, with all this high, high tech spy technology, an invisible person may not be able to do half as much spying in certain circumstances (specially if your body is invisible but still material).

Kevin's got the best question as regards invisibility: are you invisible in all EM spectra, or just the visible-light portion?

The question about light going through you (and hence through your retinas, unperturbed) presumes way too much about how invisibility would actually work. I'd be more concerned about the nature of the super-power, and want to have some questions answered prior to assuming it:

1) Does being invisible effect any of my other senses?

2) Does being invisible mean I don't reflect any EM radiation at all?

3) Does being invisible mean I don't refract any EM radiation?

4) Does being invisible mean I don't emit any EM radiation?

4a) If the answer to 4) is "yes", does being invisible seriously muck with self-regulation of body temperature? If I can't emit, how do I radiate heat?

5) Does being invisible in any other way affect normal interaction with other objects?

Ok, I could go on for a while, but you get the point.

One could come up with similar questions for flying, but one has to get back to work. I am a little concerned about upper limits on mach number, whether one can (accidentally or on purpose) leave the atmosphere, or whether one gets falls automatically on losing consciousness or not.

And although I'm sure Superman can take getting serial birdstrikes from flying through a flock of Canadian geese at a couple of hundred miles per, I'm betting that for you and me it would be fatal.

Oh, and of course if I heated any air around me, I'd be visible to IR NVGs. But I think this has gone way too far.

I've gone back & forth, back & forth... but flying seems like the thing. I'd love to be invisible (as with others, as long as I could choose when to be and as long as whatever I was holding, ingesting, wearing, etc., was also invisible so I didn't freeze to death or cause someone to die of shock when I suddenly became visible in front of them) - EXCEPT for the possibility, raised by Cobra, that I might accidentally overhear a conversation about myself that I wasn't intended to hear. Depressing.

So I'd fly. Esp. because of the no-fear-of-falling aspect, to include the no-fear-of-the-plane-crashing-in-flames variant.

May I recommend the chapter in Jean Kerr's "Penny Candy" in which she talks about a dinner party she attended as a young woman at her husband's boss's apartment. She was terribly proud of herself for having finally had the guts to stand up to snooty salespeople and achieve a pretty dress for the occasion. Then she walked into the boss's living room... and three walls were draped with the same fabric as her dress. Since she appeared to be a disembodied head, "conversations had a way of petering out around me," she says, and "One man stopped in midsentence and muttered, 'I don't know what they put in this drink.'"

Personally I would prefer immortality, but since that is not an option...

If I could switch it on and off (along with objects I would use and touch), I would choose invisibility. But since that is highly unlikely (even more than the invisibility itself), in the end I would have to settle with the power to fly ... sigh, the compromises we must make.

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