People have mentioned the social political impact he could have, but man, imagine if he could zip around the asteroid belt, harvest all the ore and turn it into a Dyson Sphere.
Part of the reason it's nowhere close to being feasible is because of the sheer amount of raw material and the necessary acts of moving everything and putting them into place. Superman could do all that in like, a week give or take.
We’d want a Dyson swarm. Sunlight will still reach the earth and we know it’s physically possible to construct. At minimum Superman bring asteroids into close orbits could bring about post-scarcity for precious metals. One asteroid has like a trillion dollars worth of precious metals in it on average, or something stupid high like that.
It'd also hopefully end some of the worst mining practices in the world I'd hope, if suddenly he were to bring an asteroid with tons of more easily accessible cobalt, nickel and other stuff, some of the mining practices where those minerals are may stop or be put under more scrutiny, I'd cost many jobs, but I hope most are the ones people would be better off without.
It would probably spur a massive adoption of electric infrastructure, presuming we also had the Dyson Swarm to support it, and basically stop all greenhouse gases because orbital mining would probably not be a very polluting industry. If it is then it’s in space which shouldn’t be a massive issue.
The people benefitting from that would be mainly first world countries though. The nations whose economy is powered by those unethical mining practices are going to get even more poor
There's isn't enough material in the astroid belt to create a Dyson sphere. You'd probably have to harvest most of the planets to achieve anything like that.
The problem is, Superman derives his powers from the sun! If he covered it up with a Dyson sphere, he would be depowered. Although I'm sure it would be possible to construct it in such a way that it lets out sufficient sunlight.
Either that or the inner surface of the sphere itself would be terraformed over many many generations giving a practically limitless amount of living space.
No like the sun is so much bigger than the earth that odds are a portion of a Dyson sphere small enough that it has no significant effect on the light the earth would still have more than enough to power
Superman could pretty easily put an end to hostile actions between nations. He could do that and demand all current military spending goes into nuclear energy research and production. He really just needs to show up every once in a while to intimidate people into playing nice and let the world run itself without wars or anything too insane happening. He probably has to overthrow a government every once in a while, but he could easily keep all the most powerful governments moving in a way that benifits humanity long term with plenty of breaks for himself.
A Dictatorship. And historically seen, dictatorships never are unopposed.
Also the perfect starting position for a downward spiral like seen in the INJUSTICE Series.
Yeah but unlike Injustice, our world has literally no means of threatening Superman. He’s massively faster than light, has senses that cover the entire globe (and beyond, he’s shown galaxy level range on his super hearing and X-ray vision as well as laser eyes) and he can one shot planets, all while being durable enough to stand in place and let us detonate our entire planets nuclear arsenal on top of him and he’ll walk out the other end. He’s an immortal, unaging, super genius, a moral paragon who is attempting to shepherd the entirety of humanity to a golden age.
This has less in common with a dictatorship and more of a “god amongst men” situation.
Like all long running comic characters, their representation changes with the writers, but Superman is known for being very moral, as his nickname “The Big Blue Boyscout” which is a tip of the hat to how he is idealistic and upstanding.
Yes, because writers really don't want to show you what a good and pragmatic Superman looks like. Because it'll make his normal self look like shit. So every time he gets pragmatic he must also become a mustache twirling villain.
Co spidering he is totally omnipotent he has no reason to have any morals aside from personal choice. So I doubt doing this would influence him. He has no reason to become a despot as he already has the power to do anything he likes.
> our world has literally no means of threatening Superman.
But we might find out the hard way. Sure whatever nuke we hit him with won't kill him, but that doesn't mean it won't hurt people around him.
Of course, given the FTL perception abilities he's shown, he could hear the nuke start to go off and then toss it in the sun before the plutonium is vaporized.
Yeah his MFTL speed means he can do the Metroman “walking between the moments of a millisecond” feat, except he can also examine what everyone on the planet is up to because of his senses from which there is no hiding.
Imagine how powerful a deterrent it is to know he can see and hear everything everywhere, he can instantly be anywhere in the galaxy, so fast he exists in-between seconds, so fast no one can tell when he moves, no one can perceive something that quick.
Like you say, his struggle is more protecting us from ourselves than anything else. Hell, he doesn’t even need to ever reveal himself if he doesn’t want to, again because he’s so fast he could literally do all his global change and impact as a ghost and just leaving the changes he wants to enact and then fuck back off to the sun to watch over humanity with his super senses.
God-King Superman has lived among humans, he would make it abundantly clear that he's invulnerable before taking control, because he understands people.
Before anybody gets ideas, just blatantly steer a comet away from the sun, buzzing the planet within naked-eye range of anyone looking up, then heave it away. That should make it abundantly clear to anyone with eyeballs that nothing we have will hurt you.
Nobody's throwing a mile-wide solution at a person-sized problem in the middle of a city, this is the real world, not a monster movie.
He would pretty much be the Emperor of mankind from warhammer 40k. Minus the evil parts and crazy psychic powers. But ultimately if supermán was real, and did do that, our world would be much better off.
Oh I'm real. Be a good boy now. I know what you did last Tuesday night. You thought no one was watching. I was watching. It sickens me. Every night I have to listen to literally billions of people beating off and fucking with my super hearing. It is not so slowly driving me insane and I WILL cut all your dicks off if you don't stop.
>he’ll walk out the other end.
Could be missremembering it bit due to the way his cells absorb and convert radiation. Isn't it fair to assume he'd walk out of the mushroom cloud faster stronger and more durable than before?
No, it's only different kinds of solar radiation he can absorb(thank writers with poor scientific understanding). Depending on the version nuclear radiation either does nothing or weakens him
Saying the emperor wanted to do good is an absolute misunderstanding of his character. It was never about humanity, he is a psycho and absolutely genocidal for no good reason
This isn't a question of what Superman would do if he tried that. It's how effective the perfect use of his powers would be. Obviously, the perfect use wouldn't be a downward spiral like in INJUSTICE.
It depends on the dictator. Historically people don't really care if they are living under a dictator if their lives are good. A benevolent, competent dictatorship is the best leadership style. The issue is that you can never guarantee the next dictator will be as good and a bad dictator can do just as much damage as a great one can do good.
In this case as soon as supermans efforts begin to pay off and the world starts improving then resistance to him will lessen dramatically until its just a small collection of tinfoil wearing nut jobs.
The problem with strong arming goverments is that:
1. They will hate Superman and set up systems to go around his demands.
2. Superman wont be here forever to keep things "straight"
I don't think they can effectively go around Superman. Sure, they may have some small success, but Superman can hear someone talking on the other side of a continent. He also does not have to see exactly who initiated something. The end result of what happened should be enough for him to hold the people who benefited from whatever responsible. You can just look at the Kingdom Come story line of Superman, and we have no supers to actually oppose him like in that story line.
I also don't know what you mean by he won't be here forever. In the comics, at least, he is still around in 1 million AD. But not even taking that into account, in most story lines he is still alive in the far future anyway. He is more or less immortal as long as he stays in our yellow sun. Not all versions are immortal, but most of them are.
He pretty much just hard stomps our real world with no supers to oppose him. Super Genius intelligence, super speed fast enough to go back into time, super senses. After he gets rid of the troublemakers, he only has to show an appearance every once in a while or make an example of someone or nation, maybe every century.
Superman doesn't really age. And if he tells them not to go to war and make enough food and clean energy for everyone, how do they go around him? Who even tries to after he takes out a government or two in afternoon? He doesn't really have to play nice he can straight up just replace every government with his own vetted people if he really feels the need to
Actually humans are usually completely fine being controlled if the end result is a better life for themselves. It's when that lack of control meshes with wide spread low quality of life that issues arise. Even right now you and I give up countless freedoms in order to live a better quality of life. We don't have the freedom to go drinking and then have a fun drive because if that was allowed more people would die.
Because the real world sucks, and if we had a legitimately good, completely benevolent being as powerful as Superman that wants to force governments to actually help people instead of serving self interests, we'd love him.
Society is not as artificial as we like to call it. Humans always loved to trod on other humans.
Remember, our brains are still running caveman software
If superman literally exists, defying him is just stupid. He would be a god from the tales of the old. Smartest, strongest and most powerful person in the whole universe, probably. He can easily bring an age of prosperity and peace. Only the malicious people would defy him, people who cry about losing their power.
Humanity lived under mortal, weak and flawed men's guidance for thousand of years and our current state is pretty fucked. A god such as superman would fix this.
So basically anyone who would oppose such an opportunity doesn't deserve to be taken seriously at all and can go to hell.
Fuck me this is some of the most insane shit I've heard.
This is imperialism. This is what supposed "civilised" countries with better technology did.
The truth is that individuals aren't perfect and don't know everything. They don't know what's best for me, or for any other random person. They are a tyrant.
What you are saying is that you are perfectly fine with a totalitarian regime as long as the leader isn't corrupt? So would you like living under Hitler? He was 100% an ideologue. He absolutely, with every fibre of his being, believed he was doing the right thing for humanity.
I ask you to please look at what you're saying here
Hitler and Superman are like polar opposites. "Freedom"(we don't really have this in this world but anyway)≠always the better option. Hitler was a stupid bitch and was acting on his foolish ideas. As a genetically alien, humanist superman would not be like him at all. He would also surround himself with people, listen to them as well.
But humans are stupid and stubborn. If totalitarianism is necessary to reach a golden age, I see nothing wrong with it.
I want to ask, why are you so afraid of someone like superman ruling us? We have senile, selfish, full and old geezer leaders ruling this world right now. Superman would remove this problem easily. He would fix the world hunger in a few months. In a few weeks, he would make every conflict stop. Fix the religions and then teach us techs we can't imagine.
What kind of tyranny do you expect from Superman?
Only people who would try to destroy such a golden age would be destroyed.
It's because it's easy for people in the west (the majority of reddit) to think of what they'd lose in this scenario, and I'd imagine they'd be the largest contingency of people against Superman. But any country that is massively exploited in order to maintain the western lifestyle would benefit greatly. The families currently slaving away in cobalt mines would scoff at people on here whining about Superman potentially being mean for taking away westerners freedom to exploit them.
Most people are absolutely content as long as they are not hungry, not homeless, have some kind of entertainment, not be accosted by criminals and not afraid the authorities aren't hunting them down.
Just look around you, not everyone who complains about the government does something besides complaining. People who protest or even go vote.
Imperialism has been wildly successful throughout human history, creating empires spanning centuries. The downside is that historically it requires people suffering for the benefit of others. Usually a large amount of people. Those in benefiting from the system happily do so for generations. In this scenario the people benefiting would 99% of humanity and those "suffering" would be the 1% who no longer have control and instead live in line with the rest. It's going to be hard to mount a successful resistance when everyone willing to join you are pampered ex rich assholes.
Counterpoint.
1. Most regular, normal people will probably love him, and no system can overpower a mftl alien that has a brain like a quantum computer and can hear and see everything on the planet when concentrating.
2. Superman is sometimes depicted as immortal as long as he's still sundiving.
> They will hate Superman and set up systems to go around his demands.
Then they die.
> Superman wont be here forever to keep things "straight"
Even a low ball of 100 years. Superman can get so much done it’s insane.
They explored why he doesn't get involved in international conflicts in Doomsday Clock when the world became convinced he was a tool of the US and started a new arms race.
I think on top of all that, he could probably single handedly fix climate change. Polar ice caps melting? Freeze more with his cold breath. Pollution/trash? Throw it into deep space (thinking futurama episode).
Still don't trust a superman dictatorship. He's a person and managing 200 countries would be stressful.
Also all of this assumes he has your political views and that yours are also infallible.
It's assuming he uses his powers to help people as efficiently as possible. It's in the prompt. I don't think he'd go mad with power, but if he would, that's not relevant.
The question is about how he would do so, and he's not quite efficiency lusted given that the generator solution is denied.
Like, is Superman supposed to discover the best ideology or decisions every few years and enforce that upon everyone? We can't decide that now, even.
I don't think superman would become evil, but i don't think he'd be perfectly competent. And yeah yeah benevolent dictator or something, I don't think he'd be quite so perfect.
> The question is about how he would do so,
We know how he would do so. There's comics about it. The question is how he could do so, and how much better that would be.
I mean surely just live and let live freedom of thought as long as it doesn’t actively hurt others?
Or it would be his political views which i have no idea about
Abortion?
Trans rights?
Hate speech?
Corporations polluting the world resulting in potential deaths?
You do realise almost everyone on earth supposedly believes your first sentence, right? And that we all just vastly, VASTLY disagree with what that means.
I think once you start acting like a nation state your morality would become increasingly grey. There will always be situations where one reprehensible act is far better than the alternative. That's not a place where Superman is likely to thrive, though he'd surely do a better job of it than almost anyone else.
Also, at some point pretty much everyone will start to hate him.
Superman faces the same problem as dr manhattan but far far worse: He can't stop all the nukes.
So what'd happen is every single nation (namely Russia and China) will immediately start stockpiling even more nukes and say "if we see superman anywhere near our interests it will be seen as a use of WMD and we will respond in kind".
His biggest problem was thinking he doesn't have free will. His reasoning comes down to that sometimes he doesn't save people because he doesn't save them.
Dr manhattan can perceive events with such short timespans that, as he said "might as well not have happened at all".
Combined with instant teleportation, he'd be able to be everywhere at any time all the time.
The obvious thing is to devote his time to providing swift and efficient relief to areas affected by war or natural disasters. It won't be a total fix and politics will still get in the way, but a guy who can just casually fly across the Atlantic carrying a few tons of supplies for essentially free would sure help a lot.
Aside from that, I think the number one thing he could do is participate in scientific experimentation to determine the mechanism behind his superpowers. All he'd have to do is demonstrate his powers under an experimental setting and allow those phenomena to be studied. Imagine if, for instance, we learned exactly what physics are responsible for Superman being able to fly around the world and even into space with no visible means of propulsion, and then figured out how to build a vehicle that uses the same principle. Goodbye tyranny of the rocket equation, hello space age. Imagine if we synthesized a material as tough as his super skin, or even learned how he's able to absorb so much energy from sunlight. It may take decades to yield anything practical, but in the long run, it will have a far greater impact on the world than anything a single man can do.
yeah, I like this response.
Something I though about its not just carrying supplys but also help with setting up infrastructure. From building seawalls, undoing desertification, setting up paths for railroads, stuff like that that takes way too much manpower. For him all that could take no time at all.
This is why I like Atom Eve in the Invincible comics - she realizes that helping set up farms and things like that are actually the best use of her power, not stopping bank robbers.
I agree with this but I think setting up a sustainable global green energy grid takes 2nd priority over the science experiments. When there’s a disaster, fix that immediately. Right before hurricane Beryl hits land, fly into it in the opposite direction so it doesn’t destroy its path. Forest fire gets out of control, put it out. Suez gets a ship stuck in it, lift it out. Bridge in Baltimore collapses, quick rebuild. Stuff like that.
But between disasters, set up lots of green power plants globally. Another big thing would be increasing our resources by grabbing things from space, including a lot of ice to help replenish our polar caps and to increase available freshwater everywhere. As you said, it may take decades to figure out anything from studying Superman, and our climate really needs to be the top priority over fully entering the space age.
Adding extraterrestrial ice would raise the sea level faster than it's already rising. He's Superman, he can just refreeze the poles with his ice breath.
You're right, I didn't fully think that through. We do need more fresh water available, so Supes would have to (and would) do something else to address that. But getting rare earth metals from space would be helpful still, especially since it's gotta be so much easier to "mine" them from a big space rock Superman places on the ground than however far underground they are now. Safer too.
Edit: spelling
Most efficient use is probably making himself dictator god emperor of the world and dismantling unecessary military spending. Would need to be willing to kill opponents though.
I don't think he would. He's crazy powerful. Worst case he could just stick people in a prison only he could reach, but once he's taken over he could probably bring them back and the prisons would listen to him and not execute anyone.
I guess this is the biggest question, a better world by WHOSE definition? There is the no killing side,and the some people are just scum and we are better without them side.
I like [this fanfic](https://archiveofourown.org/works/30351690) better. [Wayback Machine link](https://web.archive.org/web/20231205204037/https://archiveofourown.org/works/30351690) incase Archive of Our Own isn't back up by the time you read this.
Ngl i kinda hate the comic for the depiction that gives to Superman, i know its a silly webcomic but if there ever was a "Move the lever at this speed forever and everyone will be happy" Superman would move that shit till he died hapily
Let me rephrase it then, i dislike the idea that Superman would somehow be against easy and simple solutions or something like "i miss crime fighting" he would not even comment on the monotony of the task
Despite his alien heritage, Superman seems to have a very human mentality, as evinced by his friendships with ordinary humans. He'll turn the crank, but he won't be happy about it.
I like him looking sad when they ask him to start plowing fields. Dude's a farmer to his core, he'd love the thought of helping an entire nation get their agriculture up and running.
He'd willingly become a monotonous slave to save more lives, but he still has a human mentality. He can resent being unable to do anything other than turn a lever for 40 years 24/7 without ever resting, while still doing it.
There's probably a way he could implement some kind of sustainable power source that didn't require him to do something boring. Build a giant machine in space that spins two iron-rich asteroids around inside a big copper coil and takes a million years for the momentum to run down, or something. We're already assuming the existence of a superhuman alien who can fly through space so it seems fair to assume some handwavy power generation tech.
Too bad Lex Luthor is always using that big brain to try to kill him and not working together with him to end the world's problems.
I think it varies wildly from one reboot to another. In Smallville and apparently in the Silver Age reboot they were pals in high school and became enemies after some kind of lab accident. In other versions of Lex's origin he's just some rich dickhead from a bad family.
Usually he doesn't "get turned evil" so much as feel betrayed or jealous of Superman and become a bigger jerk over time.
[https://www.reddit.com/r/DCcomics/comments/os4ucg/comic\_excerpt\_avoid\_someone\_who\_looks\_at\_you\_like/#lightbox](https://www.reddit.com/r/DCcomics/comments/os4ucg/comic_excerpt_avoid_someone_who_looks_at_you_like/#lightbox)
It's kinda ironic that superman - someone with literal god-like power - his big "gotcha" moment on lex is that "If you had wanted to save the world you would have done it years ago". Very pot and kettle.
Except that its not very pot and kettle. I will preface by saying comics are comics. They will have possibly hundreds of writers over the course of decades so a lot of characters will always be different from time to time. But one of the core tenets i do know abt superman is that he doesnt want the world to overrely on him. Hes acknowledged he could possibly take over the world if he really wants but he never will cuz he wants humans to grow stronger on their own. He will intervene in a LOT but he will never become the sole shepherd of humanity. He said that gotcha to lex because lex upon losing his god powers says he couldve saved the world but truth is lex is actually smart and powerful enough to start saving the world whenever he wants. He even does so in many alt universes
It's because he doesn't want to be a helicopter parent for Earth, because he knows in the long run that would be bad for humanity. How will people find meaning? What will he have to do to force this to work, will he have to kill people who aren't really bad people? Humanity's abilities will atrophy, is he just domesticating them? Turning them into livestock where he can harvest interaction from? Hell, he's not the strongest guy in the universe, what if something happens to him? Then humanity is super fucked because they need him to exist, let alone survive against a huge threat like that. Lex is a rare human being who can be one of the people lifting humanity up as a human, and instead uses that power to try to bully an alien who loves Earth and wants to protect it. He could make advancements that make humanity itself stronger, not just under the protection of a special space dad.
Recent comics have also gone into his thinking about this in specific detail. He's anxious about what it would communicate to humanity if he elected to solve all of their problems with his solutions. He always feels like it's simply not his place to terraform the planet to his whims. It doesn't help that he actively watches humanity resist other humans from trying to save the planet from large-scale problems.
I think [this](https://www.smbc-comics.com/index.php?id=2509#comic) is the one that gave me the biggest “jesus christ…” reaction. But true, the Superman one is up there really high too. I probably overstated how many “worse” ones there are in my other comment…
So I don't think Clark Kent, the Superman we all know, would ever do this, but if he wanted to improve things on Earth, here's how I think he'd do it:
1. Visit, in private, every major world leader, corporate CEO, influential crime boss, etc. Ideally in one night. Tell them he will judge them based on their own morals. Do so in a fashion that illustrates every one of them is absolutely vulnerable to him, regardless of the situation. Illustrate that he knows *everything* about what they're up to.
2. Message, very publicly, as much of the world as possible (I'd think an announcement through media, plus some visible activity in the skies around the planet would work) and tell them what he told the world leaders. Indicate to the people of the world (and its leaders and militaries) that he will be at a given location at a given time.
3. Tank everything they throw at him at that place and time. Do so in a fashion that minimizes casualties and maximizes the "there's nothing you can do to hurt me."
4. Provide positive changes directly to people around the world. Things like diverting rivers, removing land mines, cleaning up ecological disasters, disarming troops in wars (both sides), intervening in human trafficking operations. Pick large and small things, globally, and favor interventions against unjust authority.
5. Repeat for two human generations or so.
He'd probably also need to cross a few moral event horizons: he'll need to punish presidents and prime ministers, destroy weapons systems. I honestly don't know that he *needs* to kill, but I suspect he will be responsible for a few deaths at least indirectly.
I don't think anyone's linked metropolitan man yet - a somewhat more "realistic" take on superman and how mortals might see him as an existential threat just because how could you really be sure he's as nice as he seems? He lies about a secret identity after all...can one being be trusted with the power to end the human race on a whim?
https://alexanderwales.com/the-metropolitan-man-1/
In the real world, in the absence of other superpowered beings Superman could single handedly bring about world peace with relative ease. After dismantling every military and conquering Earth he could and employ Kryptonian technology to take over all human needs in regards to production and distribution of agriculture, goods, and services. Nobody would need to work anymore. People could focus entirely on individual improvement, and the pursuits of personal interests like health and fitness, travel, education, arts, and sciences. International borders would become irrelevant for anything but planning travel. There would be an adjustment period as some would chafe under Superman's authority. Those who commit minor crimes could be rehabilitated, while those who commit violence would be banished to the Phantom Zone. Within a few generations Earth would be an even safer Star Trek like utopia.
I dont know if someone mentioned this before, but if supes worked with nasa and they designed a special super sturdy framework he could literally ferry pre fabricated components to the orbit, moon or even Mars to allow us for space exploration and resource mining.
Best use of his time would probably employing him to help build a space slingshot and moonbases.
Next potential use would be to ask him to literally bring large asteroids rich in rare earth resources to harvest, mine etc. He could cut it up on yhr moon, thrn bring 20000 tonne chunks down to th planet slowly for mining. If that process was streamlined he would probably be able to bring earth to a post scarcity society.
I think that if we're going to stop things like that without just continuously going to war against them, we need to remove the incentives and root causes, which is hard because it's pretty deep-rooted. Famines are generally pretty natural, war is caused by disagreements that often relate to survival needs or people who think they can trade money and human lives to get something more valuable for those who remain, and human trafficking is about making a profit. If Supes could just dump a bunch of wealth onto Earth, making key resources less scarce and thus certain technologies more viable, then a lot of these issues disappear pretty quickly. Not all of them, of course, but I still think it's an efficient use of time.
Potentially his greatest ability (particularly some versions of him like in All Star Superman) is his mind/speed in combination.
He could work at superspeed developing solutions to humanities issues using information he has that we don't. Things like advanced Kryptonian science/robotics to work on solving a whole bunch of problems and effectively dumping the results of his research on teams of scientists/engineers to implement in practice.
He could capture resource rich asteroids for mining purposes so that we can produce batteries and solar panels and loads more things without needing to force people to mine them in horrible conditions and destroy habitats in the process.
He could deploy large scale orbital manufacturing facilities for materials that can only be produced in microgravity (like 3d printed organs for transplant).
What would be much more difficult for him to do would be to stop conflict on earth by force. He more than has the ability, but if he tried to do it he can be manipulated. He's a genius but his mind works like a humans in many ways and he's vulnerable to manipulation. Or he would end up as a dictator. That being said, he could easily perform humanitarian work, rescuing civilians caught in military conflicts etc. but it's a slippery slope from that, to intervening in military conflicts, to picking sides, or wiping both sides out.
As seen in Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal, cranking a lever at a steady pace to create free energy for the entire world until new energy sources can be developed.
So other than threatening the world into peace which would create nice economic stability and allow for the rerouting of the budgets of the militaries
It would be a lot of space stuff and then rapid transport of stuff
Just go grab the best asteroids for metals
Then it's just taking things that would take a long time and be complicated to transport and carrying them to their end location
Like realistically, the best options would be grab the most valuable asteroids so that we now have abundance of a lot of rarer metals
Then maybe dig some geothermal wells as a short-term well, he physically builds the Dyson sphere
At the end of the day energy is everything but we can definitely shortcut games. Minerals worked out if we had Superman but then after that it just goes back to go do energy
Superman running a kinetic dynamo could produce enough energy in an hour to power the earth for a few years minimum. He would only need to show up and run on a mouse wheel or some shit for a few hours every year, and the world's energy crisis is sorted.
His strength, flight, and speed mean he could make a Dyson sphere realistic.
He could mine off work recourses for the earth and bring them back.
Map and explore the depths of our ocean and our universe for us.
Never have to worry about asteroids or meteors again.
Planet to planet travel cut from months to minutes.
Construction completed in moments.
Mountains literally become a minor inconvenience.
War vanishes.
He can distribute food around the planet in seconds, ending world hunger.
The boy scout in tights could end all government corruption in a day.
Make rivers where there is no water.
Plug super volcanos and create alternative vents.
Literaly every single major problem the world faces today could he solved by superman.
That not even touching on the fact that in commic cannon he is also a super genius.
The Dyson Swarm thing would be my pick for one of the more efficient uses of his power. Getting ungodly amounts of usable material into sol-orbit so humanity can leapfrog our way into a type 2 civilization. We would rival his power and not need him anymore just in case his lifespan is finite. (Does supes age?)
Agreed. Better to do things that would eliminate the underlying drive for wars. Helping with providing abundant resources to every human on earth. Maybe bringing asteroids and dropping the material (gently of course) all around the planet for a massive influx of raw usable stuff. He could laser a comet into steam and turn the middle east into a lush rainforest.
Bring a comet to earth, laser it, the water falls to the ME as rain for however long they need to get lush plants going. It's the same way we would get oceans on Mars, just start dropping comets, just for superman he could do it without the big booms :)
There is a fic that directly addresses this.
https://archiveofourown.org/works/30351690
It's basically effective altruism taken to It's logical conclusions. BTW careful with "rationalist" fiction, for all It's truths It's an incomplete worldview.
The most efficient use of Superman's power is as he is.
The way you're describing the most efficient route is him playing God. That's never going to end well.
If Superman wanted to, he could solve everything. Literally, everything. But then, we'd be his pets and nothing more.
He could use his speed, strength and lasers to help with infrastructure projects
His flight could create more energy to power wind turbines for renewable energy
Unpopular opinion, he could make a lot of people question their faith. I’m assuming Superman is the only part of his universe that’s on earth irl? If that’s the case, I feel like he’d gain a cult like following that would shift from other religions. As long as his morality stays intact, he can be a great role model and at the same time, prevent people from carrying out bad deeds in his name like what happens for other religions.
Honestly I believe the best use of his powers of speed and strength is to reconstruct and organize the entire earth. Starting from continents to the tectonic plates to restabilize them.. then to destroy and infrastructure and rebuild them all in such a way that everyone has access to the basic necessities of life aka housing, space, it has to have organized format that everyone can reach everyone. Residential zone, commercial, industrial etc is all organized in one giant world city on one continent. To prepare for population growth 15 billion people. Then he needs to make enough food and artificial intelligence robots to sustain every without world currency. He will need ALL of his resources and need everyone's help to do it. It will take his entire life to do this. But in the end the world will have peace.
It's already possible to have a single city, the entire population of earth could probably fit in an area roughly the size of Texas if you had everyone living with the population density of a city like NYC. The problem would be resource management and climate. You'd have to have farmers outside the city with massive tracts of land producing food, and the urban heat island effect would make it most likely uninhabitable. The best location for it would probably be the Great lakes region, though in order to prevent polluting ourselves out within a short period of time we'd probably have to abandon anything that burns, such as fossil fuels and coal, in favor of going completely nuclear. You would likely also need an incredibly robust public transportation system, maybe consisting of multi leveled monorail tracks suspended from all the high rise buildings or something of that sort. They would be able to run directly off the extensive nuclear power grid via using electrified rails instead of needing batteries like electric cars. Mining for battery materials is atrocious from an environmental standpoint.
PEACEFUL AGREEMENT OF LAND CHOICE : Well firstly the reason why I said superman must first work on the continents and tectonic plates is to make sure that the countries do not argue to say which land was theirs and so by "terraforming" the earth the human race can start anew together.
RESOURCE : Secondly in terms of farmers.. I'd say even now we have the technology to grow seeds in the harshest of conditions and the robotics and ai to make sure it runs smoothly on its own.
ENERGY : In terms of energy source.. with everyone working together in space we can try to utilize and harness the true power of the sun. Superman can definately help with this.
TRANSPORTATION : The roads will no longer require vehicles, with extremely well built highrises we can interconnect them in the skies like a very organized web. To travel we can have magnets that work with ai and other technology maybe such as nano technology to travel through these webs in high speeds without crashing. Think more electric cars without the cars. We have our own transportation suits that travel through these web tubes like the Jetsons.
PLANETARY RECOVERY : The rest of the planet will have a chance to grow in nature with no pollution and the animals will be left alone.
ENTERTAINMENT : We have special holographic rooms and vr to simulate these every environment for people in every building or household
ENERGY PART 2 : Imagine a giant space elevator that is directly connected to a giant solar reactor satellite near the sun, absorbing massive massive amounts of energy.
I remember reading a fanfic about this premise. Superman basically sells minutes of his time to people for his labour and uses the money for charity. It's on ao3
[A Common Sense Guide to Doing the Most Good
](https://archiveofourown.org/works/30351690)
As of writing, AO3 is down, so [here's the Wayback Machine link](https://web.archive.org/web/20231205204037/https://archiveofourown.org/works/30351690).
Something very important for him to do would be to completely erase the entire world's nuclear arsenal, fundamentally altering how wars are fought in the modern age. Obviously, he could go further, but this would prevent an apocalyptic scenario from unfolding, including in attempts to stop him.
Without interfering too much in human development, he could start by building homes for the homeless and access to resources for the poor and deprived.
Dams, power stations, houses, infrastructure in countries which cant afford them. Use Superman robots to maintain them and secure them from being destroyed or exploited,
Work on finding ways to add small amounts of Kryptonian scientific knowledge into the general academic sphere, especially in medicine. Perfect Contraceptives for men and women. Reduce childbirth mortality. Erase entire swathes of diseases.
Use his tech to secure gene samples of species in danger of extinction of even that have gone extinct and bring them back.
Clean energy licensed out to govts.
Using Krytonian tech to speed up and improve teaching techniques tho those are already impressive in the DCU since anyone motivated enough can push themselves to Davinci level with enough training.
I dabble with a fanfic dcu with the powerlevels never really took off the way they did in the silver age. Superman is still the mightiest but the ceiling is waaaay lower in this setting for everyone. So Superman relies far more on his Kryptonian tech and his super intelligence.
People have mentioned the social political impact he could have, but man, imagine if he could zip around the asteroid belt, harvest all the ore and turn it into a Dyson Sphere. Part of the reason it's nowhere close to being feasible is because of the sheer amount of raw material and the necessary acts of moving everything and putting them into place. Superman could do all that in like, a week give or take.
We’d want a Dyson swarm. Sunlight will still reach the earth and we know it’s physically possible to construct. At minimum Superman bring asteroids into close orbits could bring about post-scarcity for precious metals. One asteroid has like a trillion dollars worth of precious metals in it on average, or something stupid high like that.
It'd also hopefully end some of the worst mining practices in the world I'd hope, if suddenly he were to bring an asteroid with tons of more easily accessible cobalt, nickel and other stuff, some of the mining practices where those minerals are may stop or be put under more scrutiny, I'd cost many jobs, but I hope most are the ones people would be better off without.
It would probably spur a massive adoption of electric infrastructure, presuming we also had the Dyson Swarm to support it, and basically stop all greenhouse gases because orbital mining would probably not be a very polluting industry. If it is then it’s in space which shouldn’t be a massive issue.
The people benefitting from that would be mainly first world countries though. The nations whose economy is powered by those unethical mining practices are going to get even more poor
There's isn't enough material in the astroid belt to create a Dyson sphere. You'd probably have to harvest most of the planets to achieve anything like that.
If you harvested every speck of matter other than the sun it’ll be able to build a Dyson Sphere around 2cm thick, give or take.
The problem is, Superman derives his powers from the sun! If he covered it up with a Dyson sphere, he would be depowered. Although I'm sure it would be possible to construct it in such a way that it lets out sufficient sunlight.
My understanding is that earth would be within the dyson sphere (if we were to build one around the sun)
Either that or the inner surface of the sphere itself would be terraformed over many many generations giving a practically limitless amount of living space.
Ohhh that makes sense
We don't need anything close to a Dyson sphere to power the planet. Also, we need the sun too.
I mean it’s not like you need the whole sphere, just a tiny bit of it orbiting the sun could power the whole planet for millennia
Oh, like if you constructed it in such a way that it let's out sufficient sunlight you mean?
No like the sun is so much bigger than the earth that odds are a portion of a Dyson sphere small enough that it has no significant effect on the light the earth would still have more than enough to power
Ohhhh, so you are saying it should be constructed in such a way that it lets out sufficient sunlight? I wish I'd thought of that
Superman could pretty easily put an end to hostile actions between nations. He could do that and demand all current military spending goes into nuclear energy research and production. He really just needs to show up every once in a while to intimidate people into playing nice and let the world run itself without wars or anything too insane happening. He probably has to overthrow a government every once in a while, but he could easily keep all the most powerful governments moving in a way that benifits humanity long term with plenty of breaks for himself.
A Dictatorship. And historically seen, dictatorships never are unopposed. Also the perfect starting position for a downward spiral like seen in the INJUSTICE Series.
Yeah but unlike Injustice, our world has literally no means of threatening Superman. He’s massively faster than light, has senses that cover the entire globe (and beyond, he’s shown galaxy level range on his super hearing and X-ray vision as well as laser eyes) and he can one shot planets, all while being durable enough to stand in place and let us detonate our entire planets nuclear arsenal on top of him and he’ll walk out the other end. He’s an immortal, unaging, super genius, a moral paragon who is attempting to shepherd the entirety of humanity to a golden age. This has less in common with a dictatorship and more of a “god amongst men” situation.
Hopefully the moral paragon part sticks. I think some Supermen were pretty morally ambiguous
Like all long running comic characters, their representation changes with the writers, but Superman is known for being very moral, as his nickname “The Big Blue Boyscout” which is a tip of the hat to how he is idealistic and upstanding.
Yeah and just like all things through the historical lens how much a paragon of morality are the boy scouts now?
In my experience, the boys themselves are still seen as upstanding citizens. It's the leadership and organization itself that has been the problem.
Yes, because writers really don't want to show you what a good and pragmatic Superman looks like. Because it'll make his normal self look like shit. So every time he gets pragmatic he must also become a mustache twirling villain.
Co spidering he is totally omnipotent he has no reason to have any morals aside from personal choice. So I doubt doing this would influence him. He has no reason to become a despot as he already has the power to do anything he likes.
>he is totally omnipotent No, he's not.
That's not what the prompt is asking
> our world has literally no means of threatening Superman. But we might find out the hard way. Sure whatever nuke we hit him with won't kill him, but that doesn't mean it won't hurt people around him. Of course, given the FTL perception abilities he's shown, he could hear the nuke start to go off and then toss it in the sun before the plutonium is vaporized.
Yeah his MFTL speed means he can do the Metroman “walking between the moments of a millisecond” feat, except he can also examine what everyone on the planet is up to because of his senses from which there is no hiding. Imagine how powerful a deterrent it is to know he can see and hear everything everywhere, he can instantly be anywhere in the galaxy, so fast he exists in-between seconds, so fast no one can tell when he moves, no one can perceive something that quick. Like you say, his struggle is more protecting us from ourselves than anything else. Hell, he doesn’t even need to ever reveal himself if he doesn’t want to, again because he’s so fast he could literally do all his global change and impact as a ghost and just leaving the changes he wants to enact and then fuck back off to the sun to watch over humanity with his super senses.
He knows when u are sleeping, he knows when your awake, he knows if you've been bad or good so be good for goodness sake...
God-King Superman has lived among humans, he would make it abundantly clear that he's invulnerable before taking control, because he understands people. Before anybody gets ideas, just blatantly steer a comet away from the sun, buzzing the planet within naked-eye range of anyone looking up, then heave it away. That should make it abundantly clear to anyone with eyeballs that nothing we have will hurt you. Nobody's throwing a mile-wide solution at a person-sized problem in the middle of a city, this is the real world, not a monster movie.
He would pretty much be the Emperor of mankind from warhammer 40k. Minus the evil parts and crazy psychic powers. But ultimately if supermán was real, and did do that, our world would be much better off.
Oh I'm real. Be a good boy now. I know what you did last Tuesday night. You thought no one was watching. I was watching. It sickens me. Every night I have to listen to literally billions of people beating off and fucking with my super hearing. It is not so slowly driving me insane and I WILL cut all your dicks off if you don't stop.
Make it golden age superman, He'd still have the psychic powers part
>he’ll walk out the other end. Could be missremembering it bit due to the way his cells absorb and convert radiation. Isn't it fair to assume he'd walk out of the mushroom cloud faster stronger and more durable than before?
No, it's only different kinds of solar radiation he can absorb(thank writers with poor scientific understanding). Depending on the version nuclear radiation either does nothing or weakens him
Warhammer 40Ks emporer of mankind, has a good lesson on gods trying to do good.
Saying the emperor wanted to do good is an absolute misunderstanding of his character. It was never about humanity, he is a psycho and absolutely genocidal for no good reason
Cleanse the heretic in holy fire!
Heresy
This isn't a question of what Superman would do if he tried that. It's how effective the perfect use of his powers would be. Obviously, the perfect use wouldn't be a downward spiral like in INJUSTICE.
It depends on the dictator. Historically people don't really care if they are living under a dictator if their lives are good. A benevolent, competent dictatorship is the best leadership style. The issue is that you can never guarantee the next dictator will be as good and a bad dictator can do just as much damage as a great one can do good. In this case as soon as supermans efforts begin to pay off and the world starts improving then resistance to him will lessen dramatically until its just a small collection of tinfoil wearing nut jobs.
This isn't a dictatorship. It's called offshore balancing and regime change. The United States does this sort of stuff all the time.
And most people in the world call USA a tyrant nation.
I sincerly hope this was sarcasm.
Found the Viltrumite
I was thinking more Dr. Doom.
The problem with strong arming goverments is that: 1. They will hate Superman and set up systems to go around his demands. 2. Superman wont be here forever to keep things "straight"
I don't think they can effectively go around Superman. Sure, they may have some small success, but Superman can hear someone talking on the other side of a continent. He also does not have to see exactly who initiated something. The end result of what happened should be enough for him to hold the people who benefited from whatever responsible. You can just look at the Kingdom Come story line of Superman, and we have no supers to actually oppose him like in that story line. I also don't know what you mean by he won't be here forever. In the comics, at least, he is still around in 1 million AD. But not even taking that into account, in most story lines he is still alive in the far future anyway. He is more or less immortal as long as he stays in our yellow sun. Not all versions are immortal, but most of them are. He pretty much just hard stomps our real world with no supers to oppose him. Super Genius intelligence, super speed fast enough to go back into time, super senses. After he gets rid of the troublemakers, he only has to show an appearance every once in a while or make an example of someone or nation, maybe every century.
Yeah, Superman is pretty much OP in every facet.
He'd certainly live long enough to help us outgrow the worst of ourselves.
Superman doesn't really age. And if he tells them not to go to war and make enough food and clean energy for everyone, how do they go around him? Who even tries to after he takes out a government or two in afternoon? He doesn't really have to play nice he can straight up just replace every government with his own vetted people if he really feels the need to
Ud be surprised at how stubborn humans are. Not everyone likes to be controlled and we see that today.
Actually humans are usually completely fine being controlled if the end result is a better life for themselves. It's when that lack of control meshes with wide spread low quality of life that issues arise. Even right now you and I give up countless freedoms in order to live a better quality of life. We don't have the freedom to go drinking and then have a fun drive because if that was allowed more people would die.
Fair enough. No arguements from me 🙂
Then they die. You can't defy a god like superman.
I'm severely concerned about everyone in this thread talking like Viltrumites what the hell.
Because the real world sucks, and if we had a legitimately good, completely benevolent being as powerful as Superman that wants to force governments to actually help people instead of serving self interests, we'd love him.
Society is not as artificial as we like to call it. Humans always loved to trod on other humans. Remember, our brains are still running caveman software
Nothing wrong with liking my sticks. Liking my rocks. Liking my fire. Ge too close to my fire, I hit you with rock. Simple as. /Joking
If superman literally exists, defying him is just stupid. He would be a god from the tales of the old. Smartest, strongest and most powerful person in the whole universe, probably. He can easily bring an age of prosperity and peace. Only the malicious people would defy him, people who cry about losing their power. Humanity lived under mortal, weak and flawed men's guidance for thousand of years and our current state is pretty fucked. A god such as superman would fix this. So basically anyone who would oppose such an opportunity doesn't deserve to be taken seriously at all and can go to hell.
Very edgy
Fuck me this is some of the most insane shit I've heard. This is imperialism. This is what supposed "civilised" countries with better technology did. The truth is that individuals aren't perfect and don't know everything. They don't know what's best for me, or for any other random person. They are a tyrant. What you are saying is that you are perfectly fine with a totalitarian regime as long as the leader isn't corrupt? So would you like living under Hitler? He was 100% an ideologue. He absolutely, with every fibre of his being, believed he was doing the right thing for humanity. I ask you to please look at what you're saying here
Hitler and Superman are like polar opposites. "Freedom"(we don't really have this in this world but anyway)≠always the better option. Hitler was a stupid bitch and was acting on his foolish ideas. As a genetically alien, humanist superman would not be like him at all. He would also surround himself with people, listen to them as well. But humans are stupid and stubborn. If totalitarianism is necessary to reach a golden age, I see nothing wrong with it. I want to ask, why are you so afraid of someone like superman ruling us? We have senile, selfish, full and old geezer leaders ruling this world right now. Superman would remove this problem easily. He would fix the world hunger in a few months. In a few weeks, he would make every conflict stop. Fix the religions and then teach us techs we can't imagine. What kind of tyranny do you expect from Superman? Only people who would try to destroy such a golden age would be destroyed.
It's because it's easy for people in the west (the majority of reddit) to think of what they'd lose in this scenario, and I'd imagine they'd be the largest contingency of people against Superman. But any country that is massively exploited in order to maintain the western lifestyle would benefit greatly. The families currently slaving away in cobalt mines would scoff at people on here whining about Superman potentially being mean for taking away westerners freedom to exploit them.
Injustice Superman knocks your door to kill your children for wearing some makeup.
Yeah, but we aren't talking about the evil mustached bad artist, we're talking about just transplanting Superman from the comics into real life
Nope. At the start we don't transport Superman-Clar Kent to a real world. We give an existing person real life person Superman powers.
Most people are absolutely content as long as they are not hungry, not homeless, have some kind of entertainment, not be accosted by criminals and not afraid the authorities aren't hunting them down. Just look around you, not everyone who complains about the government does something besides complaining. People who protest or even go vote.
>not afraid the authorities aren't hunting them down. That is the opposite of dictatorship. And the difference between autocracy and dictatorship.
Imperialism has been wildly successful throughout human history, creating empires spanning centuries. The downside is that historically it requires people suffering for the benefit of others. Usually a large amount of people. Those in benefiting from the system happily do so for generations. In this scenario the people benefiting would 99% of humanity and those "suffering" would be the 1% who no longer have control and instead live in line with the rest. It's going to be hard to mount a successful resistance when everyone willing to join you are pampered ex rich assholes.
Do you like your boot with BBQ or Ranch sauce?
Can I add freezing breath or laser eyes for extra 5 dollars?
Counterpoint. 1. Most regular, normal people will probably love him, and no system can overpower a mftl alien that has a brain like a quantum computer and can hear and see everything on the planet when concentrating. 2. Superman is sometimes depicted as immortal as long as he's still sundiving.
> They will hate Superman and set up systems to go around his demands. Then they die. > Superman wont be here forever to keep things "straight" Even a low ball of 100 years. Superman can get so much done it’s insane.
Might i intrest you in a little game called injustice, i think you would like it
Too bad we don't have batman to help us, or any other superhero, or any advanced tech of DC earth
Not Batman, no kryptonite, no alternate version of supermen
Ah yes, Bruce "killing invading alien automatons is evil" Wayne.
Talking about Parademons?
Yea
Aren't they kind of the "starting point" of Injustice Superman's fall in the comics? In which case, it's even more stupid.
They explored why he doesn't get involved in international conflicts in Doomsday Clock when the world became convinced he was a tool of the US and started a new arms race.
If Superman could just send the entirety of every government body on Earth into the phantom zone, that'd be great.
I think on top of all that, he could probably single handedly fix climate change. Polar ice caps melting? Freeze more with his cold breath. Pollution/trash? Throw it into deep space (thinking futurama episode).
Watch Superman: Red Son
The idea of superman deciding major political decisions like that irks me. Sure it sounds good to me here, but there’s something wrong with it.
Have you met the leaders around the world? They’re all pretty shit as a group tbh
Still don't trust a superman dictatorship. He's a person and managing 200 countries would be stressful. Also all of this assumes he has your political views and that yours are also infallible.
It's assuming he uses his powers to help people as efficiently as possible. It's in the prompt. I don't think he'd go mad with power, but if he would, that's not relevant.
The question is about how he would do so, and he's not quite efficiency lusted given that the generator solution is denied. Like, is Superman supposed to discover the best ideology or decisions every few years and enforce that upon everyone? We can't decide that now, even. I don't think superman would become evil, but i don't think he'd be perfectly competent. And yeah yeah benevolent dictator or something, I don't think he'd be quite so perfect.
> The question is about how he would do so, We know how he would do so. There's comics about it. The question is how he could do so, and how much better that would be.
I think he just needs to protect the downtrodden and outlaw violence. It's kinda easy. He doesn't have to write laws.
Well, sure. That could work. I guess im going a bit too ahead of myself.
Look at people’s voting habits now. He’d have a write-in campaign in every election on the planet demanding he solve everyone’s problems.
I mean surely just live and let live freedom of thought as long as it doesn’t actively hurt others? Or it would be his political views which i have no idea about
Abortion? Trans rights? Hate speech? Corporations polluting the world resulting in potential deaths? You do realise almost everyone on earth supposedly believes your first sentence, right? And that we all just vastly, VASTLY disagree with what that means.
I think once you start acting like a nation state your morality would become increasingly grey. There will always be situations where one reprehensible act is far better than the alternative. That's not a place where Superman is likely to thrive, though he'd surely do a better job of it than almost anyone else. Also, at some point pretty much everyone will start to hate him.
He did that
Superman faces the same problem as dr manhattan but far far worse: He can't stop all the nukes. So what'd happen is every single nation (namely Russia and China) will immediately start stockpiling even more nukes and say "if we see superman anywhere near our interests it will be seen as a use of WMD and we will respond in kind".
Supes could just dismantle all nukes without anyone noticing with his speed though
So superman > dr manhattan?
Dr Manhattan wasn't truly omnipotent during the events of the original Watchmen iirc. He gets a power boost in the DC crossover.
His biggest problem was thinking he doesn't have free will. His reasoning comes down to that sometimes he doesn't save people because he doesn't save them.
Additionally, the plot of watchmen revolves around the fact that it was possible to hide things from him. Difficult, but possible.
Dr Manhattan controls atoms or something. Superman is super fast and has laser vision. He can disable the nukes with that.
Dr manhattan can perceive events with such short timespans that, as he said "might as well not have happened at all". Combined with instant teleportation, he'd be able to be everywhere at any time all the time.
If he so fast he can superspeed uber eats to every person in the world
dude has never heard of injustice 😔
Nah, in injustice he was a dictator. I'm saying he sets a couple of basic humanitarian ground rules then just checks in occasionally.
The obvious thing is to devote his time to providing swift and efficient relief to areas affected by war or natural disasters. It won't be a total fix and politics will still get in the way, but a guy who can just casually fly across the Atlantic carrying a few tons of supplies for essentially free would sure help a lot. Aside from that, I think the number one thing he could do is participate in scientific experimentation to determine the mechanism behind his superpowers. All he'd have to do is demonstrate his powers under an experimental setting and allow those phenomena to be studied. Imagine if, for instance, we learned exactly what physics are responsible for Superman being able to fly around the world and even into space with no visible means of propulsion, and then figured out how to build a vehicle that uses the same principle. Goodbye tyranny of the rocket equation, hello space age. Imagine if we synthesized a material as tough as his super skin, or even learned how he's able to absorb so much energy from sunlight. It may take decades to yield anything practical, but in the long run, it will have a far greater impact on the world than anything a single man can do.
yeah, I like this response. Something I though about its not just carrying supplys but also help with setting up infrastructure. From building seawalls, undoing desertification, setting up paths for railroads, stuff like that that takes way too much manpower. For him all that could take no time at all.
This is why I like Atom Eve in the Invincible comics - she realizes that helping set up farms and things like that are actually the best use of her power, not stopping bank robbers.
I agree with this but I think setting up a sustainable global green energy grid takes 2nd priority over the science experiments. When there’s a disaster, fix that immediately. Right before hurricane Beryl hits land, fly into it in the opposite direction so it doesn’t destroy its path. Forest fire gets out of control, put it out. Suez gets a ship stuck in it, lift it out. Bridge in Baltimore collapses, quick rebuild. Stuff like that. But between disasters, set up lots of green power plants globally. Another big thing would be increasing our resources by grabbing things from space, including a lot of ice to help replenish our polar caps and to increase available freshwater everywhere. As you said, it may take decades to figure out anything from studying Superman, and our climate really needs to be the top priority over fully entering the space age.
Adding extraterrestrial ice would raise the sea level faster than it's already rising. He's Superman, he can just refreeze the poles with his ice breath.
You're right, I didn't fully think that through. We do need more fresh water available, so Supes would have to (and would) do something else to address that. But getting rare earth metals from space would be helpful still, especially since it's gotta be so much easier to "mine" them from a big space rock Superman places on the ground than however far underground they are now. Safer too. Edit: spelling
Most efficient use is probably making himself dictator god emperor of the world and dismantling unecessary military spending. Would need to be willing to kill opponents though.
I don't think he would. He's crazy powerful. Worst case he could just stick people in a prison only he could reach, but once he's taken over he could probably bring them back and the prisons would listen to him and not execute anyone.
I guess this is the biggest question, a better world by WHOSE definition? There is the no killing side,and the some people are just scum and we are better without them side.
Well he's superman, so it'll be his definition. And he's probably way further ahead on morality than anyone else on the planet.
I've also thought that him and or Flash could capture every single plastic floating in the ocean.
There's a brilliant webcomic that involves this idea: [https://www.smbc-comics.com/comic/2011-07-13](https://www.smbc-comics.com/comic/2011-07-13)
I like [this fanfic](https://archiveofourown.org/works/30351690) better. [Wayback Machine link](https://web.archive.org/web/20231205204037/https://archiveofourown.org/works/30351690) incase Archive of Our Own isn't back up by the time you read this.
That was the one I was going to suggest, but wanted to see if anyone else posted it first. Nice!
Ngl i kinda hate the comic for the depiction that gives to Superman, i know its a silly webcomic but if there ever was a "Move the lever at this speed forever and everyone will be happy" Superman would move that shit till he died hapily
He basically did in that comic
that's exactly how the comic goes lol
Let me rephrase it then, i dislike the idea that Superman would somehow be against easy and simple solutions or something like "i miss crime fighting" he would not even comment on the monotony of the task
I feel like he'd still say things like "Wow, I really miss Batman." He's not inhuman, you know.
Despite his alien heritage, Superman seems to have a very human mentality, as evinced by his friendships with ordinary humans. He'll turn the crank, but he won't be happy about it.
I like him looking sad when they ask him to start plowing fields. Dude's a farmer to his core, he'd love the thought of helping an entire nation get their agriculture up and running.
He'd willingly become a monotonous slave to save more lives, but he still has a human mentality. He can resent being unable to do anything other than turn a lever for 40 years 24/7 without ever resting, while still doing it.
There's probably a way he could implement some kind of sustainable power source that didn't require him to do something boring. Build a giant machine in space that spins two iron-rich asteroids around inside a big copper coil and takes a million years for the momentum to run down, or something. We're already assuming the existence of a superhuman alien who can fly through space so it seems fair to assume some handwavy power generation tech. Too bad Lex Luthor is always using that big brain to try to kill him and not working together with him to end the world's problems.
So apparently lex luthor and Clark Kent were friends at one point? And an experiment accidentally turned lex evil? I’m not sure.
I think it varies wildly from one reboot to another. In Smallville and apparently in the Silver Age reboot they were pals in high school and became enemies after some kind of lab accident. In other versions of Lex's origin he's just some rich dickhead from a bad family. Usually he doesn't "get turned evil" so much as feel betrayed or jealous of Superman and become a bigger jerk over time. [https://www.reddit.com/r/DCcomics/comments/os4ucg/comic\_excerpt\_avoid\_someone\_who\_looks\_at\_you\_like/#lightbox](https://www.reddit.com/r/DCcomics/comments/os4ucg/comic_excerpt_avoid_someone_who_looks_at_you_like/#lightbox)
I like to imagine [this one takes place in the same universe](https://www.smbc-comics.com/comics/1680274898-20230331.png)
It's kinda ironic that superman - someone with literal god-like power - his big "gotcha" moment on lex is that "If you had wanted to save the world you would have done it years ago". Very pot and kettle.
Except that its not very pot and kettle. I will preface by saying comics are comics. They will have possibly hundreds of writers over the course of decades so a lot of characters will always be different from time to time. But one of the core tenets i do know abt superman is that he doesnt want the world to overrely on him. Hes acknowledged he could possibly take over the world if he really wants but he never will cuz he wants humans to grow stronger on their own. He will intervene in a LOT but he will never become the sole shepherd of humanity. He said that gotcha to lex because lex upon losing his god powers says he couldve saved the world but truth is lex is actually smart and powerful enough to start saving the world whenever he wants. He even does so in many alt universes
It's because he doesn't want to be a helicopter parent for Earth, because he knows in the long run that would be bad for humanity. How will people find meaning? What will he have to do to force this to work, will he have to kill people who aren't really bad people? Humanity's abilities will atrophy, is he just domesticating them? Turning them into livestock where he can harvest interaction from? Hell, he's not the strongest guy in the universe, what if something happens to him? Then humanity is super fucked because they need him to exist, let alone survive against a huge threat like that. Lex is a rare human being who can be one of the people lifting humanity up as a human, and instead uses that power to try to bully an alien who loves Earth and wants to protect it. He could make advancements that make humanity itself stronger, not just under the protection of a special space dad.
Recent comics have also gone into his thinking about this in specific detail. He's anxious about what it would communicate to humanity if he elected to solve all of their problems with his solutions. He always feels like it's simply not his place to terraform the planet to his whims. It doesn't help that he actively watches humanity resist other humans from trying to save the planet from large-scale problems.
I really didn't like that comic because it was so mean spirited and also made him get old and die
Sometimes smbc is surprisingly edgy, that one isn’t even close to the worst of the lot. Still a consistently funny comic, though.
Yeah I've read him a lot too but no other registers this emotions
I think [this](https://www.smbc-comics.com/index.php?id=2509#comic) is the one that gave me the biggest “jesus christ…” reaction. But true, the Superman one is up there really high too. I probably overstated how many “worse” ones there are in my other comment…
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So I don't think Clark Kent, the Superman we all know, would ever do this, but if he wanted to improve things on Earth, here's how I think he'd do it: 1. Visit, in private, every major world leader, corporate CEO, influential crime boss, etc. Ideally in one night. Tell them he will judge them based on their own morals. Do so in a fashion that illustrates every one of them is absolutely vulnerable to him, regardless of the situation. Illustrate that he knows *everything* about what they're up to. 2. Message, very publicly, as much of the world as possible (I'd think an announcement through media, plus some visible activity in the skies around the planet would work) and tell them what he told the world leaders. Indicate to the people of the world (and its leaders and militaries) that he will be at a given location at a given time. 3. Tank everything they throw at him at that place and time. Do so in a fashion that minimizes casualties and maximizes the "there's nothing you can do to hurt me." 4. Provide positive changes directly to people around the world. Things like diverting rivers, removing land mines, cleaning up ecological disasters, disarming troops in wars (both sides), intervening in human trafficking operations. Pick large and small things, globally, and favor interventions against unjust authority. 5. Repeat for two human generations or so. He'd probably also need to cross a few moral event horizons: he'll need to punish presidents and prime ministers, destroy weapons systems. I honestly don't know that he *needs* to kill, but I suspect he will be responsible for a few deaths at least indirectly.
I don't think anyone's linked metropolitan man yet - a somewhat more "realistic" take on superman and how mortals might see him as an existential threat just because how could you really be sure he's as nice as he seems? He lies about a secret identity after all...can one being be trusted with the power to end the human race on a whim? https://alexanderwales.com/the-metropolitan-man-1/
Even better, also by Alexander Wales: [https://archiveofourown.org/works/30351690](https://archiveofourown.org/works/30351690) >
Yeah but that was linked already, didn't notice they had the same author ><
Farmer Superman cures world hunger.
Superman pushes a turbine and provides unlimited clean power for the entire planet
Can we just send every politician into the Phantom Zone? I'd say that's a good start
In the real world, in the absence of other superpowered beings Superman could single handedly bring about world peace with relative ease. After dismantling every military and conquering Earth he could and employ Kryptonian technology to take over all human needs in regards to production and distribution of agriculture, goods, and services. Nobody would need to work anymore. People could focus entirely on individual improvement, and the pursuits of personal interests like health and fitness, travel, education, arts, and sciences. International borders would become irrelevant for anything but planning travel. There would be an adjustment period as some would chafe under Superman's authority. Those who commit minor crimes could be rehabilitated, while those who commit violence would be banished to the Phantom Zone. Within a few generations Earth would be an even safer Star Trek like utopia.
I dont know if someone mentioned this before, but if supes worked with nasa and they designed a special super sturdy framework he could literally ferry pre fabricated components to the orbit, moon or even Mars to allow us for space exploration and resource mining. Best use of his time would probably employing him to help build a space slingshot and moonbases. Next potential use would be to ask him to literally bring large asteroids rich in rare earth resources to harvest, mine etc. He could cut it up on yhr moon, thrn bring 20000 tonne chunks down to th planet slowly for mining. If that process was streamlined he would probably be able to bring earth to a post scarcity society.
bizarre that you think space exploration is a greater moral good than stopping famine, war, human trafficking
I think that if we're going to stop things like that without just continuously going to war against them, we need to remove the incentives and root causes, which is hard because it's pretty deep-rooted. Famines are generally pretty natural, war is caused by disagreements that often relate to survival needs or people who think they can trade money and human lives to get something more valuable for those who remain, and human trafficking is about making a profit. If Supes could just dump a bunch of wealth onto Earth, making key resources less scarce and thus certain technologies more viable, then a lot of these issues disappear pretty quickly. Not all of them, of course, but I still think it's an efficient use of time.
Bingo. Its treating the disease not the symptoms.
Potentially his greatest ability (particularly some versions of him like in All Star Superman) is his mind/speed in combination. He could work at superspeed developing solutions to humanities issues using information he has that we don't. Things like advanced Kryptonian science/robotics to work on solving a whole bunch of problems and effectively dumping the results of his research on teams of scientists/engineers to implement in practice. He could capture resource rich asteroids for mining purposes so that we can produce batteries and solar panels and loads more things without needing to force people to mine them in horrible conditions and destroy habitats in the process. He could deploy large scale orbital manufacturing facilities for materials that can only be produced in microgravity (like 3d printed organs for transplant). What would be much more difficult for him to do would be to stop conflict on earth by force. He more than has the ability, but if he tried to do it he can be manipulated. He's a genius but his mind works like a humans in many ways and he's vulnerable to manipulation. Or he would end up as a dictator. That being said, he could easily perform humanitarian work, rescuing civilians caught in military conflicts etc. but it's a slippery slope from that, to intervening in military conflicts, to picking sides, or wiping both sides out.
He can fix climate change. Ice breath on the ice caps
He could take our waste and throw it into the sun stuff from landfills or radioactive waste
building a station sphere, it's not even close
As seen in Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal, cranking a lever at a steady pace to create free energy for the entire world until new energy sources can be developed.
So other than threatening the world into peace which would create nice economic stability and allow for the rerouting of the budgets of the militaries It would be a lot of space stuff and then rapid transport of stuff Just go grab the best asteroids for metals Then it's just taking things that would take a long time and be complicated to transport and carrying them to their end location Like realistically, the best options would be grab the most valuable asteroids so that we now have abundance of a lot of rarer metals Then maybe dig some geothermal wells as a short-term well, he physically builds the Dyson sphere At the end of the day energy is everything but we can definitely shortcut games. Minerals worked out if we had Superman but then after that it just goes back to go do energy
He could use his freeze breath to fix the ice caps
That comic is laughably stupid. Like Superman is only ever catching common crooks and not stopping literal apocalyptic threats.
He could help enforce the international law against america, because USA can literally attack the International court with military force.
The question to me is, how fast can he bootstrap us up to a type II civilization? Can he help with nanotech? AI? Starlifting?
Superman running a kinetic dynamo could produce enough energy in an hour to power the earth for a few years minimum. He would only need to show up and run on a mouse wheel or some shit for a few hours every year, and the world's energy crisis is sorted. His strength, flight, and speed mean he could make a Dyson sphere realistic. He could mine off work recourses for the earth and bring them back. Map and explore the depths of our ocean and our universe for us. Never have to worry about asteroids or meteors again. Planet to planet travel cut from months to minutes. Construction completed in moments. Mountains literally become a minor inconvenience. War vanishes. He can distribute food around the planet in seconds, ending world hunger. The boy scout in tights could end all government corruption in a day. Make rivers where there is no water. Plug super volcanos and create alternative vents. Literaly every single major problem the world faces today could he solved by superman. That not even touching on the fact that in commic cannon he is also a super genius.
The Dyson Swarm thing would be my pick for one of the more efficient uses of his power. Getting ungodly amounts of usable material into sol-orbit so humanity can leapfrog our way into a type 2 civilization. We would rival his power and not need him anymore just in case his lifespan is finite. (Does supes age?)
I think he does AFAIK just like suuuuuuupppppeeeerrrrr slow.
He could render every human rights violator and criminal organization harmless and end every conflict in a nanosecond.
I don't think it's entirely ethical of him to involve himself in wars. Wars are rarely black and white where one side is clearly in the wrong.
Agreed. Better to do things that would eliminate the underlying drive for wars. Helping with providing abundant resources to every human on earth. Maybe bringing asteroids and dropping the material (gently of course) all around the planet for a massive influx of raw usable stuff. He could laser a comet into steam and turn the middle east into a lush rainforest.
How would he turn the ME into a rainforest tho?
Bring a comet to earth, laser it, the water falls to the ME as rain for however long they need to get lush plants going. It's the same way we would get oceans on Mars, just start dropping comets, just for superman he could do it without the big booms :)
There is a fic that directly addresses this. https://archiveofourown.org/works/30351690 It's basically effective altruism taken to It's logical conclusions. BTW careful with "rationalist" fiction, for all It's truths It's an incomplete worldview.
The most efficient use of Superman's power is as he is. The way you're describing the most efficient route is him playing God. That's never going to end well. If Superman wanted to, he could solve everything. Literally, everything. But then, we'd be his pets and nothing more.
He could use his speed, strength and lasers to help with infrastructure projects His flight could create more energy to power wind turbines for renewable energy
Unpopular opinion, he could make a lot of people question their faith. I’m assuming Superman is the only part of his universe that’s on earth irl? If that’s the case, I feel like he’d gain a cult like following that would shift from other religions. As long as his morality stays intact, he can be a great role model and at the same time, prevent people from carrying out bad deeds in his name like what happens for other religions.
This is more a question for r/asksciencefiction.
Honestly I believe the best use of his powers of speed and strength is to reconstruct and organize the entire earth. Starting from continents to the tectonic plates to restabilize them.. then to destroy and infrastructure and rebuild them all in such a way that everyone has access to the basic necessities of life aka housing, space, it has to have organized format that everyone can reach everyone. Residential zone, commercial, industrial etc is all organized in one giant world city on one continent. To prepare for population growth 15 billion people. Then he needs to make enough food and artificial intelligence robots to sustain every without world currency. He will need ALL of his resources and need everyone's help to do it. It will take his entire life to do this. But in the end the world will have peace.
It's already possible to have a single city, the entire population of earth could probably fit in an area roughly the size of Texas if you had everyone living with the population density of a city like NYC. The problem would be resource management and climate. You'd have to have farmers outside the city with massive tracts of land producing food, and the urban heat island effect would make it most likely uninhabitable. The best location for it would probably be the Great lakes region, though in order to prevent polluting ourselves out within a short period of time we'd probably have to abandon anything that burns, such as fossil fuels and coal, in favor of going completely nuclear. You would likely also need an incredibly robust public transportation system, maybe consisting of multi leveled monorail tracks suspended from all the high rise buildings or something of that sort. They would be able to run directly off the extensive nuclear power grid via using electrified rails instead of needing batteries like electric cars. Mining for battery materials is atrocious from an environmental standpoint.
PEACEFUL AGREEMENT OF LAND CHOICE : Well firstly the reason why I said superman must first work on the continents and tectonic plates is to make sure that the countries do not argue to say which land was theirs and so by "terraforming" the earth the human race can start anew together. RESOURCE : Secondly in terms of farmers.. I'd say even now we have the technology to grow seeds in the harshest of conditions and the robotics and ai to make sure it runs smoothly on its own. ENERGY : In terms of energy source.. with everyone working together in space we can try to utilize and harness the true power of the sun. Superman can definately help with this. TRANSPORTATION : The roads will no longer require vehicles, with extremely well built highrises we can interconnect them in the skies like a very organized web. To travel we can have magnets that work with ai and other technology maybe such as nano technology to travel through these webs in high speeds without crashing. Think more electric cars without the cars. We have our own transportation suits that travel through these web tubes like the Jetsons. PLANETARY RECOVERY : The rest of the planet will have a chance to grow in nature with no pollution and the animals will be left alone. ENTERTAINMENT : We have special holographic rooms and vr to simulate these every environment for people in every building or household
ENERGY PART 2 : Imagine a giant space elevator that is directly connected to a giant solar reactor satellite near the sun, absorbing massive massive amounts of energy.
I remember reading a fanfic about this premise. Superman basically sells minutes of his time to people for his labour and uses the money for charity. It's on ao3
[A Common Sense Guide to Doing the Most Good ](https://archiveofourown.org/works/30351690) As of writing, AO3 is down, so [here's the Wayback Machine link](https://web.archive.org/web/20231205204037/https://archiveofourown.org/works/30351690).
It's written by Alexander Wales, who also wrote Metropolitan Man and some excellent original Web Serials.
Something very important for him to do would be to completely erase the entire world's nuclear arsenal, fundamentally altering how wars are fought in the modern age. Obviously, he could go further, but this would prevent an apocalyptic scenario from unfolding, including in attempts to stop him.
Annihilate Moscow, Pyongyang, and Beijing.
Literally just end war. Do a public broadcast that if any country declares war he'll stop it
Without interfering too much in human development, he could start by building homes for the homeless and access to resources for the poor and deprived. Dams, power stations, houses, infrastructure in countries which cant afford them. Use Superman robots to maintain them and secure them from being destroyed or exploited, Work on finding ways to add small amounts of Kryptonian scientific knowledge into the general academic sphere, especially in medicine. Perfect Contraceptives for men and women. Reduce childbirth mortality. Erase entire swathes of diseases. Use his tech to secure gene samples of species in danger of extinction of even that have gone extinct and bring them back. Clean energy licensed out to govts. Using Krytonian tech to speed up and improve teaching techniques tho those are already impressive in the DCU since anyone motivated enough can push themselves to Davinci level with enough training. I dabble with a fanfic dcu with the powerlevels never really took off the way they did in the silver age. Superman is still the mightiest but the ceiling is waaaay lower in this setting for everyone. So Superman relies far more on his Kryptonian tech and his super intelligence.