BafflingBeerMan

Exactly like that!

Of course, Elrond is the typical father-in-law. "Oh defeat the avatar of evil and assume your rightful place on the throne, then we can talk about you and my daughter!"

I am enjoying it!

I try not to be set in my ways and like to listen to other people's views in the hopes that I become better educated on at least what other people think.

But it is random chance introduced by the user, not by the program, so to speak. Which is what I have the problem with. Flipping a coin takes a little bit of the personal responsibility away from the hero. He or she didn't decide anything. I would say it is more morally "good" to make a decision, even if that decision itself ends up being morally "wrong" then let random chance decide for you (not generate the event, but generate your reaction, so not random chance having you be near a mugging).

As you said, you took the morality out of it. But, I think, that in of itself is not a moral thing to do. What is logical to do is not always the moral thing to do. While logic and morality is not mutually exclusive, they do butt heads from time to time. See any sci-fi story that deals with AI. I believe in a morally tough case like the simultaneous muggings, the only moral thing to do is just decide, on your own, which way to go and go. Since morality is a limit imposed by society, by our intelligence, the only way to truly be moral is to rely on ourselves and ourselves only. By relying on random chance, for instance, in your use of random chance in determining which mugging to go, it can be expanded to not dealing with certain circumstances because random chance puts it out of your jurisdiction. Like I said earlier, if you patrol a certain street corner are you shutting yourself off from helping across town if a crime is being committed just because there may be something 50 paces from you?

(Granted, this is not the debate I was going for with GG, which was no matter what you choose, your own personal morality, which is not universal or societal morality, will play a role and that can lead to you being painted as evil.)

Which is what we are ultimately saying: we would live by our own moral code. And what one may find morally acceptable (say, defending my home country of Latveria), another may find moral reprehensible (DOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM!)

They are different strata (floors?) of morality: societal morality, government morality (i.e. laws), and personal morals. They may come into conflict with each other. So if you had superpowers, which one would you abide by the most?

Okay, so Kryptonite, everyone haz it, so you can't reverse time. You get to make one, and only one, choice. And you can't save both.

Pretty standard dilemma in the comic books, and even in real life when there are hostage situations (typically, you can't save both the hostages and the perpetrator).

Well, I didn't want to rain on BackFire's parade

And hey, you can also erase people's memories with a kiss, to protect your own identity. That would be moral right? Even if the person now has a kid by you in later years.

Let's not approach god-level powers, because it becomes much easier to ignore consequences if you have a reset button.

If you mean no reason to save either, GG is positing that it is moral to save everyone as much as possible. That she would try to do good, no matter what. So here is a situation where the motivation is to save someone, but there are two someones and you can save only one.

If you mean there is no reason to stereotype about motivations or natures, there is, because you need to make a decision to go in direction A or direction B. Now, I don't mean stereotype in a bad way, but in a way where you have to assume something to make that decision. Otherwise, you are running off haphazardly and that is perhaps even more dangerous than thinking about it. Either way, in the real world, you are making a decision based on something more than "Pick a direction."

EDIT: I am also setting up the first step in a slippery slope. If you start to favor one direction over the other, you are being less "moral" and more biased. But that is further down the line.

You have superhearing (you say you have Kryptonian powers) and you recognize the voice coming from the weathly district as Mark Zuckerbook, the billionaire inventor of Bookface.

Over in the slums, it is after normal work hours, and you hear the victim, begging for her life as she says she's working 3 jobs to make ends meet.

Or, whatever way you know that a crime is being committed other than patroling (even Spidey had a police scanner) gives you enough knowledge that the two people are not twins. Maybe it is just simply a man versus a woman being mugged.

Yeah, basically, everything is equal, distant, as dangerous, and so on, where the only difference is WHO you are saving. (This is stemming from my original question of earthquake vs. mugger. I scaled it down a bit).

It's not realistic, but I am using it as an example that you cannot save everyone everytime and eventually, you are going to have to make a hard decision based on something other than "I can save more people if I do this." Something outside of a moral black and white.

Most cities have known districts where the poor are concentrated and where the wealthy go.

Socioeconomic segregation, not by the government, but by circumstance.

So, yes.

In the latest episode, they did mention they performed a preliminary autopsy, but apparently, no cutty-cutty.

One is being robbed in the rich section of town, one is being robbed in the slums.

I don't think anyone would go full evil. I think, like how most people use any sort of advantage, to their, uh, advantage, superpowers would mainly be used to cut corners and make life easier for themselves.

People don't want to thrust themselves into situations that will make their lives so much harder to live. Maybe for a while they are willing to do that, but not forever. Military, cops, fireman, all heroes, but eventually, they all want to retire from that job and just worry about themselves.

But do you see how easy that would be to use to rationalize more "non-heroic" actions over others?

That earthquake in California? Only a 3.2. Some pictures fall of the wall, sinkholes appear on the street, many injuries, but no deaths (or at least, no deaths a superhero could prevent by reacting to the quake. You can't hold up already collapsed building) You would be there for cleanup and to help clear the rubble to search for survivors.

That mugging? One person against another, but the mugger has a gun and the victim is fighting. 90% chance the victim will be shot and the mugger will get away. It is a more clear cut case of you interceding will actually save a life. Let's add in the extra wrinkle that you are already in that city and you can act more instantly.

Or, to put it more evilly (muahahaha), two people are getting mugged at the same time. No one will be killed, but you can't help both. One victim is a multimillionaire, the other is a low-income person. Who do you save? Why?

Ah, but who would you help?

Unless you are Multiple Man, you can't be every where at once. You start to patrol a certain district or city. Or maybe you do patrol the whole world, but certain sectors during certain days. Either way, you can't help everyone at the same time.

Which then leads, consciously or not, NOT helping certain people. You can't stop that mugger in NYC because you are stopping that earthquake in California. Pretty soon, you have rationalized WHY you are helping people. "They don't need my help because crime is so rare in that city, the police will be able to handle it." "Millions are dying, but it is war between two nations, I can't stop that." It is only a short leap from that to ONLY helping certain people. And from that, only helping them in the way YOU see it as best. And so on.

Think about it in your everyday life: you don't, generally speaking, try to solve all your friends' problems. Even if you can see a viable solution, sometimes your own problems, or something else more important, takes precedence. In a small way, you are being a bad guy because you aren't sacrificing yourself for someone else, you are being self-centered, but that isn't necessarily a bad thing. First and foremost, you do what you need to do to survive.

Another the superhero analogy, maybe the military feels like you are a threat to national security, despite your good deeds. So they send bombers to take you down. What do you do? You defend yourself and destroy the bombers, trying to save the pilots, but again, you can't be everyone at once, so a few die. Now you are really perceived as a threat because you didn't turn yourself in and you "killed" a few military men. Or maybe after that, you feel like you could still do some good, but you need no military intervention, so you go and destroy a few, deserted bases to keep them off your back. Hey, all you did was destroy property, no one was killed, and you can still do good. But you still DESTROYED something. As someone with powers, you WILL face opposition. And even "good guys" do "evil" things to keep on doing good.

Assuming one can do good forever, without stress, without limitations, is like assuming a frictionless world. Sooner or later, something is going to slip you up and leave yourself open to criticism that you aren't being the "best" you can be, whatever that may be. Honestly, I think most do-gooders with superpowers in the real world will do good until it causes too many hassles, then retire to a "Normal" life where maybe they use their superstrength to lug that couch up the stairs or that X-ray vision to see if that Scratch-Off will win them some money.