Super penis! If you had the power, would you…?

This article about hypothetical superpowers is dedicated to musician/artist/Pink Floyd founder/effervescent Englishman, Roger “Syd” Barrett, who recently passed to another realm at age 60, and whose non-hypothetical superpower was synaesthesia (no joke).

Surly, unimaginative teenage girl

Want to be interviewed?

    I have a question, how old do you think I am?

Twenty?

    I’m 16.

It’s a really simple question-

    I’m all good, thanks.

If you had a superpower, what would it be? That’s what I want to ask.

 Uhm – I’d be able to go places and nobody would know where I went.

Where would you go?

    Places that my parents didn’t want me to go.

Like where?

    Like I would go to clubs and stuff like that, and my parents wouldn’t know about

it.

What kind of clubs? Would it be the “surfing” club?

    No, like clubs like dance clubs, like the over-21 clubs.

I see. If you were invisible what would you do?

    What kind of survey is this?

It’s not a survey, it’s an interview.

    (laughs) Uhm – if I was invisible I would find a way to make myself uninvisible.

Well, you could do that but the whole point is to be invisible.

    But I don’t want to be invisible!

So if you had that power, you wouldn’t use it at all?

    There’s no point, you couldn’t talk to anybody, you couldn’t do anything. You’d like cease to exist.

But you could steal stuff.

    Well no, because people would see you pick it up.

Well, no – so you wouldn’t use your invisible powers?

    No.

What if you were telepathic?

    I’m not one for telepathy.

How not? If you thought somebody was lying to you, wouldn’t you use it?

    Well, I can tell if people are lying to me.

How so?

    I can just tell.

But what if they’re really good at lying?

    I usually know.

How do you know?

    Because usually people look left when they’re lying. With their eyes. They usually don’t look you in the eye, or their shoulders get all tense.

If you could fly where would you go?

    If I could fly I wouldn’t have to pay for airline tickets.

That’s true, but where would you fly?

    Wherever I wanted to fly.

Where would you want to fly?

    China.

Why China?

    Because I like Beijing, it’s a cool city.

Have you been there before?

    Yes.

What was it like?

    A lot of people.

What sights did you see?

    I saw Tiananmen Square, the Forbidden City, I saw the Mao Zedong memorial-

So all the sights? Hard Rock Cafe?

    Not one of the sights I’m interested in, it’s American.

So?! It’s a Hard Rock Cafe, you can buy a T-shirt that says Beijing on it.

    I’ve never been to the Hard Rock Cafe. I don’t plan to, same deal with Starbucks and McDonald’s.

Good thing.

Foxy girl with glasses

If you had a superpower what would the superpower be?

    Be invisible.

What would you do?

    Rob a bank. Spy on people, listen to their conversations.

Who would you spy on?

    All kinds of governments across the world, supposing that I had enough money to travel. My friends, my ex-lovers, my family.

If you could fly where would you fly?

    Where would I go first?

Yeah.

    Probably a tropical island. Maybe Thailand or Polynesia, in that area.

What would you do there?

    I would just observe, I don’t know. I’d probably end up just doing nothing, I don’t know.

If you were telepathic what would you use it for?

    Probably therapy for other people.

You think you could make money that way?

    It wouldn’t be for making money. What would you do?

Well – I could figure out what people wanted.

    That’s what I would do with therapy, you could figure out what people wanted more effectively.

So it would just be like a day-to-day thing to make your communications with people better?

    Well, if I could read people’s minds, I’d just be a psychologist.

But you wouldn’t use it to make money? The whole point of therapy is to make money, to make a living.

    Well, not like an excessive amount. If I was invisible I could make billions of dollars. It would be very altruistic to be a therapist, if I chose that power to read people’s minds, which I wouldn’t want by the way. I don’t think I could handle it.

But you could turn it off.    Oh, we can turn it off. You didn’t say that.

Well, you can turn off being invisible and you can turn off – well, you could just walk instead of fly.

    OK, then I’d be a therapist and turn it off in my personal life.

Wouldn’t you get curious and turn it on?

    With all power comes corruption, you have to make a choice. Are you going to let your power corrupt you? Are you going to turn to the dark side?

Like Darth Vader?

    Like Darth Vader, like Superman-

Superman always does good, he’s a journalist.

    Or like Spider-Man’s grandma has to lose her house, but he won’t rob to help even his own grandmother. It’s all about morality. So with a superpower you have to question what your own morals are.

This is a really weird one, a really kind of gross one. But if you had the choice, would you make love to a man that had a penis the size of a baby, or a guy that had like medusa penises?

    Neither.

What if you had to?

    Or what? I’d die?

Yes – or, what if every man in the world had either/or?

    I’d be a lesbian.

But what if all the women except you, had like, teeth in the thing?

    Then I wouldn’t be normal, I’d be a freak, and I wouldn’t get laid.

“I’ve done a lot of acid” guy

If you were a super hero what kind of superpower would you have?

    Uh – fly.

Where would you fly?

    Around the world.

Where would you go first?

    Uh – the North Pole.

Why?

    I think its an intuitive thing, I don’t know, I’d just want to see what the earth looked like from the North Pole.

Wouldn’t you be really cold?

    You would be cold anyway; if you fly it’s going to be colder. But wouldn’t it be a trip to be up at the axis and look down and see the earth spinning, whereas if you were at the equator you would just see the earth spinning by. If you were up at the “top,” so to speak, you’d be able to see the whole thing spinning like a ball.

What would you do if you were invisible?

    I’d figure out how to get money without hurting anybody and pay my bills. Pay for my invisible bills. Pay for my invisible technologies.

What are your invisible technologies?

 Oh, drugs.

But drugs aren’t invisible.

    I take drugs that you can see to make it so you can’t see me. For instance, right now you probably think you can see me but really you can’t.

Yeah I can.

    No you can’t.

Yeah I can!

    I’m invisible.

No, you’re not.

    Yes I am.

(I describe his looks)

    That’s just what you think you see, the real me you can’t see.

Psss – whatever, Descartes.

(laughs)