Superpowers 

"When everyone's super, no one will be." - but what would be so bad about that?

8:11 "We don't see them cooking without measuring cups because their senses and processing are so acute they can tilt a jug of milk with a casual hand wave and pour out exactly 100 mL of milk." Instant upvote/like. I really love the way you look at things :)

What is my purpose? You fetch Isaac's coffee Coffee drone feels pride.

Occasionally I'll still try to move a pencil with my mind at my work-desk to see if I've developed super powers without noticing. Just in case. The only thing worse than not having super powers, is having them but not realizing you have had them for decades. I apologize for nothing and regret even less!

Isaac's Superpower? Making thousands of people's days better every Thursday

Isaac: *Uses stellaris OST* Me: Oh yeah this is my jam!

"When we were kids, a lot of us dreamed about having comic book super powers. In the future, these dreams could come true." Don't f*****g tease me. Also ... YES ... ONLY WHEN WE WERE KIDS DID WE HAVE THOSE DREAMS [laughs nervously]

Describing Dr. Manhattan's powers as precognition is a huge undersell. From my understanding of Watchmen, he's able to perceive the past, present, and future simultaneously while also being able to further defy physics by also physically occupying more than one location in the same bit of space/time.

Having a phone with access to the internet is like a superpower in itself.

You could have nanobots be a magic system. Suppose you want to summon a fireball or water to put in a bucket, so you issue the command by imagining the result you want, and the nanobots will detect and interpret your surface thoughts, promptly gather molecules not currently used by lifeforms in the nearby environment and act on them in order to manifest the desired phenomenon.

Listening to what you were talking about, and then talking about VR, I thought reality is often disappointing. That is, it was. Now reality can be whatever I want. But I do appreciate that you considered these ideas in a way that is perfectly balanced, as all things should be.

Being able to produce a 20+ minute video every week has got to be a super power....

“My personal favorite superhero, Doctor Doom” Press X to doubt

I've been waiting for a good depiction of utility fog in a movie for years. Transcendent did an alright job, surprised Isaac didn't mention it.

Isaac, your speech has improved so much over the course of your videos! I never had a problem understanding your awesome content, but it's just so cool to hear you kick ass at public speaking.

Direct mind control of superpowers will have to be finely tuned to react only to concious deliberate intent. I remember an episode of the old Outer Limit where a mild mannered man acquires telekinetic powers through the use of a brain implant, only to have his subconcious frustrations and resentments trigger that power in spectacularly destructive ways. And, of course, lets not forget what happened to the Krell os Altair IV in Forbidden Planet.

For sensing incoming danger, I believe a team of students at MIT developed a suit that sent out ultrasonic signals. If it hit an incoming object, the waves would bounce back and be picked up via microphone by the suit and it would put pressure on the weaver's skin, prompting them to act as they now know there is something coming. They tested it and it worked: blindfolded people who wore the suit could successfully defend themselves. Of course that's not as cool as predicting the path of a bullet and dodging it like a badass :-)

Cybernetics Genetic engineering Nanobots

I either met or heard a lecture about 10 years ago from a neural psychologist who was working on a helmet that would allow pilots to have a type of interface directly into the computers that assist the operation of the fighter jets to increase reaction time for between the pilot and the machine.

I can't believe I JUST found the Best Channel in the known universe! It's like stumbling across Foundation after loving Asimov for decades. Behold the riches that await! Hell, maybe Herbert finished Dune. Was the lost novel published last year? It's an alien planet! Is there AIR? You don't know!!

lol loved the weather forecast at 2:33

I love that utility fog lets you pull something out from "hammerspace" behind you just like in cartoons.

Interesting that you'd chose to call Dr. Doom a superhero. I don't disagree

I would suggest that the original super power is the ability to reason.

The trouble with extremely overpowered super powers is to learn to properly control them and use them judiciously. Live Forever Young and Prosper, Issac Arthur.

Isaac Arthur predicting the future becomes easy if you invent it.

I have a genuine, medically-induced superpower. When I was 3 I had a disease called ITP that required a bone marrow transplant. This made me a genetic chimera, with two unrelated peoples' DNA active in my body. I also, it seems, won the one-in-a-hundred thousand lottery of receiving bone marrow from a person possessing an appropriate X chromosome that worked with my existing X chromosomes, to give me tetrachromacy. I have amazingly vivid colour vision, and can see near-ultraviolet. Tetrachromacy is impossible in men (aside from cases of Down syndrome, or chimeras) since it's a recessive X-linked trait, and is found only in 1/100,000 women. So, it seems, I am really lucky.

The ability to manipulate magnetic fields. That's... magNEATO lol

So long as we don't get too carried away, superpowers would be AWESOME! Particularly the ability to fly without engines, the ability to warp time, etc.

This episode came out on my birthday! Thanks!

Ironically, it seems that your content represents and promotes transhumanist ideas and concepts way better than a lot of channels/organisations who are entirely focused on that (they are working hard too, but you have got something they dont have). Keep up the amazing work, we really need to get those ideas out into the general public if we want to secure the future.

Is it weird that this is the most recommended channel to watch? I do listen to this every night...

This has to be one of my top 3 favorite videos on the internet.

I am sure this comment will probably be lost among the rest but I wish I could reach out to you Isaac, just for a moment, and tell you how much I appreciate your unabashed optimism when viewing futurism topics, and your creativity regarding subjects that people normally just don't even think about. I listen to your channel often while I work, and your ability to fill me with an almost child-like sense of wonder really recharges me. I never see the kind of negative trolling on your channel that I see almost everywhere else on RU-vid, and that is a testament to your audience, and how you make them feel about your subject matter. Thank you for a thousand moments of looking at the universe in awe, seeing roads in the infinite stars, instead of walls in the space between them. Thank you for seeing mankind now as the heroes of an epic journey, instead of the fallen and lost race that so many others would describe humanity as. Thank you for showing me that I can still be lost in abject fascination when considering the infinite possibilities of the future. What you are doing is important and worthy. Thank you.

Thanks. I feel there is one aspect of this subject that often gets overlooked. Namely, that's the idea of a tension between what technology can do for us that we can't do for ourselves, versus the development & honing of our own human abilities. In the Dune books, we see that humans have created schools that train apt students to have seemingly super-human powers. [I duly note that you mentioned the Guild Navigators, though your talk didn't touch specifically on this issue.] To wit: at what point is technology simply taking over, or substituting for, our otherwise normal skills as humans, of either mind or body (or both?) Will technology just wind up making us lazy & unmindful? Or will it actually enhance us as beings? Of course, there will probably be a bit of both! But I do think we can rest assured that companies selling such things will, by & large, *_not_* make such considerations for us. They won't have our best interests at heart; only our money. I truly wish we could revamp the educational system, such that people were taught true life skills such as logic, critical thinking, and basic human psychology & interpersonal skills. But I recognize that this won't ever happen without drastic actions by the people. Hopefully, those who decide to use technology in a lazy way that thinks for them will lose out somehow over those who truly think about it and integrate in into their own needs, skills, & talents. A man can dream, can't he?? ;) tavi.

I've been anticipating this!

That was really fascinating. Thank you.

I've been thinking a lot about the transfer of information recently. Having thoughts, then being able to talk to communicate them, then being able to write them down, then the advent of the internet and the ability to [fairly] easily research something [I'm old enough to remember libraries and having to physically go to a building to find a book with information in it:)] Really it's the speed [and amount] of access to information which has changed vastly. I wonder what the future would be for games / entertainment, as being 'hooked' up to the internet would make word games / puzzles obsolete as you'd have immediate intuitive access to dictionaries and thesauruses.

Amazing! Btw, out of topic but, a *new habitable exoplanet* has been just discovered *only 12 light years away!!!*

Unreasonably excited for this

Ahhh Man, I missed a lot of your videos. So today is my Isaac Arthur binge watching day. Yay

Being able to download SFIA every Thursday is my superpower!

That was fun. Thanks Isaac!

Amazing stuff as always - even only having started the video.

This is my favorite youtube channel.

Your videos always make me happy :)

This is the only channel I sub to that I can like the video before I watch it and NEVER be wrong.

Lil Isaac is back. My favorite youtuber ever.

"And when everyone's super" * chuckles* "No one will be"

'catching a ball is a superpower' thanks isaac, very cool

That Friday forecast - now I understand why you post videos on Thursday ;)

I love your work man i'm from egypt 5 years I've been watching your channel you reshaped my mind thank you

Woah. The stellaris soundtrack gave me chills.

Awesome episode

I have a couple questions if anyone could answer them 1 could magnetic monopoles Make materials stronger 2 could we use gluons to make materials stronger

A Merry Arthurthursday and a Happy New Weekend to Everyone !!!

Another great video.

Love your videos! Thank you for all the hard work you put into this!

Can't sleep without Arthur soothing voice.

Why do I have to live in a timezone where isaac's videos come out on friday!?

Well done sir!

Curb stomp? @ 18:20 Wah??? I love this guy.

Just in the near term I can't wait for my oled graphene sensor contact lenses so I can see non visible spectrums of light :)

I'm interested in beam-powered craft. But I'm *very* interested in synthetic meat and space tourism. And I've enjoyed superpowers as long as I can remember. Thanks for this video.

Arthursfriday by the time I watch this...but thanx Issac. This will be my bed time watch....nite everyone!

Isaac it would be so cool if you could find biomed specialists to consult for your transhumanism episodes. That way you could do deep breakdowns of the topic and get really specific with implementation details, like how your physics background lets you go deep on things like launches, flight, and structures.

Come to think of it, I couldn't skate uphill as a kid, I can communicate complex ideas to people on the other side of the planet without a word being uttered (or even typed sometimes), and if something is tedious, I just think of some way to automate it or ask someone (again, possibly on the other side of the planet) to help with some ideas. I am basically a less nosy superhero through the eyes of myself as a kid. *BRING ON THE HEAT VISION!*

Pretty sure Isaac Arthur's superpower is his amazing voice.

the best image ever used in an Isaac Arthur video 10:31

Superpowered Thursdays everytime I watch SFIA :)

In regards to what our pets think of our tech: my brother used to be responsible for going outside to wash the house. My cat would sit there and watch him, meowing from time to time because he wanted to play in the yard. (only allowed outside with supervision) and we'd make him wait until my brother was done cleaning. After a while he started going to my brother and meowing loudly at him and generally harassing him when he wanted to go outside during rainstorms. Usually he'd bug me or my mother about it...but no, if it was raining he'd go straight for my brother...who would get irritated and go open the door and gesture to the back yard saying "go ahead." My cat would just look at the rain, then back at my brother and meow more until he'd just huff and wander over to his food leaving my brother holding the door confused. Took me a bit, but the connection finally clicked for me around the fifth time it happened. He thought my brother controlled the rain, and was irritated when he wouldn't turn it off so he could play outside. Clever deduction, even if it was wrong. But when you think of it from the cat's point of view it makes perfect sense.

"When every bodies super, nobody will be..."- syndrome Really, if everyone has superpowers in the future, then it will become normal. So basically, nothing will change much.

Being able to hear and process sound in "3D" will go a long ways towards precognition or danger senses. I read a book once and a special forces guy had this helmet which helped him focus on sound of the prey he was hunting in the woods. After all filters were routed through the helmets computer he was able to hear this prey heart beat, footsteps "echo" off trees at the same time his steps we blocked by trees. This ability to have a map in his head of where this prey was. Since the prey was invisible sound had to be his "sight".

I think "super powers" appeal to children because as a child you have very little in the way of actual power. As an engaged, self-aware adult you _should_ have powers that children cannot even dream of.

today we call immortality, telepathy, future vision, super senses, time slowing and extreme strength powers, in the future, those are standard features of your mind and android body.

Smooth segue to Brilliant but I saw it coming due to my innate superpower of precognition.

The one about knowing what's in a piece of food is an intriguing one, as it seems I already possess that ability to a limited extent(a combination of memory and the fact that it seems my "gut brain" is able to meter out nutrients in food - if I don't know what's in it, all I need to do is eat it.). Precognition is an interesting one, as I've seen several instances(including a few of my own!) of humans pulling it off, though by what mechanism I have no idea. In any case, an excellent video.

This "mist" sounds like being the black smoke from Lost. Awesome.

12:36 just imagine telepathically transmitted memes in every conversation. You make eye contact and the other guy hears metal pipes clattering to the ground, the Amogus music, etc.

A cup of coffee, granola bar and an episode of SFIA. Happy Arthurday everyone!

some people i know including my self always have pre-cognitive dreams/visions

22:37 Holy cow, that’s awesome!

This will be good.

10:33 The Credible Hulk

@Issac Arthur What about using exotic matter as catalysts in specialized mitochondria?

18:57 I'm reminded of Dr. Orpheus and Dr. Venture's science vs. magic bet.

I think even when everyone is super and it seems mundane, people will still enjoy the idea of superheroes. They'll enjoy them because they'll have real struggles, given that they might have only one super power or live in a more primitive age where they're the only superheroes. Kind of like how killing 100 men singlehandedly in battle isn't so special now that machine guns and bombs are a thing. Back when you had, at best, Halberds or crossbows, it was a sign of being superhuman.

My questions about augmentation always come down to I/O questions. Let's say you have a processor in your head that allows you to perform mathematical operations. How do you get the numbers in, and the results out? Will you need to just "think" of the problem and the answer is projected into your conscious mind, or onto a retinal screen? Will you need to speak the problem aloud? It's easy to think of a system that would input by speech, then output by devices in the retina or a corneal lens, or into a device in the ear, but the problem isn't trivial. The problems of actually performing the task, be it super vision, hearing, calculation, etc. are easier than solving the I/O problem.

This channel is so unrated and I hope is kept that way👍🏼

As you said, our current biology is merely organic machines. You also tend to mention quantum mechanics. So lets put the two together. What if: ideas such as so-called magic and the so-called supernatural, are nothing more than consciousness over matter, which is nothing more than a completely natural aspect of what our biological machinery can already do, but: we've merely contracted some form of species amnesia in this regard. The biological machine might already be far more powerful than anything we consider to be technological, and we are merely so unaware of it that we incorrectly refer to such ideas as being magical or supernatural.

Thanks for the video! Very interesting. I'm reminded of the Bene Gesserit in Dune, who - by both breeding & training - honed their bodies & minds to a point far beyond normal humans. Of course, some of that was due to the spice-drug. A different example would be Random Frequent Flyer Dent (Arthur's daughter) in "Mostly Harmless" who had a wrist implant that automatically adjusted itself to local time, day-night, & year cycles, & could offer information. These are 2 almost diametrically opposed methods for reaching similar goals: the enhancement of a human to something more capable. I realize that cyborging will certainly be a part of any human future in which technology continues to be a force, but personally, I'm mostly in the genetic camp. I firmly believe that we will eventually become something other than human; (hopefully) something greater. And who knows how far genetics might take us? I doubt we'll ever have many 'super powers' in that sense, but who can say? I cannot rule out psychic powers completely, of course; no one can! As they say: absence of evidence is not evidence of absence! The future of humanity may even be somewhat divided along those very lines - genetic enhancement vs. cyborgs. But most likely, it'll be somewhat of a mixed bag of tricks, so to speak. I DO believe that humans could greatly improve their pattern recognition skills right now. That's just a matter of study (by scientists), education, & practice! One of my key tenets of life is this: Your brain is a pattern recognition machine. This is great (although it CAN have it's downside - like the ignorance & fear in reaction to anyone different, which is the basis of a lot of racism and other isms), & with care & practice, you can do amazing things. I hold dear to the principle that EVERYTHING is connected; you just have to figure out HOW. In any case, I think that the future of humanity is, well, not human. Whatever path we take, we'll wind up very different than we are now! Rikki Tikki.

Hurray for the bell icon

Issac's ability to use graphics superb

Speaking of moving things with the mind, I have a true story to tell about myself. About 2 years ago at my old house I shared a room with my little sister and our TV is on her side of the room. I was on my bed playing a The Legend Of Zelda. While I was playing the game another control was set up on the TV stand to where I couldn't see some of the screen that I needed to. In my mind I was distracted AND concentrated on that controller and I thought "man I really wish this thing would move out of my way" not even 1 second after thinking that the controller fell down to a position still on the TV stand but out of my way. I just sat there in shock saying maybe it was a ghost or coincidence or something. Till this day, me moving it with my mind is the only explanation I have.

My favorite example of a mundane psychic power is when Dio summons a roadroller from absolutely nowhere and sends it flying down onto Jotaro.

Podcast Night tonight, Yeah!

I am ready to be a GMO of my own choosing, how about you?

Here’s the problem I see with sending memories to others with a mind machine interface. When we experience something, we have a memory of that event, and that memory changes us. For example, a family member dying might make you be more conscious of how much time you have left to live. Your thoughts and feelings about these memories also change you. Everyone views things slightly or drastically different after all. With all that in mind, think about this: wouldn’t having feelings and memories from other people floating around in your mind change you just as much as your own thoughts and feelings? Because of this, the development of the mind machine interface may very well lead to brainwashing.

I love this channel

I'm reminded of Dr. Venture and Dr. Orpheus having a discussion about technology vs science. The scene culminates with Dr. Orpheus dramatically summoning fire, to which Dr. Venture responds by dramatically holding up a lighter.