Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

How to become Batman

quora.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

41–50 of 83 posts

Re: How to become Batman

#41

Post by alanfalcon »

defen wrote: post #36
l0nwlf wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But the real problem is that Batman exists to solve a problem; Gotham has a massive crime problem, way beyond what we see in any major city in the world. And it is a city where number of crime bosses, criminal geniuses and psychopaths exist, and where they can act fairly freely. Gotham was created for batman IMHO and not vice-versa. If someday batman dies, spiderman won't come from New York for load balancing. Why…

> If someday batman dies, spiderman won't come from New York for load balancing Dude, you can't cross the streams! (Marvel & DC)

Meh, happens all the time.

http://www.google.com/images?q=marvel+vs+dc

Re: How to become Batman

#42

Post by Tichy »

I suppose it would be possible to learn faster than by just going the official route. Does Batman need a detective license? I think not.

I wonder if there are cases of people leading batman style lives. Or even maybe Dexter style lives (going about dishing out illegal justice in their spare time).

One thing that comes to mind is from a movie I saw (maybe smoke signals?), where the native american tribe (living in modern times) had a traditional role of some people disguising and teaching other people a lesson.

As for the signalling problem, maybe something could be built with modern technologie (SMS, mobile internet, social networks).

In fact today I had this thought, fueled by paranoia: what if your child was abducted, but could send one last distress call. I suppose police wouldn't be able to block the roads in time to catch the abductor, but what if by a snowballing flash mob effect, all people would take to the street and blocked all roads until police would arrive? It would be a kind of distributed batman effect...

Re: How to become Batman

#44

Post by l0nwlf »

Qz wrote: post #31
l0nwlf wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But the real problem is that Batman exists to solve a problem; Gotham has a massive crime problem, way beyond what we see in any major city in the world. And it is a city where number of crime bosses, criminal geniuses and psychopaths exist, and where they can act fairly freely. Gotham was created for batman IMHO and not vice-versa. If someday batman dies, spiderman won't come from New York for load balancing. Why…

Gotham is New York.

I thought Gotham was a fictional city.

Re: How to become Batman

#45

Post by neworbit »

jeffthebear wrote: post #29

I wonder if the money that Batman spends to fight crime could be used more effectively in other ways. Batman is essentially a guy who uses his millions of dollars to fund his private war against criminals of Gotham city. If he used the same money and time to educate kids, invest in rehab programs or create community programs he might be able to get more done than what one man can do in the night. But it probably does…

Yeah that isn't nearly as entertaining a comic book :)

Re: How to become Batman

#47

Post by TREYisRAD »

l0nwlf wrote: post #44
Qz wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Gotham is New York.

I thought Gotham was a fictional city.

Gotham is a nickname sometimes used for New York City, and while Batman's Gotham is based on NYC, it's not meant to actually be NYC as we know it.

Via Wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gotham_City

Re: How to become Batman

#48

Post by lmkg »

NickPollard wrote: post #5
sambeau wrote: post #3

The original question has a link to a Scientific American that explores the same idea: http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=dark-knight... I like this quote: How many of us do you think could become a Batman? If you found the percentage of billionaires and multiply that by the percentage of people who become Olympic decathletes, you could probably get a close estimate.

http://www.qwantz.com/index.php?comic=1870 Apparently there should have been approximately 2 dinosaur Batmans (Batmen?)

The plural form of Batman is "Batmen." "Batmans" is the present tense of the verb "to Batman."

(http://twitter.com/fakeapstylebook)

Re: How to become Batman

#49

Post by true_religion »

jeffthebear wrote: post #29

I wonder if the money that Batman spends to fight crime could be used more effectively in other ways. Batman is essentially a guy who uses his millions of dollars to fund his private war against criminals of Gotham city. If he used the same money and time to educate kids, invest in rehab programs or create community programs he might be able to get more done than what one man can do in the night. But it probably does…

In the comics, Batman does all the crime fighting and Bruce Wayne does all the charity work. So he tackles things from both sides of the coin.

Asking him to give up Batman would be like asking a city to give up their Police Force and just rely on schools to teach kids good morals.

Re: How to become Batman

#50

Post by georgieporgie »

ErrantX wrote: post #9

Pfft, no vision! However, this thesis seems mostly sensible. I think the crucial answer is that the "Skillz" of Batman are attainable, and there is a reasonable proportion of people in the world with potential to attain them, BUT the problem of being Batman is not in the technology. The problem, as highlighted, is that there is no role for Batman in our current society. Vigilantism is frowned on, and, practically spe…

> Vigilantism is frowned on, and, practically speaking, having a secret alter ego that lasts only happens in the movies.

Banksy is the Batman of the New Generation.

Post reply on HN