There was a post just now essentially asking “why doesn’t Duplikate (a character than can create clones of herself) turn herself into a endless wave of suicide bombers? It would be an efficient approach.”
My response was:
“A lot of questions on this sub – including this one – are essentially:
“why does this character not perfectly and rationally min max as much as possible?
Why is their approach to life not exactly the same as if they were a high level WoW player using every resource to maximise their DPS – and not letting ANYTHING interefere with that coldly logical, well researched, mathematically sound, maximisation?”
And the answer is – people aren’t like that.”
I suggest that posts that can be answered simply with “people don’t always min max perfectly in their lives, they aren’t robots” should be greatly discouraged.
Troll version:
It seems like DupliKate can create endless clones. Like, the matter comes out of nowhere, she doesn’t need to eat 100kg to create 100kg worth of clones.
So, if harnessed correctly, this could create massive amounts of free, protein rich food for the worlds hungry masses.
I propose that whenever Kate isn’t fighting, she gets suspended over a large blender, and just pumps out endless clones to fall into the blender below.
Possibly they could research how to keep DupliKating even when she is asleep.
As they are supposedly the good guys, why haven’t they implemented the 24/7 DupliKate blender?
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I mean I think it was a fair question given that she basically does the same thing already, just in a way that makes less sense. It wasn’t “Oh, she isn’t being as efficient as possible”, it was “She shows that she’s willing to use this strategy, why does she make it worse intentionally?”
Being that another character with a very similar powerset already does that, and as pokechu mentioned, she is already dying, the question wasn’t out of place. You are free to answer your question in the manner you proposed.
I asked a few weeks ago why didn’t the US government had better strategies for exploiting the need of go’aulds for human hosts in Stargate SG-1, And while many answers pointed the morality of the characters, other had interesting ideas on legal and even logistical reasons why not.
There are stories where the characters are rational (not inhumanly cold, but rational thinking beings) in a way to optimize their power usage, and there are others where it does not happen. Theorizing reasons or pointing out flaws in ideas is exactly what we do here, if you don’t want to participate, dont.
You’re barking up the wrong tree. You claim that these questions ask of the character to suppress their humanity, but the example you provide does not do that at all.
The character in question already suppresses their humanity to the exact same extent that the question assumes. It is an “in-character” question, that does in fact accommodate the character’s personality and moral values.
So the question gets reduced to “Why doesn’t this character improve their performance manifold at no extra cost at all?”
And I think that is a very fair question to ask.
“Why doesn’t this teenager think and act optimally or in a wildly self-destructive manner as though they don’t have to walk away from the fight after they do X”
I don’t know brother, why don’t you min-max your diet and eat healthy, work out, grind for 12 years in college and get a job. Why didn’t you invest in gamestop, doge and pull out right at the perfect time.
I totally get you on this point lmao. It’s one of my personal pet peeves, even if I occasionally do it from time to time.
I agree with the general gist but disagree with the Duplikate example, I think that’s a fair question that should have an in-universe explanation.
Ironically, Robot from Invincible is literally the character you are describing, min-mixing as a default, and a decent deconstruction of the tropes.
I love how people in this thread are proving OP right by calling deliberate violent suicide “an increase in performance”.
Are they stupid?
I’ll take this as a chance to plug the book Worm by J. C. McCrae. It’s a superhero setting where people get superpowers after experiencing moments of extreme trauma. The powers directly relate to the trauma, often in a way that makes it impossible for the character to ever heal or move on from their trauma.
It opens up really interesting character studies. Any question about how they fight automatically ties back in to who they are as a person and what drives them. They don’t min/max powers because it would constantly re-traumatize them. You can also read into a new character’s backstory just based on their powers. The whole series is basically a treatise on why you should go to therapy.
(the powers are also incredibly diverse and well balanced. The story does address stuff like conservation of mass, and powers come with built in limitations that stop them from becoming too OP. For example, a character with duplication powers might lose cognitive ability with each copy (ie one brain controls all copies, so the processing power gets divided too many ways). That Di-Violet also probably got her powers after watching two loved ones die because she couldn’t be in too places at once)
Ok but counter point why didn’t the other z fighter learn Kaioken when they where on king Kai planet and was training there in the afterlife.
Are they stupid?
This has to be one of the meanest, most callous, and least respectful suggestions I have read here.
What makes it even worse is that the answer to your hypothetical question isn’t “people aren’t like that.” the answer is actually quite intricate and worth exploring.
Generally speaking, there is no rule against posting questions in the vein of “why not min/max”, so long as the question itself A) isn’t being asked in bad faith as a setup for the poster do debate their point as the “right” answer and B) has at least some watsonian answer.
For instance, your “troll” question has an extremely pressing, potentially dire answer; eating human meat on an industrial scale is a good way to get a prion disease and die. As such, it would be a valid question to ask (unless you were going to sit there and make a “change my mind” post out of it, or argue that poor people dying of Kuru was a net gain and not a tragedy).
The general guidance we give in situations like this is that if you see a question you don’t like, don’t respond. Either downvote and move on, or report it if you feel it’s a rule violation.
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