Prison Americana

[arbre_rieur]

Four more pages from SUPERBOY 1...

On the first day of class at his new school, Superboy is asked a question: If you're 300,000 light years from Mars, traveling at lightspeed, and want to reach New York city by breakfast, what time would you have to leave the red hallow (whatever that is)?



...which then segues into the page icon_uk posted, where Superboy completely ignores a woman crying for help, indicating that something's wrong with his ability to empathize.



I'm sure some people will complain that there's no such thing as a "cellular subconscious," but, well, there's no such thing as ESP or the metagene, either. The way I see it, this is just another made-up concept along those lines.



Elsewhere, there's a subplot about how one of the biophysicists working for N.O.W.H.E.R.E. (the organization behind all this), wants to turn whistleblower.

Comments

[fifthie]

"Cellular memories" is one of the worst ideas I've seen in a while. Way to define him from the outset as not really his own person.

[fifthie]

Cellular Memories: You're not just doomed to become you father, you literally already are him.

[arbre_rieur]

I *think* the idea is that it only applies to clones. It's not inheritable.

[runespoor]

It's muddled by the fact that Superboy has two donors rather than one, imo.

[icon_uk]

And aren't we all shaped by our parents from birth? Their ideals and beliefs are the first things we know and will respond to. This is a more extreme version of that.

"Memory RNA" was taken seriously as a concept for quite a while, maybe it's true in the DCU, a clone would possibly have trace memory RNA from the donor. Not enough to define their nature, but enough to inform it.

[fifthie]

This is a more extreme version of that.

If by "extreme" you mean "awful", then yes.

maybe it's true in the DCU, a clone would possibly have trace memory RNA from the donor.

It pretty unambiguously is true in the current DCU. It should stop being true, because it's an awful idea.

[runespoor]

No, this is the very opposite. We're shaped by our parents' ideals and beliefs because they raise us, not because they carry these ideals in their genetic code.

[icon_uk]

In our case we do it because we remember them telling us their ideals and beliefs (and we can choose whether we not to follow them) and in Superboy's case those ideals and beliefs just come pre-existing (somewhere) in his memory from his donors (and he can STILL choose whether or not to follow them)?

So what is the actual difference?

[runespoor]

The difference is that if someone is raised by someone who isn't their biological parents, they'll tend to develop ideals that are much closer to those of the parents who raised them, and not to that of their biological parents.

The difference is that this Superboy has a default setting of Kansas because Superman was raised there. From what I've read here, there isn't a choice involved there: default setting. Which makes no sense for people like us, and is scary as hell in a world where "we don't have the same culture" is a xenophobic argument for why immigrants can't integrate in some Western societies.

This is scary and different because it makes culture a question of genetics. It gives an argument to racists who say that "some people" are "better suited" for any one or two tasks, or any one or two way of life. It gives people who joke about Arabs "driving like they're in the desert" instead of like in a city a leg to stand on.

I could go on because there are other things that are different (among which the fact that we're not just shaped by our parents' ideals because they tell them to us, we're shaped by what they do as well, which can easily go against what they say) but this is the main point as I can conceive it before coffee. (Oh, I'd also argue about how putting something in genetics code is not a good way of showing it can be embraced or rejected.)

[icon_uk]

The difference is that this Superboy has a default setting of Kansas because Superman was raised there.

Yes, just as my "default setting" is a town in Scotland because that's where I was raised and spent my childhood.

From what I've read here, there isn't a choice involved there: default setting.

"Default" does not preclude choice by any means, it doesn't mean "only". I can acquire a new accent if I choose and work at it, but my default accent is Scottish because it's what I was raised with. I'm not limited to it, I simply find it easiest to use it.

[runespoor]

Superman was raised there, Superboy wasn't. My mother was raised in Tunisia, my default setting is Paris because that's were I was raised.

[icon_uk]

But wasn't your upbringing influenced by the fact your Mother was raised in Tunisia rather than Paris? Your parents inform your life, in our case by nurture, in Superboys case (apparently) at least partly by Nature (or a comic-book version of same).

Superboy is picking up his own traits and habits, the fact he's otherwise amnesiac means that the genetic trace is all NOWHERE has to go on, but that is not limiting his choices, merely informing them.

[runespoor]

I don't understand arguing that nurture and nature are the same, which is what I get from what you're saying.

[icon_uk]

Not the same, but in the absence of nature (eg no memories) I don't see anything particularly wrong with the Kryptonian/human hybrid Superboy having nature as an equivalent baseline.

[fifthie]

So what is the actual difference?

You really have to ask what the difference is between being told an idea and having it planted into your mind at birth?

And for that matter, that there's a difference between ideas and memories, feelings, and emotional connections?

[jlbarnett]

ideals take because of things like brain chemistry which can be genetic, though it's possible to screw it up on your own.

[arbre_rieur]

We're defined by our choices, not our background.

[fifthie]

Which is why sticking choices, in the form of memories, feelings, and emotional connections, into a character's genetics is an awful idea.