How to become Batman

Pfft, no vision!<p>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.<p>The problem, as highlighted, is that there is no role for Batman in our current society. Vigilantism is frowned on, and, practically speaking, having a secret alter ego that <i>lasts</i> only happens in the movies.<p>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.<p>Given a real life city with that setup, yes, Batman would stand a better chance.

The original question has a link to a Scientific American that explores the same idea:<p><a href="http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=dark-knight-shift-why-bat" rel="nofollow">http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=dark-knight...</a><p>I like this quote:<p><pre><code> 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.</code></pre>

Wasn't there a woman on This American Life who tried to become as close to a real life superhero as possible?<p>EDIT: Found it. She calls herself Zora. (Which is the name of a character in Powers.) <a href="http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/178/superpowers" rel="nofollow">http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/178/s...</a>

Relevant:<p>"Until a man is twenty-five, he still thinks, every so often, that under the right circumstances he could be the baddest motherfucker in the world. If I moved to a martial-arts monastery in China and studied real hard for ten years. If my family was wiped out by Colombian drug dealers and I swore myself to revenge. If I got a fatal disease, had one year to live, and devoted it to wiping out street crime. If I just dropped out and devoted my life to being bad."<p>— Neal Stephenson (Snow Crash)

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

Umm there is something else - most of the crooks in Batman seem to be burning some midnight oil studying and practicing - right down to the ordinary mobster level.<p>So a real Batman in real world, where criminals are not all competent in many fields (except crime OFC - at least when Batman is around) could get by with lots lower skills.<p>Also a lot of skills overlap... Take this guy for instance (<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QnClWxkcS4g" rel="nofollow">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QnClWxkcS4g</a>) I guess that he has quite some of necessary skills to be a batman. Come to think of it - MOSSAD operatives probably are quite a representation of actual "batmen" - with tech and all :).

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 doesn't have the same kick you get out of beating up criminals.

The real question is why you would want to be Batman when Iron Man has <i>so</i> much more fun...

This man just shattered all our dreams.

My biggest niggle about Batman is how he'd get to and from the scene, particularly roads near his house. Locals would see the batmobile on the same road repeatedly. Lovers in the bushes would see/be squashed by the car pulling into the tunnel. Word would soon get around.

Very entertaining and funny, but could people please stop saying "Quora is different because of the crowd and it's serious and bla bla bla"?

Quite simply, it's Alfred's station that makes Batman's efforts appear seamless. Alfred offers Batman wisdom, advice, an ear for consultation, and most importantly, he picks up Batman in the Bentley, when he's hurt, so he doesn't end up in ICU.<p>Moreover, in this scenario, our real-life Batman fails to become buddy-buddy with the police chief. That's a critical step.

One could still become a Kick Ass though.

Boy, I'd hate to ask them how to become Harry Potter.

Damn it, if I had known when I was 18!<p>OTOH, I guess since the common opinion is that most bad guys are boring drug dealers, it's fair to say that if there are people inquiring about how to be Batman, there probably are ones interested in becoming one of his arch-enemies (which is probably less difficult, too :)

Batman for Wallstreet criminals?

Um, you really think you could be anonymous in today's day and age? In the United States? That's a big false premise in Batman, how no-one can seem to figure out who it is.<p>Law enforcement would hate being made into fools, they'd seize your assets and put you in Gitmo as an example (I wonder how many more presidencies that will be kept open).

Why not Bruce Wayne?

Woah...talk about a buzzkill