Superpowers

I’ve been hearing in all sorts of situations, and at many different locations, something I feel but have never said.  “Common sense is almost like a superpower.”  Bemoaned is how despite there being so many incredibly bright people, there are still matters that seem unsolvable.  Violence, wars.  It seems to me the list of problems is growing rather than diminishing.  From where I stand, they actually appear to be getting worse.
But I am actually an optimist.  In the short term though I am a pessimist.
One of the reasons for my pessimism in the short term is what I have seen over the course of my life and what I have seen in history.  Bad stuff seems to be accelerating now.  It seems to me we have many bright people that have propagated unproven or untested ideas.  They have been foisted onto people of good will and been seen to not work.
It seems to me that instead of owning up to failure, people with contrary ideas are made to look like they have no idea (sometimes they do not and are driven by self-interest alone).  Unfortunately huge amounts of the population suffer as a result of failed experiments.    History repeating itself.
What I notice is that it is not the ones who get ideas wrong that suffer, but those impacted by the failed experiment.  Reminds me of the saying “I wouldn’t worry about it – because it wasn’t me!”  Yet I do not think common sense is dead but merely dormant.
Like so often happens I am reminded of C.S.Lewis in The Silver Chair (one of the Narnia book).  One group of something (I have forgotten what sort of creatures they were) were like on automatic pilot.  There came a time though they realized they had been zombies.
It is that sort of thing that makes me an optimist. I have been like in the grip of a boa constrictor with its hold on me tightening every time I breathed.  Yet I do think common sense will prevail.  It will be harder to escape than it might have been, but it is looking more and more likely to me that there will come a time when humanity says enough is enough.
In the meantime, I will use something that does not require a superpower and declare, “it doesn’t look good.”