Death Battle: Goku vs Superman 2

[Saiyan007]

Again things don't need to be stated when it's obvious

Superman flew from Pluto to earth in less than 1 second without the comic ever telling us he went FTL

But I don't need the comic telling me that when I can figure out the distance and time which gives me FTL results

But since the comic never explicitly said he's moving ftl I should ignore it

[Bando]

Authors generally ignore physics for the sake of entertainment, and it's a pretty helpful guideline to follow when pitting fictional characters against each other.

So if Goku flew to the other side of the universe in a timely manner which would very, very probably equate to faster-than-light speed, despite no timeframe or distances being given, of course I'm going to cherrypick the physics that lead me to conclude he's faster-than-light. Why? Because it makes for way more entertainment than "well according to science people can't fly using invisible energy in the first place" or "If Goku travelled faster-than-light he would break the laws of physics"" or "technically we don't know if DBZ's universe is as big as an atom in DC comics' universe so we can't compare them" and etc.

The place I won't tread though is where people start using convoluted equations to figure out how much a mountain weighs or whatever. Mainly because I'm 99% sure the authors didn't consider it, and secondly because it's boring. Well, maybe they didn't consider it for that reason. Whereas with Goku traveling to the other side of the universe, it's reasonable the author could expect people to figure out he flew faster than light.

[dbgtFO]

I could just as easily say that no one in Dragon Ball is above mach-whatever it takes to make a sonic boom, because no one ever does it, and it would have just as much validity as any calculations anyone else did, since Dragon Ball never says anyone is faster than that.

I would think not.
To make a sonic boom you need to move faster than the speed of sound, which is 1,225 Km/h.
Super Saiyan Gotenks circled DB Earth at least 5 times.
Yamcha stated back, when Goku showed off teleportation for the 1st time, that Kame-sennin's Island was 10,000 km away, which Means DB Earth's circumference is at least 20,000 km.
Thus Gotenks travelled a distance of at least 100,000 km and since Fusion only can be maintained for 30 minutes, his minimum speed would be 200,000 km/hour.
Is there something I'm missing here?
At most you can say, that the speed required to make a sonic boom in DB is different.

[Rocketman]

My favorite part is always when somebody makes a 10,000 word post filled with calculations and misunderstood physics, and then when I tell them they're inaccurate/wrong/forgetting X, they go "IT'S JUST FICTION" and then make another 10k post of bullshit.

[Kamiccolo9]

Did you just say speed equals mass times acceleration

I think you mean force

Yeah because that nebula is the size of my backyard right. .....

It's very obvious you use the average sizes of nebulas which are light years across

http://ned.ipac.caltech.edu/level5/Sept ... le1_7.html
According to the link the average one is 8000 Light years in diameter

Regardless it's a pretty clear cut Ftl feat to me unless you want to ignore average distances of things in space

I meant speed=distance/time. But thank you for pointing that out, even though it changes nothing of my argument.

You can laugh all you want, but you don't have any actual proof, so whatever you bust out doesn't really mean anything. Average distance of things in space and real life doesn't really matter to a universe that doesn't follow real life rules.

Authors generally ignore physics for the sake of entertainment, and it's a pretty helpful guideline to follow when pitting fictional characters against each other.

So if Goku flew to the other side of the universe in a timely manner which would very, very probably equate to faster-than-light speed, despite no timeframe or distances being given, of course I'm going to cherrypick the physics that lead me to conclude he's faster-than-light. Why? Because it makes for way more entertainment than "well according to science people can't fly using invisible energy in the first place" or "If Goku travelled faster-than-light he would break the laws of physics"" or "technically we don't know if DBZ's universe is as big as an atom in DC comics' universe so we can't compare them" and etc.

The place I won't tread though is where people start using convoluted equations to figure out how much a mountain weighs or whatever. Mainly because I'm 99% sure the authors didn't consider it, and secondly because it's boring. Well, maybe they didn't consider it for that reason. Whereas with Goku traveling to the other side of the universe, it's reasonable the author could expect people to figure out he flew faster than light.

If you're admittedly picking and choosing what rules to follow for your calculations, why should I, or anyone else, care what you come up with? I could decided with equal validity that the DB Earth is made of cheese, like Polyphase Avatron joked about above, and it would make just as much sense.

Again, that's not how debating works. You don't get to decide what facts are in evidence. You work with what you have. For Dragon Ball, there isn't much to work with, especially once you get above the relatively small numbers Toriyama gives us.

"More fun" isn't relevant to a discussion on logical debate.

I could just as easily say that no one in Dragon Ball is above mach-whatever it takes to make a sonic boom, because no one ever does it, and it would have just as much validity as any calculations anyone else did, since Dragon Ball never says anyone is faster than that.

I would think not.
To make a sonic boom you need to move faster than the speed of sound, which is 1,225 Km/h.
Super Saiyan Gotenks circled DB Earth at least 5 times.
Yamcha stated back, when Goku showed off teleportation for the 1st time, that Kame-sennin's Island was 10,000 km away, which Means DB Earth's circumference is at least 20,000 km.
Thus Gotenks travelled a distance of at least 100,000 km and since Fusion only can be maintained for 30 minutes, his minimum speed would be 200,000 km/hour.
Is there something I'm missing here?
At most you can say, that the speed required to make a sonic boom in DB is different.

To which I could reply "gag feat," "cinematic time," or, to be more sciency, none of the atmospheric disturbances which would be in evidence with a being moving that fast are ever shown, which leads me to believe it is one of the two aforementioned options. Given that we are referring to a gag character and what is pretty clearly a setup for a gag, if not a gag itself.
And you are forgetting that the Earth is round, and flying around the planet at the poles would cover much less space than flying around the equator.
And then you also have to deal with Toriyama's obvious issues in drawing to scale, such as his depiction of the moon, which is, in his own words, the very same distance and the very same size from DB Earth as the real moon is from IRL Earth, yet is drawn to look much, much larger, then it's clear the author himself has no intention of drawing things to scale.

So can you say with absolute certainty that Gotenks is going above such and such speed? No.

[dbgtFO]

To which I could reply "gag feat," "cinematic time," or, to be more sciency, none of the atmospheric disturbances which would be in evidence with a being moving that fast are ever shown, which leads me to believe it is one of the two aforementioned options. Given that we are referring to a gag character and what is pretty clearly a setup for a gag, if not a gag itself.

Good to know one can just decide on a whim, what does or does not count.

And you are forgetting that the Earth is round, and flying around the planet at the poles would cover much less space than flying around the equator.
And then you also have to deal with Toriyama's obvious issues in drawing to scale, such as his depiction of the moon, which is, in his own words, the very same distance and the very same size from DB Earth as the real moon is from IRL Earth, yet is drawn to look much, much larger, then it's clear the author himself has no intention of drawing things to scale.

So can you say with absolute certainty that Gotenks is going above such and such speed? No.

Yet we have Gotenks himself stating he circled the Earth several times, but this must obviously mean he was flying around the poles, rather than circling the Earth like he said and corresponds to the drawing.
Right, this is why these kind of topics are stupid, when people are just going to cherry pick their evidence and refuse to acknowledge anything that goes against their preconceived notions.

[Kamiccolo9]

To which I could reply "gag feat," "cinematic time," or, to be more sciency, none of the atmospheric disturbances which would be in evidence with a being moving that fast are ever shown, which leads me to believe it is one of the two aforementioned options. Given that we are referring to a gag character and what is pretty clearly a setup for a gag, if not a gag itself.

Good to know one can just decide on a whim, what does or does not count.

And you are forgetting that the Earth is round, and flying around the planet at the poles would cover much less space than flying around the equator.
And then you also have to deal with Toriyama's obvious issues in drawing to scale, such as his depiction of the moon, which is, in his own words, the very same distance and the very same size from DB Earth as the real moon is from IRL Earth, yet is drawn to look much, much larger, then it's clear the author himself has no intention of drawing things to scale.

So can you say with absolute certainty that Gotenks is going above such and such speed? No.

Yet we have Gotenks himself stating he circled the Earth several times, but this must obviously mean he was flying around the poles, rather than circling the Earth like he said and corresponds to the drawing.
Right, this is why these kind of topics are stupid, when people are just going to cherry pick their evidence and refuse to acknowledge anything that goes against their preconceived notions.

Show me one time where I stated my view as a fact.

This is the difference. I'm not saying anyone is wrong, I'm saying that they don't have the evidence needed to prove themselves right.

And if you can't notice the blatant cherry picking that goes on when discussing Dragon Ball feats, I don't know what to say. Rocketman summed it up far more succinctly than I did.

My favorite part is always when somebody makes a 10,000 word post filled with calculations and misunderstood physics, and then when I tell them they're inaccurate/wrong/forgetting X, they go "IT'S JUST FICTION" and then make another 10k post of bullshit.

[dbgtFO]

Show me one time where I stated my view as a fact.

I didn't claim you did.

This is the difference. I'm not saying anyone is wrong, I'm saying that they don't have the evidence needed to prove themselves right.

So Gohan didn't actually travel a distance of 1,000 km in 20 minutes either(surpassing speed of sound by real world standards)?
Which makes things rather consistent with Gotenks' feat: base Gohan(3,000 km/h). Appy the SS multiplier and we can see, that Super Saiyan Gohan(150,000 km/h) would end up somewhat below Gotenks' speed(200,000 km/h).
Even if Toriyama wasn't going for consistency, it ends up not far from being it anyways

And if you can't notice the blatant cherry picking that goes on when discussing Dragon Ball feats, I don't know what to say. Rocketman summed it up far more succinctly than I did.

Where did I say I couldn't. My statement applies to these topics in general, not Superman fanboys or DB haters.

[Kamiccolo9]

Show me one time where I stated my view as a fact.

I didn't claim you did.

This is the difference. I'm not saying anyone is wrong, I'm saying that they don't have the evidence needed to prove themselves right.

So Gohan didn't actually travel a distance of 1,000 km in 20 minutes either(surpassing speed of sound by real world standards)?
Which makes things rather consistent with Gotenks' feat: base Gohan(3,000 km/h). Appy the SS multiplier and we can see, that Super Saiyan Gohan(150,000 km/h) would end up somewhat below Gotenks' speed(200,000 km/h).
Even if Toriyama wasn't going for consistency, it ends up not far from being it anyways

And if you can't notice the blatant cherry picking that goes on when discussing Dragon Ball feats, I don't know what to say. Rocketman summed it up far more succinctly than I did.

Where did I say I couldn't. My statement applies to these topics in general, not Superman fanboys or DB haters.

I read your previous post as a sarcastic dismissal of my own. If that was a mistake, then I apologize.

You mean Gotenks? As I said, I don't know. I was serious about that being a potential gag feat, on the level of Arale cracking the Earth in half only for it to be just fine the next panel. The whole event is set up as a gag, from Gotenks taking off, to him showing back up after getting beat up by Buu.
As for Gohan, if you mean when he's riding the Nimbus to school? I wouldn't put that as a speed feet for Gohan, first of all, since he's not the one flying.
And then later you have Super Buu, who is unable to prevent Goku and Vegeta from fusing. If he could fly faster than light, he would have had an entire conversation's worth of time to get there.
You have Piccolo being unable to dodge Dabura's spit, despite Kaioshin having enough time to yell at him to dodge it.
And these are all from the same arc as Gotenks' "feat."

I could go on and on with small contradictions, which, in my opinion, add up to more than the vague implications of a potential gag scene.

You might disagree, but it's not at all unreasonable. Which is the point. If there are two or more perfectly reasonable answers that are irreconcilable with each other, then you have an undefinable feat, which means that, for the purposes of a serious debate, it's not really worth anything.

[dbgtFO]

I read your previous post as a sarcastic dismissal of my own. If that was a mistake, then I apologize.

It kinda was. That I'm sorry about

As for Gohan, if you mean when he's riding the Nimbus to school? I wouldn't put that as a speed feet for Gohan, first of all, since he's not the one flying.

No, it's when he got his Saiyaman costume. He flew to school on his own.

And then later you have Super Buu, who is unable to prevent Goku and Vegeta from fusing. If he could fly faster than light, he would have had an entire conversation's worth of time to get there.
You have Piccolo being unable to dodge Dabura's spit, despite Kaioshin having enough time to yell at him to dodge it.
And these are all from the same arc as Gotenks' "feat."

Hmm, yes, but aren't these inconsistencies prevalent in most other comics, cartoons, manga, anime etc too? Or do they provide special explanations, where DB provides none?
For the record I don't think Super Buu could travel faster than light, even going by my low-end estimation of Gotenks' speed, he'd need to be at least 5,500 times faster than Gotenks, which I don't believe.

I could go on and on with small contradictions, which, in my opinion, add up to more than the vague implications of a potential gag scene.

You might disagree, but it's not at all unreasonable. Which is the point. If there are two or more perfectly reasonable answers that are irreconcilable with each other, then you have an undefinable feat, which means that, for the purposes of a serious debate, it's not really worth anything.

All very well. A good reason at least for me to stay away from serious debates about this.

[Polyphase Avatron]

"Made of rock" doesn't really help much.

It's certainly a start, and often it can be narrowed down even more.

You are referring to a direct statement. That's fine. But the thing is, Dragon Ball doesn't have those.
You make allowances when there is a stated reason for them. You don't just bend the rules to fit preconceived notions. I could just as easily say that no one in Dragon Ball is above mach-whatever it takes to make a sonic boom, because no one ever does it, and it would have just as much validity as any calculations anyone else did, since Dragon Ball never says anyone is faster than that.

No it wouldn't, because they can travel distances in times that would necessitate speeds higher than that.

Long story short, if you are picking and choosing what laws of physics to use, with no prompting from the actual story itself, than your work is useless. That's why DBZ vs matches are banned on numerous forums; because the story itself is not conductive to actual feats, as essentially all of them are undefined, with no real way of defining them.

It depends on how hard you're willing to try.

Unless you think that the guy above me's "It's obvious, lol" is an adequate answer. Seriously, you cannot assume that facts are in evidence without being able to confirm them. You cannot. That's debating at its most basic. I cannot believe that I have to spell that out. I honestly expected better out of the community here.

You can never prove anything with absolute 100% certainty outside of mathematics (and sometimes not even then). But you don't need to. You just need to gather enough evidence so that you can be reasonably certain of a conclusion.

[Polyphase Avatron]

Authors generally ignore physics for the sake of entertainment, and it's a pretty helpful guideline to follow when pitting fictional characters against each other.

So if Goku flew to the other side of the universe in a timely manner which would very, very probably equate to faster-than-light speed, despite no timeframe or distances being given, of course I'm going to cherrypick the physics that lead me to conclude he's faster-than-light. Why? Because it makes for way more entertainment than "well according to science people can't fly using invisible energy in the first place" or "If Goku travelled faster-than-light he would break the laws of physics"" or "technically we don't know if DBZ's universe is as big as an atom in DC comics' universe so we can't compare them" and etc.

The place I won't tread though is where people start using convoluted equations to figure out how much a mountain weighs or whatever. Mainly because I'm 99% sure the authors didn't consider it, and secondly because it's boring. Well, maybe they didn't consider it for that reason. Whereas with Goku traveling to the other side of the universe, it's reasonable the author could expect people to figure out he flew faster than light.

Some people would say that the authors never considered that people would be arguing whether their fictional creations would win in a fight against the fictional creations of other authors in the first place, so saying that 'the author didn't consider it' doesn't matter in these kinds of debates.

Of course I'm not sure I buy that, but that is one argument people have put forth.

[Polyphase Avatron]

To which I could reply "gag feat," "cinematic time," or, to be more sciency, none of the atmospheric disturbances which would be in evidence with a being moving that fast are ever shown, which leads me to believe it is one of the two aforementioned options. Given that we are referring to a gag character and what is pretty clearly a setup for a gag, if not a gag itself.
And you are forgetting that the Earth is round, and flying around the planet at the poles would cover much less space than flying around the equator.
And then you also have to deal with Toriyama's obvious issues in drawing to scale, such as his depiction of the moon, which is, in his own words, the very same distance and the very same size from DB Earth as the real moon is from IRL Earth, yet is drawn to look much, much larger, then it's clear the author himself has no intention of drawing things to scale.

So can you say with absolute certainty that Gotenks is going above such and such speed? No.

You can't say that if X happens in fiction, but not all of the expected RL consequences of X occur, that means X didn't really happen. What you say is that there must be some unknown factor preventing those consequences.

[Kamiccolo9]

To which I could reply "gag feat," "cinematic time," or, to be more sciency, none of the atmospheric disturbances which would be in evidence with a being moving that fast are ever shown, which leads me to believe it is one of the two aforementioned options. Given that we are referring to a gag character and what is pretty clearly a setup for a gag, if not a gag itself.
And you are forgetting that the Earth is round, and flying around the planet at the poles would cover much less space than flying around the equator.
And then you also have to deal with Toriyama's obvious issues in drawing to scale, such as his depiction of the moon, which is, in his own words, the very same distance and the very same size from DB Earth as the real moon is from IRL Earth, yet is drawn to look much, much larger, then it's clear the author himself has no intention of drawing things to scale.

So can you say with absolute certainty that Gotenks is going above such and such speed? No.

You can't say that if X happens in fiction, but not all of the expected RL consequences of X occur, that means X didn't really happen. What you say is that there must be some unknown factor preventing those consequences.

Sure I can. As far as I'm concerned, that's a better option than introducing even more unknown, undefinable stuff.

Please, don't tell me how to debate. I've done it for a very long time, and I do it for a living now. I know how these things work.

[Polyphase Avatron]

To which I could reply "gag feat," "cinematic time," or, to be more sciency, none of the atmospheric disturbances which would be in evidence with a being moving that fast are ever shown, which leads me to believe it is one of the two aforementioned options. Given that we are referring to a gag character and what is pretty clearly a setup for a gag, if not a gag itself.

Good to know one can just decide on a whim, what does or does not count.

And you are forgetting that the Earth is round, and flying around the planet at the poles would cover much less space than flying around the equator.
And then you also have to deal with Toriyama's obvious issues in drawing to scale, such as his depiction of the moon, which is, in his own words, the very same distance and the very same size from DB Earth as the real moon is from IRL Earth, yet is drawn to look much, much larger, then it's clear the author himself has no intention of drawing things to scale.

So can you say with absolute certainty that Gotenks is going above such and such speed? No.

Yet we have Gotenks himself stating he circled the Earth several times, but this must obviously mean he was flying around the poles, rather than circling the Earth like he said and corresponds to the drawing.
Right, this is why these kind of topics are stupid, when people are just going to cherry pick their evidence and refuse to acknowledge anything that goes against their preconceived notions.

Show me one time where I stated my view as a fact.

This is the difference. I'm not saying anyone is wrong, I'm saying that they don't have the evidence needed to prove themselves right.

And if you can't notice the blatant cherry picking that goes on when discussing Dragon Ball feats, I don't know what to say. Rocketman summed it up far more succinctly than I did.

My favorite part is always when somebody makes a 10,000 word post filled with calculations and misunderstood physics, and then when I tell them they're inaccurate/wrong/forgetting X, they go "IT'S JUST FICTION" and then make another 10k post of bullshit.

What you're doing, though, is basically denying any possibility of evidence or data that can be gathered in any situation. That would be fine, if your conclusion was 'this is all pointless, debating this stuff is nonsense'. However, your conclusion is that you want to try to invalidate all forms of evidence other than statements, which you take to be reliable, but you're ignoring the fact that they can be and often are wrong as well. If someone says X can do Y, or Z is at number A, couldn't that also be wrong? Characters are not always omniscient and honest. Even the author and narrator can say something wrong (look at how many times Toriyama forgets details about his own work, for instance. While working on BoG he accidentally thought 18's hair was purple for example before his assistant corrected him. Would you say "Toriyama said it so it must be true, 18's hair is and always has been purple"?)

[Polyphase Avatron]

To which I could reply "gag feat," "cinematic time," or, to be more sciency, none of the atmospheric disturbances which would be in evidence with a being moving that fast are ever shown, which leads me to believe it is one of the two aforementioned options. Given that we are referring to a gag character and what is pretty clearly a setup for a gag, if not a gag itself.
And you are forgetting that the Earth is round, and flying around the planet at the poles would cover much less space than flying around the equator.
And then you also have to deal with Toriyama's obvious issues in drawing to scale, such as his depiction of the moon, which is, in his own words, the very same distance and the very same size from DB Earth as the real moon is from IRL Earth, yet is drawn to look much, much larger, then it's clear the author himself has no intention of drawing things to scale.

So can you say with absolute certainty that Gotenks is going above such and such speed? No.

You can't say that if X happens in fiction, but not all of the expected RL consequences of X occur, that means X didn't really happen. What you say is that there must be some unknown factor preventing those consequences.

Sure I can. As far as I'm concerned, that's a better option than introducing even more unknown, undefinable stuff.

Please, don't tell me how to debate. I've done it for a very long time, and I do it for a living now. I know how these things work.

But that's just a way of dismissing feats by using nitpicks to claim they never happened.

For example, there was a debate on a forum a long time ago, someone showed a picture of Spider-Man lifting a train car over his head. There was someone who made an argument along the lines of "He can't really be doing that because the stresses that the metal is subjected to would cause it to bend, and it's not bending. Therefore the feat doesn't count". How much sense does that make?

He clearly is lifting the train car, we can see it. How can you claim that what we see in front of our very eyes isn't actually happening?

Besides, weren't you the one arguing for the Superman lifting infinity feats? Those obviously don't make scientific sense. For one thing, if something had infinite mass, it would collapse into a singularity under its own weight, and that singularity would be infinite in size. The book in question wasn't an infinitely large singularity, so according to your own logic, the feat doesn't count.

Even if it were, there would be nothing to lift it against, as its own mass would give it infinite gravity. Lifting things can only be done with respect to a gravity field, and any other gravity field compared to an infinite gravity field would be completely negligible.

[Kamiccolo9]

But that's just a way of dismissing feats by using nitpicks to claim they never happened.

For example, there was a debate on a forum a long time ago, someone showed a picture of Spider-Man lifting a train car over his head. There was someone who made an argument along the lines of "He can't really be doing that because the stresses that the metal is subjected to would cause it to bend, and it's not bending. Therefore the feat doesn't count". How much sense does that make?

He clearly is lifting the train car, we can see it. How can you claim that what we see in front of our very eyes isn't actually happening?

Besides, weren't you the one arguing for the Superman lifting infinity feats? Those obviously don't make scientific sense. For one thing, if something had infinite mass, it would collapse into a singularity under its own weight, and that singularity would be infinite in size. The book in question wasn't an infinitely large singularity, so according to your own logic, the feat doesn't count.

This is all nitpicking. You're deluding yourself if you think otherwise.

Then you are not understanding my point. I'm not talking about having to apply scientific sense to everything, only about being inconsistent about it.

We see the train car feat happening. It's definable, because it's clear what is happening. No extrapolation is necessary. Now, if someone started assigning specific weights to the train car because there is a similar looking train car in real life, then I'd argue that's not a valid way to go about it, because we have no way of knowing how much the train car weighs.

The lifting infinity feat is both stated and shown. We know what it is. We don't know how it's possible, but that doesn't matter for the purposes of the feat itself. It violates the laws of physics, but the story itself clearly acknowledges that it is a real thing. If I recall correctly, story even mentions how it is "impossible."

If there were a caption or a statement or an interview by Toriyama that said that Goku and co. were capable of traveling at light speed, then it would be perfectly acceptable. If they were clearly shown traveling at light speed, it would be acceptable. We would know that the side affects of that kind of speed aren't applicable in the DB universe. But it's not ever said, by anyone, and it's never clearly demonstrated.

For the Superman and Spiderman feats, they are clearly and inarguably trumping real life rules. The story itself has decided that. It's not up for debate.
For Dragon Ball, people are taking theories that are never stated by anything related to the series itself, and using those to justify ignoring certain rules, not all, but only the rules that inconvenience them.

Again, the situation would be totally different if there was a quantified light-speed feat in Dragon Ball, but there's not.

And given Toriyama's pension for having his characters proclaim how strong they are; "I'm going to blow up this planet," "I'm the fastest in the universe," "I've got enough power to destroy the solar system," etc, don't you think he would have had a character mention that they are faster than light? I mean, that seems like a pretty big thing to leave out.

[Polyphase Avatron]

This is all nitpicking. You're deluding yourself if you think otherwise.

Then you are not understanding my point. I'm not talking about having to apply scientific sense to everything, only about being inconsistent about it.

We see the train car feat happening. It's definable, because it's clear what is happening. No extrapolation is necessary. Now, if someone started assigning specific weights to the train car because there is a similar looking train car in real life, then I'd argue that's not a valid way to go about it, because we have no way of knowing how much the train car weighs.

By comparing it to similarly sized and looking real life train cars? After all, Spider-Man comics are set in New York City, and he interacts with things in the city based on real life. So why would it be unreasonable to use the weight of an identical-looking train car from real life used in that city?

The lifting infinity feat is both stated and shown. We know what it is. We don't know how it's possible, but that doesn't matter for the purposes of the feat itself. It violates the laws of physics, but the story itself clearly acknowledges that it is a real thing. If I recall correctly, story even mentions how it is "impossible."

So you think it's okay to accept something that is stated even if it makes no sense, but anything that isn't explicitly spelled out has to be nitpicked to death and you're allowed to use any kind of excuse you want to say it doesn't count?

If there were a caption or a statement or an interview by Toriyama that said that Goku and co. were capable of traveling at light speed, then it would be perfectly acceptable. If they were clearly shown traveling at light speed, it would be acceptable. We would know that the side affects of that kind of speed aren't applicable in the DB universe. But it's not ever said, by anyone, and it's never clearly demonstrated.

So if they travel X distance in Y time, how is it not reasonable to say their speed is X/Y?

For the Superman and Spiderman feats, they are clearly and inarguably trumping real life rules. The story itself has decided that. It's not up for debate.
For Dragon Ball, people are taking theories that are never stated by anything related to the series itself, and using those to justify ignoring certain rules, not all, but only the rules that inconvenience them.

It sounds to me like you're ignoring any rules that inconvenience you when you want, but applying them strictly when you don't like what is happening. Anything that is stated by a character or narrator is automatically true, even if it makes no sense or doesn't match up with what we see, but determining even the simplest information from visual data can't be done? That makes no sense.

The fact is that your position is inconsistent. If you want to claim that anything that doesn't perfectly match up to real life physics means that you can't get even the simplest information from any event that is not explicitly spelled out (i.e. a character moves x distance in y time, their speed isn't x/y because if it was they would be making sonic booms?) but you take any statement at face value (x can do y, therefore it's automatically true), you're ignoring the consequences of what this means.

For example, take Superman lifting infinity. Say you believe that's true because it was stated. Okay. But with no consistent laws of physics or even logic, what does that mean? If an infinitely heavy book doesn't become a singularity, then perhaps all that it takes to lift it is the equivalent of the strength of a mouse in another fictional continuity. You can't disprove that, if you apply the same standards you use here.

[Kamiccolo9]

This is all nitpicking. You're deluding yourself if you think otherwise.

Then you are not understanding my point. I'm not talking about having to apply scientific sense to everything, only about being inconsistent about it.

We see the train car feat happening. It's definable, because it's clear what is happening. No extrapolation is necessary. Now, if someone started assigning specific weights to the train car because there is a similar looking train car in real life, then I'd argue that's not a valid way to go about it, because we have no way of knowing how much the train car weighs.

By comparing it to similarly sized and looking real life train cars? After all, Spider-Man comics are set in New York City, and he interacts with things in the city based on real life. So why would it be unreasonable to use the weight of an identical-looking train car from real life used in that city?

The lifting infinity feat is both stated and shown. We know what it is. We don't know how it's possible, but that doesn't matter for the purposes of the feat itself. It violates the laws of physics, but the story itself clearly acknowledges that it is a real thing. If I recall correctly, story even mentions how it is "impossible."

So you think it's okay to accept something that is stated even if it makes no sense, but anything that isn't explicitly spelled out has to be nitpicked to death and you're allowed to use any kind of excuse you want to say it doesn't count?

If there were a caption or a statement or an interview by Toriyama that said that Goku and co. were capable of traveling at light speed, then it would be perfectly acceptable. If they were clearly shown traveling at light speed, it would be acceptable. We would know that the side affects of that kind of speed aren't applicable in the DB universe. But it's not ever said, by anyone, and it's never clearly demonstrated.

So if they travel X distance in Y time, how is it not reasonable to say their speed is X/Y?

For the Superman and Spiderman feats, they are clearly and inarguably trumping real life rules. The story itself has decided that. It's not up for debate.
For Dragon Ball, people are taking theories that are never stated by anything related to the series itself, and using those to justify ignoring certain rules, not all, but only the rules that inconvenience them.

It sounds to me like you're ignoring any rules that inconvenience you when you want, but applying them strictly when you don't like what is happening. Anything that is stated by a character or narrator is automatically true, even if it makes no sense or doesn't match up with what we see, but determining even the simplest information from visual data can't be done? That makes no sense.

The fact is that your position is inconsistent. If you want to claim that anything that doesn't perfectly match up to real life physics means that you can't get even the simplest information from any event that is not explicitly spelled out (i.e. a character moves x distance in y time, their speed isn't x/y because if it was they would be making sonic booms?) but you take any statement at face value (x can do y, therefore it's automatically true), you're ignoring the consequences of what this means.

For example, take Superman lifting infinity. Say you believe that's true because it was stated. Okay. But with no consistent laws of physics or even logic, what does that mean? If an infinitely heavy book doesn't become a singularity, then perhaps all that it takes to lift it is the equivalent of the strength of a mouse in another fictional continuity. You can't disprove that, if you apply the same standards you use here.

It's perfectly fine if you want to base the weight off the real life cars. You just can't treat it as a fact unless it is stated in universe.

If something is shown and stated, then it happened. If there is no way to definitively prove something, either by statements or if the feat itself is vague, then it may have happened. Do you not see the difference? So yes, Spider-Man lifted a train car. This is a feat. Saying that Spider-Man lifted a 10 ton train car (or however much an average train car weighs) is not a valid feat, because you have no real way of extrapolating the weight of the car. I have never said you couldn't use such a feat, but you cannot treat it as a fact, because it isn't one.

None of the defined "travelled x distance in y time" feats that are actually stated in the manga are anywhere near lightspeed. And with most of the other speed "feats," we are missing either the distance, the time, or both. The only definitive thing you can say about their speed is that they are "really fast." Although I suppose that's relative as well, given the characters we are dealing with.

The closest thing we have to a complete speed feat in Dragon Ball is Goku's return down Snake Way after Kaio's training, and even that is unquantifiable, because we don't know the exact curvature of every part of the road, and Goku flew in a straight line.

So, yeah. You can say that DB characters are super fast, but you cannot ascribe a figure to that speed and treat it as a fact, because the information to quantify those feats does not exist in the series.

Direct, in-universe rules trump real life physics when they contradict. The difference is, in the Marvel and DC feats we are dealing with, these feats are explicitly spelled out, while in Dragon Ball, they are vague. The only real quantifiable strength feats in Dragon Ball are the turtle shells from Roshi's training, the gravity training, and Goku's weights in the Buu Arc. There may be a few other things thrown in there, but you get the point. There's also Goku punching a hole through Kaio's planet, but we don't know anything about Kaio's planet, other than the gravity, so that doesn't provide anything usable either.

So yeah, you can say that DB characters are really strong, and that anyone stronger than Buu Arc Base Goku can most likely lift more than 40 tons while flying, but you can't claim anything more than that as a fact, because it's not.

You're acting like I'm trying to shatter your perceptions of the series. I'm not. I'm pointing out that, in a logical debate, you cannot make assumptions and treat them as facts, and as you cannot definitively prove things such as Goku being able to move at light speed or not, you cannot treat it as a fact. Again, this is basic logic. I'm not saying people are wrong to treat these "feats" as legitimate, but you simply cannot express them as factual when there is not enough evidence to do so. I don't see why that is so hard to understand.

[Rocketman]

There's only one way to settle this:

VS

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