So I don't risk fucking up thermodynamics next time I drop acid and making atoms stop being a thing.

If you've read Watchmen you know what the downside of that power is. Godlike power leads to detachment from the human race. You lose the connection to everything you ever loved, to your humanity.

The worst that being a shapeshifter will do to you is getting you into some kinky sex.

What did I pick?

Russia.

I had a stray thought about what it must feel like to be a fish and now suddenly the entire planet is an ocean. I'll try to fix it in a second, at the moment I'm trying to think about how not to drown.

Really, superpowers need a lot of caveats or it's just horrible. Even in comics / cartoons people don't have the knowledge and responsibility to use their powers properly. But, at least those people are given super-endurance and massive plot armour along with their powers.

If someone could change reality at your will, could their puny human brain manage such an enormous power? If someone could shapeshift, could their modified body put up with the stresses of that new shape? Does having the shape of a bird give you a bird's ability to fly -- not just the knowledge but the hollow bones, etc? If someone had super strength, would it follow that they have super skin that won't rip and tear if they punch a wall? If someone could fly, would they run out of oxygen at 10km height? Would they be able to fly up there without freezing?

Funny, I picked the power that makes me unaffected to anything involving other powers.

I picked the ability to transcend physicality and now I'm in a warld of pure imagination, where my ass is even more of a dumpster fire than it already is, because all the air is fire in this warld. I do regret this decision.

Yeah, but then you'd really know what it sounds like when a hand grenade goes off in a bank vault.

You can stuff a roll of hundos up any of your holes and when you turn into a pen, the money stays inside you, so if you're willing to sodomize yourself, you can make like five thousand dollars a pop. I've done this forty-six thousand times and I am buying my third house with cash as we speak!

Why the tip of your finger? Just use a fingernail, clip it off, donezo.

It's kind of a tacit rule that it's about comic book super powers so we don't go biblical with it, but I get it. Hell, marvel has reality benders. I use "pick a mutant power" so at least we're working in x-men lore.

Omnipotence also needs to have rules. What if it doesn't come with omniscience? What if your powers are so immense that they're utterly impossible to control? You move the muscles you'd normally use to stand up, and your power shoots through your legs, shattering the planet.

That's what CYOA's are for, they are the complete game that this question teases but never delivers.

My favourite is https://cyoa.ltouroumov.ch/viewer/

I've spent hours of my life, every single day, just browsing its insanely long list of powers and trying to make various combos and synergies.

Magic.

It's not actually shapeshifting you just perfectly transform everyone's perception including yourselves to appear as such. There, no more physics breaking.

I always liked the powers from chronicle.

turn their homes into homeless shelters

Ok, so now you've sheltered 500 people, say 10 to a room. I suppose that's nice for them, what about the other 770k in the US?

Can't you just turn into a slime mold or bacteria to escape?

Lol, lazy ass.

“Yee, I wish for a superpower that makes people think I have a superpower”

“Why”

“Can’t be arsed with the whole flying thing, just rather sit on that couch right here”

Mind control can't change your sex (or just make it feel better, with fast recovery), make you live longer, or help out when you're having a rough time on the toilet.

It just turns everyone into your slave. You're a villain by default.

More importantly, it's super boring. People with mind control powers can have whatever they want—materially—with basically zero effort just by forcing people to give them stuff. There's no struggle, and if there is any, it's just you sweating or getting a headache while staring off into the distance.

Also some forms of shapeshifting can be horrifying. In some kinds of shapeshifting, you have to be able to visualize every minute detail of the form you're shifting into. Imagine getting shapeshifting powers and shifting into another form. Then when you want to shift back, you realize you don't actually have a "default form." You can shift forms as often as you want, but you have to picture and visualize every minute detail. Your original form is now lost forever. Remember Odo from Deep Space 9? His form was roughly humanoid but clearly not natural. He had to consciously control every minute detail of his face.

Imagine trying to paint a photo-realistic painting of yourself. That's a fraction of the level of detail you'll need to capture every detail of the forms you're changing into, including your original one. Even your original form is now lost, replaced with whatever half-remembered remnant you can cobble together with your mind.

Also I'm repping my ancestors. It's a proud heritage

Just shapeshift into someone with other powers

Think through the state of the world and the consequences of those things. Unless you're also invincible you will be killed for doing literally any of those things.

Lets just do world hunger. We produce around 2.5x the amount of food needed to feed everyone to the average american caloric intake. That's something we already do. We have the ability to ship any good anywhere in the world within 12 hours, or alternatively, keep a good fresh enough to be sold over MONTHS of transportation (think the fresh fruits picked in South America that is shipped to Thailand to be processed and shipped to china to be packaged then shipped to the US to be sold 3-6 months after they were picked.).

We have no world hunger. There is not a lack of food. There is not a lack of transportation.

Hunger is used as a weapon. Period. That is the totality of the reason that any single person or group of people do not have the ability eat 3 square meals a day.

If you, as (presumably) an American were to just bring food to Cuba, you will be investigated by congress and Trump's DOJ both on criminal charges. (see Hasan Piker currently being subpeanoaed for just filming Cubans and bringing food.)

If you magically could produce infinite food, you have just taken away the most used weapon in world history. This means you are the single most hated and despised person by not only those in power, by but everyone that benefits from those in power, and that's a lot of people, and they own (effectively) all the guns and nukes.

The reason people dream small with superpowers is because, realistically, as long as you don't drastically change the status quo, you're safe.

I'm sure a piece of dust would have no problem making its way out of the evidence room, eventually. Assuming you can turn into one.

I was going to say this too. Time powers can be used to mimic all other powers, therefore making it the best.

Sure, you can control time. But, your body still exists as a biological being within the normal time stream. If you slow time down, your thoughts also slow down by that same amount.

Then the detective's buddy looks at you and says:

"Ooh. Tough split."

That’s a strike