So you're omnipotent... now what?

Great Debates
1

Heres a little mental exercise. Let’s say that you now have omnipotence. You are all powerful. If you so desire you can change the laws of physics, travel through time, change everyones beliefs with the snap of a finger. Whatever you want.

With that said, how do you resolve the ills of the world? What method do you use? Do you automatically make everyone have a loving generous nature? If so, does that infringe on personal choice? Redistribute wealth through an artificial means? Create a legion of robots to automatically feed everyone and preserve all species on earth? Force everyone to play in a galactic Monopoly tournament? What?!

2

ills of the world?? @#&# 'em!! I’d be getting laid a little more often though, that is for sure.

3

The world doesn’t need an omnipotent being with ordinary mortal levels of wisdom and knowledge. The best thing I could do for the world would be to strip myself of my omnipotence.

4

I’d talk to my doctor about Viagra.

Oh! Wait! Omnipotent! My mistake.

I go back in time, arrange it to make sure that Oswald acted alone, and then let the angels know that believing in some ‘great conspiracy’ killing JFK is a venal sin akin to Pope-raping.

Alright, alright, in all seriousness- I do nothing. Yeah, sure, being a human sucks. But the idea of billions of people whose lives suck getting together and working together with trust and compassion in order to make everyone else’s lives not suck? That’s amazing, and i’ts beautiful, and it’s a triumph to something even more powerful than I. And by restricting free will, it becomes pointless.

5

'Bout the only thing I’d do is make faster-than-light travel possible. We gotta get off this rock. Mebbe when the Vogons come after us, I’d step in again, but I’ll cross that bridge when we get to it.

V.

P.S. 'Course, as jmullaney pointed out, there would definitely be more sex in the deal for the Sponte-man :smiley:

6

I would turn earth into a utopian society of intellectuals.

I would turn the other planets into earth-like colonies. They would be supplied with food, water-- all of the essentials. All violent, evil people would be shipped to one of them, jerks and idiots to another.

College would be free, schools would be restructured to encourage learning and wonder. Heavy on literature, immagination, free thinking, science and the arts.

Children would be cherished. Anyone unworthy to care for the child would be stripped of parental rights. There would be a permit-only policy on reproducing. You would have to prove that you are financially able to support the baby, and that you’re a decent enough person to have one. All unwanted children would be cared for in small group homes where they would be raised in a clean, healthy, happy environment. Intentionally and maliciously harming a child would be punishable by banishment.

Books would be free to the public, and the televison would show entertaining educational programming and shows with really good writing instead of catering to the lowest common denominator. Fart jokes have their place, but you can’t build a whole show around them.

Writers, artists and educators would be the people that we look up to. Intelligence would be strongly rewarded, and only through that and competency would a person succeed in life.

There would be an abrupt halt to politicians as we know it. No more glad-handing and kissing babies. To be a politician, you must be intelligent, aware of the issues and able to state your position without a team of speechwriters. There would be no more emotionally-motivated legislation. All new laws would have to be voted in by the people.

Taxes would end as soon as one retired. The elderly would be housed in decent homes with good medical care. As the omnipotent, I would make sure that they lived only to the age that they were healthy and had a good quality of life.

Cruelty to animals would not be tolerated. You would have to care for your pet well, or not be allowed to have one. Massive animal farms would have to give the animals space to excersise and good, wholesome feed. There would be no more calves in tiny pens or chickens in wire cages whose feet never touch the earth.

Logging for paper would cease. The companies would either have to use recycled paper, or hemp paper. Logging would be permitted only on tree farms.

Recycled products would cost half of what new products cost.

Welfare would change completely. There would be government grocery stores where the deserving poor could get groceries for free. They would recieve housing vouchers, and clothing vouchers for all of the things they need. The lazy would simply starve to death. If you don’t wanna work, then you don’t really wanna eat. The disabled would be given jobs that they can do within the constraints of their disability. If they can’t work at all, then, hey, that’s not their fault-- they would be supported by the state.

There would be carefully licensed day-care providers who would come to your home to care for your children. Since they would have very few children to care for, they could give more time and affection to each child. If you take advantage of this dare-care system, then you would be required to sit for someone else’s kids when you have time.

Children would get rewards for educational excellence. A trip to Disneyworld for Honor Roll students. A child who refused to behave in school, or refused to learn even though offered special tutoring and learning aids would have to go out into the “real world” and work for a living for one year, and then be allowed to return to school. Delinquency would not be tolerated.

That’s a little slice of my world.

7

I like Lissa’s world. Sign me up when it becomes available.

8

I’m already omnipotent.

So I wouldn’t do anything differently.

9

Well I’d get rid of the bloody mosquitos for a start.

Then I’d replace the Earth with an infinite planar land. So there would be infinite space and infinite resources. If you wanted your own 50000 square miles, all you’d have to do is travel far enough. And to make travel easy, I’d create the living blimps from “Titan” (SF book by John Varley) to ferry everyone around.

And I’d make a few useful trees, such as the disposable flashlight tree, and the mattress tree, and the hardened steel axe tree, and you get the idea.

I’d reach into the minds of mankind and erase all the memories of past emnities and hatreds and disputes, so they’d all be starting clean.

Then I’d make some beer and popcorn, sit back and see how long it’d take for a major war to get going!

10

I wonder what Newton would have theorized had he been sitting under matt’s hardened steel axe tree instead of the apple tree.

11

One more thing - I’d turn everyone’s skin tone to a lovely shade of magenta.

V.

12

I’d blow the whole shit-heap up and start over. I think I can do a better job. Let’s start with pain, who the hell needs it? And if I decide in the future to create a being that can contemplate the meaning of his own existence, I’LL TELL HIM IT! And if I decide to talk to my creations someday instead of threatening them with world destruction if they don’t behave, I’ll tell them to relax and enjoy the gift I gave them. I’d make extinction impossible, instead they’d come back like retro. I’d make a creature similar to a human, but give them a prehensile tail. I’d immediately smite anyone who DARED speak for me. That is, until I became bored… Then I’d make a world like this one and laugh at all the pathetic mortals.

13

id make spontaneous combustion a reality

14

Aside from banning rap music, I would hope to have the wisdom to leave the world alone. Any big change is likely to cause all kinds of unforseen problems.

15

I’m banning Commercials. ESPICALLY those lame-ass discovery.com ones. (don’t only Female mosquitos bite?)

Otherwise, I’m leaving well enough alone. This could be a utopia if we tried already.

16

Now I’ve changed my mind. I’ll put everyone on a miserable BALL so that eventually they’ll run out of space. And I’ll make most of it too hot, cold or wet to actually live on easily. I’ll make the land shake or spout lava so anything they build falls down or burns. Why not flood bits of it periodically as well? And I’ll call into being a shitty little flying, biting insect which inflicts a tiny bite and removes a minute amount of blood, yet somehow leaves a large unsightly itching welt for DAYS. (I’d be proud to invent something like that!)

Next week, I’ll get round to founding a few religions to worship me. If I can make them unreasonable enough…

17

Lissa - Although some of your ideas are nice, it sounds like you’ve set up an extremely oppressive government. No thanks!