The fate of humanity is in your hands, what do you do?

In My Humble Opinion
1

Due to Act of Plot you have been granted nigh-omnipotence with the fate of Earth and/or humanity placed in your capable hands (or whatever it is posthuman weakly godlike entities have). Assume that while your personality and memories remain the same (so that you are still ‘you’) your intelligence and understanding have also increased to suitably godlike levels.

Whatever you do next is up to you, your Ascension is secret so nobody else knows about it, you can go on living your normal life completely ignoring your abilities and letting things continue as they are now or you have complete control over local reality (local being out to few thousand light-years radius from Earth).

What do you do? Would you be malign or benign? Announce your prescence or keep it quiet? Act subtly or bring in massive changes? Listen to peoples wishes and desires or impose your own will?

Assuming this thread doesn’t sink like a depth-charged submarine I’d be interested in reading others replies before adding what I’d do myself.

2

I’ll clap.

3

Based on the OP, I would not go public and would act subtly for the most part. Also I’d be more or less benign.

What I do would depend on my new understanding of reality. If all I have is my current understanding, but with godlike power, well we are doomed.

4

Ouch… I’d first have to do some work on myself… Get that tendency to anger well under control!

Next, I need a really good source of information. Nigh-omnipotence is fun, but without nigh-omniscience, it isn’t going to be as effective as it should be. If I could create a magical scrying pool, or super-duper tunable crystal ball, great. Otherwise, I’d have to recruit a news bureau.

Finally, I’d recruit a think-tank to advise me, because, no matter how powerful or knowledgeable I am, my wisdom is still base-line human. (Okay, maybe a little lower than average.) What level of involvement is best? Go out and cure cancer? Alter geography on a large scale? Make real changes in “human nature” itself? Or is minimalism wiser? Let mankind go its way, and only intervene if the ICBMs start flying?

Sorry to be so much of a navel-gazer, but most of my early decisions would be about me. What kind of entity I was, and what kind I should be.

5

I’d spend time creating a second version of myself so that I could be worshiped as a God without having to give up the ability to return to being “me” every now and then when things get heavy.

I’m not sure how I’d announce myself to the world. Maybe a worldwide public broadcast that runs on all televisions everywhere regardless of what channel they’re turned to or hell, whether they’re even plugged in. I’d introduce myself using some sort of cool omnipotent-sounding name and tell the world “Yo Earth. I’m really happy for you and I’mma let you finish but I can do a whole lot better.”

I’d provide free, unlimited food and energy all across the world. Maybe deposits would just start appearing. Not sure yet. If, say, Somalian warlords or whatever tried to intercept these supplies I’d melt their faces. Huge abundances of oil for energy I guess, or maybe huge amounts of magical batteries would start appearing in government possession along with notes (and perhaps appearances by me personally) giving instructions on how to use these to provide free energy to their citizens. No face-meltings for non-compliance. I figure they’ll just obey eventually after I’ve flexed my Godhood a bit more. I’d cure all disease. People with lost limbs would start to regrow them, people in comas would wake, all the people with AIDS or cancer or genital herpes would undergo miraculous recoveries.

I’d take a look at the state of things (both as me, AClockworkMelon and as me in God-mode flying around all invisible and shit) for a few days before doing anything else. Presumably there’d be religious panic and maybe rioting. If there’s rioting I’d create duplicates of myself to go pacify each of them. Not violently, I’m assuming the presence of a God will awe everyone into compliance. People in the media and whatever can feel free to say whatever they want and interpret my existence however they want. No concern to me.

Finally I’d set up a temple to myself to serve my narcissism by providing me with worshipers. Just like in the “Convince people to vote for you for president” thread, hookers and blow for everyone who shows up! To appease the curiosity of the masses without smothering me I’d set up a system for a question a month to be asked at the temple for me to answer or address or whatever. I wouldn’t lie and make up a fake mythology for myself but I wouldn’t reveal my identity or how I came to my power.

The big question is: Would I get rid of death? If so, in order to prevent overcrowding I’d have to make humans as a species much less fertile. Maybe make the birth rate a hundredth of what it is now and create more planets with my mega smarts and powers when this planet reaches a hundred billion people.

If not… well, I’d have to consider why I would eliminate death. I figure it’ll take me a while to come up with something. Maybe create an afterlife. This is by far the hardest part for me.

6

I would probably not announce, but I would see to it that Karma starts working with some greater degree of reliability than at present.

7

Pull the plug on humanity.

I’ll put it back in before the whole tub drains, but I think Earth would fair a lot better with 250 million humans instead of 7 billion.

8

I’d move us to a Culture-esque post-scarcity society. Free unlimited energy, good medicine, and space travel for kicks. And I’d probably do a few Special Circumstances-esque mind fucks on various assholish leaders.

Aww, that’s sweet. Hope your loved ones are the first ones you slaughter, you mass murdererer.

9

Come now, the minute you use omnipotent powers to change the course of humanity on a mass scale, you start killing people, every death is on your hands.

And, why would a god kill his/her loved ones first? To prove some sort of moral point. You’re God. Screw morality. It would be almost impossible to act if you had to worry about the lives of specific individuals when pursuing the Greater Good.

10

The people would weep for the good old days when Cthulhu was running the show.

11

I’d start with terraforming every possible Earthlike planet within my sphere of influence - make them variant clones of a human-free earth, but with different (yet Earth-bio-compatible) animals and plants - mostly close variants on Earth life, with maybe the odd dragon or tree octopus or skywhale because I can. I expect there’ll be at least a few hundred in that sphere that I can do that to, with the nearest being within 10 light years. I’ll alter stars to be more Sun-like if I need to get enough systems to work with.

Then I build a network of stargates linking them all - stargates where I can control who uses them and when, although I think I’ll leave them generally open everywhere except the Earth ones. These will be in edifices such that animals can’t casually wander in, but any sapient could enter.

Then I make the knowledge of their existence evident to everyone on Earth. I also offer everyone on Earth a chance to emigrate there - at a cost. Some degree of genetic remodelling.

I think I might be whimsical about this - create some groups of elves or hobbits or cat people if enough people want to be those - but the end goal is to produce a few standard variant human types. Stronger, faster, better senses, more intelligent, longer-lived, more sets of teeth, disease-resistant, more conscious control of bodily functions like food metabolism. Also knowledge - what it takes to function on the new world I’ve chosen for each person would be planted in their head, like the local environment and that sort of thing.

Once a planet starts getting immigrants, some degree of civilisation will be developed on it waiting for the people - towns, that sort of thing. The plan isn’t to drop people into wilderness, but to have the amenities there. These will be as green and sustainable and post-scarcity as my godlike brain can conceive - transport, renewables, nanotech, AIs, fabricators, holodecks, flying cars, whatever. There’ll also be space elevators and orbital systems, like factories, asteroid mines and research stations, on/around every civilised world. Only around one in three worlds will be civilised in this way, and no high technology will pass the stargates from tech to wilderness worlds.

I’ll also clean up Earth for the people who choose not to go, and make it as sustainable as I can.

One thing I do for everyone, on Earth or not - various anti-rape measures built-in, from deadly venomous vagina barbs to psychic rapist incapacitation waves. I’m sure my godlike intelligence can come up with more. Possibly mental blocks in everyone such that attempting forced sex triggers paralysis or coma. And all women gain reproductive control - they can choose when they want to conceive, and can painlessly reabsorb a foetus at any stage, at will.

I do all this without announcing myself directly. Then I watch.

12

Technically, they would be killing each other in my name.

13

A whole lot of people would stop believing, and a whole bunch more would start! I would definitely start fucking with fundamentalists of whatever association. Then I would smite all Scientologists. Then I think I’d go to Disney World.

14
  1. Tobacco-gone.
  2. All religions-gone. I wouldn’t prohibit them, but all memories and relics would disappear. I’d like to see what would develop from this point on if all the previous religious baggage was gone.
  3. Bring everyone involved back to life and have a special 2-hour Soap finale. I HATE cliffhangers!
15

I started a new thread on this idea.

16

All child-abusers would get purple faces in the first 30 seconds, and become seriously ill in proportion to their crimes. The worst would die within the week.

Then the rapists (including the child sex abusers) would get bright red faces and lose their balls - I’m thinking a slow painful shrivel over the course of about 13 hours - and develop pancreatic cancer. Female rapists would lose their ovaries and whatever produces the testosterone that drives their libidos, (Maybe this involves a partial destruction of their pituitary? I’ll make sure before I act, promise!) and also the pancreatic cancer.

Next all psychopaths would develop kelly-green foreheads* and get liver cancer.

All women would lose the ability to become pregnant by accident. Pregnancy would require a definite decision and action of some sort (yes, I do mean “other than deciding to have sex”.) Men would gain the ability to orgasm without any danger of sperm production.

Illnesses of kind people would be resolved upon the cruel people each in direct proportion to their actions/propensities.

A new element would be discovered which enormously increases our ability to convert sunlight into electricity. The technology would lend itself best to small installaions on each building or street corner to supply the entire grid at very low cost. (I think “no cost” would be worse for us than “high cost.” Low cost energy is the goal.)

All rulers and Govermental agents would find themselves overwhelmingly motivated to support the feeding, education, and sheltering of all humans above any other goal.

Each person would find the “us and them” mentality falling away. Racial, sex, religious, and any other predjudices would suddenly seem compeltely non-sensical. The only remaining predjudice would be against cruelty.

ETA: And I’d never tell anyone it was me. . .

*The color-coding is to help the normal ID the dangerous - these are not meant to be punishments.

17

I’d cut the blue wire.

Really, I’d be immobilized with the possibilities and tend to let things stay the same indefinitely.

18

Us my increased knowledge/processing power to essentially run a simulation to catch all unforeseen consequences of the below actions before they are implemented.

These are the first and immediate actions I would take:

Immediately stop all (active/ongoing) child-abuse of any kind (this would probably require something to the effect of stopping time, and using my power to remove any child in immediate danger).

Immediately stop all other (active/ongoing) sexual abuse of any kind.

Make healthy food and water available to all hungry people everywhere (by improving soil/agricultural yield/fixing droughts etc whenever possible).

Immediately stop all (active/ongoing) predatory violence (including government oppression/local wars) of any kind.

Since I can read minds, heal all life-threatening physical and serious mental afflictions in which the patient deeply desires to be healed- this would include addictions of all kinds.

Now that the immediate stuff is done, these are the ongoing things I would do:

Be essentially everywhere (that there are people) at once, and, when I deem appropriate, stop serious violent actions. This would include ALL rape and sexual violence, ALL child abuse, and probably all murders and other active attempts at killing people (justified homicide could be an exception, and there might be other exceptions). This would not include minor assaults, robbery, theft, and other crimes short of the ones that risk death or serious physical or mental damage.

While I’m everywhere at once, prevent random acts of death due to natural/freak occurences (including deaths due to weather effects, earthquakes, structural failure, etc- note that I’m not stopping the occurences, just the deaths and serious injuries).

Resolve the question of animal consciousness/awareness, and when appropriate, prevent serious cruelty to animals (unless my omniscent investigation into animal minds disagrees, this does not include preventing humane farmers/ranchers from slaughtering livestock).

Basically, no one will get raped/sexually-abused EVER while I’m nigh-omnipotent (no minds will be altered- but everyone struggling to get free will get a sudden burst of strength/speed, etc), no one will suffer death or debilitating physical/mental injury through no fault of their own (or no fault other then minor lack of awareness, being at the wrong place/wrong time, etc)- so if someone is stupid and driving drunk, for example, they may crash and break their arms and legs or even die, but they won’t kill anyone else. Or if someone is climbing a mountain without proper safety gear, they may fall and break bones, but they won’t die.

I’ll leave it up to the non-nigh-omnipotent to solve most other problems.

On a side note- the main reason I don’t believe in an omnipotent God is mostly because he doesn’t do ANY of the things I think he ought to do (chiefly, preventing children from cruelty/nightmare stuff).

19

After you inflict painful disease on those criminals you deem worthy, of course.

Exceptions . . . like when you personally feel the homicide is “justified”?

There is nothing more frightening than the idea of having my life subject to the whims of an individual with complete power over me, regardless of how Good and Just she or he thinks s/he is.

20

I think justified homicide is a legal term, usually meaning self-defense. I probably wouldn’t stop instances of self-defense.

I agree with you about how frightening the idea of any all-powerful being is. But if I had the power, I couldn’t not interfere when someone is committing rape or other horrible acts. Just like I couldn’t now, without any special powers, if I was in a position to stop it.