I’m involved in this discussion on another board and I’m wondering what the Dope’s answers would be to the question. I’ll hold off posting my response for a while.
You wake up and find that you have become a god: omnipotent, omniscient, all that good stuff. You know things are broken here on Earth. What is the FIRST thing you would do to improve humanity’s lot?
Kill them all. Then, read the manual and start fresh.
Step 1. Get rid of the designated hitter. Step 2. Use my powers to remove my powers. That’s got to be better than what would happen if i kept them.
I think the first thing I’d do is invent a large, rapid-growing sequoia tree that would sequester carbon in the form of edible tubers. If you cut down the trunk it would sprout multiple other trunks. If not, the tubers would continue growing to an inestimable size. They would only grow in the hottest tropics.
Wow, only 3 minutes to get to that. Bravo!
Along the same lines, I would quickly induce rapture to all the believers worldwide, leaving only the non-religious. The smaller population alone would help improve everyone’s life for generations, and might stem the explosive growth that accounts for a number of our current problems.
First: I make my wiener so big not even I could yank it.
Second: I pull a Superman from the Injustice comics and tell the world I’m tired of their petty bullshit and if they don’t knock it off I’m going to knock it off for them.
Third: Terraform the planet so that it is possible for food and clean water to be abundant for every cluster of people.
Fourth: Get the damn Community movie made.
One of two things, or a combination of both (the second because its fun)
(a) Work quietly and discretely in the background to subtly inspire various people around the world to pursue research and policies that will benefit humanity, attempting to steer the human race to a ‘Culture’ like materialist utopia (as seen in the sci-fi novels of Iain Banks I would try to maintain free will as much as possible, only intervening directly in case of an imminent existential threat.
I would create some form of afterlife probably combined with reincarnation, but as a reward and learning experience only, I’m not into the whole punishment thing. I would make death a subjectively pleasant experience for those undergoing it though it would seem just as unpleasant for outside observers, I don’t want to encourage people to start topping themselves.
Basically I would try to be a benign godlike entity.
Or
(b) I send a valid launch message to every ballistic missile submarine and silo around the world but nullify the warheads before impact, I would also teleport every warship from the smallest to the largest of every naval power to a small landlocked lake.
I would then announce my presence by simultaneously broadcasting to every television, monitor, mobile phone or other device around the world and in the appropriate local language. I would explain to humanity that I’m the one who carried out the acts above, to prove my power, and that they need to shape up and start working together for the common good. I would announce that I will only intervene directly in limited circumstances but if anyone wants to chat or needs advice they just have to ask for me through any of the aformentioned electronic devices. I would naturally have to create some cool, awe-inspiring, or just different persona for myself.
I would then sprinkle a few dimensional Gates across the world leading to the various inhabitable planets I have just created spread across the universe so humanity can express its desire to explore and expand. Some filled with other intelligent species or life-forms, others a tabula rasa for the human race to shape to its own satisfaction. Some of these Gates would have other effects as well, none fatal or unpleasant, which could only be determined by some brave person volunteering to go through them.
Basic rules would be to play nice with each other, including the other species, apart from that its up to you. Just don’t break the planet, thanks.
Bring back Firefly.
Make everyone incapable of lying or engaging in deceipt by omission or half truths. That should liven things up in Washington.
Take every atom of uranium and plutonium on earth, and transmute them into more friendly elements. (Nuclear-powered ships and submarines will be teleported safely to their home ports.)
Exactly what he’s already doing.
Pull the plug, plug it back in, and reboot.
So nothing then. You would continue to let things be broken. Got it.
Remove the genes for narcissism and socio/pcychopathy from the Human race.
Take away nearly all mental illnesses.
From now on, anyone who hits or otherwise purposefully abuses or injures a child, will immediately experience overwhelming, excruciating pain.
All those who have been severe child abusers in the past will drop dead.
Same for innocent animals
The new penalty for rape and murder is immediate death.
That oughta clean the place out nicely, and leave us with a clean slate to work with.
Next comes terraforming, and a better system of freshwater distribution. Hopefully, along with moving the rain clouds around better we can also swap some heat and cold about here and there where they are needed. I’ll leave some desert, but the majority of the land will become arable.
:: stretch :: OK, that’s enough for today.
Very small things.
Maybe I’d balance some scales that have some thumbs on them, but nothing good people who got up off their asses (like their parents & their parents before them have) couldn’t do.
First, I’d bring back my mom.
Second, I’d strike both Clinton and Trump dead with lightning during a presidential debate.
Third, I’d fuck up everyone’s cellphones so texting doesn’t work if you’re personally driving the vehicle. Because I’m magical, I’ll let your passengers continue to text so you don’t kill your whining teenagers on long car trips.
Fourth, I’d make the mosquitoes that need blood to reproduce no longer need blood to reproduce.
Fifth, anyone contemplating a murder-suicide will be strongly compelled to get the suicide part over with first.
If I get to create a whole new universe, then it’s going to operate on laws of plenitude, not laws of conservation. Bacteria – and people – could increase in numbers exponentially, without limit, as there would always be enough resources – space, energy, food, water – forever. A world without limits.
Here on this world, I’d institute a world government, empower it to address and solve problems, and, for the most part, not interfere with its decisions. The only commandment I would enforce is “Thou shalt not incinerate thyselves.” However, any region that fails to make progress against human woe is going to get shown signs of my disapproval.
(“You will be happy, if I have to smite you from now to crap Tuesday!”)
Abdicate.
(after having some fun, zapping a few choice people with lightning)
Given that I’m not currently omniscient, I think it’s safe to say that anything I currently think I would do is probably not what I would actually do.
But dunno, I could become a trickster god and just f’ with people who deserve it, like the leadership of North Korea.
Some folks ask: How could people commit genocide?
… I think threads like this show how/why.
But hm, a slightly more serious response, I’d make a pamphlet appear in front of everyone telling them that I’m God, that there’s no particular meaning in life so they may as well just accept that they’re all in the same boat and it’s up to them to figure out how to go about the experience so that it doesn’t suck. Then I’d include information about physics defying events that I would cause to occur over the course of the next few millennia, that mankind would be able to witness, occurring at a patternless, predetermined interval.
What I wouldn’t do is tell them how to live, since they’re free beings and I have no right to decide that for them.