You rule the world. You have total, absolute power. What will you do?

[bigdaddy1204]

Recently I have come to the conclusion that the only hope for a sane government in my country is by me personally taking control, and shaping things how I see fit. For this to work, I'd need absolute, unlimited powers. This got me thinking, why not share the idea? Let's imagine you have been given absolute, total control over the whole planet. What would you do? What measures would you take to put the world right?

I'll go first:

Step one: the media will be taken over. All existing newspapers will be shut down, except the ones I agree with. Publications I dislike will be either closed down completely, or placed under new management and taken in a totally different direction. All newspapers will be required to publish stories conveying the correct values. Stories that I dislike (such as those that spread ignorance, prejudice, fear and other forms of stupidity) will be banned. My preferences, values and interests will be promoted.

Step two: The public will be educated by massive information campaigns on subjects that I think are important. Bias and misinformation will be challenged and defeated. Facts will replace ignorance, as sunlight replaces darkness.

Step three: Extremist ideologies will be mercilessly hunted down and destroyed. The cancer of Wahhabism will be eliminated. ISIS will be eliminated. The Taliban will be eliminated. The Republican party in America will be eliminated. Right wing parties and groups in every country will be eliminated. Etc.

Step four: The state of Israel will be completely reformed. In its place, a united Palestine will be restored. All Palestinian refugees will be given their land back and allowed to return. All property will be returned to its rightful owners. The illegal Israeli wall will be demolished. All current and former Israeli politicians and military units will be investigated; those found guilty of war crimes will be put on trial, sentenced and punished according to the full penalty of law. Israeli people will be allowed to stay, as long as they respect equal rights for everyone, i.e the two populations become one single country with equal rights for all citizens.

Step five: The governments of nearly every country on the planet are run by incompetent fools and corrupt, self-serving swines. They will all be removed from office, placed on trial and punished, according to the full penalty of law. The same applies to former government ministers as well, especially George Bush and Tony Blair.

Step six: School education will be completely overhauled. Children everywhere will be taught the correct values: peace, tolerance and all that good stuff. They will also learn things that are actually useful for their lives; irrelevant subjects will be removed and relegated to higher education, where specialists can choose to pursue it.

Step seven: Any person who drives dangerously in a public area will immediately lose their licence.

Step eight: any person who litters will be severely punished. Litter is not acceptable people: put it in the bin!

Step nine: Popular culture is a load of horse shite. From now on, all movies, all music, all tv shows and all magazines and websites will be required to produce intelligent content with some kind of artistic merit. Movies, music, etc that I dislike will be banned. Themes and values that I like will be promoted. We'll have an end to shallow, vacuous celebrities that lack talent; proper artists will be celebrated instead.

Step ten: Free pizza for everyone!

That'll do for now! What about you? What measures would you take if you ruled the world?

[fkizz]

This is a great question, but I'm afraid of being so open online.

[Sire Brenshar]

get it going with two chicks

[pacifism]

Although any political change created without consent of the governed is wrong, I find steps 1, 2, 3, 5, 6, and 9 to be especially evil. They're all brutally violent or oppressively totalitarian, which is ironic, considering you want children to learn peace and tolerance.

I'm not personally inclined to pretend that I'm righteous enough or smart enough to solve the world's problems if I could only be given absolute power over everyone. The ego just isn't there. I would immediately dissolve my position and whatever way someone could have such power. I neither want it nor deserve it. No one does.

[chriscase]

If I had total, absolute power I'd create a rock so heavy I couldn't lift it.

[Himster]

I'd waste the Earth's depleting resources building an immortal golden plated cyborg body for myself, 10,000 feet tall, with rocket feet and a chest cannon that can destroy planets and normal sized cryogenically frozen clones of myself in my hand compartments so that when I explore other galaxies and find sexy alien ladies, I can "know them" in a biblical way. I shall drink the stars and consume the worlds Eventually I'd get bored, gather all the energy of the Universe and start a new Universe, a better Universe. A Universe where the fries at McDonalds never have too much salt on them and windscreen wipers never make that really annoying squeaking noise as they go back and forth and women don't complain so much and stamps always stick where you want them to stick, rather than one millimeter to the left or right and we can all have baby sloths as pets and Irish people don't get sun-burned so badly and English people get sub-burned just a little bit worse and Chinese food is available everywhere like water fountains, you know, fix all of the world's serious problems.

[VINC.XXIII]

Death Camps of Tolerance.

[Ludicus]

If I had total, absolute power I'd create a rock so heavy I couldn't lift it.

Averroes would be very proud of you

[Sir Adrian]

Ensure the prosperity and happiness of everyone on earth. Destroy globalism, corporatism and consumerism. Ban hate speech based doctrines like neo-nazism, communism, feminism, sjw, anti-theism.

Prepare mankind to step forward and achieve its destiny of being the only sentient species in the universe.

[chriscase]

Averroes would be very proud of you

A trivial victory, since I gave him no choice.[emoji3]

[Gallus]

You want me to reveal my plan for world domination? Never!

[conon394]

Step six: School education will be completely overhauled. Children everywhere will be taught the correct values: peace, tolerance and all that good stuff. They will also learn things that are actually useful for their lives; irrelevant subjects will be removed and relegated to higher education, where specialists can choose to pursue it.

Curious what would you consider an irrelevant topic or subject?

[bigdaddy1204]

Curious what would you consider an irrelevant topic or subject?

When I was in school, they taught all kinds of useless information, such as electron circles, sedimentary rock types, which should more properly be taught at a higher level. Yet they missed out things that were way more important such as how voting works, how to name the countries of the world on a map, how to eat healthy food, how to manage money, how to manage relationships, etc. Basically they taught a lot of irrelevant theoretical concepts that are of no use in daily life, yet they didn't teach anything at all about some of the most important issues that we all have to deal with in our lives all the time.

[Sir Adrian]

That information was not useless. The point of school is to form a well rounded individual with knowledge in all fields and to allow you to determine what you are good at so you can specialize in high-school and college.

I refuse to believe there is a school anywhere in the world which does not teach world geography, gastronomy and sexual education?

[Caelifer_1991]

1) Increase global science and space infrastructure spending by 1500%
2) Enshrine it in law that this shall continue for at least 50 years
3) Establish a series of regional scientific directorates in place of national governments
4) Censor all information related to the fact that it was me that put this into place (fame's just not my cup of tea)
5) Abdicate
6) Carry on as normal

[Dragus]

Set up a constitution (nearly non-amendable) guaranteeing some basic social freedoms and liberties, a secular government, a social-democratic keynesian capitalist economy, purge violent (only violent and currently engaged in warfare or insurrection) religious extremists from the planet, and then immediately turn power over to a representative democracy. Spend the rest of my life playing video games.

[Iskar]

Not using it, except for helping victims of any kind because it would undermine the ideals I support if I tried to force them on the rest of humanity. Spending the rest of my time trying to convince people of liberal parlamentary democracy and the rule of law so they make it happen on their own free will.

[bigdaddy1204]

Not using it, except for helping victims of any kind because it would undermine the ideals I support if I tried to force them on the rest of humanity. Spending the rest of my time trying to convince people of liberal parlamentary democracy and the rule of law so they make it happen on their own free will.

The problem with democracy is that it doesn't work. Most people aren't informed enough to make an intelligent decision about the issues. In most countries, "democracy" consists of a trashy, tv-style popularity contest between politicians who say whatever they think will be popular, regardless of how idiotic it is. The vote isn't decided on the basis of an intelligent consideration of the important issues. Instead, it is decided on the basis of ignorant appeals to emotion, prejudice, irrelevant details about politician's private lives (especially sexual) which have no place in a serious discussion.

As we saw in June with the UK Brexit referendum, many people vote for reasons which have nothing to do with the question. For example, one man said he was voting for Brexit "To keep the Muslims out". This kind of ignorant stupidity (does he even know what the EU is? Almost certainly not...) leads to bad policy, bad government, and ultimately the failure of society. Voting for Brexit was an idiotic idea, which has caused irreparable damage to the UK and to the rest of Europe. It's disastrous and represents a failure for civilisation.

Then we look at the US, and we see Donald Trump standing to become President. Here is a man who it was abundantly clear should not even have been a candidate. He said and did things that should automatically disqualify him from even entering the debate, right from the start. The fact that he got as far as he did is simply a stunning indictment of the whole rotten system. It's absurd and dangerous.

Then let's look at Turkey. The country is currently being ruled by Erdogan, a criminal thug who steals money from the people, has been caught on recording plotting to fake a war with Syria, has illegally built a palace for himself and is changing the constitution to allow himself to be president for life. This man has targeted and destroyed any and all opposition. He has shut down twitter and youtube because they were used to spread information about his crimes and corruption. Yet despite all this, a democratic majority has voted him into power. Are they mad? Are they completely insane? Do they not see? Results like that destroy one's faith in the whole democratic process.

That's why I feel that democracy is a system that doesn't work. It doesn't decide policy on the basis of facts and evidence. It decides based on whatever idiotic lies the politicians (salesmen) can sell to the uneducated, gullible public. This is no way to run a country. There has to be a better way.

[conon394]

When I was in school, they taught all kinds of useless information, such as electron circles, sedimentary rock types, which should more properly be taught at a higher level.

Well except for the interest that keeps you engaged in education and working for it might be Geology or Music etc.

Yet they missed out things that were way more important such as how voting works

Hey wait your premise eliminates the need for this one. However in my experience civics classes are the norm in the US. The problem is not not so much they are edged out by 'useless' classes time and resources and facility are allocated - its just the classes are generally not taken very seriously or connected to the working democracy in any real way. Real but minor elections in school where voting was constrained or influenced arbitrary voting voting requirements or turn out or what not not might improve that (or any other number of things).

how to name the countries of the world on a map

Trivial and most kids do cover that and then forget. I would agree that It would be nice if people could at least generally locate places and have a better understanding of important countries (to their own). Thus I would say its not all that important for a citizen of South Africa to known a lot about Isreal off the top of their head, but a US citizen should given that countries place in US politics and strategy.

how to eat healthy food

Again usually covered in Health classes starting elementary school. Here it might help if Schools had the funding to present healthy meals in various school food settings (lunch and pre-post school meal settings).

how to manage money

Again most schools do usually offer a Econ section at some point. But as above they are often not designed well well or emphasized - rather than simply not existing.

how to manage relationships

Tricky you going to step on a lot family toes.

Basically they taught a lot of irrelevant theoretical concepts that are of no use in daily life, yet they didn't teach anything at all about some of the most important issues that we all have to deal with in our lives all the time.

But you could subjectively call much of statistics, and the ability to understand risk assessment and probability and formal logic irrelevant and yet lacking a firm grounding in all leads many if not most people to often make sub optimal choices or form opinions that have no basis in facts (or understand how solid any pool of facts or valid a sample is). Similarly it is very useful to understand the differences between a parasite a, virus, and a bacteria and say a fungus and and an allergy and evolution and the concept of herd immunity and relative and absolute risk when standing in front of you doctor and demanding a antibiotic for you child's head cold, or failing to get a vaccine your child because you read some goofy anti vacc site

[Iskar]

The problem with democracy is that it doesn't work. Most people aren't informed enough to make an intelligent decision about the issues. In most countries, "democracy" consists of a trashy, tv-style popularity contest between politicians who say whatever they think will be popular, regardless of how idiotic it is. The vote isn't decided on the basis of an intelligent consideration of the important issues. Instead, it is decided on the basis of ignorant appeals to emotion, prejudice, irrelevant details about politician's private lives (especially sexual) which have no place in a serious discussion.

As we saw in June with the UK Brexit referendum, many people vote for reasons which have nothing to do with the question. For example, one man said he was voting for Brexit "To keep the Muslims out". This kind of ignorant stupidity (does he even know what the EU is? Almost certainly not...) leads to bad policy, bad government, and ultimately the failure of society. Voting for Brexit was an idiotic idea, which has caused irreparable damage to the UK and to the rest of Europe. It's disastrous and represents a failure for civilisation.

Then we look at the US, and we see Donald Trump standing to become President. Here is a man who it was abundantly clear should not even have been a candidate. He said and did things that should automatically disqualify him from even entering the debate, right from the start. The fact that he got as far as he did is simply a stunning indictment of the whole rotten system. It's absurd and dangerous.

Then let's look at Turkey. The country is currently being ruled by Erdogan, a criminal thug who steals money from the people, has been caught on recording plotting to fake a war with Syria, has illegally built a palace for himself and is changing the constitution to allow himself to be president for life. This man has targeted and destroyed any and all opposition. He has shut down twitter and youtube because they were used to spread information about his crimes and corruption. Yet despite all this, a democratic majority has voted him into power. Are they mad? Are they completely insane? Do they not see? Results like that destroy one's faith in the whole democratic process.

That's why I feel that democracy is a system that doesn't work. It doesn't decide policy on the basis of facts and evidence. It decides based on whatever idiotic lies the politicians (salesmen) can sell to the uneducated, gullible public. This is no way to run a country. There has to be a better way.

I would disagree that democracy does not work by principle, rather that a lack of education is a serious hazard to its functioning. In light of that I would revise my plans for omnipotence by including widespread education programs, although with strict observation of general neutrality, so as not to indoctrinate people.

I might add that when I say education I rather mean what is expressed by the German word "Bildung". While the former (literally from lat. e-ducere, "to lead someone somewhere") always has the connotation of being purpose-driven and function-oriented, making people into skilled workers that function in an economic system, the latter emphasises a purposeless, understanding-oriented development of the mind that is in line with Kant's "emergence from self-imposed immaturity" and makes people into conscious citizens, able to understand the world around them and critically assess political issues.