ClockworkPenguin said:
Good grief no. That sounds like a pain in the ass, can you imagine how difficult that would be? I'd have no time left to do any Mad Science.
There's a Baron Wulfenbach you might want to talk to...
*Shameless Girl Genius plug*
To Op: No. Hell no. I mean, the job would require huge amounts of micro-managing, since I'd have to work around the clock either giving attention to the little guys or finding someone to do it for me. And if I pawn all the details off on advisors, then it becomes a question of making sure they aren't corrupt/cruel/planning to kill me. There's also the mater of subjective morality and cultural relativism - if I try to make things "better" for others, that brings up the question of what "better" is and do I only think it's better for them because I personally enjoy it or because it's actually better. And assuming I genuinely am improving lives for the better, someone somewhere - perhaps even a lot of someones somewhere - are gonna be pissy about that and try to take me out, or rebel, or something. Not to mention there's a LOT of potential for error here, and a lot of people who will be effected if it goes wrong. If, say Canada screws something up in how it conducts it's government, well, the only people who have to really worry about that are Canadians. But if Canada ruled the whole world? ...Well, in addition to being commendably polite, the world would be pretty screwed if Canada, say, converted to communism, or became a corrupt state, suffered a massive economic failure.
So, it'd probably end up with me hating life but slogging through it out of the obligation I have to the seven billion people depending on me, all of whom live in a homogenized "culture" of an autocratic state where the citizenship is probably cowed into obeying with fear and weaponry after that one country rebelled because they decided they didn't like my economic model or whatever. And this is assuming the power doesn't go to my head, or that I get assassinated right off and the power goes to my successor's head. Or the position of "world leader" is so coveted that the new one is usurped only for their usurper to soon be usurped, and their usurper to usurped, perpetually, on and on in a constant state of coup and counter-coup like that one episode of Futurama with the water aliens. It's just... that's putting an awful lot of eggs in one basket.
EDIT: ... A lot of posts in here seem to be thinking about what they would do if they had complete autocratic control over America/The Western World rather than the world in it's entirety. I mean, a lot of these norms people would implement, while they sound like good things to us, would piss off a lot of people who don't share the same history and cultural background as you. I'm not even talking about the "Reform social laws to stop discrimination," more the posts that talk about how they'd try to debunk or inhibit religious practices and groups or people who believe in the supernatural. To Western audiences, saying "I'd stop stupid mediums from scamming people out of their money" seems like a good idea. To someone who's culture heavily revolves around such things, though... that'd be quite a big change. Perhaps too big a change.
Try to keep that in mind, if there are any future supreme rulers in here. Not everyone thinks and believes as you do, and that's not always a bad thing.