I mean i'd at least materialize food for starving people first, and probably snap the most hideous diseases and parasites out of existence, then fucking off into space.
Technically speaking, you fuck off into space, create the DC universe, and create "The New 52", one of the worst DC reboots in DC history...and that's saying something.
Honestly Dr.manhattan was kinda dumb. "Oh I need to stop humanity from nuking itself" meanwhile I demonstrate easy ability to travel to other planets. Meaning I coooooooould of made humanity interplanetary, which would greatly reduce the likelihood of any humanity killing apocalypse.
So I'd get human colonies on the Moon, Mars and maybe Venus. Then focus on unfucking the Earths biosphere. Then focus on eliminating world hunger and bringing a higher standard of living to all mankind.
Then I'd fuck off to space and let humanity kind figure it out knowing they proooooobably won't kill themselves anymore.
Honestly Dr.manhattan was kinda dumb. “Oh I need to stop humanity from nuking itself” meanwhile I demonstrate easy ability to travel to other planets.
Doctor Manhattan's ability to save the human race wasn't the issue. He was basically a god. It was his willingness. He didn't feel the need to stop humanity doing anything:
A live body and a dead body contain the same number of particles. Structurally, there's no discernible difference. Life and death are unquantifiable abstracts. Why should I be concerned?
They're unquantifiable to us. Manhattan had a brain the size of a planet; certainly he could have answered the riddle of "what defines life." That part bothered me.
I have no idea tmhow to quote things. But dude that last part is such a shit take. There's no structural difference between my phone as with a full charge and my phone without, why do I care, because it's fucking dead.
Do you really wanna make a species close to self annihilation multiplanetary though? It's probably pretty easy to nudge a few asteroids the wrong way given the right drive technology...so not sure space colonies would change the likelihood of doom.
I mean it wouldn't eliminate the likelihood it would just decrease it. And do I want an endangered species to become multiplanetary? Yeah kinda. We saw one of the best expansions and developments of culture and morals when there were still places to explore. Places for new cultures to form. If we can have that again given the current cultural climate, who knows what could happen.
I'd probably want to use his powers of clairvoyance and superhuman intelligence to decide on what to do next.
But with my average human intelligence, I'd materialize money so I can retire. Wait...Dr. Manhattan is immortal...yeah I'm really going to want to use the brain power thing to come up with something better.
I read a book as a kid where someone got a stone they could ask questions to and always get the right answer.
The trick was to
ask the stone what you SHOULD do to instead of a particular thing.
So yea I'd probably figure out the best way to get humanity to the point where things are pretty good. Possibly deal with corruption, set up a better governance/financial structure, etc. But they key is to figure out what to do after I get the powers, not before
Honestly, I'd recommend that anyway. He is a character from a comic book written by Alan Moore. It's a reasonably quick read and is one of my favorite examples of comic books as a literary form. It's very thoughtful for a superhero story and features one of my favorite fictional villains of all time.
Teraform Mars and Venus and do my best to setup a truly democratic post scarcity society.
I think the hard part will be creating systems to keep any one person or group from gaming the system for power and getting them to eventually become self sufficient so I don't need to babysit humanity for all eternity.
I mean, alot would need to change. I don't mean take today's society and just plop them down on Mars. But also, truly democratic. But, look at where having people making the decisions for us had gotten us.
I'm talking about a society where holding an office is a civic duty, not a job or a life time aspiration, but most matters of policy would be to a consensus, not the job of some career politician who's more concerned with their career or wealth than what's truly the best for everyone. And given this is a post scarcity society, there should be the same drive for wealth since that power dynamic shouldn't exist anymore.
For all practical purposes, you are god. Manhattan has command over matter, is immortal, can create copies of himself, can change his size at will, can see the future, and so on.
Essentially his story is about a man in an alternate timeline during the Cold War, becoming a god on accident, who then slowly grows weary of human problems and bickering the more he loses touch with his own humanity.
He could fix mankind’s every problem, but what are their problems even on a cosmic scale, how petty are they in their fights over ideology and resources? And every time he does it they want more and more from him.
First thing, I'd probably solve practical fusion power and distribute that info worldwide... make it as available as the knowledge for building a fission reactor is today. Then, I'd set out away from humanity, into space. I'd start by visiting the nearest several dozen solar systems to begin the terraforming process on a handful of planets. Once started, I'd signal back to Earth that I'd done this and that the planets would be ready for settlement in about two hundred years. I would then go on to build an Expanse type "ring space" pocket dimension with wormholes connecting all these star systems, but put the "Sol gate" to this network in orbit of Saturn. Hopefully this would limit humanity's settlement rush to some unmanned probes for the first dozen or so years, possibly only seeing manned missions in about a century, but not make it impossible that humans could spread amongst the stars using the gates. Once most of the systems wirh gates are settled, I'd return to gift the knowledge of gate building along with several dozen more star systems all with ready terraformed planets.
I would put myself into a lamp and be a genie. It would be fun to see what people wish for. It would also be fun to be like " hmmm are you sure you want that specific wish"?
Pretty sure myself with doctor Manhattan powers would be a death fest. Like i would want to make war illegal, but how would i do that? just start killing leaders who wage war. i'd also be tempted to try to 'fix' society starting with US congress and senate. lobbying would be made illegal and i'd probably have to kill some people for them to get the message. the problem is that i am just some guy who doesn't know the intricacies of the verycomplicated matter of US federal law. so i probably kill way too many people and probably a lot a good people. it is for the best i dont have this power.
Lets be real here, I wake up, realize I have powers, masturbate, switch myself to the opposite sex, masturbate, clone myself, sex myself, masturbate .... 53 vile acts later ... get out of bed, maybe give poor people a bunch of money or something
I'd probably explode every billionaire and oil exec, and everyone who works at the c-suite level and above for nestle, Walmart, Amazon, Facebook, Google, Disney, Fox, and every famous person who is largely agreed by the majority to be an asshole.
I would remove all nuclear weapons, rockets, tanks, and large weapons from the Earth. You want to war? Here's a stick, have at it.
I would then go through the prison systems, release the dissidents and political prisoners, free everyone on non-violent charges, and kill everyone there for sex crimes, murder, and who has otherwise violently earned a 20+year prison sentence.
Everyone else can serve out their time in a safe and clean environment.
Then I'd fix the atmosphere, land, and oceans, clean up all the toxic waste, all that jazz, and I would find the owners of every mining and foresting company and round them up, show them the exploded remains of the other executives ive killed, and let them know that if they polute the planet, or extract too much to the point of causing harm to the earth, that they and their families and their children and their friends and their friends families and children will end up exactly the same as musk and zuck and gates and all the rest of them.
Then I would go to every other person on the planet, remove all toxins and plastics from their bodies, skim off any excess fat, cancers, rebuild any missing organs or teeth, and make everyone as young and beautiful as they could naturally be.
I would be scared of giving everyone cancer. Probably create a suit of some sort to contain my energy so I am safe to be around. Then I’d create mad cool settlements and stuff on other planets for humans to maintain.
That image of him 100 ft tall reaching through the ceiling of Veidt's moonbase saying "I'm very disappointed in you, Adrian." is etched into my memory.
The very first thing I do is use my cosmic intellect and power to explore the limits of my knowledge and abilities, determine whether it is permanent or not, and then if I determine that it is not permanent...use my current abilities to make it permanent.
I would be very careful with how I used them, and I would be extremely mindful of my desire to help people, because my lifelong sense of personal responsibility came from a mortal’s level of power.
This is coming from someone who actually has superpowers incidentally. I’ve learned that it is very easy to misuse them, with good intentions, in a way that goes directly to shit.
Use your powers sparingly. And don’t fall into the trap of thinking you’re the only one. There are millions of us.
Everyone who has a net worth of over 500 million head explodes.
Everyone going forward who reaches that sums head explodes.
I highly recommend the surviving family do some maths as to whether accepting their share of inheritance will make their heads explode.
Maybe people correctly condemning rational self-interest greed would make a comeback if the global oligarchs were no longer the apex predator here.
Oh also I've teleported all the Israelis and Palestinianians structures, resources, and people to rural Nebraska, and irradiated the land they were formerly at. Sorry you tantruming toddlers, can't play nice, take away the toy you were fighting over.
Despite all the killing, evil, and racism both groups have displayed, neither the Israelis nor the Palestinians deserve the punishment of going to Nebraska.
In addition to the above, every human on Earth's skin color going forward is now vomit green. No one won the millenia of race wars, every race lost, it was all pointless and stupid, everyone is now the vomit green race, congratulations.