Power

Take a moment to imagine.

Imagine you are the leader of the global world with unlimited power. You are in power for however long you wish, you have access to unlimited resources. Some may support you and some may not, but your power is absolute. It may never reach a point where it’s truly threatened.

You can do anything. How will you spend your time? If all practical constraints were removed, what constraints would you impose on yourself?

This thought experiment explores the prize of power. That is, when you achieve the highest possible level of power, what do you actually do with it?

Before answering that, consider what we already know about power from some experiments:

• The Stanford Prison Experiment showed that ordinary people assigned to power roles quickly adopted authoritarian behaviors. Power changes behavior fast, even when it’s artificial.

• Milgram’s obedience studies found that 65% of participants were willing to administer what they believed were dangerous electric shocks simply because an authority figure told them to continue. People surrender moral judgment to authority, and those in authority tend to expect that surrender.

• Asch’s conformity experiments demonstrated that social pressure alone led people to give answers they knew were wrong, without any threat of punishment. Power doesn’t need force to bend reality for the people beneath it.

The throughline across all three: the situation is often more powerful than individual character. Good people are capable of harmful acts depending on context.

But these experiments studied power from below, how people respond to it. The more interesting question is what happens at the very top, when all resistance is effectively removed. That’s where this thought experiment begins.

Perhaps you’d talk to people, learn about society, and focus on making improvements. Perhaps you’d order the finest food and drink your evenings with whomever you choose. Perhaps you’d dismantle the power structure entirely because you believe no single person should hold this much. Perhaps you’d make everyone wealthy, deploy robots to handle all labor, and usher humanity into a permanent state of self-actualization. Perhaps you’d elevate religion because you’re uncomfortable being the highest figure in the room.

Maybe you enjoy holding power but have little appetite for its operational demands. So you build a team, capable and loyal leaders who handle the day-to-day running of the globe. You free yourself from the headache of operations and turn your attention toward personal passions. Or maybe you’re the opposite, the kind of person who wants to be in every room, managing directly, leading as visibly as possible.

Maybe you become obsessed with space. As leader of Earth, exploring the cosmos feels like a logical next frontier. You build educational systems, culture and resources around physics and space science. The mere possibility of a rival on another planet keeps you sharp.

Maybe you care about family, community, equality. You recognize that capitalism rewards profitability but leaves too many behind, so you use your unlimited resources and technology to ensure everyone on the planet lives well. Noble, or perhaps driven by that quiet nagging threat of a population that still doesn’t fully support you.

You’ll be given a thousand opinions from a thousand different people. Ultimately you’ll have to come to grips with what you believe and how you want to exercise what you have.

Unlimited power may actually feel powerless. With no enemy to defeat, no ceiling to break through, no obstacle demanding your attention, what exactly are you working toward? You may find yourself manufacturing threats, creating narratives, inventing problems just to have something to solve. Not out of malice, but out of necessity.

You manufacture purpose because power itself is purposeless.

This might be the most honest thing the thought experiment reveals. The prize everyone is reaching for may be empty at the center. Not because power is bad, but because humans are wired for pursuit, not arrival.

We’ve seen this in smaller doses. People who win the lottery often end up unhappy, spending through their winnings without finding what they were really looking for. The resource changed. The person didn’t. Or couldn’t.

Now step back into your own, less powerful shoes.

What’s the difference between that version of you and the version reading this? Would you behave much differently with unlimited power, or would your existing habits, values and tendencies simply get amplified? Would you become more yourself, or would the situation reshape you?

Maybe it all comes back to our character. To what you value and how you want to spend your time. Expanding knowledge. Building family and community. Sitting with the possibility that life may not have a fixed purpose, which makes the search for personal meaning all the more important. Leading with empathy while accepting imperfection in yourself and others.

The fundamentals of humanity feel like a sound foundation, whether you’re running the globe or just your own life.

What would you do…?