There is an episode of the Twilight Zone called the Little People where a couple astronauts get stranded on a distant planet and while repairing their ship, they stumble upon a tiny civilization of intelligent, flea-sized people who are at least sophisticated enough to build houses, boats, trucks, cities. They appear to be identical to humans in all aspects except their size.
Still from episode:
As you can picture, what happens next is an alien version of Conrad’s Heart of Darkness. One of the astronauts decides he’s going to be their god and begins to dominate the little people through fear and cruelty, based on no godly qualities except the advantage of having evolved to be massively bigger than them. It was a cool episode.
Anyway, what’s interesting (at least to me) is that I don’t think I’d act very differently from that guy in his circumstance. If I somehow came across a planet (or better yet, an island) of tiny little people that were the size of fleas or smaller to me, I could see myself immediately taking advantage of the fact that I would be a a giant to them. I would love the chance to be revered (and even feared) as a god. Furthermore the chance to have total control over the development of an entire society would greatly appeal to me. Why let them have self-determination if through sheer force, I could make them engineer their society in my own image?
In spite of what I’d do in the above situation, I wouldn’t consider myself to be an evil or bad guy. Far from it actually. I’m generally considered to be an all-around great guy by friends and coworkers. I volunteer as an EMT and coach track for no pay. And besides the fact that I have no problem stepping on bugs (which I'll admit to doing often), I'm great with animals.
How would you behave when in a situation where you gain absolute power over others? Would you be kind or cruel? Or would you walk away from the situation? Try to stay respectful of one another!