If you were Lex Luthor

[llozymandias]

I'm talking pre-coie. Where Lex was pretty much the smartest in the universe. I am asking what you would do if you had that level of super-intelligence/super-genius. If the only real limiting factors regarding what you can do are your imagination, determination, & conscience. Other than having seemingly unlimited genius, you are still the same person you are now. Imagine that either something happened that gave you that intellect. Or you find out that you actually had that intellect all along. It's just that something (or someone) caused that intellect to be suppressed, until now. What do you do now?

[Vordan]

Make a crapload of money. After that try to reverse climate change or start building a space ship because it’s going to get nasty.

[DochaDocha]

A lot of people like to joke that social media corporations have pulled off a great Post-Crisis Luthorian scheme on the whole world. Lex Luthor isn't the greatest villain Jesse Eisenberg portrayed on screen...

But if it's Pre-Crisis Luthor? I guess I would use Luthor's genius to try to fix climate change and solve the growing energy crisis. Maybe I'd also use Luthor's smarts to bust a lot of crooks who annoy me, like online scam artists of all types (Nigerian princes, ransomware, etc.). A lot of stories have commented that an elected Luthor could eliminate things like poverty and crime, but I think that might be the biggest fiction about Luthor ever written.

[AnakinFlair]

Run for President.

[phonogram12]

After attaining a crap load of money and influence, I'd make life as equitable for everybody as humanly possible.

[JennyL]

Find a cure for aging, cancer, and heart disease. With an extended life I could move on to other problems : )

If I was feeling nice, I would do everything in my power to reduce the price of the treatments for these health related problems.

If I was feeling evil, I would make it so no one but me knows how the treatments work, and would utilize the price insensitivity of medicine to accumulate a lot wealth/power....but that's pretty damn evil.

[witchboy]

What a great question!
Taking it all the way back to the beginning, I'd understand that losing my hair was an accident brought about by my own doing and continue to be Superboy's friend.
I'd devote my life to helping others. Cure diseases, fix the environment, expose corruption. Work towards making the world the best possible place for everyone. Keep enough money for a comfortable living but I wouldn't be trying to get super rich off my inventions. An altruistic Luthor could make the world a paradise.

[manwhohaseverything]

What a great question!
Taking it all the way back to the beginning, I'd understand that losing my hair was an accident brought about by my own doing and continue to be Superboy's friend.
I'd devote my life to helping others. Cure diseases, fix the environment, expose corruption. Work towards making the world the best possible place for everyone. Keep enough money for a comfortable living but I wouldn't be trying to get super rich off my inventions. An altruistic Luthor could make the world a paradise.

Essentially, becoming superman? Altruism is boring.Selfishness is awesome.If i were lex, i would go after batman. Now, that would be a challenge and could potentially be intellectual challenge (if bruces intelligence isn't overly exaggerated).The farmboy that's been called "super" man is no opponent for me. He is beneath my prowess in everyway.

[llozymandias]

I would do many things. I would cure as many diseases as possible. Build the largest fortune known to man. Explore the multiverse. Help humanity expand to many planets around the universe. And many other things.

[witchboy]

Essentially, becoming superman? Altruism is boring.Selfishness is awesome.If i were lex, i would go after batman. Now, that would be a challenge and could potentially be intellectual challenge (if bruces intelligence isn't overly exaggerated).The farmboy that's been called "super" man is no opponent for me. He is beneath my prowess in everyway.

I wouldn't necessarily see giving myself powers and becoming a super hero as a high priority. As much as I would enjoy that, the world already has Superman.

[Adekis]

The way Superman always saw it, Luthor could have been greater than he was, if he only bothered to try.

So I'd do the thing that Luthor was always too scared to do, lest he failed to measure up: I'd try to make the world a better place. Fix the broken capitalist economic system that rewards cruelty and selfishness, cure diseases, and just generally try to create a more just, equitable world. And in so doing, potentially unseat Superman as the 20th century's greatest hero. Superman has never managed to cure cancer, but Luthor has. And if Superman is still remembered more fondly than Luthor, well frankly, fine with me. That's Luthor's hang-up, not mine.

[llozymandias]

What a great question!
Taking it all the way back to the beginning, I'd understand that losing my hair was an accident brought about by my own doing and continue to be Superboy's friend.
I'd devote my life to helping others. Cure diseases, fix the environment, expose corruption. Work towards making the world the best possible place for everyone. Keep enough money for a comfortable living but I wouldn't be trying to get super rich off my inventions. An altruistic Luthor could make the world a paradise.

Obviously you did not read what i wrote. I am not asking what you would do if you were Lex in the comics. But if you had his super-intelligence/super-genius in the real world.

[Vakanai]

Replace social media platforms with ones even more popular but algorithmed to get rid of the hate, bias, echo chambers, and nutty conspiracy theories.

Fix climate change.

Make liberalism vastly more popular than conservatism.

Cure cancer.

Create Superman.

Also, I'd like to argue that post-Crisis Lex has often been just as smart a scientist. Just that post-Crisis science is a little less crazy out there than pre-Crisis science, usually.