Perhaps I would choose to be the Savage of Chapter 17 who at least has some capacity for independent thought as is shown in the outcome of his interview with Mond, who advocates that modern society has changed humanity's spiritual and other needs.

Given the conditions of the New World, the best person to be is one of the World Controllers such as Mustapha Mond because he is able to read the Bible and Shakespeare and other important literary and historical works and at least vicariously share in the tragedy of life that existed before the year of Ford.  Thus, he can know the struggles of the lost world which made people truly human; he at least can learn what it means to be truly human while living under the best conditions of the New World.

I'd probably like best to be Mustapha Mond.  Basically, I just want to be someone who is going to be as happy as possible.  Helmholtz isn't happy.  Bernard definitely isn't happy.  The Savage has had a completely miserable life.  Mond, by contrast, is contented with his place in the society.  He's not rebelling in any way.

I also like Mond because he seems to have his eyes open.  He knows what he's missing in terms of culture and such and he doesn't care.  He's not just some drone following orders blindly.  Instead, he knows what he's doing and why he's doing it.  So if I actually had to go and live one of these people's lives, Mond would be the one I'd pick.

Personally, I can't imagine living in a world where everything is so conditioned and where even an intelligently critical individual such as Helmholtz Watson who likes poetry cannot help but laugh at concepts such as love and marrige. For me, therefore, I would prefer to be John, the "savage," because of the way that he remains true to what he believes and knows. I think some of the most compelling arguments in this book are made when John finally meets Mustapha Mond and they argue about the need for Shakespeare. John argues that such texts have eternal value and important significance to all mankind, whatever the age and however much they have changed. Mustapha Mond, on the other hand, argues that humanity has changed so much that such texts are just not relevant. We realise, chillingly, that the human condition itself has changed so much through conditioning and the restrictions of freedoms that humans are not actually humans in the same way as we think of the term now. John is free from this, having grown up outside of this conditioning, and thus is the one character that is essentially human. Although I wouldn't want to share his end, I wouldn't want to sacrifice my humanity either.