If you had a billion dollars: What are some truly bizarre or weird or eccentric things you would do?

[Idle_Thoughts]

I would buy the Chicago reader and straightdope message board with it.

I would keep the staff the same, but with a difference that moderator and admin jobs are now a paid position, $50 a day. So if we ever needed more moderators, I like to think there would be no shortage of people who would sign up.

The staff we have right now would stay the same, provided they wanted to stay on, I would give them priority in keeping their jobs if they wanted it, this time being paid for it, but if they wanted to retire or leave, that’s okay too.

The rules I would keep the same kind of for the most part… 98% of the rules would be kept the same but I would change a couple of them.

The first thing is…I would unban everyone. Unban everyone from the beginning of time. Everybody gets a second chance, it doesn’t matter what you did, you get a second chance. This does not save you from being banned again, however. But if you can behave, you are unbanned.

I would also lift the rule about sock puppets…sock puppets would be okay as long as they are not abused, but by the same token, I have the right to ban anyone for no reason if I think they are abusing another account.

And lastly, I would make it so posters got paid too, just for posting. For every post you make, you get a dollar. $1 a post. But I would have a hardcore rule in place (basically the same that it is now) that made post padding parties not allowed. The game room would still be allowed, thread games would count toward the money, it might get people being more interested in them. I also feel that it would obviously also bring about a lot of new members who are interested in making money just for making posts.

And that’s pretty much it. That’s the only thing I can think of offhand, immediately, that I would do. It’s probably pretty weird in itself .

[Whack-a-Mole]

@Idle_Thoughts

And lastly, I would make it so posters got paid too, just for posting. For every post you make, you get a dollar. $1 a post. But I would have a hardcore rule in place (basically the same that it is now) that made post padding parties not allowed. The game room would still be allowed, thread games would count toward the money, it might get people being more interested in them. I also feel that it would obviously also bring about a lot of new members who are interested in making money just for making posts.

While a nice idea I am pretty sure this would get severely abused very, very quickly.

AI bots would spam the board in no time. It’d become a game of Whack-a-Mole (heh)

[Lumpy]

If I was going to build a spooky retreat, I would place it near Lake Maracaibo in Venezuela, reportedly one of the stormiest, most lightning prone places on Earth.

[ParallelLines]

Aha, found another of the historical threads I was thinking of:

What would you do if money were literally no object

So Bezos, Gates, Musk, Zuckergerg and Buffett, all died in a misaligned ride on the new space-X capsule and are now on their way to pluto, surprisingly they left you as their sole heir. After doing the usual benevolent things of solving world hunger eliminating disease and cleaning up the planet, you still have a pretty sizable chunk of change and its time to treat yourself. What do you do? To give you the sort of idea of the degree of seriousness consideration I expect in this thread I off…

Bonus points for consistency, such as @Lumpy’s Mjolnir and @Moriarty’s love of expensive watches and travel sized elephants.

In terms of bizarre from that one, I had to mention @Elmer_J.Fudd’s apparently heartfelt but quite random mention:

What would you do if money were literally no object

I changed my mind. I’d buy controlling stock in Kellogg’s and make them bring back Dutch Apple Pop-Tarts.

[Elmer_J.Fudd]

Alas, $1 billion won’t buy me controlling interest in a $30 billion company.

[ParallelLines]

But I’m sure it’s enough to persuade them!

Or at least buy a production run or three.

[GuanoLad]

I don’t like the idea that even a billion dollars is not enough for something. It didn’t seem that long ago that being a billionaire was an impossibility. Now we are overwhelmed by them and multi-billion dollar deals are the new normal.

[scudsucker]

I have had an idea for a long time.

I would like to build a steam engine vehicle. Quite small, let’s say the size of the original Austin/Morris Mini. The back whould have wheels for steering. The front, however would have four legs and feet, encased in hugely oversize cartoon pirate style boots, and a mechanism that allows them to alternate at a smooth pace, keeping stability.

I would drive it around music festivals, making food for sale with the assistance of the engine’s fire bunker, and trying not to drink so much I crash it.

Alternatively, or, in addition, I would like to build a small tank. A replica of a Chieftain style MBT, but seriously scaled down. I would gather a team of similarly mad people and build it in such a way, using my programming skills, that it always follows me at a short distance (object recognition is now quite mainstream) and at my command (probably a hand gesture) it will fire an ice cold beer from its “ammo box” in a predictable arc so I can catch it, and keep walking.

Again, for music festivals and Burning Man style events.

[Yllaria]

It’s late. All I can think of now is sponsoring pothole repair and road maintenance as long as the fill or overlay material is dark purple.

Maybe tomorrow I’ll do better.

[ParallelLines]

@GuanoLad

I don’t like the idea that even a billion dollars is not enough for something. It didn’t seem that long ago that being a billionaire was an impossibility.

Yeah, but all the way back to the OP, most of those “billionaires” and companies worth billions are on paper. If they tried to liquidate their assets, stop covering their debt, or otherwise transform them into the billion in cash assets that the OP is giving you, they’d be worth a lot less. After all, those numbers include manufacturing lines, property, values on “intellectual property”…

Sure given time, motivation, and effort, they could realize their billions. Some of them. Maybe. Of course, that would also expose their books…

Looking at Musk and his much elevated values, though he’s not the only one in such standing. Just probably the most obvious example if people stopped “believing” his hype and took a good hard look.

[wolfpup]

@Past_Paper

The first one’s good, the last two there are pretty standard rich-person stuff, let’s try to stick to the odd-ball shall we?

I acknowledge that buying rare old books is boring rich-person stuff and I shouldn’t have mentioned it. Shame on me! However, I do think that the idea of a billionaire buying a used sailboat because he’s infatuated with the manufacturer is somewhat unique, and sailing it with several dogs (randomly selected from my life passion, running the world’s largest dog rescue center) is pretty cool.

Also, I’d train the dogs to steer the boat and how to come about when tacking while I went below and fixed myself a Caesar or three. Ridiculous, you say? You haven’t seen some of the dog acts on “America’s Got Talent”! I bet that my dogs could maintain a steady course better than most landlubber humans!

[TokyoBayer]

@Czarcasm

4. Donate a couple of hundred million to Radical Women.

How is that truly weird, bizarre, or mind-blowingly eccentric?

[Filbert]

I once went to a backpackers run by a guy who used to be the chef at a Michelin starred restaurant- one day a week, he cooked an evening meal for everyone staying there. You just had to sign up earlier in the day, and pay a token gesture, something like $3. Fresh fish, caught from his boat that morning, homegrown vegetables from the garden, incredible food and he got the backpackers to do the boring peeling and washing up.

Watching the face of the German backpacker couple who had said ‘No, it’s fine, we brought our own food’ when asked if they wanted to join as they brought their instant noodles out of the backpacker kitchen and realised what they’d turned down was just the icing on the cake.

My eccentric thing with the money would be to fund a plant breeding program looking at loads of unusual, forgotten or just plain weird crops from around the world. See what can be made bigger or tastier, and I get to try them all.

[MrDibble]

Airship restaurant. A Zeppelin-sized and dieselpunk-styled vessel with a Modernist cuisine menu.

[TokyoBayer]

@wolfpup

However, I do think that the idea of a billionaire buying a used sailboat because he’s infatuated with the manufacturer is somewhat unique, and sailing it with several dogs (randomly selected from my life passion, running the world’s largest dog rescue center) is pretty cool.

That seems extraordinarily common among collectors. If they want a particular item, buying used if a new one isn’t available is normal. I saw that with watch collectors a lot.

Maybe having a hand made, over-engineered replica made to impossible standards would qualify.

I asked ChatGPT to see how to make fiberglass products more expensive. It has some suggestions, and here is one.

CNC Machining: To achieve insane precision, you must abandon hand-carved plugs. Instead, pay a shop to use a 5-axis CNC machine to carve the master plug out of solid blocks of aluminum, high-density tooling board, or industrial urethane foam.

My contribution is to raise the Imperial Japanese Navy’s giant battleship, Musashi, (sister ship to Yamato) and have a modern replica built to precisely duplicate everything, and make it fully functioning.

Oh, except that that would likely cost more than $1 billion, so I’d pick a smaller ship.

[wolfpup]

@TokyoBayer

Maybe having a hand made, over-engineered replica made to impossible standards would qualify.

I asked ChatGPT to see how to make fiberglass products more expensive. It has some suggestions

Interestingly, a friend of mine back in my youth embarked on a project to make a 32-foot fiberglass sailboat that was closely modeled on a C&C 32. I don’t know where he got the plans, and it was an enormous amount of work and expense, including the rental of a huge workspace. It took several years – a true labour of love – but by golly, he did it. The entire fiberglass hull was molded from scratch, and the interior custom fitted. I sailed on it and it was a beautiful boat that looked somewhat like the C&C in this picture:

So that’s one solution that a billionaire could indulge in – throw around enough money to get the plans and hire some grunts who know what they’re doing to build a replica for you!

[Dung_Beetle]

Sounds lovely. Maybe a spot for a vacation home.

[SCAdian]

Build a house styled like a Roman villa. Attached to the north side would be a full-sized copy of the Mafra Palace library; along the south side would be a copy of the Canopus and Serapeum at Hadrian’s villa (but with a lawn, flower beds and a kitchen garden instead of the big pool). There would, of course, be a large wine cellar, and a three-car (sedan, estate wagon and SUV) garage.

Hire a butler, a chauffeur, a pair of chefs, a housekeeper, two or three gardeners, and a small horde of maids. (Am I missing anyone important there?) Build a string of small cottages for them to live in, instead of the traditional attic rooms.

Don’t be absurd – of course I don’t think small.

(On the other hand, be a bsurd – the world needs more bsurds!)

[Little_Nemo]

With the name Nemo you have to ask?

I want a submarine yacht.

[ricepad]

@Filbert

I once went to a backpackers run by a guy who used to be the chef at a Michelin starred restaurant- one day a week, he cooked an evening meal for everyone staying there. You just had to sign up earlier in the day, and pay a token gesture, something like $3. Fresh fish, caught from his boat that morning, homegrown vegetables from the garden, incredible food and he got the backpackers to do the boring peeling and washing up.

That sounds perfect!