What would you do if money were literally no object

In My Humble Opinion
101

If my generous funding into magic space drives pays off and results in tech that can push a hundred-ton vessel at 1g indefinitely, I should be able to safely explore the solar system in style and comfort in a matter of weeks. I’ll personally plant “first footprints” on every solid round body in the solar system with the possible exception of Venus. I’ll get my name into the history books dozens of times, precluding anybody else from being the official first person to set foot on those worlds. Later explorers will have to settle for smaller bodies most people never learn the names of.

Maybe I’ll also be among the first people to visit another star system, but even at 1g constant acceleration that trip will take years of my lifespan, even taking into account relativistic time dilation.

102

I’ve done a similar thought experiment on this board a couple of years ago, “what if you had one billion dollars” and I see this thread may fall into a similar trap: many answers that don’t require a lot of money, or wishes that couldn’t come true even even with all the money in the world. For instance, why hasn’t Bill Gates already solved world hunger? Not for lack of money or trying.

So, the most interesting answers to me are those that stay inside these constraints, i.e. they take a LOT of money (and I mean, a lot ) and can also be accomplished. Owning something, sure. Supporting a cause? I guess that fits too, although you can’t be sure of the outcome.

103

*I’d hire a chef and a chauffeur and a chambermaid and my very own MD and attorney.
*Get a lot more tattoos.
*Take more and better dope.
*Have many exotic pets.
*Spoil those pets rotten.
*Go to lots of plays, concerts, circuses, and and carnivals.
*Get a real cushy private space at Oracle Pak and seasons tickets for the Giants.
*Travel luxuriously, adventurously, and extensively.
*Become a patron of weird inscrutable modern arts, especially poetry.
*Donate startling sums of money to libraries, arts organizations, occult groups, and animal welfare charities.
*Light a cigarette or a joint whenever and wherever I wished, and, if there were objections, tell the management “Go ahead and call the cops, I’m so rich you wouldn’t believe it, and I’d rather just smoke and pay a misdemeanor ticket than I would not smoke.”
*One night a week I’d take a dozen different homeless and street people, the raggedier and hungrier and dirtier the better, to dinner at a very fancy exclusive restaurant. The whole plate, with wine and everything.
*The rest of the week I’d pass out c-notes to every panhandler I encountered.

104

And a house cat the size of an elephant, of course.

OK, that might be a bit much - you’d never be able to read a book or use a computer again, and I’d hate to be the one to clean THAT litterbox.

But one the size of a full-grown Siberian tiger, but with the nature of the sweetest marmalade kitty you’ve ever known - that, I could handle.

Actually, if it comes down to it, anyone remember the experiment with breeding foxes into domesticated animals? I would fund something that preserved tiger (and other rare cat) habitats, to bring them away from the brink of extinction, while simultaneously selecting some of those animals for domesticability (is that even a word?). 10 or 15 generations might well yield something that could do as a housepet for an experienced owner.

Then of course I’d need to have a big enough country estate to let Mister Fluffikins and Mrs Mittenpaws wander around, with enough mature trees to serve as scratching posts. Only solid hardwood furniture inside, of course, and the house would need to have inside balconies / shelving to serve as tiger-safe lurking spots, ideally some place where someone’s head wouldn’t inadvertently come within reach - even sweet cats get playful, and a paw the size of a dinner plate might cause some real harm.

Of course, a cat’s purr is just about the best part of having a cat. Lions and tigers don’t purr, while cheetahs and cougars can. So, unless Tigger can be generically engineered to be able to purr, my own preference might be for the cheetah or cougar.

Mustn’t forget a real, safe, permanent cure for cat allergies - that’s a requirement. Hell, I’d spring for that even without the domesticated big cats.

A tiny elephant would be pretty cool - but we’d need to be careful of excessive downsizing and health effects (e.g. those “teacup” dogs and so on, and breeds that cannot reproduce without medical help). If a golden-retriever-size was the smallest we could get and have a healthy elephant, that’d be OK.

105

Oooh - especially apropos given Musk’s demise is helping to fund this: Really, really, REALLY reliable self-driving vehicles - and enough of them in service that you don’t need to own your own car. Our car goes days between uses, and for that, we’re paying 600+ a month in payments + plus taxes + insurance. If we could call for a vehicle when we needed it, and they were affordable enough, we could get by with just a car when we needed it.

Even if we owned our own, the ability to go on a long trip, without worrying about staying awake, would be fantastic. Hell, make the cars long enough that every car has space for you to stretch out in full and sleep soundly.

Along with this, of course, would be enormous-capacity batteries so the car could go a thousand miles on a “top off” (assuming they’re electric).

Sufficient public transportation to serve almost everyone in the country / world. Both my kids live (or have lived) in small towns where, if you don’t have a vehicle of your own, you might literally have no way to get out of town even if the town itself is walkable. Those self-driving cars might help, along with some sort of algorithm in place to make sure they don’t all wind up clustered in big cities.

Re helping the world:

  • Free solar panels for every house / building in the developed world.
  • Free solar arrays, windmills and satellite communication for towns in the developing world.
  • Energy-efficient desalinization plants on every coast, pipes to get the water where it needs to go, and waste treatment facilities everywhere they are needed.
106

Or, even better, release all the demons in hell…

107

Build preserves for all rhinos in Africa and staff them with well armed robots and robotic killer dogs

108

The company that has fiber optic in my county is disliked by one and all and for good reason.

I would run fiber throughout their entire service area and sell Internet at break even prices just to make them lose money.

109

I would arm and train as many African Americans as in Florida as possible in stand your ground laws and set up a legal defense fund for any African American who shot a white person in self defense. America would have gun control by the end of the week.

110

Congratulations. You just triggered an apocalypse level race war.

111

In general, I’d be cautious of ostentation and unintended consequences. I would mentally knock at least three or four zeroes off the amount and consider that to be my available money; the rest would be mostly given to charities and some locked into investments. I’d buy a much nicer house on lots of land and a large English-style library, lots of high-end electronics, a couple of electric vehicles, and not much more.

Example of wise spending:
When Bill Gates was still at Microsoft, the story was that his daily driver was a Lexus – a nice car, but nothing ostentatious.

Example of stupid spending:
I don’t remember the details, but when Jordan Belfort (“the wolf of Wall Street”) started making obscene amounts of money, he bought the most exotic Italian sports car he could find. Not content with that, he had some customization place outfit it with James Bond type devices at enormous cost, with the end result that the car was completely impractical and barely driveable. It may have been this same car that he almost completely wrecked when totally zonked on Quaaludes. Various object lessons there for the unwary.

OK, there is one huge extravagance I might allow myself. I love airplanes and if money were literally no object, I’d consider buying a personal jet like a Bombardier Global Express or an extended-range 737, and having a rotation of flight crew always on standby.

ETA: OK, there’s more (isn’t there always, when it comes to greed? :grinning_face_with_smiling_eyes: ) I must admit that on the several occasions when I’ve visited a local winery that happens to have a very fine and picturesque restaurant overlooking the vineyards, offering multi-course tasting menus with matching wines for each course, I’ve first fantasized about having enough money to hire away the chef(s). And then I have a better idea: leave them where they are, and buy the entire winery! And since I don’t need the restaurant revenue, close it and make it a private dining room for me and my friends! Also, add a first-rate sushi chef and sushi bar to the place. Unusual for a winery, but who cares, I’m rich! Besides, sushi and sashimi go very well with many dry white wines.

112

So black America finally fighting back is a bad thing? That proves my point that America’s gun culture is racist.

113

Perhaps this topic might be better in a new thread. Just my opinion.

114

What you described wasn’t fighting back, but an encouragement to engage in racial violence against whites.

Have you ever heard of Roy Innis, for years the national chairman of CORE (Congress on Racial Equality)? I first heard of him in a speech that was broadcast on CSPAN years ago. He made a very good case for the need for blacks to arm themselves to protect themselves from criminals regardless of the race of those criminals rather than depend on the police for protection.

Like it or not, the greatest number of predators of blacks in this country are other blacks. Jessie Jackson clearly recognized this with his "There is nothing more painful to me at this stage in my life than to walk down the street and hear footsteps… then turn around and see somebody white and feel relieved.”

Your approach would likely create more problems and solve nothing. Many people who have little or no understanding of the laws think that the stand your ground laws gives them all kinds of rights. Unfortunately, we don’t often hold people responsible for their abuses of it.

Look at the case of Raul Rodriguez in Texas when he shot a neighbor. He was a thug who tried to intimidate people and thought that he could create a “stand your ground” claim in order to kill the public schoolteacher who he shot. What really got Rodriguez was that he recorded the whole thing and the jury could see what was happening.

Look at the case of John McNeil who shot and killed a homebuilder in what I thought was a clear case of self defense when the homebuilder threatened McNeil’s son and then came at McNeil. Part of the issue, I understand, was that McNeil had come home when his son called and armed himself for the confrontation. That, I guess, meant that it wasn’t self defense.

Arm the honest, law-abiding blacks (the silent majority among blacks, I think) and teach them enough law to try to keep them from trouble. Let them defend themselves against the thugs regardless of their race.

Don’t teach people to be vigilantes.

115

If money was no object I would live pretty much the way I live now. Although I would have someone do my grocery shopping for me. Ugh, hate grocery shopping.

However, I would put my infinite billions into several areas.

  1. Empowering women. Universal worldwide birth control, access to good jobs, medical care, free day care, and all the money needed for any woman to run for any political office. This would take care of overpopulation in two generations.

  2. Complete divestment worldwide from the use of non-renewables. That includes all uses, not just fuel.

  3. Buying up all the land possible west of the Mississippi and putting it into biodiversity reserves. The only people who can live there are tribes native to those areas and/or the reserve managers. Similar programs in other countries.

116

I agree and won’t discuss further.

117

I saw a documentary (Man on Wire) about the French high wire guy who walked between the two trade centers. I think the gap between the two was 200 feet. They managed to get the line up by first shooting an arrow (with monofilament attached) between the two. However, IIRC, they had to change how it was spooled so it would release quickly and easily. Then they tied the monofilament to a thicker cord (lather and repeat) until they got the cable across.

118

Fund a PBS mega-series on evolution - a serious study of what it is, where it came from, how it affects us, and the latest thinking. Every false claim from the usual suspects would be run down and stomped into the earth.

Fund another PBS series on the order of “The owners manual for your body.” Too many people are ignorant of how to take care of themselves.

Start a company that brings a package of internet/telephone/cable TV to people for a flat cheap rate. About $30 a month seems right. No surprises for equipment surcharges. No surprises for data overages. No introductory rates that surge after the first year - although there might be a free trial for a month or two.

119

Looks like I’m going to find out soon.

Attention: Sir / madam,

I am contacting you to lay claims to the sum of $35million as the next
of kin to the late depositor that shares same family name with you.

Upon your response I would share more details with you.

Thank you.

Yours truly, [redacted in case he stole someone else’s name]

Me: I’d like to hear more, please.

Attention:

REF; FUNDS CLAIM REQUEST.

I acknowledge receipt of your mail and its content is noted.

I write in respect of the above subject matter. My name is [redacted in case he stole someone else’s name]; I am the Storage Manager of Transcontinental Financial Services located in the United Arab Emirates. The company specializes in the covet safe keep of funds, precious stones and metals for high net worth individuals all over the world. We are a covet organization with diplomatic immunity.

A Nationale of your country who used to work with Capresa -Calibrados de Precision SA {CCDP} a Steel processing company in Spain deposited 2 trunk boxes marked family treasure with us for safe keep on the 19th of February 2004. However, nothing has been heard from the depositor since the deposit was made.

After several efforts and inquiries were made to locate the customer or any of his close relatives, we discovered that the depositor, his wife and their three children were involved in a ghastly Train Bomb blast along Atocha Train Center in Madrid that killed 191 people and 1,800 people were confirmed injured.

Unfortunately, the depositor and his family were confirmed dead in the accident. You can view this page for more information;{2004 Madrid train bombings - Wikipedia

Subsequently, I decided to conduct a search using his last name over the Internet, to locate any member of his family tree who will be willing to come forward to claim the deposited trunk boxes hence my reason for contacting you.
I have confirmed with the aid of a special scanner that the contents of the trunk boxes is money estimated to be around US$35m. I am contacting you to enable you lay claims to the boxes as Next of Kin to the depositor. This is because the organization is prepared to conduct an audit of unclaimed deposited items in readiness for forfeiture procedures to be initiated on them and that would mean the funds will be forfeited to the Government.

To this end, I had a discussion with a few of my colleagues and we are ready to work with you thus as to enable you have easy claims to the deposited items so that we all can benefit from this largesse. We have agreed to share the proceeds with you as it may be acceptable to you.

Furthermore, there are obligations between the beneficiary and the organization that needs to be fulfilled by the beneficiary and you will be obliged to take care of the other aspects as required from the beneficiary directly.

All that is required at this stage is your cooperation to enable us proceed with this mutually beneficial transaction.

I guarantee that this will be executed under legitimate arrangement that will protect you from any breach of the law.

Truly yours, [redacted in case he stole someone else’s name]

Me:Tell me more, please.

Eagerly awaiting how much of an advance fee I’ll need to pay for untold nonexistent riches.

120

I receive several of these every day.

For a while, I experimented with sending back a “canned” response to them that told them that in order for e-mail sent to that address to be delivered to the mailbox, it must be encrypted with my public PGP key which was enclosed as an attachment. I never received a PGP encrypted reply. I never did decide if this was a total failure or a total success.

I’m still waiting for someone to offer me a billion dollars in one grand prize. I have had at least a couple of offers of $100 million or more, though.

To keep this on topic, if I were younger and money was no object, I’d probably buy cattle ranches in the western US. I am getting too old to do that now. Still, one good cattle ranch would be nice.