Everything would be in trusts of some sort long before I died. I don’t have a high opinion of a lot of trust fund people, but unlike a lot of folks I have nothing against keeping the wealth in my family. If it’s my money, my choice, and I’d like to create and perpetuate multigenerational wealth if I have the chance. I would be very generous with charitable causes and attempt to grow the wealth as much as possible to keep that going as well.
Awesome post/username combo. 
The default is all to wife. Should she predecease, however…then things get fun, because there would no longer be a governor on my whims.
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A couple of local universities would get $100 million donations, with the provisio that they have to name the Maintenance Building after me.
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$500 million or so would go to endow antithesis chairs at schools I don’t like. Like offer Brigham Young $100 million to endow a Chair of Atheist Studies.
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$500 million would go to a foundation dedicated to the complete destruction of the NRA and every organization like it.
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A couple million to the ASPCA.
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The rest goes to fund Planned Parenthood.
Same as now; my wife if she is still around and a couple cousins if not. About the only difference is that said cousins would actually have a reason to off my wife and me. Something creative I would hope. 
There’s a character in a Zelazny story whose trust only pays for college and stops paying when he gets a college degree, so he’s still in college at 35 or so, valiantly changing majors before he gets enough credits to graduate.
My family has pretty much no respect for higher education, so I’d create a trust like that - the only people getting anything would go to college full time, and if they and their descendants wanted to do that their entire lives, I’d be fine with it.
I would have to work out the percentages, but a hell of a lot to my wife, assuming I go first. Some to the local Human Society. I would like to start scholarships for degree programs that normally get scoffed at – for example, 19th-century French literature. I mean a major scholarship, enough to live on and study for the full four years. In case the wife goes first, that would leave more for all that other.
Of course, if the wife went first, I doubt I’d have any left. I’d probably spend most of it on hookers and beer, then waste the rest.
It goes to my wife, and when she goes, or if she predeceases me:
Both my kids get their educations fully-funded, nice houses, cars, start-up capital for businesses, money for a little world travel etc. A few million apiece.
My friends get some handpicked things, not money. A rare first edition for the bibliophile, a new kiln for the potter, etc. Again, that should only take a few million.
The rest goes directly to the Bill&Melinda Gates Foundation.
I actually went to college with someone who had one of those trusts; tuition, books, and living expense that amounted to what several of us who worked made combined. The last I knew him he was 27 and the big job twice a year was finding 4 courses he could take, pass, and still fail to graduate. :smack:
200 mill each to wife and son, and the rest divided between Radical Women and various Cacophony Societies around the country.
Instructions to my legal team to convert all assets to cash. I’m taking it all with me.
I knew someone was going to go there. 
Here too. Reminds me of a joke.
A lawyer, a used car salesman and a banker were gathered by a coffin containing the body of an old friend. In his grief, one of the three said, “In my family, we have a custom of giving the dead some money, so they’ll have something to spend over there.”
They all agreed that this was appropriate. The banker dropped a hundred dollar bill into the casket, and the car salesman did the same. The lawyer took out the bills and wrote a check for $300.
Now we’re rolling in style!
My answer would be instructions to convert it all to cash except $500k for funeral arrangements, hire a yacht-maker to create a ship using the bills and appropriate resins, and then to have said ship bear my corpse into the ocean with fire-archers lighting my pyre as I sail majestically away on my 2 million pounds (weight) of money.
By my calculations, it will be about 1/100 the size of a Panamax shipping craft, so well in the realm of feasibility.
My real answer would involve a bunch of boring stuff like trusts and family members, and the rest split evenly between charities and prankster / anarchist movements (whaddya mean those don’t exist in organized form? They damn well will after $400M or so is on the table for them!). Just because.
But the flaming pyre-ship is a VERY close second!
Everything goes to liberal and animal causes.
“Fuck it, I’m dead now, what do I care what happens next? You guys figure this shit out.”
Exactly one billion? Okay.
Let’s start close by. We have people in our lives who struggle bitterly to pay the rent/ mortgage and feed everyone. Tens of millions of dollars is a corrupting element. Instead, I’d pay off everyone’s mortgages. Set up an endowment fund targeted to, say, 20 families/ individuals. The rent per year, real estate taxes and such would be paid for the next 30 years. $ 10-15 million should lick that problem.
In addition to being a cinematographer, I am a teacher specializing in workshops that train nascent ( and sometimes quite experienced ) filmmakers in the art of operating a device called a Steadicam. Since learning how to teach this skill around 1990 I’ve gotten over 1,300 new Operators going on their paths.
Being Johnny Appleseed would be fun. And it’d keep me in touch with teaching. So, I’d set about providing large and small film schools and film departments with a selection of Steadicams, and would provide training to students and staff free of charge. It’d take a lot of years to criss-cross America doing this, and probably…hmmm… $ 10 million tops including bits and bobs.
There are literally hundreds of volunteer EMS and Fire departments across America that struggle to provide service with antiquated gear and poorly equipped buildings. I’d organize a group of retired EMS personnel who live in non-municipally staffed areas. They’d oversee the direct purchase of large gear ( vehicles, etc ), small gear ( Defib units, drugs, etc ) and expendables to alter the terrain for those smaller volunteer groups. Initial expenditure? 50 Million nationwide with another 50-100 million in trust for maintenance and such.
I’m down 175 million. That leaves 825 million dollars.
It is a crime that children in this country go to sleep hungry. This much money means that well-protected Trusts and Foundations will be created whose reason for existence will be feeding people. Children AND adults. Food insecurity. That will be the lasting legacy of my windfall.
Aside from that, it’d be lovely to have a nice used Airstream to drive around America in with my Dearly Beloved™. We love road tripping and it’d be a fun way to get from teaching gig to teaching gig. So… what, a million or two to live on till we die? Probably too much. A million?
Oh god, don’t do this. A close relative dying intestate is a massive ball-ache for everyone. Unless you hate your family, in which case go for it.
As I see it, it could be some kind of test. If they are decent people, they will figure it out. If they are assholes, than they can choke over my dead body.
Might even troll thing up with some bogus will like “All the money goes to whomever shits on the Mars first.”
Doorways in the Sand… one of my all time favorite SF novels.
Thanks! My memory kept coming up with Door into Summer but I know that’s Heinlein.
Ha! I get those two confused as well! Especially as neither title is particularly descriptive of the story.