If I Had a Billion, Part 2

[jeff_duntemann]

So why a billion? (See the series I began with my July 13, 2007 entry.) Simple: I had to push the discussion beyond the how-many-of-my-cousins-can-I-buy-cars-for territory. Most of the time I've played the Game, it came up as we were driving with family or friends, and saw one of those

Comments

[sraun]

I'm not certain many people have a sense of scale for what can be done with a billion dollars!

A couple of things that would eat some of it for us:

My wife wants a building - maybe multiple buildings. One would be a mixed use residential commercial for I'm not sure why. The others would be studio and one-bedroom low income housing.

I'd give my fellow MN Public Radio listeners real incentive to call in their pledges the first day of a pledge drive - on day one, every dollar pledged gets $10 added to a trust fund for MPR. Day two goes to $5 for $1, day three to $2, day 4 to $1, day 5 to $.50, day six to $.25, day seven to $.10, day eight to $.05, day nine to $.01. MPR always claims "we'll end the pledge drive as soon as we meet our goal" - I figure this would give everyone incentive to prove it! And a $2-20 million trust fund for MPR would be not a bad thing

[sraun]

Oh, yeah - part of that 'make some artists really happy' would probably include 'become the patron of some writers' - set up a trust fund to provide some kind of stipend for some of my favorite authors who aren't quite making a living at writing. The provisos would include 'go ahead and sell whatever you write to whoever will print it, but there must be a non-DRM e-book available within {some specified time} of dead tree publication'.

[obreerbo]

I'm thinking that I'd want to do something with Second Life, which is the virtual world I've been spending enough time in recently. A gigabuck might be enough to buy Linden Lab, the company that runs it, but that might be impractical. At the very least...hello, new continent to rival the Mainland, as fast as LL can deliver the sims! I'd give away tracts of land on this continent, no tier or anything, but I'd employ at least some "urban planning" to ensure it doesn't turn into an eyesore of spinning porn-advertisement cubes.

Also, I'd establish my own metaverse design consultancy, and hire the best people I knew to staff it, organizing it in a "virtual company" fashion with our meetings actually held in-world. First hire: Tateru Nino, a genius developer and community organizer who doesn't get paid nearly enough for her talents. I'd fix that. She would also help me figure out who else to hire

food for thought

[anonymous]

I read your $1B part one post and the comments and thought a bit about it. It seems to me that the most interesting part is to identify what you would like to do but don't do. That leads to a question: is there a way to do some of those things now with your current resources?

A billion dollars is a big leap for me. If I suddenly got it, I would probably have to think for a few years before really putting the money to use. It would be fun though.

One thing that concerns me is the drying up of rural life. I don't think it bodes well for the human race or the natural world if we all live in urban areas and lead lives divorced from the natural world. So I might buy land in big chunks like Ted Turner and the Doug Tompkins. Or give the money to The Nature Conservancy and left them buy the land.

Bill

[anonymous]

I would have the time to finally sit down and write all the fun programs that I have been wanting to write but couldn't because I had to work feed my family.

And I could write them in Lisp if I wanted to! And I really want to.

Vince