Ask Lemmy

Setup solar panels with 99% of it then probably die in an orgy of hedonism with the remaining 6 million.

Quit my job and travel for a while. I'd give 15% to family\friends. I also tend to be partial to the poor\homeless so I'd probably start a program to house and feed those that need it in a big way. And I'd invest 50% of it so I was wealthy, period. In my will, I'd give it all to children's hospital's around the country\world.

Fund everyone working on medical nanobots. I get down with living to 120 with a good quality of life. Of course, this would go a long way to helping a lot of people with serious issues.

I would create a trust for my daughter, an annuity for my wife that includes payments for healthcare, and a separate fund for property tax and home maintenance to ensure my daughter has a residence and doesn't have to settle later in life.

Next, I would through my friend list (it's not big) and pay off mortgages for those that have them, and purchase homes outright for those that don't.

Finally, I would use the remaining funds to buy up and then forgive US medical debts for pennies on the dollar. This last one would probably exhaust the funds, but would have the broadest positive impact on people.

So after taxes about $4B?

Take 500 million out for me, start a business and do all the stuff we want to.

If possible: Use the rest for a fund for perpetuity to fund transit all over my city, make the buses free and running every 15 minutes, and pay the drivers and all the other workers a really good wage.

If that's impossible, I guess I have to run for governor, win, and Make Florida Freaky Again! Work for the good of our state. Is billions enough to do it?

Investments, trust funds, paying off debt and my mortgage. Set up enough in investments that I'll always have a million or so in post-tax interest income.

Trust funds and investments for my family so they have money coming in.

Remodel my house.

Rent a condo in Wrigleyville during the Cubs season. Rent a condo in Mesa during spring training.

Open a bar or two.

Hire a dietician/personal cook.

Buy a handful of cars, the most extravagant would probably be a Catterham.

Open an automotive shop to restore cars. I know that'll be a loss but it will be a good hobby for something I like to do.

Travel a bunch. Follow the Cubs for a season and go to every game.

Buy dual citizenship somewhere.

Donate to AOCs campaign.

Club 33 membership.

Occasionally take private jets when I fly, but pick up families that are flying coach when I go and bring them along for free. It's no fun being alone.

Do a bunch of the traditional billionaire things like go fishing on a private yacht.

Finally not stress about going out to dinner.

Move to Europe, start a game studio, throw the rest in investments, donate the proceeds to try to reduce homelessness where I currently live.

Shit, that's over 30 billion BRL. On a quick search for comparison, that's more money than several Brazilian states' yearly budget! I really have no fucking clue what I'd do, because I'd want to start going Cities Skyline around.

Assuming 6 million after taxes, I’d immediately pay all my debts and then set myself up with interest bearing instruments giving me $100k income per year.

After that I’d just chill and start traveling, looking for something to get involved in.

I'd get a block of houses, not mansions, just 6 small houses where the backyards are all together and make that into a little community where I can get the people I'm closest to into an area with a shared community space in the backyards. That's my expensive one.

Rav4 hybrid. I just want a fuel efficient car I can go camping in.

Set up a trust to make sure that I don't have to work if I don't want to, get to retire.

Then the rest... I'm stuck between which is better, dumping it into becoming a non-profit to get as many homeless people housed as possible, or build into a superpac specifically meant to bring down Citizens United.

I'd probably be boring and try to use it to improve the lives of marginalised and impoverished people. Getting hospital waiting times down, improving access to mental health support, give people loans to get on their feet. That sort of thing.

Maybe I could also make a video sharing site to complete with Youtube and force them to make some improvements to remain competitive. But I'm not sure 6 billion will go far enough on that front.

Well, my "if I won the lottery" fantasy only requires a few million. One by one, I'd tell my mates to come check out my new place, which turns out to be a condo at Circuit of the Americas. While we're overlooking my collection of mint-condition shitbox cars that have no reason to be preserved, I'd hand them a check for enough money to wipe out their debts and buy a house... along with a non-disclosure agreement.

Then I'd disappear for a while, taking a road trip around the country without any sort of financial or scheduling concerns. Just show up in a random city, spend a few weeks seeing all the sights at my own pace, then moving along whenever I feel like it.

Going from millions to billions, I doubt I'd deviate from that plan too much. Once I've got myself and my mates set for life, I guess I'd set the remaining 4.9 billion pounds aside for any impulse buys, like an F1 team or a couple hundred politicians.

After buying a home in a nice, non-HOA demon neighborhood, probably end up working on a company that makes mid-range phones with a headphone jack, slot for 2 SIM cards and a microSD, and have the system run on a 3rd party Linux OS capable of running APK files and other android apps. I'd definitely wanna have good R&D put into making sure it sandboxes android apps and makes it only allowed to see what's in the sandbox, though, so go*gle cannot see what you do.

That, or just straight up start up my idea for the Open Access Oasis community, where we believe open access to all scholarly articles found on databases like go*gle scholar and other such sites should be free in order to create a brighter tomorrow. Only exceptions to that being things like malware, viruses, worms, Trojans, etcetera, hidden behind a paywall not going open access because most people would just end up damaging their own devices. The idea I had/have for the logo is a playing card of the dual king in a lab coat being hung with an oasis in the background. That, and the card suit being a $, a king of $.

buy/build a house at boat club, open a cafe and just deposit rest of the amount in bank. might buy some land too.

ps. boat club is a place in chennai that's known for its insane land price.

Take a day off

Fix the simple problems: hunger, homelessness, education

Go back to sleep.

Well, besides the obvious of paying off mortgages and debts which wouldn't even amount to a fraction of that, I'd buy an island to convert into a 24/7 mass paintball (or laser tag or something) warzone experience, like hundreds of people on both sides.

Sell the experience to people, classic Red team vs blue team, stay until you're eliminated, barracks/camps, HQ, command structures, etc. It would be a live streamed competition with commentary, tactics, live go pro cams, everything. Maybe do it in seasons, have leaderboards, MVPs, whatever.

Players that have already been to the island before would be able to advise, or place bets on their accounts or whatever to build up load outs for their next trip.

The goal being a fun live game, exercise, stamina training, whatever, but mostly an outlet for the people in the world that get excited by war with the intention of hopefully reducing that with a safe environment.

I feel like if done correctly, and made as affordable as possible, it could turn into a relatively profitable business. I would then ensure the profits went to charities that provide aid to actual warzones and ensure that the primary message of the theme park is completely anti-war.

Any money leftover that didn't go into that project I would donate and invest in animal welfare and conservation, renewable energy, and tackling the climate crisis.

I've got a nearby city that's been exploding in popularity. Creating my own suburb nearish to that should be sustainable, and reduce the inflation of COL.

I'd become a sponsor of the Trillion Tree Project to help mitigate the effects of climate change.

I'd organize a group to help clean up the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, and probably find some way to reuse all that plastic, to reduce the amount of new plastic that needs to be created.

Build housing that would be rent-to-own. The only qualification would be paying first month’s rent and a deposit, then if you stay for 15 years you own the place. Price it for minimal profit (5-10%) and build/renovate a new set every year.

I may keep 1m, that's way more than what I need to live this life and donate the rest to hospitals and education institutions.

I'd set up an NAEC level 4 epilepsy center for low income families, both adults and kids on separate floors. I figure between the MRI, EEG, MEG, SPECT, PET, doctors, surgeons, nursing, land, building, etc I could burn through some of that money and possibly setup an endowment that would allow it to run perpetually. If successful I'd setup secondary and tertiary sites in rural areas, all free of cost for the patients if viable.

Yeah, I'm building at least one city from scratch. The big thing is going to be figuring out where.

Obviously I'm gonna work out how much to set aside to live comfortably off the interest forever first. That should not require a big percentage of that much money. Get myself a house, make sure my loved ones are set and comfortable too.

Next I'm going to set aside a chunk of it to be completely irresponsible with. I'm gonna get on a train and see all the bits of Europe I want to see, stay in nice hotels, eat in fancy restaurants, and bring my friends and family along to various bits of it. There are a few things like videogames I would like to see developed but do not have the skills to make myself, so I'll throw a few tens of millions at those ideas. If they work out, awesome, they might even pay for themselves. I've always liked vehicle design so I will get a car coachbuilt. Not something flashy and loud, just something exactly how I decide it should be. A bunch of custom-built guitars.

So with needs and vices taken care of, and I cannot imagine I have even come close to getting through the first of five billions yet, it's time to actually try to do some good. I have a strong casual interest in history, so I think I'd enjoy funding work to be done by local institutions in places that are currently relatively under-explored. Ask universities in these places what they want, ask nothing in return other than that someone shows me whatever cool stuff they've learned every so often. You want to take the time to laser-scan a bunch of ancient buildings like the Zamani project is doing? Hell yeah, I'll pay everyone's wages for that. My thinking here is that if I'm not directing it I'm unlikely to unintentionally fuck something up through ignorance, and by paying for skilled work that is not extracting anything physical I am hopefully giving the local economies a boost in a way that should not result in me undercutting any local industries or anything

And when you go to war they're obligated to go too, possibly even in your place

Step one, get an accountant, and lawyer. Things will get complex, and mistakes can result in spending more than you have which isn't the goal. Thus an accountant to watch those numbers and keep me in the black. The big issue is taxes need to be paid so there needs to be enough left over to do that along with pay the accountant, but there will also be weird legal issues that come up.

Second, the money goes to charity. How it gets there will be tricky though.

The IRS looks at large donations and starts to assume I'm trying to dodge taxes by hiring a charity for something I'd do anyway - so my accountant will work with them to figure out what donation levels work for each that I care about. There are also some causes that I consider charity that do not meet the legal definition (often because they are political) and so the donation to them is still taxable (not that I'm trying to dodge taxes, but I'll take advantage of anything that will help causes I care about)

I will set aside some money as a fund for me. However I'll only allow myself to withdraw from it as payment for work done for charity. projects like KDE or FreeBSD can always use more help. There is a summer camp I'll volunteer for once in a while. Habitat for Humanity needs help... The important part is I need to put in 35 hours a week or I don't get money from the fund (I will allow 2 months of vacation and that summer camp will get 80 hours/week when in session which I will bank for more vacation). The important part here is I need to stay busy - doctors tell me sitting around doing nothing when you retire is deadly so I'm not going to do that.

Likely a lot of money will remain after I'm dead, so a trust fund will remain. However the instructions will be to drain the money as fast as possible. I know of several funds remaining from people who died 100+ years ago and the fund is now doing things I'm sure the original would oppose.

Pay off my debt and fuck off some where nice and quite and live the rest of my days comfortably.

Buy a few representatives

Keep and invest 5 million. Give the rest to my city and schools.

Hire a financial advisor and a lawyer. Then donate 4.5 billion to different organizations. I'd keep 500 million for myself to spend on 1 home each for me and my friends, pay off any debt that my parents or my in-laws might have, then put the remainder in a low-risk investment product.