What ridiculous thing would you spend billions on?

Fund Sonic Adventure 3 out of pocket, specifically hiring the best hip-hop artists of today to make the music for the Knuckles levels.

What is the point of betting stupid rich if you don’t travel by luxury air ship. No imagination these days

I like Electronics (as a technical field). I like Metrology (the science of measurement).

I would spend it all to commission the esteemed Illya Tsemenko, the amazing Ukrainian electrical engineer and creator of xDevs, to design, prototype, and release as open-source hardware design, the worlds first 9 1/2 digit multimeter. The successor to the reigning king which has been the best multimeter in the world for over 30 years now, the venerable 3458a - originally engineered by the research and development team at Hewlett Packard's Loveland Colorado research and development facility and released in 1989.

The combination of disciplines that were called upon to engineer this marvel of metrology were manifold. Not just electrical engineering, no. Circuit physics engineering, metalurgical and materials engineering, organic and inorganic chemistry, and so many more.

As a hobby project, Illya has been working on designs for a 9 1/2 and even 10 1/2 digit meter involving extreme noise isolation, cryogenics, and other engineering wizardry. On a hobby budget.

I want to see what he could do with a limitless budget. I want to casually measure the movement of individual electrons at home.

THEY ARE MY ELECTRONS AND I WANT TO KNOW WHERE THEY ARE, WHERE THEY ARE GOING, AND HOW FAST THEY ARE MOVING AT WHAT VECTORS IN REAL TIME. IS THAT REALLY SO MUCH TO ASK?!?!??!

Buy a nuclear aircraft carrier. Retrofit it to be a comfortable, luxury cruise liner. Retain some of its defensive capabilities. Spend hundreds of millions of dollars on training and equipment.

Offer every single one of my friends the opportunity to become a fighter pilot and live on a badass cruise ship where we have lan parties constantly, drive dirt bikes on the flight deck, launch drones and shoot at them, and occasionally pull into ports around the world where we're welcomed like kings and spend a shit ton of money.

One of my pre-decided "true fuck-you money" ideas is to fund big-budget movie adaptations of media properties I like, with me getting the final say on authenticity/changes because I'm the one writing the check. First on the list is Mass Effect because I have to get there before the actual adaptation gets made (sorry folks, you're getting FemShep with a Shakarian romance), then after that is Animorphs ('90s period piece a la Stranger Things and the '80s, probably R-rated on violence and gore alone, no aging-up of the main cast)

Id buy a huge swath of land and build a city. Depending on how many billions I have it might be a scaled down city like a GTA map. But it'll have everything: suburbs, skyscrapers, a mall, a train, water and power, etc. I could invite people in and it would be our playground. We could race cars around the streets, play paintball, just walk around and hang out and camp wherever we want like we were apocalypse survivors.

it would be sealed off to keep the riff raff out and insure all the housing and resources are only for our amusement.

How much do you think it would cost to project a mildly inappropriate image onto the moon 24/7?

There's no good in this, but I'd buy Amazon (all of it) just to un-cancel the Wheel of Time.

Is something like what Doug Tompkins did ridiculous enough? Buying thousands of acres of land to restore wilderness and donate land to create national parks?

To start with: a whole fleet of itasha cars. Everything from entry level sports cars to wildly expensive super cars, all vinyl wrapped with different anime designs.

Then I'd use the rest for art installations all over the US. I'm thinking a lot of statues of Hatsune Miku everywhere, to spread music and international unity. (Also, anyone can collect figures. Building life sized ones is a real flex.) And statues of John Brown and Generals Sherman and Grant all over the South, in places that particularly need a reminder.

There are better uses of a billion dollars I can imagine.

But none would cheer me more than designing a libre general purpose computing stack out of RISC-V, with Lisp as deeply rooted into the firmware as possible. Lisp machines, oh, truly was I born in the wrong generation. Too late for the originals, too early for the inevitable future where every other programming language is forgotten.

I'd invest in eight billion ukuleles with bob marley songbooks, delivered by drones to each human being individually. Anybody who complains about their ukulele gets send a slice of delicate delicious pineapple pizza. Complaints about the pizza will be ignored.

The first answer that comes to mind in terms of ridiculousness is the classic "Buy everyone a free pony"*(limited to as long as supply of available foals lasts).

But I like this question. I'll have to think some more about what ridiculousness I'd actually like to do rather than a trope-y spur of the moment thing.

The serious answer would involve high speed rail and free solar panels but that's not ridiculous.

I'd probably buy entire cities worth of advertising space and just dedicate it to some random art or rip it down all together in some cases.

Would also start a theme park where people can just go to dig a hole. Your first few visits you start with a shovel and over time you can level up and start training to use and possibly get supervised hands on time with equipment.

Autonomous desert robots

Just dump 100% of the funding into populating an uninhabited, biologically sparse part of the earth with robots whose only function is to maintain themselves and if possible, sustain themselves

No not using them for terraforming or mining or gardening or robotics research or as an art project. None of that. Just as many robots busily doing robot things for no ultimate reason for as long as possible

every taylor swift vinyl in circulation

No more pants. I buy all the pants and destroy them. Were done, that's it.

Another is infinite Allen wrenches. A friend once said, "you can never have too many Allen wrenches" and I countered that if the global economy solely produced Allen wrenches that would be too many. So, Allen wrenches. Infinite Allen wrenches.

Since I was a kid I've always wanted to build a giant, super slender tower in an urban area - sort of like NoHeart from Care Bears or Sauron's sweet eyeball thing.

I might equip it with rave lasers and speakers and I'd definitely have a lookout with huge windows and curtains to match.

I might pull an Elon and bore deep down into the earth underneath the tower, too. Maybe I'd have a Technodrome down there idk

Bring our rovers home, naturally.

I'd build a full scale offshore wind farm! What a stupid idea, when it'll always be cheaper to do on land, where wind turbines are hugely profitable!

Guaranteed money sink. Won't work. Things will go wrong forcing billions in losses.

But someone will avoid the ridiculous mistakes we do the first time around, and that way we'll see if this is possible.

Even more ridiculous: If I don't lose the billions fast enough on the offshore wind farm, how about using that existing infrastructure to build nuclear fission reactors in international waters! Thus undercutting electricity prices to cut carbon emissions even further!

That'd be extra mega ridiculous.

Only downside: Some commercial companies actually think these are ideas that can make money. Someone needs to waste the billions first so they don't have to make those mistakes.

Why not magically rich, ridiculous me, so this reality can manifest sometimes in the future?

The CA High Speed Rail tunnel through Pacheco Pass with my name plastered all over it.

The ridiculousness of this philanthropy is that I don’t pay taxes that normally go towards public infrastructure, so I can donate money instead to get undue influence over public works.

A PAC whose sole purpose is advocating for stricter driving tests in the US?

I hate bad drivers but also I think spending $1 billion on that qualifies as ridiculous :)

I would buy a large property in my area and build a compound that's fully fenced for me and my closest friends, then I would fulfill every thing I possibly could on my Disney bucket list including club 33 membership, all the parks, all the resorts, all the cruise ships. I would buy as much stock in Disney as I could so I could have some say/sway on the way the company runs for my own selfish gains.

If that isn't spending fast enough, I would try to outright buy Disney, lol. If I have enough money to do it, I would in a heartbeat, and then figure out how to privatize it, so I am not beholden to stockholders so I can do whatever I want to make the company the way I want it to be.

Oooh, I’ve got 2. You May think some of these are “do goody” but even if they weren’t I’d want to do them, one for curiosity and one for petty vengeance.

1. Spend an ungodly amount of money removing invasive species - specifically European grasses from California ecosystems - closing down the ranches in the process. Particularly El Sur Ranch near Big Sur. Doubly so if I can buy out the owners of the ranch and then somehow bankrupt the family because fuck those guys. Also the ones in Marin who got their ranches designated as historic so the local tribes would have no recourse to their own historic claims. Destitution for them too. I’m just so curious to know what the landscape looked like pre-colonization. Supposedly we had evergreen grasses with deep roots like South America that didn’t go brown in the summer/fall and there was much more widespread oak forest and chaparral. If I have enough funding I’d also like to buy out the majority of the Central Valley and return it to a marsh/lake habitat. It grows the majority of our food so many would starve. Again, more evil than benevolent. If I have the money to do more of the same thing to the eucalyptus farms in Portugal and the marshes of England (effectively anything south of London). I would mandate that they can me Marsh Man and as i age and gain weight, the Marshmellow! Fear the marshmellow and starve! This might cost Trillions to achieve so I assume I have access to thousands of Billions.

2. Project 2 would be to crash test all small Japanese type cars to the DOT standards. It’s like 6-10 cars each and pay for them to go through certification. Why you ask?!? Because fuck all these big cars in the US and the car companies that do t certify their small cars/trucks - looking at you Honda and Toyota - as to not eat into their US market share. So yeah fuck them. Then i can ride my bike without feeling like I’m going to die and buy a sweet Kei truck and also not feel like Im going to die. If I could also influence the policy so that SUVs, vans, and trucks are no longer exempt from bumper height regulations and outright ban lifted trucks with a full death penalty all the better. Honestly this one is so much cheaper than the first. Also I want a train line to connect from SF through Santa Cruz and Monterey. Also also to rebuild the massive glassed in municipal pool in Monterey. Fuck it, rebuild all of the sweet glassed in municipal pools globally.

Ok, I’m cheating, but I also want to create subsidies for folks to learn craftsman style carpentry. Like full ride + living expenses. I want to flood the market with high quality carpenters so that we might be able to get something more interesting looking that your standard boxy 5 over 1 new development. Again, it would be slightly evil as those who took me up on the offer would find themselves on the other sides of the programs in a profession that used to pay very well but now has been so saturated that it is no longer “skilled” work. The tack on benefit would be all the folks to then pivot to furniture making which makes nicer furniture more affordable. “But Rosco, this sounds benevolent…” No! It’s so I don’t have to live amoungst all these cheaply made, shitty looking developments and US cities can get a design, look and feel that would make me want to live and recreate in them.

Ok, last last last one… this is truly, billionaire evil. Like Elon DOGE evil. Black list and bankrupt all lobbyists from oil and car manufacturers. Threaten violence, and follow through if required, to route out automotive loyalists from the US DOT and fuck it, the UK version too. Then replace them with bike and public transit oriented loyalists and push for transfer of public funding, along with whatever I have left in the coffers, to complete convert our domestic transit systems. I’m talking about building a system that makes Amsterdam look kitch.

I think I’ve really channeled my inner billionaire here. Rules followed. Lives and livelihoods ruined. Rejection of majority rule. Via Marshman!!

Create my own island country in international waters with a nice modern city atop. I'll hire many of the best scientists and engineers and workers to live and work there on building a space elevator. The space elevator won't work, so rather than being a benefit to humanity, it'll be a huge waste of resources. It'll look cool though. Although it might result in some good science being done, most likely it'll be a distraction from actually useful projects so it'll be at best a wash as far as scientific benefit to humanity.

Ignoring the problems with licensing and stuff, I'd fund a whole bunch of random media that I want to exist but either doesn't exist or exists in a poor state. Think more seasons of shows that got discontinued earlier than I wanted them to and redos of stuff that didn't reach it's potential due to time and budget constraints. I don't have a specific list in mind, but on numerous occasions I've thought "this could have been so good if it was given proper care and resources".

Of note is that I don't mean changing works to fit what I want them to be. Something that naturally goes a direction I don't like is fine. I do not want to change intentional artistic decisions. Good example of what I mean would be anime where the action scenes turn into slideshows just because they can't afford to fully animate it.

i’d buy a bowflex.

Tropical fruit and wildlife sanctuary: eat rare delicious fruit, observe rare delicious majestic and/or cute wildlife.

Not ridiculous enough?

@habituallyTired's idea, but I'd like to buy up (nearly, or a part of) the entire Japanese economy instead of Disney, please.

Selfish indulgent projects below, would invite any Tildes members to come work on them or just go enjoy together.

The author and illustrator of Frieren will share in millions as gratitude for all they've already done. They get a team of dedicated mental/physical health care and unlimited relaxation massage / hot springs / vacation / whatever. If they want to make more manga, cool cool cool, if not, cool. But y'know....maybe I'll hang out a bit and ask (via translator) how they originally want the series to end and if Himmel gets his virgin kiss. Of course other anime/manga series' artists will be similarly funded, based entirely on how much I enjoyed their previous works.

550 year old soba noodle shop gonna close next year? No way -- priority number 1 we're going to find out what their hurdles are, keep them going if at all possible, find a way to renew their historic buildings so I can sit down and have some dang soba. If they really don't want to keep going, maybe I can help match make an apprenticeship program? (English Wiki)

Re-open the Yokohama Gundam Factory. Built that giant Gundam unit for rides. Obviously, the RX-93 v, the most beautiful unit ever designed. Will also accept tours/rides of the RX-78-2 while I wait.

I'm just gonna live full time at Huis Ten Bosch and enjoy Miffy land as my home base while traveling around the country. New section dedicated to City: The Animation will be built as well.

Gonna see all the fall colours, the best views, all the fireworks, all the cherry blossoms, and yes all the anime cafes, all seasonal snacks, tour all traditional crafts. Philanthropy is out, okay, but heck yeah my personally selected travel entourage with me can use the connections, interviews and information for their own purposes.

Basically just gaijin tourist dialed up to 11.

I would hire a team of composers to write little stings in the style of John Barry and a small brass ensemble to follow me around and play menacing Bond villain music (e.g. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WczHADTsIec) whenever I'm making plans with my friends. Maybe some furniture that also conceals intricate maps that can slowly raise from the floor.

Upon careful consideration, I have decided to use my vast wealth to try to buy myself friendship with @papasquat. Failing that, I would use my remaining fortune to be totally mature and buy as many ports as possible so I can charge ridiculous docking fees specifically for party aircraft carriers.

Let's find out how true to life Jurassic Park really is...

Take a city, drill a network of tiny tunnels under it, and go drive through those tunnels in cars, pretending to be efficient and smart transportation.

philanthropy is out (unless it's utterly ridiculous)

Cure malaria and world hunger in one go by unleashing highly reproductive designer mosquitoes upon the world whose bite is not itchy and it supplies your body with all the life-sustaining properties that a good breakfast, lunch, and dinner would provide.

Snarky answer: Finish Star Citizen owait they already made a billion dollars and still can't make it out of alpha...

Fun answer: figure out a way to take what these guys started and make a full contact weapons fighting league that incorporates electronics into scoring/damage recorded and locks the armour for various joints up as you are 'injured'. Then go join in beating the shit out of eachother with all my weapon fantasies without risk of serious injury.

Buy up all the Moai heads held in museums and private collections and send them back home.

Renovating my house- keeping the cape cod style but adding a widows walk, a turret, and then digging down directly under the house to add as many floors as possible. Moving between the floors would be a huge elevator large enough to move furniture in as well as a metal spiral staircase. Each floor would have a different theme (the doors of the elevator open to one floor that's an exact replica of a Taco Bell in the 90s, booth seating, counter, all that). I'd also turn the dining room on our first floor into a vivarium for my ball python.

Semi-unrelated tangent (but kinda not) ...

How about buying every square inch of advertising space in New York's Grand Central Station and turning it into your own personal art exhibit?

Oh, wait ... https://news.artnet.com/art-world/humans-of-new-york-grand-central-2698047

Clown college! A way-too-big campus with way too many buildings so that the world has a ton of highly educated clowns studying how to be even sillier

I'll have to come back to this one, but one immediate thought is to fund the development of the next generation of optical space telescope (like Hubble but more powerful). Now the catch is it'll be put in geostationary orbit and pointed at the Earth. It won't be able to rotate much, so it'll just be staring at one patch of the Earth for a really long time. What purpose does this serve? Nothing really, other than saying that I (helped) build the next big space telescope.

I set a 30 second timer to better simulate how I’d really react in this scenario. At first I was stumped but the pressure of the last few seconds draining away sparked my creativity.

I’d create a billion dollar advertising campaign (perhaps the biggest ad campaign of all time?) to make various billionaires and politicians look as ridiculous as possible. Reserve some cash for lawsuits. Their collective lost reputation might be a serious net positive.

1. Fund Wikipedia from now until eternity. Not because its a good thing to do, but because I just don't wanna see that banner begging for money anymore. Same thing for public radio. I don't want to help them, I just want to not hear them begging for money. Plus the ad blurbs would be great "Brought to you by the Mikie is tired of fundraising Corporation".
2. Copying @SloMoMonday but I'd be extremely petty and just buy up all the advertising around wherever I was living or travelling and put up whatever I wanted to see. Random memes? Sure. Top nature photos of the year? Why not. Cute animal pics on my SO's birthday? Perfect.

I would throw away my billion dollars in my years-in-the-making vanity project: a live-action recreation of the 60's Thunderbirds TV show in which all the actors pretend to be marionettes. I would pay top dollar to all the AAA-listers to exposit ham-fisted dialog like "But an asteroid that size could destroy the whole planet" by only moving their eyes and mouths. As well, I would hire an auteur like Christopher Nolan because he would insist on doing everything without CGI (his rules) so that 1:1 working versions of those implausibly giant vehicle would need to be designed and created, thereby ballooning the budget to hitherto unreached, obscene oligarchical-decadent limits. Then, finally, to ensure that this movie would be a bona fide smash hit (which, come on, it for sure is going to happen), I would pay audiences to come watch the movie on the condition that they be dressed up to look like marionettes and stay completely still for the entire viewing.

I would take a photo of the marionette audience watching the marionette movie, and submit it as my final assignment for art school called "Society". I would barely receive a passing grade, but the marks will push me past graduation, meaning I now have to find a job what am I going to do?