Congrats, you're a half-billionaire!

[Bootstoots]

I'd still do it - it would be fun to just set up my own little research reactor, without even planning to make money. In fact I think I'd spend most of the prize money on mad science, and on paying off regulators to let me do my mad science. I'd like to see if we can make humanzees or humobos, too - my best guess is that they're possible but sterile, but the experiment has never been properly tried. I'll admit that part of the fun of that would be to watch the legal system try to deal with them, and to watch people get angry over the little so-called "ethical" issues.

 

[Tigranes]

1.3 bln up for grabs on Wednesday.

 

[Hygro]

The billboard had it listed at "999 million" cuz the number capped out.

 

[Antilogic]

Tim's little rental empire is an interesting idea.

I'd obviously secure all my living needs for life first, make sure I put it in index funds and all that good stuff. That's such a massive amount of money I wouldn't know what I would do afterwards. Probably go to work with a big grin on my face, and never work overtime again.

 

[Cutlass]

Screw work. I'd hire other people to do that for me.

 

[warpus]

You've still got over three hundred million left over, though. What do you do with it?

I travel.

It's a bit silly that the U.S. has such low taxes for everything that they need to tax lottery winnings at 40%, though. If we had this lottery here in Canada, you'd get all $1.4 billion

 

[IglooDame]

It's a bit silly that the U.S. has such low taxes for everything that they need to tax lottery winnings at 40%, though. If we had this lottery here in Canada, you'd get all $1.4 billion

That's because "future lottery winners" is not a major electoral demographic, and no one has any sympathy for them anyway.

 

[Cutlass]

I haven't checked my ticket numbers from Saturday yet.....

 

[Timsup2nothin]

I haven't checked my ticket numbers from Saturday yet.....

Hot tip...you didn't win. Not the big jackpot anyway.

I never check my tickets until the "no big winner" or the "winning ticket sold in BFE" message comes out. I don't want to spoil that moment in case it is ever "winning ticket sold in Palmdale" and I can think "WOW! Maybe!" and scramble around checking my numbers.

 

[bhavv]

Imagine if instead that wealth was redistributed with 250,000 going per person.

No forget that, I still want all of it or none.

 

[Aea]

Hot tip...you didn't win. Not the big jackpot anyway.

I never check my tickets until the "no big winner" or the "winning ticket sold in BFE" message comes out. I don't want to spoil that moment in case it is ever "winning ticket sold in Palmdale" and I can think "WOW! Maybe!" and scramble around checking my numbers.

Can't you still win like $1M and not be the "big" winner?

 

[warpus]

That's because "future lottery winners" is not a major electoral demographic, and no one has any sympathy for them anyway.

Yeah that makes sense, but on the other hand I'd expect all those people into gambling to be against such a thing as well. But then I suppose most people are not eager to admit to their vices either..

 

[Kennigit]

Can't you still win like $1M and not be the "big" winner?

If you're playing it as a $2 ticket to day dream, might as well stretch that day dream out the farthest you can

 

[IglooDame]

Okay, I've finally figured out what I'd do with the non-me money: Crowd-sourced humanitarian initiatives.

$10mil: buy a SuperBowl 30-sec slot ($5mil) and a few other global and extremely high-profile bits where a competition to submit the "best" idea of how to use a half-billion dollars to help humanity would be cleverly advertised. The top nine ideas (chosen exclusively by a secret committee) each win a million dollar cash prize, and 91 second-place ideas win $10K each. Obviously, some lawyers would go over the contest rules ensuring no patents or other entanglements, submissions are the property of me, "best" and "help humanity" is interpreted only by me for prize selection purposes, etc etc etc.

I'd expect ideas to cover typical efforts toward space exploration/colonization, disease eradication, global peace efforts, max-efficiency charity, and certainly some unexpected and clever possibilities.

I pick the top idea among the nine and actually execute on it (possibly tweaking to suit me) with a half-billion.

And, I'll see if I can pull in the highest-net-worth global multibillionaires (Gates, Buffett, Carlos Slim, Amancio Ortega, Larry Ellison, the Kochs, the Waltons, etc) or other notable billionaires (CEOs of Google, Facebook, SpaceX, Amazon, etc) to do any matching on the idea execution, or whether they'd agree to execute on one of the other eight finalists - perhaps even see in advance if they would be part of the competition secret committee, which would add to the visibility of the ad campaign.

 

[warpus]

Would anyone come to the moon with me?

 

[caketastydelish]

Would anyone come to the moon with me?

I'm surprised you're asking us that question instead of strippers.

 

[warpus]

The only people I would need to confirm strippers with on here are the married men and those who are overly religious.. and the women. But not everyone is going to want to go to the moon.

 

[Timsup2nothin]

Would anyone come to the moon with me?

Visiting, or permanent residence? I'm probably in either way, but just for clarity...

 

[warpus]

We'd just go to play some soccer and smoke a blunt and I suppose drive a moon buggy around and bring some sweet ramps.

 

[Timsup2nothin]

I'm in.

In some sci fi book I read the lunar colony had a huge underground cavern air reservoir, and people used wing suits to fly around in it for recreation. Consider that.