If I had a Billion Dollars | Hacker News Reader

If I had a Billion Dollars

antipope.org

22 pointswslh26 comments

Large chunk to SENS.org Foundation for research into the diseases of human aging.

Large chunk to Singularity Institute for Artificial Intelligence (http://singinst.org/) because we need to work seriously on existential risks, include the ones posed by AGI (we need a theory of Friendly AI to make sure that when/if we develop artificial general intelligence, we can be as sure as possible that its goals are going to align with ours). All we'll have achieved so far will prove to have been futile if we go extinct because of <insert threat here> (super-virus, asteroid, supervolcano, nanotech gone wrong, AI gone wrong, nuclear holocaust, etc).

Seconded. We need to fix bug #1 in humans, rather than trying to cope with its many symptoms one by one.

$950 million towards capturing a resource rich asteroid and bringing it into some kind of useful orbit near Earth. This would break down into 5 major areas, in no particular order.

- Identifying candidate targets. We need to find the right mixture of mass, composition, orbit, and location. This likely has both observational and unmanned probe components.

- Intercept system. We need a system capable of intercepting the asteroid and placing a propulsion system on or near the surface.

- Return propulsion. The requirement is low power and long running. This might be an ion engine like VASIMIR or even more exotic tech like a solar sail or a gravity tractor.

- Return approach. We need a safe way to put this in a location where the resources can actually be utilized without terrorizing the world.

- Rockets. A big chunk of this money would go into simply paying to get things into orbit, and once in orbit, on its way out into the solar system.

My general sense is that a lot of the bits and pieces of this technology are already in place, but there are still significant gaps and a tremendous amount of integration work.

$40 million towards making sure this effort survives. I don't necessarily expect it to be complete any time soon, maybe even until after I'm dead. This might take the form of an endowment of some kind, lobbying, or seeking further investment. I doubt this would be enough money, but I think it's in the ballpark, especially if SpaceX, or something like, it really takes off.

$10 million for personal expenses so I don't have to worry about anything else.

raw materials aren't a major bottleneck for human development yet.

I didn't say that they were. The fact that a single well chosen asteroid can represent ~5 times the annual global output of a given metal is a nice side effect which happens to make the whole thing financially viable. The goal is to bootstrap the industrialization of space as a prelude to the establishment of permanent colonies throughout the solar system.

your money would be better spent on space elevator R&D then.

I would invest:

  - in 100 founders by giving them each $10k
  - in 100 startups by giving them each $100k
  - in 100 small companies by giving them each $1M
  - in 50 medium companies by giving them each $10M
  - and I would buy $10M worth of Bitcoins

That's $621M. I would keep the remaining $379M in safe long-term low-yield investments.

I would likely end up with much more than $1B a decade later.

> I would keep the remaining $379M in safe long-term low-yield investments.

Such as US Treasury bills. Which are totally safe, bro. Totally (tm). _looks at calendar_

It's Ok, he's hedged his risk with bitcoins.

This comment reminds me of my passing thought that since comment votes are hidden, we ought to allow comments to be reordered such that a reply could appear prior to the OP if it were upvoted more. I would love to see this comment be a "balloon" floating above the head of the main remark that generated replies.

I don't think I was misunderstood, but just in case: I agree with mkramlich, and my comment was facetious too.

So, a decade later what would you do with all that money? What kind of legacy would you want to create? This thought experiment is more about turning money into cultural change than about turning money into more money.

I am effectively giving these companies, these hundreds of persons, the chance to change the world.

Actually, I'd say the thought experiment worked perfectly in sussing out the gp poster's values. For many people money is the end, not the means.

existential risk

aging

industrial thorium reactor

intelligence augmentation/BCI/AGI R&D

everything else is kind of a joke, utility wise.

I would invest:

- $250M into an anti-child poverty startup 'incubator', sort of a yCombinator for social ventures that work to eliminate child poverty.

- $250M into a variety of 'save the ocean' ventures. Oceans and oceanic life are incredibly important to our entire ecosystem.

- $250M into an alternative energy incubator, again something of a yCombinator that is wholly focused on alternative energy.

- $250M into anti-racism/homophobia/sexism organizations

The the two questions I haven't heard asked in the comments yet is this:

There are many multi billionaires in the world, especially in the tech sector where there is lots of cross-over with the things mentioned in the article.

1) Why aren't people with say $3 billion in assets $1 billion along these lines?

2) Why don't we ask such a billionaire why they don't?

very hard to credibly signal that you are effectively working on certain classes of problems.

I'd

    start a bank with $500 million
    create a new nation for $500 million

Call me satisfied, but why not live off the interest?

Yes, you could let the bank decide who gets the benefit of the money. Or you could decide yourself. Depends on your personality, I guess.

Well sheesh with that attitude you'll never see that many figs in the ole' assets sheet. :)

...I would invest in Ron Paul...and liberty.

Having a Billion Dollars would make you unhappy, greedy and paranoid. You would constantly wonder if someone is your friend or if a girl likes you because of who you are or your money. You would also be a potential target for kidnappers who could hold you ransom for millions of dollars. Being rich isn't as cool as it's made out to be.

I guess it depends how you get the money, but if possible I wouldn't tell people about it. And that works for less money too, I'm not a millionaire but I do have more investments and savings than anyone who knows me would assume.

A bit off topic: I honestly don't understand this thing about "someone likes you because of your money". Frankly I would not give a care if an nice, intelligent and beautiful person liked me for my money. I am down for that.

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