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Establish a major university in Wyoming to flip that state blue.

Bags of money for pure science research! Nothing applied, get that engineering outta here! I want to know about bananas geology, paleontology, biology fundamental science!

Probably should aim at something national but I would make it my life goal to abolish Prop 13 in CA. And then buy the graveyard where Howard Jarvis was buried and eject him into space.

#Billionaire_Hobbies.... feel free to search and share..... under search criteria Hobbies for Idle Billionaires #

An organization facilitating regular and frequent puppy/kitten/dog/cat/pot-bellied pig/goat visits to eldercare/Alzheimer’s/dementia facilities.

Beautiful downtown parks with clean and safe public restrooms, which were cleaned multiple times per day.

I would fund public schools

Restore Hetch Hetchy!

1. Endow at least 1 non-Ivy University in every state. 2. Fund creation and maintenance of multiple tiny home parks (commune-lite) in every state

I’d rent buildings in a bunch of cities to use as venues for local bands to play in

I would dump so much money into public schools

I would donate to VLC, @archive.org , OpenOffice, Mozilla, @wikipedia.bsky.social , Inkscape, and all the other essential products that remain free to use without selling user data

1b would let me fund 2 ea. Studios of 200 people each at 70k a year salary for life after taxes auto adjusting for inflation to make indie animation. (And still leave me 1.9m a year) That's basically 2 studio ghibli given free reign to create regardless of "profit"

Buy out all the farms in small river valleys. Bust all the field tiling. Re-introduce beaver. Watch the water quality improve, the fish come back, the entire riparian ecology come back.

Rebuilding the collapsing local mall into being an environmentally friendly semi-outdoor hangout spot with local shops and native plants, and making it successful so it catches on elsewhere and becomes a whole movement. Also finishing the abandoned apartment projects (there are several)

Finding out where my obscenely cast fortune comes from and giving it on the actual people who laboured for it.

Free school supplies for every kid. Any fucking fundraiser where kids have to sell band candy or whatever? Fully funded if they agree not to make kids sell shit.

Not calling out anyone specifically for their answer, but wow is it depressing how many of these responses aren't so much "offbeat" as "providing a really basic service that you can easily get in many other countries."

Lots of mentions of UBI here, so just in case anyone here actually does strike it rich someday, consider donating to itsafoundation.org.

i'd create an entire division of mercenaries designed to harass mr beast

Every small town in America gets a lovely pergola that they can celebrate community events at. Larger towns get gondolas

A network of local alt-weekly style newspapers covering every decent sized city/region in the country. Print only, but deliver them to every address!

But also A hopefully viable third pro wrestling company behind WWE and AEW where the wrestlers can unionize and have top of the line medical and mental health plans. 🤼

Help @brooklynmarie.bsky.social buy InfoWars and turn it into a disinformation hard left site.

Hey…my friend runs this and it is online but it is amazing linktr.ee/artistsrecover We meet Sundays at 4:00 PST, though. Idk if that would work for you

The sightlines are the least of the problems. Spotty acoustics, pit too small, insufficient rehearsal space, no turntable, no stage elevator, insufficient storage, several departments are across the way in the Veterans Building because there isn't space in the WMOH.

Cycling infrastructure. But if I had to be OTT then a cyclist airline that makes it not impossible / stupid expensive to fly with your bike.

I'd pick an orphan disease and just fing eradicate it from the planet.

I would use that money to get kids music lessons in fourth or fifth grade. They can pick the instrument and rent it. Vocal lessons would also be an option.

💯

Eyeglasses for kids who can't afford them. We'd have trucks with eye doctors and a factory just churning them out

Planting trees, milkweed, and bee balm.

Dental care for people currently without access to it. When your mouth hurts, you can't think about anything else. When you are pain, you lash out. No one should be surprised about which parts of the country are most impacted by this. www.byte.com/community/re...

Turn every public library in the country, or even the world into a fully accessible building with gender neutral restrooms and free menstrual products and birth control for everybody who wants them.

A combination of saving natural history collections in museums and universities, and figuring out a better way to do elder care/pay the folks that do the hands-on work much better.

Fight to subsidize and require a “how not to get scammed” class that is a requirement in school.

I would underwrite an Australian version of the KulturPass. www.kulturpass.de/en/about-kul....

Sorry, one more: buy the ranch that Apishapa Stonehenge is on in Colorado, then donating it to the federal government with the stipulation it must be turned into a National Monument and the stone circle restored.

Gene splicing to bring back the Heath Hen on the East Coast. Buying land in Belize and donating it to the Greater Maya Forest Trust.

Develop a tree perfect for climbing. Trunk width, branch placements, everything perfect for climbing. If you look at the tree, you waive your right to sue for any climbing related injuries.

If you want something beneficial but not too beneficial, there's a specific author that I want to write a specific nonfiction book that the world needs. I figure $200K would get that done. And as @ironspike.bsky.social says, taking $4 million and splitting it between 40 artists would be amazing.

ooh, actually: big budget movie about Robert Smalls.

Hunting the other billionaires for sport.

Buying up every grouse-shooting moor that came onto the market, and turning it into an actually useful haven for nature.

I would try to ruin the other billionaires

West coast public transit. Trains, busses, ferries, bike rentals, rideshares...

There can be only *one. *(n)

UBI

Community centers that offers bathroom, laundry, shower, vending, and wifi (plus heat & a/c) in rural areas with high low income and homeless rates.

A yCombinator for worker cooperatives and non-profit, multi-stakeholder cooperative software platforms. Invasive plant cleanup and ecosystem restoration efforts. Agroecological experimental farms. A massive organizing effort for democracy strengthening reforms (ranked choice voting, etc).

Getting solar panels into car roofs as a standard feature and making solar panel repair a diy job.

i mean, laramie is *right* there.

Dont like having a fascist part of California

A network of privately-owned, professionally-staffed, fully-funded libraries stocked with all the books the book-banners keep trying to remove from the public libraries. If I own the libraries, I can loan out whatever I want to whoever I please and they won't be able to stop me.

trains everywhere

Does putting Carlos the Jackal on retainer count as offbeat

How many leftist billionaires are out there?

I would make massive global warming fighting things. I always imagine like blimps that do carbon capture but I’m sure like random forests or something would be the actual way to go about it.

1) Kevlar coating grizzlies 2) petroleum-eating microbes 3) fucking with Elon

Straight up, and without further explanation, I'll just say raisins.

Hiring a shitload of people to lobby for UBI and overhauling the SSI program.

I remember going grocery shopping at the commissary on base as a kid. It was clean, well stocked, cheap and insanely efficient. I always left wondering why aren't all grocery stores run like the commissary. This was before I understood about capitalism and corporate greed.

I would fund a company that focuses on toys meant to teach social emotional wellness and does not produce weapons for children to play with (especially AK47 type toy rifles).

I would curate a car free neighborhood: buy several buildings, include transit passes, zip car, bikes, etc in rent PLUS free bike rickshaw delivery from any business in a 3 mi radius. Build sidewalks. Provide coop ownership in bldgs to 1st time homeowners whose families were affected by redlining.

Open departments of mycology at public universities and offer scholarships.

Bird sanctuaries. All over, even paying for folks to surrender their birds if they dont want them anymore. Do my best to end the bird pet trade.

My for real answer is taking an Ubuntu approach to building a new computing platform but starting with SmallTalk instead of Unix. Weird hardware, weird software, totally impracticable and entirely user controlled.

An ongoing polling operation that determines whether a given public policy is more left-wing or more right-wing and how extreme, from 1-100%. The results would be on a free (and ad-free) website for anybody to consult. That way, we can determine if something is actually "radical."

I’d fund my ‘Real Men Don’t Vote’ ad campaign, with manly men drinkin whiskey and shootin and leavin the whole ‘step behind a frilly curtain into a voting booth for paperwork’ thing to the fair sex.

1) Fund art museums for free admission 2) fund jet fuel research into okay‐for‐planet travel so I can see more art

Premium quality child-sized prosthetic limbs like the Hero Arm project openbionics.com/hero-arm/

Build adult-sized playgrounds all over

I think it would be fun to try to be a Landlord but Good: Buy an outdated apartment complex Properly update and beautify it Hire smart people who like to do the stuff I don't like to do Rent-to-own options If it's not profitable, who cares I'm a billionaire and gave people a place to live

Also bird-safeing buildings, replacing invasive ornamental plants with natives, education on ecological impacts of things

NAEC Level 4 Epilepsy Center out in the middle of rural America offering free services based on need. Pediatric and adult patients accepted.

Fully fund all ocean, environmental, & weather science programs, effectively making NOAA/NWS & the EPA completely independent entities. As a purely personal indulgence, I would buy Ina May Gaskin whatever the hell she wants, no questions asked.

This is a particularly American thing, but I'd fund a health insurance advocacy company. So if I person's claim is denied or they're getting bills in the mail. Or their medical supplier is screwing them. They can call a professional who will (for free) handle it for them.

Solar powered desalination, pumping fresh water into deserts.

UK wide cycleways.

Finance a rebuilding of all public schools with local architects as leads. Only requirements: swimming pools and a foreign language programs starting in K.

every city resident gets fiber, it's free for life, I force every Comcast exec to dig the new lines

Offer Bigfoot $800 million to come forward

And or going to war against car dealers

Pneumatic tube food delivery www.delish.com/food/news/a4...

I’m not sure about the whole deal, but the local library would be doing alright.

Get rid of school lunch debt

Last thing would be major, fully staffed, fully funded, and fully equipped rabbit sanctuaries in every province.

It is not without irony, but… Universal Basic Income. 😆 (DEI comes standard on that model)

Journalism

Buy derelict buildings in terrible neighborhoods, fix em up real nice, give away the apartments for free

Supply enough housing for the next 20 years of growth in my city. Just build it, and give it to the city or state. Oh, and build institutions for mental health patients where there’s extremely well paid employees.

I’d give 10,000 people $100,000.

If I had infinite billions? End animal husbandry. Grow lab meat for those who won't give it up for plant based. Replace milk products, eggs, fish and fur. Re-employ everyone ...and pay them off to keep it a secret.

I would try to help pet ownership to be affordable and as delightful as possible, help with training, subsidies galore, vet bills , and food. We do not deserve animals and the joy they bring ( also the yelling, so much yelling) but every pet deserves a loving home.

I would close all the animal kill shelters. With each adopted pet pet comes free food and pet insurance.

Better conditions for prisoners.

I can think of a lot of likely possibilities, but high on the list would be subsidizing underfunded libraries, especially in low-income neighborhoods, allowing them to expand their offerings, and funding legal challenges to government book-banning.

Solar panels for everyone in sunny climates. Windmills for everyone in windy areas. Structural pruning for every public tree.

They'd just remove the liberal justices for take bribes & still do nothing about bribe taking conservative zealots. Liberals have to meet a standard. Conservatives do not. If Clinton had state secrets he'd stolen in his bathroom, and refused to return them, he'd be in jail before you could blink.

🎯

...abolishing all obstacles for (direct) #democracy and #representation of the #marginalised in the #media and #government and other institutions for social-, economic-, political organisations and distribution of resources.

I would crime so hard. I'd be in a van with a team rounding up outdoor cats, taking them in to be sterilized. MAYBE we'd rerelease them where they were. I'm so tired of people letting their cats have litter after litter then handing out the kittens to people who will also not take care of them.

the things they keep saying george soros is hurling money at but he never does

Licensing the music for every show with good music that doesn’t have it (looking at you, SPN season 1).

Once I hit my dark arc, the boats will be designed for combat, with Navy officers at the helm, and by then, we will find the sources of pollution and remove them ourselves.

Fund pet contraception & vaccination research. Easy non-surgical "one and done" sterilization/vaccination of cats, dogs, etc. Lots of free clinics, take care of feral populations.