Imagine you have infinite dollars backing you. What's the thing you'd want to pursue just because it's something you'd like to do with your life?

Aside from the make-the-world-a-better-place stuff, I've always wanted to have the space/time to make my own holograms.

I have this idea for claymation+lasers+holograms to make little stop motion films, but as holograms.

I don't know if it's possible, but if like to play with the tech and find out

Garden! Big garden! With trees! Figs tree, cherry tree, plum tree, apple tree, walnut tree, more trees idk. Then I can have people over to eat the surplus produce, and when I'm too old to pick any myself they can be the ones to pick them and share some with me.

Free education

I always wanted to have a farm and be well off enough that I could take a good portion of the yield and just give it out in my old neighborhood.

Kids there are starving, most of them have never seen an eggplant, it's cheap ultraprocessed food or half moldy apples from the food banks.

I know there's a lot of other stuff too, but I think food education is pretty important, most of the adults I knew didn't know how to cook resulting in everyone eating worse for more money, thinking they couldn't afford to eat any healthier.

Although at this point my old neighborhood has been gentrified and filled with $3000/m studio apartments. I'd probably also buy out the neighborhood and give it back to everyone who lived there 10 years ago.

Start in the US with the goal of recycling 100% of all recyclables, build waste-to-energy plants, use the energy to power carbon capture, slow/reverse climate change, build the first high powered thorium nuclear power plant. I could keep going, but I like keeping myself grounded in reality.

If money were no object, I would build a reusable-glass network and force Walmart, Target, Kohl's, etc. to start a global glass shipping program to take customer-returned glass products (like after you use up all the vinegar, mayonnaise, etc. in your glass jars, etc.) and get them back into the production factories for reuse. All containers would follow standardized sizes (several dozen classifications) to make reuse easy.

Immortality via simulation

I would spend billions of dollars ensuring that Trump dies poor and homeless.

Contribute to open source more. Currently work dictates the projects I work on, but would love to have passion be the only thing guiding me.

Buy all the corporations and convert them into worker-owned conglomerates a-la Mondragon. End global capitalism. Sponsor legislation in all governments to end the wealth disparity plaguing the world.

Lobby against any billionaire interests.

Worldwide free schools, free Healthcare, free shelters and free educations for all who need it

I would start many companies and organizations based on open source business models developing various software and computer networking technology. The goal for each would be to become self-sustaining (paying employees appropriately but not necessarily attempting to generate profit), and with an objective of creating a unified suite of system administration tools that is equivalent to Microsoft's Active Directory - but 100% open source and interoperable rather than proprietary.

Absolutely none of the developed software would include or support any of the kind of surveillance-state functions that are part of the current trend of collecting data on users for "AI". If possible, technical methods for preventing any such data collection on users would be developed and implemented in every single project.

Overall the goal would be to out-compete every other computer networking product on the market in terms of convenience, stability and affordability - creating a complete set of best-in-class systems which act as a bulwark against any privacy-invading AI-enabled surveillance software.

*Edit: also some advocacy organizations like the ACLU and EFF with the same overall goal of reducing the global presence of surveillance-state garbage. Basically the antithesis of anything Peter Thiel is trying to do.

funding open source projects and buying ip and freeing it.

Design and build a city.

Everyone already said the humanitarian ones. I'd live in an off-grid, self-sustaining chalet in a remote mountain location with a wood shop, nice garage for project cars, and high speed internet.

Fund global universal healthcare, education, housing, food, and internet.

You folks are awesome! Housing, Democracy, fuck yeah!

I'd just clockwork orange the Nazis.

I would do so those things we said we would do as children i.e feed people. But, also go after all these fools destroying our world.

Bring back public broadcasting on both a federal and state/city level.

Fund the aggressive development of walkable greenspace, boost public transit and put measures in place to keep it un-gentrified.

Set up a public fund for trans folks of all ages to get appropriate gender-affirming care (medical, clothing, etc) and cover legal fees.

Make sure no kid ever has to pay for a decent school meal ever again.

And once those and any other QoL ideas I get are done; game and bake like nobody’s business lol. And set up a full blown home lab, and pick up VR again.

Fuck it I deserve to treat myself to a few congresspeople and media companies

Open source hardware. Like, fully working enterprise grade that also scales down to Chromebook-budget.

I'd quit my job and pursue my interests and happiness. I'd give back to the community in meaningful ways, like distributing food and clothing. I like helping people.

Beat the world record for most inflated currency. And femboy hooters

Draw all the things instead of worrying about shit. Make my city's public transport free, y'know, like the Waynes did. Lobby to ban cars from the inner city. Donate a bunch to whoever has the power to shrink the waiting list for autism assessment to a few weeks at most. Also donate a bunch to research on ME/CFS and lipoedema (volunteer as tribute). Donate to research in general.

I'd start an international big-ass lobby bureau for education, consummer's rights and environment protection.

Large scale: create or take over companies and make them align with my values (good employment conditions & good products basically). Then delegate that work.
I would try to earn money so i dont have to care about my investor/s and ensure i dont crash the economy too much.
After taking enough economy control pressure politics and other firms to follow my values.

Low scale: currently i hyperfocus on custom keyboards (absolute noob btw) and thought about creating my own with sliders on the side and knobs and F keys that go beyond 12 and more fancy things

Reinvent academia and make quality learning accessible to all at all times with free infrastructure. Not only it would be the most fun challenge to solve but it also would keep me occupied for years. Also probably L the biggest positive impact one person could have.

Pursue a career in culinary, burn myself out in commercial kitchens, then become a home cook and cook for family and friends holding BBQ and potluck block parties every week.

I realize during covid that I wasnt feeling fulfilled with my office job, and did odd jobs in between. One of it was helping a mutual friend's small eatery as a cook. And felt fulfilled in he short 3 months I worked there before they were forced to shut down because of continuing lock down and a flood, than the up to that point 7 years of office work.

I don't have savings to just cut off not working, took too many debt and got scammed out of a simple fraud credit card spending scam call. And my mental health was spiraling down to suicide ideation. Silver lining at that office was that we were contracted with a hospital to set up a mental health triage system so I got help from there. Bad thing was 2 years ago that team just left the company wholesale and even advised me not to go anywhere. Now I feel trapped that the meager amounts of searching for other work, not knowing how to whore myself out to companies for better pay because idk what the fuck I've done to whore out, just to fight inflation as the world is going to hell in a hand basket.

I'm a gullible motherfucker 🥹

you have infinite dollars

Spend infinite dollars in a short time until the dollar is worthless.

Then, live a simple life somewhere in the Mediterranean.

Run a dog sanctuary, just me and a big piece of land with tons of dogs. Animals are better than people, give unconditional love, and don't drain my batteries like other people do

Well if the money is in paper currency I would burn it to boil water to spin a turbine to generate infinite electricity.

Probably some FOSS projects. There's a few things bugging me and I have a custom DSL/programming language idea I've been dreaming about for the last ~2-3 years that's like if Ansible, Terraform, Kubernetes and Nix had a baby together. It's 2025, how come is it that I can't just "one Lemmy instance at lemmy.max-p.me please" and get a worldwide multi-cloud multi-million user capacity instance in 10 minutes.

Next on my list would be a filesystem, because for some reason I find myself wanting something that's LVM, ZFS, Ceph and PostgreSQL all in one. It's 2025, how come I can't just be "here's all my drives, and the drives on my NAS, and the drives on my remote server, figure out some nice unified filesystem for all of this shit".

Obviously all the usual stuff like solving hunger, curing disease, ending inequality, fixing climate crisis, etc.

But if we're talking about something just for me... DJing.

Having the time and space to practice mixing vinyl, plus the resources to buy all the records, and better quality equipment.

Having the freedom to do it as a hobby without the pressure of it ever being a job.

Also, I'd buy my football ⚽ team, and run them the way I think they should be run.

I’d love to pursue iOS development.

Mmm...

First thought, and admittedly half baked and very Neil Breen-ish but I just wanted to play along: maybe go semi-Ozymandias and invest in the largest PMC ever, having even aircraft carriers and ICBMs, backed by technological giants like Microsoft and Space X, but chip them all with some sort of kill switch (that immediately explodes if you try taking it out), and slowly but surely destroy Western/imperialistic military forces around the world, starting with their involvement in the global South. They'd be extremely well compensated, so the mercenaries from opposing militaries would join too. Eventually, take this force to the mainland and, after giving them a period of grace for them to come clean and accept their incarceration/fines willingly, take out all the bankers, corrupt politicians, immoral heads of businesses and shareholders, etc etc (including, of course, Microsoft and SpaceX, lol). The police force, stupid defenders of our slavers, would also be given a warning and asked to stay home or join, before getting rolled over by the chipped PMC. After the military forces of the enemies of humanity are depleted, and the people once again feel like they have their destinies in their hands, establish a new era of unironic God-fearing commie love and peace, without the moral relativism, consumerism and hedonism of yesterday. And, foundationally for these new societies, abolish interest. Finally, move this PMC to some remote island and establish a community there (PTSD is a bitch and I don't want veterans going "First Blood" everywhere), one that is materially comfortable and allows them to have some semblance of normality after shedding so much blood (necessary, but still traumatizing).

Second idea: buy all media and news companies and change their entire modus operandi by reporting only facts, with narratives based on morality, and flood minds with the right ideas (Solomonic post-nihilism [seriously, read Ecclesiastes], Jesus' love for others instead of self, Qur'anic verses, but also the forgotten Western wisdoms like Socratic and Humian epistemology, Kantian morality, Wittgenstein... to ease those who have been hurt/disappointed by organized religion and are beasts of propaganda and entertainment into good thoughts [you can't just go 0-100 the same way an alcoholic cannot go from a daily bottle of vodka to nothing]).

I think my second idea is better but I feel I'd just get taken out before making any major change, lol.

Producing Broadway shows. The whole process of workshopping a theatrical production just seems like such an interesting - and communal - art form.

I would move to the moon so my back pain doesn't bother me as much.

Gather a group of people, including seasoned mechanics, manufacturing workers, sales people, and engineers of different types. Go full r&d to come up with meaningful solutions to transportation, then build them.

Pay off the debts of all countries in the world thus ushering in an era of peace and co-operation. Also, cocaine and hookers.

I have a multi-point plan to eliminate homelessness but it would take a few billion to get it going.

1. Establish and fully staff a medical facility, including psychiatric and addiction treatment, including facilities for long term/permanent care where necessary.
2. Establish and fully staff a facility for job seekers, including full skill training, resume assistance, interview assistance, transportation, wardrobe/cleaning, address/mailbox, identification, email/phone access, etc.

#2 also needs specialized staff on hand for those with criminal records.

3. Establish and fully staff a facility for housing assistance, applications, deposit assistance, food assistance, etc. As with #2, there needs to be specialized staff for those with criminal records.
4. Funding for public defenders, courts, and prisons. This is actually a huge problem right now, a lack of public defenders for people who cannot afford representation.

https://www.uscourts.gov/data-news/judiciary-news/2025/07/15/funding-crisis-leaves-defense-lawyers-working-without-pay

Then you sweep the streets, collect everyone up and figure out where they go.

Medical treatment for those who need it, housing assistance for those employed but homeless, employment assistance for those fit to work but aren't, and the legal system for everyone with outstanding warrants or other criminal behavior.

Ideally you move someone from #1 to #2 to #3 and completely avoid #4.

For the minority who are fit, able, and homeless by choice, because "I AINT PART OF YOUR SYSTEM, MAAAAAN!" Offer them a place to live in return for cleaning up homeless camps and wilderness areas damaged by homeless camps.

https://portlandtribune.com/2021/02/03/regional-natural-areas-damaged-by-homeless-camping/

Mansions for the homeless. Horses and capes for everyone else. No dog left behind.

Easy. Artificial gravity orbital space station.

Create smattering of small communities around the world that are sustainable, independent and contain all the scientific knowledge and capabilities to rebuild civilization.

I live in an area where 50 years ago the population was bordeline autonomous.

The main activities were centered around sheep, wine, a little on open grazing cattle, some cereal production and orchards.

With no money issues, I would start by buying all abandoned and empty buildings and launch a massive rebuilding and renewing campaign. This town has several centuries of history and preserving and returning people to it would be my top priority.

In tandem, I would force a massive reforestation program in the surrounding area. It is technically a national park but it is almost barren.

Paired with this, techonlogy and infrastructure would need to be developed and implemented. A small datacenter would be created deep underneath the city, cooled with waste waters. For this, a completely new and top of the line waste water management plant would be built and every available human built surface would be covered in solar panels.

Reflorestation efforts would be paired with development of forest fire detection, prevention and extinction technology.

City renovation would be planned around low density population areas, with building topping at six individual dwellings, with built in commercial areas for small local shops. Parking would be concentrated on the outskirts of the town, in purpose built buildings, leaving the core areas for walking and human powered means of transportation.

In terms of job creation, I'd start cooperatives for wine, fruit, cereals, produce and cattle, to stimulate small and medium producers to settle and develop their activities and relaunch the wool and cloth industry of the city, using the wool from locally raised sheep. As a by-product, a specialized lanolin extraction shop would be created. I'd leave traditional cheese making for small producers (the local cheese can go for crazy high prices but not for the people that have the work making it) but support creating a guild to negotiate prices.

Orchards would have support from a locally established industry to transform the lower grade fruit into jams, juices and other related products. Always coops.

There would be more to plan and but at some point I would be too busy going to court daily being accused to trampling every other interest, so I would have to have an army of people supporting my megalomaniac plan.

Surely time travel will be possible with infinite money.