From http://forums.sjgames.com/showthread.php?t=75237]a thread over on the SJGames Forums...
Rob Kelk
"Governments have no right to question the loyalty of those who oppose
them. Adversaries remain citizens of the same state, common subjects of
the same sovereign, servants of the same law."
- Michael Ignatieff, addressing Stanford University in 2012
Quote:0B1-KN0B: What would you do with $800 000 000 000? (in a near-to-mid-future setting)--
Sarge: Create a beanstalk to make getting goods and people to and from orbit much easier and cheaper.
Celestial Goblin: Maybe not the most practical thing, but nazis planned to drain the Mediterranian sea and turn it into farmland!
RyanW: The practical part of me wants to give subsidies to technical and scientific education and to sustainable urbanization projects. Another part of me wants to build an enormous bronze statue of myself standing astride a harbor entrance.
Hans Rancke-Madsen: Why be a piker? Make it a statue straddling the Straits of Gibraltar. And to combine it with the previous suggestion, while you're at it, build a dam across the strait and start pumping...
sir_pudding: Why not combine three projects? We'll put that gigantic statue of RyanW in an impressive enough tophat to house the beanstalk.
whswhs: The straits of Gibraltar aren't on the equator.
vicky_molokh: That sounds like a reason for a fourth project!
Rob Kelk
"Governments have no right to question the loyalty of those who oppose
them. Adversaries remain citizens of the same state, common subjects of
the same sovereign, servants of the same law."
- Michael Ignatieff, addressing Stanford University in 2012