You Are Jeff Bezos (Hypothetical)

[Heloin]

1. Locate previous body.

2. Ask: Jeff Bezos, are you in there??

3. Give the entire money to previous body / Jeff Bezos.
-- Or give the money to a trustee who will return it to real Jeff Bezos.

You're plan, is to return all the money to Jeff Bezos?

[Chan Island]

1. Locate previous body.

2. Ask: Jeff Bezos, are you in there??

3. Give the entire money to previous body / Jeff Bezos.
-- Or give the money to a trustee who will return it to real Jeff Bezos.

You're plan, is to return all the money to Jeff Bezos?

Assuming Jeff Bezos is in your original body, that is the plan yeah.

Except that last line.

[Farnhamia]

You're plan, is to return all the money to Jeff Bezos?

Assuming Jeff Bezos is in your original body, that is the plan yeah.

Except that last line.

Pretty sure the OP isn't a body switch scenario.

[Thermodolia]

Part of me would want to use it to help the less fortunate among us, but in reality, I'd probably get really eccentric with it and buy some stuff that has no value, IE, the State of Kansas, a new Chumbawumba album, etc etc.

Hey I bought the entire nation of Hungary with it so ya. Eccentricity for the win!!

[Thermodolia]

Assuming Jeff Bezos is in your original body, that is the plan yeah.

Except that last line.

Pretty sure the OP isn't a body switch scenario.

Fine I fund Science to find out

[The Blaatschapen]

Part of me would want to use it to help the less fortunate among us, but in reality, I'd probably get really eccentric with it and buy some stuff that has no value, IE, the State of Kansas, a new Chumbawumba album, etc etc.

How dare you claim that there is no value in a new Chumbawumba album!?

I'd ought to knock you down.

But then you would just get up again.

[Forsher]

Okay, tell me more about how I could pay money to abolish the US electoral college because Jeff "Forsher" Bezos, henceforth JFB, is interested in that.

JFB does not care about helping the world. JFB is interested in making a lot of things Forsher wants happen or, at least, happen faster (at least one of these things Netflix is already doing, possibly). I'll use a net worth of $181.2 billion USD here.

Let's start with "Public Good" items. You're going to notice a pattern, very, very quickly.

1. give Auckland Council the money to build Light Rail down Dominion Road and then from there into Onehunga
2. give Auckland Council the money to build a major interchange in Onehunga
3. give Auckland Council the money to build Light Metro down Manukau Road, then through Onehunga into Mangere and then on to the Airport
4. give Auckland Council the money to build an interchange at the Airport so we can
5. give Auckland Council the money to build a LRT line from the Airport to Puhinui Station and then somehow negotiate Manukau and then run it up to Botany and then from there to Panmure Train Station... though I'm thinking that last bit will be underground
6. give Auckland Council the money to put Light Metro along the North West
7. give NZTA/Waka Kotahi the money to put in a light metro, cycling and walking Harbour Bridge across the Waitemata, we will name this after my grandfather on account of his having helped build the current harbour bridge (also: find someone to come up with a reason why JFB would name someone after my actual grandfather rather than the ones people who think I'm Jeff Bezos think I have/had)
8. give Auckland Council the money to put a light metro route up along the North Shore following the busway
9. build an interchange so we can have a second light metro route that runs up to Orewa and gets those bits of the North Shore that aren't served well by busway (ctrl-f for Takapuna, fun fact: Lorde went to Takapuna Grammar and here's a parody of one her songs about transport in Auckland)
10. give Auckland Council the money to build a second CRL but this time to link the light metro lines (i.e. Manukau Rd/Mangere, NorthWest and North Shore)
11. buy and then gift all the trains we need to support the above to Auckland Transport
12. give Waka Kotahi/NZTA the money to turn Mill Road into a busway project and extend it through to Ormiston and then Botany
13. give Auckland Council the money to turn every local street into a modern street... with bike lanes everywhere and minimal parking
14. buy up land around the stations and develop it as six storey buildings; also, name the buildings after characters in the comic Runaways

Costing...

Let's say this all ends up as being $5 billion per rail line, so that's 6*5 = $30b. The interchanges can probably be done for $250million (USD... see below, but compare this, which is technically for two stations and bus interchanges), I reckon, so that's $1billion (Puhinui will need some work). Obviously I expect there to be some savings. The second CRL will probably be another $5b.

Of course, there is the question of NZ vs US dollars here. Mill Road is a $1.4b project in NZ dollars so that'd be $1b (1 USD is 1.43 NZDs according to Google). With all the work I want doing and the scale of the NZ economy, things will probably end up being inflated (and we'd definitely need to be bringing in foreign workers). But they've costed (pg. 71) doing light rail (as opposed to metro) along the busway at $6-8b NZD and $13-20b NZD to heavy rail on a different route: $8b NZD s $5.61b USD. Dominion Road Light Metro is thought to be about $6.3b NZD, which is $4.42b USD. Hmm... let's pump the cost, in USD, for the train routes up to $6.5b on average, or $32.5b USD. Actually, I'm not really considering distance... these rail lines are very different distances... let's be crude.

So, we've got a $6.3b NZD (light metro, i.e. more expensive) project for about 21km of journey (split between various levels of development), which has us at $0.3b NZD per kilometre. Then with some help from Google Maps "as the crow flies" distance measuring we can have

• 18.06km North Shore => 5.418b
• 23km North West => 6.9b
• 13.2km Dominion Road => 3.96b
• 16.19km and forget the Panmure bit for Botany => 4.857b
• and remember that we've got the 21km CC2M one already for the fifth route

which adds up to $27.435b NZD or $19.24b USD... maybe $13.26b is a bit excessive as a mark up for crowding and different on the ground conditions, so let's just say some of this is the land purchasing and development costs.

Now, the current CRL has a cost of about $4.5b NZD and if you read that link you'll see why we need to think about what the cost of doing all this will do to project estimates. Now, $5b USD is $7.13b NZD so $5b might be okay but I imagine there'll be a lot difficulties induced by the current CRL and that'd be on top of the demand for workers and materials etc. so let's say $7b USD, there. So that's $1b + $32.5b + $7b = $40.5b USD, so far.

Right, so now we've got to think of the trains. By the looks of it the trains we've got at the moment cost about $8.9 million each (2017 NZD). Obviously these weren't made for light rail because Auckland hasn't got any LRT at the moment. I've also got no idea how many trains I need. However, they were thinking 11,000 people per hour with the Light Metro scheme so we'll work with that. If we go back to here (pg. 92), we'll note light metro is thought to mean about 3-700 people per train depending on length. We can compare that to a 4 minute frequency because of one of the links somewhere, which is 15 trains an hour, which would be 733.33 per train, which compares with the six car capacity of 746 on Auckland's current trains. Thus, I argue that we'd need 30 trains plus a buffer for maintenance and such, let's call that 10 excess. And for convenience we'll assume distance and patronage are correlated. Thus, we've got 40 trains/21km for 1.9 trains per km. That ends up being something like 135 trains. Factor in some inflation and we'll assume a cost of $9.43m (NZD) per train, so that's $1,273.05m or $1.3b, which is $0.91b USD.

And then there's a matter of extending Mill Road, so if we assume that $1.4 is pretty even over the approximately 17km route, then that'll be 1.4/17*25 = 2.05 or so, which means I'll call that $1.5b USD, a $.5b increase. But, wait, over-runs. Better inflate that to 150% to be safe, which is a $1.25b USD increase.

Which gives us a sub total of $40.5b USD + $1.25b USD + $0.91b USD = $42.66b USD. That leaves me with $181.2b - $42.66b = $138.54b USD to go. Jesus Christ, JFB's wealthy.

Also, if we're wealthy enough (trains don't like hills or earthquakes... NZ's got lots of both so this is going to cost a packet... and, also, it'll likely lose money):

• buy up the private shares for Air New Zealand and give them to Auckland Council
• spend $US 500m to plan out a High Speed Rail network
• give Auckland Council the money to redevelop the Strand into a proper station with bus connection and an underground section
• buy all the land necessary to create a high speed rail line, wholly independent of the current North Island Main Trunk, that runs from the Strand's new underground section, to Hamilton, Taupo, Napier, Palmerston North and then Wellington (these are legs of about 100 to 150km and we go through this route to avoid putting a train line through National Park)
• give the government money to build a rail tunnel, should be possible, through Cook Strait
• buy all the land necessary to continue the high speed rail line along a route going from Blenheim to (possibly) Kaikoura to Christchurch to (possibly) Timaru to Dunedin to Invercargill
• buy the trains
• give them to Air New Zealand to run this HSR system (domestic air travel should not be a thing for climate reasons and Air NZ can turn its flight attendants into train attendants)
• buy up land in Christchurch
• buy up land in Hamilton
• buy land in Tauranga
• plan out a heavy rail network for Christchurch and LRT in Hamilton and Tauranga and spend $US 500m on lobbying for them
• develop the land around where all the hypothetical stations would be to six storeys
• use the rents from all the relevant properties to fund the HSR, i.e. give the land and the buildings to Air New Zealand

I'm not sure what to do about Whangarei... I guess it can be part of the HSR (no, wait, future proof the possibility with the Strand's redevelopment, we cannot afford this extension). Gisborne, Tauranga, New Plymouth and Whanganui are, unfortunately, a bit too sideways for speed.

Right... I've really got no idea how to cost this stuff but let's try. Well, I mean, I don't know how to cost the stuff above but all that stuff was much less speculative.

The Cook Strait Tunnel link mentioned the Seikan Tunnel. This supposedly cost $7b US in 1988. That would put it somewhere in the region of $16b US today so I hope you see what I meant by "if we can afford it" since this is just the tunnel.

With the tracks, NZ should be able to do better than the US with its $56m/km because we have ACC and a public health system but I wouldn't think too much better (thankfully California is also in the Ring of Fire but, I guess, it is flatter than where we want to be building... compare the tunnel costs) and, oh, yes, we need to adjust for 2014 dollars... let's call it $65m/km. So, by road, the North Island part is 736km which totals out to $41,216m USD. Since a $1b = $1,000m, that's $45b USD to be safe. The South Island portion is longer at 874km so that ends up at $56,810m USD, which I'll call $60b USD. (The counter argument is that it'd cost more like $80-$100b to build just the North Island section... California's scheme and this Maglev line in Japan.)

Right... so that's $138.54b - 16 - 45 - 60 = $17.5b USD. Oooh... gotta make some adjustments to the original plan here. Let's get rid of:

• use the land bought in Christchurch to build a rail network in Christchurch
• use the land to develop a LRT network in Hamilton, including a line that goes out to Tauranga
• use the land in Hamilton to develop a LRT network in Tauranga
• buy land in windy places
• create wind farms

Now, the Strand will cost a packet to re-do, so let's say that's $1b USD; we've got $1b USD already budgeted in for planning and lobbying; the purchases in Hamilton, Tauranga and Christchurch will be expensive, so I'll call that $5b USD with a priority of getting Christchurch and then Hamilton and then Tauranga done; and then how much do HSR trains cost? Okay, so we've got this:

With respect to the effective cost calculations, the database in the companion Chapter4 provides three alternative acquisition unit costs in terms of euros per seat, which again we label as best scenario (lowest value = 30,000€ per seat), medium scenario (average value = 50,000€ per seat), and worst scenario (highest value = 65,000€ per seat). Figure 2.6 summarizes the evolution of total acquisition costs from t=0 to t=40 for the reference case (330 seats per train) under the three alternative scenarios.

Now, let's assume 330 seats and 60,000€/seat (which is roughly what an inflation thingy suggests the middle value ends up being now) and we've got a 19.8m€ train which we'll call $24m US. But how many trains? I can see that article's throwing around 11 as an initial thing but I don't know about that.

Look, NZ's a country about the same size as the UK (it's bigger) and Japan (it's smaller) with a comparatively teeny-weeny population (5m vs 68m and 125m)... there isn't a classic case for HSR... we're doing it for environmental reasons and also JFB likes trains and has to spend a lot of money very quickly (and I hope I've convinced you that spending it on trains/infrastructure is a way to do that, at least) to hopefully to stop being JFB (what's next? we spend all of JFB's money and end up as Elon Musk?). But even the current government, especially now Phil Twyford's been marginally sidelined, isn't not going to look the gift horse of this free money in the mouth (the relevance is unbelievable). So... what would a functional running pattern look like?

Let's take 250km/hr. The distance from Auckland to Wellington is 736km, which should mean we're doing that in 3 hours. But the flipside is that we can get to Hamilton in more like 100km, which would translate as more like 24 minutes. As a commuter service for Auckland and Hamilton, then, we'd probably want two trains per hour for the peak. Given it takes up to 65 minutes on the suburban network, we'd want to concentrate these trips between 7:30 and 9. Let's say, 7:30 from Auckland, 8:00 from Auckland and 8:30 from Auckland, which will continue down the network but the other two can just be the same two trains going back and forth. So, that's 2 trains. And we can lay over the one in Auckland for a little bit to be an hourly connector.

Now, Wellington and Christchurch are about 315km apart and we'd probably expect some commuter patterning here as well because that ends up as being a 90min journey, basically. Let's say just the two commuter patterns each way. So, that'd be 6:30 and 7:00, to arrive at 8:00 and 8:30. And this needs to be 4 trains. However, both the trains leaving Wellington can be trains from Palmerston North, having departed at 6:00 and 6:30 and we can have an arrival time of 8:30. So, we'll stick in another train to do this route, too. Which leaves me with 2 + 4 + 1 = 5 trains so far.

We'd definitely want to run some trains Auckland to Wellington, so let's say 5am and 6am, which after allowing for intermediate stops will arrive for 9 and for 10. So that's another 2 trains.

Yeah, eleven trains looks reasonable. So, that's 11*24m = $264m US, which is chump change with the numbers we've been throwing around here.

Sub total... $7.264b US and then take off $500m.

Running count of money:

1. $181.2b US (woke up and became JFB)
2. $138.54b US (after the Auckland transport schemes)
3. $122.54b US (after the Cook Strait Tunnel)
4. $122.04b US (after the planning study for HSR)
5. $77.04b US (after the North Island HSR) or $32.5b with a different guesstimate (if this is how it shakes out we'll blow this money on suburban heavy rail in Christchurch and suburban LRT in Hamilton and Tauranga, let's say two lines apiece for the first two and 1 for Tauranga, it's coastal, so at $5b each... that leaves $7.5b
6. $17.04b US (after the South Island HSR) or $7.5b US
7. $10.276b or $7.5b US

Hmm... let's even this up by spending the difference on lobbying for constitutional reform in the US. Either to the tune of $3.276b (which I think will need to be used to create a Think Tank) or $500m (which can all go towards getting rid of the Electoral College) and should be direct spending. So, that gives me $7b left over.

JFB gets really eccentric and buys stuff that has no value

Okay, so I mentioned Netflix, right? Way up at the start. Well, what they're doing is this. The thing is that we don't really know what exactly that means. What I'd want is to see Lord Brocktree get an adaptation since it's my favourite book. So, I'll give Netflix $200m to make that, specifically, happen.

And that's what's going to be happening now... a whole lot of adaptations. Although, I guess, it'll be on Amazon Prime (yuck) instead of Netflix.

First up... some "original" fiction.

An eight film Arthur adaptation where the first one is kind of the plot of Beowulf:

• Why Nimue hates Merlin
• The Sword in the Stone
• The Black Knight/Rebellion
• The Wedding of Arthur and Guinevere/Lancelot wins a Tournament/Guinevere woos Lancelot
• Gawain and the Green Knight/Guinevere goes to Lancelot
• Morgana/the Theft of Excalibur's Scabbard
• Galahad and the Grail
• Arthur vs Mordred

More details:

I have explained, in "poem" form, the plot of the first movie years ago... here. Long story short... we had Nimue has Grendel's mother, Beowulf was Victoria and instead of a drinking hall that Grendel attacks, they kill Grendel for no reason other than he looks like a monster, Nimue orders the hit and then realises her mistake when Victoria returns boasting of having killed Grendel.

The complication is that I can't remember everyone who was in the devised piece with me and they're basically coathors, right? Let's say they are and they don't want to sell the rights cheaply... let's chuck $50m at them.

Anyway, the conclusion to the "play" the "poem" was based on was is that Victoria's friend tells her about Nimue's being Grendel's mother and her scheme to kill Victoria for killing Grendel. Thus, Victoria goes to Merlin to get a magic potion but he betrays her and it was poison since he was actually Grendel's dad (in the play this was subtext). And then it ends with Nimue plotting revenge against Merlin since, hey, he was complicit in Grendel's death and (although I don't remember if this bit was subtext in the play or not) also convinced Nimue to let Grendel live in his cave in the first place... which put Grendel in the position in the first place! So, that's another 200m (like, I'm going to have these passion projects have massive budgets, right? why wouldn't I? I've got $7b to spend!).

As it happens I think this should be a whole series now. Each of these is $200m in budget and JFB doesn't care how much money they make... in fact, we don't want to make any money at all, right? The whole point is to spend cash. Profits (if any) can all go to, uh, my coauthors? The Think Tank? This would definitely work better as a television show but movie budgets are easier to deal with.

• The second story is "The Sword in the Stone" portion of the Arthurian tale but in context it's Merlin's attempt at personal redemption by being a better "father" to Arthur than he was to Grendel. Merlin leaves Arthur to his own devices "job done". I wouldn't make it overly dissimilar to the Disney version, however we start like the film Excalibur with a chance encounter between Uther and Merlin results in a fast and deeply problematic friendship (Merlin uses magic to give Uther the appearance of Arthur's mother's husband... this Merlin isn't a good dude).
• Then we move on to a plot best described as "Arthur brings the lower kings to heel". We start with Arthur's first encounter with the Black Knight, wherein he is defeated in combat when the sword from the stone breaks... only being saved by a magical intercession by Morgana, who is among Pellinore's attendants. This should become the source of rebellion... with King Pellinore as the leader. Morgana remains at court with Arthur and we can have a kind of romance plot around this. The rebellion should then take up the story with Merlin's reappearance coinciding with the lowpoint of Arthur's fortunes and here we have the journey to the Lake to gain Excalibur (which in this rendition is forged from Grendel's remains by Merlin and given to Nimue before he leaves the land of the lake). With Excalibur, Arthur turns the tides and vanquishes the rebellion, but Pellinore and his host escape capture in the final battle. Arthur forgives the rebellion's leaders and vows to redeem his honour by fighting the Black Knight honourably.
• We return to the question of the Black Knight in the fourth film but this time Arthur doesn't lose because Excalibur. Pellinore reveals that Morgana is, in fact, Arthur's sister. Horrified, Arthur resolves to go on a pilgrimage to purify his soul but in an ferocious argument with Merlin instead agrees to follow Merlin's advice. And so Merlin announces a wedding between Arthur and Guinevere as a distraction from the scandal... while Arthur banishes Morgana. Duly engaged, Arthur sets about really gathering knights, via a grand tournament, in which the grand prize is being Arthur's best man at the wedding. Almost immediately after the engagement, Guinevere (who is our main character in this film) meets Lancelot whom she believes to be a servant rather than a humble knight recently sent from his home to seek favour at Arthur's court so she has no qualms about trying to win Lancelot's heart due to seeing Arthur as a monster (on account of the course of their engagement). However, she realises her error when Lancelot asks her to broker a meeting between Merlin and his compatriot Vivienne, who wishes to learn magic. The film thus becomes a story about (a) Merlin's distraction by Vivienne, who shares his (heretofore assumed to be unique) brand of magic (this is because Vivienne is actually his daughter via Nimue but neither of them know that), (b) Guinevere's growing understanding that Arthur's great, perhaps only real, flaw is his unquestioning and unyielding belief in Merlin's rightness and (c) her love for Lancelot. The culmination of these threads takes place on the wedding knight as Guinevere sneaks from the marital bed to meet with Lancelot who offers to take her away, but Guinevere chooses to remain married, but unhappy. Lancelot swears eternal loyalty to her... and we end on an ambiguous note about what happens next.
• This next film is about the moral collapse of the Round Table. We begin with the adventure of Gawain and the Green Knight because it will provide a good structure for the first part of the film with a built in passage of time. The basic idea is that we must establish (1) that Guinevere and Lancelot are chaste lovers, (2) Arthur has, at last, convinced Lancelot to marry... this is the feast that the Green Knight interrupts... and (3) we can show, through Gawain's quest to survive the return of the Green Knight, Lancelot's standing in court. And so it happens that Lancelot, Kay and several other knights journey with Gawain to the castle of the Green Knight a year later and wait outside while the Green Knight while Gawain survives. While the other knights accept the Green Knight's offer to join the feast, Lancelot elects to return to Camelot... and so it is that Lancelot is alone in the middle of a storm (for atmosphere) when two separate messengers greet him. One summons him with news of his own wife's labour and the other comes from Guinevere, calling him to be a witness to her child's birth. Lancelot goes to Guinevere, as per his vow. Her birth goes well, Lancelot's wife's birth does not... she dies, Galahad (his son) lives. And this is where things go completely wrong since Lancelot is grief stricken, which causes much fretting at court... and should serve as a dark mirror to how the film started. And, so, at last, Guinevere goes to Lancelot... which Vivienne witnesses and relays to Merlin, who talks to Arthur. And Arthur, as ever, agrees with Merlin and has agents dispatched to kill Lancelot surreptitiously. Guinevere overhears this conversation but before she can do anything, Arthur finds her and, in this moment, realises that he has lost her forever. Aware that he has crossed lines, Arthur tells Guinevere to take their daughter and flee to [where Arthur was intending to travel on his pilgrimage]. As he watches them leave, Arthur must come to the resolution that Lancelot should live and so goes to stop the assassins. Cue dramatic end and Lancelot and Galahad's flight, whilst Vivienne looks on from the mouth of a cave before turning in from the cold to reveal Merlin, trapped forever.
• In this movie, we follow Morgana from her banishment via spell to the castle that will become Mordred's fortress. Or, rather, we follow the corruption of Morgana and her son/nephew Mordred by Nimue. Act One: Morgana refuses the temptation of Nimue and her agents twice, but, desperate, accepts it the third time and enters a castle by a lake embellished with heraldry we have heretofore associated with Lancelot. Grateful for the shelter and the job, Morgana goes to sleep. She rises to the sound of children playing under Lancelot's watchful eye... the older boy is weak and ill in appearance but seemingly happy. It is now Act Two... years have passed and Morgana refuses her second and final chance to obtain "true power". Again, foiled, Nimue banishes Lancelot and Galahad and poisons Mordred so his condition worsens and blames Mordred's illness on his father's corruption... and having refused "true power", his only hope is Excalibur's scabbard. Nimue gives Morgana a token for "Vivienne, my daughter" so that Morgana shall have an ally. Morgana thus ventures forth to Camelot and three times tries to gain the scabbard with honour. The first time, she is prevented by Vivienne, who shape shifts into Arthur to trick Morgana. The second time, Morgana pleads her case to Kay, but Vivienne disguised as Merlin has set Kay against Morgana. And thus, the third time, Morgana goes to Vivienne and they steal the scabbard, which Vivienne disguises as Arthur's mother's crown. As they escape, however, they are caught by Arthur and are forced to flee. On the way back to the castle, Morgana uses the spell that Merlin used to banish her from Britain to Avalon which Vivienne recognises as one of Nimue's, but she cannot believe her mother taught Morgana such a powerful spell and Morgana reveals that Nimue did not, Merlin did. And Vivienne is forced to confront the reality of her own life... her mother set her against Merlin and Merlin's replacement son. End film. Credits scene: Morgana tells Mordred "always remember, your father denied you this, the means of your salvation" (well, something better written with the same meaning).
• It's years later, still, and Britain's gone full Pride Rock under Scar, but a teenaged Galahad is everything his father should've been (morally, anyway) and has journeyed forth to Camelot where he's received by Kay and Bedevere, the last of Arthur's great knights... half are with Pellinore in the fight against Mordred and the rest are with Percival and have gone out to seek the Grail. Kay and Bedevere tell Galahad the only thing that can save Arthur and the Land is the Grail, so Galahad sets forth... unknowingly following the same path as Morgana and Vivienne all those years before. And at the very pond where Morgana unintentionally left Vivienne behind Galahad stops to slake his thirst whereupon he meets his very own lady of the lake, Vivienne. In need of redemption, Vivienne tells Galahad she is trapped within the pond but offers Galahad a chance free her: he must choose either a truth he does not know or a lie he believes, Galahad chooses to learn the lie, which is "your father loved your mother". Demoralised, Galahad turns towards Camelot to admit his failure, but Vivienne has been freed, stops him and then wrestles him into the pond... Galahad tries to fight and stands up, only to find himself in the ocean and entirely alone but for a distance figure fishing. This turns out to be a girl of about his own age, who tells him of the castle in which she lives. Galahad offers to help her carry her fish back but she says she is being punished and must not return before dusk. Galahad does not offer to keep her company and goes to the castle where, of course, he meets Guinevere and the Fisher King and it's revealed Lydia is not being punished. As ever, I have no particular interest in adhering closely to any antecedents so what's going to happen here is that the romance of Lydia and Galahad causes the Fisher King to grant Galahad the Grail when he realises that neither Galahad nor Lydia seek or wish the subordination of the other's true will and spirit (Lancelot, of course, swore that vow and Guinevere chose to remain with Arthur).
• Galahad returns with the Holy Grail, which restores Arthur but Galahad is prevented in his ambition of taking a seat at the Table by Arthur who physically destroys the table: "if I am worthy, I will live to make another Table but I destroyed this one eighteen years ago". And then this movie is basically just Mordred versus Arthur... there'll be a phase where Arthur goes to Lancelot and then Lancelot, Arthur, Bedevere and Kay find Arthur's other lost knights who have all been distracted from their mission, with the exception of Percival who we reveal to have been the Fisher King. And then once that's done we basically have them ride out to join with Pellinore for the final fight wherein everyone dies except for Bedevere, Galahad, Lydia and, technically, Arthur. Between the three of them they manage to bring Arthur to Vivienne's pond, which is now a mystic ocean and she conveys Arthur to Avalon. And somehow we imply that Vivienne has brought all of Camelot and the Fisher King's castle and so on to Avalon as well.

Hah, an eight film arc. Most of them aren't very action-y, a lot of the key Arthurian tales and stuff aren't in there because they don't fit with my Vision and I'll probably need to up the budget because inflation by the time we get to the end. Therefore, I allocate $2b to these instead of the 2*8=1.6 it should be. I have $5b left. Also, I was thinking $200m is a huge budget for a film since Mulan (2020) was $200m, Eternals is expected to be the same and Black Widow is listed at $200m+ but Guy Ritchie's Arthur film was $175m four years ago and Avatar 2 is expected to clock in at $250m so...

And, then, for kicks, I also blow $1b on getting that Guy Ritchie King Arthur series made. Oh, and another $600m to have Giles Kristiaan's Lancelot and Camelot made... and hope that he's writing a trilogy/force someone else to make the films a trilogy.

While we're here, let's chuck on another $200m apiece for adaptations of Ivanhoe and a Battle of Hastings movie. Lavish medieval (or, at least, medieval fantasy) period pieces, all. And that's just $3b left. Hmm... I might not give my Arthur Saga that extra $400m... some of those films are pretty small scale and don't need anything like that in terms of budget. Yes, definitely. And then we use the spare $400m to make two sequel films to Beowulf: Beyond the Shieldlands since I'm, er, JFB is still really ticked off that got cancelled just as it was getting really interesting.

Right... just $3b left... let's call that 15 movies.

First up, another original: The Cabrian.

It's set in the distant future where the human race has spread out across the galaxy and features our "hero", let's call him, Alexander, who seems an entirely honest and honourable creature. And, you know, for the most part he is. He's an Earth native, which is unusual now, and has journeyed out to a distant world which is always covered in ice and snow, let's call it Cabria, because why not? On Cabrian brave colonists live in a massive barracks, whilst sending "daily" parties out to salvage what they can from the long since frozen cities of the long extinct Cabrians, the only evidence for non-human intelligent life ever found. Here, Alexander meets the beautiful but seemingly naive Sandrine, her eight year old son Philip and Sandrine's ex and Philip's father, the boorish and deadbeat Lachlan. Basically it's a romance where Lachlan becomes increasingly jealous and rivalrous with Alexander as he grows closer to Sandrine and higher in Philip's estimation. In particular, Lachlan is obsessed with a tattoo he notices on Alexander's shoulder. Eventually everything comes to a head when Lachlan and Alexander are alone on a salvage mission... and here the big secret is revealed... while Alexander is undoubtedly the better person than Lachlan, his politics are abominable. The tattoo that Lachlan so obsessed over is a regimental tattoo of the Household Guards, but not just any regiment, it is a regiment that brought war to ten thousand worlds in an attempt to secure the succession of "the lost heir". Basically, it's a conspiracy theory, but the regiment was defeated and its members scattered across the universe, which is how Alexander arrived to indoctrinate Philip... which is what Lachlan was really upset about the whole time. Anyway, Lachlan and Alexander fight, Alexander wins easily but as he turns to leave a paralysed Lachlan to slowly freezes to death, Lachlan blows them both up with a secret stashed mining explosive... Credits scene: Sandrine holds a newborn infant while the infant's genetic information is uploaded to Alexander's ancestral databank and after we watch a visualisation of that information travel across the universe to Alexander's father, we watch his face change as it is revealed that Sandrine is the missing heir.

There is no sequel since I don't know what that was about. And, yes, I didn't really know where the Arthur movies were going specifically I knew what they were going to do generally. With "The Cabrian" I don't know what's next. I guess another spacewar but what happens in that I don't know. I think it works best as a one and done idea. If it does well I'm sure whoever makes it will produce a sequel. The point is that I'm not budgeting a sequel for it.

Secondly, a two film original fiction: The Child and The Father.

It's similar to the above two in that it features a male lead that's Merlin or Alexander-esque: we'll call him George. George's father created a supercomputer and has given George the mission of using the supercomputer to dismantle the Chinese government and partition China via a war. By following the computer's instructions, George has become PM and from that position has engineered the war but part of the supercomputer's plan is that George goes fight in the war himself, since it was necessary to gain political capital for conscription that politicians not be excluded from conscription. George leaves behind an accomplice, Tyra who is pregnant with his child, who has secretly agreed (with the supercomputer) to kill the supercomputer on successful mission completion. While deployed in China, George meets his "could have been" from school when their two units meet. Everything turns to shit because, quelle surprise, the supercomputer needs George to die (he's a loose end) but George and, let's call her, Abby (Abigail) get stuck in a cave for months. Cue romance. Eventually, though, they're able to leave, but their escape doesn't go well since as soon as they make contact with some allied soldiers the supercomputer's back to trying to kill George. And so we have a mad escape to a safe zone and just as it looks like they're going to make it the screen goes black and credits roll.

The sequel is about the lives of Tyra and Abby in the aftermath of Mission Success. Abby's in an ostensibly worse position since she's pregnant, in the military, in a warzone and if she reveals who the father is, she'll be hounded forever... but without a listed father, she can't claim benefits due to an anti-war baby policy created by George's government. However, Tyra is an immigrant with a dependent child in a world recovering from a war that destroyed the global economy... and also she's haunted by having killed the supercomputer, which was clearly a thing with feelings and emotions: it was so alive that it would rather die than not have a physical body and be incapable of smell, taste and so on. There's no clear plot structure because the whole point is just to show the kind of mess that's resulted from George and George's father's schemes, and the struggle Abby and Tyra have about how to tell their children about the legacy of their father (about whom Abby and Tyra have very different perspectives). I guess the film should cover 13 years and conclude with the first day of college of the two children, where their parents meet for the first time. And, again, ambiguous ending about what happens next.

Right... and now we're ready to just do a simple list because none of it's original fiction from here on out. 13 films. Let's go.

• Lord Brocktree, as advertised.
• Symbionic Titan 1
• Symbionic Titan 2
• Symbionic Titan 3... I swear, I'm not a big fan but it gets stuck in my head what would've happened with this and I need to know. Thus, we'll track down the creators and get a trilogy out of them.
• Digimon Tamers 1... the Rika/digivolving arc, concluding with the arrival of the first Deva.
• Digimon Tamers 2... the Deva arc.
• Digimon Tamers 3... they go into the Digital World to stop the Sovereign from sending more Deva.
• Digimon Tamers 4... they finally get to meet the Sovereign but Beelzemon reappears and Leomon dies.
• Digimon Tamers 5... the Sovereigns reveal the truth of the D-Reaper and they return to defeat the D-Reaper in the real world.
• Karazan Quartet 1
• Karazan Quartet 2
• Karazan Quartet 3
• Karazan Quartet 4... but, spoiler, Adam doesn't stay behind (as in the books) since he's finally made friends (I don't like the end of the books).

Whew. Done. 180 something billion USD spent.

Final thoughts?

• Digimon Tamers will be weird... Rika is (a) Japanese and (b) a natural redhead. I want it to be live action so it's a problem. Could I make the same movie with an all Japanese cast in Japanese and then have an English speaking cast, with different takes on Rika and still be within budget???
• Hmm... I wanted to do a hit piece of Richard Owen about Gideon Mantell. I need another $200m. Well, okay, that shouldn't cost that much.
• Also, no room for The Grapes of Wrath, apparently. Should also be fairly cheap.
• Aargh... Walking With Dinosaurs 2! And that would be expensive.
• A sequel to The Big Short about the dude who paid his rent. I need this film to exist.

Okay, bad luck US Electoral College reformers. I'll steal money from that to distribute $500m across those last four bullet points. Not so much a problem if the HSR thing ends up being cheaper than California's but there was only $500m for EC reform if it ended up being maximum price.

[Forsher]

- Pay Hugh Laurie whatever it takes to bring back House, I want at least 4 more seasons

God damn, another thing I forgot.... meaning, I, too, want more House.

Also, the Jennifer Government Movie.

Right, time to skimp on trains in Tauranga.

And to clarify... the rental property houses aren't investment... they're meant to go either to the local council or Air NZ, to help support HSR. Ooh, I think I forgot the cost of buying the Air NZ shares to give to Auckland Council. That's $2b, which leaves me with $3b for more movies and television shows I forgot.

If it's the other way, the Think Tank's just straight up gone.

[Gun Manufacturers]

You wake up one morning and, by some mystical misfortune, you find that you are the one and only Jeffrey Preston Bezos, owner of Amazon. Jeff Bezo's employees are now your employees, because you are Jeff Bezos.

Jeff Bezos' money is now your money, because you are Jeff Bezos. Nothing you can possibly say or do will ever convince anybody else that you are not, in fact, Jeff Bezos. His closest friends and family will fully believe that you are - and have always been - Jeff Bezos. You're the only one wise to what's true.

You stare in the bathroom mirror for some time wishing you weren't Jeff Bezos, but alas, you're Jeff Bezos now.

Now that you've accepted your present fate, it's time that you learn what your mission is. You've got to spend all of Jeff Bezos' money. Every cent of it. Maybe you get to return to your own body when you're done and become yourself again. Maybe not, but you'd still be the hero that spent all of Jeff Bezos' money.

And no, you cannot invest it, you may not keep it, and you cannot earn more of it. You can only spend it. And, for the purposes of this scenario, we're going to ignore that most of Bezos' wealth is locked away in stocks, investments, etc. We're going to pretend that his wealth is all cold, liquid-y cash, ripe for the spending. Failure to spend it all or try to save/invest/otherwise loophole your way to keeping the money or letting a proxy hold it on your behalf will result in your immediate arrest, where you can post bail for the remainder of your worth or be sentenced to life in prison, thereby forfeiting your worth to the state.

You, Jeff Bezos, have a wealth of $181,200,000,000. The question is, how do you spend it?

Can't think of anything? Need some recommendations?

For $22.7 billion, you can fund NASA for an entire year.
For $20 billion, you can end homelessness in the United States by ensuring every homeless person in America has a guaranteed roof over their head
For $15.8 billion, you can double every Amazon employee's pay
For $380 million, you could hypothetically buy enough of the members of Congress to abolish the electoral college
For $295 million, you could pay the back taxes Amazon owes to the European Union; this is enough money to host Eurovision nearly 12 times.
For $150 million, you could build ten fancy libraries
For $57.6 million, you could pay off 1,000 grad student's loans

Note that even if you choose all of these recommendations, you've got $121,817,400,000 left to spend. You better get to work.

So, how do you spend all of your money?

Me? I'd buy Congress to abolish the electoral college ($380 million), I'd end homelessness in the United States ($20 billion), I'd give $22.7 billion to NASA. Wow, I've still got 138 billion? Yikes. I'd double every Amazon employee's pay ($15.8 billion), then I'd double it again ($31.6 billion), and then I'd double it again ($63.2 billion). Hmmmm still got $27.5 billion to play with. I'd donate $7.5 billion to the Make a Wish Foundation. I'd donate $2.5 billion to St. Jude Children's Research Hospital. I'd donate $2.5 billion to Habitat for Humanity. I'd donate $2.5 billion to the YMCA. I'd donate $2.5 billion to the American Red Cross. I'd donate $2.5 billion to the American Cancer Society. I'd donate $2.5 billion to Planned Parenthood. I'd donate $2.5 billion to the Appalachian Trail Conservancy. And I'd donate my last $2.5 billion to PBS.

Nothing in your hypothetical says I can't keep material goods, I just have to spend the cash. I'd buy precious metals (gold, platinum, silver, etc). I'd also earmark enough money to buy off the courts, so when I'm inevitably arrested for not spending every cent, I'd end up being found not guilty.

[The Blaatschapen]

I donate all the money to one friend.

Now that I've technically spent it all, I just have to hope that my friend donates half of it back to me.

Now, who is a good friend of mine that I can trust to actually donate back?

[Ifreann]

Divide up the money among all Amazon workers in inverse proportion to their wages and working conditions. Top executives would have one tenth of a cent added to their bank balance. The people pissing in bottles on the warehouse floor would become millionaires.

[Postauthoritarian America]

1. Unionize all Amazon facilities immediately and make Amazon a worker-owned and -run enterprise.

2. Demand all Amazon suppliers, partners, etc. similarly unionize and turn ownership and management over to their workers.

3. Having single-handedly created the socialist workers' paradise, retire and bask in the thanks of a grateful, free, prosperous and peaceful world.

[Gun Manufacturers]

1. Unionize all Amazon facilities immediately and make Amazon a worker-owned and -run enterprise.

2. Demand all Amazon suppliers, partners, etc. similarly unionize and turn ownership and management over to their workers.

3. Having single-handedly created the socialist workers' paradise, retire and bask in the thanks of a grateful, free, prosperous and peaceful world.

(Image)

2a. Watch as all of Amazon's suppliers, partners, etc tell you to go pound sand, and boycott Amazon.

3: Having single-handedly destroyed one of the internet's largest online retailers, begin hiding from the thousands of people ruined by your actions.

That's probably more accurate.

[Resilient Acceleration]

1. Unionize all Amazon facilities immediately and make Amazon a worker-owned and -run enterprise.

2. Demand all Amazon suppliers, partners, etc. similarly unionize and turn ownership and management over to their workers.

3. Having single-handedly created the socialist workers' paradise, retire and bask in the thanks of a grateful, free, prosperous and peaceful world.

(Image)

2a. Watch as all of Amazon's suppliers, partners, etc tell you to go pound sand, and boycott Amazon.

3: Having single-handedly destroyed one of the internet's largest online retailers, begin hiding from the thousands of people ruined by your actions.

That's probably more accurate.

#MakeEbayGreatAgain

[Sundiata]

I'd be tempted to gamble a few billion in a game of poker.

[Postauthoritarian America]

1. Unionize all Amazon facilities immediately and make Amazon a worker-owned and -run enterprise.

2. Demand all Amazon suppliers, partners, etc. similarly unionize and turn ownership and management over to their workers.

3. Having single-handedly created the socialist workers' paradise, retire and bask in the thanks of a grateful, free, prosperous and peaceful world.

(Image)

2a. Watch as all of Amazon's suppliers, partners, etc tell you to go pound sand, and boycott Amazon.

3: Having single-handedly destroyed one of the internet's largest online retailers, begin hiding from the thousands of people ruined by your actions.

That's probably more accurate.

That would be why so many third party suppliers, partners, etc. are telling Jeff Bezos to go pound sand every day? NOT

Point being that Amazon and near-monopolies like Amazon command outsized influence in the "free market" economy, influence they currently use to produce profits for a very, very few. Imagine that kind of influence used on behalf of workers and you can taste the socialist workers' paradise.