If you had $100b to spend on Go, how would you spend it?

[negapesuo]

Interpret the question however you see fit

[Kirby]

That’s a lot of money..

I’d divide it up evenly among current AGA members so that we can all retire and focus on playing and studying go. Maybe extend to the European players if it’s enough.

[Applebaps]

Did I read that right, a hundred BILLION dollars?

I would start by opening up a Go center in my town, stocking it with a good array of equipment, comfortable chairs, tables, theory books, a break room with food and drink, etc. I'd make sure the rent was paid in perpetuity and that I could pay at least one or two high ranking staff in perpetuity.

Then, if I had enough left over, I'd open another. And another.

[kj01a]

School programs, dedicated go schools, and college scholarships for tournament winners.

[Knotwilg]

If I had $100b, I would not spend it on Go, not at first. As a pastime, Go is not the biggest of evils, but I'm not sure if I want to expose more people to its addictive capacity.

I would spend the money on something that is more beneficial to society than Go, but I'd need to think what is most beneficial and still possible to fund with $100b

However, if I had that amount of money, I'd be totally free of professional duty and I would be able to spend it on things that I love doing. And so, I could and would probably create a space where I can play Go / table tennis / music, on my own terms.

My Go club in that space would have:

- tables and Go playing material, ready to play
- a library with every possible go book and magazine
- desktop computers with access to Go servers, go sites, analysis tools ... and exclusively so
- a nice spatial design, with plants and paintings, possibly breathing an oriental atmosphere
- and a small theatre where people can watch episodes of Hikaru No Go (schedule to be determined)

On the other hand, when you create something on your own terms, you may end up very lonely.

[EricBackus]

Did I read that right, a hundred BILLION dollars?

Clearly not, that would be ridiculous. A trailing "b" does not mean "billion" - the SI standard would be "G". But many go players are programmers, so maybe the trailing "b" mean "binary", as in base 2. So this is asking how you would spend $4 on go. Me, I'd buy 4/5 of a mocha to keep me awake during my game.

[Zenity]

That’s a lot of money..

I’d divide it up evenly among current AGA members so that we can all retire and focus on playing and studying go. Maybe extend to the European players if it’s enough.

There's an Asian man running for president who wants to give everyone a Universal Baduk Income!

In all seriousness, basic income would/will be a huge boon to competitive activities like Go. Humanity is headed in that direction, it's just a matter of time now.

As for the $100bil, I'd probably spend it all on funding Go tournaments. Once a lot of money is involved, people and the media will pay attention. Once people pay attention, they will want to get involved. And once enough people want to get involved, a strong(er) ecosystem will develop that keeps the cycle going.

[hailthorn011]

1. Fund a cartoon for children. Hikaru no Go proved the success of this strategy. Fund it and put it on Cartoon Network.
2. For the sake of publicity for the game organize a tournament in which 1 billion goes to the winner. This will attract a lot of attention from the MSM right off the bat.
3. On the wave of that publicity fund Go schools strategically based in regions around the country. Maybe these schools operate after classes have ended for the year. Hire retired professionals as teachers.
4. Establish 4 major tournaments in the USA based in 4 big cities (New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Houston).
5. Work to establish a deal between ESPN and the Nihon Ki-in to bring Japanese professional games to the USA.
6. Run ads introducing it as a cultural game but highlighting the inclusivity of it and how it brings people from a wide array of backgrounds together.
7. Work with already existing tournaments in the USA to bring more exposure to them.
8. Work with the AGA to create a professional system closely resembling the Japanese system.

[go4thewin]

Do research on using go and meditation to combat substance abuse

[TheLemon]

A school can be built in Africa for $1k, so in every African country hundreds of schools could be built and staffed for under $100M. Here people would learn Go and also how to create Gobans.

A Goban could likely be built for a dollar. There are around half a billion children in Africa and normal classes contain 50 pupils so stocking every classroom in Africa with a Goban would cost about $10M. With a whole generation growing up with Go the Go schools would prosper from selling Gobans.

A good salary in Africa is $300/month (fresh university graduates in Tanzania are lucky to get $100), so a thousand developers could be hired ten years for under $50M. Thus I would develop my idea for a Go MMO.

The remaining $99.8B would go into a bank account. It is very easy to get 5% interest, in fact in Kenya I saw an ad from a huge international bank offering a guaranteed 10%. A yield of five thousand million dollars per year can be expected.

Say a professor can be hired for $1k/month, I was offered a 5+ room house within walking distance of one of the largest universities in Rwanda for $50/month, so this would be a huge upper class salary. The interest alone could therefore continuously sustain a research staff containing almost half a million people.

[Ferran]

Set a fund. The money goes to the first entity that clones Shusaku.

Take care.

[Gomoto]

Tenuki. Go is able to sustain itself.

[phillip1882]

if i was strictly allowed to spend on go,
i would make a go salon that offers food and drink,
and yearly tournaments with prizes.
i would sell go equipment, such as board and stones and books,
i would donate to go efforts such as the american go association.

[Elom]

This statement may sound like something from a hilarious episode of Ancient Aliens, but Go, and all other forms of Spirit; mental martial art, Ki, with a touch of the Chinese homonym for ki meaning for breath, life force, in the euphamsm; Are essential for humans to transition into a Kardashev 1 civilisation with destroying ourselves. Widespread ki would be equivalent to the blue marble in public consciounes; it would make it easier to transition to a type one economy, easier to support developing countries, and so on . . . Even now, it seems reasonsble to assume that those naturally predisposed to have a spirit or any mindsport as a hobby or profession are more suited to sit out a lockdown than others, an event that mainly occurs in worlds that are a fewdecimal points above K0. Intelligence or gaining advantage with it has increased rapidly in evolutionary fitness; alas, far faster than we actually evolve, hence many look down on mindsports even though they'll save us all.

Phase 1--'布石-Fuseki'. 'Let your children play with their (healthy) food'

You open up on all san-san. Then follow with moves ever more territorial, satisfied with the amount of points you acquire counting each one you think you've claimed. That is before someone walks behind you and notes the walls surrounding everyone of your groups.

At the time it applied to doubling the possibility of a world champion by not giving by accident half of the national population the misguided subconscious impression that they can't be strong at go, but it could apply to anything. The main goal in the fuseki is to avoid rapid growth into to something that would stagnate your progress later on by seeing to culture and quality while things are small and easy to change. Small is beautiful.

During the fuseki, perhaps it's best not to splurge your cash on things you've already don't before but now only more, concentrating your stones in one area of the board collecting territory, doing thing that appeal only to you or like you in that manner to make for rapid growth which stalls later on--perhaps not. Perhaps it's best to diversify your points on the board in the opening and try to see how they might work together. Of course some territory would be made--in my personal case, one half of that end would be to make it easier for pros by making international tournaments, but always with this phase in mind when making decisions. The other would be based on multiple low-cost fuseki points around the globe.

The key for me here is that territory in the fuseki is not valuable for points it gains in absolute terms, but rather fact that it shows there is a living group. It's not about spreading ki and making it more popular--it's about being a servant and find points on the globe or the country where mental martials arts would be most useful. And it would be about identifying the feel that would the least limits on any ki's future growth before attempting grow big. At least that's what it would seem to be about to me.

Extraterrestrials would pass by and note no intelligent life. We're on the to becoming a cerebral species, but already live in quite a cerebral world. Especially in a sparse country, unless the inhabitants have a intelligence or intelligence-pairing function--not so much the case in non-eastern parts--finding clubs for, for example either go or sho-gi or xiang-qi or even chess might be difficult. But if pact of mutual support was made between the largely marginalised mindsports that may quadruple the locations in which to find a particular sport. In fact, it would be extremely efficient to play go at a club as long as one effectively promises to be a forever beginner in another ki, and vice versa. Beginners would always have a non-bot of their level play against and this might be a positive step.

But! You might say. This is exactly what you warned against. Only certain kinds of people may be interested in ki in the way you present it, you'll increase the player rapidly but also personality homogeny and halt growth in the long term. Well this is were your creatively might come into it's own--really stretching your brain to do things never done before, to emotionally connect with all people, to rant on go forums like it's a personal fb page. Think of what the healthiest way for a type one sport to progress to ensure it saves humanity--before going too far down a limited road . . .

Maybe someone might try this experiment. A child can have as much junk food as wanted, but your only willing to make the effort to give empty carbs for a short period of time in one day of the week. For the rest the week, they'd have to make do with fruits. A junk-food lockdown. The main point here would be to let them play with healthy food, and eventually curiosity might get the better of their prejudices'. Prejudices', in this theory, as often them expressing dislike is often a codeword for expressing unfamiliarity, but not having the vocabulary to do so. As long as food is not wasted or eaten uncleaning, associating healthier foods with things familiar--play for example--at least to the same degree less healthy food is associated with things kids find familiar, seems the most natural strategy. If it works a little for healthier food it might work a little for healthier hobbies.