Slashdot Mirror
Minecraft Creator Notch's $70 Million Mansion Recreated In Minecraft
theodp writes In case you've fallen behind on your TMZ reading, Minecraft creator Markus "Notch" Persson used his Microsoft money to outbid Beyonce and Jay Z for the most expensive mansion in Beverly Hills. Now, the Minecraft mogul's new $70 million mega-mansion has been recreated inside the game that made him rich.
Bart: I'm rapidly becoming a big underground success in this town.
Jim: See? In another twenty-five years, you'll be able to shake their hands in broad daylight.
When the foot seeks the place of the head, the line is crossed. Know your place. Keep your place. Be a shoe.
Makes you wonder what kind of good could have been done or how many lives could have been saved with that $70 million.
It's not like he's throwing bills into a fire. That money goes back into the economy which is good for everybody, and its recipients are still free to spend it on whatever good deeds they want.
After 8 years of onsite computer repairs, I have a deep insight into this sort of thing. At my company we have a nickname for people who make $10,000 a month and have $5,000 of it go to their 5000 sq ft mansion. They're "poor people living in a big house." Why the hell do people spend that much money on a house? If I won $200,000,000 in the powerball, I'd buy a 3000 sq ft house. Then I'd spend the rest on awesome stuff. Who the hell wants a giant house like that? Plus, that's how NFL players keep going broke. You know if you make it to the NFL or make Minecraft that you're making a ton of money ONCE. Like one and done, surprise you're poor. I'd hoard that money like crazy and budget it out over 100 years. What and idiot.
To anyone about to say real estate is an investment, go look at his electric bill, cleaning bill, and property taxes.
why?
The same argument got posted with Gates built his mega-mansion. People complained about it being a waste.
Apparently skilled tradesmen who build houses don't need jobs. Building things is, arguably, one of the better things you could do with money.
I wonder what kind of good could have been done, or how many lives could have been saved, with the thousands of dollars you've spent on a computer, a car, and a phone that you really don't need.
Or does your outrage only apply to rich people?
The 3% of his fortune that he spent on a house does seem like terrible money management.
Wait, what?!?
Can someone tell me if I'm smoking crack or are there three separate fire extinguishers in this picture [1]? Why are there fire extinguishers in a bathroom?
The whole "open space car garage" seems way outlandish, and the use of glass is pretty atrocious, but the views and decor seem pretty awesome. I wonder if the cost to upkeep and maintain such a home might exceed my mortgage costs.
[1] http://images.prd.mris.com/ima...
Make sure everyone's vote counts: Verified Voting
The money goes into the economy, but the resources and labor to build the thing do not. Still, it's his money to spend once people give it to him. If you think there was a waste, then you should be upset about Microsoft for spending as much as they did to buy a somewhat polished, but still fairly shallow indie game. Assuming they do nothing with it other than pass the cost on to you through higher costs for windows licenses.
Can you be Even More Awesome?!
The African billions were spent on despots and corruption with very little trickle down effect.
Right. And it's very difficult to have the money directed instead to the poor. I suppose you could send in an army to overthrow the despots and give money to the poor. Now you're in charge and responsible for running the whole place. Or you head home and leave a void, so that a new despot takes over.
While I understand the thought behind your comment, the other option is to impale ourselves trying to save everyone, and in the process we'll doom everyone.
It was a nice idea when there were 1 billion people, now there are 7. What do you plan to do when there are 14? 50?
I'll get modded into the ground, but whatever.
To teach my early teen kids about money, I offered them $20 apiece for each example they could list of how our "rich" neighbor could do something with his money that doesn't benefit me ( besides piling up his cash and burning it to death )
My son went first... "he could buy a million dollar car". (note: he actually drives a 2+ million dollar Veyron, but whatever)
Reply: "Nice try... But I'm a car salesman / builder / mechanic / own stock in GEICO insurance / sell gasoline & car parts / etc... He helped me even if he didn't intend to."
Daughter: "He could put it all in a bank account."
Reply : "Smart girl, but I'm a banker, that guy was super helpful opening up that account, since we need reserve deposits... if he had picked a stock market account that would also be great, my company sells stock to investors so we can expand and build more widgets, and we issue bonds for the same reason..."
In fact, I made it "easier" for the kids... assume that guy is a hateful jerk... now just list what he could do with his money to prevent anyone else from benefitting. What move can he make with his earnings that would benefit no one but himself ?
Anybody here want to guess how much I paid out? right... and thankfully my kids have not learned jealousy of other people's legal gains.
The end of the lesson was this:
The origin of "greed" is rooted in the concept of lusting for what you haven't earned. In context, it's similar to 'coveting'.
It's not evil to want to earn more by serving as many people as you can honestly.
And while we reserve the right to snicker at people who buy solid gold cell phone cases, we don't fall into the trap of greedily wanting to decide if they deserve it (after all, someone willingly traded it for their services) or if they are using their own money as we would. If they're bad stewards, they won't have it long, and in the meantime they can't help but serve others with that money, no matter what they do with it.
(That Veyron driving neighbor sells rap music, a lot of rap music I suppose... but it's a legal living)
Pretending this is my office full of bitter coworkers..
But I prefer to deal with people that don't waste money of flashy displays of financial mis-management.
There's many chicken and egg issues going on in Africa. Send food, and the incoming food becomes like money and manages to help fund local war lords. This actually happens. Sending food causes people with guns to start to show up and find a way to exploit the situation.
You also can't send money or send technology. All of those things cause issues with exploitation. One of the few ways that have actually worked is making real demand for work in those areas.
Any artificial support creates exploitation, you need real demand for real work. This is hard to do in areas of under fed people with no education and no real government. Intel has started sourcing their rare minerals from some of these poor areas. They painstakingly make sure trace all of their mineral sources to make sure they're not "blood minerals". This makes it very hard to exploit. The gun men stay away because once they move it, the operation loses all value because Intel refuses to trade with them.
Stuff like this has helped a lot. I'm sure there are other ways, but throwing money/food/etc at an issue actually makes it worse. Temporary help is one thing, but for sustaining issues, it does not help.
Or does your outrage only apply to rich people?
Oops, I think you tipped over your own straw man with that last remark.
There's no outrage in my post, and I think it's very telling that the examples you chose: a computer (which I use to earn a living), a car (which I use to get to stores to buy necessities), and a phone (really? [and it isn't even a smartphone]) actually are necessities for myself as well as the vast majority of people today.
Notch can literally eat his piles of cash for all I care. My point was simply that at some point you pass a level of wanton extravagance that you venture into a realm of wasteful absurdity. Our culture won't punish you for buying a $250,000 cell phone case, but that doesn't mean everyone agrees that it's a good idea.
"What do you despise? By this are you truly known." --Princess Irulan, Manual of Muad'Dib
/)
Look at the billions and billions and billions that have been sunk into Africa... still for the most part, a crappy sinkhole of money and poverty that isn't getting better. It will get better when they pull themselves up and actually start improving their own lives.
Ah, the "pull yourself up by your bootstraps" myth. Who knows -- perhaps once the majority of Africans have overthrown brutal despots, eradicated malaria and other diseases, and found reliable clean water they'll be able to start working on that.
A crazy amount of money is given to charity every year, and yet the problem doesn't go away.
How much time, money, and effort did it take to build a prospering American country and society -- from a largely empty land brimming with natural resources? Oh, and, how much of that came from Europe? "Self-made", indeed.
"What do you despise? By this are you truly known." --Princess Irulan, Manual of Muad'Dib
/)
The fault is that your argument builds a straw man that the wealthy do *no* good by holding/using wealth, but that isn't the argument. The argument is that they do relatively little with that wealth. One two million dollar car churns the economy, as in, provides jobs, taxes through fees, etc, much less than one hundred 20 thousand dollar cars. A similar thing could be said of a house. A 70 million dollar house doesn't generate 100x the economic activity of 100x 700k dollar houses. Partly this is because many "premium" materials don't generate more economic activity than less premium materials at a fraction of the cost...but the increase in cost is due to rarity and desirability only. Another part is that high priced items tend to require a one team work longer rather than more teams work, concentrating the transfer of wealth rather than spreading it out over broad actors who can trickle wealth down much faster and efficiently than a few who have a large share of it. The idea of "trickle down" is valid, it does happen, but it is more like accidentally watering some plants from a leak in water tank rather than watering a field with irrigation. And when your goal is to grow a crop like an economy, relying on minimal rainfall and tank leaks just isn't a productive way to go about it, as our Norse neighbors have shown.
while(1) attack(People.Sandy);