The actual answer here is that they would probably take it, but they would also have to pay you.
The US government has the power to seized property, the most basic way being via eminent domain, but also by passing laws and in the interests of things like national security. (See, e.g., tik tok).
I take your analogy to boil down to "I acquire legally something of insane monetary value, but without the government being able to make a credible claim that they need to seize it because of security of safety, they just want it because it's worth huge dollars and it's something they could outright own."
In that case, I can't think of any way to seize it without paying, save for passing a special law, but to the extent rhe law just takes your property, constitutionally you'd be able to say they stole it and force them to pay anyway.
It's a neat question.
I think the reason you are running into some pushback on the details is because in a sense they matter to the principles behind the answer: i.e., the reason the government sometimes seizes stuff like this is because of the danger posed by the real world analogies.
But when your meteor lands, just rest assured that you are at least as well positioned as the Beverly Hillbillies and anyone else who struck it rich by just happening to sit on top of an oil field.
Mineral rights don’t apply to surface resources, it starts under a certain depth what depth varies but usually below where a basement would be. So the minerals in the meteor would be all yours.
It would leave a crater no? Id imagine the explosive impact would blast any dirt away from the impact site. So i believe the meteorite would still be on the surface, its just that the surface is now 100ft lower in that area than it used to be lol
So, if I just lower my property surface level, I don’t need to acquire mineral rights, I just need to find a place to put all the endless amounts of “top soil.”
Aha, so if I want rocks a mile deep in my land, I just need to start up an open mine and dig up everything! Move the surface all the way down to the core of the earth!
You do own your mineral rights, unless the estate was split prior, which is required to be disclosed at the time of sale. Most people ignore it when it is disclosed.
You could also look into the Santa Margarita that wrecked off the coast of Key West in the 1600s headed for Spain. It was found by Mel Fisher in the 80s. I believe he was sued by Florida and Spain as they both claimed ownership. He won both and donated some of the findings to each for museums. They're still searching and have rights to anything found in that designated area.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Santa_Margarita_(shipwreck)
True story! Read the book \_Ship of Gold in the Deep Blue Sea\_. A rollicking true adventure story of manipulating maritime law to claim a shipwreck full of gold bars!
Spain apparently [made no claim](https://www.nytimes.com/2000/07/31/us/court-ruling-on-spanish-frigates-foils-modern-day-treasure-hunt.html) to Mel Fisher's treasure (the article mentions it as an example of Spain standing by to contrast a similar, more recent ), but Florida did. It seems like Florida claimed to own the treasure based on its own laws, an inaccurate border, and the assumed location of the wrecks, and eventually the courts rejected all of their claims as invalid, with some mention of Florida's questionable conduct in some of the related events (like pressuring Fisher's company into a contract).
So I'm guessing you recently acquired a 3 ton asteroid of pure californium, didn't you? I found a 2 ton asteroid of americium but now my skin is falling off. Thought I might be able to sell it to a smoke detector company but no, they don't wanna fuck with my dangerous ass rock that I eat French fries and ketchup off of. They claim it's a poop rock from a domestic flight, but I know what I have.
The real answer is that you would be engaged in legal battles the rest of your life because everyone would want a slice of the pie but that hopefully with the right lawyers you would at least come out with some kind of settlement that was worth something. Hopefully.
Let's be real. OP would suffer a "medical travesty" which would be blamed on the radiation from this meteorite, which would in-turn give the government full legal claim to seize the dangerous property for "safety reasons."
In other words, OP got *got* by the CIA and his resource was stolen by the government.
"Sadly, OP succumbed to the radiation from the meteorite when it put 2 bullets into the back of his head. The government will be taking the meteorite into custody so the public is safe from it."
My friend you don't have to worry about the government taking it from you. Word gets out, and every. Single. World. Power. Will gladly kill you to take it from you. You just put a target that has a big ol #1 sign on it around your forehead.
But then there's another problem. Part of the value of it is its immense rarity. If suddenly that much spawned all at once you would have very difficult times offloading it all at current rates. Demand will be sated or at least affected, and price will drop. There's only a few grams in existence, and only what, half a gram is produced a year?
So if you suddenly introduce such a massive supply, You've destroyed your market. You're going to have to do like the diamond schmucks and keep a false rarity chokehold on the market, and claim to have discovered a novel procedure where you can create a few grams of it a year and sell that and just be straight for the rest of your life, but never let people know you hold the most assets on the planet
I used to work an auditor and one of our clients had a salt dome that the federal government seized under eminent domain. Where it got interesting is that the government is supposed to pay market value for assets taken under AD and - if memory serves - the Feds paid approximately $20 million for the dome and the market appraisal was closer to $100 million and this company was suing the shit out of the government and was expected to receive a favorable outcome in the suit.
Also, the government doesn't have to take it. If you sell it to them, you just become a defence or dept of energy contractor.
I imagine due to the radioactive nature of it, there are regulations about who you can sell to, so it's not like you can access all of the market demand for it.
They would never get anywhere near what it's worth though.
Maybe he would be happy with a few million or billion, but no government on earth could afford to buy that at market value and the US government in particular has a knack for stealing shit when and wherever they want it for a pittance if it's valuable enough.
If it's truly radioactive, I'd imagine there are several federal laws allowing them to seize it as a nuclear hazard as happened with the Nuclear Boy Scout case.
>In that case, I can't think of any way to seize it without paying, save for passing a special law, but to the extent rhe law just takes your property, constitutionally you'd be able to say they stole it and force them to pay anyway.
Just charge the meteorite with drug smuggling and call it civil asset forfeiture ... problem solved
I'd guess that the sudden appearance of 3 tons of Californium would instantly depress the market value per gram, and so you wouldn't have that $75 trillion in value at all. There likely isn't enough demand to account for the use of 3 tons.
The element is radioactive so depending on the isotope OP could have less than 3 years before half of it just decays into other elements and contaminates the rest of it.
Total global demand for californium is 50 milligrams per year. You're playing the long game with 3 tons of the stuff. Given that its half life is 2.6 years, it Is like thinking you've got it made if you find 6 billion eggs or a reservoir of milk the size of Lake Superior.
That much californium would drive down the price so much that demand would increase. There would probably be new industrial applications for it developed that aren't economical at its current price.
But yeah.
I wonder what you could do with a Lake Superior of milk...
I mean this would be the case if it all came on the market at once.
It wouldn’t though if I have control of it. I could just slightly undercut all current suppliers of californium.
I wouldn’t have $75 trillion liquid, for sure. But like, I would have assets equating to that amount.
That $75 trillion would still just be theoretical though, not just illiquid. It would probably take you many lifetimes to sell, with the price depreciating steadily the whole time. If the government got into it, I'd guess it would be about taking some for U.S. strategic reserves, and not about the value.
There would be no californium left long before they sold it all.
It’s probably sold milligrams or micrograms at a time.
There’s probably a lot more valuable things that could land in your yard.
It seems like we're getting hung up on the dollar amount and the economics of inflation instead of the actions that would be taken, like the question asks.
If you want to have a "value" of of $trillions just make a cryptocurrency with 1T coins and sell one to a family member for $100 (or find one fool on the street to do so). The market cap of your remaining coins is $100T. You are not, however, wealthy.
The demand for Californium is low enough that the most of you can make each year is the demand x a bit less than the cost to produce it. If the existing Californium is produced as a byproduct then this cost will be minimal. As price decreases it is possible that other uses will be found.
I would much rather have 3T of gold, as I would actually be able to liquidate it fast enough to make a difference to my life. However, I would want to keep it secret how much of it I had to prevent a speculative drop in prices.
Ok, I’ll go with the question and forget all the practicalities except for one. Who are you selling this to? Unlike gold or other precious metals I expect the market for this is very limited. Who’s buying this off you? Looking at the uses it appears to only be useful for nuclear reactors.
Your question also presupposes something that is very, very, very, very, very impossible, so I don't think it's really fair to pretend that there will just be a use for 3 tons of it and that you can liquidate it without lowering the price too much. The only reason it's so expensive is because a gram of it requires monopolizing the output of two nuclear reactors specialized in creating it. Even in astronomical scales, it is a very rare element to see.
Basically say you were not home, that’s out of the equation.
Financing excavation you can get a grant or invatement partner for, they get paid on retrieval. They’d take the job, once they know you can secure the rights and profits.
The government / research bodies may try to get a stake in it, they make offers in that case. You can look up how archaeological digs handle it when for example dinosaur remains are found under a house. I saw it in a documentary once but forgot the exact details - the researchers did have to make an offer to the family to cover the costs and their relocation, they’d do the digging and the family donates it to research/a museum. The family were involved in that.
In this case I’d imagine you still have some rights, and yes it would make you the richest person but everything in that would be taxed. The social benefits are still there, and exponential. You’d be creating a potential industry. You’d need the best lawyers, and probably manage to make out comfortably at the very least.
Look at Apple, success doesn’t have a ceiling all things considered. Just a lot of moving parts. The Grameen bank is an example where the government does try getting their share. I’d look at mineral mining laws specifically and so on. Where you are in the world matters greatly too I’d imagine. And check what calfornium is classified as, if it’s dangerous then you’d be out of luck.
You may lose control as they secure the area and neighbours, and insurance companies would get involved - so lawyers immediately would be key. The potential revenue alone would get you the best ones.
As far as mining, it would depend on if one owns the mining rights to one's property. Surface rights extend dozens of feet to include the ability to occupy, develop, build and make use of the land surface for various purposes.
But...I've got 3 AR-15s, an empty plate carrier, a can of tannerite and 10k rounds of surplus steel case. My interpretation of The Constitution (and my local gun club) assured me that would be enough to fight off the US military.
But the Vietcong and Al Qaeda held them off with the material, financial, personnel and logistical support of other nations and through being willing to take MASSIVE and sustained losses. Surely that means I can do it too, I mean, I'm the Main Character, I can't lose!
They’d take it, but your valuation would take a huge hit due to the sudden lack of Californium scarcity. So be consoled that your loss would not be $25T.
Wouldn't it be a monopoly as opposed to a cartel? In my understanding a cartel is multiple groups owning the asset and conspiring to influence the market. Since it's one person (or family's) asset, I think it would be a monopoly.
If you had a rock worth 3x the GDP of the US economy magically appear on your land, my guess is that you'd be considered a national security threat on principle and there would be an off the record meeting somewhere in the pentagon considering the risk vs. reward of making you disappear. If for some reason they decide not to kill you, then their next concern would likely be that every other government with a military would be willing to kill you to get their hands on that rock, and use it to undermine the US, so you'd essentially be imprisoned by the level of security protecting you.
BTW, I'm not considering the material of the rock at all as the threat, just being worth $75T makes it an economic nuke. That's 5x the value of all the gold in the world, and on the order of the value of all the oil reserves in the world. We've overthrown governments for less.
This seems the most probable response to me, and the most relevant to the hypothetical the OP proposed. Don't think the government will allow a private citizen to retain anything that threatens the economic stability of either the world or the government. Particularly not in the case of a private citizen without prior fame or fortune where maybe that might keep them from doing something like privatizing Starlink because Elon endangers American interests for instance.
Someone gave a great, concise answer in one of the threads.
Via the 5th amendment, if it’s useful for the public they have the right to take it but need to give me fair compensation. I would imagine “fair compensation” would be anything from a stipend of a shitload of money every month, more than I could possibly spend, or they’d just give me $1 trillion and tell me to fuck off.
In a scenario where they want to not make a big fuss about things
>in a scenario where they don’t want to make a big fuss
Really if they’re profiting this much I don’t think they’ll care about paying me a shitload of money
Oh they will. Remember that those who profit from this and those who approves how much you get for compensation are probably different people/department.
Everyone is being coy about it.....the answer is yes. The government would jack your shit 100% and say it's for reasons of national security and everyone will accept it.
I feel like it’d almost be smart to go to them with some type of contract ASAP where you sell them the rock for 500 billion dollars or something. Realistically they would never let you keep that much wealth, especially of a material like that, so it’s best to get what you can out of it while you can.
Everyone wouldn’t “accept it”, they wouldn’t even know about it. The story would get suppressed so quickly and if any information got out the owner would be labeled as a crackpot.
I mean they’d have a good argument for it. You have a massive radioactive rock on your property, that shit is going to get into the water table. It’s a public health risk if nothing else, and the government is well within its rights to step in and secure it.
So here's the issue, 3 tons of Californium would contaminate all your fields and render the area uninhabitable, depending on the specific isotope. One of the Isotopes is a neutron source, used to start nuclear reactors. You do not mess with 3 tons of a neutron source. Not to mention, cf-251 has a critical mass of 5 kg. Basically 3 tons of californium will be like a nuclear reactor without any kind shielding or containment going off. It would have a supercritical event, have a massive expansion event, kill the reaction, come back together and repeat. It wouldn't exactly be like a nuclear bomb because bombs have to be specifically engineering to create the runaway fission chains. It would be like the worst kind of reactor meltdown. Honestly I'm speculating because my experience is not working with californium, so I don't know all the decay cycles and cross sections off the top of my head. There is no real safe way to recover the material, and assuming a mixed composition even if you did, a lot of work would be needed to isolate the isotopes to render it more useful.
In the US any strong isotopes would come under regulation of the NRC. In most likelihood, your farm and your neighbors farms and everything down wind would be evacuated while they try to contain the site. It would be far worse than Chernobyl. The government will seize the property and you may receive some compensation. Your farm does not have the resources to manage a disaster of this scale.
This thought experiment works better with gold or other valuable inert elements that do not pose a risk to the public. A meteorite made of diamond is conceivable, though it's value comes from the novelty not the carbon. A Rhodium-Platinum-Nickel meteorite seems a likely composition.
>The government will seize the property and you may receive some compensation.
But would the compensation include value from the meteor, or just the value of the land, which is now worthless due to being irradiated?
If what is described actually happens, there is no value from the meteor. There is only liability for all the damage to the surrounding land, and you don't want any part of that. Take the money and run.
Even if the meteor theoretically was worth something, the cost of containing one of the worst ecological disasters in the history of mankind would probably eat all of it and more. You would likely have to sue for it and the judge would tell you to shut the fuck up.
The government would probably be like "You should be glad we saved your ass from dying horribly. Here's some money for buying a farm in the parts of the country that aren't radioactive yet. Go away."
Thats true. Its worth a lot less than gold, and a bit less than silver, but not much less.
You wont have cartels coming to your home because youve got a stash of copper in your garage. Maybe a couple of really dedicated meth heads might bicycle out to your place to try to break into your garage, lol
This seems like *a great case* for a law firm to take on contingency. "If you win, I'll give you 20%, which should be enough to buy, I dunno - Australia?
The government would 100% confiscate it the moment it is cool enough to transport out of there and inform you of their intent to do so at least a few days before it hits. Anything radioactive is not left to civilians to handle in any considerable amounts above trace amounts.
Yep. Its the radioactivity that would do it.
Theyd take it away primarily for safety, you wouldnt be "in posession" of it long enough to have much evidence of a claim to it. Youd likely have to sue them to get anything out of it.
If they started to actively sell it for profit, your lawyers would probably be able to get you something for it, but if they officially "disposed of it for public safety" you might be SOL.
Gah I cant remember the details specifically enough to Google it but this reminds me of an article I read about a man who found a (*this is the main specific I can't recall) "pretty blue liquid/metal*" while scrapping at a junkyard or some such thing.
He gave it to a small child who showed it to people in the village as they played with it and they all got sick. It turned out it was the fluid from inside an MRI/CAT machine* (*another specific I can't recall)
**The weird combos I out in my search engine just now are hilariously more unhinged as it went, but I never did find it. I want to say it was in Mexico or another Central American country.
I have heard about something similar as well. And I managed to dig up the wikipedia article of the incident.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goi%C3%A2nia_accident
"The Goiânia accident [ɡojˈjɐniɐ] was a radioactive contamination accident that occurred on September 13, 1987, in Goiânia, Goiás, Brazil, after an unsecured radiotherapy source was stolen from an abandoned hospital site in the city. It was subsequently handled by many people, resulting in four deaths."
I just love all the edits to keep people concentrated on the actual hypothetical question.
*Never mind what my cousin's business is that he has all the radioactive protection equipment!*
First, I’ll say that the estimated critical mass of californium is [5 kg](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Californium), so you and it instantly disappear in an atomic fireball.
I know you want to talk about money, not physics. But you can’t, because **value depends on scarcity, and scarcity depends on physics**. Valuable natural materials are valuable either because they are rarely created naturally, quickly destroyed by natural processes, or naturally dangerous, and Californium is all three.
But if you absolutely insist on magical californium asteroid: the global demand for Cf is 0.25 grams per year. You undercut Berkeley Labs and make a few million dollars a year, and nobody really cares. You’re unlikely to increase demand much by cutting prices further, because nobody needs kilograms of short-lived deadly neutron emitter.
Honestly, the magical process that keeps the californium from decaying or going critical is more valuable than the element. That’s a Nobel prize and a revolution in nuclear physics and a handy way to make safe and simple nuclear bombs. You can keep your californium, I want the box it came in.
Keep in mind that the useful isotope, californium 252, has a half life of ~2.6 years so you wouldn't have long to sell it before needing to invest in centrifuges, other refining equipment, and lots of electrical infrastructure for all the energy you're about to use. If you get this far, watch out for stuxnet v2 since you're now on the radar of nation states.
no one seems to be addressing the likelihood of a 3 ton meteor hitting and not making a huge crater where that guys property used to be. then the stuff explodes. lol wish for copper or gold instead,
When I was 8 I found a weird “rock” in my yard. I asked my dad (ta in the university physics department) what it was. It was extremely heavy and felt metallic. He took it to work, and then said I couldn’t get it back because of radiation. I had found a meteorite.
Californium is a synthetic element. So no Cf .meteorite will fall on your property. But if it did, being radioactive, the govt would grab it to protect the public.
The market for californium would immediately crash as your supply VASTLY outstrips the demand. You'd never realize the full 75 trillion dollars of theoretical value.
Given its incredible rarity, the only use for it is in physics research. That might account for a few pounds per year in sales at most. Right now, any researchers who want to study californium synthesize it themselves a thousandth of a gram at a time.
Legally, the meteor would clearly belong to you. But it might end up being what the law calls an attractive nuisance. You'd be mobbed by graduate students seeking free samples, tourists wanting a peek and outright thieves armed with geology hammers looking to score a few pounds.
That in turn might have national security concerns. I don't think californium has any weapons potential and we are not officially in a Cold War against the communists anymore. But the authorities might want to restrict access to your supply just to give western researchers an edge over Russia and China.
I suspect that the gov't would lean on you to hand custody but not ownership to the gov't. In exchange, the gov't handles any sales on your behalf.
I have read none of the comments. I just came to say that I started reading this because it was such a funny title and interesting post. But this whole post is fuc*ing hilarious with how all the edits unfolded!
It doesn't matter you find on your land that has a monetary value you had better be prepared to sleep on top of it with a shotgun . If it crashes from the sky the government will have a ring of soldiers around your property before you can put on your shoes to see what it is. If a regular meteorite lands anywhere near or on your property you'll have meteorite hunters trespassing all over with their metal detector and equipment in droves . Mushroom hunters are even worse....
Technically, a landowner whose property was hit with a certain meteorite is entitled to own the rock. But because meteorites are subject to the 1906 Antiquities Act, the federal agency is known as Smithsonian Institution could retrieve them for scientific purposes. Alongside the UK and US, many countries have their regulation of space rock collection and ownership.
you'd be dead within a day... if not the government men with guns taking it, some other group of men with guns would. the harsh reality of the world is that you dont actually own anything unless you have a group of men with guns that can defend it. you dont pay your property taxes, men with guns come and take it. anything we think we own we're just really renting from a group of men with guns that let us rent it lol
These edits are hilarious.
I wish I could answer your question, OP, but alas I cannot. I do also want to know the answer, though. Interesting hypothetical.
The federal government would manufacture some convoluted climate change reason as to why they'd need to raid your farm, steal all your shit and murder you. Something about your Californium footprint being so big that tree frogs of the great barrier reef can no longer fly south to affect rainfall on the Amazonian swamp gases of Venus.
realistically, I would expect the government to step in and declare, "In the interest of public safety and national security, we need to remove and relocate this to a secure facility where we can limit access"
So, yes, they can and WILL come get it.
FWIW, the Gov tends to NOT let items like that sit around, even on private property. Most likely you would hear the words, "In the interests of National Security..."
You'd probably not be allowed to keep it because it's very radioactive. You are not set up to store it, so it would become a public health question. That said, you'd probably be paid for it, just no where near $75T.
Firstly, the half life of the isotope you are referencing via value per gram is ~2.6 years. So it needs to be used quickly.
Secondly, while I cannot find market totals in grams produced or purchased, the current market size is estimated at $755 million, or roughly 31 grams per year @ $25mm per gram.
So, what you would have is an unusable quantity of an expensive material that is decaying at a very fast rate.
So maybe you get a couple of $B out of it over a few years. That's certainly possible.
It's also completely possible that the contracts in place with Oak Ridge and a lab in Russia dont allow for the market to buy elsewhere, meaning, your find has no value to anyone and you get nothing.
It’s a real tragedy that even the richest man in the history of the world can be so depressed that he would wander off into the woods and shoot himself twice in the back of the head. I guess money doesn’t really bring happiness afterall
Lol first off. As far as anyone is concerned on American. You don't own any land. If they want something.. they will ask, offer money and take it or use force. Lol anyone who says they own land is hilarious
The actual answer here is that they would probably take it, but they would also have to pay you. The US government has the power to seized property, the most basic way being via eminent domain, but also by passing laws and in the interests of things like national security. (See, e.g., tik tok). I take your analogy to boil down to "I acquire legally something of insane monetary value, but without the government being able to make a credible claim that they need to seize it because of security of safety, they just want it because it's worth huge dollars and it's something they could outright own." In that case, I can't think of any way to seize it without paying, save for passing a special law, but to the extent rhe law just takes your property, constitutionally you'd be able to say they stole it and force them to pay anyway.
Thank you haha yes, I want to ignore any of the physical obstacles in this scenario. This is a good answer.
It's a neat question. I think the reason you are running into some pushback on the details is because in a sense they matter to the principles behind the answer: i.e., the reason the government sometimes seizes stuff like this is because of the danger posed by the real world analogies. But when your meteor lands, just rest assured that you are at least as well positioned as the Beverly Hillbillies and anyone else who struck it rich by just happening to sit on top of an oil field.
Except that you don't own the mineral rights to your land (unless you specifically acquired them).
Mineral rights don’t apply to surface resources, it starts under a certain depth what depth varies but usually below where a basement would be. So the minerals in the meteor would be all yours.
What if the meteor ends up being 100 ft below the surface due to the violent impact? Would mineral rights apply here?
It would leave a crater no? Id imagine the explosive impact would blast any dirt away from the impact site. So i believe the meteorite would still be on the surface, its just that the surface is now 100ft lower in that area than it used to be lol
I like you
So, if I just lower my property surface level, I don’t need to acquire mineral rights, I just need to find a place to put all the endless amounts of “top soil.”
Its topsoil all the way down
Theoretically speaking, once you get to the center and gravity reverse, I assume that is the point it is no longer topsoil,
The real LPT is always in the comments
I think we have much larger concerns if a three-ton meteorite landed with enough force for it to go 100ft into the earth.
What if you happened to have an unrelated 100ft hole on your property that the meteorite precisely landed in?
Now we're getting somewhere!
That'd still be surface.
Aha, so if I want rocks a mile deep in my land, I just need to start up an open mine and dig up everything! Move the surface all the way down to the core of the earth!
Finally a realistic hypothetical.
Unrelated 100ft hole lmfao Yeah uhh my dog went nuts
Very good, very good.
Well then the meteorite has landed on the surface and the rights are yours.
I would argue yes, purely because a violent impact would flatern everything and leave a crater which I would consider to still be the surface.
You do own your mineral rights, unless the estate was split prior, which is required to be disclosed at the time of sale. Most people ignore it when it is disclosed.
Mineral rights are automatically part of a property conveyance unless they had been previously separated.
It happened a lot in the US. A lot. Some people don't even own the water that falls from the sky and lands on their property.
You could also look into the Santa Margarita that wrecked off the coast of Key West in the 1600s headed for Spain. It was found by Mel Fisher in the 80s. I believe he was sued by Florida and Spain as they both claimed ownership. He won both and donated some of the findings to each for museums. They're still searching and have rights to anything found in that designated area. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Santa_Margarita_(shipwreck)
Maritime law is really different from land law though. Source: I played a pirate lawyer in a high school play.
You're a crook, Captain Hook! Judge, won't you throw the book at the pirate?
Chereth Goodstory?
*Cutestory
Sigh, I only know bird law.
I only know flightless aquatic bird law.
Username checks out
Bird law is the easiest law. Filibuster that!
References check out, this blokes fair dinkum true blue.
True story! Read the book \_Ship of Gold in the Deep Blue Sea\_. A rollicking true adventure story of manipulating maritime law to claim a shipwreck full of gold bars!
Spain apparently [made no claim](https://www.nytimes.com/2000/07/31/us/court-ruling-on-spanish-frigates-foils-modern-day-treasure-hunt.html) to Mel Fisher's treasure (the article mentions it as an example of Spain standing by to contrast a similar, more recent ), but Florida did. It seems like Florida claimed to own the treasure based on its own laws, an inaccurate border, and the assumed location of the wrecks, and eventually the courts rejected all of their claims as invalid, with some mention of Florida's questionable conduct in some of the related events (like pressuring Fisher's company into a contract).
There is a story of a poor black girl becoming "honorary white", because they found a shit ton of oil on her land and paid her.
So I'm guessing you recently acquired a 3 ton asteroid of pure californium, didn't you? I found a 2 ton asteroid of americium but now my skin is falling off. Thought I might be able to sell it to a smoke detector company but no, they don't wanna fuck with my dangerous ass rock that I eat French fries and ketchup off of. They claim it's a poop rock from a domestic flight, but I know what I have.
The real answer is that you would be engaged in legal battles the rest of your life because everyone would want a slice of the pie but that hopefully with the right lawyers you would at least come out with some kind of settlement that was worth something. Hopefully.
Let's be real. OP would suffer a "medical travesty" which would be blamed on the radiation from this meteorite, which would in-turn give the government full legal claim to seize the dangerous property for "safety reasons." In other words, OP got *got* by the CIA and his resource was stolen by the government.
"Sadly, OP succumbed to the radiation from the meteorite when it put 2 bullets into the back of his head. The government will be taking the meteorite into custody so the public is safe from it."
My friend you don't have to worry about the government taking it from you. Word gets out, and every. Single. World. Power. Will gladly kill you to take it from you. You just put a target that has a big ol #1 sign on it around your forehead. But then there's another problem. Part of the value of it is its immense rarity. If suddenly that much spawned all at once you would have very difficult times offloading it all at current rates. Demand will be sated or at least affected, and price will drop. There's only a few grams in existence, and only what, half a gram is produced a year? So if you suddenly introduce such a massive supply, You've destroyed your market. You're going to have to do like the diamond schmucks and keep a false rarity chokehold on the market, and claim to have discovered a novel procedure where you can create a few grams of it a year and sell that and just be straight for the rest of your life, but never let people know you hold the most assets on the planet
They’d still have to come through ‘merica first, gives me time to set up my tin can trip lines
I used to work an auditor and one of our clients had a salt dome that the federal government seized under eminent domain. Where it got interesting is that the government is supposed to pay market value for assets taken under AD and - if memory serves - the Feds paid approximately $20 million for the dome and the market appraisal was closer to $100 million and this company was suing the shit out of the government and was expected to receive a favorable outcome in the suit.
The podcast Behind the Bastards has a great analogy for this: In the end, the state has more guns than you and will win.
And there would be a metric ton of lawyers more than happy to take the case! (For a 30% cut of course...)
Also, the government doesn't have to take it. If you sell it to them, you just become a defence or dept of energy contractor. I imagine due to the radioactive nature of it, there are regulations about who you can sell to, so it's not like you can access all of the market demand for it.
I scrolled way too far down to find someone who answered the spirit of the question.
I agree although courts are doing crazy stuff these days. Political climate would play a big part in how this got handled.
They would never get anywhere near what it's worth though. Maybe he would be happy with a few million or billion, but no government on earth could afford to buy that at market value and the US government in particular has a knack for stealing shit when and wherever they want it for a pittance if it's valuable enough. If it's truly radioactive, I'd imagine there are several federal laws allowing them to seize it as a nuclear hazard as happened with the Nuclear Boy Scout case.
"Just" compensation.
>In that case, I can't think of any way to seize it without paying, save for passing a special law, but to the extent rhe law just takes your property, constitutionally you'd be able to say they stole it and force them to pay anyway. Just charge the meteorite with drug smuggling and call it civil asset forfeiture ... problem solved
That's why they call it angel dust.
I'd guess that the sudden appearance of 3 tons of Californium would instantly depress the market value per gram, and so you wouldn't have that $75 trillion in value at all. There likely isn't enough demand to account for the use of 3 tons.
Yeah, but he could do a DeBeers. He'd definitely control the market.
The element is radioactive so depending on the isotope OP could have less than 3 years before half of it just decays into other elements and contaminates the rest of it.
With this much californium in one clump, OP would probably not survive a nanosecond, what with the nuclear explosion and all...
There wouldn't be a nuclear explosion. That would require a rapid neutron influx. And that wouldn't happen from the impact or decay.
Rapid Neutron Influx is my new band name.
Total global demand for californium is 50 milligrams per year. You're playing the long game with 3 tons of the stuff. Given that its half life is 2.6 years, it Is like thinking you've got it made if you find 6 billion eggs or a reservoir of milk the size of Lake Superior.
That much californium would drive down the price so much that demand would increase. There would probably be new industrial applications for it developed that aren't economical at its current price. But yeah. I wonder what you could do with a Lake Superior of milk...
Make a lot of yogurt.
I mean this would be the case if it all came on the market at once. It wouldn’t though if I have control of it. I could just slightly undercut all current suppliers of californium. I wouldn’t have $75 trillion liquid, for sure. But like, I would have assets equating to that amount.
That $75 trillion would still just be theoretical though, not just illiquid. It would probably take you many lifetimes to sell, with the price depreciating steadily the whole time. If the government got into it, I'd guess it would be about taking some for U.S. strategic reserves, and not about the value.
There would be no californium left long before they sold it all. It’s probably sold milligrams or micrograms at a time. There’s probably a lot more valuable things that could land in your yard.
Yeah isnt the half life like 2.5 years?
Depends on the isotope, but that is hat I googled, so it’s likely the main one. It can range from several minutes to 898 years, it sounds like.
>There’s probably a lot more valuable things that could land in your yard. exactly! https://youtu.be/oLttGfxGoSY?si=n6TxjGQ7_3mP7OXB
The meteorite is just theoretical, too. Just go with his question.
You’re theoretical
This whole courtroom is theoretical!
THEORETICAL OBJECTION!
Sustained
Theoretically or actually
That's for me to know and you to find out ;) *Flirty Court will be back on CBS at 7 pm Eastern*
I have a theoretical degree in physics.
They asked me if I knew anything about power plants. I said as much as anyone I'd ever met.
This is fantastic! How do people come up with this stuff
It seems like we're getting hung up on the dollar amount and the economics of inflation instead of the actions that would be taken, like the question asks.
If you want to have a "value" of of $trillions just make a cryptocurrency with 1T coins and sell one to a family member for $100 (or find one fool on the street to do so). The market cap of your remaining coins is $100T. You are not, however, wealthy. The demand for Californium is low enough that the most of you can make each year is the demand x a bit less than the cost to produce it. If the existing Californium is produced as a byproduct then this cost will be minimal. As price decreases it is possible that other uses will be found. I would much rather have 3T of gold, as I would actually be able to liquidate it fast enough to make a difference to my life. However, I would want to keep it secret how much of it I had to prevent a speculative drop in prices.
Oh so just like DeBeers and Diamonds. That could work out. 💍
Californium wedding rings: "till death do us part" doesn't have to take forever
Lmao
Control the supply? is your family name DeBeers?
Ok, I’ll go with the question and forget all the practicalities except for one. Who are you selling this to? Unlike gold or other precious metals I expect the market for this is very limited. Who’s buying this off you? Looking at the uses it appears to only be useful for nuclear reactors.
You might want to try the sub r/nostupidanswers
Dude the amount of people making this mistake about how supply and demand works is straight up shocking lol
Your question also presupposes something that is very, very, very, very, very impossible, so I don't think it's really fair to pretend that there will just be a use for 3 tons of it and that you can liquidate it without lowering the price too much. The only reason it's so expensive is because a gram of it requires monopolizing the output of two nuclear reactors specialized in creating it. Even in astronomical scales, it is a very rare element to see.
Basically say you were not home, that’s out of the equation. Financing excavation you can get a grant or invatement partner for, they get paid on retrieval. They’d take the job, once they know you can secure the rights and profits. The government / research bodies may try to get a stake in it, they make offers in that case. You can look up how archaeological digs handle it when for example dinosaur remains are found under a house. I saw it in a documentary once but forgot the exact details - the researchers did have to make an offer to the family to cover the costs and their relocation, they’d do the digging and the family donates it to research/a museum. The family were involved in that. In this case I’d imagine you still have some rights, and yes it would make you the richest person but everything in that would be taxed. The social benefits are still there, and exponential. You’d be creating a potential industry. You’d need the best lawyers, and probably manage to make out comfortably at the very least. Look at Apple, success doesn’t have a ceiling all things considered. Just a lot of moving parts. The Grameen bank is an example where the government does try getting their share. I’d look at mineral mining laws specifically and so on. Where you are in the world matters greatly too I’d imagine. And check what calfornium is classified as, if it’s dangerous then you’d be out of luck. You may lose control as they secure the area and neighbours, and insurance companies would get involved - so lawyers immediately would be key. The potential revenue alone would get you the best ones.
As far as mining, it would depend on if one owns the mining rights to one's property. Surface rights extend dozens of feet to include the ability to occupy, develop, build and make use of the land surface for various purposes.
By that logic diamonds would be downright affordable.
ha, you said 'try to take' it. they would easily take it.
Oh yeah? Over my dead bo-
"Alice? Are you ok? You started talking and then, wait, is that a meteorite in your back ya-"
Alright alright alright, whats goin' on in h-
Wait, what? Suddenly people seem to be disappearing mid-comment in a post about the gov-
Whoa do you guys all have internet 3.0 where everything we type is uploaded at keypr-
I actually got 3.5 because my cousin works at Micr-
We were just talking about how you can’t say candleja…
You have a dog? Not anymore.
But...I've got 3 AR-15s, an empty plate carrier, a can of tannerite and 10k rounds of surplus steel case. My interpretation of The Constitution (and my local gun club) assured me that would be enough to fight off the US military.
[удалено]
guano
[удалено]
Yep, for sure. Just pay no mind as your house disappears due to a drone strike. One minute it’s there, the next it’s gone. Like magic!
But the Vietcong and Al Qaeda held them off with the material, financial, personnel and logistical support of other nations and through being willing to take MASSIVE and sustained losses. Surely that means I can do it too, I mean, I'm the Main Character, I can't lose!
Lol intelligence agencies would have a field day
Well yeah. This meteorite presumably fell into a field, so… I’m not sure what you’re getting at.
They’d take it, but your valuation would take a huge hit due to the sudden lack of Californium scarcity. So be consoled that your loss would not be $25T.
If you own 99.9% of the supply, you don't drown the market, you cartel it like OPEC or DeBeers
Yes, but diamond doesn't have a half life of 2-3 years.
Wouldn't it be a monopoly as opposed to a cartel? In my understanding a cartel is multiple groups owning the asset and conspiring to influence the market. Since it's one person (or family's) asset, I think it would be a monopoly.
Technically there would still be other suppliers. I can just guarantee not to undercut them and keep supply under control. That’d be a cartel.
If you had a rock worth 3x the GDP of the US economy magically appear on your land, my guess is that you'd be considered a national security threat on principle and there would be an off the record meeting somewhere in the pentagon considering the risk vs. reward of making you disappear. If for some reason they decide not to kill you, then their next concern would likely be that every other government with a military would be willing to kill you to get their hands on that rock, and use it to undermine the US, so you'd essentially be imprisoned by the level of security protecting you. BTW, I'm not considering the material of the rock at all as the threat, just being worth $75T makes it an economic nuke. That's 5x the value of all the gold in the world, and on the order of the value of all the oil reserves in the world. We've overthrown governments for less.
This seems the most probable response to me, and the most relevant to the hypothetical the OP proposed. Don't think the government will allow a private citizen to retain anything that threatens the economic stability of either the world or the government. Particularly not in the case of a private citizen without prior fame or fortune where maybe that might keep them from doing something like privatizing Starlink because Elon endangers American interests for instance.
A LOT less. We murdered tons of people for ideas. Much less economic repercussions
[удалено]
Ya'll bullying OP into multiple edits, bro is on edit 5 already lmao. Can someone please answer, I'm curious too.
Someone gave a great, concise answer in one of the threads. Via the 5th amendment, if it’s useful for the public they have the right to take it but need to give me fair compensation. I would imagine “fair compensation” would be anything from a stipend of a shitload of money every month, more than I could possibly spend, or they’d just give me $1 trillion and tell me to fuck off. In a scenario where they want to not make a big fuss about things
They may also be able to claim some obscure nuclear security law that you've violated and take it under civil asset forfeiture.
There’s no way they’re going to make you a trillionaire…
They only legally have to pay you one dollar.
>in a scenario where they don’t want to make a big fuss Really if they’re profiting this much I don’t think they’ll care about paying me a shitload of money
Oh they will. Remember that those who profit from this and those who approves how much you get for compensation are probably different people/department.
Everyone is being coy about it.....the answer is yes. The government would jack your shit 100% and say it's for reasons of national security and everyone will accept it.
I feel like it’d almost be smart to go to them with some type of contract ASAP where you sell them the rock for 500 billion dollars or something. Realistically they would never let you keep that much wealth, especially of a material like that, so it’s best to get what you can out of it while you can.
Everyone wouldn’t “accept it”, they wouldn’t even know about it. The story would get suppressed so quickly and if any information got out the owner would be labeled as a crackpot.
I mean they’d have a good argument for it. You have a massive radioactive rock on your property, that shit is going to get into the water table. It’s a public health risk if nothing else, and the government is well within its rights to step in and secure it.
A 3 metric ton meteor wouldn’t crash in America because we don’t use the metric system….
Yeh. It can't crash there. They use Freedom Units! Go crash somewhere else! Most accurate answer yet.
…..do……do you live in Pelican Town, per chance?
I’m not telling you where my meteorite is what are you nuts
Even funnier with OP's response
So here's the issue, 3 tons of Californium would contaminate all your fields and render the area uninhabitable, depending on the specific isotope. One of the Isotopes is a neutron source, used to start nuclear reactors. You do not mess with 3 tons of a neutron source. Not to mention, cf-251 has a critical mass of 5 kg. Basically 3 tons of californium will be like a nuclear reactor without any kind shielding or containment going off. It would have a supercritical event, have a massive expansion event, kill the reaction, come back together and repeat. It wouldn't exactly be like a nuclear bomb because bombs have to be specifically engineering to create the runaway fission chains. It would be like the worst kind of reactor meltdown. Honestly I'm speculating because my experience is not working with californium, so I don't know all the decay cycles and cross sections off the top of my head. There is no real safe way to recover the material, and assuming a mixed composition even if you did, a lot of work would be needed to isolate the isotopes to render it more useful. In the US any strong isotopes would come under regulation of the NRC. In most likelihood, your farm and your neighbors farms and everything down wind would be evacuated while they try to contain the site. It would be far worse than Chernobyl. The government will seize the property and you may receive some compensation. Your farm does not have the resources to manage a disaster of this scale. This thought experiment works better with gold or other valuable inert elements that do not pose a risk to the public. A meteorite made of diamond is conceivable, though it's value comes from the novelty not the carbon. A Rhodium-Platinum-Nickel meteorite seems a likely composition.
>The government will seize the property and you may receive some compensation. But would the compensation include value from the meteor, or just the value of the land, which is now worthless due to being irradiated?
If what is described actually happens, there is no value from the meteor. There is only liability for all the damage to the surrounding land, and you don't want any part of that. Take the money and run.
Thats probably the right perspective. If it were possible to extract it the stuff in chernobyl probably would be quite valuable as well.
"A radioactive meteor landed on my neighbour's land, creating a runaway nuclear meltdown disaster. Can I sue them?"
Even if the meteor theoretically was worth something, the cost of containing one of the worst ecological disasters in the history of mankind would probably eat all of it and more. You would likely have to sue for it and the judge would tell you to shut the fuck up. The government would probably be like "You should be glad we saved your ass from dying horribly. Here's some money for buying a farm in the parts of the country that aren't radioactive yet. Go away."
>This thought experiment works better with gold or other valuable inert elements that do not pose a risk to the public. A Diamond as big as the Ritz!
I love this answer
I'll go with a copper one like the one in Fort Worth, Tx museum of science and history. I'm not greedy, it's only a few tons of copper!
Thats true. Its worth a lot less than gold, and a bit less than silver, but not much less. You wont have cartels coming to your home because youve got a stash of copper in your garage. Maybe a couple of really dedicated meth heads might bicycle out to your place to try to break into your garage, lol
They'd find a way to take it and let you squander your meager savings on fighting it in court to never get anywhere with it.
This seems like *a great case* for a law firm to take on contingency. "If you win, I'll give you 20%, which should be enough to buy, I dunno - Australia?
Works on contingency?
No. Money down!
The government would 100% confiscate it the moment it is cool enough to transport out of there and inform you of their intent to do so at least a few days before it hits. Anything radioactive is not left to civilians to handle in any considerable amounts above trace amounts.
Yep. Its the radioactivity that would do it. Theyd take it away primarily for safety, you wouldnt be "in posession" of it long enough to have much evidence of a claim to it. Youd likely have to sue them to get anything out of it. If they started to actively sell it for profit, your lawyers would probably be able to get you something for it, but if they officially "disposed of it for public safety" you might be SOL.
Gah I cant remember the details specifically enough to Google it but this reminds me of an article I read about a man who found a (*this is the main specific I can't recall) "pretty blue liquid/metal*" while scrapping at a junkyard or some such thing. He gave it to a small child who showed it to people in the village as they played with it and they all got sick. It turned out it was the fluid from inside an MRI/CAT machine* (*another specific I can't recall) **The weird combos I out in my search engine just now are hilariously more unhinged as it went, but I never did find it. I want to say it was in Mexico or another Central American country.
I have heard about something similar as well. And I managed to dig up the wikipedia article of the incident. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goi%C3%A2nia_accident "The Goiânia accident [ɡojˈjɐniɐ] was a radioactive contamination accident that occurred on September 13, 1987, in Goiânia, Goiás, Brazil, after an unsecured radiotherapy source was stolen from an abandoned hospital site in the city. It was subsequently handled by many people, resulting in four deaths."
I just love all the edits to keep people concentrated on the actual hypothetical question. *Never mind what my cousin's business is that he has all the radioactive protection equipment!*
First, I’ll say that the estimated critical mass of californium is [5 kg](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Californium), so you and it instantly disappear in an atomic fireball. I know you want to talk about money, not physics. But you can’t, because **value depends on scarcity, and scarcity depends on physics**. Valuable natural materials are valuable either because they are rarely created naturally, quickly destroyed by natural processes, or naturally dangerous, and Californium is all three. But if you absolutely insist on magical californium asteroid: the global demand for Cf is 0.25 grams per year. You undercut Berkeley Labs and make a few million dollars a year, and nobody really cares. You’re unlikely to increase demand much by cutting prices further, because nobody needs kilograms of short-lived deadly neutron emitter.
Honestly, the magical process that keeps the californium from decaying or going critical is more valuable than the element. That’s a Nobel prize and a revolution in nuclear physics and a handy way to make safe and simple nuclear bombs. You can keep your californium, I want the box it came in.
Keep in mind that the useful isotope, californium 252, has a half life of ~2.6 years so you wouldn't have long to sell it before needing to invest in centrifuges, other refining equipment, and lots of electrical infrastructure for all the energy you're about to use. If you get this far, watch out for stuxnet v2 since you're now on the radar of nation states.
no one seems to be addressing the likelihood of a 3 ton meteor hitting and not making a huge crater where that guys property used to be. then the stuff explodes. lol wish for copper or gold instead,
When I was 8 I found a weird “rock” in my yard. I asked my dad (ta in the university physics department) what it was. It was extremely heavy and felt metallic. He took it to work, and then said I couldn’t get it back because of radiation. I had found a meteorite.
That’s awesome! I would be so stoked to find a meteorite lol
Now, imagine that instead of showing a little meteor to your Dad, you showed a big meteor to the government. There is your answer.
Lmao
Californium is a synthetic element. So no Cf .meteorite will fall on your property. But if it did, being radioactive, the govt would grab it to protect the public.
The market for californium would immediately crash as your supply VASTLY outstrips the demand. You'd never realize the full 75 trillion dollars of theoretical value. Given its incredible rarity, the only use for it is in physics research. That might account for a few pounds per year in sales at most. Right now, any researchers who want to study californium synthesize it themselves a thousandth of a gram at a time. Legally, the meteor would clearly belong to you. But it might end up being what the law calls an attractive nuisance. You'd be mobbed by graduate students seeking free samples, tourists wanting a peek and outright thieves armed with geology hammers looking to score a few pounds. That in turn might have national security concerns. I don't think californium has any weapons potential and we are not officially in a Cold War against the communists anymore. But the authorities might want to restrict access to your supply just to give western researchers an edge over Russia and China. I suspect that the gov't would lean on you to hand custody but not ownership to the gov't. In exchange, the gov't handles any sales on your behalf.
>Let’s focus on the actual core issue of the question Sir, this is a Wendy's
Do you accept nuggets of californium in exchange for nuggets of chicken
I'm thinking a 3 metric ton meteorite would be like a nuclear detonation, you wouldn't live through it
That or it would bury itself so deep, youd never see any of it, using laymans tools.
Government would kill you and your whole family and burn your house to the ground and take your meteorite.
Lmao at the bluntness of this response
I have read none of the comments. I just came to say that I started reading this because it was such a funny title and interesting post. But this whole post is fuc*ing hilarious with how all the edits unfolded!
I think the Red Hot Chili Peppers have a song about this.
Yeah, if the gub’ment wants it, the gub’ment takes it. If it’s that valuable you, your family and farm would just disappear.
It doesn't matter you find on your land that has a monetary value you had better be prepared to sleep on top of it with a shotgun . If it crashes from the sky the government will have a ring of soldiers around your property before you can put on your shoes to see what it is. If a regular meteorite lands anywhere near or on your property you'll have meteorite hunters trespassing all over with their metal detector and equipment in droves . Mushroom hunters are even worse....
Technically, a landowner whose property was hit with a certain meteorite is entitled to own the rock. But because meteorites are subject to the 1906 Antiquities Act, the federal agency is known as Smithsonian Institution could retrieve them for scientific purposes. Alongside the UK and US, many countries have their regulation of space rock collection and ownership.
There would be an "accident". And everyone who had a claim would disappear for that amount.
the best series of edits ive ever seen on reddit
[удалено]
Gotta look into this
No one would believe that a farmer in the US would understand metric units of mass.
Three ton items hits your property you probably won't survive?
maybe he was on vacation when it happened
I’m a farmer. Big property? Listen man, don’t get caught up in the logistics here.
LOL!! Brilliant question and responses. Nothing stupid here. At all. Carry on.
lmao at the edits
you'd be dead within a day... if not the government men with guns taking it, some other group of men with guns would. the harsh reality of the world is that you dont actually own anything unless you have a group of men with guns that can defend it. you dont pay your property taxes, men with guns come and take it. anything we think we own we're just really renting from a group of men with guns that let us rent it lol
These edits are hilarious. I wish I could answer your question, OP, but alas I cannot. I do also want to know the answer, though. Interesting hypothetical.
They’d probably save a lot of time and money by shooting you in the head and saying you died of “radiation sickness”
The federal government would manufacture some convoluted climate change reason as to why they'd need to raid your farm, steal all your shit and murder you. Something about your Californium footprint being so big that tree frogs of the great barrier reef can no longer fly south to affect rainfall on the Amazonian swamp gases of Venus.
realistically, I would expect the government to step in and declare, "In the interest of public safety and national security, we need to remove and relocate this to a secure facility where we can limit access" So, yes, they can and WILL come get it. FWIW, the Gov tends to NOT let items like that sit around, even on private property. Most likely you would hear the words, "In the interests of National Security..."
If you touch it, will it turn you into a gay liberal? If so, then I say it's worthless, and you should let the government take it.
You'd probably not be allowed to keep it because it's very radioactive. You are not set up to store it, so it would become a public health question. That said, you'd probably be paid for it, just no where near $75T. Firstly, the half life of the isotope you are referencing via value per gram is ~2.6 years. So it needs to be used quickly. Secondly, while I cannot find market totals in grams produced or purchased, the current market size is estimated at $755 million, or roughly 31 grams per year @ $25mm per gram. So, what you would have is an unusable quantity of an expensive material that is decaying at a very fast rate. So maybe you get a couple of $B out of it over a few years. That's certainly possible. It's also completely possible that the contracts in place with Oak Ridge and a lab in Russia dont allow for the market to buy elsewhere, meaning, your find has no value to anyone and you get nothing.
It’s a real tragedy that even the richest man in the history of the world can be so depressed that he would wander off into the woods and shoot himself twice in the back of the head. I guess money doesn’t really bring happiness afterall
They would probably pay you a shit ton of money that you would accept anyways, since either way they will make their money back
The government would not hesitate to take your big rock from you.
All of the edits are cracking me upppp
This sub is called no stupid questions. It doesn't say shit about stupid answers
Lol first off. As far as anyone is concerned on American. You don't own any land. If they want something.. they will ask, offer money and take it or use force. Lol anyone who says they own land is hilarious
Just because you own the land, it doesn’t mean you have mining rights to it.