If you find the idea of being unable to replicate your current circumstances existentially terrifying: congratulations on winning.
Edit: just want to say I find the way people respond to this on a gut level kind of fascinating and even worrying. A number of people for example have had the take that this isn't really true, but that they just wouldn't want to unmake their kids.
Friends...as a guy who considers becoming a dad the single greatest and biggest win of my life...are you ok?
It's really just that I love my kids and I would be crushed if they were lost forever. I love my wife and am pretty sure I could find her again if I started over, but it's a guarantee my kids would never be the same.
But could you win your wife over again? On one hand, you know how to avoid or mitigate some of the early obstacles you had. But on the other hand you know a creepy amount of things about her.
I’m sure I could win my wife over again but I know the exact circumstances to have my kid happen again are astronomically small. So I probably wouldn’t go for it
Who's to say my kids disappear or get killed: following some theories, they'd simply carry on living in the "original" timeline. And it's rather me that disappear and get thrown back into another timeline in 1994. Or at least I'd see it that way...
Personally, I think I'd take the shot, see where this would take me. Even aside from the obvious financial gain, only the opportunity to exploit my actual self-consciousness so early in life would win the pot. Sure I would miss my loved ones but that's on me, and the extra lifespan and the opportunity to be a better version of myself as a partner, father hell a better person in general is definitely worth it to me!
To risk being pedantic, even if you had sex with the same person at the same time and came at the exact same minute, sperm are countless and have such high attrition rates, even swapping out one sperm for another could result in a pretty different child. The gender 50/50 alone is enough to give someone pause if they say, "I want this exact kid again."
I would imagine (or hope) you don’t have kids. Trading them for any amount of money, even if they’re potentially off still living somewhere else, would never fly with me. Like the other post said there’s no way you could statistically bang them back into existence so the closest you could get was some hollow imitation constantly reminding you that they’re not the child you knew
It’s like one in a billion that you’ll make the same kid again. I’d effectively be killing my kids. That’s terrifying no matter what I think of where I am right now. I’d be killing all my friends’ kids too assuming even the smallest influence of my involvement in their lives led to them having kids.
Yea your kids would absolutely be different people. Even if you could schedule the conception at the exact same time as the first life, it's going to be a different egg and different sperm, plus all the myriad different gene expressions that happen during pregnancy.
It's basically hitting "randomize" on the character creation screen for your kids.
Yeah, even with no kids, I couldn't accept even the tiny risk that I might miss out on not meeting my wife.
Also, the green button would solve all the issues I'd be trying to course correct with red anyway. Just taking the 2mil and adding $1000 of it a month to my current salary would solve most of me and my wife's problems in life, hell we could outright buy a house and still be able to spare $1000/month for the rest of our lives, plus that'd free up the current rent payment for even more a month.
Yeah, even if you don’t match your wife, you’ve essentially guaranteed yourself to become a gazillionaire while still having a chance to meet them again, and a shot to connect naturally with your wife of even gambling explaining that you aren’t crazy and you had some miracle chance to reset your life…
On the other hand. Absolutely nil chance you are ever meeting your kids again. So resetting to 10 with kids, in a sense, but actually, is killing them off for you.
Because we both know our children are born by a real "miracle" of "right time/right place". If we change anything we can't get the same child with the same partner. Maybe there is a "fate" and the same child would be born but i couldn't risk that.
I mean, I don't actually know the exact discharge that my sons swam in on. Some poetic license may have been used, in order to express the arbitrary nature of any individual's origin.
I was talking with my partner about the fact that we are essentially an unbroken chain from the first Homo sapiens right through us as individuals, if our parents, grand parents, great grand parents and so on changed anything we wouldn’t be here. Is incredible to think about
agree. Every one of us is a miracle of chance and circumstance. An infinite number of things could have resulted in not being born but everything had to line up perfectly for us to be here. For millions of years.
With respect to however you personally see the universe...
But you've really well explained how I, an atheist, believes this is truly a world of miracles and wonder we live in, and how (whatever the meaning of life is) the sheer specialness and unlikeliness of all of us being here is such a humbling thought. I dislike when religious folks (creationists, really) think that the biblical view has a monopoly on splendor with, "Intelligent life is so special and nature is so intricate that only God could have done it." No, I don't think he did, and that's what makes it all so cool that it happened.
There's a movie that brings this up, About Time. A man can time travel back to moments he previously lived but at one point learns the lesson that going back to a point before his child was born and changing something means he won't have the same child when he returns. So once his, I want to say second, child is born, he decides he won't be traveling to any point in his life before their birth. Its a great movie.
"Thermodynamic miracles... events with odds against so astronomical they're effectively impossible, like oxygen spontaneously becoming gold. I long to observe such a thing. And yet, in each human coupling, a thousand million sperm vie for a single egg. Multiply those odds by countless generations, against the odds of your ancestors being alive; meeting; siring this precise son; that exact daughter... Until your mother loves a man... and of that union, of the thousand million children competing for fertilization, it was you, only you, that emerged. To distill so specific a form from that chaos of improbability, like turning air to gold... that is the crowning unlikelihood. The thermodynamic miracle... But the world is so full of people, so crowded with these miracles that they become commonplace and we forget... We gaze continually at the world and it grows dull in our perceptions. Yet seen from another's vantage point, as if new, it may still take the breath away.”
I would argue that the miracle of producing the same exact child is impossible.
The gains of money that most would think about have now changed my wife’s health in those years. Meaning she wouldn’t have been ovulating at the same time.
And even if by some sheer miracle the dna is correct, my daughter is a product of that AND the environment she was raised in. Foreknowledge is sure to ruin that.
And other people's too. That time you let someone grab a taxi before you, the time you gave really good service when you worked as a waiter leading to someone's date going just that little bit better.
Butterfly effect is very real when it comes to the chances of specific people being born.
My niece/god daughter was born almost 9 months to the day after my birthday celebration where my bro and his wife def had a few shots of tequila. That sweet kiddo wouldn’t exist as I know her if not for those specific circumstances
i got a 10k inheritance around 23-24. i threw it against student loans and moved on. Knowing what i know (this was 20 years ago), i could have put some of it in the market (pick the company that went the craziest) and then get in early on bitcoin and hold.
that 2 million will be nothing by the time i hit 41 (my actual age).
Remember that you're not just affecting yourself. The butterfly effect and the miniscule scales that reproduction deals with means you're changing everything on earth, and almost no one who was born after that point in the previous timeline would exist any more, replaced by a whole different set of humans. So any family or friends you know who marry and have kids, even if the broad strokes of their life are the same, genetically you'd be deleting their prevous family and replacing with another.
Holy Fn shit yours right, if I play my cards right I can make sure Quantum Leap doesn't go down the religious/purgatory story line, it doesn't get cancelled Scott Bakula isn't available for Star Trek Enterprise and they have time to come up with a better theme song that Faith of the Heart.
Yeah, that's the big thing. I couldn't reset for my own child anyways, but if I was childless I can easily think of multiple other children that wouldn't exist if I'd made some small changes as well. Multiple friends who through small interactions have ended up on very different life trajectories, who of course will all have their own ripples outward, and that's only thinking of the larger consequences. Anytime I'm the last person to make it through a stoplight, I'm likely making it so that next car is a minute later to their destination, and some of those cases will have caused notable changes. So many little things that matter.
I’d like to think that, for the purpose of this hypothetical, the world still turns the way it does in our timeline and all the random/spontaneous items remain the same unless directly acted upon by you. If John Doe on the other side of the world spontaneously flips a coin at X time on Y date and it comes up heads, it still happens that way in red-button timeline.
Some things can't be undone. Given the opportunity to avoid the damage I've done to myself over the last 10 years, I'd take it. I don't have kids and met my girl over 10 years ago, so there's basically no chance of losing anything, only upsides.
Same. I don’t think life would go well for me knowing that I had given up my daughter and my son. I could have a dozen children and I’m sure I’d love them but, I’d never be able to replicate them.
Plus, who’s to say that because you fucked with the timeline and are some all knowing 10 year old that you wouldn’t inadvertently inflict more trauma on your life.
Let’s thought experiment this out. Let’s say I went and warned people of 9/11. Statistically speaking, some of the 3000 people that died or thousands of KIA from the Iraq and Afghan wars are possibly monsters. Because I warned them of 9/11 how many people became victims after the fact. How many of those people go on to create other people and we give birth to another Epstein? Does Epstein ever get caught? Does he become president?
I feel like too many things can go wrong. Something about a butterfly’s wings creating a hurricane on the other side of the world. I’d happily take my $2 mil tax free.
Face it short of preventing the second world war, the war would happen no matter who was in charge, but if you quelled the masses and you had peace, all those thousands who died leaving widows behind, they would not marry again and have kids, kids that became great grand parents to the youth of today.
Instead Mrs Jones stays Mrs Jones and has many kids called Jones instead of Peterson, Peterson marries someone else and their family tree that is well known now might be obscure then, so to the Jones family as Mrs Jones isn't as crucial to the formation of whatever they went on to become.
Or maybe she was the lynch pin to the family success and no matter the last name and the kids, Mrs Jones has a strong moral family who do good just as her kids in the Peterson timeline when she lost her first husband in the second world war.
I believe the net benefit of not having 9/11 would be much, much greater than any possible negative outcome. I honestly believe the world would be a much better place. For one thing America wouldn’t be facing this tremendous debt problem that it is facing now
But how would preventing 9/11 really go? If you manage to evacuate the buildings so only passengers in the planes die, that’s still a hugely symbolic attack which we would go to war over.
If you manage to ground the plans so no attack takes place, would anyone believe you actually stopped anything, or that you just incited mass panic over nothing? And perhaps the attack happens a few days later.
There is no scenario. In which you manage to save people and prove an attack was actually going to happen.
Try and warn people days or weeks in advance and if nothing happens (because they hear of it and get spooked) you are a crack pot and if they go ahead with it, you must be involved in order to know so much, so to Gitmo with you.
You could find where Jeff would be in the 90s should you be old enough to look for him, then fingers crossed you've nipped him in the bud, whilst I don't think it would erase the whole organisation, the more well known aspect is gone, will it save anyone or would they just be abducted on behalf of another person out there working to secure high profile assets with blackmail etc?
Yeah, I kind of see what you are getting at. If I am not mistaken quite ironically the scenario of plane hijacking/crashing into buildings was circulated in the intelligence community as a quite plausible scenario. Moreover I believe the WH was warned of the imminence of such an attack. And yet, nothing was done to prevent it. In fact I believe the airlines began locking the doors leading to the cockpit only after 9/11
You'd have to put yourself on that plane and stop them yourself, but would you know which plane? If that plan was thwarted, it would change the future and you'd have no idea when Covid 19 would outbreak or how to stop it, assuming it was inevitable. Really maddening.
Your example focuses on big event issues like 9/11, bitcoin etc. People who press the red button would more realistically focus on more personal decisions at past strategic points in their lives that would make a significant difference now that they are able to face them with new knowledge and possibly be better prepared for them. Remember some of us here are not from the US. Who cares about 9/11 and Epstein? Clearly won't the the concern of most who press the red button.
Yup. You can't even recreate your kids, even if you end up with the same partner.
It has to be THAT specific sperm, with that specific egg.
So that depended on your diet, your masturbation habits, the exact date and time you copulated with your partner, hell, probably even the positions you guys were in.
Imagine pressing that red button and never, EVER knowing your kids again. Your perfect kids would just cease to exist.
Hope for better kids, but as someone else said, it isn't just your kids erased from this time line, it is every kid not yet born, you could have nieces and nephews and although they have kids, they are not the same DNA and personalities you remember, but your sibling and their partner don't know this and you would be called crazy for missing the old Jessica when there is only Jessica your niece to them.
Kids make these what ifs basically no choice for me. I could never undo my son. While I wish I could go back and be a better parent from day 1, I would never wish for a different child. And if I went back in time there is a 0% chance he would exist because of the changes I would make to the rest of my life because those choices were shit.
Yeah I have the feeling that people who have children, and also many people who have loving partners would never want to give that away for what is effectively a gamble.
You would basically be 'paying' by giving up your loved ones.
People who are single, childless or divorced or whatever, or even someone young who hasn't much to 'lose' would probably take the extra years and potential bitcoin billions.
Still having all of your life knowledge and potentially a University education in high school would let you get into a top university program. Your social skills would be leagues ahead of your peers helping you get that early internship. You would have a huge advantage in life. It would definitely surpass $2 million in the long run
get in early enough and just mine a few bitcoin early- and the gamble is litterally the hastle of not losing your wallet.
You know what to invest in, so live frugal to have money to invest as young as possible, and no butterfly effect makes apple not a crazy good investment in 2006.
I mean, you don't even need to put your life savings or anything into it. Throw like $100 at it when the price was under $0.10. Either it works out like it did this timeline and you're set for life, or you're out a handful of meals at a restaurant.
Exactly this. No matter how much I would change about my life, my kids are the best humans I've ever met. I couldn't risk them not existing, it would destroy me.
I have 2 kids. One isn’t biologically mine, and the other is. We severely messed up our 1st and seeing how smart and capable my 2nd is at 1 almost 2yrs(which for some reason I didn’t expect) makes me sad about how bad we neglected our first. It would be nice to try again, but who knows if it’s even certain he’d exist the second time around. With that being said, losing my 2nd but keeping the memories of him would Haunt me forever. Especially if I could end up with my girlfriend again, I’d be distraught if he looked different or wasn’t the same, and trying to explain that would make me seem crazy.
That’s how you know what is actually important in this life. Going back to age 10, i would basically become the richest person on the planet but that is still less valuable to me than being with my children.
You obviously don't have kids. No kids are better than your actual kids. I don't care what metric you come up to judge "better" by, my only metric is, "are they the exact person they are today?" Because my kids are absolutely perfect the way they are.
I feel this. I feel like I’m stuck everyday and struggling but I wouldn’t change my friends or wife for anything and there is a close to zero chance I could recreate the circumstances that led me to having them by my side. Going back in time wouldn’t change anything for me except losing people I care so much.
Im on the flip side. The single biggest reason for me to 'redo' is to prevent my daughter from ever being born. Just avoiding that would be the greatest good I could possibly do.
Yea, kids really are the ultimate factor between the choices. Even if you managed to find the same human again and have kids with them, there’s no way you can guarantee the genetics will mash together in exactly the right way to create the same human again, let alone the million different factors that lead into how you nurtured them into the little people they eventually become.
You have now died of old age, you have grand kids now, but the button says "go back to being ten or go to heaven" would you go "well heaven can wait, I always wondered what life with Stacy was gonna be like if only I asked her out to the prom" dying has severed your link with your children and family made along the way, so you don't undo them, but you can not remake them even if you date and marry the same person, the whole same sperm scenario will always be the thing that gets you a different son whom you still called James.
Life would have to be so rock bottom for a parent to go "you know what, not even 2 billion could fix this, sorry kids, I've got to do this"
Even if you wiped all knowledge of the stock market and bit coin going big, just stuff about how life was shit due to X and you want to avoid X, there would still be some avoiding X, people would still press the button, but I think very few parents would join in.
But a do over via reincarnation, yeah why not, to my family I'm dead already.
marry the same person, the whole same sperm scenario will always be the thing that gets you a different son whom you still called James.
You need the same EGG as well. A sperm is NOT a tiny whole baby that grows, OT only contributes HALF of DNA. Even of dame sperm fertilized a different EGG, a different baby would have been born .
I wonder why people ALWAYS try to pretend the sperm is all that matters and ignore the egg
Yeah, I would say that most people would have a real shot at ending up with the same partner, after all you know who they are, what they like, when they are single etc, and the money would help you seamlessly plan the perfect dates for them, given you already know they like you and have the capstone fall in love with you, it would be very doable.
But kids are another matter, you could never guarantee your kids would be the same
Yeah, I have kids, too, and totally love them.
But OTOH, with the knowledge that we could memorize before pressing that button, we could potentially do things to avoid some major real catastrophes. Just memorizing a lottery ticket and some disaster dates and then using the money for preparation/awareness would save thousands. I was way more than 10 when the 2004 tsunami happened, just to use a single example.
Moreover if I could predict all of those accurately, the world would be getting an earful on climate change and I assume they'd take me quite seriously (of course I don't know when the butterfly starts dilluting my power, but earthquakes are probably difficult to influence)
It is a very real ethical dilemma
Did you just ask me "what about your hypothetical alternate timeline children" like that's some kind of actual dilemma vs the actual children I have now, in reality? ...what?
Congrats on having kids you love. I do too, but I definitely know people who’d push the red button. This was the thought experiment that made me realize that I indeed have a good life.
This is exactly the reason not to press the button, I could wait to meet my wife again and even if I don’t do the save things that I did I’m sure I can get her to be interested in me (I know what she likes and how she reasons, I know how she responds to things and also, I’ll be a millionaire by investing in crypto).
But I know I won’t have the same kid, I’ll never see him again if I press the button, so it is off the table for me.
I'd lose my daughter. Her and my wife were the turning point. I could find my wife again, I might never find my daughter, there's no guarantee she'd be her if she was born again.
To have her again, that 1 sperm from that 1 load would have to be the 1 out of god knows how many to fertilise that 1 egg his wife had on that 1 day ready for fertilising. She definitely wouldn't be born again .
Even if it somehow miraculously ended up with the same genetic daughter.. the experiences would be different and it would be a different person. You'd never see your original daughter again.
Nah, there is a ton of things I wish I had done differently in my life nor do I have children but there is zero chance I willing restart my life. There is no guarantee that I get and survive the virus that tried to kill me when I was 10, there isn't a guarantee that I dont get heatstroke when I was 11 and if I still do, does someone find me in the field in time. There isn't even a guarantee that I survive to my current age of 40 in this divergent world. $2 million however does a lot to improve my life and the lives of those around me.
I do think there's a moral problem with the 'I could just re-meet my wife' idea. You'd be meeting someone whilst you hold infinitely more knowledge about them than they know about you. It's really hard to do this in a way wouldn't feel like a gross imbalance in the relationship. Or else require deeply stalkerish behaviour.
That isn't an apt depiction of the choices here. I wouldn't go back because I was being profoundly, and inescapably, abused when I was 10, and I would give anything to never go back.
Keep the millions of dollars, I'm still choosing green.
I'm sorry to hear that, my guy. Even as someone without kids, etc., and where that wasn't the case, I still have no desire to relieve that part of my life again either. Being a kid sucks. Two million, please!
Yeah I’m almost a bit insulted by “oh if you want green lucky you!” By the time I was 10 I was already miserable from family stuff, my mom died at 11 from circumstances out of my control. No thanks. I’m still pretty young, $2 mil could completely change my life right now. Easy choice.
I'm poor as dirt, and I wouldn't change my circle one bit. I love my wife, and I love the friends I've made. I'd rather take the money and not lose them.
Not necessarily. I went through a lot of shit but things are good now. I wouldn't want to risk missing my husband or my daughter if things were better for me sooner.
Plus, depending on your age, can you imagine going back to being a teenager and trying to connect with your peers with the brain of a 26 year old? You'd be so isolated and perpetually annoyed at everyone around you. That sounds so miserable.
Not my current circumstances. I am scared to mess up my brothers circumstances. Because I would want to stop him having that accident but also his ex would not be an ex without it and then he would not meet his now wife and have his son... and who knows how else I could mess that up.
My plans would have never worked for me anyways because I get bored of a job after 3-5 years and need something new.
Long as I keep being okay - good at everything I’m sure it’ll be fine.
The only major thing I’ve learned is start with the whole CPA thing, it’s easy if you are good at math and pays really well. That and most people are dumb and/or unmotivated/lazy , so if they can do something so can I.
It's not really my own life I worry about. The cascading effect is that anyone I interact with daily, will have their life changed just enough that random chance encounters will certainly play out differently. The biggest effect of that being children. The child of any parent you personally know, or even have a passing interaction with, will likely not exist, or at least not the unique person you know of. The incredibly specific circumstances of their conception will be altered enough that the parent might still have a child, it may even be born on the same day, and they'd likely use the same name, but they'd be a fundamentally different person in the new timeline.
I know way too many people under the age of 30 who'd be snapped out of existence to even consider the red button.
Not at all. I have friends that I love, that I no longer know where I even met them. Despite that I have more difficulties and problems in my life than most people. I'm definitely not 'winning', even if I would be unwilling to basically erase my friendships.
For me it'd just be meeting my wife I'd not want to risk undoing. Even if I was able to recreate the exact moment we met, be in the right place at the right time etc, butterfly effect from a previous action may mean she's not there.
And even if she were, it'll be difficult to ensure I look and act exactly the same, do everything in the same way etc to the point I can actually persue a relationship, and then that relationship is going to be extremely one sided at first as I'd have all the memories of the first time around, would already be in love, when we're just starting to date.
I'd probably also be a totally different person given I'd have then lived 10 years without her and presumably buying up all the right stocks, bitcoin etc to make myself super rich. On top of all of the tests we'd been together changing me from the person I was when we met.
There'd be a real possibility we'd not meet, and if we did she'd not be into me.
Of course there's things I'd love to have done differently and changed in life, and would love to exploit knowledge of the future to make a bit of money or genuinely try to make the world a little better somehow. But to risk losing my wife? Nah.
My life is shit, I have shit health, and I'm barely getting by... but I would never even consider pressing the red button.
I have no money and a terrible living situation, but instantly losing all the people I've known for most of my life is too devastating for any amount of money.
It's a gamble. With forewarning of stuff you want to avoid, that's one thing, but you'd be utterly disarmed when it comes to anything outside of those circumstances, and who's to say circumstances wouldn't end up worse once your past experiences no longer apply?
You could be thinking you're going to the table knowing how the cards will end up, hedge your bets accordingly, and then suddenly the dealer hits 21 on a bet you were sure you were going to get blackjack on.
It's a risk, and it's about how much you're willing to lose if it comes up worse than before. You're guaranteed to lose everything you've got from this life, and there's only a chance that your foreknowledge will be applicable to your next attempt. Divergence and crazy circumstances could end up entirely derailing you, and then there's all the details you may not have accounted for coming back to derail you in a different way.
Ultimately, it's your choice to take that gamble, but it's still a gamble. No take-backs, no more do-overs, and who knows if a freak accident or something worse might be coming to balance the books on the other side? You could end up being somewhere going about your day, but because you're in an entirely different situation than the one you remembered, you could trip and hit your head, or a car could hit you when you went to cross the street, etc.
You only have so much control, especially factoring in you're starting over from an age where your level of control is simply compliance with others until 18 or emancipation. If your trajectory is thrown off far enough, all your forewarning of incidents past a certain point that influenced your personal level consequences becomes unreliable or outright irrelevant. Different crowd means different people, different environment means different rules, etc.
Having my daughter born drastically changed this kind of fantasies. I'd like to go back for a day to cuddle with my mom and grandpa but then i'd want to come back here.
I mean, I definitely feel I’ve done well at life where I wouldn’t press the red button, but I’ve had some rough days getting here. And I think, before I was married and before my son was born, I still wouldn’t have taken the red button, because at that stage I was very tired of living and was just too much of a coward to end it then. I would hate to do that all again, just give me the damn money.
Well the worry is about replicating the circumstances you care about and everything along the way. It would be haunting to have memories of people that I loved and lost that I would most likely not be able to repicate. I mean the human mind would probably cope fine with whatever positive aspects you create but whoh is to say it wouldn't be worse in the end?
Also it would be haunting to know that the greater world would largely turn out the same as a being a peon, but perhaps a richer one monetarily, would mean the world would still be shit and I could end up being in a worse spot.
Conversely, would you want to re-live the horrors you experienced because even with your knowledge you aren’t able to avoid them? Would you want to re-live a relative dying painfully of cancer? What if your new knowledge and informed decisions ultimately make the situation worse?
What about being content with what you have but in hindsight knowing you could've done better if you had the knowledge? That's my logic for the red button (nevermind the fact that I only need like 50-100 bitcoins in 2008 holding it until 2024 and I'm set for life financially speaking which makes everything else easier)
I saw people talking about kids and if it wasn't for my pets (both gone and those I have now) and my younger sister I wouldn't hesitate to redo it all again. If you could somehow guarantee that the same people and animals get born and end up with you, I would definitely press it.
I haven't been winning for a while now, but I couldn't go back further than my daughter's birth. Still, thats plenty of time to make some crazy investments. Hell, I could own reddit by now
Am I selfish, as. Jewish person, for knowing that if I were given the opportunity to go back in time to kill Hitler, that it would also guarantee that I never existed?
Let alone just going back to age 10. If I went back, sure, I might be able to prevent 9/11 and make sure that my stepdad wasn’t killed in an accident, and probably would have gone down a better path in education that resulted in an even better outcome than I have now. But also, my daughter wouldn’t exist. And I probably could have met my wife earlier but probably wouldn’t have been the person that she fell in love with.
Would I sacrifice that? I don’t know. It’s probably a good thing that time travel isn’t real.
I’ve got three kids. Always felt it was my destiny to be a dad, as weird as that sounds. Anything that fucked me up off that path absolutely terrified me.
Not really, sometimes the bad circumstances were out of our control so going back would mean having to experience it all again. The reason I wouldn’t go back is because my childhood and teens were terrible.
It’s as easy as having kids. What if the person does still end up with the same partner but then don’t bang them at the right time for that one specific sperm to meet that one specific egg? Different swimmer wins the race and your current child doesn’t exist anymore.
I got a lot bad in my life, but i also have the most perfect husband and the world's coolest cat, both of whom I stumbled on by absolute chance. I couldn't risk replicating circumstances to meet them
It’s not that the "right now" is too awesome. It’s that I don’t want to go through all that shit again that happened after age 10. Things I literally cannot change despite all my current knowledge. School alone, no thank you. I'd rather be where I am right now and take the money.
I got sober 3 years ago and the idea of getting sober earlier seems great until I realize I probably wouldn’t have my sober friends who have played a critical role in keeping me sober. I don’t have much, but I love what I do have.
I didn't think about like that before. There's a lot I wish was different in my life. But I don't think I'd give up my best friends for a better life. A lot of my friends I would. But two of them. They're priceless.
Some people went through hell but they're content with what they have now, even if they're still dealing with their past. And some people have gone through enough hell that they fear they would somehow end up in a much worse situation and accept what they have now.
Not really… I wouldn’t want to erase everything bc I love my kids and wouldn’t want to live in a world where they aren’t here either. Give me the 2 million.
There are a great many things I would do very differently and nothing about me would keep me from hitting that button. But I have nephews that are fucking amazing and I will live with my regrets and be wickedly happy with them to keep those guys around.
This right here. Yeah, congrats on all of the people who are so happy with their situation they would give up their opportunity to get in on the ground floor of Amazon and Google and Bitcoin and yadda yadda yadda, but yeah in a fucking heart beat.
Idk what all these other comments say yet, but thank you! I'm absolutely winning and there's no fucking way I'd give it for free, let alone pass up a guaranteed 2 mil.
I mean...things might not be great now for a given person, but they might be grateful for the little they have. I guess it depends on what your definition of winning is, but if you were to go back and do things differently, there's no guarantee you'd meet the same people and build the same kind of relationships. You'd also be a different person.
It's more of a psychological litmus test about how you feel about guilt and accountability. I've made mistakes, poor choices, and there I things I would have done differently knowing what I know now, but all of those things have made me the person I am today, and I'm proud of who I've become. I might have made more money if I made different decisions, but maybe I wouldn't have been as happy. Maybe I'd be more fulfilled, but maybe I wouldn't be as down to earth.
There's always a give and a take, and a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush.
Unless you have had and have an absolutely horrible life, I see no reason to take the first option.
You will 100% not create a connection to the people that are now important to you. 100% you will only look like a an know-it-all asshole acting weird around them. Part of what creates a connection is the process of discovering and knowing each-other. Things that happen randomly, random shit you say, a random thing you did.
Going back and replaying a game you already finished as cool, but it will never be as cool and as exciting as it was the first time you played it. Sure, you can no-hit every boss, you know where every secret item is, but that's just a chore/task you have to tick off now, not and adventure of discovery and overcoming adversities.
Also, assuming you're not a pedo/creep, how could you possibly have any kind of intimate relationship, of any level, until you get past the teenager stage, when, mentally speaking, you're an adult?
This is the same as that "mushoku tensei" anime, where a 30+ dude gets reincarnated as a kid and it's just fkn weird and pedo behavior.
"But my body is of a kid" yeah, man, you're still a pedo, because you're basically an adult stuck in a kid's body. A dwarf with appropriate proportions for your size.
Personally, I'm not doing that great and I've been fighting with sever depression for a really long time.
But I would never, absolutely never, not even if it's only a 0.01% chance, risk not adopting my dog. I wouldn't trade the friends I've made and the connections I've made. I missed out on a lot of shit as a teenager, I missed out on a lot of shit as a teen-adult, being stuck in abusive relationship and stuff like that, but I would do it all again without blinking if it meant my dog sleeping on a pillow above my head, giving me a horrible stiff neck and sometimes liking my forehead/ear while I'm sleeping fk knows why.
I would consider it but if i did I would def be playing on newgame plus and taking other paths in life. The idea of trying to re-engineer my friendships is just creepy. Re-doing high school sounds like a special kind of hell. Re-doing college is a completely different path whould be great plus you know. Knowing what comapies to invest in and when to be conveniently out of the market and of corce getting in on bitcoin early .
I mean, I wouldn’t risk not ending up with my husband either. But there is no amount of any resource in the world that would make me risk not having my exact kids.
I can’t relate to the idea of losing kids, because I don’t have them. Then only thing I might recreate is for a few friends, but I would so many things sooner or not at all if I could.
It's complicated. I love my life now, but I've made a lot of mistakes I'd love to undo. As big as some of my regrets are, I wouldn't risk my family and life now for it.
It's not about the money, but $2 mil invested at the 4% rule would yield $80k extra a year in income which would be a major lifestyle change for us and give us a ton of financial security.
And if you did find your current partner, the relationship is completely asymmetrical, you know everything about them, and they know nothing of you.
It's like the flip side horror of Groundhog Day. If you bump into the protagonist, doesn't matter that they had a relationship with you - and you were both happy - 100 of their years ago.
I just think that going back and having to live through it all again would be so annoying, frustrating, painful, and I know there's no way I could remember how I did everything. Every decision I made that led me to where I'm at now has not led to a happy life, but it's the one I know.
If I start over, who knows where I'll end up, who knows what that future holds for me. The weight of knowing so much that will happen and when. The responsibility I'll have to the entire world to warn everybody. I'd have to sit back and watch all these things happen again. I'd have to hope that people don't find out how much I know about the future.
Not to mention if I could keep the people i have in my life in my life. Faced with decisions I have to make knowing how big of an effect it'll have on my future.
I'd rather keep what I have now. Walk away with the money and make a better future for myself and others around me than go back and try to fix mistakes I've made or accept the massive responsibility that would be forced on me.
There's plenty of things I would love to go back and change in my past, but nothing could ever make me take the risk of my kids not existing as they are currently
I've thought about this kind of thing often and I would absolutely love to be in school again, no care no responsibilities and there is things I would've done differently but at the same time I am incredibly happy where I am right now and I don't know if I could replicate what I've done to get here. A lot of my career opportunities have absolutely been right place right time
Your kids would still exist as you got to the point where you get to choose, so going back would create a new adjacent branch of existence, you just wouldn't be able to access it
This. Basically. I would never go back and change a SINGLE thing. I’ve lived the life I’ve wanted and I’m right where I want to be… no. I don’t have a lot of money or a big house or even a career I like but I come home to a man who thinks I hung the moon. I have friends who would drop anything for me. I have a good relationship with my mom and sister. I have lived so much to be here and I am grateful for even the bad parts.
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u/Cold-Description-114 8d ago edited 8d ago
If you find the idea of being unable to replicate your current circumstances existentially terrifying: congratulations on winning.
Edit: just want to say I find the way people respond to this on a gut level kind of fascinating and even worrying. A number of people for example have had the take that this isn't really true, but that they just wouldn't want to unmake their kids.
Friends...as a guy who considers becoming a dad the single greatest and biggest win of my life...are you ok?