Ask Lemmy

50s. Getting back to one’s 30s you’re still old enough for people to take you seriously, but the creaking bones and exhaustion hasn’t really started creeping in yet.

I don't take it. I give it to my cat, who died one day after her twentieth birthday.

42

No earlier than 45. Otherwise you're headed back into territory where your body and brain are still developing – fuck with that and you might not feel right in your own body.

I'm 42. Does everyone get a pill? My wife? My kids? My parents?

Jumping back 20 years puts me out of sync with everyone I care about. I'm not sure I'd even want it.

I’m tempted to say 40, so I can relive the most physically fit part of my life, but maybe I should wait until I’m really old. Not sure

I'd take it today. I'm in my 50s, I'm an endurance athlete (I race bikes) and the calculus looks like: if I wait 20 years I get to experience body-age 50-70 twice, but if I take it now I experience 30-50 twice. Living my prime twice is better than enduring my decline twice, thanks

I'd take it right now.

I'm not married, not dating, and have no kids.

Getting 20 years back means I can correct a lot of mistakes and I'll have way more energy and focus to be the me I want to be. My 20s were so stressful I started getting white hair.

Let's say hypothetically this repairs organ damage.

I have 2 choices. I can save the pill for when I or a loved on is in serious danger of death or I can do a shit ton of LSD, like an absurd amount of LSD, enough to actually break me and then reset.

It's a tough choice /s

Assuming this is a tablet, I chop it in half and my wife and I both enjoy being in our twenties again.

A lot of variables in the magic to consider, but if you retain your knowledge, than 35 back to 15. You've essentially matured as far as you will at that point, started a family or married if you will do so, found stabilization in your career or at least moved far down that path, you hit the major milestones.

So back to 15 and then you live out the bulk of your high school with knowledge to help you actually enjoy learning, slow pace of high school, form lasting lifelong friendships, properly pursue education beyond high school, then live your 20s with a full appreciation for what they are, start saving money the right way, date the right way and invest in all of the tech companies before they get big so that you're obscenely wealthy through your late 20s and beyond.

Use the money to line a small island completely with underground dynamite charges. Invite trump, tell him you're offering him an unlimited budget to make the island into the first trump island and resort, hand him a golden shovel and say, "I'm going to get in this helicopter to get higher up to take a nice cinematic shot of you breaking ground for the press release" when you're out of the blast radius, press the button. You've done one of the greater services to humanity by any living human in history. Enjoy your earned retirement.

For your first 20-40 trip, you could stay childless and live it up, see the world.

Then, on your second 20-40 trip, you could have kids while still physically fit and able to keep up with them and have fun.

Like, if I go from 35 to 15 do I go back to school, clear student loan debts, etc?

Because redoing the lead up and college with the maturity to actually try would probably be good.

I'm 42, I was fat in my 20s and didn't lose 100 pounds and get in shape until 31. I'd gladly take that pill right this instant, make a lot of different choices, lose my weight and get in shape at a younger age too. I would have a very different life I bet.

But alas, your theoretical pill just taunts "Now Me"!

The day your health becomes a problem requiring more than regular effort to maintain.

That’ll rewind the clock to a lot of good years that maybe you can push back the decline a little further. Your clock will run out eventually, it’s inevitable. You just want to maximize the good years, not just youth or keeping yourself from death.

Probably 65, as 45 was my vampire age, and I have enjoyed the time since that age. I am not sure I'd like to go back to fertility though. Think about it, say you take it at 40, menarche around 15 and menopause around 55, that's periods for 60 years instead of 40 years, and twenty extra years you might get pregnant.

I've had some time to think on this, I still say probably 65. I waffled for awhile because I would like to have the build I had before the last 2 children, but keep the kids, the ten pound wonder blew out my abs and skin which happily bounced completely back several times did not make a complete recovery with the last. But the 3 additional years I spent nursing them provides additional protection vs. breast cancer, don't think I'd want to give up their half of that. And I have literally felt better and healthier in the years after 40, so rather have more of those.

40, I want to go back to when my body was in great condition. At 20, I didn't feel any of the aches and pains I had in my early 30s. It would give me 10 years to do a better job taking care of it and hopefully avoid the current state it's in now.

I don't understand the premise. Do I keep my older memories and experience? So if I take it at age 21, I become a 1yo with the knowledge of a college student? Do I also get to repeat having the memory and learning speed that little kids have? It might be worth considering.

Now, because I miss being in my 20s and not feeling weak or easy to injure

Going with the just de-age interpretation and not time travel, it has to be late enough I could still pass for an adult but I'd want it before any of my chronic health conditions emerge so I can mitigate them. I don't want to look younger, I just want the health benefits.

I can't go back to being a kid because where the hell would new identity documents come from? I still have to be able to live my current life more or less. I suppose 35 is the absolute minimum for me to take it, at 15 I wasn't getting carded buying alcohol. I reckon at that age with the right presentation I could pass for 20 at least, and a 35 year old seeming that young isn't completely unheard of.

I can't go too much older because issues start compounding in my 20s. I'd love to have picked a post development age - aside from my health, I didn't really get comfortable in my own skin until then - but it'd be too late. Maybe 40 so the worst of puberty is over, but that's probably my limit.

So I take this pill, and I become physically younger. I don't move back in time, I'm still legally a 36 year old, but I look and feel like I'm 16.

It depends on how this works. Is the pill a magic spell where there's a poof and I'm in my previous body as it was 20 years ago, or is it just "damage and wear and tear are undone?" Because I've had a few surgeries I don't want to redo in the last 20 years; I don't want my wisdom teeth or appendix back. I've had a dental implant since then, does that reverse itself...is a bicuspid going to try to grow out of my skull through the titanium socket bone grafted into my face?

For practicality's sake I think no earlier than 43, simply because...at that point your younger self is a fully developed adult; if someone cards you and says "You're telling me you're 43 years old?" You can say "Yeah I've had some work done."

Much younger than 40 years old and you have to repeat portions of adolescence and/or childhood, which would be inconvenient at best.

I'd take it at 25, breeze through school while amassing knowledge in my fresh brain, then I will become god emporia

I turned 44 just the other day; honestly, without a doubt I'd have taken the pill the day before my 21st birthday. One big do-over and minimal responsibilities to manage after the de-aging.

• ✔️ Someone taking care of me 24/7 for a period measured in years?
• ✔️ School? What a joke. Ace everything, be a social and intellectual prodigy?
• ✔️ No bills, no responsibilities?
• ✔️ Boundless energy and Wolverine-like healing?
• ✔️ One set of friends in their 40s with life and professional advice/connections for you as you turn 21; and another set of friends your own age bursting with enthusiasm, ideas, and a gleam in their eye?

Like, I'm not seeing a downside to this over here...

Going with 47 and six-ish months… no reason 😅

Is give it to my wife when we were 50 :)

38-41ish. It'd be awkward to de-age below the appropriate local age of alcohol/consent/whatever, but that aside you wanna do it as early as possible. It's 20 more years of having a functional body, no reason to delay when you might randomly get hit by the bus tomorrow.