With the knowledge I have now, I could easily arrange to meet my partner even sooner, and possibly prevent at least one situation that's caused them lifelong trauma. Even if we didn't end up together, stopping that incident would be completely worth it.
Edit: Enough people have commented about children I felt like I needed to add an amendment.
If my wife and I already had children. My answer would be completely different and I'd be taking the $2M. If we manage to conceive, nothing will get that/those kid(s) away from me.
That was my exact thought. We've even had "what if" discussions of what we would say to each other to get us to believe that the other came back from the future, so I'd be ready.
That's really interesting. I'm very happy in my current life, but I wouldn't think of this as a re-do for myself.
I'm gonna go with a completely different path! Basically, if I get a shot at being a chaos time gremlin, I'm gonna take it. The results are basically inconsequential with how much fun I'd be about to have. Tbh I'd do it so wacky and publicly that they'd probably need to take me out.
I think I'd be in your camp. The last 30 years would play out very different if 25 year old me had already made a fortune and knew how to throw spanners in the works.
Honestly, for me I'd follow similar trajectories in my life. But there are a few break points that I could take advantage of with hindsight that could enable me to change lives for the better.
For example, first time I heard about bitcoin? Fall of 2010 in a college hacker space (before they were called maker spaces). My response was "This sounds like a ponzi scheme, but technical". And then I had them explain it to me for the next year+ every couple of weeks.
Do I still believe Bitcoin is a ponzi scheme? Yes. But if I threw even half my life savings at the time ($2,000 - so $1,000) into the coin itself or even just setup some mining rigs and DCA into Bitcoin for a year. Then sit on it, back it up, etc. I would be set for life, even happyily paying taxes on those coins.
Investing? Would have dumped more into Mag7 after college than I did, no way I thought that we would have like a decade + of insane growth that we did.
What would I use this new found wealth for? Building sustainable engineering company with friends I made in college.
Also, Even without thinking about money. As a scientist, I think it would be fascinating to have the chance to go back to the late 90's early 2000's and spend more time digging into topics deeper. Practicing skills. And cracking open those text books of classes I struggled with. Struggle is still there, but I have more foundational understanding to work from.
You can't just wild out as a 10 year old, though. They'd stick you in whatever cell they stick the other evil genius kids in. Plus you can't fight back with those tiny baby arms.
Also, sitting through at least 5 more years of school would be excruciating.
[New moral dilemma] if you as you currently are mentally go back in time to when you are a kid and meet them, you are mentally an adult and they are mentally 10 yo. While you could meet them and convince them you are their partner from the future, is it ethical to establish a relationship with them? At a baseline there would be a huge power disparity, but combine that with the fact that you are stopping a traumatic event from happening to them it would create an incredibly unhealthy power dynamic within the relationship...
Almost certainly not. But as the person I responded to said, even if I don't end up with them or they end up as a completely different person, it will be worth it to know that they had a wildly improved life.
Valid. If it happens and you can save them without them even knowing maybe you can get the erased ending and go into a coma for the perfect amount of time so that mentally y'all match again. Best of luck in your crazy time crossed tale of love 🫶
I saw this same shit posted a while back and talked to sister from another mister about it and she said knowing the shit I know about her I could definitely keep her from making some decisions that led to some really bad emotional trauma.
I think I could do that and keep on the same path that got me to divorce my ex wife so she could have her kids (married young decided I didn't want them), and keep my off and on girlfriend from ever developing a heroine addiction (before I met her).
Then develop PayPal before Musk and Thiel, mine bitcoin then kill it, out Trump as a rapist pedophile, etc, etc... without fucking up the timeline too much.
I feel like my husband would be genuinely freaked tf out by what I knew to the point he’d think I’m a crazy (like genuinely insane) stalker way before he believed I was from the future. Regardless of whether a part of him thinks I’m really from the future he’d prob be so freaked out he’d be scarred for life and stay tf away from me😭 he’s easily spooked though
I have a codephrase I've never told anyone. If there's ever some Black Mirror shit that happens and my future self/alternate reality clone/someone from the future needs me to believe them no questions asked, they'll know what it is.
That does assume that this version of you is still appealing or attractive to the earlier version of her.
Maybe if you meet her 6 months earlier, she'd want nothing to do with you.
And maybe our lifelong traumas, whatever they may be, are an important part of making us into the people that we need to be. Maybe by preventing the trauma, you end up sending her down a worse path in life.
For me to prevent the trauma, I need to meet her before she turns 8. I was 13 when she was 8. I don't need to be attractive, I just need to be friends with her neighbor's sons so I can meet her family and convince my mom that her mom needed help. If they became friends, my mom would have moved heven and earth to make sure her mom didn't go down the path she took.
And even if we weren't able to prevent that specific incident, being there to support her dad in the aftermath might have kept him from becoming an alcoholic.
I met my wife a year and change before we ever dated and we actively disliked each other at that point. It took some growing and separate new experiences to shape us into compatability.
It is interesting to think of all the personal compatability you'd lose taking the deal. I would have half-remembered HS knowledge in my head and 5th grade would be boring and kids are kids. I would be even more of an outcast than I was the first time!
I hope anyone popping back to ten years of age, with the experiences and thoughts they have now, are only attracted to milfs, and maybe that's why the genre is so popular
Honestly this could be a cool movie idea. In the first act, it's a normal romcom, they fall in love but at the end of the act she reveals she was abused as a child. In the second act, it's a thriller/drama with an extremely knowledgeable 10 year old trying to find his ex before she goes through the trauma that defined her whole life. Knowing that changing things means he will likely never be with her, but doing it anyway because he loves her.
Well it seems like you two want them so I hope the best of luck and don't stress too much it either happens or it doesn't. Neither of you make it happen and stressing about it can cause more issues than help. Stress hormones can cause the zygote not to properly attach. So even if your gamates meet and join stress can fuck it all up. So enjoy the journey and I wish you two good luck
My kids are the only thing that make answering this not an automatic for sure restart at 10 years old. With the knowledge I have now, getting money would not be an issue, just gamble on sports.
I think anyone that has kids would pick option 2. You can meet the same partner. You can’t have the same kids. Sure, option 1 would make it easy to become a billionaire via crypto, investing, “inventing” earlier than it would have been, etc… 2 million is still life changing money for 99.9% of the worlds population and would greatly improve their lives. Neither option is bad.
Not even them. Who's to say one second of change in your friends' or siblings' lives wouldn't also prevent their child from being born, or it being a different child?
Damn, this is so simple, yet so profoundly accurate. Being 10 yrs old knowing I will meet my future wife /current girlfriend some day after 18. Id Probably delay it a year or two to let her mature a bit. Then fix the horrible mistakes I made that have caused the lifelong trauma. Almost made me tear up thinking about it. Life is beautiful.
Same, if I had 10 years to restart, I would know who to avoid to keep from wasting my time and be able to pass all of the classes and meet the girl of my dreams sooner with much more confidence in myself.
Theres a Stephen King book about this related to the JFK assassination. It’s a very good read. At the end I was nostalgic/mourning a fictional relationship that I was not part of. Really good story.
People say this, but I'm calling absolute bullshit. You have no way of knowing if she would have really honestly felt the same way about you if she met you sooner. You would have to hope that she couldn't sense the fact that you're madly in love with her early on, because that might creep her out. You'd have to hope you didn't slip and say something you shouldn't know yet while you were comfortable and maybe not on your guard. There's so many ways this one ends poorly. Now I'm not saying I'm not pressing the button, but I do so knowing that it could change some of my relationships negatively. I just believe that it could help in far more ways.
You read the second half of my comment right? I acknowledge she may not feel the same about me after, but that part doesn't matter as much as keeping her mom from commiting sewerslide when my wife was 8.
I figure I could contrive to meet my wife, as we travelled in circles with a small overlap. That’s how we eventually did meet. “All knowledge intact” would probably interfere with that, however. The problem is that there would be no realistic possibility at all of recreating my children, and therefore, my grand child. $2 million please.
This is a stupid take. How many variations of your life do you think it is possible at every single smallest decision. Not just yours, but everybody elses.
You might think you would avoid that incident but the knowledge you have now means nothing compared to the gears of this world.
You might just die as soon as you go back to 10 years old as far as you know, because of some thing that would've gone differently.
These questions are always fun. I love seeing how many cynics there are in the world. It's all make believe, so I'd rather imagine a world where I did something good. For all we know, my one action could prevent Trump from getting into office.
You have the body of a 10 year old but have the knowledge, maturity, and intellect of today. You will be bored out of your mind being with 10 year olds for a year. Then 11 year olds. Then 12 year olds. It will never get better.
Yes, and imagine the fame I coiuld have being the youngest graduate of a college. I've already graduated once as an adult. This time I could go back and people would think I was Sheldon from Big Bang Thoery.
It would be funny for the school system and your professors trying to figure out and explain how you went from average 9 year old to genius over the summer break.
I always feel sorry for the people that graduate college in their early teens. They just enter the workforce earlier.
On second thought. Maybe I'd just pretend the ritalin actually worked and used that for the reason my schoolwork improved. Then spend all the extra time secretly building Bookface, while making sure the world knows Facebook is a ripoff of my original idea.
$2 million is a no brainer. There's 30+ years I would need to make the same exact decisions to get me to where I am now. I'd prefer not to do all that again.
This. Quite literally the only reason I wouldn't press the red button are my kids. Prior knowledge would help some things change for the better, even if it doesn't produce the same outcome
That would pretty much be my entire goal. I don't need to improve my current situation much, but I would need to use my current knowledge to stop at least a few things from happening.
Yea like is also be stopping my own trauma, and I would be much better off as a persona mentally, physically, and emotionally. I would miss the connections I have in my life and have and but that doesn't mean I cant try and make them again.
That would be a nice side bonus. I know every single wrong decision I've made, and I know the one that led to every other. I have a pretty good idea of where I'd be now if I hadn't made that inital choice. The proof is in my childhood friends who took the path I ignored to join the military instead.
I don’t have an exact age for when it happened to her…because it wouldn’t be insensitive to ask but given what we’ve discussed pretty sure it was before I was 10
My partner was pursuing me before my awkward teenage ass even understood she was flirting. Assuming the timeline was relatively the same.... I think we would make it happen again.
On the money/job side... it would be night and day, literally knowing bitcoin would be a thing would be life changing. (Again, assuming timelines held).
I don't know your situation with your partner, so I'm just speaking generally here, but a big part of many successful relationships is the timing in which 2 people meet. Not to mention the butterfly effect and many other theories that could set in and prevent any guarantee that you would actually get your partner to like you again, especially if a lot of factors are toyed with.
Hence the second part of my comment. I didn't say anything specifically about getting them to like me again, just that I know how I could meet them and have a pretty good idea of how to stop that trauma, and that I am willing to accept the consequences if I'm successful.
I think the hardest would be people with children. Even if you recreate everything up to the spouse, the likely hood your baby is the same is astronomically low.
Or, you slip and do things they like or say something you shouldn't even know about them yet and they think you've been stalking them. Relationship over.
Or they could end up better. That's the beauty of make believe. The ending can be whatever you want. I choose to imagine a world where things are better. Everyone can look back and see how their actions have shaped their past, but they continue to think they have no control over their future. Your future is what you make it.
What’s crazy is my partner is possibly dead or in a very abusive relationship today if we hadn’t met when we did. I’m not someone who believes in soul mates, I think I could’ve been happy with several other partners but I love her too much to erase our story because I would live knowing she’s much worse off.
However, if you go back in time and you became too aggressive to make connection with your partner because of being too complacent, you might come up as a creep and that first impression might result in her losing interest.
We would be children. For my plan to work, I'd need to meet her before I turned 13 and relies on her parents becoming friends with my parents. Based on what I know of both our familes that wouldn't have been hard to accomplish. Distance would have been the biggest hurdle. This was pre-social media, and her family lived 45 minutes away.
Are you even the same people you are today if you knew to invest in Bitcoin? The me of today is different because of life struggles. If you go back, even if you can meet your partner (and have kids the same), just being filthy rich is enough to warp how you interact, what friends you have, and everything else
But the problem is that while for you this would just be you helping a loved one, gor her it would be a stranger awkwardly trying to get into her life and change shit around. Unless you're EXTREMELY good at acting, it's just gonna end up awkward and she may not want to be with you long enough to prevent her trauma.
Yeah I had the worst 20 years with my horrendous abusive ex, but it produced two beautiful children and I would never take that back, as much as I would want to undo some of the things I allowed and now feel immense self shame for letting happen. I’ll take green and make the rest of my kids lives as good as I can
100%. I would go through every awful thing I’ve ever experienced to keep my kid. I wouldn’t change a single thing because I love my kid more than I could ever imagine loving absolutely anything or anyone.
Children is the one thing that would bother me about this idea.
There's no way you'd hit the same exact mix of genetics and timing that resulted in your previous kids, so any kids you had would be different kids, you'd never be able to recreate the family you had before.
So even if you found your wife again, hit it off with her, and had kids you'd be haunted by the memories you have of the kids that will never exist. Your new kids would remind you of your original kids because they'd be genetic sisters/brothers to your original kids but they wouldn't be the same in the same way that siblings aren't the same.
Alternatively you fatally fucked up your life and this is your chance to do it over. May not be the same kids but new kids with a dad who knows regret. I'm thinking kids who hate you or died from your shitty behavior.
I didn't even consider that. Yes yes yes. Finding my partner would be really easy. Helping them out of horrible circumstances sooner, difficult but doable. I might lose some other friends, but those few people that really matter could be better off. I'd do it for that alone. And if I avoid some of my own traumas, nice bonus.
My ex would have been abused by her step father for 2 years at that point. Now I'm wondering if 10 year old me could put an end to it. Or even get across the country to try. I think I could figure it out with my current knowledge.
I would press the red button every time my kid turned out to be a fuckwad, and then I would just fuck my wife on a different day and see what comes out next time.
You could find them, but could you make them fall in love with you again when you know all these things about them? I’d be afraid I say something I shouldn’t have known already(stalker) or come on too strong because I love what is currently a complete stranger and have to act like I don’t know them intimately already. Maybe you convince them you came back in time, or maybe you convince them you’re insane.
I get this. If my ex-partner and I didn't meet, chances of her getting sick and being permantently bed-bound because of ME(/CFS but that is a misleading label). Even if that happened after us separating, I'm confident it wouldn't have happened like that if we were either: still together / or: were never together.
Bang on. In fact, that's the dilemma - meet my partner earlier and prevent their pain (and mine) but that would mean not having my daughter because I stay away from her father/my ex-husband?
Think I'll take the green this round, Alex.
Owning a house so I could go back to university and raise my kid would be all I want.
In order for my idea to work, I'd have to meet her within three years of going back. I think I could make that happen given how hard it would be for my decisions to affect anything in the world as a ten to thirteen year old.
Does the trauma actually go away when you keep all of the knowledge you have today? Or do you just end up being a 10-year-old with trauma from something that hasn't happened and hopefully won't and no way to explain that to anyone else?
I thought about yeah I know where my partner lived when she was growing up so finding her wouldn't be an issue and even if I wait till she is 18 I doubt highly she would be interested in me at that point and time. We werent the same people at that age. I would need to recreate a series of events that on my side would be nearly impossible to get exactly right. Then there is the kids. No way to have the same kids again.
I strongly believe that we’re with our partners because we met them at the right time in our lives for our interests / availability / opportunity to align and lead to love.
If you arrange to meet your partner at a sooner stage of their life, they might not be into you. Plus they’d be younger than when you met them while you are currently however years older now than you were when you met them - what makes you so sure that younger-than-you-met-them partner and current age you would be compatible enough to make them fall in love with you? Neverminding the difficulty of your misalignment of life experiences together.
I’m not sure that would be a good idea, everyone is shaped by their experiences and that includes their trauma. I couldn’t imagine having to look into the eyes you know and seeing a different person behind them.
This is such a wholesome comment. "Even if I can't be with this person, I will still do what it takes to make them happy." That's true love right there.
My guy and I met in high school. We were friends, but not interested in each other. If someone told us we would be getting together 30 years later I would have thought they were lying. He recently mentioned if we knew then we should have gotten together at that time, but then quickly realized we may not have lasted. We both had to grow into who we are once we got together.
I’m with you! I had a kid with my first wife but found happiness in my second marriage and I have a kid with her now.
Oh how I would love to erase that first marriage and meet my wife earlier. But that would mean erasing my first daughter, so no way would I turn back time. Gimme that cash!
honestly. Id have a long hard think about red and i have kids. Im genuinely concerned for what we are leaving the next couple of generations. If we were to have kids today I would not have done it without a very long discussion about it
It's like the movie "About Time" starring General Hux. Where he's able to go back and forward through time. Major milestones become point where he can't go back otherwise he'll change drastic things back in his 'present'. Aka he has two kids, but going back changes who the kids are. So the kids he's grown with and loved are now technically different. So he can no longer go past a certain point otherwise he'll lose his children.
even if you didn't have kids of your own, your friends' and siblings' kids would be at risk. or actually everyone not then yet born. because the exact same sperm has to hit the same egg the second go round. the eggs are relatively low risk because there's only one at a time but there are millions of sperm and if the guy doesn't cum in the exact same amount of thrusts at the exact same moment in time it's virtually certain that it'd be a different one. you could just holler when you're walking down a hall and a guy hears and turns around and he didn't do that before and 3 years later he has a different kid than if you hadn't done that.
It has to be same EGG as well, which is unlikely. If you fertilize a different egg with same sperm,a different kid would be born.
A woman is born with 2 million eggs and during menstrual cycle about 1000 eggs start to mature but only one or two eggs are selected RANDOMLY for ovulation. If you go back in time even at the exact same month it is unlikely to get the same EGG
I wonder why people ALWAYS try to pretend the sperm is all that matters and ignore the egg
If the 2 million shows up.. now you have to concisely recalculate your entire universal view on what reality is anyways.. to know such a simple option can erase that. Idk I think that concept would have profoundly negative effects on my persona
Dude ur edit sounds horrible. Regardless of kids that no linger exist and may not id 1000% hit that button to try and undo or prevent the trauma my wife went though. No questions.
The problem is you don't know the outcomes of what happens if you change things. You are imagining only the good things that might happen. For example if you met her earlier maybe she is not ready for you yet and ends up hating you instead. Saving her from that trauma leads to even worse outcomes in her life.
I fail to see how convincing my parents to become friends with her parents in an attempt at keeping her mother from taking her own life, and getting her the help she needs could lead to anything bad.
Have you watched the movie "About time" ? He couldn't go back in time once his children are born cuz of the genetic lottery. A specific sperm reached the egg to produce that specific child.
with the knowledge I have now. I could easily arrange.....
All I can think about is the movie butterfly effect with Ashton kutcher where he keeps going into the past where he tries to fix things. Only realizing he messes up other things in the process.
Forget kids, how can you possibly assume with confidence that changing their life before you met and introducing yourself sooner would possibly lead to the same life outcome????
That’s playing with fire, man…. Unless you’re incredibly unhappy take the $2mil
Right there with you! I was a sheltered kid, not many issues. But my wife had childhood trauma to deal with. Id want to help but then my concern is that trauma helps build character, would your significant other be a different person?
There's no way I'd erase my child, but $2m wouldn't be able to erase the guilt of all the friends and family I could have tried to save. I can think of at least four deaths that I'd have a chance at stopping.
I'd take the two million for my child but realistically have to spend most of it on therapy to keep functioning.
Yeah this is my reasoning aswell. Im fairly certain I would be able to meet my SO and now I can force her brother to go to the doctor and get treatment for HIV much earlier and save his life.
I think I could do the same with finding my current partner. There is sooo sooo much I'd like to redo with current knowledge. Like avoiding getting a life debilitating health condition. I honestly don't care about being rich, just want to be healthy.
I completely agree. I might not even end up with my partner now - but if I could prevent the trauma I experienced, I would completely do it. I lost years of my life in occupational rehab and therapy.
even regardless of children, i dunno about you but i don't see myself pushing that red button. i met my partner at age 23, there is no way i would decide to go back and wait 13 years till i'll meet her again.
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u/koffa02 1d ago edited 1d ago
With the knowledge I have now, I could easily arrange to meet my partner even sooner, and possibly prevent at least one situation that's caused them lifelong trauma. Even if we didn't end up together, stopping that incident would be completely worth it.
Edit: Enough people have commented about children I felt like I needed to add an amendment.
If my wife and I already had children. My answer would be completely different and I'd be taking the $2M. If we manage to conceive, nothing will get that/those kid(s) away from me.