You have a magic pill, which de-ages you by 20 years. You can take it once in your life only, so long as you are at least 20. What age — past, current or future — do you reckon is best to take it?

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.

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

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.

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

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

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...

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

I’ll take it but only if the manufacturer brands it NuGame+

I had a stroke at 21 that ruined (ended, really) my life. So anytime in late 30s, then get the fuck on blood pressure meds. And bitch-slap all the 'healthcare providers' that either didn't believe me or didn't actually treat the problem, only the symptoms (blinding, debilitating migraines). Fucking lining their pockets with visits and medication that they knew wasn't treating the cause.

I'd probably go back and beg for puberty blockers

I'd take it immediately. Whether it rolls back time as well, or just my physical/biological age, having that reset is good. For time, it lets me be able to jump on financial trends before they happen such as bitcoin. Also lets me redo some stuff I fucked up. For biological age it's just regaining my youth and let's me get on HRT earlier than I did which would've been beneficial. I kinda threw away the past 15 years, so having a redo would be nice.

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.

As late as possible.

On the other hand, right now.

Exactly at 20 so I become a fresh zygote and die on the spot.

I'd have to have taken it back at 37 to go back to a point where my body wasn't broken, and I'm trying to decide if the prospect of being able to stand without pain is worth being a teenager again...

Realistically, 40 - 50.

But I am also tempted to say 20. I could be the most talented baby ever.

24 seems a decent time. Returning to the brain plasticity of a 4 year old with all of the memories and knowledge of a 24 year old would produce a horrific intellect and potential. Society would leap forward in any task you decide to advance. The indescribable isolation may well be the only issue, but piles of money heal many forms of hurt. See: Magic Johnson

"de-ages" I assume means genetically? You don't get to go back in time.

Today then.

It depends whether I can somehow go back to the body of a 20 year old but keep my current 40 year old brain. I'm not going to pretend the majority of my improvements in patience, empathy, humility, work ethic and dgaf-ness are me consciously maturing instead of improvements in brain chemistry.

45 for sure.

Lots of people are treating this like you would go back in time and get a do over, rather than being de-aged.

I'm assuming that de-aging would roll back any age related aches and pains, but not affect my memory, other than possibly making it better. It would give me more energy, so I'd be overweight and young instead of overweight and old :D

I'd take it at around my late 30s to early 40s to get back to my late teens to early 20s. My body was fully developed, so I wouldn't have to go through puberty or have too many teenage hormones, and I'd have enough energy to get in shape again.

If it de-aged me by putting me back into my body from the time, then it would be when I was 42. 22 was when I was in the best shape of my life, and before I picked up a few long lasting injuries. I found out in my early 30s that I've got a chronic illness too, and it hit me hard.

I'd get the doctors and dentist to work on the health issues that I didn't know about when I was young, and stop them from becoming serious, and generally get healthier.

Most importantly, I'd take my kid out and do all the things that we haven't been able to do together :)

I'll go for another angle, since the 'about 40' has been done to death.

If this is a pill that de-ages but does not de-mature you, go for it at 20. On the way to 20 you are maturing, but also aging. Who knows what mature, but with newborn level 'age' health might look like. Imagine the boost from a 40 year old to a 20 year old, but starting from a baseline of a 20 year old.

45.

Anywhere from 20 - 45 to repeat the best years for physical activity. Assumes that it goes back to the physical shape I was in at the time.

I would even hope to make better long term choices, but probably wouldn't.

1. That way you can go back with your current knowledge and do it better the next time around.

I would take it at 60.

My man, those "pills" are coming and they won't be unique usage (like some Genie provides them).

But they wont be as blunt either, it will be rejuvenation of your retina, kidneys, liver, skin (that doesn't mean you'll look younger), back muscles, heart, etcetera.

If you have cancer type 352 and we got a "pill" to treat it (a treatment, with a high probability to fix it) will you take it and extend your life by 20 years?

We're in a biotech revolution, not in a Santa Claus situation.

47

The day I turn 40 probably

Why the hell would I want to do the last 20 years all over again?

They were shit the first time, aint gonna be anything but worse the second time around.

Take it when I'm 18 and I will have never been born

There are a surprising number of people here under the impression that they knew anything by the age of 20.

Can I sell the pill?