Well, me. I would certainly not pay even one cent for the same body I had at 20 because I still have essentially that body, with one big improvement. I’ll take the money.
In my current situation taking the youth would be a no-brainer. I have a secure good paying job, could afford to take on some debt to make it through the next few years until I develop a cushion and be well on track to being at or over a million in 45 years. I more challenging question would be taking away all assets, your job and your resume’, and your contacts (basically making yourself homeless) for the extra life. That would be a bit more of a challenge, particularly in with the economy going the way it is. I think I might still choose the youth, but the first few years aren’t going to be fun.
What would you do at age 20 that would make your next five years worth $200,000 apiece?
What about those of us who already have some wealth?
I’ll keep what I have now at 59. There is really no amount of money you could offer me to add 6 years forward toward my eventual demise. I don’t want to be the richest guy in the cemetery.
But forced to choose either/or I’ll take 20 years old and broke. Been there, done that, and I persevered. I did it before I can do it again.
If that is the scenario, then it is more difficult. My mother is 66 and when I go over there, many of her friends talk about stuff. The general thought is that they are happier in their mid 60s than they have at any other point in life.
They are financially stable, houses are paid for, and there are none of the social pressures (or not as many). When they were in their 20s many of them did not have the necessary maturity for adult life and made poor financial or marital decisions, worked shitty, demanding, and/or demeaning jobs, were out of work at times, and had varying levels of intense stress.
Today, they say, sure they wake up with aches and pains, but after a few ibuprofen, it is fine. They are content and happy because they are no longer in the rat race, no longer making 5 and 10 year plans, just doing what they want. If they want to sleep until noon today, then they do. If they want to get on an airplane and spend a week in Vegas, they do that. If they want to plant a giant garden this year and learn a new hobby–say canning vegetables—then fuck it, they do that.
They look back on many things with fondness–having their children and the like—but they are very happy right where they are thank you very much.
For Dopers who are already in their retirement years, but say they would happily jump back to being age 20 and broke, how do you think that might make your life feel (good or bad)? Do you think you might suffer from feeling over-extended in life, since this would essentially boost your life by half a century (you might have originally passed away at age 80, but now, thanks to jumping back to young age, you’re going to die at age 80 + 50, thus living a total of 130 years?)
Do you think you might get hit by too much “life fatigue?”
Shit, I can make a lot more than a million bucks before retirement if I become 20 years old tomorrow. I wouldn’t be an idiot this time around. I’d be much wealthier than that by the time I hit 65.
And no, life fatigue? Nonsense. I’d live a thousand years if I could.
Wipe out my memory of those 45 years? How do I know that didn’t already happen?
The choice to go back to 20 broke but no knowledge of what I already know isn’t any fun.
Am I plopped into 20 year old college sophomore me in 1992 or am I transformed into a 20 year old version of me in 2020?
Same question regarding the 65 year old version? 65 now or fast forward to 2037?
Do I retain my current memories?
Yeah, I think an extended lifespan offers some opportunities to course correct that one would not have otherwise.
Oh, of course you have to be you as 20 year old in 1992. That would be completely unfair advantage to be 20 year old you with 2020 experience / knowledge carried over 
No retaining of current memories either.
Nice. Sorry if I didn’t make it clear. When you go back as a 20 yr old, it’s not with the current life experience and knowledge. Everything is erased or didn’t happen at all. You’re just young again and start from scratch.
Even still, yes, I read that the billionaires of today who are advanced in years would easily trade all that money back to be young again.
What I’m trying to get at here with this question is to expose the fact that majority consensus is proving that money is not the most important thing here. While money is important and great, the most important thing is the “life experience”…you don’t want to erase your memories or the children you’ve had…you want to do things you’ve never had a chance doing or whatnot.
I’ve been arguing with my RL situation about why some people don’t understand why I’d be upset to get paid money for doing nothing. Because the point is, I don’t want just the money. I don’t want to just skip the whole year and get paid my salary. I want to enjoy the year and fill with experiences, memories, good and bad times, have emotion, passion, and fulfillment in my days. So while it may seem like people think why complain for getting paid to do nothing, there are many reasons to complain about that life. It’s not fulfilling or rewarding at all. This is relation due to the covid19 situation and everyone’s life being sort of put on hold or grinded to a halt.
Were you under the impression that many people think money is the most important thing in life? To whom are you exposing this enlightenment?
Perhaps I run in strange crowds, but I don’t know of a single person who thinks the current situation is good and enjoys giving up all of those things you mentioned, whether currently employed or not.
I can readily understand why people are upset by not being able to get the particular experiences they’d been expecting to have.
But having said that – even if you’re stuck in a one room apartment, you’ve obviously got internet access. There’s a near-infinite number of things you could learn, and/or watch, and/or listen to; and more people who you can communicate with than you could possibly have time to. You may not be able to have emotion, passion, and fulfillment in your expected or ordinary ways; but I see no reason why you can’t have them at all.
And when your physical circumstances are circumscribed, try looking closer. Do you have access to a yard or garden? Try looking hard, really hard, at a square foot of ground. How many species can you find, if you look close? That won’t work so well if your ground is all pavement, or has been carefully poisoned of everything but one species of grass (though in the latter case try looking underneath, you might be surprised); but try listening, really hard. How many different sounds can you identify? How many different flavors are in your kitchen? Do you know what your walls are made of? Can you find out? Do you know how those materials are made, where they come from?
Yes, of course it hurts not to be able to do particular things that you love doing. But that’s not a reason to conclude that you can’t have any experiences at all.
Sounds to me like two points on the same life path! Mine, specifically. (OK, I had ~$1000 in the bank from summer jobs when I was 20, and now I’m 66 with a bit more than a million, but close enough for government work.)
Is there a brainwipe that goes with this?
Because if there’s not, there’s no way I’m going back to 20. I’ll retire comfortably in 2023, and won’t have to work another day after that. I have zero interest in starting my working lifetime all over again, putting in another 40 years of showing up at the office, when I’m this close to being done with it. Seriously, fuck that shit.
For me the obvious answer is to take the advanced age and money. The sooner I can stop suffering from having to work to make enough money to provide me with food and shelter such that I don’t suffer more, the better. Missing out on all those years of memories would be a positive thing for me, because I have very few good memories and bad memories constantly haunt me. If I returned to 20 years old, I’d probably do the same awful things I did then, even with my knowledge of how I turned out simply because to pretend that it could happen otherwise is to not truly return me to 20 years old. Those of you who are assuming you get to keep the decades of life experiences informing their decisions obviously think there’s something different between a physical 20 year old person and a brain of someone 20 years old. You can’t be 20 years old and not have a 20 year old brain. I wouldn’t be my 20 year old self without the brain I had at 20. And I don’t want it back.
I totally recognize that this is not going to be the case for most people, but it is for me.
When I was 20 I had enough money to go by and did not care at all about earning more. If I had, I would have (probably) become rich. Now that I am approaching 60 (and rich enough, thank you) I will rather follow Freewheelin’ Franklin’s advice.
If I was 20 again and knew what I know now I would, I think, not change very much, but I would avoid a couple of mistakes. Most mistakes I mean concerning false friends who were not worth the time and bother.
If I was 20 again but did not know what I know today I would also not know that I made the choice. And when I reach my current age again, would I repeat the loop? Again and again? Well OK, Ewige Wiederkehr Desselben and amor fati, I embrace you.
It’s a little unclear to me what the scenario is. Is this time travel - it’ll either be twenty-some years in the past with a redo, or twenty-some years later with everyone around me remembering the past twenty-some years but with me having mysterious amnesia about the intervening years? (Will I suddenly have kids I don’t rememeber?)
Or is it transformation? The year doesn’t change and my friends and family don’t change, but I suddenly become an amnesiac youngster with my accounts cleared out or I suddenly gain wrinkles and a decent boost to my finances?
If it’s the former situation, I guess I want to be younger - it’d be a significant disadvantage to be unaware of the (soon-to-be) previous twenty years of my life. If I don’t know what enemies I made in the meantime, how can I protect myself from their krav maga attacks? Whereas rewinding time would just let me relive the intervening years again, with no awareness that I’m doing so or that I gained time or that anything happened. There would be no benefit, and the only downside would be that a small amount of cash would have mysteriously vanished from my bank account and piggy bank. (Which would be disconcerting, but not unsurvivable.)
If it’s the latter situation, I want to be older. Suddenly forgetting the last couple of decades would suck hard, even with my family around to fill me in; suddenly being broke while sitting in an unfamiliar apartment with rent to pay would suck hard too. I’d have to move back in with my elderly parents while we all reeled from the shock of it (I won’t remember making the deal, so it would be inexplicable). And of course everything’s much more expensive now and all the tech and such would be unfamiliar and so things would go terribly for the new young me. Whereas if I got paid a little bit to get a little older, then that’s no big deal, and being retired suddenly would be GREAT. Presuming I’m in good health, of course - if I suddenly wake up on my deathbed, or straight-up dead, then that would be rather bad. But if I’m in good health (which is better than I actually expect to be at 65) then really the only material downside would be that I would be almost as old as my parents, which would be weird. (Not as weird as suddenly being of an age with their grandchildren, though.)