What would you do with a second chance?
(midwest.social)
The Picard Maneuver
Curated TumblrSame. Mom was a religious but job and dad ain't far behind. Nothing could incentivize me to relive that. That's just double trauma.
Depends on if it's de-aging or time travel.
If I'm just de-aged and left in the present I would try and become a real life Baby Herman from Roger Rabbit and go into comedy.
If it's time travel I'd try not to make the same mistakes but then end up making all different ones and ruining my life in new and interesting ways.
Yeah if I'm a baby in 2026 with my 2026 skills and knowledge, it's not particularly useful because I don't want to start literally working as a newborn and in 20 years my skillset might not be as relevant anymore. Not to mention the whole "oh buy a bunch of Bitcoin" thing ain't gonna work if it's already at (whatever it is now).
Any timetraveler would probably get ton of bitcoins when they first emerge
It's not about time traveling. Only turned into a baby.
Depends on when they emerge. Now? Maybe not a great plan, or maybe it is. 2010 or whenever it kicked off? Absolutely. 1750? What’s a bit and how can it help with my upcoming Industrial Revolution
Ah, i meant when bitcoins first emerge
You get turned back into a baby but you retain all your skills and memory, what do you do?
Run away from home, walk the earth, avoid narcissists and psychopaths, create an emancipatory revolution provisioning each and all with all the emancipatory technology they could ever need, sublimating humanity to an interstellar (even intergalactic) species.
*/Dreamer*
The second I am able to talk I am starting Jesus Cult 2.0.
look at what the first one did. be careful
As a talking baby, sure to garner a few followers.
well if we're talking newborn I would freak out the butcher who circumcized me by telling him in perfect english I don't consent to this. I don't know if I could realistically get out of it but I would try.
I would now be a baby with the full knowledge of a graduate engineering degree and several years of industry experience, and the knowledge that I'm a trans woman, bi, and neurodivergent.
School would be a tragically boring breeze, and I would probably try to get into some accelerated "child prodigy" academic program so I could get through it quicker. One of the ones where you start college when other people are starting high school. By this point I would have started male puberty, so priority number one would be to go to the campus doctor and start my hormonal transition. It would frankly be amazing to go through only female puberty, and at roughly the right age even. I could expect to end up much more feminine since the skeletal changes are still possible at that age and I wouldn't have had the full effect of male puberty on my face.
I would take my time at college, still study engineering but make it easy on myself, enjoy being a college girl for a while, have my slut phase while I'm still young. Idk how far I would go with it but I would probably study something new, probably get at least a masters again. A PhD would still be way too much work for me.
After graduating it would just be normal life again, but with the body I've always wanted and a little head start in life, as opposed to being really behind like I am now. Maybe I'd even be treated better by my parents, being born with more emotional maturity than they've ever had, and with a mind even older than they were when I was born. I still wouldn't trust or like them. They'd still be bigots and religious weirdos. But maybe having a seemingly prodigal child who outperforms their wildest dreams might make them at least be nicer to me.
speedrun obtaining estrogen
plot of a horror movie: Grown up trapped in baby body for 1.5 years while fully conscious.
You are way underestimating the duration of horror.
After 1,5 years he'll be able to say "This mortal form is limiting" and be thrown off a cliff.
😂
Ah, but babies have skin flaps between their limbs like flying squirrels.
Yup. This second run is going to include a diaper fetish.
I would probably shit my pants first thing.
Oh great now I get to die to global warming
Chances are not that slim for anyone under 40.
Just be born rich
Take better care of my teeth , never even think about engineering or technology and instead pick up dentistry
defy my middle eastern parents and actually not eat after I take my thyroid meds , and actually start taking it from a young age
realize that my parents don't care that much about me and get over it
try to warn them about the 2011 Civil war and tell them not to put every thing they make in a house that is going to be obliterated in the war and actually try to persuade my Dad who is a top linguistic scientist to take the offers he received from Europe and migrate there before the war starts instead of dying in this shit hole of a society ! , for a guy that was the top linguistic scientist of his country and has a phd my dad was dumb in his decisions especially the ones regarding his family
not overly cook my brain by masturbating too much
actually eat more
learn machining from a young age as a hoppy , make my own firearm for self defence
encrypt my diaries from a young age and not let my dad read them , even tho he managed to unencrypt them later and realized his son is just an uninteresting looser
tell my both of my parents to take better care of my elder sister so she doesn't end up a stupid whore
Take better care of my teeth
Oh god yeah. In my second chance, I'd completely avoid years of Dr Pepper addiction like I did first time around.
Was drinking 4L a day, for months, and didn't realise I had a problem until the day I drank 9L.
realize that my parents don’t care that much about me and get over it
That too.
learn machining from a young age
And that. Woodwork, metalurgy, masonry, etc too. And plumbing and electrics. All the real practical skills.
The way I’m reading this is that I’m turned into a baby in this moment. Why is it everyone else is assuming time travel?
I think because of the idiomatic
What would you do with a second chance?
Your option means to probably just die. Assuming it's a 0 second old baby, you're not going to be able to take care of yourself or move around to get help. You'll just lie there and starve. Traveling back to your birth means you're with your parents.
because they make assumptions
I would definitely avoid some mistakes and start saving early. If this also involves time travel, I mine Bitcoins and keep them.
I’m suddenly a 40-year old woman in the body of a baby boy. Overnight: the following things are true:
- I’m in Japan. My English is borderline-perfect, once my face and throat can express it. It’s okay, I was born to white parents who are English speakers, but they didn’t raise me with English. We’ll see where this goes in my new life.
- My wife, who I’ve fallen asleep to every night, is now 3-year old kid in Illinois. I will miss her deeply and I cannot even grieve without arousing suspicion. Her existence at this point in her life is miserable. I know what she’s suffering through and which address she’s suffering at. Even if I went to go see her, she wouldn’t know who I am. I don’t look like me. She also hasn’t met me yet.
- I know full well that I’m trans and I know that my mother and father are hostile to such notions, and I know there’s nothing I can even do at that point in time.
- Everything I have read, watched, and played doesn’t exist yet. There’s embedded cultural touchstones that I reference that don’t exist yet. I’m also a baby.
- Most of my favorite music doesn’t exist yet. I will hum songs by Hitorie, The Beths, South Arcade, Battle Tapes, and Emi Nakamura under my breath decades before they’re written. This is a problem.
- The technology I use to make my art doesn’t exist yet. Digital cameras at the turn of the millennium were ass.
- I’m still 40. I can’t pursue my hobbies and works. I can’t take pictures (yet). DSLRs don’t exist.
- One of my two strokes gets undone. My body moves somewhat easier. However, I still think and interact with the world like I’ve had two.
- The house I’m living in now hasn’t been built yet then.
In summary, endless culture shock. I would panic forever. My life would immediately be one of those television shows where suspicion keeps mounting against the main character and there’s jack shit anyone can do to stop it.
I suppose I could tell her that in sixteen years, 9/11 is happening and what transpires, down to Kevin Cosgrove’s phone call. She’d panic and try to contact the feds, and I’d just say that Bush already knows. It’s in the commission report that doesn’t exist yet.
That might actually radicalize them…
There are quite a few women who said things like "I used to have such a massive crush on you at school/Uni/work" and I never realised at the time.
If I had a second chance, I would realise at the time.
This, times 9000. Except, I'd still have the same social ineptitude. XD
Then you ruin it by coming on too strong too soon, scaring them off before they develop that crush.
Did that already in my first time around, with my highschool crush, when we were in college together. A premature "I love you" bomb. 2nd chance, if getting to that same point, I'd have heeded that little voice in me warning "don't say it, not yet, you'll ruin it". Or at the very least, not wimp out after, and instead continue to pursue her.
I think it's more likely that though I'd be initially aware of it at the point of magical reincarnation, by the time I reached whatever age it was, I wouldn't believe it was true anyway, so would act exactly the same as when I didn't know :)
Me: "Oh God! OH FUCK! I can't do all this again!"
Aside from doing it all over, can you imagine the horror of having all the skills, memory and mind of a fully mature person trapped in the body of a baby?
having all the skills, memory and mind of a fully mature person trapped in the body of a baby
Trapped?
I'd not be able to contain myself, and would speak, and ambulate, immediately... wowing people to such a spectacle... a talking dancing baby, who can espouse advanced philosophical notions, challenge people to reflect on their epistemology, and even warn of crooked ploys put upon the world. ... Oh dear... I did not want to become a religious icon.
I'm presuming the baby continues to grow up normally, and is not an eternal baby-body prison... and that "all the skills" includes psyche-motor skills. ... And best of both worlds, able to learn like a baby too, vividly retaining near everything, contrast to old-man brain (where decades of toxin accumulation and stress have impaired neurogenesis and learning capacity).
Can you imagine knowing that when you hit 35 you have a brain injury due to an A.V. malformation, almost die, wake up in hospital, become permanently disabled and have to learn to walk again?
...Yeah...
Audio Video malformations must be awful.
From Google:
"A brain arteriovenous malformation (AVM) is a rare, abnormal tangle of blood vessels connecting arteries and veins, bypassing normal brain tissue. It typically forms before birth and can cause seizures, headaches, or neurological issues, though many are asymptomatic until they rupture, causing a dangerous brain hemorrhage."
It's Groundhog ~~Day~~ Life.
As soon as I am able I would wander into the woods and perish
As babies do
This is the way.
I'd do a lot of the same, but in different ways. I don't want to mess up and miss out on my pets and all the other wonderful things that have happened to me, but I would try to live a better/less fucked life.
Try harder in school, achieve some modicum of success so I'm not such a loser, and fix my biggest, less consequential regrets. Nothing that would be life-changing, but would make me feel less guilty at least. I would do more to help the pets I couldn't save (2 babies taken too soon) and I would try to just live more, and not be as much of a shut-in homebody.
Probably try not to become an alcoholic too.
Try harder in school, achieve some modicum of success so I’m not such a loser
... by some measure, the trying harder in school is what makes one a loser.
I think most of the very successful people I know, left school early.
I wish I'd realised earlier what bunk school [including college] is. 3 times they bait-n-switched me offering one course next year, then doing something different (from Chemistry and the entire periodic table to just hydrocarbons, from art to knitting, from digital arts to web design). In that first year after I table-flipped on formal education, I learned more on my own (with an internet connection and a library card) than I had in the entire prior 14 years of formal education. [(And in that 14 years, they never figured out I'm dyslexic! + other horror stories.)]
2nd chance, no chance I'd stay in school. (Not just because I already retained skills and memory from it, but because I know now it's bunk and I can do at least 14 times better myself.).
I'd do a lot of the same, but in different ways
there are different ways to eat a nickel?
Eating it all at once, quickly; eating it slowly so it slides smoothly down the esophagus; chewing until your teeth are dull; sucking on it until the iron/nickel is drained from the geode; shall I go on? 👀
Spend 20some years dreading that I'm probably going to fumble my wife by knowing she's perfect for me
I already did that this time around. Lost the love of my life from my fumble.
... This next time though... :D
Imagine how creepy that would be from her perspective. Someone shows up and is trying a little too hard to be friends, that's weird but ok. But now they know things about me that I never told them. Eek!
"Hey, I know you're just some 20 year old college student, but have you ever considered that you might be a lesbian?" Coming from an 18 year old who is clearly pleading for this all to go better than she's had nightmares of and is unwilling to wait another 6 years to meet you in a dungeon.
Alternatively I do wait, but I'm no longer the kind of fucked up I was then. What began with us being in a similar emotional state and thriving on the raw honesty of "hey, I just got out of a relationship that went sour because I realized what I needed, so I'm probably not ready for a relationship, but know what I want" being "hey, I know way too much about you and am actively desperate for you specifically, but I love you so please give me a chance."
Genuinely?
I'd not be such a tremendous cringey dork as a kid.
I would not latch onto that one girl who did not give a shit about me.
I would fully avoid the one girl who did like me but then completely fucked me up.
I would move out of my toxic dickhead dad's house before he got my bedroom raided by police.
I'd buy a load of bitcoin when I saw it for like 12p and thought "nah, that's just for criminals, I don't want to be associated with that"
But then...
If I can't achieve those things while also meeting my wife and having the exact same kids that I have now then I would honestly not change a damn thing. Scars and all.
You know how people who go back in time always try to kill Hitler? Well, he was already gone when I was a baby, but someone else would not be...
The problem is, most of the likely targets are front-men puppets, and the puppet-masters hide in the shadows. Finding who to optimally eliminate (or otherwise redirect their life, without murder), to mend the world, is no easy task. It's murky at the "top".
The real key is to find a way to commit your timeline-corrective murders while you yourself are still very young in the second run through. That way it's all juvenile crimes on your record!
Alternatively, you could probably change the timeline without resorting to homicide. For example, let's say you don't want someone to become president. Send them a hundred copies of a letter. On that letter, state that you are a psychic, and that you are writing them to give them a warning. You tell them the future can still be changed, but on their current path, they are headed for a cruel end. You then list a bunch of future events, including some from their life. And then you include one final one at the end.
For example, let's say you wanted to prevent Trump from getting elected president. Send him a letter in 1996 telling him the future. Describe all sorts of future events. Maybe even throw in a few he can make a little bit of money off of. Hell, put in some stock tips. You want him to think you really have his best interest at heart. But then, for the final prediction, state that on the current timeline, he will run for president in 2016 and be assassinated on the campaign trail. Then provide a list of future calamities this apparently caused. Tell him that if he declines to run in 2016, then all sorts of good things will happen.
That gets me wondering... If we'd managed to avert/thwart 9-11, would the tech from the disclosure project's press club a mere 4 months prior, have managed to get out, and by now in 2026, we'd have long been living in a jetsons/startrek high-tech more-utopian world?
Think of the unnecessary "resource wars" of the past quarter a century that could have been completely averted, with the successful campaign to de-secret all the various emancipatory technologies hidden in the past century of banker-led wars. Think of the near total absence of pollution from our technology. Even the electrics, honed to cymatic cromulence. ... */Dreamer*
Hitler killed himself. Go back and kill Churchill.
He did, but it was after he'd already caused the death of millions.
Oh, I thought Hitler killed his body double, and fucked off to south america...
... The internet's misbehaving for me today. Websearches are refusing to provide me with the image purported to be Hitler, as an old man, completely bald, no moustache, in Argentina. All websearches are giving me are the CIA mock-ups of what they thought Hitler could have disguised himself to look like, and the "Adolf Schrittelmayor, Tunga, Colombia, 1954" one. ... Oh and an implausible grainy one, claimed to be him, with his dark skinned wife. There's a better one, looks just like him, much later than 1954, much higher quality image too, that I had intended to post here... instead you get this lame story about how I failed to find it in a timely manner.
My wife loves them (giggidy?) and they were really always meh for me. Then she has me try bread and butter pickles, at 42yo. Omg it's a completely different thing it's nuts.
nickels?
Ok, calm down Leto II
Grab boobs while i'm still young enough for it to be cute
those are your moms boobs... would you even want to?
... That.... I had not considered. That would be very weird. ... I'm starting to understand the compulsion to eat a nickel.
... I was breast fed. I appreciate that. Do I want to relive that with all my skills and knowledge from adulthood intact....? O_O The horror.
listen homie we all have our issues we're working through
Yeah I'm going to appreciate breastfeeding in a whole different way.
Bro that’s your mom…
Nobody said anything about time travel
Eat a nickel.
Eat lerasium, then eat a nickel
I would rule the playground with my knowledge of Pokemon and distribute Mew to those whose dex languishes at 150.
But only trade him, don't spread the secret that it's glitches. Accidentally let it slip that using Strength on the truck by the SS Anne is involved, though. That rumor has to stay in the timeline
I looked up the glitch many years later as a young adult and was shocked it actually worked. This is just mean.
Its the only way to preserve the timeline.
The only thing I can think of is to force myself to learn a lot of languages since babies are better at picking up languages.
Being younger doesn't really do anything. Maybe fix/prevent my scoliosis if it does reset like that? But without also going back in time, my options are pretty limited.
Best answer.
I don't get the eat a nickel thing, but the genie version of granting this "wish" is that you're a baby today, not when you were born.
Genie: Well, ok, you're already a big baby, so that was an easy wish.
I mean, that's a good start. But amateur hour for a true jackass genie.
The monkey's paw makes you a baby. Today. Specifically an adult baby.
- Buy into Bitcoin while its young
- Become a Crypto Bro, shilling to hell and back
- ???
- Become Billionaire
Good thinking. You could get so many nickels that way.
Or rather, INVENT bitcoin, as a baby or toddler. (guess it depends how young you are now)
You dont even need to be a crypto bro unless it would give you some kind of pleasure. Just buy bitcoin when it was under a dollar, you wouldn't even want to sell them so what would you be shilling exactly?
You'd want to ensure people bought into it just like with this timeline, so become a crypto bro and hype up the currency to ensure people still end up buying it
Philip! Nooooo! My poor girl!
(will anyone even understand what I am referencing?)
The coin in fairly oddparents?
Yaaas 😃
Are we talking baby present time or baby back when I was a baby?
Let's say back when you were a baby
Oh yeah, things would be way way way more different.
Iknow this is just a joke but there’s a really good book along this premise. You only get your memories back at 4 or 5 though. The book is called “The First 15 lives of Harry August”.
OH THANK GOODNESS! Yes. Lets have that. With my mind as is now, I don't want to relive breast feeding.
Wasn't the author of that really young when she wrote it?
I've recently procured The 7 and a Half Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle and have been wondering whether it's similarly themed. If not, at least it reminds me of NerdCubed.
I forget what point I was trying to make.
Happy to see a fellow NerdCubed fan in the wild.
There's also Jobless Reincarnation, which is the exact same pitch but he goes to a fantasy world instead of this one. As soon as he opens his eyes after birth, mom goes to nurse and he's like, "oh yeah I get to sit back and suck tiddies for a while!"
Edit: but not how tomiant below describes it 👀
Hope that all my medical issues aren't primarily genetic, I guess?
Starting around 2 years old, I’m going to write all the songs that haven’t been written yet. And play bass on all of them.
Spend more time with the grandparents. Make more effort towards learning languages and music. Try and have fun with being a kid.
Of course do the get rich stuff when it comes up. Might be able to convince my parents to let me try buying Google or Apple stock and I could buy BTC on my own.
The hard part would be figuring out meeting my wife and having the kiddo. These sorts of "what ifs?" get a lot less fun with those considerations.
Having the kiddo is almost impossible. You might have a kid but it won't be the same kid.
Cry
Go suck on my mothers tits super erotically to freak her out, not breaking eye contact the whole time
Haha yes as a joke haha yes a funny joke mother
Tell me more - when did these thoughts start occurring, and how do you feel about them?
Sleep.
Transition
Now there's a baby who knows what they want.
I feel like going back in time for it is kinda cheating. The real question is would you do it knowing what you know now but without knowledge of the future.
I’m busy right now, but yea if you told me I had to it’d be cool. New Game+ that shit.
That's way more difficult. Kids these days are told their future's increasingly screwed and uncertain... They can't even enjoy suffering being nagged to "get a job". Our knowledge and skills largely come from a bygone era, where much of it is not worth so much any more, bearing no relevance, holding no traction, to the scenarios looming.
OP has said in a comment here:
Let’s say back when you were a baby
Look at this guy, going for the speed run.
