Poll of the Day > You have discovered the secret to eternal youth

(+) Yeah! (+)

Yes

I swear someone asked this question recently.

Seems like a pretty cruel power. I don't think so.

I said no even before I read that it involved stealing time from other people. Living forever is highly over-rated.

Probably would use it. I dont want to extend my life but aging some people to get them out of this world quicker would be something to consider.

TheFalseDeity posted...

Probably would use it. I dont want to extend my life but aging some people to get them out of this world quicker would be something to consider.

This. It isn't about keeping me; it's about ending others.

idk if i'm edgy enough to go the antihero route, but otherwise i don't think i'd ever use this.

Yellow posted...

Seems like a pretty cruel power. I don't think so.

This. If I gotta harm other people to benefit myself then that's a pass for me

go to a concert once a year

make your way through the crowd, take a week off from 50 people

never age, profit

Yes, because if Ive been given this chance to discover it, its likely numerous others have, as well *prods topic*, and then its just a matter of time before everybody knows. Id need to be a toucher just to retain the status quo.

abso fucking lutely plenty of miserable sods got time they ain't never gonna use or appreciate, and that's not even factoring in assholes I can help get rid of faster

yeah its not like i would use it often but there isnt a downside to having the option, there are def people in this world I wouldnt feel bad using this on

Berating posted...

go to a concert once a year

make your way through the crowd, take a week off from 50 people

never age, profit

This would be the way to use it if you actually wanted to (and didn't want to use it as a murder tool). It'd be very, very easy to take an imperceptibly small amount of lifespan from a large enough number of unique people to achieve immortality without hurting anyone in a way that they'll notice.

That said, I don't particularly want immortality.

TheFalseDeity posted...

Probably would use it. I dont want to extend my life but aging some people to get them out of this world quicker would be something to consider.

I don't know that it'd be a particularly effective tool in that regard. You're just aging them, not triggering some event that's going to deterministically happen to kill them when they reach a certain age. They'll end up dying of old age sooner and have an increased risk of developing age-related diseases, but it's likely to still be quite a while before they actually die. Meanwhile, you de-age by the same margin, so unless you're only making a few years' difference it's going to be really obvious that you're responsible. Toss in that you need to physically touch them anyway, and you might as well just use a knife or whatever.

As it's a choice to use it or not I'd say yes.

TheFalseDeity posted...

Probably would use it. I dont want to extend my life but aging some people to get them out of this world quicker would be something to consider.

In that scenario you might want to hope it goes both ways.

Drain people you hate, give the extra vitality back to people you deem worthy.



adjl posted...

Meanwhile, you de-age by the same margin, so unless you're only making a few years' difference it's going to be really obvious that you're responsible.

This is the real problem.

The last few decades have become a really bad time for immortals to exist in. You can't really remain anonymous, or fake your death/create new identities. Even moving from place to place every few years would only work so long.

If you stay young forever, someone will notice eventually. And then you're being hunted and dissected. If your power works in reverse, now the rich and powerful will want to force you to use it to keep them young. If it doesn't (or you just won't), now you're getting experimented on to try and replicate it.

Even if you only shave a few days at a time, you will start to draw attention eventually. Even "He looks really good for his age!" starts getting really suspicious when you're supposed to be 80 but still look 20.

Persona posted...

abso fucking lutely plenty of miserable sods got time they ain't never gonna use or appreciate, and that's not even factoring in assholes I can help get rid of faster

Damn right

Are you sure you're not one of them?

Can it work in reverse? Can you donate some of your life to someone else?

I could see going around stealing life from evil people and giving it to good.

adjl posted...

I don't know that it'd be a particularly effective tool in that regard. You're just aging them, not triggering some event that's going to deterministically happen to kill them when they reach a certain age. They'll end up dying of old age sooner and have an increased risk of developing age-related diseases, but it's likely to still be quite a while before they actually die. Meanwhile, you de-age by the same margin, so unless you're only making a few years' difference it's going to be really obvious that you're responsible. Toss in that you need to physically touch them anyway, and you might as well just use a knife or whatever.

Said with the assumption that if someone has an illness thats already taking a toll, any aging done to them would include the illness ravaging their body for the time as well. Theres really only one person i had in mind and it shouldnt take all too much. But even if it doesnt lead to immediate results itd overall be worth it imo.

Hell no

Nah, I couldn't do that to others. I'd reject it, especially since I'm a physically affectionate person.

TheFalseDeity posted...

Said with the assumption that if someone has an illness thats already taking a toll, any aging done to them would include the illness ravaging their body for the time as well.

As I'm interpreting it, it's not accelerating the passage of time, it's just accelerating the aging process. There's room to suggest that the progression of something like cancer is part of the aging process, but that's pretty debatable, and any other illnesses likely wouldn't progress.

adjl posted...

As I'm interpreting it, it's not accelerating the passage of time, it's just accelerating the aging process.

As described, it's not really that. He said you're draining time, not life.

Presumably, you're not just aging them at an accelerated rate, you're instantaneously jumping them forward to the state of being they would have at the point in time you've aged them to, while resetting yourself back to a prior state.

Though that raises a question - if you had a broken leg when you were 20, if you rewind your time back to 20, would you have a broken leg again, or will you just appear as the sort of Platonic Ideal of your younger self?

If you were really skinny at 20 and spent 10 years working out and bulking up, would your rewound self literally be a scrawny 20 year old, or a 20-year old version of your 30 year old self? How much ontological inertia are we talking here?



Also, not strictly related, but now I want to post this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6u0vqD202Tw

Hell yes!

There's not really any practical way to use this power in any meaningful way. I don't have any interest in living as a 20-something until an accident kills me. I wouldn't feel tremendously guilty taking a year or two from a handful of people at a time but again, taking 1 year every year just to stay the same age would give me little benefit but would make my life extremely complicated after about a decade or so. And using it to kill bad people or something would not scale since I age in reverse proportion to their aging.

I would become a anti-hero and steal life from villains.