If you could return to any age you used to be...

Milgram experiment. Milgram experiment - Wikipedia

The one in this thread sounds comparable to one of the Enron interview questions, where if you could push a button and it killed some random person (whose death would not be particularly noticed or mourned) halfway across the world and gave you some great reward (billions, longer life, whatever), would you do it.

So with Enron being Enron, was the right answer… of course you kill some random person?

I have trouble answering “yes” to this question, because I don’t want to kill anyone. The payoff is pretty nebulous. Sure, it might feel nice to have young women admire my lissome body, my sparkling personality, my admirable work ethic, but then, they didn’t back then and why would they start just because I returned from the future? I could launch into a regimen of self-improvement once I returned to a previous age, but I’d start from an awfully low mood because I’d be dealing with the guilt of murdering someone.

I could launch into a regimen of self-improvement now, and it would be like me in my sixties traveling back twenty-five years to save my future self. I don’t even have to kill anyone. And… I probably won’t? Or wouldn’t? Sorry, sixty-five-year-old me. I hope medical technology of 2043 does most of the heavy lifting for us.

If I were to kill someone to give me a better life, I don’t think it really matters when the reward actually hits, in the past or in the future. Things would have to be pretty dire for me to do so, and without much time to contemplate it — like, is it a question of either killing that guard or losing twenty-five years in the slammer? Either shove the old guy down so I can get out of the way of the speeding bus or I lose my legs and live a few more months in agony? Either enter a time portal fueled by the blood of the innocent to go back to a time where I try to futilely convince my mom that it is super important that I see the Pumpkins headline Lollapalooza then wait around for years before The Matrix finally comes out or remain closer to the endpoint of my mortal coil with a legally and morally clear life and maybe be that much closer to the possibility of the Rapture/technological Singularity/legalized VR sex&drugbots?

I wish I had a famous ethicist like Chidi to help me out with this trolley problem.
https://i.imgur.com/sDXTTYz.gif

On one hand I would love to fix some of the things that I didn’t do right:

  • I wish I would have tried more things when I was young to maybe find something I’d love to do (professionally).
  • Even though I did well in school I never really embraced education. It was something I needed to do to get a job. I’d like to change that.
  • I wish I could take back some of the things I did when i was young that were cruel.
  • I wish I took better care of myself nutritionally and physically for the last 20 years.
  • There are tons more…

But, I couldn’t just kill an innocent person to do it. I think I could kill someone if they were a danger to loved ones or myself.

Or maybe you’re just thinking of Ghostbusters

I can kill a random stranger any time I want without being forced to relive my life. You’re going to have to sweeten the deal.