Time Has Been Reset

[Tomzilla]

Here’s a scenario I invite you all to contemplate.

Let’s say you wake up tomorrow 10 years younger than you are now. But it’s not just you. It would appear everything has ‘de-aged’ by ten years. Things appear like they were a decade ago. You and everyone who were living seconds before time reset itself and were alive 10 years ago remember everything up to this point. Those who’ve died in the last 10 years, however, have no recollection of the years gone by.

Example: My Grandpa died 2 years ago. So he’d be alive again in this scenario, except he would have no memory of what happened in the last 10 years, even if he was there for the first 8.

How would the world respond to this? Knowing the consequences of our actions, would we make better choices? With no memory of dying, how would some of the population feel about the rest of the world telling them about their fate? There’s also the big risk many would be in diapers again. If their young, undeveloped brains even allowed them to process bits and pieces of their ‘previous’ lives, what would this do their growth? What of the children who have now been erased from existence? Is there any hope they’ll return?

This topic was inspired by a story I’m planning to write.

Thoughts?

[Mr Bean]

The butterfly effect would pretty massively take over. For example just considering all the remaining still living dictators in the ME and now it's ten years before and Qaddafi is alive again and has no idea what's going on but his people remember what happened just a few short (to them) months ago. Or Saddam still in power in Iraq, or Bin Ladin or pretty much anyone who did something terrible during that ten years. Or Michael Jackson no longer dead but quiet alive. Ten years ago tomorrow is December 8th 2001, we are just getting into A-stan, Iraq is not even on the table. If you want to talk about mass bloodshed, panic and tribulations your have set the stage for a pretty extreme one.

Example, Bernie Madoff? 2001 he's a finance genius not a scam artist. Hell think of Sandusky ten years ago still in his molesting spree. And he's not the only one, to catch a predator started in the 2000's and there literally hundreds of perps that show caught who are now uncaught except everyone living knows they were caught before.

[Simon_Jester]

I think some people would be very pleased to see this happen- I know I wouldn't be unhappy at the prospect of having the past ten years to live over as a mulligan.

Especially not if I got to keep the raw knowledge, and hopefully at least some of the benefits of the life experience, I've gotten over those years.

[Crossroads Inc.]

The problem with this set up is the same as so many others.
Unless you are granted magic powers of some kind, actually changing history on any sort of meaningful way is all but imossible.

How could one person, or even sd.net working together, do somethign like ,say, prevent the worthless invasion of Iraq? Or call out Bernie Madoff? Ensure Dubya isnt re-elected?
Because in truth, unless we are given some way to make people believe us about certain things, there is little to nothing we can physically do other then try to get playing the Stock market and housing market before the bubble crashes.

[CaptainChewbacca]

The problem with this set up is the same as so many others.
Unless you are granted magic powers of some kind, actually changing history on any sort of meaningful way is all but imossible.

I think you misread. In this hypothetical EVERYONE has quantum-leapt back ten years. Obama, Bush, Bill Gates, everyone who is alive now jumps back ten years in their own bodies. The only people who don't remember are the people not alive now (if you died before dec 8, you won't wake up in 2001). I'll be glad to re-do my college, talk with some friends, make sure a female friend of mine remembers to not date a certain not-then-rapist, and wait for some spectacular national disasters. I will even be able to prevent my girlfriend (who I believe was 17 in 2001) from getting stalked and having a nervous breakdown a second time. Best of all, I'll never have had cancer.

Also keep in mind, the Indian Ocean will now have two full weeks to prepare for the Boxing Day Tsunami, so loss of life should be minimal there. I imagine banking regulations and loaning practices will be examined as well, and the US government might be able to short-circuit the housing bubble before it starts.

I think the MOST interesting part will be relationships. Are you married now? Were you dating that person in 2001? In December 2001 I was 3 months into a 4-month relationship, but currently I'm 4 weeks away from a one-year anniversary. It might cause a baby-boom, as couples who have been married rush to find each-other and renew their affections in younger, healthier bodies. I'm not sure how society would handle 24 year-old adults becoming 14 year-olds, but we'll adapt somehow. I'd love to see what everyone else's speculation is on that.

[evilsoup]

Read the OP again, this isn't just another lame RAR, everyone in the world is affected (and has memories of the past ten years)... there's a pretty good chance that the Iraq war wouldn't be repeated, because everyone would remember how badly that turned/will turn out. The WMD con certainly wouldn't work.

[CaptainChewbacca]

Of course, Saddam WOULDN'T have had his memory reset, so that's rather interesting...

'Great leader, we are from the future! The Americans will destroy us and hang you!'

'Bah, execute this pessemist!'

[Shadow6]

I wonder: do the people alive when the clock is wound back still personally identify with their future selves, with their most recent memories being from just before the transition and hence arriving in the past with ten years between moments? Or is the change more like reverting to your state of mind as it was ten years ago, with these strange new memories of the future popping into existence but maintaining a continuity of consciousness from just before ten years ago to just after in your timeline?

Because if it is the former, I think the disappearance of a half a billion children will be rather traumatising for their families, not to mention, as you point out, the effects on teenagers who now essentially inhabit prepubescent bodies but with teenaged 'minds' (but without the teenaged neurochemistry). Additionally, imagine if you suddenly find yourself driving a car, crossing a road or some other potentially dangerous situation - I rather suspect we would see a large number of deaths and injuries after the transition. Even in the latter case, how are people going to be psychologically and emotionally affected by memories of experiences and relationships they've never had appearing in their consciousness? Once again, I think that would be rather distracting at the least.

[Simon_Jester]

Of course, Saddam WOULDN'T have had his memory reset, so that's rather interesting...

'Great leader, we are from the future! The Americans will destroy us and hang you!'

'Bah, execute this pessemist!'

I doubt it. He knows he can lose wars, and there's just so many people who remember it... For that matter, most of his subjects will remember it too.

[CaptainChewbacca]

I don't think there will be any car accidents; As per the letter of the OP, the transition occurs 'as you wake up', so no pilots suddenly finding themselves coming in for a landing.

[Mr Bean]

I don't think there will be any car accidents; As per the letter of the OP, the transition occurs 'as you wake up', so no pilots suddenly finding themselves coming in for a landing.

That's the way I read that as well December 8th you wake up that day and it's ten years ago. So whenever you did wake up December 8th that's when.

[Highlord Laan]

My first response would be God fucking dammit! I'm back in High School! And for my Junior year too. Fuck. The school would be a very awkward place. What would the faculty do with teenagers that remember being adults, holding jobs, having families, fighting overseas, ect?

In fact, that'd be a high ranking question for the entire human race.

[Simon_Jester]

Yeah, you're right. A lot of the social control mechanisms in high school would break down under the stress- on the other hand, they'd be less necessary. Most of the teenagers have the memories and hopefully some of the life experience of people who, by and large, have stopped being idiot punk teenagers and gotten their act together.

You'd have some of the same issues in college, and education in general: you're "teaching" a lot of people who by and large already know the material. You might see a mass revolt, but on the other hand with everything rewound to ten years ago, how do you know who actually has the relevant knowledge and degrees, as opposed to who merely says they have them?

[Crossroads Inc.]

Well shoot I apoligize, I should know better by now to post before reading -_-

That said. If people are indeed retaining memory. Forgot about the choas caused poltically, the bussines world is going to go freaking BONKERS.

Imagine knowing 10 years of products, innovations and ideas that have not yet been created! The line outside the patent office will go on for miles! The rush on law offices to try and copyright information and concepts that "will" exist is going to start a law war of epic size. I mean, any bussines modles we had we can kiss the heck goodbye.

Forget trying to get rich off the stock market, because the market as we knew it is going to get fcked so many different ways it will be like starting from scratch.

[Siege]

Suppose there's a highschooler out there who married his sweetheart, joined the Marines, and got blown up on some dusty road in Afghanistan or Iraq somewhere... Now she's got memories of mourning him for years and, hell, maybe even starting to move on just a little until suddenly it's 2001 again, she's in highschool again and there he is... And he doesn't remember any of it.

Talk about awkward.

[Eternal_Freedom]

Just imagine the problems of age of consent. For example, back in 2001 I would be 9 and my grilfriend would be 7. I would certianly try and find her and she would (I like to think) try the same.

Now suppose we DO meet and decide to continue as before the transition. Physically we are both children but have adult minds. Would sex be legally consensual in that case?

The court cases will go on until the present day methinks.

[CaptainChewbacca]

I imagine academics can be solved by giving a whole whack of assessment tests, to see what people know and what they don't. Most highschoolers could simply be given an equivalency test and then allowed to move on to college. Same with college graduates.

Now suppose we DO meet and decide to continue as before the transition. Physically we are both children but have adult minds. Would sex be legally consensual in that case?

Here's a better question; Would the nine-year-old you want or even be capable of having a sexual relationship with your girlfriend in those circumstanes?

[Eternal_Freedom]

If the nine-year-old me has the memories of the 19 year old me, then the desire will definitely be there. The physical capability is something else however.

But I can see it still being an issue, perhaps not for me and my GF but for others.

On another note, we could influence filmmakers by saying "yep, this worked, but had a dissapointing ending." And we could stop Russell T Davies writing shitty season finales for Doctor Who.

[TheFeniX]

Provided the world doesn't explode, this could answer a whole load of questions about experience vs biology. Behavioral physiologists would have field day.

By the age of 9, I had seen sex scenes in pornography and understood exactly what was going on: I found the experience quite disgusting. "Private parts" were for peeing, even if a woman's was separated. It's disgusting that you would use them for that. Then puberty hits and that idea goes away very quickly. Is that all physical? Or is it a mix of experience vs maturation?

How would 22 (12) year-old high school students deal with all their experience now being jumbled with their immature brains and raging hormones? Would old bullies still bully now that they've been in the real world? How would a 12-year-old develop differently with 10 years of interaction experience as a 2 year old? Would he/she still have a "no" phase? An anal phase? Oedipus/Electra phase?

Also, forget making money on the stock market: all technology is now 10 years old (essentially). All the experience you have with current hardware/software is now useless and you have to relearn old outdated shit. For a silly example, I was trying to setup a Jedi Academy server the other day and got my ass kicked because I can't remember 90% of the command lines (and support was shit even back in 2003). I lived and breathed server admining back then, but 7 years of non-use has almost erased all that memory.

[Simon_Jester]

I imagine academics can be solved by giving a whole whack of assessment tests, to see what people know and what they don't. Most highschoolers could simply be given an equivalency test and then allowed to move on to college. Same with college graduates.

That would be relatively straightforward for high school, although it would take some time to work out the details of how to do it. It wouldn't work so well for college, I think; among other things, a lot of people might not be able to pass an equivalency test without some years of review.

[Todeswind]

This is my nightmare situation. Without a doubt the worst possible thing I can imagine. I don't want to have to re-live my parents divorce and my father's slow decline into utter madness and suicide a second time. Have you ever watched someone lose everything? I have. Millions of dollars, a career, sanity, family. It isn't something I care to repeat.

And I would.

I know I would devote every ounce of energy in my being to trying to keep my family in tact, in spite of there being not a whole hell of a lot to save. Losing his fame and his fortune in such a short period of time combined with constant tabloid inquiry was a damn cocktail for self destruction that I had the pleasure of riding along for.

[Alferd Packer]

Yeah, that'd be pretty horrible. I wake up just before finals in my freshman year of college. I fail my calculus final horribly (since it's been 10 years since I've actually done any math), bumble my way through my German and physics classes, but I'd ace my psych 101 final. Not to mention that all my college friends are no longer my friends, so there's that awkwardness.

Oh, and I and my family have to live with the knowledge that my grandmother has about 9 months to live, and my mother about a year and a half. Boy, sign me right the fuck up.

[Crossroads Inc.]

The more you consider this set up the more Fcked up the world becomes.

Consider, there is now 10years worth of "products" that people rememebr but are now GONE.

TV shows, Movies, Books, Video Games, Music, Electronics. etc etc.
Where do you start?

What do you do if you are a film company, and you have memories of 10years worth of films. Do you remake them all? Imagine frantically trying to locate actors and actress for films that people want to see but wont be made for years.
Imagine all of the poor authors, years and years of work GONE. Would you even bother trying to redo it all? Could you remember that much?

Consider a whole society that is used to having the internet at their beck and call, who now have to put up with B&W brick phones of the early 2000's.

The fact that whole WORLD retains it's memories will make this fcked up beyond measure.
What about jobs? In 2001 I was just finishing Community college, and it would be another year before I got my first job.
Would I be able to instantly be rehired by my existing job? Because they will have 10years worth of people wanting to join and get pay checks. Can you even imagine the choas caused to the economy by that alone?

And as for poltics?
Well fck, Bush is in charge and just about to charge to war, and somethign tells me he is goign to have a VERY different outcome. The population today is sick and tired of war, and have had 10 years for the memories of 9/11 to mellow. The rampant ferver and mindless AMERICA!!! that swept the country isn't there any more.

Who is to say Bush could even stay as President? After all everyone "remembers" Obama being in charge. Imagine that playing out among leaders all over the world.

And yeah... Lets just dip into the whole massive mess of people who knwo they are going to die, and people dealing with the loss of kids who have not yet been born, and now, may NEVER be born.
Sure you can have kids, but you will never get the circumstances rigth to have "those" kids back. Everyone born since 2001 will effectivly never exist.

Ye gods, this world is fcked so many different ways.

[Todeswind]

On the bright side for about ten years nobody would die in an earthquake, flood, tornado, hurricane, or volcano. We'd know exactly where and when they were going to happen.

[Mr Bean]

On the bright side for about ten years nobody would die in an earthquake, flood, tornado, hurricane, or volcano. We'd know exactly where and when they were going to happen.

People will still die, either they are those who died to begin with and won't believe those who come back from the future or will take steps that get them killed. I'm thinking of Tornado chasers here and the short lived disaster tourism. After all if everyone gets to saftey before the mega tornadoes that hit the south you know there are going to be amateurs wanting to go down there to film them. Same thing with the two big tsunamis of the 00's.