Pineapple Express: Someone Is Wrong on the Internet?

[MoonSong]

These few weeks the same meme question has been circulating through Spanish language Reddit (and maybe Facebook). The meme basically asks the reader to choose in a thought experiment between a)$10,000,000 in cash, and b)restarting your life at 6 with your current knowledge.

While a few people figured out the downsides of option a (needing to basically launder a lot of money in foreign currency, which is very hard), many choose b without thinking it through. Most just say something along "I'd buy bitcoin cheap and be even richer now", "I'd buy Apple stock cheap","imagine what I could do with all that future knowledge", "I'd be a supergenious basically." But there are many problems with option b.

The average person nowadays is reliant on having an steady internet connection 24/7 for knowledge, so not much of that "future knowledge" to begin with. Heck, many people are already hooked on chatgpt to do the thinking for them.

Even if they don't need a smartphone to recall important info, they are underestimating just how effing boring is to be a "gifted child" growing up and how isolated they'd be from their peers because they'd be gifted children on steroids.

Forgetting we all are denizens of third-world countries with limited access to resources. Even today, as adults, it is very hard for the average inhabitant of LA to be able to buy stocks. How are they planning to get the funds and means to take advantage of that future knowledge as destitute 6 year olds in a poor country going through at least two recessions growing up? (And if you are young enough that the internet was widespread when you were six, you are very late to anything)

Finally, they aren't taking into account the heavy burden of knowing decades of tragedies in advance as an immature child. How they would get very depressed knowing they are helpless to stop all the bad stuff from seeing relatives and friends doomed to unpreventable deaths, to global scale disasters like Hurricane Katrina or 9/11.

And even if they could somehow come on top despite all that, all that precious future knowledge is bound to become outdated as the butterfly effect little changes start piling up.

In short many come up as very delulu.

 

[RealAlHazred]

I mean, on the one hand, I'd be very tempted to do option b, and the only thing I'd try to do different is to be more present with the people I love who I know are going to pass away.

But on the other hand, the odds of actually meeting my wife and of us actually making our daughter are so staggeringly small, I'd be terrified of messing things up, and would probably just take the $10 million to be safe.

 

[MoonSong]

I mean, on the one hand, I'd be very tempted to do option b, and the only thing I'd try to do different is to be more present with the people I love who I know are going to pass away.

But on the other hand, the odds of actually meeting my wife and of us actually making our daughter are so staggeringly small, I'd be terrified of messing things up, and would probably just take the $10 million to be safe.

I also thought of that, I'd be saying goodbye forever to everybody in my life younger than me minus six. Starting with my youngest cousin, but also all children in my life. I would also have a hard time meeting again all of my friends. The odds of landing in the same classes than half of them -as I met the other half through them- would be nil.

And let's not think of even earlier choices. My first animal friend was a cat. I ended up allergic to it. Give up all of the intimate contact with it on the chance that with limited exposition I don't develop the allergy or go through it all over again knowing I will end up in pain?

Watching my Dad and Grandma wither away again? Once was hard enough.

 

[overgeeked]

And even if they could somehow come on top despite all that, all that precious future knowledge is bound to become outdated as the butterfly effect little changes start piling up.

People always think about the butterfly effect in time travel scenarios but ignore it in their daily lives in the here and now.

In short many come up as very delulu.

I’m generally a very pessimistic person, but this is some next level pessimism.

 

[Ryujin]

Based on the average life expectancy for my family lines $10M would be more than $500K a year for the rest of my life. Given that I'm already living my preferred lifestyle, on a fraction of that, I'm good with "A".

 

[The Soloist]

I have no regrets and I'm generally in a state of contentment since retiring. I choose "A" to offset the cost of inflation over the next 25-30 years.

 

[TiQuinn]

The fantasy sci-fi nerd in me demands Option B versus the much more practical Option A.

 

[dragoner]

The money

 

[trappedslider]

These few weeks the same meme question has been circulating through Spanish language Reddit (and maybe Facebook). The meme basically asks the reader to choose in a thought experiment between a)$10,000,000 in cash, and b)restarting your life at 6 with your current knowledge.

I've seen that on the askreddit sub and i never answer. I did however think about it last night :

When i was six it was 1991, and I think I was living in Shawnee, Kansas and I wouldn't be able to use any future money knowledge till 16 if not 18. At which point i'd be in New Mexico because whose going to believe a 6 yr old?

On the other hand, with 10m, I can do somethings to improve my life and the lives of a few others. So I think i'll take the 10m.

 

[Ryujin]

I've seen that on the askreddit sub and i never answer. I did however think about it last night :

When i was six it was 1991, and I think I was living in Shawnee, Kansas and I wouldn't be able to use any future money knowledge till 16 if not 18. At which point i'd be in New Mexico because whose going to believe a 6 yr old?

On the other hand, with 10m, I can do somethings to improve my life and the lives of a few others. So I think i'll take the 10m.

There's also the factor that the question assumes disposable income. If you were struggling to get by then it simply doesn't matter what you know, as you couldn't take advantage of it anyway. So I could take a bet on whether Apollo 13 would make it back to Earth and how they would do it. That might net me a cool $0.50.