Dechronification is the concept developed by Robert Freitas that, with nanotechnology, one should be able to reverse the aging process. Freitas suggests that people will be able to "remove accumulating metabolic toxins using resperocyte- and microbivore-class intercellular nanorobots in every tissue cell," "correct genetic damage using chromosome replacement therapy in every tissue cell," and "repair persistent cellular damage using cell repair devices in every tissue cell." This idea is a form of futurology.

Benefits

Old senior folk longing to become young again will finally realize their dreams.

Mentally retarded children can keep repeating their grade level in school while looking the part (as old as the other children in their class) until they advance.

Mentally retarded adults can dechronify to children and repeat school in hopes of becoming much more productive and successful in life via this newly-invented second chance. (Who will work at McDonald's, you might ask? Sentient, robotic androids will soon perform all menial jobs.)

Rescuers needing to retrieve a child in, for example, a hole only big enough for a small kid to fit through, can dechronify themselves down like so and perform the rescue. Afterwards, they rechronify back to an adult.

Professional movie actors will not have to grow out of their parts anymore.

Speaking of that, there might not be a need to hire child actors anymore because they can then use professional adult actors to play child parts once they go through a "dechronitron".

Potential Issues and/or Obstacles

How far can a "dechronitron" work? If someone types in a setting to dechronify to a 10-year-old, will it shrink their height, or will their height have to remain the same, thus produce only what an extremely tall 10-year-old would look like?

How difficult, in general, is it to dechronify to kids, and especially kids who at the chosen age to dechronify to, would usually be shorter than the user is otherwise?

How will a "dechronitron" also change their height?

If "Dechronitrons" are bulky at first, hence will need to be used in public, by the public, what about the issue of clothes users wear? Will they shrink along with them, or remain the same size, thus causing all of what you wear to become suddenly loose?

Possible Concerns

This will be a pedophile's wet dream; they often fantasize being a boy the same age as the girl they desire to make love to, and sometimes have desires overwhelming enough to act on it.

Once shower-sized dechronitrons start getting sold in every Home Depot in the country, how can we tell a kid apart from a dechronified pedophile acting out his wettest dreams?

A girl wouldn't be scared of a relationship proposal by a boy the same age, as she would be by a man as old as her father would be. Also, since many pedophiles have a LOT of grooming experience under their belts (literally {ick!!} or not), he'll have a very easy time manipulating her into a boyfriend-girlfriend relationship, and eventually sexual relations!

Also add on to the fact that adults usually have a lot more money, and a girl can easily get bribed by gifts and what not.

If the girl visits his house, and the pedophile, having rechronified back to an adult earlier that day, answers the door, he could just say that he's his father and that his son will be back from soccer practice soon.

Possible Solutions, Workarounds, and Counter-Solutions

The solution will probably be for Home Depot to run background checks on customers who purchase dechronitrons, and not allow those with a history of sex crimes to purchase them, or set law-sanctioned limits on it so they cannot dechronify to below the age of 21.

However, there are many who like to have sexual relations with children but have never acted on it, and wouldn't unless they were children themselves, so a background check may not be entirely useful.

Thus, each dechronitron may have to be registered so that the Government keeps track of them like they keep track of guns.

What will stop those with a history of sex crimes from simply using a friend's dechronitron?

Perhaps dechronitrons will require any and all users to press a button that reads fingerprints, in order to activate that machine. Once the fingerprint is read, it'll contact a background check agency and ensure that the user is cleared to dechronify to the age he wants.

Someone who has barred or limited access to dechronitron use might make a plaster mold (or any other type of mold) of someone else's hand, and use the fingers of it to dechronify to their heart's desire.

What will stop them from traveling to another country to dechronify there, as those other countries have no records of that user? Also, anyone from any other country can make fake credentials to say that he's a real, original kid for when he returns to his home country.

External links

Death is an Outrage by Robert A. Freitas Jr.