
When some black-clad edgelord says we live in a simulation. I ask ‘of what?’
Is it COVID that has prompted this denial of reality? I don’t think it helped.
I think the simulation theorists are suffering the same malaise as what has lead to wokeness. They’ve been sitting comfortably for far too long.
As soon as things start going ‘wrong’ in society, such as the recession of 2008, or Brexit, or Trump, and recently COVID, you see the comments; We’re in a simulation.
Why was this sentiment never expressed before the Matrix films? When did the simulation begin? How do we know we’re in one? How much computng power is required? Who is running it?
if you believe in this, why not believe in God? After all, you can’t look outside the simulation to find the answers, why not just chalk it up as God did it? If the natural world is all in a simulation, the creator of that simulation is by our definition, supernatural.
The simulation theory begets more questions than it answers. Is the simulation one of many nested in a recurring sequence, like seeing yourself in a corridor of mirrors, but unable to tell if you are the real one. In the sequence of historical events, was it activated from a particular one, say 9/11? If so, why?
Just like with New Age beliefs, the simulation advocates mangle physics to support their theory. With the New Agers it’s quantum mechanics and exploiting quantum phenomena to justify the near-impossible (or as Nobel-prize winner Murray Gell-Man called their interpretation, quantum flapdoodle).
With the sims it’s the Holographic principle. Unfortunately, they refer to it without having any idea what it means; It relates to spatial dimensions within physics, and has nothing to do with The Matrix. Pointing to a possible multiverse isn’t helpful either. Why does a multiverse or multiple universes occupying time and space prove we live in a computer?
Returning to Sars-Cov 2, the upheaval it caused was not unprecedented in history, as the second world war happened, as did the Cold War. You can look at the influenza pandemic of 1918-1921 to see real upheaval.
As a child I lived under a far greater danger than Covid or the one Putin presents. In the early eighties, the Soviet Union had an estimated 3 gigatons-worth of nuclear firepower aimed at Britain alone. Had that kicked off, would the simulation reset, or continue into simulating a dull post-apocalyptic wasteland?
Buzzwords like the ‘new normal’ have helped fuel this paranoia though, and the general mistrust created by governments and denial of evidence around the lab leak theory, as well as poor trial methodology in labs testing vaccine efficacy (published by the BMJ and then denied or fact check by the BBC and Facebook) have shaken some people out of their endless consumerist sleepwalking.
History hasn’t finished. We are still in the world where stuff happens. Liberal democracy is evidently not the last word. This rippling across the fabric of society used to happen all the time throughout human history. The difference now is technology has allowed a much more heightened sensitivity.
This is not the new normal. Upheaval is normal. The last 30 years is abnormal, but only in the West. Strife has continued and wars waged throughout the nineties, and in Europe. Isn’t it telling how useless our media have become when they wring their hands and say the conflict in Ukraine is the first war on European soil since 1945.
What happened in the former Yugoslavia in the 1990s?
Again, failings of institutions and their corruption have not exactly bred trust in the ‘reality’ presented to us. Conspiracies are rampant (some are useful), but we are not in the Matrix.
If we were, and a few people noticed, wouldn’t the programmer/s simply reset our memories? The media may try to do this with convenient omissions and forgetfulness, but a lot is down to incompetence, although during COVID, there was a lot of malice in the form of arrogance and hypocrisy, that sort of behaviour by the ruling class – politicians, media and academics – has sometimes led to revolution in the past.
If a revolution did occur in one of the Anglophone nations with strict regulations on COVID and Carbon emissions, would the sim advocates say it is programmed, or join in?
Given their complacency and disbelief in the ongoing upheavals of history, my guess is that they’d hide under the bed and say there’s no place like home.
futurism.com
Nominated by Cuntamus Prime