Where we’re all told we’re special. The land of plenty, abundance, yet seemingly only about external goods. What exists internally is another story, but who cares about that, right?
The only product that companies produce are the pumped up prices of their stocks. The byproduct of which, forgotten to mention, are depleted employees.
Tell me now, how far must a man go to receive his tow? Where he can govern himself and his work? To not be told by a lesser man sitting in a position of greater status how he must conduct his act?
In this land, the land of good and plenty, never! Never shall you be free, never shall you be independent, never shall you prosper. You shall work! To the bone! For next-to-nothing, or virtually nothing!
…
“Hey Dave, how are you?” I asked him, standing up in my chair at the cafe.
“I’m alright Jaron,” Dave replied, “It’s been a while.”
“Yeah, it really has been, what’s new?”
“Not much, you know me. I’ve been thinking quite a bit about a new area of simulation theory. I don’t know if you’re interested in hearing about it.”
“Lay it on me. Whatcha’ got?”
“If we’re in a simulation, then that means I don’t know if you’re an actual person like me or if you’re a simulated character. You might appear to feel as I feel, but it could be that you actually feel nothing at all. If this is a simulation, why would the program be coded to have real characters other than the main character? In this case, myself, to actually feel the feelings that go along with the experiences that are experienced. It makes more sense to simply encode the “supporting cast”, if you will, to appear as though they sense pain and feel emotions and the like while not actually having them feel anything.”
“I never thought of that, Jaron.” Dave said, astounded.
“For all I know, I could be talking to a computer program that looks like a human being. How do I know you’re actually a human and not a simulated human? How do I know I’m a human and not a simulated human? What’s the difference, anyway? I can observe myself walking and talking, like I am to you now, but I don’t know what makes me simulated or real. What do you think, Dave?”
“Well Jaron, if you’re simulated, from my point of view, I should probably get up and walk away, because I’d rather not spend my time talking to a robot disguised as a human.”
“Exactly! We don’t know. It’s mind-boggling. Why do anything if no one knows what’s real and what isn’t? I mean, if the motivating force when anyone feels uninspired to do something is to avoid the social stigmas of being lazy, low status and unproductive, if that stigma is coming from a bunch of unreal, devoid of feeling, emotionless robots that merely mimic humans, then what’s the point?”
“Well, there’d be no point.”
“Life is like this playground or slide. It’s not something you can morph or mold or shape in any way. It’s a series of rides, but we can’t always see that we’re on a ride. One ride is innovating, another ride is playing basketball. No one ever thought about the constraints of creation, but the constraint is that there’s no constraint.”
“Why shouldn’t I act reckless, right now? The worst that could happen is that I go to jail, but that’s just another ride, so why not hop on?”
“My best answer is that you’d be more comfortable out of jail, so you may as well stay on the ride of pondering. You should want to remain unimprisoned than to experience imprisonment.”
“That’s rather comforting though, isn’t it? Say, if I went to prison, I really wouldn’t care because I could just tell myself that none of it is actually real. It’s as real as a carnival ride, so distanced from real life that once I arrive back to real life, I’m happy that I’m there, no matter how boring or bland.”
“So, why doesn’t everyone just live knowing that they’re living in a simulation? You could be a simulated Dave in my “world” or “universe” but the real you, the real Dave, could be experiencing a completely different life. You could be experiencing this reality as a dream while I’m experiencing it as reality, feeling as though this reality is centered around myself. I only know what goes on with myself most of the time, so I have to concur that this is my reality. If this were your reality, then I reckon it’d be you having these revelations.”
“If this is a simulation, why doesn’t everyone just get extremely attractive matches on Tinder right away, have plenty of money in their bank accounts, and the finest food to eat whenever they want?”
“If this is a simulation, then I don’t even have to answer you! But if it’s not, then I guess my answer would be that this isn’t heaven, it’s reality, however it’s construed. It could be, too, that pleasure provided at extreme incrementation actually creates more net pleasure than if a whole swath of pleasures were thrown at you at once.”
“I just don’t know about the idea of everyone, including you, or me, from your perspective, being simulated. That really takes the humanity out of life.”
“Does anyone really care about humanity? If you’re on cloud nine, why would you care about the suffering of others? If you care about the suffering of others, well, now you’re suffering, which means that you’re now the cause of others’ suffering who are suffering because they are aware that you are suffering. Compassion, man. It’s a rigged game.”
“So we should all be uncompassionate towards one another? If you’re suffering, that’s your problem because my care towards your suffering will only bring me down.”
“Exactly. Those who suffer must take responsibility for their suffering if humanity is to at all alleviate collective suffering.”
“A while back, you said that you could be experiencing this conversation as reality while I could be experiencing this conversation as a dream. What do you mean by that?”
“Well, the only way to consider the world as a non-zero sum game is for all to go to one while the rest that goes to others is a duplicate of the all that went to one.”
“So, the coffee that’s in your cup is real while the coffee that’s in my cup is a replica.”
“That’s if this is my reality. If we were in your reality, then it’d be reversed.”
“How do we know this is your reality, again?”
“We don’t. I just suspect that it would be since it’s clear that my ideas are the focus of this conversation.”
“How do you think that’s so?”
“What are you doing right now? You’re going along with my ideas. Sure, you’re questioning them, but it’s clear that you are the interlocutor between myself and my ideas, like a filter, so that I can know that what I’m considering is at least reasonable and at most, true.”
“I’m not convinced.”
“The fact that I’ve made that last statement only indicates that it’s likely true that this is my reality. It makes sense that you’d say you’re not convinced. If you agreed with me completely, then I wouldn’t want to be in this reality, and the whole point of everyone having their own realities is for them to want to be there.”
“I don’t know if any of this makes sense, yet I’m seeing it all more clearly.”
“If I’m dreaming, or if this seems like a dream to me while this is reality or seems like reality to you, then aren’t I allowed to believe, in my own reality, that reality is as it seems, and that it’s not simulated?”
“You can believe whatever you want, especially in your reality, but you might also say that this conversation is a transmitting of this idea from me to you.”
“If that’s the case, where did the idea come from to reach you?”
“I came up with the idea. Well, I got one piece from one person and then another piece from another person, and so on, until the whole idea became complete.”
“So your original idea is now being passed onto me, as though I’m not important enough to have my own original ideas that I can pass down to others.”
“Dave, I told you, this is my reality, so you have no say in what’s happening.”
“Dude, neither do you — I’m aware, don’t you realize that? I’m not dreaming, I’m not in a dream, I’m in reality. This is reality. We’re in reality. This isn’t your reality, this isn’t my reality. Everyone living is living in this reality because it’s the only one.”
“What about dreams?”
“What goes on in the minds of people are private to them. Dreams are like caves of privacy and not inherently connected to reality. But what happens in reality, the waking world, is experienced by everyone, as real, not as a dream. It’s possible to feel like reality is a dream, but it’s really just reality. The dreamlike feeling is something else.”
“Why are you the way you are?”
“What do you mean?”
“Obviously I’m trying to feed my ego. Can’t you just play along for once?”
“I’m going to go.”
“Ok, Dave, bye,” I looked around to a person sitting at a nearby table that had been paying attention to our conversation and said, “What a great friend I have, huh?” I said it loud enough so that Dave could hear my sarcastic comment about him as he walked out of the cafe.
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