Just Don't Make Me Scrub the Toilets!

A philosopher, Nick Bostrom, has come up with a theory that our society is a big giant Sims game. Yep - we're all computer simulations run by some pimply futuristic 13-year-old boy. No wonder I belly dance and have such a crappy love life!

Considering the delight I used to get out of torturing my Sims (way back when I had time to play these games!), I find this a little depressing. I used to make them scrub toilets. I used to get them knocked up by complete strangers just to have more hair color variety in my families. I made a couple get abducted by aliens. I think if we were living in a giant Sims game, my computer user would hopefully think of something way more exciting for me to do.

Click here to read the article. I can't remember if you have to register to read NY Times stuff. In case you do, here's the best stuff:

In fact, if you accept a pretty reasonable assumption of Dr. Bostrom’s, it is almost a mathematical certainty that we are living in someone else’s computer simulation.

This simulation would be similar to the one in “The Matrix,” in which most humans don’t realize that their lives and their world are just illusions created in their brains while their bodies are suspended in vats of liquid. But in Dr. Bostrom’s notion of reality, you wouldn’t even have a body made of flesh. Your brain would exist only as a network of computer circuits.

Boy Update: The 38-year-old guy who collects energy drink bottles and lives at home with his mom just asked me out again for this weekend. Why is it never the ones you want? I think I'm just going to say "no thank you!" like my friend Liz always tells me to!