Here's a little break from the election and the apotheosis of the Chicago Cubs: Vox made this video summarizing Elon Musk's (and others') theory that we are, all of us, our doughnuts, delusions, and all, living in a computer simulation. Certainly you've heard your nerd friends go down this rabbit hole while stoned or drunk once or twice, or perhaps you have yourself, and movies like The Matrix and shows like Westworld help feed the popular imagination about how VR and AI advancements will, certainly, have to reach a point when a simulated reality is no different than what we believe is reality-reality.
The notable takeaways here are:
1) Musk is mostly parroting a theory made by Oxford University philosopher Nick Bostrom, who believes there is a 20 percent chance we are living in a computer simulation, and that some post-humans could ultimately be running ancestral simulations "of our evolutionary history" or otherwise we are going to just go extinct, as a species, before reaching such a "post-human" moment.
2) Greek philosopher Aristarchus of Samos (c. 310 - c. 230 BC) first posited an idea that reality is probably not as it seems, in addition to being the first to put forth a theory that the sun was another celestial body like the stars, and our universe revolved around it.
3) Musk and his brother, who have likely been having some version of this conversation since they were 12, have now vowed not to get into the AI/simulation topic while in hot tubs.
These days just talk about how much sunscreen they'll need on Mars.
Related: Video: How Elon Musk And SpaceX Plan To Get A Rocket To Mars In 80 Days Or Less