World as a simulation

At this point, if you zoom out enough, the world almost feels like a game, a simulation. We have to live under a set of rules, overwhelmingly man made - capitalism, caste system, politics and policy, etc; against a background of constraints embedded into the physical reality of the arena we play in (nature) - death, birth, disease, hunger and equilibrium with other species to name a few.

Our task, as I see it is to survive this game - build relationships, experience joy, and maybe even contribute to discovering and expanding the game’s limits. There are many ways to play the game - levels defined by society (with a lot of -isms and various challenges) that you should ideally complete so that you keep moving ahead. The loop as I understand goes like this:

while (DONT DIE):

• start off young and naive, with no knowledge of how the world works and loads of time to play around to figure it out yourself
• get basic education
• sometimes other participants (mostly family and friends) will introduce you to different aspects of how things are and other sometimes you’ll learn hard lessons propelling you to level up
• get specialised education (if you have enough points / skills / are pdivilidged enough) which translates to real world skills, things you can do to interact with and maybe even change the rules of the game (atleast the human rules)
• learn more skills based on your interests or the general consensus of what the world is rewarding in the present or analyse history and current events to take a guess of what the world will reward in the future. If you know participants who’ve been longer in the game and are willing you help you, it’s a bonus
• options for skills to learn include: understanding medicine, understanding human written law, understanding physics, understanding how computers function, electrical circuits, networks, etc, growing crop, raising cattle, transporting goods - on land, air and sea, door to door salesman, making sure people don’t harm each other while you try not to abuse this power (law enforcement), and so on.
• utilise said skills to earn points (otherwise you would be dependent on other participants to help you out and not everyone is in the position or inclined to help fellow participants). The level of mastery in these skills decides the quantity of points and the levels of access to the physical world - what goods and services you can purchase: food, shelter, self-care, entertainment stuff, etc
• having enough points opens up networks and access to places and people, which becomes vital as human rules dominate natural ones and other humans decide (for you, if you have less influence) constraints of the game
• understand how the game works while you try to figure your place in it. What makes you tick? What brings joy? What is purpose and meaning, and the question - are you truly free to play the game as you want, do anything that the rules allow you to do? Build, rebuild, destroy, move, shift, change, learn, unlearn, grow and shrink
• utilize these points well, save them and put them away stratigically - mutual funds, stocks, bonds, precious metals, land, etc. Safeguard yourself against when you are incapable of working or when it gets harder for you to play the game - cancer, road accidents, covid, loss of job, AI, etc.
• hydrate, sleep, stay awake in panic of what the game actually is about and how meaningless it feels at times and be convinced that the game is rigged and you cannot do anything to win it because the different levels actually are a mirage and the game shouldn’t exist in the first place
• drink alcohol, try substances in the name of expanding your consciousness, try them for the fun of it, don’t overdo it and fry your brain
• find a community and/or partner to have a support system - family and friends
• experience love
• find a place in the game, take a stance towards the positive, if you are sane
• produce more participants for the game (optional but nature has a strong pull)
• and when possible (i.e you have enough bandwidth) help fellow participants level up along with you - the more you are willing to help other participants the better your chances of levelling up in the game, or atleast of making the game’s starting point the same for everyone.
• keep taking care of your own physical hardware to keep it from deteriorating

NOTE: the above steps can be shuffled in order and not all are necessary.

Not all of us start from the same level - family income/inheritance, country of birth (1st world ~ higher chance of excelling in the game), genetics, physical disability - these define how well you can play the game and what you can achieve and how far you can go. There are, ofcourse, exceptions, but for the majority of us, we are going to participate in the game in the most average way we can. You can be eliminated anytime (due to natural constraints and limits of your own bodily hardware, or 3rd party factors like poor infrastructure or other participants showing lack of responsibility) so each day you are able to wake up and participate in the game is a good day.

I’ve entered my 30s, I can see I’m young when compared to folks who’ve had 40 year careers. I can also see that I have some experience as compared to folks just graduating or still in college. The world has changed and my world view along with it. For example, I’ve started to look at money as a tool - although I admit for me to have this mindset I need to be privilidged and need to have disposable income which allows me to experiment with different investing styles and helps me buy convenience. But I can also see that I’m a very small player and practically everyone wants to acquire the only resource that will help them live a better life - money. We are destroying the physical reality of the game, polluting the air, our food and water - the true necessity to survive the game, in exchange for an artificially inflated value/point system that doesn’t even exist in the physical world.

Right now the simulation seems overrun with power hungry, currupt, mis behaving participants who only want to take the resources of the game for themselves and opress other participants who, sadly, have no influence on how the world functions.

Edit history

• 2026-03-07 — Initial thoughts