I wanted to start this essay with this sentence: "Like everyone else I have been fascinated with recent events in Tehran and the role of social software in them."
Only I can't.
You see, despite the fact the mass media are finally reporting about the Iran election protests and the role of Twitter (among other Internet tools) in them, pretty much only people actually playing in that space are paying attention -- and not all of them. And, of that subset, fewer still are really thinking about what this means to the future of social unrest and grass-roots political action.
Even of those Twittering with the hashtag #iranelection or those who have turned their Twitter icons green
in sympathy; most have no real connection to events there, other than a wish to support what appears to be mass uprising against the mullahs. A 'freedom' movement. We (and I count myself among this crowd) actually do not understand the real situation on the ground there, communicated to us in a storm of 140 character bursts and links to images; all a complicated mess of fact, rumor, and deliberate misinformation. Worse, we misinterpret the protester's motivations. Their actions. Even their goals.
We don't really understand. We tend to see everything through our own eyes. Forgetting, or never knowing, that the meaning of the word 'freedom' is somewhat different for us than for the protesters in Tehran. There is a cultural gulf here and few of us are crossing it. Most of us are almost guaranteed to be disappointed in the end! Even if they are successful, the protestors are not seeking to replace the mullahs with Western-style democracy. They want, and will get, an Iranian system.
And yet it remains compelling. It feels as though we are watching, even taking part in, the first software-mediated revolution. So we raise our own voices in a worldwide howl for attention. And that attention has been returned in the form of arrests and killings of those daring to use these social tools to protest and organize protest. All while the rest of the world remains mute.
(Sidebar: If every tweet with the #iranelection hashtag not posted by an Iranian was replaced with a dollar, the amount of money raised to assist the protests or rebuild the broken lives arising from them would more than suffice. Yet attention is a currency of its own, with value not easily measured in ducats. Still, attention doesn't pay hospital bills or help bribe jailers for the release of a young man who's only crime consists of words in Persian tapped on the keys of a cell phone.)
For me the most interesting thing here is the thing itself. As in the last U.S. election. As in Guatemala recently. As in every case where a spontaneous social upheaval finds itself being organized and broadcast to the outside world via social software tools. This is significant. This is new! This is proof we live in a future weirder than even William Gibson (Twittering as GreatDismal) could predict!
It makes me wonder about the future of software in politics and social discourse. What if the tools were just a little richer? Just a little more commonplace? Would the chaos of #iranelection be replaced by a system of vetted commentary over anonymous channels? Would we get an instant protest-wiki, edited into usefulness with the cultural background and history required to understand what is really happening? Would we have systems for raising money and getting it to those in need with a minimum of graft and waste?
And, more importantly, would our own governments find these tools to be instruments of freedom or dangerous channels for terrorists?
But that's not the punchline. No, this little joke has a real zinger: When (not if) such tools become available to us, they will not be intended for social upheaval. Instead they will exist for the same reasons that Twitter and Facebook and LiveJournal exist. They will exist so we can talk. So we can share who we are with the world.
And that is the kicker. Because who we are includes what we believe. And, in the end, that is the best hope offered by these tools. Maybe we will overcome our differences because we actually talk to each other. From this, I dare to hope that one day the idea of someone like myself supporting people in Iran who believe things about Jews, homosexuals, and women I could never agree to would seem a little less bizarre.
Only I can't.
You see, despite the fact the mass media are finally reporting about the Iran election protests and the role of Twitter (among other Internet tools) in them, pretty much only people actually playing in that space are paying attention -- and not all of them. And, of that subset, fewer still are really thinking about what this means to the future of social unrest and grass-roots political action.
Even of those Twittering with the hashtag #iranelection or those who have turned their Twitter icons green
in sympathy; most have no real connection to events there, other than a wish to support what appears to be mass uprising against the mullahs. A 'freedom' movement. We (and I count myself among this crowd) actually do not understand the real situation on the ground there, communicated to us in a storm of 140 character bursts and links to images; all a complicated mess of fact, rumor, and deliberate misinformation. Worse, we misinterpret the protester's motivations. Their actions. Even their goals.
We don't really understand. We tend to see everything through our own eyes. Forgetting, or never knowing, that the meaning of the word 'freedom' is somewhat different for us than for the protesters in Tehran. There is a cultural gulf here and few of us are crossing it. Most of us are almost guaranteed to be disappointed in the end! Even if they are successful, the protestors are not seeking to replace the mullahs with Western-style democracy. They want, and will get, an Iranian system.
And yet it remains compelling. It feels as though we are watching, even taking part in, the first software-mediated revolution. So we raise our own voices in a worldwide howl for attention. And that attention has been returned in the form of arrests and killings of those daring to use these social tools to protest and organize protest. All while the rest of the world remains mute.
(Sidebar: If every tweet with the #iranelection hashtag not posted by an Iranian was replaced with a dollar, the amount of money raised to assist the protests or rebuild the broken lives arising from them would more than suffice. Yet attention is a currency of its own, with value not easily measured in ducats. Still, attention doesn't pay hospital bills or help bribe jailers for the release of a young man who's only crime consists of words in Persian tapped on the keys of a cell phone.)
For me the most interesting thing here is the thing itself. As in the last U.S. election. As in Guatemala recently. As in every case where a spontaneous social upheaval finds itself being organized and broadcast to the outside world via social software tools. This is significant. This is new! This is proof we live in a future weirder than even William Gibson (Twittering as GreatDismal) could predict!
It makes me wonder about the future of software in politics and social discourse. What if the tools were just a little richer? Just a little more commonplace? Would the chaos of #iranelection be replaced by a system of vetted commentary over anonymous channels? Would we get an instant protest-wiki, edited into usefulness with the cultural background and history required to understand what is really happening? Would we have systems for raising money and getting it to those in need with a minimum of graft and waste?
And, more importantly, would our own governments find these tools to be instruments of freedom or dangerous channels for terrorists?
But that's not the punchline. No, this little joke has a real zinger: When (not if) such tools become available to us, they will not be intended for social upheaval. Instead they will exist for the same reasons that Twitter and Facebook and LiveJournal exist. They will exist so we can talk. So we can share who we are with the world.
And that is the kicker. Because who we are includes what we believe. And, in the end, that is the best hope offered by these tools. Maybe we will overcome our differences because we actually talk to each other. From this, I dare to hope that one day the idea of someone like myself supporting people in Iran who believe things about Jews, homosexuals, and women I could never agree to would seem a little less bizarre.
In the spirit of my previous post, I thought I would point you to Google Moon; an interactive map of the lunar surface with markers for all of the Apollo missions. If you drill down on a mission you can see what points the astronauts actually visited and view pictures of those places.
There are also alternative views, like charts, elevations, and more.
Cool!
There are also alternative views, like charts, elevations, and more.
Cool!
On June 2nd the LRO (Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter) mission will finally launch, after multiple delays. This is supposed to be the first step of NASA's plan to return to the moon permanently by 2020.
However, what really excites me about this mission isn't the LRO! I am far more interested in a piggyback mission: LCROSS (Lunar CRater Observation and Sensing Satellite). LCROSS is a two-part experiment consisting of an impactor (the upper stage of the LRO launch vehicle) and a sensor package which follows close behind it.
The impactor will smack into the depths of one of the deep craters of the north or south lunar poles; places which never get any sun and in which previous missions found hydrogen signatures indicating the possible presence of water ice. This impact will send up an ejecta plume consisting of up to a thousand tons of lunar material which the sensor package will study before it also crashes into the lunar surface.
At the same time the Hubble space telescope and other instruments will be studying the plumes from both impacts. This is easily our best chance to find out if the moon can be settled permanently as water is one of the main limiting factors for long-term habitation. (Other limiting factors include nitrogen and trace minerals necessary for growing food.)
Besides the importance to space colonization, I love the audacity of whacking an SUV-sized spacecraft into the lunar surface in order to conduct an experiment. Now that's science!
However, what really excites me about this mission isn't the LRO! I am far more interested in a piggyback mission: LCROSS (Lunar CRater Observation and Sensing Satellite). LCROSS is a two-part experiment consisting of an impactor (the upper stage of the LRO launch vehicle) and a sensor package which follows close behind it.
The impactor will smack into the depths of one of the deep craters of the north or south lunar poles; places which never get any sun and in which previous missions found hydrogen signatures indicating the possible presence of water ice. This impact will send up an ejecta plume consisting of up to a thousand tons of lunar material which the sensor package will study before it also crashes into the lunar surface.
At the same time the Hubble space telescope and other instruments will be studying the plumes from both impacts. This is easily our best chance to find out if the moon can be settled permanently as water is one of the main limiting factors for long-term habitation. (Other limiting factors include nitrogen and trace minerals necessary for growing food.)
Besides the importance to space colonization, I love the audacity of whacking an SUV-sized spacecraft into the lunar surface in order to conduct an experiment. Now that's science!
This short video is pretty much sheer genius. The filmmaker really gets VR; as well as the extra dimensions which VR can add to human angles.
World Builder from Bruce Branit on Vimeo.
World Builder from Bruce Branit on Vimeo.
For example, I've posted not a single one of the essays I've written recently. Nor have I given you a rundown on what I did last weekend (something you might actually find interesting). And then there's the whole missing Lovecraft thing...
Well, as to the former, I will try to find time soon. And the latter? If you haven't been reading Lovecraft is Missing by Larry Latham then you've been, well, missing out. LiM is the best new webcomic I've seen in a long while: The art is excellent, with a style that perfectly fits the story. And the story! Oh, yes. My inner geek is loving it!
So follow the link and read the archives. LiM hasn't been going long, so there isn't much to catch up on. Note that Latham is having a grand time with allusions to other pulp writers and their work in the storyline, so you might have to do a little googling if you want to catch all the crunchy bits. Or you could just read it as a pulpish adventure without digging below the surface. I'm thinking even someone who doesn't know how to pronounce Cthulhu will enjoy LiM!
Why was I remiss on this? Well, I hate to admit it, but I've been reading LiM for months now and haven't told a soul how good it is...
Well, as to the former, I will try to find time soon. And the latter? If you haven't been reading Lovecraft is Missing by Larry Latham then you've been, well, missing out. LiM is the best new webcomic I've seen in a long while: The art is excellent, with a style that perfectly fits the story. And the story! Oh, yes. My inner geek is loving it!
So follow the link and read the archives. LiM hasn't been going long, so there isn't much to catch up on. Note that Latham is having a grand time with allusions to other pulp writers and their work in the storyline, so you might have to do a little googling if you want to catch all the crunchy bits. Or you could just read it as a pulpish adventure without digging below the surface. I'm thinking even someone who doesn't know how to pronounce Cthulhu will enjoy LiM!
Why was I remiss on this? Well, I hate to admit it, but I've been reading LiM for months now and haven't told a soul how good it is...
Featured on Boing Boing today. These are mine and live in my cube at work. I won them a couple of years ago in a costume contest!
If you zoom-in (keep clicking on the picture) you can see that the packaging graphics use Seattle (including Space Needle) as the city under attack by the giant teddy bear.
If you zoom-in (keep clicking on the picture) you can see that the packaging graphics use Seattle (including Space Needle) as the city under attack by the giant teddy bear.
(![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif)
farmgirl1146 poked me because I haven't posted in a while, so here is some classic Jack ranting for you...)
Today is the fiftieth anniversary of the integrated circuit. In that time we have gone from five discrete components on chip (including transistors, capacitors, and resistors) to over a billion transistors alone. That is pushing nine orders of magnitude in five decades!
Can you imagine your life without IC's? Electronics technology not progressing past vacuum tubes or, at the best, top-hat transistors? Basically we would still be operating at a 1950's level: No MP3 players. No cellular phones. No personal computers. No Internet. No auto-sensing stoplights. And it doesn't stop there! Nearly everything about our lives and modern culture has been touched by microchips somehow, somewhere.
The truth is that chips are in nearly everything. They are pervasive almost beyond comprehension. They don't just provide cheap consumer products, they lower the cost of everything in our economy; from energy production, to manufacturing, to business management, to statistics gathering, to shipping, to beyond. They make our lives better, albeit somewhat more complex. They make our lives longer, via better drugs and medical techniques not previously available. They even enable lifestyles that would be impossible without them. (Some might argue this isn't a benefit, but the point stands.)
All this in fifty years. To really get a feel for this telescoping of technological windows you need to think historically: We took tens of thousands of years to go from writing on clay tablets to printing on lead type. We took thousands of years to go from water-wheels to steam engines. We took hundreds of years to go from a basic understanding of chemical reactions to making dyes and epoxies from coal and oil. Each of these leaps was shorter than the previous. All of them together took us only to the Industrial Revolution. After that we moved into the Atomic Age within seventy years and to Internet Time within fifty.
And only ten years from that to you reading this...
The timescale keeps compressing and the technology moves ahead by orders of magnitude at each historical quantum level. What is the next step? Today, at work, I emailed around a link to a Wired article about the anniversary of the IC, the same one that I link to at the beginning of this essay. In one of the responses I was asked "Can you imagine 50 years from now?"
I had to answer that I couldn't imagine 50 years from now. Hell, if Vernor Vinge is right I can't imagine it by definition!
But, you know what? I think it might be something like this clip om the movie “Waking Life”, where real-life chemist Eamonn Healy is ranting about 'Telescopic Evolution':
farmgirl1146 poked me because I haven't posted in a while, so here is some classic Jack ranting for you...)Today is the fiftieth anniversary of the integrated circuit. In that time we have gone from five discrete components on chip (including transistors, capacitors, and resistors) to over a billion transistors alone. That is pushing nine orders of magnitude in five decades! Can you imagine your life without IC's? Electronics technology not progressing past vacuum tubes or, at the best, top-hat transistors? Basically we would still be operating at a 1950's level: No MP3 players. No cellular phones. No personal computers. No Internet. No auto-sensing stoplights. And it doesn't stop there! Nearly everything about our lives and modern culture has been touched by microchips somehow, somewhere.
The truth is that chips are in nearly everything. They are pervasive almost beyond comprehension. They don't just provide cheap consumer products, they lower the cost of everything in our economy; from energy production, to manufacturing, to business management, to statistics gathering, to shipping, to beyond. They make our lives better, albeit somewhat more complex. They make our lives longer, via better drugs and medical techniques not previously available. They even enable lifestyles that would be impossible without them. (Some might argue this isn't a benefit, but the point stands.)All this in fifty years. To really get a feel for this telescoping of technological windows you need to think historically: We took tens of thousands of years to go from writing on clay tablets to printing on lead type. We took thousands of years to go from water-wheels to steam engines. We took hundreds of years to go from a basic understanding of chemical reactions to making dyes and epoxies from coal and oil. Each of these leaps was shorter than the previous. All of them together took us only to the Industrial Revolution. After that we moved into the Atomic Age within seventy years and to Internet Time within fifty.
And only ten years from that to you reading this...
The timescale keeps compressing and the technology moves ahead by orders of magnitude at each historical quantum level. What is the next step? Today, at work, I emailed around a link to a Wired article about the anniversary of the IC, the same one that I link to at the beginning of this essay. In one of the responses I was asked "Can you imagine 50 years from now?"
I had to answer that I couldn't imagine 50 years from now. Hell, if Vernor Vinge is right I can't imagine it by definition!
But, you know what? I think it might be something like this clip om the movie “Waking Life”, where real-life chemist Eamonn Healy is ranting about 'Telescopic Evolution':
It appears that global warming can have an upside, if you live in Greenland.
Last night I was left to my own devices as my grandson and daughter went to the Seattle Torchlight Parade.
I had been invited to a friend's house for food and talk in the afternoon, but unfortunately wasn't freed up until too late to go. So what to do? Well, there were some summer blockbuster type moves I wanted to see. But which one?
How about both? And how about some capsule reviews...
The X-Files: I want to believe: Basically just a two hour TV episode. Nothing about aliens or grand conspiracies. No further exploration of the (unfinished) grand story arc of the series. There is some bizarre grossness drawn directly out of urban mythology. You do get to see Mulder and Sculley in bed together. The acting was excellent. There is a surprise guest towards the end. Recommended if you are a fan, otherwise you can skip it.
The Dark Knight: This is essentially a do-over movie and, quite honestly, it is a better movie than the original Batman-vs-Joker with Jack Nicholson. Yet somehow I still wasn't that thrilled. Yeah, the Joker steals the movie in this one. Yeah, even the writing was a little better than just about every other Batman movie since they put 'KAPOW!' in sans-serif on the screen. It just seemed, well, like another summer blockbuster. Why bother with a recommendation; I'm sure you have already seen it.
It appears I am extra-curmudgeonly today...
I had been invited to a friend's house for food and talk in the afternoon, but unfortunately wasn't freed up until too late to go. So what to do? Well, there were some summer blockbuster type moves I wanted to see. But which one?
How about both? And how about some capsule reviews...
The X-Files: I want to believe: Basically just a two hour TV episode. Nothing about aliens or grand conspiracies. No further exploration of the (unfinished) grand story arc of the series. There is some bizarre grossness drawn directly out of urban mythology. You do get to see Mulder and Sculley in bed together. The acting was excellent. There is a surprise guest towards the end. Recommended if you are a fan, otherwise you can skip it.
The Dark Knight: This is essentially a do-over movie and, quite honestly, it is a better movie than the original Batman-vs-Joker with Jack Nicholson. Yet somehow I still wasn't that thrilled. Yeah, the Joker steals the movie in this one. Yeah, even the writing was a little better than just about every other Batman movie since they put 'KAPOW!' in sans-serif on the screen. It just seemed, well, like another summer blockbuster. Why bother with a recommendation; I'm sure you have already seen it.
It appears I am extra-curmudgeonly today...
A while back I wrote a short essay about Using your Google Brain where I described mainstream media scare stories about the Internet which reminded me of:
Now someone has written a book on the subject and, predictably, the mainstream media scolds are piling on with articles about how the Internet is making us all stoooopid.
What a stinking barrel of carp!
As I said in my essay; the Internet makes me smarter. Perhaps it doesn't do it by making me more able to memorize a Robert Frost poem. But it does do it by giving me instance access to the poetry of Frost:
So, fire or ice? Maybe. But doom arises not from Internet-induced stooopidity. (That was the Time's spelling. Maybe they should have looked it up?)
So, scolds, I say you are the ones lacking the intelligence to use the tools. And, as to the danger of distractions, tell that to a stock trader from the 1970's or a new mother in any age: We are descended from creatures who lived in jungles and survived because they were able to split their attention fine and then rapidly focus on the clues that prey or predator were near.
There is growing evidence that Autism spectrum conditions like ADD/ADHD evolved as a trait which, by providing creative and inventive individuals, enhanced the survival of the population. (I am talking about the light-touch form of ADD shared by many geeks here, although research into autism and savants shows there are specific gene encodings behind the brain differences involved.) Moreover, the concept of continuous partial attention somewhat explains how those of us with the ability to do so have adapted to the firehose coming out of our ethernet ports.
Those unwilling or unable to adapt can scold from the sidelines. Me? I've got a fat pipe and a feed reeder and I'm not afraid to use it...
. . . similar articles from the 1970's describing how kids were starting to use calculators in school, all of which invariably ended in dire predictions of impending innumeracy.
Now someone has written a book on the subject and, predictably, the mainstream media scolds are piling on with articles about how the Internet is making us all stoooopid.
What a stinking barrel of carp!
As I said in my essay; the Internet makes me smarter. Perhaps it doesn't do it by making me more able to memorize a Robert Frost poem. But it does do it by giving me instance access to the poetry of Frost:
Some say the world will end in fire,
Some say in ice.
From what I’ve tasted of desire
I hold with those who favor fire.
But if it had to perish twice,
I think I know enough of hate
To know that for destruction ice
Is also great
And would suffice.
So, fire or ice? Maybe. But doom arises not from Internet-induced stooopidity. (That was the Time's spelling. Maybe they should have looked it up?)
So, scolds, I say you are the ones lacking the intelligence to use the tools. And, as to the danger of distractions, tell that to a stock trader from the 1970's or a new mother in any age: We are descended from creatures who lived in jungles and survived because they were able to split their attention fine and then rapidly focus on the clues that prey or predator were near.
There is growing evidence that Autism spectrum conditions like ADD/ADHD evolved as a trait which, by providing creative and inventive individuals, enhanced the survival of the population. (I am talking about the light-touch form of ADD shared by many geeks here, although research into autism and savants shows there are specific gene encodings behind the brain differences involved.) Moreover, the concept of continuous partial attention somewhat explains how those of us with the ability to do so have adapted to the firehose coming out of our ethernet ports.
Those unwilling or unable to adapt can scold from the sidelines. Me? I've got a fat pipe and a feed reeder and I'm not afraid to use it...
In an attempt to show how capable the open source Blender 3D animation application is, the Blender community has created a short subject and distributed it with a Creative Commons license.
Complete video here.
I'd say this is pretty convincing proof that Blender is up to the task of creating animations as good as any from the commercial competition. To me this raises another question: By lowering the cost of entry, will this mean we get more animated works from outside the established production houses?
Mind you the real cost of an animated video isn't the 3D modeling tools or even the render farms. The single biggest expense is the time of the many creative individuals you need to drive those tools. That factor doesn't change. But it does mean that these creatives now have access to a free alternative toolset and therefore we may have more artists and animators learning how to use them.
It will be interesting to see how this plays out. Of course someone could really change the game by coming up with an animation tool simple enough to use that it lowers the total hours required for a minute of animation by a full order of magnitude. If that happens, all bets are off.
Complete video here.
I'd say this is pretty convincing proof that Blender is up to the task of creating animations as good as any from the commercial competition. To me this raises another question: By lowering the cost of entry, will this mean we get more animated works from outside the established production houses?
Mind you the real cost of an animated video isn't the 3D modeling tools or even the render farms. The single biggest expense is the time of the many creative individuals you need to drive those tools. That factor doesn't change. But it does mean that these creatives now have access to a free alternative toolset and therefore we may have more artists and animators learning how to use them.
It will be interesting to see how this plays out. Of course someone could really change the game by coming up with an animation tool simple enough to use that it lowers the total hours required for a minute of animation by a full order of magnitude. If that happens, all bets are off.
Phil Bowermaster has a Declaration of Singularity.
Yeah... It flaps it's 'wings'.
OK, this is probably just an image artifact, but look at this:
(Crop from image.)
This image was acquired at the Phoenix landing site on day 1 of the mission on the surface of Mars, or Sol 0, after the May 25, 2008, landing. The surface stereo imager right acquired this image at 17:15:35 local solar time. The camera pointing was elevation -1.33297 degrees and azimuth 356.278 degrees.
(Full image, click on it for larger and keep clicking for even larger)
(Crop from image.)
This image was acquired at the Phoenix landing site on day 1 of the mission on the surface of Mars, or Sol 0, after the May 25, 2008, landing. The surface stereo imager right acquired this image at 17:15:35 local solar time. The camera pointing was elevation -1.33297 degrees and azimuth 356.278 degrees.
(Full image, click on it for larger and keep clicking for even larger)
Yeah, I finally made it. Haven't seen much programming, other than the singing tesla coils concert; which was an hour late starting but totally worth the wait. Oh, and I've been making the rounds of the parties with a bottle of scotch under my arm...
One funny,marykaykare and hubby are here. It kind of boggled them to see me!
(No video up from tonight yet, this clip is from Duckcon 07)
One funny,
marykaykare and hubby are here. It kind of boggled them to see me!(No video up from tonight yet, this clip is from Duckcon 07)
- Location:Troy Hilton lobby
Atheist and evolution blogger P.Z. Myers was ejected from a screening of a pro-creationism film because the director didn't want him to attend. The punch-line is delicious!
(Some explanation of the post title here.)
Suppose that one follows the Strong Anthropic Principle line of reasoning far enough to believe the Simulation Hypothesis and accept that we are living in a simulated reality. The first question you have to ask is: Why?
There are many possible reasons why someone might run such a simulation (including you and me in it). However, let's face facts: Our own little slice of reality (virtual or not) is certainly not a simulated heaven. Moreover, it seems unlikely someone would recreate everything we know in order to study a historical period when they could just read the actual historical documents. (Except, that is, if they are studying the effects of small decision changes to historical outcomes. In which case one has to wonder if we got the short end of the 'What if the 2000 USA election went differently?' stick or not.)
When you get down to it, the most likely reason why someone would go to all the trouble to create a simulation as complex as our world is, quite simply, entertainment. This could take many forms: Ant farm. ("Watch them scurry when I do this!") TV show ("Hilarity ensues when George Bush invades Iran.") Or even MMORPG. ("Stressed out by modern life? Play 21Cen and return to the simpler times before the Singularity.")
The thing is, if a society has reached the point they can play a sim game where the sim characters can play sim games, then maybe it makes some small amount of sense that they might find it fun to be here. But it sure makes one think their own reality must really be the Suxx0r...
Suppose that one follows the Strong Anthropic Principle line of reasoning far enough to believe the Simulation Hypothesis and accept that we are living in a simulated reality. The first question you have to ask is: Why?
There are many possible reasons why someone might run such a simulation (including you and me in it). However, let's face facts: Our own little slice of reality (virtual or not) is certainly not a simulated heaven. Moreover, it seems unlikely someone would recreate everything we know in order to study a historical period when they could just read the actual historical documents. (Except, that is, if they are studying the effects of small decision changes to historical outcomes. In which case one has to wonder if we got the short end of the 'What if the 2000 USA election went differently?' stick or not.)
When you get down to it, the most likely reason why someone would go to all the trouble to create a simulation as complex as our world is, quite simply, entertainment. This could take many forms: Ant farm. ("Watch them scurry when I do this!") TV show ("Hilarity ensues when George Bush invades Iran.") Or even MMORPG. ("Stressed out by modern life? Play 21Cen and return to the simpler times before the Singularity.")
The thing is, if a society has reached the point they can play a sim game where the sim characters can play sim games, then maybe it makes some small amount of sense that they might find it fun to be here. But it sure makes one think their own reality must really be the Suxx0r...
