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  1. I gave him grief for the Ark game, but credit where it’s due, he won on the road in a place where it’s hard for Texas to win.
  2. https://www.heraldbanner.com/news/local_news/sources-say-a-m-commerce-leaving-lone-star-conference/article_86dd9f4c-1fe3-11ec-8ea0-7fc2c36924ad.html This gives the Metroplex/North Texas area an FCS school for football which has been void since UTA shut their program down. This is now two aggy schools who made the move to FCS with Tarleton State being the first . My bet aggy Canyon (WTAM) will be next followed by Angelo St(part of the Tech system) and the Lone Star Conference will die as a football conference and a great football small football conference it was back in the day... aggy King Ranch will probably continue to whither on the vine as a football program. UTPB will need to find a new home just as they were starting to build momentum in D2.... There is some chatter UT-Tyler might interested in football as well, but no time frame set. UTRGV has set a student referendum for the go ahead for funding via student fees for football. They will be going straight to the WAC for football and not spend anytime in another subdivision.
  3. Is it just me, or has Clemson been getting slightly worse each of the last few years? Is Dabo's magic starting to wear off?
  4. I have not enjoyed the running of our backs as much since I was a Kid! Have we entered that magic times? I think so! BRob with the spin of the Gods? RoJo SmashMouth, slasher and Touchdown scorer KRob, Needs to take a small step back on blocks but Yes, can I have a Yes? and Mr Brooks? 4x100 games? I like this running game!
  5. He's old, embarrassing, makes costly mistakes and looks like a perv. The only way he could represent this place any better is if he was a lawyer and also fat.
  6. Truck not running, blown engine. Got a replacement that is 1 year newer & ALL related aftermarket components (bolt on type accessories) that I wanted from the old truck were not to convey. Buyer mostly just wanted the transmission. Sold truck approx 9 months ago. Buyer shows up faster than I wanted, has flatbed with winch. In a hasty run, "we" (all of us... me + buyer & his pals) removed grill guard, headache rack &... I think one or two other items. I recorded video on phone (& sent to him via text so we both have a record of this transaction) stating I would track down the title (again, he shows up faster than I was able to reasonably accommodate) & trade that out for the other components: - Side step bars - LED fog lights (Rigid brand, best in the business), D.O.T. approved, replacements for factory location. - Aftermarket tail lights (LED) - Aftermarket headlights (Dodge / Ram is notorious for shitty headlights & tail lights) - Curt trailer brake controller - Swing out side step (for access to the truck box; step bars noted above were only long enough for front & back doors on crew cab) Moving ahead to August & I notified him I had the title & was coming up in around 2 weeks or so (when I could get a friend to help me peel off all sorts of parts as noted above). Had a couple of delays & eventually it was like 20 odd days or so after that "I'm gonna get up thataways soon" when we actually make it up there. . . . Day prior to trip, he says "My Dad will be there, not me." I finally get to the shithole of Mart with my friend (E of Wacko, a 2½ hour drive for me) where the truck is supposed to be @ his Dad's shop & find the truck has been stripped of all sorts of stuff - not a surprise, it's not mine anymore. What he did NOT tell me is the truck was now heavily overgrown in weeds & Dad says "Yeah, I told him to letcha know it was high in the brush. I cain't do nothin' 'bout that" The front wheels were off (& maybe the back; couldn't see them), no reasonable way to drag the truck forward or even lift it so I have reasonable access to the step / Nerf bars or single swing out step, headlights & tail lights are gone, the brake controller is gone, the LED fogs are gone (& in a text he says "The foglights didn't work" to which I responded "They are / were Rigid - lifetime warranty & could have been repaired if that's true") & as much as I wanted to say it, I left out "hey, fucknut..." All together, it's close to $ 1,000.00 in parts if full retail, not even including the labor. Now, stay with me here - I'm already ahead of y'all that are saying "Shit, if you win he's probably judgment proof under generally being a deadbeat & shitty human. Isn't living in Mart penalty enough?" From reading HF / Shaggy-B / Shaggy-H / Surly all these years, I'm thinking the 1st thing is make a roux. 1. Then: Send formal sounding text telling him my request for compensation or for the parts & that he @ least meet me in Temple (more than ½ on my end) to hand over the goodies or full $$ on material alone. 2. If I am ignored or maybe even get a "suck it" response, send strongly worded letter via certified mail (to the address where pops has his shitty workshop). Explain my request / demands & reasons why. 3. If fully ignored from there & having been returned a receipt of letter, file in JP Court. 4. ??? 5. Profit. ...if Small claims, can I drag his ass down here to Hays County? Do I have to drive up there to visit with the fine officers of the court system in McClennan County? Because obviously I would much rather have the venue down here with me. So, what sayeth thee, Opinionated Court of Shaggravation?
  7. First, they dont work with tapa. Second, they’re locked until Katie opens them. Third, they have some “uplifting message” in them that’s supposed to get us all riled up or something. Why can’t we just have a game thread that’s just a game thread?
  8. And that he runs really well in space? Yea yea yea Whittington had a nice game against ULaLa, but at that game my son and I both commented that Bijan (and to a lesser extent RoJo) seemed to be our best WRs. I know Rojo took the checkdown for a score tonight but other than that did we even ever throw the ball to Bijan? Taking that RB receiving threat we seemed to have in the plan last week completely out of the game seemed like one of many many poor choices.
  9. ... at home When they were a 26 point favorite..
  10. Some kinda coup. Where is Guinea? The Caribbean? The fate of Guinea's President Alpha Condé is unclear after an unverified video showed him surrounded by soldiers, who said they had seized power. They appeared on national TV claiming to have dissolved the government. However, the defence ministry said the attempted takeover had been thwarted by the presidential guard. This follows hours of heavy gunfire near the presidential palace in the capital, Conakry. UN secretary-general Antonio Guterres and the African Union have condemned the apparent coup and demanded the immediate release of President Condé. The West African country of Guinea is rich in natural resources but years of unrest and mismanagement mean it is one of the world's poorest countries. https://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-58453778 ETA They're in Africa. Did not know that.
  11. Hudson Card - troof Bijan - Everything Defense - Legit Offensive Line - WIP #BurntEnds
  12. Third time is the charm.... NBAA Let's Ride... OK, Cool. Hook'em... All Gas! No Brakes!
  13. Between game dicussion, articles, and bitching here please.
  14. A cautionary tale https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.fox17online.com/news/local-news/lakeshore/ottawa/parents-must-pay-30-441-for-getting-rid-of-sons-porn-cache%3f_amp=true
  15. Can we use this thread for just the facts? The best DT threads are so good for that. I've asked immamac to move political posts in this thread over to the CR. immanac, we're depending on you, Buddy. This CNN news thread is pretty good: https://www.cnn.com/world/live-news/afghanistan-taliban-us-news-08-18-21/index.html
  16. Texas man wins $5.5 million in lawsuit claiming restaurant overserved him alcohol Source: https://www.thedrinksbusiness.com/ By Eloise Feilden August 16, 2021 Daniel Rawls, from Andrews, Texas, has won an alcohol-related lawsuit against La Fogata Mexican Grill on claims that overdrinking caused an altercation with another customer. Judge holding gavel: Texas man wins $5.5 million in lawsuit claiming restaurant overserved him alcohol Andrews County 109th District Court awarded Rawls $5.5 million in a hearing on 27 July, according to the Houston Chronicle. In an incident which took place in May 2019, Rawls alleges that the bar's negligence in overserving him alcohol later caused him to be injured in an altercation with another customer. The lawsuit was made up of five claims, including premises liability and negligence and damages arising from foreseeable criminal conduct. Robert Henrickson is named as the other customer involved in the altercation. Rawls claimed to have sustained a "serious and debilitating" head injury after being assaulted by Henrickson, according to the Houston Chronicle. La Fogata, owner Lourdes Galindo and an unnamed bartender are cited in the lawsuit as responsible for the injury, having over-served alcohol to both men and allowed them to leave the bar together. Andrews County 109th District Court ruled in favour of Rawls in a default judgement, after the restaurant owner failed to respond to the suit or attend the hearing. The court did not rule on whether or not the claims were true. According to the Texas Rules of Appellate Procedure, La Fogata has 30 days to appeal the ruling if they intend to seek a new trial. Rawls allegedly has a history of excessive drinking, according to the Houston Chronicle. Local jail records show he was arrested in February 2019 and May 2021 on charges of public intoxication.
  17. Was day-drinking, missed the beginning of Carol Alvrado, she has a a very stupid map for her senate district in Houston TALKING FILIBUSTER IN TEXAS SENATE https://tlcsenate.granicus.com/MediaPlayer.php?view_id=5&event_id=3863
  18. https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/weird-news/aliens-land-earth-tomorrow-star-24730033?utm_source=facebook.com&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=mirror_main&fbclid=IwAR3goBDgjfeFP0oTCWZOxZFyixpWqTIy5fSvQ3SljuIQ7zTvKk2E7f4cHXU I mean, the Atlantis and Mars bits are good news, so yin and yang and all that.
  19. You know how you read these statistics like 81% of Americans think that World War II was fought between Spain and Italy or whatever? 72% of Republicans believe that the Arabic numerical system should not be taught in schools.
  20. The Big XII conference has been crumbling for a decade. It seems highly unlikely that it will persist beyond 2021 with the way things are moving. If you haven't already, it's time to mentally prepare yourselves for this being the final year of the conference that we have called home and been a part of for the past quarter-century, for better or worse. It's time for one last hurrah with the Red Raiders, Horned Frogs, Cowboys, Bears, Cyclones, Jayhawks, Wild Cats, and Mountaineers who have been the source of both entertaining memories and undeniable headaches over the last 10 years. One last dance with all of these teams that we will play again only rarely, if ever. It's time for the Texas Longhorns to embark and complete what can only be described as a firm, final Ass Whooping Tour. And we will. We have a seasoned and talented team with a proven new coaching staff. You need no reminding that we have a legitimate Heisman contender at running back, on top of numerous other excellent offensive and defensive weapons already on the team. I also haven't been this excited about our 2-deep at quarterback situation since the Simms/Applewhite era at Texas. We're going to be good. And I'm tired of pretending like we're not. We're going to run through every team on our schedule and win this shitty conference on our way out the door. We're going to hoist the Big XII trophy at AT&T Stadium one last time, and I don't care if we toss it on the ground and piss on it afterwards. It's still going to be ours. So this is it, I'm calling my shot. I'm predicting a 12-1 regular season. We split games with OU, winning in December when it matters. Just as Texas won the final year of the Southwest conference, so too will we maintain our streak and win our final year in the Big XII. A quick game-by-game rundown of how this season should go: Louisiana - Sept 4 There will be a lot of buzz and snide remarks from outsiders heading into this game ("Hurr, upset alert but for who? Louisiana? They're ranked higher than Texas aren't they?"). And sure. Louisiana is returning a seasoned team coming off a 10-win (near undefeated) season last year. They'll have high hopes of doing the same this year. They'll come into DKR expecting to compete, and they will... for about a quarter. Texas will settle down and pull away, and we'll witness firsthand beautiful deep ball touchdowns from both Casey Thompson and Hudson Card, in addition to touchdowns on the ground provided by Bijan and Roschon. A dominant first outing. @Arkansas - Sept 11 Most of the nation will have missed our opener and much more of the same buzz and chiding will surround our second game of the season ("Durr, the Longhorns are about to get a taste of what they're getting themselves into with the SEC!SEC!"). This game will be much closer and more competitive than the opener, but Arkansas's vaunted SEC defense won't be able to stop Texas from scoring the points needed to win. We'll improve to 2-0 here, and suddenly the rest of the nation (and our recruiting) will take notice. Rice - Sept 18 This game will be over at the half and our younger guys will get much needed reps. We will even see our third and maybe fourth-string quarterback, taking some snaps. Texas Tech - Sept 25 Texas Tech is not what it has been in recent years, and their fan base and team is resigned to whatever fate awaits them post-Big XII. Basically, they're going to get fucked, know they're going to get fucked, and will get fucked during our game when we play and beat them too. @TCU - Oct 2 This will be our first example of a truly hostile conference game environment this year. Every conference away game that we play this season is going to be surreal in that it will produce a level of vitriol that we haven't seen since the height of the Southwest conference. But TCU is special. This particular team has basically owned us for the past decade. They have a better record against us over the past several years than OU. As of right now, TCU has a longer active winning streak at DKR than we do. This shit is unacceptable and needs immediate rectifying. When Texas first announced that it hired Sarkisian, I marked this game down as his "must win" for a successful first year. Time to put up or shut up. We will beat these cockroaches and it will feel cathartic as we improve to 5-0 on the season. TX/OU - Oct 9 For the first time in this game's history, there will exist a sublime camaraderie between the fan bases in attendance at they come together in the Cotton Bowl to watch their respective teams play each other. We will receive a more welcoming reception here than at any other conference venue this season. Maybe we'll win, maybe we won't. But we'll see them again in December. Oklahoma State - Oct 16 After our win in Stillwater last season, I'm convinced that we're back in Oklahoma State's head. They enjoyed a short run where they were beating us regularly for part of this decade, but that's over now. We'll put up another win here to leave them something to remember us by. @Baylor - Oct 30 Like Texas Tech, Baylor is resigned to whatever fate awaits them post-Big XII. But the game is in Waco, and they'll want to beat the big bad Longhorns one last time. McLane Stadium is going to be bumping and the Bears will expect to win. They'll probably even make it a game. But it won't be enough. Our win here will expel them back into irrelevancy as the Big XII dissolves around them. @Iowa State - Nov 6 This is the team that the pundits have not and will not quit talking about. And don't get me wrong--Iowa State WILL be good next season. But best (or even second best?) in the Big XII? A CFP contender? No. Still, they could very likely be 8-0 at this point next season. Their game against OU isn't until Nov 20, and beating OU will be their overarching singular focus this year. Beating Texas is a foregone conclusion and afterthought. But I need not remind you how Texas dominated much and most of the game against ISU last year (and the year before), and but for boneheaded coaching and game management, these games would have been wins. I'm really looking forward to going into Ames with an actually competent coaching staff this season and "shocking the nation" that has had ISU/OU penciled into the 2021 Big XII championship game since last December. Kansas - Nov 13 Kansas is a bad football team with a quagmire of current off the field issues. It'll be nice beating them comfortably for a change, particularly after our game against them last year was cancelled. @West Virginia - Nov 20 One last trip to a hostile Morgantown on our way out the conference's door. WVU made their Big XII debut against Texas by taking a memorable win from us at DKR in 2012 and catapulting to a top 5 ranking on the backs of Geno Smith and Tavon Austin. WVU then proceeded to lose their next 5 games and would ultimately lose the Pinstripe Bowl against Syracuse. Fuck. These. Guys. Our record in Morgantown has actually been pretty good, and there's no reason to change that now. Kansas State - Nov 26 This is our Thanksgiving-week game. Our Thanksgiving-week record has been pretty poor in recent years, and this will be a good time to fix that (as we'll soon resume playing our "little brother" that week starting as early as 2022, and we need to have things trending in the right direction). Big XII Championship Game - Dec 4 The rematch with OU. This is the one that counts, and it's one that we will win. OU could conceivably be undefeated going into this game and eyeing another CFP appearance. We will be able to take all of that away. It's fitting that the two teams acting as catalyst for the disintegration of the Big XII will be the two teams now battling for the Big XII title one last time, to keep for all time. Hook 'Em. Beat OU. And make the rest of the Big XII conference eat shit this final season.
  21. corrected poll options
  22. Dear god, what are these cloven hobbit feet? https://twitter.com/ThatLoomis/status/1417635316664610818?s=20
  23. We definitely don't need another thread for discussion, but I'm curious about where the board stands overall on this. Hard to tell just from reading various threads.
  24. If so, does anyone know the unlimited money exploit? .... For real though, is this a super elaborate April fools joke? https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/confirmed-we-live-in-a-simulation/ Confirmed! We Live in a Simulation We must never doubt Elon Musk again By Fouad Khan on April 1, 2021 Ever since the philosopher Nick Bostrom proposed in the Philosophical Quarterly that the universe and everything in it might be a simulation, there has been intense public speculation and debate about the nature of reality. Such public intellectuals as Tesla leader and prolific Twitter gadfly Elon Musk have opined about the statistical inevitability of our world being little more than cascading green code. Recent papers have built on the original hypothesis to further refine the statistical bounds of the hypothesis, arguing that the chance that we live in a simulation may be 50–50. The claims have been afforded some credence by repetition by luminaries no less esteemed than Neil deGrasse Tyson, the director of Hayden Planetarium and America’s favorite science popularizer. Yet there have been skeptics. Physicist Frank Wilczek has argued that there’s too much wasted complexity in our universe for it to be simulated. Building complexity requires energy and time. Why would a conscious, intelligent designer of realities waste so many resources into making our world more complex than it needs to be? It's a hypothetical question, but still may be needed.: Others, such as physicist and science communicator Sabine Hossenfelder, have argued that the question is not scientific anyway. Since the simulation hypothesis does not arrive at a falsifiable prediction, we can’t really test or disprove it, and hence it’s not worth seriously investigating. However, all these discussions and studies of the simulation hypothesis have, I believe, missed a key element of scientific inquiry: plain old empirical assessment and data collection. To understand if we live in a simulation we need to start by looking at the fact that we already have computers running all kinds of simulations for lower level “intelligences” or algorithms. For easy visualization, we can imagine these intelligences as any nonperson characters in any video game that we play, but in essence any algorithm operating on any computing machine would qualify for our thought experiment. We don’t need the intelligence to be conscious, and we don’t need it to even be very complex, because the evidence we are looking for is “experienced” by all computer programs, simple or complex, running on all machines, slow or fast. All computing hardware leaves an artifact of its existence within the world of the simulation it is running. This artifact is the processor speed. If for a moment we imagine that we are a software program running on a computing machine, the only and inevitable artifact of the hardware supporting us, within our world, would be the processor speed. All other laws we would experience would be the laws of the simulation or the software we are a part of. If we were a Sim or a Grand Theft Auto character these would be the laws of the game. But anything we do would also be constrained by the processor speed no matter the laws of the game. No matter how complete the simulation is, the processor speed would intervene in the operations of the simulation. In computing systems, of course, this intervention of the processing speed into the world of the algorithm being executed happens even at the most fundamental level. Even at the most fundamental level of simple operations such as addition or subtraction, the processing speed dictates a physical reality onto the operation that is detached from the simulated reality of the operation itself. Here’s a simple example. A 64-bit processor would perform a subtraction between say 7,862,345 and 6,347,111 in the same amount of time as it would take to perform a subtraction between two and one (granted all numbers are defined as the same variable type). In the simulated reality, seven million is a very large number, and one is a comparatively very small number. In the physical world of the processor, the difference in scale between these two numbers is irrelevant. Both subtractions in our example constitute one operation and would take the same time. Here we can clearly now see the difference between a “simulated” or abstract world of programmed mathematics and a “real” or physical world of microprocessor operations. Within the abstract world of programmed mathematics, the processing speed of operations per second will be observed, felt, experienced, noted as an artifact of underlying physical computing machinery. This artifact will appear as an additional component of any operation that is unaffected by the operation in the simulated reality. The value of this additional component of the operation would simply be defined as the time taken to perform one operation on variables up to a maximum limit that is the memory container size for the variable. So, in an eight-bit computer, for instance to oversimplify, this would be 256. The value of this additional component will be the same for all numbers up to the maximum limit. The additional hardware component will thus be irrelevant for any operations within the simulated reality except when it is discovered as the maximum container size. The observer within the simulation has no frame for quantifying the processor speed except when it presents itself as an upper limit. If we live in a simulation, then our universe should also have such an artifact. We can now begin to articulate some properties of this artifact that would help us in our search for such an artifact in our universe. The artifact is as an additional component of every operation that is unaffected by the magnitude of the variables being operated upon and is irrelevant within the simulated reality until a maximum variable size is observed. The artifact presents itself in the simulated world as an upper limit. The artifact cannot be explained by underlying mechanistic laws of the simulated universe. It has to be accepted as an assumption or “given” within the operating laws of the simulated universe. The effect of the artifact or the anomaly is absolute. No exceptions. Now that we have some defining features of the artifact, of course it becomes clear what the artifact manifests itself as within our universe. The artifact is manifested as the speed of light. Space is to our universe what numbers are to the simulated reality in any computer. Matter moving through space can simply be seen as operations happening on the variable space. If matter is moving at say 1,000 miles per second, then 1,000 miles worth of space is being transformed by a function, or operated upon every second. If there were some hardware running the simulation called “space” of which matter, energy, you, me, everything is a part, then one telltale sign of the artifact of the hardware within the simulated reality “space” would be a maximum limit on the container size for space on which one operation can be performed. Such a limit would appear in our universe as a maximum speed. This maximum speed is the speed of light. We don’t know what hardware is running the simulation of our universe or what properties it has, but one thing we can say now is that the memory container size for the variable space would be about 300,000 kilometers if the processor performed one operation per second. This helps us arrive at an interesting observation about the nature of space in our universe. If we are in a simulation, as it appears, then space is an abstract property written in code. It is not real. It is analogous to the numbers seven million and one in our example, just different abstract representations on the same size memory block. Up, down, forward, backward, 10 miles, a million miles, these are just symbols. The speed of anything moving through space (and therefore changing space or performing an operation on space) represents the extent of the causal impact of any operation on the variable “space.” This causal impact cannot extend beyond about 300,000 km given the universe computer performs one operation per second. We can see now that the speed of light meets all the criteria of a hardware artifact identified in our observation of our own computer builds. It remains the same irrespective of observer (simulated) speed, it is observed as a maximum limit, it is unexplainable by the physics of the universe, and it is absolute. The speed of light is a hardware artifact showing we live in a simulated universe. But this is not the only indication that we live in a simulation. Perhaps the most pertinent indication has been hiding right in front of our eyes. Or rather behind them. To understand what this critical indication is, we need to go back to our empirical study of simulations we know of. Imagine a character in a role-playing game (RPG), say a Sim or the player character in Grand Theft Auto. The algorithm that represents the character and the algorithm that represents the game environment in which the character operates are intertwined at many levels. But even if we assume that the character and the environment are separate, the character does not need a visual projection of its point of view in order to interact with the environment. The algorithms take into account some of the environmental variables and some of the character’s state variables to project and determine the behavior of both the environment and the character. The visual projection or what we see on the screen is for our benefit. It is a subjective projection of some of the variables within the program so that we can experience the sensation of being in the game. The audiovisual projection of the game is an integrated subjective interface for the benefit of us, essentially someone controlling the simulation. The integrated subjective interface has no other reason to exist except to serve us. A similar thought experiment can be run with movies. Movies often go into the point of view of characters and try to show us things from their perspective. Whether or not a particular movie scene does that or not, what’s projected on the screen and the speakers—the integrated experience of the film—has no purpose for the characters in the film. It is entirely for our benefit. Pretty much since the dawn of philosophy we have been asking the question: Why do we need consciousness? What purpose does it serve? Well, the purpose is easy to extrapolate once we concede the simulation hypothesis. Consciousness is an integrated (combining five senses) subjective interface between the self and the rest of the universe. The only reasonable explanation for its existence is that it is there to be an “experience.” That’s its primary raison d’être. Parts of it may or may not provide any kind of evolutionary advantage or other utility. But the sum total of it exists as an experience and hence must have the primary function of being an experience. An experience by itself as a whole is too energy-expensive and information-restrictive to have evolved as an evolutionary advantage. The simplest explanation for the existence of an experience or qualia is that it exists for the purpose of being an experience. There is nothing in philosophy or science, no postulates, theories or laws, that would predict the emergence of this experience we call consciousness. Natural laws do not call for its existence, and it certainly does not seem to offer us any evolutionary advantages. There can only be two explanations for its existence. First is that there are evolutionary forces at work that we don’t know of or haven’t theorized yet that select for the emergence of the experience called consciousness. The second is that the experience is a function we serve, a product that we create, an experience we generate as human beings. Who do we create this product for? How do they receive the output of the qualia generating algorithms that we are? We don’t know. But one thing’s for sure, we do create it. We know it exists. That’s the only thing we can be certain about. And that we don’t have a dominant theory to explain why we need it. So here we are generating this product called consciousness that we apparently don’t have a use for, that is an experience and hence must serve as an experience. The only logical next step is to surmise that this product serves someone else. Now, one criticism that can be raised of this line of thinking is that unlike the RPG characters in, say. Grand Theft Auto, we actually experience the qualia ourselves. If this is a product for someone else than why are we experiencing it? Well, the fact is the characters in Grand Theft Auto also experience some part of the qualia of their existence. The experience of the characters is very different from the experience of the player of the game, but between the empty character and the player there is a gray area where parts of the player and parts of the character combine to some type of consciousness. The players feel some of the disappointments and joys that are designed for the character to feel. The character experiences the consequences of the player’s behavior. This is a very rudimentary connection between the player and the character, but already with virtual reality devices we are seeing the boundaries blur. When we are riding a roller coaster as a character in say the Oculus VR device, we feel the gravity. Where is that gravity coming from? It exists somewhere in the space between the character that is riding the roller coaster and our minds occupying the “mind” of the character. It can certainly be imagined that in the future this in-between space would be wider. It is certainly possible that as we experience the world and generate qualia, we are experiencing some teeny tiny part of the qualia ourselves while maybe a more information-rich version of the qualia is being projected to some other mind for whose benefit the experience of consciousness first came into existence. So, there you have it. The simplest explanation for the existence of consciousness is that it is an experience being created, by our bodies, but not for us. We are qualia-generating machines. Like characters in Grand Theft Auto, we exist to create integrated audiovisual outputs. Also, as with characters in Grand Theft Auto, our product mostly likely is for the benefit of someone experiencing our lives through us. What are the implications of this monumental find? Well, first of all we can’t question Elon Musk again. Ever. Secondly, we must not forget what the simulation hypothesis really is. It is the ultimate conspiracy theory. The mother of all conspiracy theories, the one that says that everything, with the exception of nothing, is fake and a conspiracy designed to fool our senses. All our worst fears about powerful forces at play controlling our lives unbeknownst to us, have now come true. And yet this absolute powerlessness, this perfect deceit offers us no way out in its reveal. All we can do is come to terms with the reality of the simulation and make of it what we can. Here, on earth. In this life.
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