“Generalized atheism rules out “inaccurate simulation”-ism.” by Eliezer Yudkowsky

Reposted from Facebook, on January 17, 2017. I am concerned about the number of people I've heard joking about Trump's election being evidence for the Simulation Hypothesis. Yes, I know it's a joke. I'm still concerned. Warning: #Essay, #LongEssay So as not to engage in Logical Fallacy: Appeal to Consequences, before I talk about why this joke is worrying, I shall first discuss why Trump's election does not in fact mean we are living in a simulation. And neither does the Berenstein/Berenstain Bears thing, etcetera. Because atheism generalizes. No, I'm not about to commit the Noncentral Fallacy (aka The Worst Argument In The World) by yelling "The Simulation Hypothesis is religious!" But once upon a decade, there was a time when lots of people believed in God. A time when atheism had to be argued, not just taken for granted. There was a time when believing in atheism made you one of those weird, loud people with arguments that only people with unusually good epistemology could follow, and other people talked about you exactly the way that the anti-LessWrong tumblrsphere now talks about LessWrong. Today, of course, atheism is just something [...] --- First published: August 5th, 2026 Source: https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/KgwQchapx4vJDhfYC/generalized-atheism-rules-out-inaccurate-simulation-ism --- Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.