technology is accelerating
computing racing
in ten years
all PCs combined
will be as complex
as a conscious mind

in fifty years
a watch will tick that power
active clothes could wear
a hundred living minds
in a simulated world

if our race survives

and assuming we can build a self
(the arguments against
seem to me
the reasons why
men will never fly)

so

these machines are buildéd here

but

they might get banned
though would a ban apply
in all cultures
in all times
forever

and would the ban
be utterly obeyed
in all cultures
in all times
forever

so

somewhere somewhen
people run the programs
containing conscious minds
living lives in simulated worlds

historians can like to fight
they’ll recreate and reconstruct
to see the wrecks events
they will

kids can like to play the dread
set in simple hubris
they’ll live to life back when
they will

penmen can like to matchstick–make
some real invented purposed place
they’ll seek seduce an all to browse
they will

business likes the cheap design
let run a simulants risk assess
nick the best
they will

and education
wow
for the education

now

today’s machines are not enough
to run a conscious mind
but their exuberant quantity
one billion made
will be as zero
tomorrow

and even if
a hundred years from now
the computer count remains the same
and even if
a hundred years from now
their users do no more than us
then a billion games will run
with a billion best opponents
in a billion conscious hosting worlds

and if the human race
lasts a billion years
there’ll be just the one true history
and a billion billion simulations

that’s quite a lot to one
that we’re alive
in a simulated world

if the race survived
the next one hundred years

This is a loose reinterpretation of a paper by Nick Bostrom: see www.simulation-argument.com.