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Exciting news. Conspiracy theories, Cults and crimes is leveling up. Starting the week of January 12th, you'll be getting two episodes every week. Wednesdays we unravel the conspiracy or the cult, and on Fridays, we look at a corresponding crime. Every week has a theme. Tech, bioterror, power, paranoia, you name it. Follow Conspiracy Theories, Cults and crimes now on your podcast app because you're about to dive deeper, get weirder, and go darker than than ever before. This is crime house. In 2003, Swedish philosopher and Oxford professor Nick Bostrom published a paper titled Are you living in a computer simulation? Bostrom wasn't the first person to question the limits of our reality. Plenty of scientists, philosophers, and science fiction writers have asked whether our lives are measured in binary code. But Bostrom took the idea to the next level. According to his research, we're probably living in a simulated world, and the people who created us are actually our own descendants. Bostrom's ideas are complex, but the central thesis is very clear. There's a good chance that our life isn't what it seems, and none of us are real at all. From UFO cults and mass suicides to secret CIA experiments, presidential assassinations, and murderous doctors, these aren't just theories. They're real stories that blur the line between fake fact and fiction. I'm Vanessa Richardson, and this is Conspiracy Theories, Cults, and Crimes, a crime House original powered by Pave Studios. Every Wednesday and Friday, I'll explore the real people at the center of the world's most shocking events and nefarious organizations. These cases are wild, and I want to hear what you think at the end of each episode. Leave a comment wherever you listen. Be sure to rate, review and follow Conspiracy Theories, Cults, and Crimes to continue building this community together. And for, ad free early access to both of our weekly episodes, subscribe to Crime House plus on Apple Podcasts. Today, I'm looking into a conspiracy theory that's evolved across human history. The idea that our world isn't as it seems. For centuries, philosophers like Plato and Rene Descartes have questioned the limits of our reality. But the possibility of a simulated reality didn't gain steam until the late 20th century, when computers became an essential part of human life. Movies like the Matrix brought these concepts into the mainstream, and now millions of people, including some of the tech CEOs that shape our society, believe in it, too. It's an unsettling thought, and the more we learn about it, the more questions we have. Because if we're in a simulation, who's running it? Why and what are they trying to achieve? All that and more coming up. The idea that we're all living in a virtual world might seem like a relatively new concept. But human beings have been asking questions about the nature of our reality long before computers were even a theoretical concept. Plato, one of Western philosophy's most influential figures, first mentioned it in his book Republic, written around 375 BCE. In. In it, he presented an allegory of a prisoner who'd been chained up in a cave for their entire life. The only thing they'd ever seen was the shadows on the wall of the cave. And because they didn't know what was casting the shadows, the shadows themselves became the prisoner's entire reality. Plato said all human beings started their lives like this allegorical prisoner. The only way someone could get free of the chains was to question their reality and look outside the cave. Plato's allegory has played a huge role in the way we understand the world around us. But he wasn't the only person to ask these kinds of questions. Chinese philosopher Zhuangzi, who lived around the same time as Plato, proposed a similar theory, but with a few tweaks. Zhuangzi suggested that our reality might actually be a dream. According to him, it was impossible to tell the difference between the two because our dreams almost always feel real. This concept inspired another well known philosopher named Rene Descartes. Descartes famously said that the only thing we can be certain of is that we exist as conscious beings, AKA I think, therefore I am. But Descartes also introduced a twist on Plato and Zhuangzi's ideas, one that was a lot darker. He presented the possibility that something or someone could trick us into believing something that isn't real. He wrote that a being of utmost power and cunning could have employed all his energies in order to deceive me. I shall think that all external things are merely the delusions of dreams which he has devised to ensnare my judgment. In other words, there could be an evil demon that was using our own senses to hurt us. It was a terrifying idea, but it was nothing compared to the next big theory that emerged. The concept that we're living in a computer simulation. Like a lot of modern technologies, computer simulations were first developed as a tool for war. During World War II, armies used information about weather and terrain to calculate the trajectory of their artillery. But when US forces landed in North Africa in November 1942, they found themselves fighting in completely unfamiliar territory. And whatever calculations they'd made were useless. The Moore School of electrical engineering at The University of Pennsylvania was tapped to come up with a solution. Over two years, they developed the Electronic Numerical Integrator and Computer, or eniac, the first general purpose computer. It wasn't like the kind of computers we have today. It was huge and only used by institutions like the US military. By the time the ENIAC was completed in 1945, World War II was nearly over. But the computer was more important than ever. Soon it would be used to simulate thermonuclear chain reactions for the world's first hydrogen bomb. Some people were thrilled about the possibilities the ENIAC created, but others were terrified. If a machine could simulate complex particle physics, who knew what it could do in the future? Maybe one day those computers would become so advanced they'd replace humans or even reality itself. In 1955, about a decade after ENIAC was introduced, the science fiction writer Frederick Pohl published a short story in Galaxy magazine titled the Tunnel under the World. Pohl's story is about a futuristic city where robots are implanted with human memories and placed in a simulated reality where every day is is the same. The only variables are the advertisements they see. His writing touched on a lot of societal changes that took place in the 1950s, especially the increased amount of advertising. But the fact that he used a computer simulation as the framework was revolutionary. It opened the floodgates for other science fiction writers to do the same. Philip K. Dick, the author whose works inspired movies like Blade Runner, Total Recall, and Minority Report, published Time out of joint in 1959. In it, a man discovers that his seemingly perfect reality is a simulation to distract the population from a devastating war. Daniel F. Galloui did something similar in his novel Simulacron 3, which was published in 1964. In that story, Galooi describes a virtual society that learns their entire reality was created to simulate how different political decisions would affect people. All of these stories were cautionary tales about what it could mean to live inside a simulated reality. Despite their warnings, scientists continued to push the boundaries of what a computer could do. And the more they learned, the blurrier the lines became. In 1968, scientists at Harvard developed the world's first virtual reality headset, which was so heavy, it needed to be suspended from the ceiling. Not long after that, scientists at NASA and MIT began to create worlds that could be explored through that technology. This development led to a new spin on Descartes evil demon. In 1973, Princeton philosopher Gilbert Harman proposed a scenario where an evil scientist was able to remove someone's brain, keep it alive in a vat and connect it to a computer. After that, the computer would trick the brain into believing it was a fully living, breathing person. Nearly a Decade later, in 1981, a philosopher and mathematician named Hilary Putnam took things a step further. Following the same line of reasoning as Descartes, Zhuangzi, and Plato, Putnam suggested that since we can't fully trust our senses, there's no way to prove we aren't brains in a Vat the brain in a vat theory became one of the most enduring concepts in philosophy, and science fiction. Writers around the world were eager to incorporate the idea into their work. But one stood out above the rest. In 1999, Lana and Lilly Wachowski's classic the Matrix was released in theaters. It incorporated the brain in a vat theory along with other philosophical concepts. In the world of the Matrix, humans are born into a computer simulation. They're kept happy enough that they don't notice they're being enslaved by evil robots and used as batteries to power the entire robotic network. The Matrix wasn't entirely groundbreaking. It wasn't the first time the simulation theory was used in science fiction. But the Wachowskis, who are both transgender, said part of the reason they made the film was as an allegory for the trans experience, especially the idea of waking up from the role society has forced you into. But overall, the film spoke to a universal audience and popularized the idea that our reality might not be what it seems. Within just a few months of the movie's release, scientists and viewers used the Matrix to discuss those philosophical concepts. This paved the way for people to grasp the ideas of one philosopher whose work revolutionized how we understand our reality. Nick Bostrom was born in 1973 in Helsingberg, Sweden. Bostrom never really liked school and dropped out when he was just 17. But that didn't slow down his academic career. Bostrom went on to earn three different Master's degrees. Then, at just 27 years old, in the year 2000, he got his PhD in Philosophy from the London School of Economics. That's where his entire life changed. At the London School of Economics, Bostrom became interested in using statistics to look into the future and push past the boundaries that other philosophers had faced. He said. It occurred to me that you could do something more than just ask the general law. How can you be sure that you're not dreaming or that you're not a brain in a vat, or that you're not in a computer computer simulation, and that there was a precise argument that you could formulate? Soon, Bostrom started to wonder what a technologically advanced society would do with all of its innovations thousands of years in the future. And the more he thought about it, the more one idea stuck out. They would run simulations of their ancestors, us. If that were the case, they'd probably done it millions of times already, which meant there was a good chance we were living in one of those simulations right now. But that paved the way for other questions, like why were they doing it? And what would happen if they realized weed caught on.
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Disney wants to know. Are you ready for Marvel Studios Thunderbolts, the New Avengers, now streaming on Disney?
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Let's do this.
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One of the best Marvel movies of all time is now streaming on Disney plus.
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Hey, you weren't listening to me.
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I said Thunderbolts the New Avengers is now streaming on Disney plus.
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Meet the new Avengers. That's cool, man.
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Marvel Studios Thunderbolts, the New Avengers, rated PG 13. Now streaming on. You guessed it, Disney.
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In his paper, are you living in a computer simulation? Nick Bostrom presented three likely scenarios about the future. In the first, humanity goes extinct because of some apocalyptic event. In the second, humanity survives and becomes a technologically advanced race. And the third scenario, which is at the core of Bostrom's argument, also focuses on this advanced race. But they don't just sit around and enjoy their technological capabilities. They. They use them to run millions of simulations on their ancestors. Not only that, but these simulations would be powerful enough that the humans trapped inside would be conscious. If that's true, then the chances that we're living in the original timeline, the one that isn't being simulated, is incredibly small. In Bostrom's words, we almost certainly live in a simulation. Bostrom said he hadn't seen the Matrix when he came up with his theory. He did acknowledge the similarities between some of the Wachowskis ideas and his own. But there was one big difference. The Wachowskis had a pretty pessimistic view of what life in a simulation might be like. But Bostrom didn't see it as a bad thing. Because if we are living in a simulation, that means the human race is guaranteed to achieve what he described as the technological maturity. He says this is a point in time when there are no more scientific problems to solve. After that, humans will be able to evolve into the next phase of being. Bostrom called this post humans, people living as a consciousness inside a computer. He argued that once we were free from our bodies, we'd be able to accomplish anything, even interstellar travel. It was a lot to take in, and Bostrom made tweaks to his theory over time. The final version of are you living in a computer? Simulation? Was published in Philosophical Quarterly in 2003, when Bostrom was 30. But for the next decade or so, not many people outside the academic world took notice. That all changed when several tech CEOs caught wind of Bostrom's argument and saw it as validation for the future they hoped to build. For the last few years, there's been an arms race in Silicon Valley. Every major tech company has gone all in on artificial intelligence, or AI. AI chatbots as we know them now, like OpenAI's ChatGPT, aren't conscious in the way humans are, but the companies behind them are trying to push the boundaries to make it happen. The goal is an artificial general intelligence, or AGI, a machine consciousness that can do any cognitive task a human can. The creation of a conscious being inside a computer has serious ethical implications for the future of humanity. But it's what many tech CEOs believe is the next step. Sam Altman, the CEO of OpenAI, believes it would actually be a disadvantage to not live as a machine. He said, we humans are limited by our input output rate. We learn only two bits a second, so a ton is lost. To a machine, we must seem like slowed down whale songs. Considering their shared optimism about the future of mechanical consciousness, it's no surprise that lots of tech CEOs, including Altman, are into Bostrom's theory. Elon Musk was one of the first tech figures to publicly support Bostrom's ideas. In 2016, long before he began developing AI, Musk said, There's a one in a billion chance we're in base reality. Musk theorized that our video game technology would continue to improve until one day we wouldn't be able to tell what's a game and what's real. Eventually, he said, we'd be able to build a completely lifelike simulation. Which begged the question, maybe our reality was built by someone else too. Musk's comments were surprising to many in the tech world. But now, a decade later, other high profile figures have jumped on the simulation bandwagon. In his 2022 book Reality, Virtual Worlds and the Problems of Philosophy, Australian philosopher and cognitive scientist David Chalmers expanded on Bostrom's hypothesis. He theorized that our world is definitely a simulation because the entire universe is made from digital material. Chalmers believes the building blocks of our reality aren't atoms, electrons, or even quarks. They're binary code, ones and zeros. Because of this, our world is just A high resolution simulation run by a computer and the virtual reality worlds we've already created exist as genuine realities and just ones running at a lower resolution than ours. The continued development of AI has made his ideas incredibly popular in Silicon Valley. But not everyone in tech wants us to keep living in a simulated world. At least two billionaire CEOs have started to pay scientists to try and figure out how to get us out of the simulation. With all this talk about billionaires and CEOs, it might seem like Bostrom's theory is far fetched. But the truth is they aren't the only ones who are buying into the concept. Because a lot of people claim they have real life proof that we are living in a simulation. The traces of a modern day simulation conspiracy theory can be traced back to the release of the first Matrix movie in 1999, which we discussed earlier. But one thing we hadn't touched on was how it illustrated the idea of a simulation. The most common of these is the idea of a glitch in the Matrix, when people experience a weird, unexplainable moment of coincidence in their daily life. For example, people report things like seeing three strangers in public, all wearing the same outfit, or finding something they'd thrown away reappearing in their house. The idea of a glitch in the Matrix is often related to something called the Mandela Effect. This phenomenon allegedly concerns millions of people who all have distinct memories of an event that wasn't real. The effect is named for Nelson Mandela, who many people clearly remember dying in prison in the 1980s before he actually became South Africa's president in 1994. The glitch in the Matrix subreddit currently has over a million followers. The Mandela Effect subreddit has half a million. That doesn't mean that all of those followers believe these glitches represent actual evidence that we're living in a simulation. But for many of them, the idea isn't that far fetched. And out of those people, there's a subset who think the simulation isn't working the way it's supposed to. It's no secret that the news over the last 10 years has felt strange. Between political upheavals, unexplained deaths, and a global pandemic we've all lived through a lot of. For some people, there's only one explanation for all these events. That our simulation is malfunctioning. For example, the COVID 19 pandemic completely upended our society. And as everybody moved online to adjust to the new world, many people bought into the idea that our simulation was collapsing in on itself. Many conspiracy theorists started to suspect the pandemic was planned. And especially when they found out that the Johns Hopkins center for Health Security had run a training about a novel coronavirus pandemic just months before COVID 19, called Event 201. Many of these people pointed to Event 201 as proof that high up scientists and researchers like those at Johns Hopkins knew Covid was going to happen. Because of that, they thought maybe Covid was actually staged by or even simulated. Of course, there was no evidence to support this idea. But it wasn't just everyday people who had these questions. In 2022, University of Portsmouth physicist Melvin M. Vopsin was studying mutations of the COVID virus, and he believed he'd found evidence that the virus evolved the same way software does. In his mind, this was proof that Covid was being disappointed. Designed by humans. Not only that, but he thought this completely validated the simulation hypothesis. With so much newfound support for Bostrom's ideas, the number of people who believe in the simulation has increased a lot. But there's still so much we don't know about it, like who's behind it and are they running it for good or evil? While certain philosophers, like David Chalmers think humans are in charge of the simulation, others aren't so sure. Some people say that whoever created our reality isn't benevolent. In fact, they may not even be human. The idea that an advanced AI is in control of our world might sound familiar. After all, it is the plot of the Matrix. But not everyone is happy about the possibility. And some people are willing to do anything to escape the simulation. Even kill.
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On February 13, Crime 101 hits theaters.
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What is it that you do?
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I take high value items and make them disappear.
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So you're a thief.
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This guy's a ghost.
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There's no DNA. He's in and out in seconds.
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Your guy's untraceable.
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Chris Hemsworth, Mark Ruffalo, Barry Kyogan and Halle Berry. One crime connects them all.
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We're good at this. Yeah.
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Crime 101. Directed by Bart Layton. Rated R under 17. Animated without parent. Only in theaters February 13th.
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The Simulation Theory can be compelling and dangerous because when you no longer believe your world is real, you don't treat it the same. Economist Robin Hansen, who'd worked with Bostrom in the past, sounded the alarm as early as 2001. That's when Bostrom first started circulating his paper. Hansen said your motivation to save for retirement or to help the poor in Ethiopia might be muted by Realizing that in your simulation you will never retire and there is no Ethiopia. But the consequences of believing we're all in a simulation can go far beyond apathy. In some cases, it can lead to murder. In February 2002, 19 year old Joseph Cook was obsessed with the Matrix. He had a poster of Keanu Reeves Neo on his wall and started wearing a black leather trench coat just like him. Joseph lived in Virginia with his parents after failing out of college and and spent his days playing video games alone in his room. Soon enough, the lines between real life, the Matrix and his video games started to blur. One morning, Joseph watched the movie again. And this time something clicked. He realized the film was right. He and everyone he loved were living in a simulation. That night, Joseph took a 12 gauge shotgun, walked down to the basement and and shot both his adoptive parents. Joseph thought killing his parents would free them from their reality. But when he looked at their bodies on the floor, he realized almost immediately that he was wrong. Joseph called the police and confessed. But his trial wasn't as cut and dry. His attorneys wanted to use the Matrix defense, a version of an insanity plea. It argued that Joseph couldn't be held accountable for his actions because he thought the world around him was a simulation. Joseph ended up pleading guilty to first degree murder, so his attorneys never had to use the defense. But plenty of other people have. In May of 2000, just a few months after the Matrix came out, Swiss exchange student Vadim Misages was arrested in San Francisco. He'd murdered his landlady, then skinned and dismembered her. He told the judge that she was giving him evil vibes and that he was afraid of being sucked into the Matrix. Similarly, in July 2002, 37 year old Tonda Lynn Ansley of Hamilton, Ohio shot her landlady three times in the middle of the street. When her case went to trial, she argued that her victim was, was, quote, committing a lot of crimes in the Matrix. Lee Malvo, the teenage accomplice in the 2002 D.C. sniper attacks that killed 30 people, also said he hadn't done anything wrong. His reasoning? Because we're living in a simulation. When he was caught, Malvo wrote a note from his cell that read free yourself from the Matrix. And he told the FBI agents who arrested him to watch the movie if they wanted to understand why he participated in the killings. In all of these cases, the perpetrators were clearly struggling with their mental health. But that doesn't change the fact that other people agree with their ideas and it doesn't make those concepts any less dangerous. That's why many scientists, especially theoretical physicists, have spoken out against Boston Ostrom's hypothesis. Their specific arguments vary, but most of these scientists agree on one ancestor. Simulations don't make sense. Marcelo Gleiser, a professor of physics at Dartmouth College, questioned why our descendants would choose to conduct simulations like these. He said that maybe they would have virtual reality museums where they could go and experience the lives of their ancestors. But he just couldn't understand why they would spend so many resources simulating an entire universe. He said it, quote, sounds like a colossal waste of time. Meanwhile, other thought leaders think that a simulation, even a powerful one, doesn't fully explain everything in the universe. A recent study by scientists at the University of British Columbia claimed they've defined, definitively proved that our universe isn't a simulation. According to their study, any simulation has to be based on algorithms. But the laws of physics can't be boiled down to a line of code. If anything, a simulation could mimic reality, but it couldn't be reality. Other critics argue that if simulated worlds do exist, then those civilizations would probably have the ability to create other simulated realities. Since we don't have that ability, we're either in an early level simulation, the last in a chain of simulated universes, or maybe we are real. It's a pretty good point. Previously, noted astrophysicist Neil Degrasse Tyson said there was a 5050 chance that we were living in a simulation. But after hearing that argument, he became convinced that our world probably isn't simulated, at least not yet. And it seems like the simulation theory has also lost its hold on Silicon Valley. In a 2022 interview, Peter Thiel, the major tech entrepreneur behind PayPal and Palantir, said fewer people in tech believe the theory than they used to. In his words, it was a trend that faded. Even though the simulation argument has faced challenges over the years, one person has never wavered on Nick Bostrom himself. Bostrom has given a lot of interviews in the two decades since his paper was published, and he still believes wholeheartedly in his ideas. When asked about the possibility that whoever's running the simulation might turn it off, Bostrom said he's not scared. He claims it's the same thing as asking if he's scared of dying. There's no point in fearing the inevitable. Still, even Bostrom has his limits, and he isn't so convinced by people online who've spoken out in support of his theory to him. Unusual news, like the pandemic, or so called glitches in the Matrix, doesn't prove the theory. Beyond that, Bostrom isn't interested in figuring out how our simulation works or how to get out of it like some Silicon Valley figures have proposed. Because if this is our reality, maybe what's on the other side is even worse. The simulation theory is one of those conspiracies that can make your brain go in circles. It's a lot to take in, but I love to get your take. Do you think we're living in a simulation? If you do, who do you think is behind it? And have you experienced any weird glitches like the Mandela Effect that you want to share? Tell us in the comments. I would love to hear. Ultimately though, this theory is just one more way to try and explain what we don't know. Much like religion, it gives us a framework to understand why we're here. There's a creator, be it a future human, an alien or AI, and a reason why we're conscious. Similarly, the thinking behind the theory isn't inherently bad, but when it's used to justify hurting another person or ignoring the ethical implications of artificial intelligence, it could have some dangerous consequences. Humans have been asking questions about the nature of our reality for thousands of years, and the more we push into an AI driven future, the easier it is to believe. Believe we're all just living inside a computer. If that's the case, we have some serious questions to consider. Do any of us have free will? Should we try to create our own simulations? And most importantly, do any of us really want to wake up? Thanks so much for listening. I'm Vanessa Richardson and this is Conspiracy Theories, Cults and Crimes. Come back next time. We'll decode the episode together and hear another story about the real people at the center of the world's most notorious cults, conspiracies and criminal acts. Conspiracy Theories, Cults and Crimes is a Crime House original powered by Pave Studios. Here at Crime House, we want to thank each and every one of you for your support. If you like what you heard today, reach out on social media, Rimehouse on TikTok and Instagram. Don't forget to rate, review and follow Conspiracy Theories, Cults and Crimes Wherever you get your podcasts, your feedback truly makes a difference. And to enhance your Conspiracy Theories, Cults and Crimes listening experience, subscribe to Crime House plus on Apple Podcasts. You'll get every episode of early and ad Free. We'll be back on Friday. Conspiracy Theories, Cults and Crimes is hosted by me, Vanessa Richardson and is a Crime House original. Powered by Pave Studios this episode was brought to life by the conspiracy theories, Cults and crimes team. Max Cutler, Ron Shapiro, Alex Benedon, Natalie Pertzovsky, Lori Marinelli, Sarah Camp, Jake Natureman, Leah Roche, and Michael Langsner. Thank you for listening.