A New Red Pill vs Blue Pill Thought Experiment

[Eddi]

Here’s a thought experiment:

You live in a simulated universe, in which everyone is a part of a computer simulation.

You are in your local municipal water facility, the source of all the drinking water in your home town/city. Everyone in your town/city drinks this water.

You are there because someone – a man – has forced you to go there, at gunpoint. You have no idea who he is. And for the purposes of this thought experiment it doesn’t matter.

He has two big sacks. One contains 100,000 blue pills and the other 100,000 red pills.

He orders you to empty one sack of your choosing into the water supply. If you do neither he will shoot you dead.

Emptying the red pills into the water would make everyone in the city instantly realise they are in a simulation, and emptying the blue ones in would keep them all ignorant and they'll never know.

Which sack do you empty into the water supply – and why?​

 

[Koldo]

There is a scientist inside me that wants to throw both sacks at the same time to see what happens.

 

[SalixIncendium]

It's not my place to play god for the entire town/city. I let him shoot me dead. After all, if I already know I'm in a simulation, there is no consequence to being shot to death.

 

[Eddi]

It's not my place to play god for the entire town/city. I let him shoot me dead. After all, if I already know I'm in a simulation, there is no consequence to being shot to death.

I’m not saying that isn’t a valid answer, however if you did let him shoot you dead then bare in mind you’d lose (to flippantly use video game terminology) all the experience points you’ve earned in your lifetime and all the achievements you’ve unlocked and you’ll get respawned – perhaps in some awful place and some terrible life – and your level will go back down to Level 1. All your progress, gone! And you’d never see the people you care about again. I’d say most people would have a lot to lose by getting shot dead and that there would be consequences even if the world is simulated. Personally, I value my life (and the lives of others) even though I believe we're all in a simulation. But if you'd want to sacrifice all that then fair enough and good on you.

 

[SalixIncendium]

I’m not saying that isn’t a valid answer, however if you did let him shoot you dead then bare in mind you’d lose (to flippantly use video game terminology) all the experience points you’ve earned in your lifetime and all the achievements you’ve unlocked and you’ll get respawned – perhaps in some awful place and some terrible life – and your level will go back down to Level 1. All your progress, gone! And you’d never see the people you care about again. I’d say most people would have a lot to lose by getting shot dead and that there would be consequences even if the world is simulated. Personally, I value my life (and the lives of others) even though I believe we're all in a simulation. But if you'd want to sacrifice all that then fair enough and good on you.

You could have just said that you don't like my answer.

 

[Stevicus]

It's not my place to play god for the entire town/city. I let him shoot me dead. After all, if I already know I'm in a simulation, there is no consequence to being shot to death.

If you throw in the sack of blue pills, wouldn't that have the same result as not throwing any in at all?

 

[SalixIncendium]

If you throw in the sack of blue pills, wouldn't that have the same result as not throwing any in at all?

No. Throwing in the sack of blue pills eliminates the chance for realization of the simulation.

 

[Brickjectivity]

Red, but I think it would make no difference; and that simulism is like the blue pill not the red. I think its going to sleep, closing one's eyes and imagining nothing here matters.

 

[Woberts]

It depends. Is the simulation a pleasant one, or something akin to Tranquility Lane?

 

[WalterTrull]

I have a special sack for these thought experiments.

 

[sun rise]

There was a ST: DS9 story about this. Shadowplay (Star Trek: Deep Space Nine) - Wikipedia

 

[Father Heathen]

Red pills, just to see what sort of societal change would unfold.