Prompt Images
Betelgeuse, one of the brightest stars in the sky, is dimming. But scientists are not quite sure what is causing it. Is it about to explode? Or is there something else going on?
>> Logging into SimDevChat…
>> WELCOME, BusyCoding, to SimDevChat. Where Simulations HappenTM…
>> Opening chat client…
——————————————–—- Today 10:45am —————————————————–
AlphaDev
Hey, something is going on with Star 47238r235781. It looks broken to me.
BusyCoding
What’s the problem?
AlphaDev
Seems to be dimming.
BusyCoding
Shit. Again? I’ll take a look.
——————————————–—- Today 11:15am —————————————————–
BusyCoding
Okay, I ran a diagnostic scan and there’s definitely something going on. There was a system-wide update yesterday, and the star_fusion_module calls some method that is now deprecated.
AlphaDev
So can you fix it?
BusyCoding
Not without rebuilding the fusion engine from scratch. Can we trigger the supernova routine and call it a day?
AlphaDev
No, sorry. We have some new sims running in nearby sectors that would be ruined. These are top priority projects.
BusyCoding
Well, then, can we just delete it? I am managing more star sims than I know how to count right now.
AlphaDev
Hold on.
——————————————–—- Today 11:20am —————————————————–
AlphaDev
Okay, yeah, that won’t work. Apparently we have sentient sims living on a planet system that has line of sight to Star 47238r235781. The sims would notice if that star just vanished. Could have downstream consequences for any social experiments being done with those sims.
BusyCoding
What planet?
AlphaDev
It’s Planet 8675309
BusyCoding
Whose planet?
AlphaDev
Jeff’s.
BusyCoding
Wait, it’s Jeff’s planet? You mean Earth?
AlphaDev
Yep.
BusyCoding
Fucking Jeff.
AlphaDev
👍
BusyCoding
I guess I’ll talk to him.
——————————————–—- Today 11:27am —————————————————–
BusyCoding
Hey Jeff.
Jeff
Oh, hey, Marcus.
BusyCoding
So, I got a question. Are you still maintaining your sim of Planet 8675309?
Jeff
You mean Earth? Oh yeah. I’m at 4.5 billion years and counting. Longest planet sim running continuously in the simverse!
BusyCoding
Yeah, it’s quite impressive. So unfortunately we have an issue with Star 47238r235781. I’d like to just delete it but Sam tells me your Earth sims have line of sight to it.
Jeff
Oh yeah, Betelgeuse. People love that star.
BusyCoding
People?
Jeff
It’s what I call my Earth sims. Or really, the term they made up for themselves.
BusyCoding
Well refactoring the code to fix Betelgeuse would take a shit ton of work. Like at least a month. And I just don’t have time to do that.
Jeff
Can you just run a supernova routine? The people on earth would be thrilled to see a star explode!
BusyCoding
Can’t. Sam says the fall out would affect nearby projects in the simverse that are high priority.
Jeff
Hmm. So what are the other options?
BusyCoding
Well, I was wondering if maybe you could delete your planet sim?
Jeff
Delete Earth?!
BusyCoding
Yeah. Or, I dunno, you could just reset it to an earlier state. A previous state when the sims were less evolved and wouldn’t really notice a star just disappearing.
Jeff
I don’t think I can do that.
BusyCoding
Why not?
Jeff
I am running a TON of experiments right now on everything from large scale species cooperation to evolutionary mutation rates. Resetting it would undo years of work! Plus, I’m sort of on pins and needles waiting to see who Hannah picks on The Bachelorette.
BusyCoding
Bachelorette?
Jeff
It’s a video based event sequence—the Earth sims call it a “television show”—where several members from one species of the sex try to simultaneously court one member from the other species of the sex. I know the premise sounds cheap, but it’s pretty captivating once you get into it.
BusyCoding
Wait, your sentient sims have two sexes?! Why the hell would any advanced species need more than one sex?
Jeff
Well, apparently they have an entire spectrum of sexes, but that’s a whole other can of worms.
BusyCoding
Look, Jeff, I don’t want to be an asshole, but we’ve already gone above and beyond for you and your little side project. Remember when you submitted a software patch with a bug that accidentally set the speed of light equal to a CONSTANT throughout the whole simverse?
Jeff
299,792,458 meters per second! Somehow I accidentally pasted my social security number into the code… never quite figured out how that happened.
BusyCoding
I can’t even fathom how you accidentally did that.
But in any case, rather than let us fix that mistake, you had the brilliant idea that we change the laws of physics in the simverse instead.
Jeff
Who knew it was logically possible to build a universe where the speed of light is fixed! Now we know you just have to make space and time relative!!
BusyCoding
And the bug that allowed atoms to have multiple positions at once? Or positions with the value Undefined?
Jeff
That one wasn’t my fault! That was Larry.
BusyCoding
Right, but again, we asked if we could just fix that issue and you argued that it would just be more interesting to leave the bugs, and— once again—change the laws of physics in the simverse instead.
Jeff
And I really appreciate the work that you and the core team did to make all that happen. You know the Earth sims have developed a whole theory about their simulated atoms, which have those bizarre properties—they call it “quantum mechanics.” It’s led to countless fascinating debates among them about ontology and epistemology.
BusyCoding
Why do you care what they think about metaphysics? Would they give a damn about Mario and Luigi’s opinions on free will?
Jeff
Hey, how’d you know about Mario and Luigi?
BusyCoding
Mario Brothers is like the only good thing to come out of your ridiculous planet sim. Your sims are dumb as rocks, but they sure know how to make an entertaining game. Though, if I’m being honest, I’m still on the fence about Super Mario II.
Anyways. I’m sorry, but I think Betelgeuse is going to be deleted. Your sims will just have to live with the mystery of its disappearance.
Jeff
Okay how about we compromise. You can delete Betelgeuse and I’ll delete the Earth sims’ memory of it so it doesn’t screw with my experiments. But in return, you have to make one minor change to the physics engine for me.
BusyCoding
What?
Jeff
Set D=9
BusyCoding
D?
Wait, you mean the number of dimensions of space in the simverse?? You want to change it to 9?! TF would you want to do that for?
Jeff
My Earth sims have developed a model of physics called String Theory. But, it requires 6 extra spatial dimensions to work, instead of the 3 dimensions they actually have. They’d be so thrilled to discover some extra dimensions!
Besides, it’s literally one line in the code. The physics engine is designed to run with any number of dimensions so you don’t have to change anything else. Plus we can make the new dimensions really small so they don’t affect anything else in the simverse.
BusyCoding
This is like, the dumbest request you’ve made yet.
But if it means I can just delete Betelgeuse, then fine. Have your 6 extra spatial dimensions.
Jeff
👍👍👍
——————————————–—- Today 5:45pm —————————————————–
Jeff
Hey Marcus.
BusyCoding
I’m just about to make the change you requested.
Jeff
Cool. But I was wondering if you had a minute to chat about something else.
BusyCoding
What?
Jeff
Do you think it’s possible that we live in someone else’s simverse?
BusyCoding
Nah. We live in Base Reality bro. Our world is waaaay too complicated for anyone to sim it.
Jeff
But that’s what my Earth sims think about their universe.
BusyCoding
Don’t some of those Earth sims also believe that their unambiguously round planet is flat?
Jeff
Just a few NBA players, mostly. Point is, we could be living in a simulation too and just not realize it.
BusyCoding
I guess so. But even if we do, we’ll probably never know for sure. So why worry about it?
Jeff
>> increase CURIOSITY_LEVEL for BUSYCODING by 80%
BusyCoding
What the fuck was that Jeff?
Jeff
>> compile BaseRealitySim.fy
recompiling…
BusyCoding
Jeff, what are you doing?
Updating BusyCoding Curiosity Level…
BusyCoding
Jeff? Is this some kind of…
BusyCoding has logged out…
BusyCoding has logged in…
BusyCoding
joke?
Jeff
Do you think it’s possible that we live in someone else’s simverse?
BusyCoding
Didn’t you just ask me that a minute ago?
Jeff
Yeah, but I forgot what you said.
BusyCoding
Well, it’s a pretty interesting question I guess. I suppose I haven’t thought about that possibility before… but now that I am thinking about it… you are kind of blowing my mind Jeff. Maybe we do live in a simulation!!
Jeff
😁
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