I walk into my San Francisco office with a hot cup of coffee fresh from the market in hand. I sip it slowly with a smile on my face. As the coffee trickles down my throat I think to myself, “today is going to be a good day”. I sit down at my desk and look at myself in my desk mirror. “You don’t look half bad” I say to myself. I smooth out the flyaway hairs that are living on the top of my head with a sweep of my hand. I look to my right at my other desk mirror and think “You just got promoted baby. The world is your OYSTER!”

I eagerly login to my brand-spanking-new MacBook desktop. A glorious 42” wide plasma retina display suited with a 64-Core processor and M3 chip to boot. “I’ve made it”.

The first duty I have in my new role is to get up to speed on all of the documentation of my predecessor. I promptly log into my account. Immediately a popup displays on the screen that reads “Congratulations on your new role as Administrator! To begin training, please click the Begin button below”. I quickly select the bright green “begin” button.

Gosh, there is no personal training these days, just me and my computer. I often think to myself how much I miss the old ways of the world, where face-to-face interaction was deemed commonplace, it was so nice being able to communicate with an actual human being who would sit here and talk to me, especially when I had questions about what I was learning, I’ve always found it nice to be able to go back and forth with someone about what you’re working on. It’s nice to have someone to help you out immediately when you need it and bounce ideas off of and— **DING!** a sharp, high-pitched sound interrupts my train of thought.

The sound continues on, getting louder and louder, each reverberation vibrating the insides of my eardrums more intensely than the last.

I look up. A 3D rendering of the earth has incapsulated my entire screen. It’s spinning, and as the sound gets louder the speed of the sound picks up with it, and so does the spinning earth.

What the?

The earth on the screen starts shrinking. Immediately another earth appears on the screen that encapsulates the first one. That earth then gets smaller too, and a third earth swallows the others. This continues endlessly at a dizzying pace. The DINGs are getting so fast and so intense, I start to feel nauseous. I lean over in desperation and grab my glass of water that’s vibrating on the table. The sound around me has now completely crescendoed. My entire body is buzzing. The screen suddenly flashes black, and in the earth’s place a pop-up window appears with black, bold text. “The world is a simulation.” It reads. Below it are two options. In green, it reads “I accept”. In red, “Exit without making changes.” I gulp back my water and take a deep breath.

“I accept”.