Life in the bubble or the death of free will

The WordPress block editor still leaves something to be desired in my view, but I do love the drop cap feature it brings that was previously unavailable to me in the classic editor. It is most definitely the simple pleasures that provide the mileage in my writing sphere these days.

Speaking of things that delight me, I am continually amazed at the ease of use in the area of updates, when it comes to using my Chromebook to write with. Even if I let the updates happen as soon as I’m prompted about them, they’re completed quickly, with the computer restarting in a matter of seconds. Forget about doing that with Windows or macOS systems that feature the latest bloatware available posing as operating systems.

If I can’t use the Chromebook for mobile writing assignments, for whatever reason, then I use a computer with a Linux distribution of some kind. My go-to Linux OS is Zorin 15. All Linux variants that I’ve used demonstrably handle updates much faster than either Windows or macOS, yet the Chromebook remains the winner when it comes to intrusions upon my productivity.

Pen, pencil, and paper never needed updates. They didn’t have spell and grammar checkers either. Since I learned to do it and up to current times, typing has always felt like an instinctual way to compose articles. Writing with pen and paper used to feel normal until I learned to type. You make adjustments as you go through life concerning the tools you use.

There was a recent article in Scientific American whose gist posed the possibility that the odds are 50-50 that we are virtual beings living in a computer simulation. The article goes on to explain that even though we may think hardware like the current, latest high-end gaming PC or iMac Pro are fast, their speeds pale in comparison to the computing power that may be manipulating us.

I felt a strange sense of peace after reading all of this. When I was younger I wondered about whether or not we had free will or if everything was just fate. The Scientific American article once again brought these thoughts racing back anew.

Most of the time our arrogance gets in the way of anyone but scientists considering existence such as this. We think we’re special because we haven’t found any other life to communicate with outside of who is here. If we could consider that maybe the reason we’re alone in the universe is that the simulation is designed to limit us in this respect, we might be humbled into treating each other with kindness more often than not.

If indeed we are living in a computer simulation it would explain some things, including:

Why I spent the first part of this blog considering the different hardware and software solutions that are my writing tools;

Why I wondered how it was I could write anything at all while I watched the Steelers wax the Titans;

How come weekends aren’t always three days;

Why 1% of the population controls 82% of the wealth in this country;

Why my favorite food has always been pizza; and

Why did the Steelers only end up barely beating the Titans?

The puppeteer must have a sense of humor.