Isn’t assumption 1 (“It is possible for technology to simulate consciousness and human civilization at scale”) covered by outcome 1 (“Civilizations end before they can start simulations”)? With the tiny implicit assumption that civilizations aren’t eternal.

An argument that tries to refute a fairly dumb argument in favor of an idea does not, in fact, negate the idea.

> It is possible for technology to simulate consciousness and human civilization at scale

We know it is possible because consciousness, if whatever we call "consciousness" is actually a thing, is currently being generated/run "organically" in the world we occupy. There's no reason to believe it can happen in this universe but not inside a computer in this universe.

I think it's a lot more interesting to look for practical markers of simulation than do a teleological thought experiment.

How would a simulated universe differ from a "real" one? How would the simulation cut corners to save resources? Maybe the laws of physics are designed not just to produce interesting results, but also to be efficient to run.

Karl Friston and Steven Wolfram are sniffing around here, with cellular automata and free energy describing ways of partitioning space so it's cheaper to update

funny, I have this persistant kind of feeling that our computers are somehow not working acording to logic and reason just arbitrary functions designedby clowns, and fantisise about what computers would work like in the real world