Real

OMG GUYS LET'S WRITE SOME STORIES

Simon and Sam challenge you all to a short story writing competition! All you need to do is write your story on Medium and post a link to it in the comments. We're going to make a collection on Medium. If we love your story we'll read a bit of it out loud on our next podcast. Do eeet! You have until next Tuesday. Whenever next Tuesday might be for you.

In this very drippy episode, Sam and Simon consider whether we might be living in a video game. We talk about whole mind simulation, Rick & Morty, keeping it real, and debate whether or not humans might ever forget how plumbing works. Again.

Things we talk about:

Power, Sex, Suicide: Mitochondria and the Meaning of Life by Nick Lane.This article proving that we know nothing about how weight loss works.Wait But Why writing about Cryonics.The Playboy interview with Ray Kurzweil. Simon reads it for the articles.The philosophical brilliance of Rick & Morty.Whether Jake from Adventure Time is super-creepy.The Four Agreements by Don Miguel Ruiz.The Dot Spot by Dorothy Black.Superintelligence by Nick Bostrom.J. G. Ballard books. All of them, but specifically Concrete Island.Two of the best short stories ever, "The Last Question" and "The Last Answer" by Isaac Asimov.

“We aren’t fleshy bags of magic. We’re fleshy bags of bacteria.””

— Simon Dingle