The Truman Show
The NFL is scripted. The Simpsons spoil tomorrow’s great reveal, Rory drives greens like it is a video game, and half our doctors graduate knowing zero about end of life care.
Every working day I sit with people facing the end and their families trying to make sense of it all. Lately though the whole setup feels a bit off. You remember The Truman Show? That poor sap living inside a giant dome while the world tuned in for entertainment? I am starting to think we are all in the same boat. The producers have simply gotten sneakier with the cameras.
First clue? The Simpsons. Those yellow cartoon idiots have predicted the future so many times it stopped being funny years ago. Trump as president? They nailed it in an episode that aired when he was still a punchline on the tabloid circuit. Disney buying Fox? Check. A global pandemic with toilet paper hoarding? They had that one too. It is not prophecy. It is foreshadowing. The writers are not creative geniuses. They are just reading the script ahead of time because someone upstairs fed them the plot points. In a real world this would be impossible. In a simulation it is Tuesday.
And do not get me started on professional football. The NFL is not a sport anymore. It is prime time television with pads. Every controversial call, every miraculous comeback, every perfectly timed rivalry feels too convenient. The league knows how to manufacture drama better than any soap opera. Just look at the Jacksonville Jaguars and their 2023 schedule release video. While the Chargers won the day with their Halo themed video, the Jaguars said the quiet part out loud.
Do not even get me started on Rory McIlroy at the PGA Championship this weekend. The man stood on the 402 yard sixth hole, hit a three hundred ninety seven yard drive at Aronimink, and drove the green. Drove it. The ball landed on the putting surface while the group ahead was still putting out. I watched the clip a dozen times. Humans have limits. Even the best golfers in the world have limits. We are not built to launch a little white ball four hundred yards through the air with that kind of precision. Yet here we are, cheering like it is normal. It is not normal. It is a graphics update. The devs got bored and cranked the power slider to eleven for a laugh. Inhuman accomplishment? More like inhuman coding.
And then ABC ran a promo for the NBA Eastern conference finals…before the team were even confirmed!
But here is the part that really sells me on the simulation theory. Medical education. How in the name of whatever runs this place do we graduate fifty percent of doctors with zero palliative care training? Let that sink in. Half the people we trust to guide us through our final chapter have never been taught how to have a serious conversation about dying. Not one rotation. Not one workshop. They learn how to intubate, how to prescribe, how to suture, how to operate. They do not learn how to sit with a family and say the hard truths without jargon or false hope. I see the results every week. Doctors who struggle when the prognosis turns grim. Learners who look at me like I am speaking another language when I talk about goals of care. It is not a training gap. It is a feature. The simulation wants drama. It wants families blindsided and patients suffering in silence while the white coats fumble through the final act. A well designed reality would make sure every doctor knew how to handle the one outcome we all share. This one does not. Because it is not designed for us. It is designed for ratings.
If the only certainty in life is death and taxes, why is it that only accountants know what they are doing (Thanks Julian et al.!)
Even the smart guys see it. Philosopher Nick Bostrom laid out the simulation argument back in 2003. He showed that if any advanced civilization can run realistic ancestor simulations then the vast majority of minds like ours would be living inside one rather than in base reality. Elon Musk has been saying the quiet part out loud for years. The man thinks there is a one in billions chance we are actually in the original reality. David Chalmers another heavyweight philosopher treats the whole idea as a legitimate metaphysical possibility not just sci fi speculation.
Think about it. The glitches keep piling up. Cartoons that spoil tomorrow. Athletes who bend physics. A league preordained. Healers who cannot manage the most human part of the job. None of it makes sense unless you accept the obvious. We are living inside a show. The dome is just better camouflaged. The extras are us. The writers are laughing somewhere. And every time Rory drives another impossible green or another med school spits out another doctor who has never learned how to say goodbye properly the producers high five and queue up the next plot twist.
I am not saying we should all walk into the ocean looking for the exit door. But maybe it is time to notice the set pieces. Maybe it is time to start asking why the script feels so sloppy lately. Because if this is real life it is doing a terrible job. If it is a simulation it is doing exactly what it was built to do.
References
Nick Bostrom, “Are You Living in a Computer Simulation?” Philosophical Quarterly 53, no. 211 (2003): 243–255. https://www.simulation-argument.com/simulation.html
Elon Musk, comments on simulation hypothesis, Code Conference 2016 and subsequent interviews.
David Chalmers, Reality+: Virtual Worlds and the Problems of Philosophy (W.W. Norton, 2022), with extensive discussion of simulation scenarios.
Jacksonville Jaguars 2023 NFL Schedule Release Video
Rory McIlroy drives the green on the 397 yard par four sixth hole, PGA Championship at Aronimink, May 2026.
The Simpsons future predictions documented across multiple episodes including “Bart to the Future” (2000).
Association of American Medical Colleges and related studies on palliative care training gaps in North American medical education showing that a significant portion (often cited around 50%) of graduating physicians receive little to no formal instruction in end of life communication and symptom management.