This places unnecessary restrictions on their ability to simulate things. For example we could all be the exact same student living every single life as every single person. Including all the babies who get spawn killed. Or alternatively we could be 8 billion or so students all participating in the same simulated world with altered memories. Each of us randomly assigned a life at this snapshot of history.

Also the argument of im conscious so i have agency doesnt really jive either. Your memories could all be fake. Your decisions all manipulated in a way youd never notice. The idea we have free will at all is debatable honestly. I mean we didnt choose to exist, and we can’t choose to stop existing. Your body won’t even let you bite off your own finger go ahead and try. There are always guardrails in place. We have limited agency even if we assume the decisions we do make are our own.

I tend to take the view of humanity itself being like a super organism. All of us en masse are collectively reacting to the material reality around us, and operating much like cells in a body might. We can individually choose to do some things, but generally we are slaves to our own personal reality. Where we were born, who our families are, who we meet, etc. The Human species itself continues to grow and develop on a macro scale as we go about our lives. We are like many small pieces that make up a greater whole. Its like how we view Bees or Ants. We see them as “hive minded” but they really arent. Theyre all individuals who are part of a greater whole. They all do things independently as well. It just so happens that these independent choices thanks to evolution line up to be coordinated, and seem as though they are all controlled by the same “mind” because they are all reacting to the same stimulus, and all have the same goals, and similar psychology.

So thinking of humanity as a unit, rather than thinking of all humans as individuals, gives a new perspective. Why simulate 1 small part of a greater whole, but not the rest of it? Everything causes reactions. Even a baby that dies right away. It has an effect on the world that ripples out in ways we can’t begin to measure. The mother reacts to its death, maybe becomes bitter, is rude to someone on the train, that person goes home to take out their anger on their children, their children bully others at school because of home troubles, now how would that child being bullied know it was because some womans baby died last week? Not even the bully knows that. In fact there isn’t a single human being who knows that. Because everyone only has pieces of it. All of us are interconnected in ways we can’t fully understand.

If though you could simulate 1 day for the earth. Then have a student live that 1 day as every single person. They’d begin to understand a bit. Bringing it back to capitalism. Capitalism itself corrupts. Its a system that rewards selfish and destructive behaviors. greed. What better way to teach a student about that then to have them live as both the miner who slaves away, and the mines owner who happily benefits? And to live as the victims of climate change when the coal gets burned, and causes worse storms. To see the world from all these different perspectives. To experience both oppression, and being corrupted and committing atrocities yourself. To learn first hand that nobody is immune to reactionary thought. To learn how to recognize the warning signs, and avoid them. To grow your empathy for your fellow humans by literally standing in their shoes.

Frankly i don’t think we live in a simulation. But i was thinking well if we do its got to be socialists doing the simulating. Capitalism wouldn’t do something unless it was for profit, and i don’t see how they could profit from this. So why would socialists simulate our world? I think one of the most plausible reasons is as i described above. To learn from history so as to not repeat it.