The Simulation Argument and the Simulation Barrier

I can’t recall when I first heard Nick Bostrom’s Simulation Argument, but I know that it was a long time ago. It seems to resurface in the popular consciousness every few years — often when it is tied to the plot of a movie, or when a celebrity or entrepreneur makes reference to it.

The core of the argument can be found in the abstract of Bostrom’s original paper [1]:

This paper argues thatat least oneof the following propositions is true: (1) the human species is very likely to go extinct...