This post expands on the idea of living in this simulation as a phase of education. Note the connections to my thread
https://transforum.fractalfuture.net/t/the-problem-of-decadence/2221
We are the elite of the Above in training
If it is indeed the case that being initialized in the Above comes with the high risk of developing a decadent character, then it does make sense to initialize beings in simulations that are optimized for the purpose of letting new minds develop resilience against decadence. This doesn’t need to extent to all the inhabitants of the simulation. It’s enough if a small minority of the inhabitants of such a simulation develop the desired traits or skills. Those will then be transferred to the next stages of education, while the rests gets discarded as candidates for the future elite of the Above, and may continue to exist in paradise-like simulations – or not at all.
In simpler terms: Our world may be a hardcore bootcamp with a 99.9999% failure rate, and only the very best will become further candidates from which the new blood of the elite of the Above is recruited. It does make sense to select for individuals which succeed under unfavourable circumstances and prove to be virtuous under the greatest adversities. Why settle with less, if you can test such individuals in your simulations?
Perhaps in the distant future in which such simulations are possible, everything will be ruled by perfect AGIs? Well, we don’t know much about how the mids of the ruling AGIs will operate. Perhaps they will be very much inhuman, in which case any connection of their origin to actual humans will be minimal. On the other hand, they may include at least certain modules that operate in a human-like fashion. We could actually be those modules in their initial testing phase. After we will have passed the tests in this world, we will be assembled into greater minds as components who remember to have been human (in order to be able to empathize with humans, and similar reasons).