All scenarios / Cosmic & speculative
Simulation Shutdown
The devs lose funding. Servers go dark.
What it is
The simulation hypothesis says our universe might be a computer simulation run by a more advanced civilization, and that whoever runs it could simply switch it off.
Why it ranks where it does
Philosopher Nick Bostrom's 2003 paper argues that at least one of three things must be true. Civilizations almost never reach the ability to run detailed simulations, or they choose not to run them, or we're almost certainly living in one. That's a clever argument, but it gives no way to measure the chance of a shutdown, so the score is a token value.
Evidence on the board
- Unfalsifiable. Please do not file a ticket.
What the experts say
Physicists have proposed tests for signs that we're in a simulation, but none has found anything. Most scientists consider the idea untestable for now.
The movie vs. reality
The Matrix (1999) made the idea famous, but philosophers have asked versions of the question for centuries, from Plato's cave to Descartes' evil demon. Bostrom's version is different because it rests on a statistical argument: if simulated minds vastly outnumber real ones, you're probably one of them. Critics respond that we don't know whether consciousness can be simulated, or whether any civilization would spend the computing power. Either way, the practical advice is the same as for every other scenario: live as though it matters.
What would move the number
Up
- Any reproducible physical evidence of the universe running on a computational grid
Down
- Nothing can lower it, which is exactly the problem
Live signals we track
The baseline above is set from the evidence as of October 13, 2026. On the live board, your browser adjusts it in real time using these feeds. Chatter can only nudge a score in proportion to its evidence, so attention alone can't make an unlikely scenario look likely.
- Public attention: daily Wikipedia pageviews for Simulation hypothesis
- Online chatter: Hacker News stories mentioning "simulation hypothesis" this week vs. the prior eight weeks
Sources
- Bostrom 2003: Are You Living in a Computer Simulation?
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/1467-9213.00309 - Wikipedia: Simulation hypothesis
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simulation_hypothesis
Baseline scores are an editorial threat index from 0 to 100 that combines current reporting with published expert estimates. They're meant for comparing risks, not as actuarial forecasts. See how the numbers work.