Jupiterday Humor: Who are the NPC’s in this Game of Life?

Okay, so I can’t seem to get the whole life is a simulation meme out of my head. It’s simultaneously liberating, because life is all B.S., and fascinating, because of all the potential implications.

Thinking about life as just a really advanced video game begs the obvious: Who are the Non-Player Characters? The bots? The game’s A.I.s?

I’ve got my suspicions:

Atrios: Despite the existence of pictures of this blogger who runs Eschaton, I firmly believe this human is merely an actor. The reality is that Atrios is just a clever algorithm, a liberal-pundit flavor of A.L.I.C.E. Bot, perpetually web-crawling the news and spitting out short, liberal-rants to perpetuate the hyper-active commenters on his–or rather–its blog.

Young Republicans: With a name like “dittohead,” and so many pre-programmed knee-jerk responses to political keywords, you just know these plastic-looking pod-people are just game AI’s like the characters in Ultima.

Fraggles:

Fraggles are not Real

Fraggles are not real, no matter how sexually attractive I may have found Mokey in my confused youth.

Ryan Somma (aka. “me”): I’m a bot. I’ll do everything in my power to convince you I’m not a bot, that’s because the Cartesian Duality phenomena in my brain has me convinced that my mind is separate and distinct from my body. It’s not my fault I think I’m a real person, I’m just programmed that way.

So are you. : P

George Bush’s “One-Fingered Victory Salute”

George “W” Bush Jr.: This one’s a no-brainer. I mean, come on. A bumbling, uninquisitive, academically-challenged doofus of a man who’s failed his way up all his life, even into the Presidency, is given Ceasar-like authority over America’s democracy because a handful of criminals pulled off some Michael Bay-esque terrorist stunt given the catchy title “9/11???”

Obviously the programmer has a fantastic nose for satire; however, the absurdity of this dramatic situation seriously strains one’s suspension of disbelief. I want my money back.