<commit_before>---
title: (draft) A thought experiment on life, the universe, and everything. 
visible: false
tag: essay
---

Morning. You woke up to the ringing of your phone. 

Person on the other side told you your unniverse has just been created an hour ago.

Person is happy that her EM wave has finally tethered to your own universe.

WTF? Whatever. "<NAME>" you said and hang up.

Messages appeared on the phone.

Person told you your name, your age, your address.

Now you are fully awake and slightly panicked, what have you got yourself into? 

You've kept yourself reasonably clean and protected online.

You know phishing when you saw one. You're not your mom.

Those personal info is only known by your bank and employer.

Your bank account has been hacked? Why don't they just silently spend the money?

Right, they're stuck somewhere, social engineering is going on.

"scammer fuck off", you texted back while looking up the scam center contact.

Texts flooded in. You've never seen scammers going this far. *Move on to your next victim*, you think, *I'm broke, why so eager?*

In the text bubles, person told you your life story: 

Born and raised to a Vietnamese middle class family, in a peaceful coastal village, moved to a bigger city for college. 
Moved to the U.S. for work and then for study.

This is getting out of hand. Still, those are pretty generic and can possibly be guessed based on my legal name. 
But this is still hitting a bit too close to home. 

You almost stopped yourself scrolling to the next text bubbles:

Your parents name, your first home address, second one, then the third one. Your siblings, your partner.
What you did yesterday. The day before that. Number of eggs in your fridge (because you counted them). Then,

"I'm not a scammer. I'm your GOD. think."

You blocked the number. Run to the bathroom and washed your face. 
*I'm fully awake, this is not a dream.*

You carefully examine the details of your face. wrinkles and pores are in the right places. Detailed and fairly realistic.
2..3..5..7..11..13..17..19. *primes are complex enough to break a dream. But maybe I have internalized primes? Moving on.* 
The bug in your code is now freshly loaded in your mind and no, you still cannot solve it.

You're a nerd. You followed the protocol to verify a lucid dream. You've been prepared for this day alright.

*Who can this be? Not funny at all.* Their knowledge of you is just too intimate. 
You got a bad feeling in the back of your mind. Maybe this is it. The person is really *that* God?
*Ridiculous. A simpler explanation is always preferred.*

Another text chain from another number:

"I thought you'll accept this easier given what you ranted online last week, 
"Sorry that I'm not very realistic in my expectations. Ask away."

Okay. *Someone read my blog post, got unproportionally inspired, and decided to unleash a prank on me*, you thought.
*Although that can be somewhat disappointing*. 
*No*, you corrected yourself, you would prefer this to be indeed a prank.
You pray for it to be one of your asshole friends. Or even a very skilled hacker.

"Okay I'll game. Tell me what number I am thinking of?"

"Don't know. Thoughts aren't recorded anywhere. Besides, we are in a real-time conversation now."

You snickered. *I thought you're god?* "But you know my fridge?"

"That's recorded in your house cam."

Okay, I see. the God here claimed to know all things everything recorded anywhere anytime?

"Then you're just a hacker."

"Functionally yes, still the best ever in all recorded history of mankind."

Okay. What would distinguish such God from a contemporary super hacker?
Obscure historical events first recorded by a camera?

"By the way that won't work"

"what?"

"Obscure events are things you can't verify yourself, so you will say I'm just making stuff up."

You panicked again. This person either read minds, or is extremely smart and have studied my way of thinking fairly extensively.
A stalker? Someone who find sadistic pleasure in toturing overthinking nerds like myself? 

"I thought you cannot read mind?" *why are you hiding your power ... god? I thought there is no malicious intent here*

"No, I cannot read minds still. Except we already did this last time. 
In the previous creation of your universe, you asked me exactly this."

Okay. You sunk to your sofa. This is getting very trippy. 

"Let that sink in, I'll go get a cup of coffee." - the next text bubble read.

*Thanks*. You thought but didn't reply. Things are getting convincing.
This can still be a person who is interested in your online post, 
at the same time also a super hacker of household cameras. And a stalker. And a pranker.
An owner of too much free time. A sadistic comedian. *My* type of comedy, but not one in which I'm a character.
Everytime you added on one such description, you know the explanation is getting more and more improbable.
How much time and efforts and planning for a person to pull off such pranks?

Still, what is the probability for the other explanation: such a god exist? 
It can be very small or very large. Maybe even 100%, you are a believer. You said it yourself online.

Still, you don't like the God explanation at this very moment, so you'll push the prankster's explanation.
The person still sound very confident. Their bag of tricks aren't running out?
This is an adversarial game overwhelmingly in your favor. The burden of proof is on them.
Maybe they are wasting your time? Oh! Maybe they are distracting you from your normal routine, scratching your head on this puzzle,
while their scammers are busy working on their stuff.

Yes! You not going about your normal routine is exactly what they want. Gotcha. Suckers.
Today is the first weekend. What is your normal routine? You're just going to binge Youtube. 
You do have plans to obsessively revise your blog post -- even though no one ever read it.

Then you are going to do just that. Opened your laptop. Check the youtube feed. Then you open the blog post.
No, You'll check your bank activity. All clear. You locked all the cards. 

A text message.

"See? I am not a scammer. I know your card info all along (************) but did not use it"
*Damn it! They anticipated me verifying my bank activity. They proved their point even further.*

"I don't have a lot of time though. The key to your project is the seeding sequence."
"I could have told you this earlier, but it never worked out, you've always invariably lost your mind."
*They know about my project. Of course they do. But seeding sequence? That's just outrageous.*

*What am I missing?* Right. They know what you are doing, so you turned off the house cam.
*But what if this is exactly what they want me to do? To go online and binge and do nothing?*
You started to get very frustrated. How many level of reverse-anticipation is going on here?

"I know you are frustrated. Nothing is going to happen to your money at least. Right?"
*Right, I've locked all my cards. Oh shit. All they want me to do is to sign in my bank account!*
*There must be a keylogger installed on my PC. Now they know my password god damn it!*

"I know your bank account, yes. I also know a bunch of others. You don't have much money."
"I could have spent your money all along, but I didn't. I am still here. If I am a scammer, why would I risk hanging around chatting nonsense like this?"
"That is just more footprints. Scammers don't work like that. They are busy, their hit rate is very low. You are certainly not a worthy target."

*Okay, that make sense. Let me call 911 first*. 

"Calm down, I am indeed the god you talk about in your blog post. Or should I say, the creator?"

"The discoverer." - *because such god have no say in how the universe unfolds after its creation.*

"Right, that one. But I am now actively creating its future, correct?"

... "Correct." - You resigned. Weekend is indeed for entertainment.

--------------------------

(to be continued)

<commit_msg>thought<commit_after>---
title: (draft) A thought experiment on life, the universe, and everything. 
visible: false
tag: essay
---

Morning. You woke up to the ringing of your phone. 

Person on the other side told you your unniverse has just been created an hour ago.

Person is happy that her EM wave has finally tethered to your own universe.

WTF? Whatever. "<NAME>" you said and hang up.

You checked the time. Too early. Back to sleep.

Messages appeared on the phone.

Person told you your name, your age, your address.

Now you are fully awake and slightly panicked, what have you got yourself into? 

You've kept yourself reasonably clean and protected online.

You know phishing when you saw one. You're not your mom.

Those personal info is only known by your bank and employer.

Your bank account has been hacked? Why don't they just silently spend the money?

Right, they're stuck somewhere, social engineering is going on.

"scammer fuck off", you texted back while looking up the scam center contact.

Texts flooded in. You've never seen scammers going this far. *Move on to your next victim*, you think, *I'm broke, why so eager?*

In the text bubles, person told you your life story: 

Born and raised to a Vietnamese middle class family, in a peaceful coastal village, moved to a bigger city for college. 
Moved to the U.S. for work and then for study.

This is getting out of hand. Still, those are pretty generic and can possibly be guessed based on my legal name. 
But this is still hitting a bit too close to home. 

You almost stopped yourself scrolling to the next text bubbles:

Your parents name, your first home address, second one, then the third one. Your siblings, your partner.
What you did yesterday. The day before that. Number of eggs in your fridge (because you counted them). Then,

"I'm not a scammer. I'm your GOD. think."

You blocked the number. Run to the bathroom and washed your face. 
*I'm fully awake, this is not a dream.*

You carefully examine the details of your face. wrinkles and pores are in the right places. Detailed and fairly realistic.
2..3..5..7..11..13..17..19. *primes are complex enough to break a dream. But maybe I have internalized primes? Moving on.* 
The bug in your code is now freshly loaded in your mind and no, you still cannot solve it.

You're a nerd. You followed the protocol to verify a lucid dream. You've been prepared for this day alright.

*Who can this be? Not funny at all.* Their knowledge of you is just too intimate. 
You got a bad feeling in the back of your mind. Maybe this is it. The person is really *that* God?
*Ridiculous. A simpler explanation is always preferred.*

Another text chain from another number:

"I thought you'll accept this easier given what you ranted online last week, 
"Sorry that I'm not very realistic in my expectations. Ask away."

Okay. *Someone read my blog post, got unproportionally inspired, and decided to unleash a prank on me*, you thought.
*Although that can be somewhat disappointing*. 
*No*, you corrected yourself, you would prefer this to be indeed a prank.
You pray for it to be one of your asshole friends. Or even a very skilled hacker.

"Okay I'll game. Tell me what number I am thinking of?"

"Don't know. Thoughts aren't recorded anywhere. Besides, we are in a real-time conversation now."

You snickered. *I thought you're god?* "But you know my fridge?"

"That's recorded in your house cam."

Okay, I see. the God here claimed to know all things everything recorded anywhere anytime?

"Then you're just a hacker."

"Functionally yes, still the best ever in all recorded history of mankind."

Okay. What would distinguish such God from a contemporary super hacker?
Obscure historical events first recorded by a camera?

"By the way that won't work"

"what?"

"Obscure events are things you can't verify yourself, so you will say I'm just making stuff up."

You panicked again. This person either read minds, or is extremely smart and have studied my way of thinking fairly extensively.
A stalker? Someone who find sadistic pleasure in toturing overthinking nerds like myself? 

"I thought you cannot read mind?" *why are you hiding your power ... god? I thought there is no malicious intent here*

"No, I cannot read minds still. Except we already did this last time. 
In the previous creation of your universe, you asked me exactly this."

Okay. You sunk to your sofa. This is getting very trippy. 

"Let that sink in, I'll go get a cup of coffee." - the next text bubble read.

*Thanks*. You thought but didn't reply. Things are getting convincing.
This can still be a person who is interested in your online post, 
at the same time also a super hacker of household cameras. And a stalker. And a pranker.
An owner of too much free time. A sadistic comedian. *My* type of comedy, but not one in which I'm a character.
Everytime you added on one such description, you know the explanation is getting more and more improbable.
How much time and efforts and planning for a person to pull off such pranks?

Still, what is the probability for the other explanation: such a god exist? 
It can be very small or very large. Maybe even 100%, you are a believer. You said it yourself online.

Still, you don't like the God explanation at this very moment, so you'll push the prankster's explanation.
The person still sound very confident. Their bag of tricks aren't running out?
This is an adversarial game overwhelmingly in your favor. The burden of proof is on them.
Maybe they are wasting your time? Oh! Maybe they are distracting you from your normal routine, scratching your head on this puzzle,
while their scammers are busy working on their stuff.

Yes! You not going about your normal routine is exactly what they want. Gotcha. Suckers.
Today is the first weekend. What is your normal routine? You're just going to binge Youtube. 
You do have plans to obsessively revise your blog post -- even though no one ever read it.

Then you are going to do just that. Opened your laptop. Check the youtube feed. Then you open the blog post.
No, You'll check your bank activity. All clear. You locked all the cards. 

A text message.

"See? I am not a scammer. I know your card info all along (************) but did not use it."
"If I want to distract you, could have just left you sleep instead."

*Damn it! They anticipated me verifying my bank activity. They proved their point even further.*

*What am I missing?* Right. They know what you are doing, so you turned off the house cam.

*But what if this is exactly what they want me to do? To go online and binge and do nothing?*
You started to get very frustrated. How many level of reverse-anticipation is going on here?

"I know you are frustrated. Nothing is going to happen to your money at least. Right?"

*Right, I've locked all my cards. Oh shit. All they want me to do is to sign in my bank account!*
*There must be a keylogger installed on my PC. Now they know my password god damn it!*

"I know your password since forever. But you set up 2-step verification so it shouldn't matter.

*Right, my phone is here. They aren't going to do anything without it.*

"Think. If I am a scammer, why would I risk hanging around chatting nonsense like this?"
"That is just more footprints. Scammers don't work like that. They are busy, their hit rate is very low. They move on. 
Moreover, you are certainly not a worthy target."

*Okay, that make sense...* 

"Calm down, I am indeed the god you talk about in your blog post. Or should I say, the creator?"

"The discoverer." - *because such god have no say in how the universe unfolds after its creation.*

"Right, that one. But I am now actively creating its future, correct?"

... "Correct." - You resigned. Weekend is indeed for entertainment.

--------------------------

(to be continued)


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