Simulation Hypothesis: Living In The Matrix? Tech Billionaires Funding Research To Get Out

Tech billionaires' latest obsession -- outside of suing websites into oblivion and attending odd, expensive festivals in the desert -- is apparently one that gripped the country in 1999. The good news: According to a New Yorker story this week, a couple of tech billionaires are secretly funding research to break us out. Jokes aside, the idea is called the simulation hypothesis and it's growing in popularity with the Silicon Valley nouveau-riche, as well as in idiosyncratic corners of Reddit. The New Yorker piece by Tad Friend was centered on Sam Altman, CEO of the "startup accelerator" Y Combinator, but took a detour into Matrix territory. Wrote Friend: "Many people in Silicon Valley have become obsessed with the simulation hypothesis, the argument that what we experience as reality is in fact fabricated in a computer; two tech billionaires have gone so far as to secretly engage scientists to work on breaking us out of the simulation."