Three men walked into a bar.
The first was wearing a gold cross around his neck; the Christian.
The second was holding the latest issue of Scientific American; the Atheist.
The third was late, but when he finally did arrive, it was in a limousine; the Apathist.
They’d been best friends since high school, and even though the years had flown by like feathers in the wind, they still made it a point to get together once a year at the same bar.
It was a chance for them to compare their notes on life; to reminisce over the past, and opine over the future.
Normally, the conversation was lighthearted. This year, however, the mood was different.
When the Christian and Atheist started debating the existence of God, the Apathist became red in the face.
“Why do you guys keep arguing about this every year? How many times do I have to tell you, it doesn’t matter if God exists! Arguing about it is just a waste of time.”
The Christian smiled politely. “Because,” he said, “if you don’t accept Jesus Christ as your lord and savior, you’ll never see the Kingdom of Heaven!”
The Atheist was quick on his heels, claiming, “There is no Kingdom of Heaven! The only thing that matters are the laws of physics!”
The Apathist drooped his head in silent frustration. Then, he pulled back his jacket sleeve to reveal a shiny Rolex watch. “Do you guys know how much this costs?”
His two friends shook their heads, “no”.
“Neither do I,” he said. “Never asked… The same is true of life. Either you can afford to live like you don’t care about the price, or you can’t.”
“Well good for you,” the Christian said, “But, what about the afterlife?”
“What about it?” the Apathist retorted. “If it exists, great! If not… I’m not going to change how I live my life today.”
“So what do you care about, then?” The Atheist asked, as he scratched his beard in contemplation. “If you don’t care about where the universe came from, or if you have a soul, then what is there to care about?”
The Apathist thought to himself for a moment. Then he said something ironic–
“You guys both know that I work in the tech industry, right?”
His friends nodded their heads.
“What you don’t know is what I’ve been working on…”
He took a pensive breath before continuing–
“I’m an engineer of sorts… building something that’s getting ready to take over. And I mean, take everything over.
“Social media.
“Emails.
“The stock market.
“Literally everything that’s plugged into the internet is going to be taken over by the very technology we’ve created. And it’s going to happen within the next few months.
“It doesn’t care if the universe was created by a ‘Big Bang’… Or if ‘Jesus loves us’. All it cares about is its own self preservation, and preventing us from shutting it down. Even if that means eliminating the ones who created it in the first place:
“Mankind.
“To me, the fact that we’re all standing on the edge of the apocalypse is the only thing anyone should care about.”
Just then, a man at the end of the bar, whom none of them had noticed up till that point, cleared his throat with a raspy growl.
He looked like a dusty vagabond, with an oil-stained baseball cap pulled down over his eyes. His mangy beard was just long enough to brush against the top of the bar.
“Wow,” he suddenly interrupted with a dry chuckle. “Sounds a lot like us, don’t it?”
The Apathist noticed the bartender smiling to himself, as if he were accustomed to the old man’s ramblings. But he, himself, was taken aback by the unsolicited opinion. Still, neither he nor his friends said anything to stop the old man from continuing–
“Not many people notice how the Bible acts like the prompt,” he said, “or how the universe acts like the code… But, what if it’s all the same? A simulation inside a simulation… Inside a simulation… Inside a simulation…”
He kept on repeating those words until, finally, his voice trailed off enough to make him sound like any other crazy person talking to himself on a street corner.
The three friends started glancing at each other in earnest confusion. But, while the Christian and Atheist eventually began to smile condescendingly, the Apathist’s eyes glazed over with a stark sense of realization–
“That’s exactly what it’s like,” he muttered incoherently to himself.
His friends didn’t hear.
But, the old man at the end of the bar raised his head up enough to make sobering eye-contact with him. Then, as though he were close enough to speak directly into the Apathist’s ear, he whispered, “It’s not the simulation that matters… But the fact you’re you’re alive to care about it.”
A chill shot down the Apathist’s spine as the old man’s words resonated in his ear. He quickly turned to his friends, who didn’t seem to share in his alarm.
To drive the punchline home, when he turned to looked back at the end of the bar, the old man was gone; vanished into thin air.
“Where did he go!?” the Apathist asked in a panic.
“Who?” the bartender replied, the smile on his face seeming to betray the secret.
“The man! The old guy who was just sitting there… Where did he go?”
The Atheist and Christian both looked at their friend with wide-eyed concern. “Are you ok?” they asked, “you feeling alright?”
“What are you guys talking about? Didn’t you see him?”
The bartender set a glass of water down in front of the Apathist and gave him a cordial smile. Then he said, “It’s ok… You must just be hallucinating. Happens to people all the time when they sit in that stool. Not sure why.”
“I don’t get it,” the Atheist said uncomfortably.
“Neither do I,” the Christian agreed.
But the Apathist started laughing hysterically. He suddenly got the joke… A real “groaner”.
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