We are not in one. And it comes down to resources and self preservation. Firstly: you need to recognise that virtual life is as real as physical life (you fee

We are not in one. And it comes down to resources and self preservation. Firstly: you need to recognise that virtual life is as real as physical life (you feel and experience a world - it doesn't mater if its digital representation or physical one). Now consider this: If you live in a simulation, a VM, then you serve some kind of purpose to person that spawned you. A game, a experiment, a collage thesis... whatever. If you start running your own universe simulations (VM) that have a chance of spawning their own VMs, you are increasingly more power intensive to simulate. VM -> VM -> VM -> VM, there is a chain or tree of VM being created and new ones will be created all the time. At some stage the original person who started the VM chain will see the whole thing slowing down and becoming ever more useless - eventually causing then to shut it down (or restart it). So, if that is true and we are in one of nodes in VM chain (or tree) the most optimal survival strategy is to not put any strain or hardware that is simulating us, or we risk deletion.