You Are Redundant

"Well, you know what I think?"

Yes. All too well. I've known you for a decade, and all you do is talk. I know exactly what you think. A large portion of my brain is wasted on a simulation of you. Whenever the question of 'what you think' comes up, I merely run that simulation. And then I have the answer.

In a sense, you are redundant. I have a copy of you in my head. What do I need you for? If I killed you, and then could adequately describe to a court of law how I have a copy of you in my head, I would be found not guilty of murder.

Instead, they would give me some sort of prize. Maybe they'd invent a new Nobel category for rendering the universe more efficient. I would humbly accept my award and donate the prize money to a new non-profit organization.

And that organization would pair people up. By lottery, I assume. All the people of the world, paired up. You and your partner would then be forced to live together and socialize for ten years. And when one person could adequately demonstrate that they can run an accurate simulation of the other, the simulated person would be humanely put to death.

The test would be something like 10 questions. If you can predict, 9 times out of 10, what your partner would say, then you win, and your partner is executed.

In this way, we could reduce the human population by half. In some cases, where people are particularly simple and predictable, we could even improve on that -- maybe reduce the population by 75%.

I think I personally could run accurate simulations of 4 or 5 people. Killing off those 4 or 5 humans would certainly reduce their drain on the environment and the world at large.

Then, if anyone wanted to talk to those people, they could just phone me.

Can I speak to John? they would ask me.

Sure, I'd answer, and then run my simulation of John. They could pretty much have a conversation as though John were still alive. It would be as if he'd never been humanely executed and ground up for fertilizer.

So, to sum up: yes, I know exactly what you think. There's no need for you to ever open your mouth again. And if you'd like to save the state the expense of an execution, you could do us all a favour and kill yourself.

I'm sorry. That was entirely inappropriate. Go ahead. Tell me what you think. I'm all ears.