Welcome To Your Simulation
By Craig B. Garner
Founder
Garner Health Law Corporation
Original Publish Date: December 5, 2023
“There is no salvation in becoming adapted to a world which is crazy.” Henry Valentine Miller
Life On Planet (Flat) Earth
We live on a flat Earth stuck inside a simulation leading us to believe our actions push the planet toward a cataclysmic event any day now. Escape is impossible as the firmament blocks us from above while Antarctica’s ice wall prevents travel to any of the twenty enlightened continents on the other side. This is the reality in which we exist, most likely fiction created by few yet disseminated to most through the magic of the World Wide Web.
Inside this simulation, however, the comforts of modern living can be plentiful. Around the flat Earth there exists almost seven billion smartphones, a handheld device with endless possibilities: It enables communication with almost anyone at any time, engages in international commerce from the bathtub, monitors individual health, and perhaps most important, provides salient updates on Antarctica and its wall, which alien species is friend or foe, and real time tracking of Mandela effect examples. At the same time, do we really need to know what lurks below the frozen surface of the seventh continent, the Tartarian Empire’s influence on modern architecture, or whether use of the Large Hadron Collider on Higgs boson in 2012 launched this very simulation from which this health care publication posts this article?
The Power of Faith
To be sure, the architects of the simulation created a masterpiece, but it still struggles to compete with the power of providence and the monopoly it holds eternally on faith. The significance of Elysium throughout history and in modern times continues to chip away at the simulation from its vantage point high above the firmament. Whether through daily practice, documented miracles or simply the power of coincidence, faith endures in perpetuity.
The science of medicine serves as an existential bridge between the corporeal world and the hereafter, always mindful that the will to live is never mutually exclusive from a desire to meet our maker. It comes as no surprise nor coincidence that health care’s preeminent institution, the hospital, maintains portals between life and death while hosting the unrelenting efforts to eliminate illness and disease under the same roof as the chaplain. Indeed, those who pass through the hospital doors can reflect upon the dearth of meaningful knowledge about what happens inside the four walls of the operating room from the comfort of the hospital chapel.
Why reCAPTCHA Matters
Still, the simulation remains a formidable foe that should not be underestimated. Life in the modern world with its epic advances in technology and medical science face contemporary challenges that threaten to undermine medical science in its entirety. An estimated 94% of households in the United States own a personal computer, yet few possess meaningful knowledge about the Internet indexed by web search engines and even less about the dark and deep web. Events within the dark web remain a mystery to most, except possibly threat actors who try to exploit vulnerabilities in computer systems, networks and software to perpetuate a variety of cyberattacks, including phishing, ransomware and malware attacks. The likes of confirmation codes sent through text, authenticator applications and reCAPTCHA’s elusive online puzzle with mountains, busses and traffic lights serve as a daily reminder that the Internet, the simulation’s ultimate weapon, may not be just for grins and giggles.
Nevertheless, the Internet’s impact on daily life remains profound, especially when deployed to circumvent the delivery of modern medicine through licensed practitioners. Without a firm grasp of the Internet’s foundation, the World Wide Web becomes little more than a “pass/fail test” that rests upon whether or not a connection is available, and the speed with which data flows. In fact, the absence of a connection for any prolonged period of time is unfathomable and indescribable, the results of which would ultimately cause hospitals around the world to overflow. Make no mistake, a world without an internet connection remains a terrifying threat today, far greater than even Serge Monast’s 1994 publication of “Project Blue Beam (NASA)”.
Society remains beholden to medical science as much as it does any antithetical information appearing online, a countermeasure deployed by the simulation in the form of irony after studying popular culture before creating its own Kobayashi Maru. In response, faith still remains the final answer, even with its own complexities. In fact, faith’s practical demands today possibly exceed by an order of magnitude historical expectations as far back as those 102 passengers who dropped anchor near Cape Cod, Massachusetts some 403 years ago on November 21, 1620.
The Intersection of Faith and Science
Faith resonates deep within the core of this flat planet’s inhabitants for those things about which we know so little. Surgery patients still rely upon conscious and unconscious faith, although a good anesthesiologist will remove any unpleasant memories from the experience. Those with less acute complications may forego the suggestions from a local health care practitioner, opting instead for a personalized version of virtual medicine, never really grasping the consequences of such actions. After all, many professional endeavors forego the actual professional, leaving complex tasks in the hands of practically anyone. If a criminal defendant can serve as his or her own counsel in a death penalty case, what stops the same in propria persona from being both doctor and patient in an attempt to remove the appendix? Even accomplished surgeons turn to other surgeons when the need arises, although these select few health care providers who instill faith in the other health care providers who instill faith in everyone else may as well be medical science’s version of the Illuminati.
Irrespective of the level of conviction between doctors, faith can be fickle in health care, mostly because this particular brand of faith comes with a firm expectation. Patients place complete trust in health care providers mostly because no other options exist. Believers and more often non-believers turn to faith in times of crisis mostly because no other perceived options exist. Both medical science and faith lack capacity to endure an unlimited surge on its assets, whether tangible or intangible. In health care, systematic failure can result in the unthinkable, the aftermath of which may resemble fourteenth century Europe and North Africa following the Plague and the estimated 200 million lives it claimed. Should faith reach its proverbial breaking point, there are historical references from which to imagine such consequences, like the Book of Revelation from Christian eschatology. If and when the simulation ends or technology finds a way to break through the firmament, however, it may be best to ignore such a scenario until it escalates into something we can understand.
Craig Garner is the founder of Garner Health Law Corporation, as well as a healthcare consultant specializing in issues pertaining to modern American healthcare. Craig is also an adjunct professor of law at Pepperdine University School of Law. He can be reached at craig@garnerhealth.com.