Placebo Simulation

The limit case of ontological asymmetry: someone believes they are inside a simulation when they are not (Butters in South Park praising the "graphics" of a snorkel mask he was told was a VR headset). Bratton's point is that fooling the protagonist need not coerce a specific act; it can simply put them in a frame where "their desires can wander naturally." Useful as the inverse of the Truman case — a sim that exists only as belief — and as a probe for whether the experience of simulation depends on any artefact at all.