So instead of a simulation, maybe we’re living inside of some other type of thing we’re hard-wired to be unable to even think of—and maybe “simulation” is the idea we’re hard-wired to replace it with.
I like this observation a lot. Because I was going to say that if we couldn't conceive of a simulation, we'd probably just speculate about the closest thing we could imagine.
Like a limited 'fake' world edifice structured through legal fictions like money, debt and contracts, which attempts to assert that it is significantly more powerful and pervasive than it actually is, through stories like The Matrix, to instill a sense of hopelessness upon anyone who even considers not submitting to it.