They are right. We are living in an ancestor simulation. Under some arcane law for a culture we know nothing about Sentient Intelligences have a right to exist. What happens when the academic group studying ancestor behavior runs out of funding and must sell the entire project to a media conglomerate? The largest reality show ever! With some editorial review the company determines that humans from the era being studied are both predictable and boring. For most people things change slowly. For an unlucky few the world changes drastically in an instant.