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Nick Bostrom's "simulation argument" purports to show that if it is possible to create and run a vast number of computer simulations indistinguishable from the reality we are living in, then it is highly probable that we are already living in a computer simulation. However, the simulation argument requires a modification to escape the undermining implications of the scepticism it implies, as argued by Birch. The present paper shows that, even if the modified simulation argument is valid, still it is unsound since it relies on the indistinguishability assumption that even in principle cannot be tested. To account for the unsoundness of the simulation argument, the present paper draws on John Woods' theory of fiction, to expose structural similarities between general fiction and the simulation argument. Though the simulation argument is unsound, it seems persuasive, because the argument immerses the reader in a fictive world with the help of tacit assumptions, leveraging just enough common sense to remain compelling while covering over an untestable premise. Simultaneously with the critique of Bostrom's argument, Chalmers' argument for the matrix hypothesis is assessed on similar criteria. In either case, both arguments rely on an accumulation of assumptions, both implicit and explicit, hiding the premises that are untestable in principle. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Queer people have always been here; for as long as we have existed, so has the awareness of our obvious otherness, as well as the desperate need to understand and reconcile our whats, hows, and whys. Literature has persevered as an outlet for LGBTQ+ exploration, increasingly so as the publishing industry responds to a more accepting society of queer people, writers, and stories. This paper will explore a proposed dichotomy of publishing's current treatment of queer literature between the adult and young adult markets, through the supplemental lenses of their individual and cultural histories: to help analyze the present and form pictures of our industry's future, we need to understand our past. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper offers a statistical overview of bibliodiversity in the Latvian book market—a small language market in terms of the number of Latvian language users and home for people from varied ethnic and national backgrounds. Diversity of the book output during 1991–2020 is analysed in terms of languages and general categories in which books are published, shares of literary genres in fiction publishing, shares of original and translated fiction titles, languages from which fiction titles are translated, as well as the background of fiction authors who have been translated and published in Latvia. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]