>Who cares if it's all pretend?

I guess that's just my personal idea. I would want my accomplishments to matter. If your accomplishments only matter to you in a mental and non-phsyical sense, then is it an accomplishment? Or do you just simply "not care"? I don't like this idea of blissful ignorance. I really don't think it will make anyone feel fulfilled in themselves.

If you mean expressing yourself as in socially, then yes a lot people do have trouble with that. That's why people go on the internet. I understand your viewpoint, though. People can manifest accomplishment in their own mind, but as if you are spending time living your life in an online chatroom, and one day you get banned from said chatroom, its addictive properties still linger while you sit with the sinking realization that THAT was your life for a period of time you just wasted. I do see virtual stuff like this as some sort of ecstasy or dopamine drug. You then realize anything you have accomplished just didn't really matter. I think this would occur if you were to abuse simulation like this.