At least then they wouldn't have to grapple with the ugly truth. Humanity is not literally enslaved in Ready Player One, but its humans might be better off to be blissfully trapped in the Matrix. In both stories, humanity dwells in a fake reality, but for entirely different reasons. While reading through Ernest Cline's 2011 novel, the source material for Steven Spielberg's new blockbuster movie, I thought a lot about The Matrix. To read it another way: Do you want the red pill, or the blue pill? Reality, or the simulation?

'So don't press it unless you're absolutely positive it's the right thing to do, OK?' 'It will shut down the OASIS forever,' cyber-Halliday tells Parzival. Halliday's avatar hands over not only the prize for winning the contest-billions of dollars and total control of the platform-but also a Big Red Button that would delete the pretend world and destroy its source code. In this moment of triumph, he meets a representation of James Halliday, the tech titan of this world who built the OASIS virtual reality platform where humanity now spends his time. Wilson (aka the avatar Parzival) has thwarted the forces of evil and solved the elaborate VR scavenger hunt full of Atari games and bad 80s references that drives the plot of Ready Player One. When Ready Player One reached its climactic moment, you might have noticed a familiar choice.

Big red button game do not press