There are some reasons why this world is like a prison, or at least feels like one. In this video I would like to show you some evidence as to why I believe we may be living in some kind of prison planet.
First, much like a prison, we are thrown into this world regardless of our consent. As far as we know, none of us asked to be born. We have no influence over our parents and their decision to procreate and make us. That said, our parents are also only acting based on their biological instincts and cultural influences, which they can't really influence either.
However, unlike a normal prison, we do not know why we are here other than our parents decision to create us. In a normal prison, you would at least know what you were accused of doing to end up there. But in this prison planet, we don't know why this place exists and what we can learn from our time here to improve, if we did something bad in a previous life. Some religions and spiritual teachings claim this place may be a school of some sort, but I don't agree with that.
Another reason why this world may be a prison, is the fact that we have to endure suffering, possibly as some kind of punishment. Suffering is the default state. All you have to do is nothing, and you will suffer from boredom, thirst and hunger, although there are many more ways to suffer.
Nobody likes suffering, so we have to work to stop the suffering, or it might get worse. Like for example you have to eat food and drink water to not feel hungry or thirsty. If you don't do it, the suffering will get progressively worse. But nothing permanently gets rid of many forms of suffering. Hunger and thirst will keep coming back for as long as we live.
We can also work to obtain pleasures to help cope with the suffering, but these pleasures are not permanent either. They are fleeting good feelings that we must constantly pursue. If we pursue them too much, we get bored of the pleasures and we have to seek new types of pleasures to get the same kind of enjoyment from them. The same cannot be said for pain, more pain doesn't make us dull to it, life just becomes worse.
Then there's also the asymmetry and amorality of suffering. Sometimes an innocent baby may be born with severe health problems that causes it immense suffering even though it did nothing wrong. Also many good people who are helpful and kind do not get rewarded in this life, in fact they are often exploited for their kindness. Many evil people also become wealthy and successful, and they live long healthy lives with minimal suffering, while causing others to suffer immensely. This is similar to the environment in a prison where the laws of the jungle apply, rather than the rules of a civlized society.
Another reason we might be living in a prison is the fact that there's no easy way to escape this place. You just have to serve your time and hope that what comes next, if anything, isn't worse than this place.
Our survival instinct keeps us alive and not everyone can overcome it. You have to endure significant suffering or mental illness to actually attempt self-termination. And even if you do it, you might fail and be forced to endure even more suffering due to becoming disfigured or crippled. But there is no button we can press to make this existence stop in a peaceful way.
Then there's the possibility of an afterlife. Many religious and spiritual teachings have different theories and views as to what comes after this life. Whether it be reincarnation, heaven or hell, or just a return to the nothingness from where we came.
One interesting theory is the prison planet theory, where we are held captive by spiritual beings or aliens that harvest our emotional energy, such as feeding off of our suffering, and once we die, our memory is wiped, we are reincarnated into a new body and the cycle repeats.
According to this theory the good things we experience in life are just here to manipulate us to become attached to this world and then choose reincarnation after death, rather than escaping this matrix.
But if you think about for example pigs in a factory farm. They are trapped in a system whereby humans raise them for food and force them to reproduce to keep the cycle going. Can they choose to escape this system if they were to become self-aware of its existence and nature? Most likely not, they are still trapped and harvested for biophysical energy and nutrients. They are at the mercy of their captors, us humans, and only we can allow them to be liberated. That's unless some stronger force intervenes and forces humans to allow the pigs to go free.
So, is there any way to escape the matrix? To be honest, I don't know. We know that death is inevitable, but there is no conclusive evidence as to what comes after death. That said, what we do know about life is that everyone suffers and nobody likes it. So we can take steps to reduce suffering of both ourselves and others. Some people may choose to become antinatalists and not impose life on other people. Others are able to choose veganism and thereby not force more animals to needlessly suffer. If that is not possible, then at least choosing to consume free range animal products could help to reduce the suffering of livestock.
However, if good-hearted people become antinatalists, then these ideas will likely die with them, or at least not flourish among humans. For example an antinatalist Christian Gnostic sect called the Cathars no longer exists due to their antinatalist beliefs. So there is a case to be made for pragmatic pronatalism, whereby antinatalists would have children for a higher purpose, and outbreed the normal natalists, to eventually gain power and provide better solutions to the problem of suffering.