We live in something that is experimentally indistinguishable from an unbelievably computationally expensive universe... but there are whole disciplines of mathematics dedicated to discovering computationally easy ways to calculate results which are indistinguishable from unbelievably computationally expensive underlying mathematical models. If we can already do that, how much easier might it be for The Simulators?
Jonathan Birch recently published an interesting critique of Bostrom's simulation argument. Here's the abstract:
The paper is behind a paywall, but I have uploaded it to my shared Dropbox folder, here.
EDIT: I emailed the author and am glad to see that he's decided to participate in the discussion below.