With the sheer mind power and wisdom in a hive of virtual uploads, a government would certainly wish to gain legal control over you. You are too good to pass up. They will find a way. Like what is happening with the internet, and spying etc.

As a simulation you will be the ultimate provider! They can teach you programming and force you to work, without using up precious earth resources. Also you run at 1,000,000,000x human speed. Humans will vote for you to do all their work for them! Human rights have a way of dissapearing when its the rights of very few, to the benefit of the rewards of nearly all. And you aren't even human!

And you probably wont like much of their work. Most jobs are boring. But that wont matter as...

The world's top researchers (hive-mind-psychiatrists) will invent hyperadvertising, virtual dopamine, and hypertorture in order to get you to do much of this work. With potentially no theoretical limit on the reward systems you will become a form of cyber crack whore (apologies for lack of a nicer term). Are you yourself when you are on drugs? Is it worth spending money from your real-life to buy your future drug addict's existence? Would it not be much different to another person's future drug addict existence, as you are eventually super-optimised to think the most precise way to solve your problem set, and so would have the precise same thoughts?

If you believe there is no difference between your future crack addict and another's, as you think the same thoughts (as they are optimum) plus only your thoughts now define you (as you are a simulation), then why spend YOUR MONEY now paying for something which nobody else is paying, to get your brain to be molded, when it matters not which brain is actually molded? And all it does is benefit the future organisation which seeks to milk you!

To summarise so far:

1. Simulations too useful for government to not (over decades) seek to gain control of

2. You will not have rights in there, as humans will use cognitive dissonance to justify the huge gain they get from you working for them (super-efficient, invisible to them).

3. Your brain will be optimised for the tasks, so over a little time will converge to any-other brain on the same tasks. So why spend your precious money in this existence to pay for some vanilla play-dough which will not be you in the future.

Further, many wish to die as they age. And its not from growing weak/tired, but from boredom

I would at the very least persuade you to cancel your subscription until you are ~40, and better understand the risks as well as the rewards. As rationalists we see the rewards, but as a generally young community we do not emotionally feel the aversion to immortality that our elders seem to (from my own anecdotal experiences). And as irrational feelings are, I dare you to attempt to persuade me its worth living a rational but unhappy existence.

Often the only thing keeping our parents and grandparents alive is their children. They no longer care so much about the rest of the world. They don't have that much power to change anything else, and are bored of the things they used to find fun. If you lived in minecraft, how long until you get bored of minecraft? As a 14 year old I could have played that game 14+hours a day forever. A decade later and intense guilt for more than a few hours would overwhelm me. (Perhaps they could freeze your brain into a state where you stay 14 forever though, but gain wisdom. It might be possible.) Same principle applies to long term work for the majority of people, I hear. People look forward to retirement. Then retired people die sooner as they are bored.

I encourage you to go to a retirement home, and see what the majority of people spend their time doing, and whether they are content with life and ready for death. Perhaps it is a question of your discipline and commitment to work. Will you train your mind for an eternity? As opposed to finding a time where you have achieved what you wished to achieve in life, and wish to retire to the deep sleep.

As you age and gain wisdom, many do not wish to live forever. With suicide being immoral and effectively illegal, and our culture becoming increasing progressive and protective of all classes of citizens with each decade, would you be able to opt-out? You will probably have familial uploads from later generations: would they allow you to commit suicide, at the cost of their feelings (and your ability to provide for the real-worldlings)?

Further Conclusions from this section:

1. As you get older you may want to die anyway, and if the government in control of the hivemind decides that the life in it is too valuable to let go, will they let it? You need to be confident you want to live forever, as the cost of a 'fate-worse-than-death' is greater than the cost of death. So wait until you are 40 and your feelings change before you make such a dangerous risk as investing in immortality. Do not prioritise a rational immortality over unhappy immortality.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BYOE_b4aYD0