In the 1992 science fiction novel “Snow Crash,” author Neal Stephenson invented the term “metaverse” and its basic contours, too. Some characters prefer the metaverse to real life, so they stay ever plugged in. They’re called “gargoyles” due to their omnipresent VR/AR goggles.
It’s a bit “The Matrix” around the edges, and more than a little sad. Today, however, we’re mad. Why? Because unlike the red pill/blue pill choice Neo was offered, news reaches us that innocent cows are being fitted with AR/VR goggles and sent to the metaverse … to trick them.
Cow tipping we’ve heard about. That’s mean and dumb, but what we’re about to tell you seems downright sinister, especially to bovine buffs. Hug your plush cow toy tightly now.
As reported by The India Times, “A rancher in Turkey has begun equipping his cows with virtual reality headsets to assess if cows deliver more milk for human consumption when fed an idyllic lie.” Let that sink in as you pour milk on those Fruit Loops and into that cup of coffee.
According to Turkish news outlet Anadolu Ajansi and The Sun UK which first exposed the fiendish cowspiracy, “Cattle breeder Izzet Kocak has now put [headsets] on two cows in Aksaray, Turkey” to see what happens when what a cow sees contradicts its actual situation.
Showing bovines images of summery green fields in the dead of winter, Kocak says his test cybercows are producing about 5 liters more milk than they were pre-Matrix. Sorry, metaverse.
As The Sun reported, “Izzet, who previously played his 180 animals classical music, is so pleased he plans to buy ten more headsets. He said: ‘They are watching a green pasture and it gives them an emotional boost. They are less stressed.’”
They’ve taken to calling it “the mootrix.”
Ok, so maybe not all that sinister. Withdrawn. Still, this milky experiment suggests some others we think Meta and its ilk should run up the virtual flagpole to see whose avatar salutes.
Work from home seems an obvious choice. Want to end The Great Resignation and create an army of remote workers with a hive-minded focus? Look to the mootrix … sorry … metaverse.
We also see incredible applications around nutrition. See, we like cream-filled cupcakes and soda pop — a dreadful diet — but suppose a pair of goggles convinced us that a carrot was a cupcake? Didn’t Cypher enjoy a delicious steak in “The Matrix” knowing it wasn’t real?
We now realize that a steak reference may be insensitive in a cow-inspired story. Sorry (again).
Remember that the original point of all this is creating a sensory illusion that makes mammals more productive at times when production would normally fall off in seasonal fashion.
Sounds like a plan. Mooved by these bifurcated bovines, we’ve decided to become a “gargoyle” and spend the rest of 2022 as a cow in the mootrix … sorry … the metaverse.
We’re not the milking variety, and hopefully not the burger kind either. Is there a cow-like character we might inhabit, forgetting omicron and inevitable Delta-Kappa-Zeta variant, and just eat grass? We’re even willing to endure the occasional virtual cow-tip.
Just make the grass we’re not really eating taste like cupcakes. It’s the metaverse.
Like the kid said, “There is no spoon.”
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