New Virtual Reality Technology Aimed At Tree-Huggers Needs To Mind Its Own Business

Has technology gone too far? Virtual reality is weird enough, but being able to visualize what it’s like to be a seed, then a seedling, and grow into a tree? That’s something I never need to see. At the Field Museum in Chicago, there’s this exhibit called “Underground Adventure” where they pretend you’ve shrunk to the size of a bug and they show you what it would be like to be a worm underground. That is trippy enough for me, thank you. Do you know the existential crisis I would go through living a TREE’S experience?

Turns out, the existential crisis is the point. This is an exhibit at the World Economic Forum, and it’s not just about the tree growing. People actually started crying after the experience ended, because get this– the tree catches on FIRE AND BURNS DOWN. So, you live this tree life, you grow from the ground up, and they make you watch as your tree self fucking DIES. Imagine tripping really hard and experiencing that. They’re messing with peoples’ heads. Crying isn’t a normal reaction to how people normally feel about trees.

This is the same thing as when Big Vegan makes videos showing us how our meat is actually made. They’re trying to illicit a strong emotional reaction so you stop eating delicious, juicy cows or whatever. In this case, though, it’s Big Tree trying to get you to feel what a tree feels so you can… what? Stop building houses out of wood? That’s not going to happen. Stop making paper? No one uses paper any more anyways. Stop deforestation? Yeah, save the rainforest and stuff, but this is a real ham-fisted way of shoving environmentalism down my throat, so fuck you. You know what vegan movies make me feel? They make me feel like eating a steak because fuck you for trying to make me feel bad.

Anyways, this tree thing is messed up, and I would definitely not try it. Just kidding, I probably would. But that doesn’t make it any less screwed up.