14 DAY TRIAL // Animal rights activists have been staging protest after protest in the vain hope that ordinary folks will empathize with animals and quit eating meat.
A team of University of Stanford scientists have decided to take things one step further and actually show people how animals raised for their meat must feel like.
Not to beat about the bush, the researchers used immersive virtual reality programs to turn people into cows, Daily Mail informs us.
The University of Stanford specialists argue that their so-called Virtual Human Interaction Lab uses modern technology to “harness the emotive power of empathy,” the same source details.
What's interesting is that the people who have agreed to take part in these experiments really did start eating less meat than they normally would have after virtually experiencing how horrific it was to be poked with a prod and dragged to a slaughterhouse.
Specialist Jeremy Bailenson explains that it all boils down to giving a person the chance to truly understand what happens to cattle and other animals that must be killed in order to keep the meat industry up and running.
This is precisely what PETA and other similar groups try to achieve whenever they dress up as animals and take to the streets.
While groups who label themselves as defenders of animals rights mostly want people to give up on meat because they cannot stand the thought that defenseless creatures are tortured, specialists argue that vegetarians also help protect the environment.
They say that the meat industry causes tremendous damage to the natural world.
Thus, animal farms consume loads of resources, and agricultural lands are often pushed to the limit just so that people raising livestock have enough crops to feed their animals.
From an environmental standpoint, it makes more sense if these lands were used to grow crops intended for human consumption.