Stuck in a simulation? If 'The Matrix' were real, this would be why



In the new edition of my 2025 book, "The Simulation Hypothesis," I’ve updated my estimate of how likely we are to be in a simulation to approximately 70%, thanks to recent AI developments. This means we are almost certainly inside a virtual reality world like that depicted in "The Matrix," the most talked-about film of the last year of the 20th century.

Even young people who weren’t born in 1999 tend to know the basic plot of this blockbuster: Neo (Keanu Reeves) thinks he’s living in the real world, working in a cubicle in a mega software corporation, only to discover, with the help of Morpheus (Laurence Fishburne) and Trinity (Carrie-Anne Moss), that he’s living inside a computer-generated world.

When we reach the simulation point, we would be capable of building something like 'The Matrix' ourselves, complete with realistic landscapes, avatars, and AI characters.

What makes me so sure that we are living in a simulation?

There are multiple reasons explored in the book, including a new way to explain quantum weirdness, the strange nature of time and space, information theory and digital physics, spiritual/religious arguments, and even an information-based way to explain glitches in the matrix.

AI am I?

However, even while discounting these other possible reasons we may be in a simulation, the main reason for my new estimate is the rapid advance of AI and virtual reality technology, combined with a statistical argument put forward by Oxford philosopher Nick Bostrom in 2003. In the past few years, the rise of generative AI like ChatGPT, Google Gemini, and X’s Grok has proceeded rapidly. We now not only have AI that has passed the Turing test, but we already have rudimentary AI characters living in the virtual world with whom we can interact.

One recent example is prompt-generated video from Google Veo. Recently, Google has introduced the ability to create realistic-looking videos on demand, complete with landscapes that are completely AI-generated and virtual actors speaking real lines of dialogue, all based on prompts. This has led to prompt theory, a viral phenomenon of AI-generated video of realistic characters exclaiming that they were definitely not generated by AI prompts.

Virtual situationship

Another recent example is the release of AI companions from Grok, which combine LLMs with a virtual avatar, leading to a new level of adoption of the rising wave of AI characters that are already serving as virtual friends, therapists, teachers, or even virtual lovers. The sexy anime girl in particular has led to thousands of memes of obsession with virtual characters. The graphics fidelity and responsiveness of these characters will improve — imagine the fidelity of the Google Veo videos combined with a virtual friend/boyfriend/girlfriend/assistant, who can pass what I call the Metaverse or virtual Turing test (described in my new book in detail).

RELATED: How Joe Rogan dismantled the Big Bang with one sentence — and made atheists squirm

Michael S. Schwartz / Contributor | Getty Images

All of this means we are getting closer than ever to the simulation point, a term I coined a few years ago as a kind of technological singularity. I define this as a theoretical point at which we can create virtual worlds that are indistinguishable from physical reality and AI beings that are indistinguishable from biological beings. In short, when we reach the simulation point, we would be capable of building something like "The Matrix" ourselves, complete with realistic landscapes, avatars, and AI characters.

Ancestor simulation

To understand why our progress in reaching this point might increase the likelihood that we are already in a simulation, we can build on the simulation argument that Bostrom proposed in his 2003 paper “Are You Living in a Computer Simulation?”

Bostrom surmised that for a technological civilization like ours, there are only three possibilities when it comes to building highly realistic simulations of the past, which he called ancestor simulations. Each of these simulations would have realistic simulated minds, holding all of the information and computing power a biological brain might hold. We can think of having the capability of building these simulations as approximately similar to my definition of the simulation point.

The first two possibilities, which can be combined for practical purposes, are that no civilization ever reaches the simulation point (i.e., by destroying themselves or because it isn’t possible to create simulations), or that all such civilizations that reached this point decided not to build such sophisticated simulations.

The term “simulation hypothesis” was originally meant by Bostrom to refer to the third possibility, which was that “we are almost certainly living in a computer simulation.” The logic underlying this third scenario was that any such advanced civilization would be able to create entirely new simulated worlds with the click of a button, each of which could have billions (or trillions) of simulated beings indistinguishable from biological beings. Thus, the number of simulated beings would vastly outnumber the tally of biological beings. Statistically, then, if you couldn’t tell the difference, then you were (much) more likely to be a simulated being than a real, biological one.

Today’s AI developments have convinced me we are at least 67% likely to be able to reach the simulation point and possibly more than 70%.

Bostrom himself initially declined to put a percentage on this third option compared to the other two, saying only that it was one of three possibilities, implying a likelihood of 33.33% (and later changed his odds for the third possibility to be around 20%). Elon Musk used a variation of Bostrom’s logic in 2016 when he said the chances of us being in base reality (i.e. not in a simulation) were one in billions. He was implying that there might be billions of simulated worlds, but only one physical world. Thus, statistically, we are by far highly likely (99.99%+) in a simulated world.

What are the odds?

Others have weighed in on the issue, using variations of the argument, including Neil deGrasse Tyson, who put the percentage likelihood at 50%. Columbia scientist David Kipping, in a paper using Bayesian logic and Bostrom’s argument, came up with a similar figure of slightly less than 50/50.

Musk was relying on the improvement in video game technology and projecting it forward. This is what I do in detail in my book, where I lay out the 10 stages of getting to the simulation point, including virtual reality (VR), augmented reality (AR), BCIs (brain-computer interfaces), AI, and more. It is the progress in these areas over the past few years that gives me the conviction that we are getting closer to the simulation point than ever before.

In my book, I argue that the percentage likelihood that we are in a simulation is based almost entirely on whether we can reach the simulation point. If we can never reach this point, then the chances are basically zero that we are in a simulation that was already developed by anyone else. If we can reach this point, then the chances of being in a simulation simply boil down to how far from this theoretical point we are, minus some uncertainty factor.

If we have already reached that point, then we can be 99% confident about being in a simulation. Even if we haven’t reached the simulation point (we haven’t, at least not yet), then the likelihood of the simulation hypothesis, Psim , basically simplifies down to Psimpoint, the confidence level we have that we can reach this point, minus some small, extra uncertainty factor (pu).

Psim » Psimpoint – pu

If we are 100% confident we can reach the simulation point, and the small factor pu is 1, then the likelihood of being in a simulation jumps up to 99%. Why? Per the earlier argument, if we can reach this point, then it is very likely that another civilization has already reached this point and that we are inside one of that civilization's (many) simulations. pu is likely to be small because we have already built uncertainty into our Psimpoint for any value less than 100%.

A matter of capabilities

So in the end, it doesn’t matter when we reach this point; it’s a matter of capabilities. And the more we develop our AI, video game, and virtual reality technology, the more likely it is that at some point soon, we will be able to reach the simulation point.

So how close are we? In the new book, I estimate that we are more than two-thirds of the way there, and I am fairly certain that we will be able to get there eventually. This means that today’s AI developments have convinced me that we are at least 67% likely to be able to reach the simulation point and possibly more than 70%.

If I add in factors from digital and quantum physics detailed in the book, and if we take the “trip reports” of mystics of old and today’s NDErs and psychonauts (who expand their awareness using DMT, for example) at face value, we can be even more confident that our physical reality is not the ultimate reality. Those who report such trips are like Plato’s philosopher, who not only broke his chains but also left Plato’s allegorical cave. If you read Plato’s full allegory, it ends with the philosopher returning to the cave to describe what he saw in the world outside to the other residents, who didn’t believe him and were content to continue watching shadows on the wall. Because most scientists are loath to accept these reports and are likely to dismiss this evidence, I won’t include them in my own percentage estimation, though as I explain in the book, this brings my confidence level that we are in a virtual, rather than a physical, reality even higher.

This brings us back to the inescapable realization that if we will eventually be able to create something like "The Matrix," someone has likely already done it. While we can debate what is outside our cave, it’s our own rapid progress with AI that makes it more likely than ever that we are already inside something virtual like "The Matrix."

AI is a tool, not a friend — keep your hands on the wheel



Concern is growing that people are becoming too dependent on and trusting of AI, treating the technology more like a friend than a tool.

“Has anybody seen ‘The Terminator’? ‘War Games’? ‘The Matrix’? Any of those documentaries, you might want to check them out,” Pat Gray of “Pat Gray Unleashed” comments, before noting that new research from UC Merced and Penn State only validates these concerns.

The research shows that people are highly susceptible to AI influence, even in life or death situations where the AI openly acknowledges its own limitations. In a series of experiments that simulate drone warfare scenarios, it was suggested that we are falling too far on the side of machine deference, with potentially dangerous consequences.

“I do believe that,” Gray says. “We’re so enamored with AI now, because it’s really cool, and it’s helpful in a lot of circumstances.”


Gray has a friend who drives from Colorado to Texas from time to time, though he isn’t really the one driving.

“He’s got a Tesla, and he says he barely has to touch the wheel, all the way from Colorado to Texas. God doesn’t even touch the wheel,” Gray says, adding, “It’s incredible.”

“It’s all fun and games until the machines take over,” Keith Malinak adds.

“That’s how trusting we’re already becoming with all of this technology,” Gray says.

However, Malinak does believe AI has already done some serious good and on a level that we’ve never seen before in our lifetimes.

“This AI is probably why we are able to get so deep into DOGE, with what it’s finding out as far as the money we’re spending like USAID,” he says, adding, “It’s doing so much, the AI, but it’s delicate.”

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Breaking out of ‘the matrix’: The next generation of homesteaders rejecting ‘an unreliable system’



When 23-year-old “Gubba” saw the empty shelves during the COVID-19 pandemic, she decided to take matters into her own hands.

The city girl turned homesteader ditched life in Portland and traded ultra-processed foods, pharmaceuticals, and a desk job for 38 acres of farmland — where she is learning to become self-sufficient.

“The fridges were barren; the freezers were barren. People were going crazy, fighting over bags of dried beans. And I still remember staring at those empty shelves, and I said, ‘What am I doing here? I am relying on a system that breaks so easily. I have become dependent on this unreliable system,’” Gubba tells Glenn Beck on “The Glenn Beck Podcast.”

“I said, ‘I am never going to find myself in this situation ever again.’ So that’s what really spurred me and, I think, started to really awaken a lot of other people,” she adds.

While Gubba found herself on expansive acreage to live out her homesteading dreams, she tells Glenn that “you do not need land to become self-sufficient.”

“The best place to start is in your kitchen, cooking from scratch, having a little window cell garden, and learning these skills,” she says. But it’s not just the food supply that has Gubba thriving in her more holistic lifestyle but the effects it’s had on her health — as well as her animals.

“I’m nourishing with proper minerals and vitamins, I’m getting sunshine, I’m getting my vitamin D, I am properly keeping myself stress-free so I don’t have negativity in my life that is bringing me down energetically. So I am keeping myself healthy,” she tells Glenn.

“I even feed my dogs raw dog food, and I support my local butcher by buying from them, or I even go and dumpster-dive from them,” she explains. “Look at the cancer rates in animals just skyrocketing on kibble. Go look at the kibble, and it’s soy and it’s cornmeal and its byproducts.”

“There’s constant recalls on their kibble because animals are dying and it’s being covered up. So this is interesting because it’s not only our food system that’s being profited on but also our pets' food system. And that makes me even more sad because they don’t have a voice,” Gubba says, noting that she gets a box of organs from her local butcher for 80 cents a pound to feed her dogs.

“If you just go to your local area, and you start looking around, you can find these sources too like I am,” she adds.


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Is the presidential election a simulation? These signs say yes



The date was July 10 — days before Donald Trump was nearly assassinated and Joe Biden suffered a Harris coup in all but name. I wrote that the near-animatronic Biden — a perfect candidate for digital augmentation or replacement, already the public face of a Borg’s worth of apparatchiks, managers, and functionaries — was beginning to look like America’s last human president.

Now, a bit over a month later, the whole election feels increasingly posthuman: a phony, a placeholder — just maybe a simulation.

Many technologists and members of the tech fandom like trying to convince you that life itself is one big simulation. It’s easy to do for several reasons, including not only the power of circular logic but the reality that so much of life is occupied with participating in different kinds of simulations (that is, model-based games, both entertaining and serious).

But the descent of the most important election of our lifetimes into a simulation grows more terrifying because, with each day that goes by, it makes all the more sense that only a simulated election would arise amidst a simulated existence. What did you expect?

Yet the main reason the simulation hypothesis is so potent is that so many people would like to live in a simulation — even if their goal is to try to control it or break out of it — because the spiritual challenge of actually beginning to live properly in a world created for our dominion by a loving God seems too daunting, strange, and lonely.

An excellent example of this sad situation is the presidential election itself. Consider how the Harris campaign is openly and transparently committed to running on “vibes,” “joy,” choreographed dancing, etc., and how enthusiastic — how relieved — so many supporters in the grassroots and in the media appear to be.

It’s beyond fakeness. The energy surrounding and permeating the campaign comes from the attitude that the old reality has been substituted away with a new artifice, one that takes up all the space where the reality used to be.

But the Harris campaign is just one piece of evidence among other facets of today’s uncanny and unsettling campaign season, all of which militate in favor of the hypothesis that the whole election is a simulation.

In a real election, Donald Trump’s near-assassination would receive wall-to-wall coverage. We would know everything about the shooter, his past, his associations, what he ate, what he did on the internet, everything. The seriousness of the reality of the situation would weigh like a heavy blanket on the race and the public mood. Heads would roll. Public officials would be up in arms.

Instead, the only significant proof that Trump came within a hair’s breadth of his live on-air murder is that he is now encased behind bulletproof glass on the campaign trail — a turn of events that makes the famously visceral Orange Man resemble an action figure in a plastic casing or a crisis actor on a greasy screen. Like the mentally absent bank teller behind the mandatory wall of inches-thick see-through barricade, Trump is becoming less a person and more an idea, a notion, an avatar — much as Biden did during his previous “basement campaign.”

The oddly contingent character of the rest of the election’s major figures generalizes the effect. Something is fundamentally off about Tim Walz, compounded by the rumors that dark revelations will force him off the ticket. The not-altogether-thereness of Walz presents JD Vance with a baffling scenario where he can’t really go toe to toe against his opposite number and must endure a disorienting wave of can-they-be-serious attacks driven by mid-00s photos of his youthful self goofing through that bizarro decade.

And then there’s Harris herself, who does seem to be publicly drunk as a rule, come to think of it — a damaging issue to wrestle with because … if she’s not drunk … what else is causing this behavior? A vibe of letting Harris twirl while the party scrambles behind the scenes hangs over the whole affair, giving it an outlandish, implausible tenor, all veneer. But what could they be scrambling to do? Isn’t Harris there because only she can tap the Biden war chest? Isn’t it impossible at this late date to make the nomination process any less “democratic”? Do the Democrats even want democracy any more?

And, after all, who is really in charge? Anyone? The simulation itself …?

Ronald Siemoneit/Getty Images

This is the path to madness, no doubt about it, and it’s widening, spreading, appealing to more and more people, from the bottom of the socioeconomic system to the top. Ever more Americans find themselves in the position of merely waiting, for the something that can happen before November to wipe all this pantomime away.

And as the waiting drags on, they find themselves hoping …

But the descent of the most important election of our lifetimes into a simulation grows more terrifying because, with each day that goes by, it makes all the more sense that only a simulated election would arise amidst a simulated existence. What did you expect?

“Welcome to the desert of the real,” Morpheus famously echoes Jean Baudrillard, the grand French theorist of simulation. We’ve succeeded in terraforming so much of our given reality from a garden into a desert. And from a desert we must learn to nurture reality back once again — beginning with the acceptance that it, along with all we have and all we are, is indeed given by a Lord we can never exceed, escape, destroy, or replace.

Are scientists harvesting human embryos to power supercomputers?!



The idea of harvesting anything from a human being to power technology might make for a great dystopian novel or a science-fiction television show, but to apply such a concept to reality is surely crazy, right?

Well, yes, it is undoubtedly crazy. But it is happening.

“This is actually in practice and being used by the University of Michigan right now,” says Glenn Beck. “Environmentalists are worried about how we make enough power to be able to power AI.”

Their answer has come in the form of what is called an “organoid” — a simplified organ that is artificially grown in vitro.

Blaze Media editor at large and host of “Zero Hour” James Poulos, who did a deep dive into this harrowing subject in his recent article “Brace yourself: Making computers from human brains is the new environmentalism,” joins Glenn to unpack the deranged concept of “offering up human brains to run energy-starved supercomputers.”

“AI consumes a ton of electricity,” and “environmentalists have always hated nuclear power,” so “they’re turning to us to be the batteries,” Poulos explains.

Scientists in the field are taking “stem cells out of embryos or out of the lab (sometimes even out of tumors)” and “[turning] them into brain cells basically and [using] those as batteries to power what they're calling bioprocessors.”

This method is considered superior because it apparently requires “about a million times less power than a typical digital processor.”

The hype surrounding this dark concept, Poulos says, originates from “the same folks who brought you the idea of going to Carbon Zero [or] Net Zero carbon use.”

“They look at human beings as a waste of space — a waste of energy — and they want to harness that to run AI,” he says.

The company behind the movement is called FinalSpark.

According to their website, the organoids that power AI “live for about 100 days.”

“So, are we harvesting embryos, using them to power a supercomputer for 100 days, and then killing them and looking for more embryo stem cells?” asks Glenn in shock.

The short answer is yes.

“What you do is you start the embryonic process, but you arrest it before it gets too far and then you harvest the stem cells out of this artificially induced embryonic organism ... and you just grow those cells sort of in the way they grow fake meat cells,” Poulos explains, adding that this process is “not one and done.”

“It's not like, well, maybe once upon a time there was an embryo who had to die for the greater good. No, this is like a perpetual-motion machine; you’ve got to keep harvesting,” he says.

“Lord, that’s terrifying,” says Glenn.

“If we were created in the image of God, how far can you stray from that before something really horrible happens?” Poulos asks rhetorically, pointing to Nikola Tesla’s prescient warning: “You may live to see manmade horrors beyond your comprehension.”

“You now have scientists who don't necessarily believe in God [and] think that they are creating a god in AI now harvesting God's creation to power their new god,” says Glenn.

To hear more of the conversation, watch the clip below.


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FACT CHECK: Did Elon Musk Say He Unbanned Andrew Tate To ‘Escape The Suppression Of The Matrix?’

This video is digitally fabricated

Big Tech Is Furious Andrew Tate Is Exposing The Great Reset

The matrix didn't like millions of young people listening to Andrew Tate's red-pilled takes, so it struck back.

Whitlock: NBA Finals and Mark Jones served me a social media red pill



The problem with Northern California’s social media apps is that they reward the inept, the dishonest, the insecure, and the power-hungry. They incentivize values and characteristics that contradict America’s best ideals for success.

There’s no advantage to proper grammar and punctuation. The same can be said for informed opinion or researched information. The apps embolden the illiterate and uninformed. They bait illogic and deceit.

The platforms – Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, TikTok, Snapchat, etc. – are stages which induce performance. Performance is an inauthentic act disguised as an authentic one. The lifeblood of social media is inauthentic acting, which is another way of saying disinformation.

Chew on that for a moment. The apps trying to police disinformation depend on it.

Social media is the matrix, the Wonderland dramatized in "The Matrix" movie series

I started thinking about all of this late last night during the final minutes of the Boston Celtics’ 12-point victory over Golden State in the NBA Finals. Boston guard Marcus Smart drained a baseline three-pointer to give his team a 114-103 lead, provoking ESPN broadcaster Mark Jones to shout: “The Celtics have stormed ahead. This insurrection has them leading by 11.”

I was peacefully watching a basketball game. Why would a sports broadcaster calling the NBA’s most important event inject divisive politics into the broadcast? Why would he in any way take the viewers’ minds away from the players on the court and divert attention to politics?
The only explanation is the social media matrix. Jones cast himself as Neo or Morpheus or Trinity in the latest "Matrix" reboot – "The Matrix Insurrectionists," if you will. In Jones’ version of "The Matrix," he chooses the blue pill and remains in the fantasy world maintained via Twitter.

Like many public figures, content creators, and influencers, Jones prefers the matrix over reality. He’s insecure, phony, dishonest, and power-hungry.

The social media matrix blesses and curses his career.

Without it, Jones would not be filling in for COVID-positive teammate Mike Breen during the NBA Finals. Because of it, ESPN surrendered to the diversity, inclusion, and equity gods and paired Jones with Mark Jackson and Lisa Salters for an allegedly “history-making” all-black broadcast team for Thursday’s Game 1.

The matrix rewards racial politics.

But at what price? The price is the curse.

Jones has had to abandon reality and adopt a racially and politically polarizing persona that betrays his real life. Jones’ Twitter bio reveals the identity dysphoria the social media matrix has wrought on his life.

His avatar is a Black Lives Matter fist. He’s another "love the fruit, hate the tree" BLM supporter. He’s married to a white woman. I don’t point that out as a criticism. It’s an observation about many of the most passionate BLM supporters. They tend to love the black lives that exist outside their home and bedroom as a way of compensating for moving to all-white neighborhoods with their all-white wives.

I’m not criticizing their choice of partners. I’m questioning their authenticity. The people most determined to stamp out “white supremacy” love the fruit of white supremacy (white women) but pretend to hate the tree that produced the fruit. It’s the equivalent of loving the big mac and hating Ronald McDonald. I don’t buy it. Ronald McDonald is a damned good man.

BLM is a Marxist organization and promotes Marxist principles. Marxism is hostile toward religions, particularly Christianity. Jones’ Twitter bio lists a Bible verse, Psalm 110:1: "The Lord says to my lord: 'Sit at my right hand until I make your enemies a footstool for your feet.'"

We can assume Jones is a man of some religious faith. That faith should cause him to reject Black Lives Matter. All lives matter to Christians. The Bible never addresses race or racism. Race should be inconsequential to a Christian.

It appears Jones struggles with idolatry, the root of all sin. He suffers from racial and political idolatry. His dominant Twitter image is a picture of himself with President Barack Obama.



The social media matrix has tortured Jones’ mind to the point of delusion. Two years ago, at the height of the Saint George Floyd celebration, Jones tweeted: “Saturday at my football game I’ll tell the police officer on duty to 'protect' me he can just take the day off ... I’d rather not have the officer shoot me because he feared for his life because of my black skin or other dumb ish. I’m not signing my own death certificate.”

He followed that doozy of a tweet with another one: “Police never saved me.[ ]Never helped me.[ ]Never protected me.[ ]Never taken a bullet for me. (They’ve pulled guns on me)[ ]Never kept me safe in a protest. Never stopped the racist from taking my Black Lives Matter flag off my house. I could do without em. fr. #BreonnaTaylor. #Defund12.”

In previous years, before the death of Saint George Floyd, Jones had tweeted out pictures of himself with white police officers, thanking them for providing him escort to and from games.

Mark Jones is a social media actor-vist. He performs for social media clout. The apps are the enemy of truth and authenticity. Disinformation and division fuel the platforms.

That’s what I was thinking about at the end of Game 1 of the NBA Finals.

I’m clearly weird.

Movies featuring Keanu Reeves were removed from Chinese streaming platforms after the movie star appeared at a charity benefit for Tibet



One of Hollywood’s most lovable movie stars may now be backlisted from the world’s largest film market as Chinese streaming platforms remove movies and other video content featuring Keanu Reeves after the actor appeared at a fundraiser hosted by a nonprofit affiliated with the Dalai Lama.

In early March, according to the Los Angeles Times, the “John Wick” and “Matrix” star participated in a benefit concert hosted by the New York-based nonprofit Tibet House. Reeves’s presence and role in the benefit concert appears to have angered Chinese censors as one Chinese streaming platform, Tencent Video, has scrubbed nearly 20 movies featuring Reeves from its catalog.

Tibet House is a nonprofit that — according to its website — was founded “at the request of His Holiness the Dali Lama” and is “dedicated to preserving Tibet’s unique culture at a time when it is confronted with extinction on its own soil.”

The Chinese Communist Party rejects the notion of Tibetan independence and views the Dali Lama — a Nobel Prize laureate — as a dangerous “separatist” as he continues to advocate for the geopolitical independence of Tibet and an end to Chinese rule over the region.

Reeves’s role in the Tibet House fundraiser came to light shortly after his latest film “The Matrix: Resurrections” debuted in Chinese cinemas. Chinese nationalists, however, were enraged by Reeves’s participation in this fundraiser and vowed to boycott the film after taking to government-sanctioned social media sites to lob insults at the actor.

In response to what the Chinese government perceived as Reeves snubbing China, last Monday China’s major streaming companies removed the “vast majority” of his filmography from their catalogs and “wiped search results related to his name in Chinese.”

When users ran searches for “Keanu Reeves,” which in translates to “Jinu Liweisi” on the streaming platform iQiyi, users are told: “Sorry, no results related to ‘Keanu Reeves’ were found. Due to relevant laws, regulations and policies, some results are not shown.”

Beloved movies like “The Matrix” trilogy and “Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure” as well as some of Keanu’s romantic movies like “Something’s Gotta Give” and “The Lake House” have been removed from Chinese streaming platforms.

Alex Yu, a researcher at the U.S.-based China Digital Times, said, “It’s a curious case that’s worth following. We tend to think of the censorship machine in China as this really coordinated monster, but the fact that we’re seeing these conflicting signals [between the online and theatrical markets] suggest that some of these measures come from different places.”

He added, “Why all of a sudden did they decide to take this measure at this exact moment?”

Reeves un-personing by Chinese censors adds him to the ever-growing list of celebrities who are unwelcome in China after expressing support for Tibet. This list includes Richard Gere, Selena Gomez, Lady Gaga, and, until recently, Brad Pitt.

'The Mootrix'? Cows wear virtual reality goggles in winter to simulate sunny pastures. It reportedly makes them happier, boosts milk production.



Virtual reality technology apparently isn't solely for humans.

Turns out some folks got the nifty idea to outfit cows with virtual reality goggles in the winter in the hopes of boosting their milk production, the Sun reported.

Say what?

The goggles were developed with veterinarians and first tested on a farm in Moscow, the paper said, adding that cattle breeder Izzet Kocak put them on two cows in Aksaray, Turkey, and results have been favorable.

Photo by Zekeriya Karadavut/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images

Believe it or not, the cows' milk output has increased from 5.8 gallons to 7 gallons a day, the Sun said.

Instead of looking at a chilly indoor facility, the cows are "watching a green pasture, and it gives them an emotional boost. They are less stressed," Kocak told the paper.

Russia’s agriculture ministry said the system was developed based on the principle that cows perceive shades of red better than shades of blue and green, the Sun said.

“During the first test, experts recorded a decrease in anxiety," the ministry noted to the paper.

Indeed, while previously Kocak played classical music for his 180 animals, presumably as a mood booster, he's so happy with the virtual reality goggles that he plans to buy 10 more sets, the Sun said.

'The Mootrix'?

Images of one cow digging what's likely a sun-drenched pasture while hanging out with other cows indoors has captured the imagination of folks on social media, who are comparing the experiment to the sci-fi classic "The Matrix," the paper said.

As most of you know, "The Matrix" is the tale of the earth as we know it being nothing more than a simulation, while our real bodies are afloat in goo-filled pods as we generate energy for evil machines.

The main character Neo — played by Keanu Reeves — is located by "freed" humans inside the Matrix simulation and given a choice between taking a red pill to escape his pod and begin living in the real world or taking a blue pill to forget the whole thing.

“You take the short grass, the story ends, you wake up in the pasture and believe whatever you want to believe," one witty observer wrote in reference to the cows' VR experience, the Sun reported. "You take the long grass, you stay in wonderland, and I show you how deep the human hole goes.”

Another person offered the following quip, the paper said: “With the sequels The Mootrix Reuddered and The Mootrix Ruminations.”