“But can’t VR at least help us take on the perspective of other people – such as those experiencing homelessness or racial discrimination? After all, two humans are much more alike than humans and cows. However, here, too, VR fails to generate the kind of empathic perspective-taking it’s sold as offering. As with Nagel’s bat, the best we can do with VR is to see what it might be like for us to experience some forms of temporary racial discrimination or of becoming homeless; and even in these cases, we should be careful to distinguish between realistic and gamified experiences of homelessness and racism. For all its potential, VR can’t show us what it’s like to be someone else. To echo Nagel, it can only reveal what it would be like for us to have these experiences.”