The year is 2354. After decades of trials, tests, and experiments bordering on ethical insanity, it finally happens. Earth has a second sentient species emerge, and it is...
The African Grey Parrot.
What would avian tools look like? How would vehicles designed for birds be controlled? Would it be by beak? By one foot? By hovering and using both feet? Would we build Avian-friendly smart phones for them?
What would life as a sentient bird be like, Veeky Forums?
>vehicles for birds
Are you high, motherfucker?
Incredibly
I was watching planet of the apes, and of course apes can just use human stuff cos we're about the same. But African Grey Parrots are among the smartest animals on Earth. If they could think like us, how would they build things?
>letting a bird drive a car
Are you HIGH, motherfucker?
Well they wouldn't need vehicles OP
They can fly. Honestly a series of brightly lit perches should be made to allow them to go from place to place within a city. If they need to go far distances and don't want to fly they can get a specialized über with a nice perch and seed snacks for them.
Why would birds need tools? As was subtly observing, they don't need vehicles. They can just pick apart our trash for food, find shelter virtually everywhere...
Though given how sociable parrots are, they would certainly enjoy mass communication technologies.
Tools are simple, anything light weight that can be picked up in beak or claw is useful. Mechanical pencils would be the writing tool of choice I'd imagine.
Unless they have been extraordinarily biologically modified they wouldn't need utensils for eating. And a simple small door built into a bigger door attached to a perch would work for doorways
Basically society would need to integrate perches for birds to sit into it. And maybe official places for them to poo (which would be every 15 minutes)
But their poo is fantastic for the soil. So you could appoint trees for pooping. No need to make bord sized toilets or anything.
Can't be worse shitposters than the Aussies anyway
Birds are irl trolls. If they can annoy something else, they will. Furniture is funner to chew on than toys because you don't want them to do it. Other birds' food is tastier than their own because it wasn't meant for them. If you don't want them to do something, they try twice as hard to do it. If they could post on the internet, it would be nothing but shitposting.
>guanoposting
>dubs decide where I shit next
To have a worldview, one must first have directions in which to look, and that requires a sacred space and a 0,0 coordinate in it. Relevant reality begins with the zeroth hierophanty, the first manifestation of the sacred. What is the parrot's religion? What does it see in things beyond their profane unself? This informs everything, including the sort of car it will drive.
I bet it's a Porsche, though. Look at that fat, gray, wrinkly fuck. It will be a Porsche 911 with a racing harness.
I dunno but it would be an adorable first step into a brave new world
I like to think they'd have some sort of kickstand harness, so they could use both their legs to manipulate objects with. Just set down, deploy the stands, and then get to grabbing. Ideally they'd have little robot arms they could use instead of their legs, but perhaps that technology doesn't exist yet.
>implying birds can't drive
If they're licensed and insured, why not let them?
I love parrots. I had a friend who had one named "Donnie". He was awesome.
I miss that little floofer :'(
(not him in vid)
bump cuz birbs are awesome
I vote for crows instead.
Taught the ones near my house how to exchange shiny stuff for bread. Late in the afternoons, I have a handful that show up with nuts, bolts and coins they find around the neighborhood. Depending on what they bring in, I give bigger pieces of bread.
You
I need to learn your Druid ways
Nice. Many crows also know how to break stuff open by dropping it, dropping a rock on it, or letting a car drive over it.
I second this.
Would a mutation giving crows a third leg for improved tool use 20 or 30 generations before they attain human-level intelligence be too far-fetched?
Extra limbs are not unheard of in nature, especially polluted areas.
m.youtube.com
I mean, you could just post any "crow tool use" video and it would be the same
Just let them mutate thumbs instead. Hoatzins already have them.
Deus Ex, Avian Revolution
If you give a primate a keyboard, they push the keys. If you give a parrot a keyboard, they rip the keys out. This encapsulates the fundamental difference between us.
Can you blame them? Keyboard keys are fiddly and are satisfying to remove. Pissing off the keyboard owner is just icing on the cake.
>implying they aren't sapient already
>implying sentience or sapience means jack squat
Are you useful? If not, you don't get shit.
Parrots are not anywhere close to the smartest animals. African grey parrots are simply good at learning human speech. Any dog is orders of magnitude smarter than a parrot though. The smartest birds are probably corvids but even they really aren't on the same cognitive level as dolphins, orangutans, and some whale species.
Sapient, not sentient.
Corvids are barely a step below dolphins. The difference is that instead of being serial rapists, they're relentless trolls.
Parrots are able to learn the abstract and arbitrary meanings behind words and apply those meanings in new ways.
So are corvids, of course, but don't discount parrots just because they've gotten bad press with the whole "they just copy sounds!" bullshit.
All animals are sentient, all animals are sapient.
Fuck off with this meme already.
Now I'm thinking of parrots and cockatoos posting dumb frogposts to each other. I hope you're proud of yourselves.
As someone who owns birds I can say that is exactly what they'd do.
They are the animal incarnation of lolrandum shitposting.
Wow, what was that first bit again?
African Greys already have cars
Gross simplification of several concepts from 'La Secre et la Profane' by Mircea Eliade, and some slightly less introductory works that I can't list now because I won't be admitted to a public library while intoxicated.
Seriously, every self-respecting worlbuilder, writer and game designer alike, should devote time to studying history of religion, sacred thinking and religious experience. It's by far the most important pigment when colouring your work.
You know nothing. Grey parrots have the problem solving capabilities of a three years old against experiments they never encountered before. They're smart as all fuck. Corvids are even smarter.
>ayy lmaos land on Earth and try to take over
>100 year war for the ownership of the Earth
>they battle in giant robomechs, designed to destroy all in their way
>we finally manage to take one down and open the hatch
>it opens to... my god... it opens to...
>"BRAAAWWK LOOK AT BIRDIE HE THINKS HE CAN PILOT A ROBOT *WHISTLE* ISN'T THAT FUNNY?"
This is literally the plot of Hatoful Boyfriend.
Soon™