What if birds had really big buff arms?

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Birds are a common motif in human culture, and depicting them as humanoids is perhaps our way to deal with the envy we feel towards avian species regarding their ability to not get stuck in traffic, and whoosh themselves in the air when the fight-or-flight response calls (pun intended).

In Indian mythology for example, a muscular bird-guy hunk is the vehicle of Lord Vishnu. Bird-humans are all over the place. I mean, if you think about it, angels are kinda sorta halfway bird-humans, although in reverse.

But oh boy, would there be pandemonium if this were to happen to seagulls, the dreaded food thieves and coastal equivalent of monkeys. Seeing how seagulls surpass even monkeys in their audacity to steal the provisions of the Smartest Species on EarthTM it’d only be a matter of time before we would be forced to kowtow to our seagull overlords. We can continue polluting their habitat though, always a good defence strategy. 

We could also probably train pigeons to fight those damn seagulls.

Pigeons are the mailman-turned annoying squatter guy of the bird kingdom, yet they’re still faster than Canada Post. What I’d want to do with these muscle wielding pigeons is to out compete Canada Post and render it obsolete. And maybe teach them some toilet training in the process. A win-win isn’t it?

Another type of bird that would likely be kind enough to associate themselves with us would be parakeets. They may be useful for doing all our heavy lifting, or vacuuming under your bed or sofa since we all know you haven’t cleaned under there in over a year.

Hiring a parakeet moving service might be the solution to affordable housing, and using this cheap labour might reduce construction costs. Just kidding, even brawny muscle bound birds can’t save us from housing inequality. 

Some of these ideas sound good on paper, but if the birds ‘flocked’ up humans and started to assert their autonomy, and make demands like not sharing the sky with big fake steel birds… with all of them possessing Schwarzenegger-sized arms, humanity might have to make an unsavoury compromise. 

We could also face the risk of serious ‘flock’ wars for turfs with non-bulky-arms people being the real victims.

I can already imagine caged birds in houses and zoos taking up arms (pun patrol) against their oppressors and the ensuing chaos. They’d truly make their dinosaur ancestors proud.

This would also lead to systematic segregation in gym class, where privileged bird-humans would constantly excel, leaving non-bird humans deprived of the opportunity to show their might. Seeing birds bench pressing like there’s no tomorrow would certainly breed a sense of inferiority complex in us, demotivating those whose buff arms were their sole chance at getting noticed.

Consequently, gym memberships will fall as gyms start catering only to buff armed birds, leaving the gym community marginalized and helpless, even more than the price of protein supplements does. We might have to say goodbye to seeing humans at the Olympics altogether, except perhaps as spectators.