Lets get right to the point: Cyberpunk 2077 seems to have left the punk at the door.

Now, I understand CD Projekt Red has spent a lot of money on this game, and was never going to promote it with a ramshackle roadside stall CYBERPUNK 2077 daubed in sloppy black spray paint, the E and N swung backwards in rebellious illiteracy but the more previews and gameplay videos I see, the less it feels like anything cyberpunk. Recently, this sense has peaked its moved from huh, that doesnt seem very punk to this is literally the opposite of Cyberpunk.

Punk is about nonconformity and anti-authoritarianism. Its DIY, its anti-consumerist, its anti corporate greed. It stands for taking direct action and not ever being a sell-out. Cyberpunk the genre twists these ideals around futuristic dystopian settings, in which individuality is about rebellion against state suppression, not merely looking cool. Im not sure if a triple-A game could ever truly capture the essence of it, when self promotion and mass-market appeal fly in the face of punks ethos. But this game and its promotion seem to eschew everything its genre namesake is meant to signify.

There are many other exhibits of cyberpunk media that also fall short of the genres ideals, of course. Mainstream cyberpunk trades on Asian set dressing while rarely centring Asian stories, and has never been quite as diverse or welcoming to minority groups as punk itself. Theres also the fact that other companies have misused the label; high-end fashion designers routinely appropriate cyberpunk style at prices which dont exactly scream grassroots political upheaval.

CDPR, however, has named its game after the genre (even though it was derived from the board game, the message remains the same). The studio hasnt just told us were inspired by cyberpunk imagery; its nailed itself to the mast. Its said: we ARE this. With the huge market share this game is sure to get, it will for some people become the definitive cyberpunk experience. Others may find themselves disappointed with the game treating cyberpunk like Lyle Lanleys monorail: cyber means future, and punk means thing!

I don't blame a game studio for wanting to turn a profit. I blame it for claiming a label which opposes that very enterprise

CDPR has burned any anti-consumerist bridges by selling expensive jackets, caps, and headphones, as well as getting several streamers to promote its wares. It would be naive to think the studio wouldnt want to see a return on its enormous investment, of course, but any notion of anti-corporatism crashed out the window when the games official Twitter became best mates with Elon Musk.

And nonconformity? Every version of player character V Ive seen so far is just a bog-standard future person. I understand that theres some superficial progress in the character creator. You can mix and match typically gendered voices, body parts, and genitalia in a way most games would lock you out of with a binary M/F gender system. This is, in isolation, inarguably a shuffle in the right direction. But will it live up to its potential?

Theres so much that could be done with a character creator with a true punk edge, something that goes beyond the superficial to properly represent the experience of gender fluidity. Modern games are well versed in tapping into our emotions usually fear, pain, or anger and its not beyond the ability of CD Projekt Reds talented team to explore gender on a deeper level. To give players an opportunity to not view gender and genitalia as accessories, but as something which influences narrative, which changes both how the character sees the world and how the world sees them. Something like that would truly defy convention, and make a real statement on how we build and define ourselves as humans. Thatwould be truly cyberpunk.

Related: Check out these exciting upcoming games for PC

Especially when the gameplay footage weve seen so far shows V taking out their anger on the corrupt police state by whaling on the next people in the street who look at them funny. Punk isnt just about being angry, its about channeling that anger into change. CDPRs recent statement that diversity must not lead to conflict, which also minimises the issue of sexism in games culture and suggests that Silicon Valley is a great example of tolerance in business, compounds these fears. Not only is Silicon Valley infamously notdiverse, its also perhaps the least punk place to work on the planet: an odd choice for a studio making a supposedly punk game to idolise.

Science fiction has always been a harsh genre to minority groups. Its a genre which takes the attitudes of the present into the future, painting a bleak reality for those who do not fit in. We frequently see female characters behave in a naive, childlike fashion while being sexualised by their design; Tron: Legacy and The Fifth Element being two of the strongest examples in cinema. Racism, too, is often present in the stereotypical features supplanted into alien races. Trans people, if present at all, are usually absorbed into the idea of transhumanism, as if installing cat eyes or a new cybernetic arm is the same as gender transition; nobody feels dysphoric because their eyes arent feline.

Read more: The best RPG games on PC

The cyberpunk genre is also bogged down by these issues, but recently weve seen trans positive cyberpunk fiction hitting the shelves, such as Ren Waroms Escapology or Ann Leckies Provenance. From what Ive seen so far, Cyberpunk 2077 feels, ironically, like its part of science fictions past, trading on surface-level representation its as if the team is cosplaying as punk, interested only in the clout being a weirdo brings, but not in uplifting or understanding the weirdos themselves.

Ultimately, Cyberpunk 2077 appears to be a game that knows how cyberpunk looks, but not how it feels. Its smashing guitars but doesnt seem to understand why. None of this is to say it wont still be a pretty great game, because lets face it, The Witcher in the future mixed with GTA is an absolutely cracking elevator pitch. And I dont blame a massive studio for marketing its game or wanting to turn a profit. I blame it for claiming a label which opposes that very enterprise. Punk? Feels more like were being punkd.

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Cyberpunk 2077 where did all the punk go? - PCGamesN

Ann Coulter has a knack for tweeting things that get a rise out of people but this post is raising eyebrows for a different reason.

The conservative commentator has been a lightning rod due to some of her controversial comments, such as saying that the teen arrested for shooting three Black Lives Matter protesters (and killing two) in Kenosha, Wis. should be president.

But she tweeted something on Monday night that even liberals could get behind: expressing outrage at the New York Times report alleging President Trump paid just $750 in income taxes in 2016 and in 2017, and shelled out no income tax in 10 of the 15 years before that. She also slammed Trump supporters like Rick Santorum for saying its natural for rich people to game the system.

I dont think the conservative take on @realDonaldTrump paying no taxes should be: BECAUSE HES SMART! she wrote in a post thats drawn more than 13,000 comments and been shared more than 14,000 times. It led to her trending on Twitter TWTR, +1.33% into Tuesday afternoon.

Related:This map shows where American taxpayers are most likely to be audited and its certainly not Washington, D.C.

Ive paid nearly 50% of my income in taxes, year after year, and any system that allows billionaires to pay ZERO is unspeakable corrupt, she continued, adding, How about changing it, Democrats?

And she attacked the utterly corrupt tax code in a series of tweets.

Many of the stunned social media reactions came from Coulter critics who couldnt believe that they were agreeing with her for a change.

But others noted that while they agree with her response to the New York Times tax report, they still dont condone the controversial hot takes that she has made in the past.

And even Coulter clarified in later tweets that shes not suddenly supporting the Democrats, and shes still on brand which she hammered home by using a slur to describe someone mentally disabled, suggesting that she really hasnt changed as much as liberals might have hoped.

Indeed, she suggested that Democrats wont touch the shockingly corrupt tax system because the real estate moguls and hedge fund billionaires who are benefiting from it donate to Democrats. And she questioned how much Biden supporters like real-estate broker George Marcus and the Pritzker family have paid in income taxes.

It should be noted that Coulter has turned on Trump before, such as calling him a shallow, lazy ignoramus at a Columbia University event in 2018, where she expressed regret for voting for him in 2016, calling herself a total idiot.

Read more:When Ann Coulter turns on you, she REALLY turns just ask Trump

Plenty of politicians have piled on to attack the president in the wake of the #TrumpTaxes allegations that have largely dominated election buzz this week leading into Tuesday nights presidential debate between Trump and Democratic candidate Joe Biden. New York Democrat Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez seized on the report that Trump wrote off $70,000 to style his hair while he was hosting The Apprentice, countering Republicans attacking her for getting a $250 haircut and color treatment last year. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said the report showed the presidents disdain for working families.

Related:$70,000 in hairstyling expenses? Ocasio-Cortez attacks Republicans over Trumps taxes

Trump has responded by saying that he paid his taxes, but would not disclose how much he has paid. While he isnt legally required to release his tax returns publicly, he has broken a 40-year precedent of major-party presidential candidates and presidents doing so.

Stay up-to-date with MarketWatchs election coverage here.

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Ann Coulters take on Trumps taxes has her critics agreeing with her - MarketWatch

KEY POINTS

Conservative pundit Ann Coulter, incensed by reports President Donald Trump paid just $750 in income taxes in 2016 and 2017 and no taxes in 11 of the past 18 years, is calling for an overhaul of tax laws to keep the ultra-rich from paying little to no taxes.

Coulter, who has slammedTrump in the past,took issuelast month with a Trump tax speech in Missouri in which he called for more tax cuts. She said the 2020 electionwasabout immigration and the border wall, and not taxes.

OnMonday, she turned her attention to a weekend report from the New York Times, revealing the self-described billionaire real estate developer lost hundreds of millions of dollars and is personally responsible for $400 million in loans. He also allegedly claimed $70,000 in hairstyling expenses as host of The Apprentice.

Coulter lashed out at conservatives who gave Trump credit for reducing his tax liability so drastically.

I dont think the conservative take on @realDonaldTrump paying no taxes should be: because hes smart! Coulter wrote, calling for rewriting tax laws that allow for depreciation on real estate projects that then sell for much more.

Her tweets garnered thousands of responses and by early Tuesday, her responses became more vitriolic.

Coulter said, however, she doesnt think Democrats have the guts to change tax law, given that most of the billionaires donate to them. She said Bidens biggest donor is real estate billionaire George Marcus, chairman of Marcus & Millichap and the Essex Property Trust.

Trump, who has refused to make his tax returns public, boasted during the 2016 campaign that he knew how to work the tax laws to pay as little as possible and he was the only one who could fix the situation.

Democratic nomineeJoe Biden released his 2019 tax returns Tuesday, ahead of his evening debate with Trump. The Bidens paid nearly $300,000 in income taxes.

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Conservative Pundit Slams Donald Trump, Corrupt System Over Tax Returns - International Business Times

A DEMOCRATIC lawmaker has been slammed for saying being a white woman is "shameful" and "embarrassing" in an apparent jab at Amy Coney Barrett.

Louisiana state Rep Mandie Landry made the comments on Saturday when President Donald Trump officially announced that he would be nominating conservative federal appellate judge Barrett to the Supreme Court.

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Trump's decision to replace Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg with Barrett, who many fear will be swayed by her Catholic faith when making crucial decisions, has been met with huge backlash especially with the 2020 election just weeks away.

Landry is apparently one of those critics taking to Twitter to slam conservatives who hope to see Roe v Wade overturned.

"I went to catholic school for 20 years of my life," Landry wrote. "...Did all the requisite sacraments. I'm as catholic as all of y'all. And I 100% support your right to choose what you want to do with your body."

She went on to say that she also went to Notre Dame, where Barrett is a law professor, and pointed out that Louisiana has many poor women who die in childbirth.

She added, "I also want to say something about how shameful it is to be a white woman, often."

"We're embarrassing. I don't know what else to say besides I'm sorry and I'm trying. I will try to respond her."

The post garnered thousands of comments, many of them slamming the lawmaker for her broad generalization.

"Well, maybe your whiteness and your womeness [sic] embarrasses you, but mine doesn't embarrass me," wrote one use who goes by the handle @FatiusV.

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"Have I done things to embarrass myself? Sure. Do I have character flaws? Yes. Are they intrinsically tied to being white and/or a woman? No. You're right, you do need to do better."

"You definitely should be embarrassed, but not by your skin color," added another user.

Landry tried to hit back at her critics, by posting some examples of instances when being a white woman is "embarrassing."

"Since a couple thousand of you are very, very confused, here are just a few examples of why it's sometimes embarrassing to be a white woman in this country," she wrote, alongside two photos of white women protesting school desegregation in the 1960s.

She then went on to share a headline about how white women could swing the election in Trump's favor, and to name drop Betsy DeVos, Laura Ingraham, and Ann Coulter as prime examples of "embarrassing" women.

That post wasn't met with too much kindness either, with users calling Landry out for "pandering" and being "racist."

While Landry's message was clearly overtaken by the way she chose to word it, she is far from the only politician to be highly critical of Trump's Supreme Court choice.

After the president's decision was announced, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi released a statement saying the Affordable Care Act would be in danger if Barrett was confirmed.

"For four years, President Trump has tried to crush the Affordable Care Act," Pelosi wrote.

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"With his Supreme Court nominee, he is threatening the destruction of every benefit and protection of the ACA, including life-saving protections for 135 million Americans with pre-existing conditions."

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer has also slammed the nominee and said he will not meet with her.

"I am not going to meet with Judge Barrett. Why would I meet with a nominee of such an illegitimate process and one who is determined to get rid of the Affordable Care Act?" he wrote on Twitter.

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Democrat lawmaker slammed for saying shes embarrassed to be a white woman in apparent jab at Amy Coney Barr - The Sun

Conservatives have been up in arms over Twitters failure to remove a journalists call for teen shooter Kyle Rittenhouse to be murdered in prison, while at the same time wiping out tweets in his support.

Journalist Dustin Nichols tweeted on Saturday that Rittenhouse, who was charged with murder after shooting three people last month in Kenosha, should be stabbed to death in prison. The post elicited an avalanche of angry reaction from conservatives, while also prompting questions about Twitter censorship after the company declined to delete the tweet for 20 hours and counting.

"The real hero will be the inmate that stabs Kyle to death once he gets booked," Nichols said.

His tweet came in reply to messages by conservative author Michelle Malkin, who had just attended an event with Rittenhouse's mother and one of his lawyers. She said she was proud "to stand with those who stand up for our country and those who defend the defenders."

Those who support the teen say he was acting in self-defense while being chased by protesters, when he killed two people and injured one during riots in Kenosha on August 25. Others argue that it was intentional murder.

Malkin responded on Sunday to Nichols' call to kill Rittenhouse, urging #FightBack and other Rittenhouse supporters to "please let this thug know how you feel about his disgusting tweet." She also urged supporters to report the tweet to Twitter Safety and Twitter founder Jack Dorsey, which some commenters said they had already done.

Earlier this month, Twitter suspended the account of Lin Wood, the lawyer who launched Rittenhouse's legal defense fund, saying he violated an unspecified rule. The social media platform also has locked the accounts of prominent conservative writers, such as Ann Coulter and Cassandra Fairbanks, for tweeting support for Rittenhouse. Twitter said such messages were condoning an act of violence.

Wood said he plans to sue Twitter and Dorsey for briefly suspending his account.

Nichols describes himself as a "straight edge, tattooed nerd" and said he has done freelance writing for a range of small outlets.

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Twitter slammed for lack of action after journalist tweets Kenosha shooter Rittenhouse should be STABBED TO DEATH in prison - RT

The Telegraph

Tim Stanley: This was the ugliest debate ever Rosa Prince: Biden proves Democrats made wrong choice Trump criticised for telling white supremacist group Proud Boys to 'stand by' When is the next debate? Join our brilliant US election WhatsApp group Subscribe to The Telegraph Donald Trump and Joe Biden went at each other hammer and tongs in the first of three debates in the US presidential election. In a bad-tempered and at times chaotic debate, the candidates ripped chunks out of each other on their records and issues such as the economy and race. Mr Trump was rebuked several times by Chris Wallace, the moderator, for speaking over his opponent. At one point, after incessant interruptions from the president, Mr Biden said: "Will you shut up, man?" Follow the latest updates and reaction below.

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Crows are capable of conscious thought (and it could rewrite the story of evolution) - Yahoo News UK

Anyone who has ever had a run-in with a crow knows that they are quite intelligent. But a new study released inScience proves that they may be even smarter than we think. According to researchers, crows and other corvids possess primary consciousnesssomething that, until now, only humans and some primates were thought to have.

Crows have already proven themselves to be great problem solvers and can get quite creative, but this new discovery could change the way we think about the evolution of animals. So what exactly is primary consciousness? Also known as sensory consciousness, it's a term that refers to the ability to put together memories and observed events to cultivate an awareness of the present and immediate past. For instance, as a child, we may have put our hand near a flame and gotten burned. Remembering this painful feeling taught us not to repeat the same action the next time the opportunity presented itself.

How did the researchers measure the cognitive abilities of crows? They worked with two carrion crows and trained them to signal whether or not they saw a colored marker on a screen by moving their heads. Unequivocally throughout the tests, the crows showed that they could reliably signal whether or not the colored markers appeared. At some moments during the test, the markers were so faint that they were barely perceptible. In these cases, sometimes the crows still signaled the marker and in others, they did not. That's where their subjective perception came into play.

As all this was happening, the researchers were monitoring the activity of the crows' neurons. When the crows saw the stimulus, neurons were active between when the marker was presented and the crow signaled its presence. In the absence of the stimulus, the neurons were inactive. During the moments of subjective perception, researchers could predict whether or not the crow would signal the marker based on the activity of the neurons. If they were active, the crow would reliably signal even the faint marker.

Our results however conclusively show that nerve cells at higher processing levels of the crows brain are influenced by subjective experience, or more precisely produce subjective experiences, states Professor Andreas Nieder, lead author of the study.

This is revolutionary because sensory consciousness is believed to take place in the cerebral cortex of humans and some primates. Birds, however, don't have a cerebral cortex. This opens up a new door for researchers to explore.

The last common ancestors of humans and crows lived 320 million years ago, says Nieder. It is possible that the consciousness of perception arose back then and has been passed down ever since. An alternative theory is that the consciousness of perception developed independently in these distantly related species, explains the neurobiologist, In any case, the capability of conscious experience can be realized in differently structured brains and independently of the cerebral cortex.

h/t: [STAT, IFL Science!]

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Study Shows That Crows Are Much Smarter Than We Ever Imagined - My Modern Met

Birds such as crows, ravens, jays, and magpies may have subjective experiences.

Consciousness is still very difficult to understand within the animal kingdom. Commonly, consciousness is ascribed to humans and other primates, while others suggest it is a trait shared by mammals. It is even more difficult to understand if animals such as birds, insects, and fish have a conscious point of view. A new study out of the University of Tbingen in Germany published September 25th in Science suggests that birds such as crows may indeed have a subjective reality.

Consciousness can have many levels. The lowest level is sentience - or the ability to have a point of view. The next level is sapience - the ability to have a train of thought and to form opinions. Finally, there is the understanding of the self.

Even showing that birds and like animals have sentience would be revolutionary for our understanding of consciousness and the brain. For primates, consciousness is commonly associated with the cerebral cortex. Animals such as birds lack this portion of the brain.

The study, led by Professor Andreas Nieder, the chair of Animal Psychology at the University of Tbingen, examined crows, a subset of corvid birds (the class of birds that also includes ravens, magpies, and jays). They trained the birds to respond to a visual stimulus projected on a screen.

Sometimes the stimulus was clear and the birds indicated that they saw it. Other times, the stimulus was faint - on the verge of their perception. For these cases, even for the same faint intensity, sometimes the birds reported they saw the signal, and sometimes they didnt. This can not be explained by the workings of the eye, but must arise at higher processing levels of the brain that evaluate the sensory input, says Nieder.

Even more intriguing, sometimes the crows reported seeing something when nothing was actually there. The crows eyes were, in a sense, playing tricks on them, another indication of subjective reality.

Just like sometimes our eyes trick us in seeing things that aren't really there, crows were ... [+] similarly fooled, indicating they may have subjectivity.

During the experiment, the scientists also recorded the activity of nerve cells within the birds brains. If their experience was not subjective, the birds would have responded similarly to every faint stimulus. But this wasnt the case. The nerve cells were active only when the bird reported seeing the stimulus.

This activity was recorded in the nidopallium caudolaterale, or NCL. While birds do not have a cerebral cortex, their NCL routes sensory information to other parts of the body. Interestingly, this NCL evolved anatomically distinctly and independently over the course of evolution, and it is only found in birds, says Nieder. We think the NCL serves similar high-level functions in the bird brain as the prefrontal cortex in our primate brain, but there is no NCL in the mammalian brain, just as there is no prefrontal cortex in the bird brain.

These results are important for the understanding of consciousness in the animal kingdom. Crows and humans diverged on the evolutionary tree 320 million years ago. Either consciousness has been around that long, or it has evolved multiple times in the animal kingdom.

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Do Birds Have A Subjective Reality? A New Experiment Suggests So - Forbes

Fallen Pillar

For the first time, scientists have found that crows are capable of subjective, conscious experiences and perceptions.

Its a big step forward in our understanding of animal cognition. Prior to this, we only knew of conscious perception among humans and other primates. The brains of animals like birds were considered too different from our own to have subjective experiences, but this study, published Friday in the journal Science, potentially upends scientists assumptions about just how smart animals might be.

Crows and other corvid birds have long been known for their smarts and puzzle-solving abilities. But now brain scans conducted by neuroscientists at the University of Tbingen reveal that crows actively think about whatever stimuli they experience during an experiment, even when it wasnt present. Thats a pretty big deal, since bird brains have vastly different and smaller cerebral cortices, which are thought to be the source of human consciousness.

The results of our study opens up a new way of looking at the evolution of awareness and its neurobiological constraints, lead author Andreas Nieder said in a press release.

Assuming the study holds up to further scrutiny, the biggest question is when this consciousness originated, and whether its shared by any other non-primate animals or if it developed in crows independently

The last common ancestors of humans and crows lived 320 million years ago, Nieder said. It is possible that the consciousness of perception arose back then and has been passed down ever since.

READ MORE: Researchers show conscious processes in birds brains for the first time [University of Tbingen]

More on birds: Watch: The Amazing Intelligence of Crows

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Scientists Claim to Have Proved That Crows Have Conscious Experiences - Futurism

It has never been a better time to be a bird. While researchers have believed since a while now that they are sharp-witted, two brain studies have come along to reveal how birds are not only highly intelligent but also have conscious thought.

In recent years, birds have been found to make tools, understand abstract concepts, and even recognise paintings by Monet and Picasso. But their lack of a neocortexthe area of the mammalian brain where working memory, planning, and problem-solving happenhas long puzzled scientists. But the two papers, which are being hailed as ground-breaking and were published last week, find birds have a brain that is much more similar to ours than previously thought.

Part of this is the result of the work of Martin Stacho, a neuroanatomist at Ruhr-University Bochum, who decided to investigate the avian forebrain, which controls perception. While a comparison of mammalian and avian brains suggested they had nothing in common, "birds and mammals have many of the same cognitive skills, said the scientist to Science.

Stacho and his colleagues examined microscopic slices of three homing pigeon brains using 3D polarised light imaging. This technique let them analyse the forebrain region of birds called the palliumconsidered most similar to the mammalian neocortex. The scientists compared the images of the birds pallia with those of mammalian cortices such as rat, monkey, and human. Their research revealed the fibers in the birds pallia are organised in a manner strikingly similar to those in mammal cortexes.

Stacho and his colleagues think the findings also represent a glimpse into ancient animal brain evolution. The last common ancestor of birds and mammals was a reptile that roamed the earth around 320 million years ago. And its brain, the team believes, was probably a precursor to that of the two lineages that diverged through evolution.

In another study, Andreas Nieder, a neurophysiologist at the University of Tbingen, sought to find out whether birds had conscious experiences. He observed the brains of carrion crows as they responded to cuescreatures who are also known as feathered apes for their intelligence.

They trained two lab-raised, year-old carrion crows to move or stay still in response to a faint cue displayed on a monitor. When correct, the birds were rewarded. The scientists then implanted electrodes in the crows brains to record their neuronal signals as they responded. When the crows reacted, their neurons fired, suggesting they had consciously perceived the cue; but when they didnt, their neurons were silent.

The two works combined led scientists to believe birds may have incredible thinking capabilities. Although bird and mammalian brains look very different, this study shows us they are wired in very complementary ways," said John Marzluff, a wildlife biologist and specialist on crows at the University of Washington, who was not involved in either study to Science.

However, this work is bound to raise some eyebrows, as some researchers argue that consciousness is uniquely human. We suspect that the Birds Arent Real movement supporters arent going to be too happy about this either.

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Latest Research on Brain Structures Reveals How Birds Are Actually Intelligent and Even Self-Aware - VICE