The 'Birds Aren't Real' movement, which claims that real birds were replaced by government surveillance drones, seems to have taken off in a big way (I read about it in a recent New York Times article). I like their T-shirt, "If it flies, it spies", and their videos (one has a 'CIA agent' whistleblower talking about the government programme to remove all the living birds, and another has a media interview with the movement's founder, who says with a straight face that the government "mercilessly genocided over 12 billion birds and replaced them with surveillance drones").
It's a satire (I nearly said "of course", but these days...) - of the stupid conspiracies that masses of people believe in (QAnon, Pizzagate, etc), and which have infected some so-called serious news/commentary.
It's good to know the satirists are fighting back! (Then again, I've always been a bit suspicious of pigeons).
Given the level of "debate" I see on social media, and from some "independent journalists", no doubt some will say, or privately think, that this satire functions as "convenient cover" for real advances in government surveillance technology. But, of course, they miss the point (which is not that governments aren't engaged in nefarious activities).
“An extraordinary claim requires extraordinary proof.” - Marcello Truzzi
"A wise man, therefore, proportions his belief to the evidence." - David Hume
When I first heard of the birds-aren't-real idea, I thought of the song called Birds by Adventures In Stereo. There's a line "spaceships stuck inside my head" . . .
Suppose there are any flat-earth/Paul-is-dead/birds-aren't-real crossovers?