Coming up on second place we have I Hate Humans by our resident avian philosopher, Diamat.
I Hate Humans is a slightly humorous philosophical take on the futility of our modern "society" and the absurdity, and in some cases hypocrisy, of our day to day lives and habits. The author does this by presenting a very succinct summary of the life of 5 stereotypical people from and outsider's perspective (knowing the author most likely from the perspective of a budgie ): a corporate "drone" sinking away in daily routine and self imposed convictions with the unflinching determination of the metaphorical ox calmly following his herder to the slaughterhouse, a debutante in the world of politics who despite her veneer of civic masculinity ends killing herself due to emotional trauma, an atheist who ends up worshiping science and falls into the exact same pitfalls as the religious people he actively dissociates with, an ex-convict with an unhealthy addiction to weed and other people's money and finally a "theist" who is basically the female version of the aforementioned theist.
While, overall, the author did a very good job of identifying the absurd situations we so candidly consider normal and constructing a story around them but some of them are very hit or miss, like the story about the convict, what aspect of life is begin criticized or what is wrong with picture being unclear at best.
The writing style is simply, direct, to the point and deliciously caustic in certain places and manages to convey a lot of information in a few words. The submission is very well structured and makes it easy to read but it also gives one a feeling that there could have been more to it. This is especially true of the conclusion/moral of the story which, while doing a great job underlining the futility of our modern "society" and the absurdity we willfully build into out lives fails to provide much else.
Regardless of these minor issues Diamat's I Hate Humans is well written and thought provoking and for those reasons the humans of this forum gave it a well deserved the Silver Medal and my personal recommendation.
-Sir Adrian
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