Monty Python’s Ministry Of Silly Ideas
Top of the list: the Dyson Sphere
Monty Python made famous the Ministry of Silly Walks, for which a then-young John Cleese performed an astonishingly gawky long-legged walk while dressed in traditional British civil servant attire of black suit, black tie, black shoes, and black bowler hat. Were we to revisit satire today, we would likely want to inaugurate the Ministry of Silly Ideas, as our world seems to overflow with them and surely therefore they need to be administered.
Given the plethora of silly ideas, it is difficult to rank them. Should we prioritize nonsense that has enormous social consequences, such as the belief that representative democracy is anything other than a completely idiotic notion that generates predictably atrocious outcomes? Even the sparkly young things at The Economist are slowly beginning to wonder if their blind devotion to democracy is misguided, given the endless incompetence, venality, and sheer stupidity it engenders. This is not dissimilar to teenagers wondering if, after years spent trying to spot Santa’s sleigh traversing the globe on Christmas Eve, Santa might not be quite real after all.
Or should we prioritize ideas so absurd and knuckle-headed that it is difficult to imagine how anyone could take them seriously? Flat Earths and pyramid-constructing alien…
