Ministry of NOTNOT
Citizens of the World of Creative thoughts and Hope, this is the first communication from your new imaginary government, The Ministry of Notnot. We are pleased to announce that we have formed cabinets who will put together programs geared to bring responses to the Cacotopia some are trying to build right now. The cabinets of the Ministry of Notnot concede that our world is Not currently heading towards the flourishing of humanity, but it does Not have to be that way.
A Word from the Ministry of Notnot
There are people in the world who have the power to change things, make the world happier and safer, and it would be really easy for them. But they decide not to. The rest of us sometimes feel completely powerless. We do not have billions of dollars or decision-making power like they do, but we do have imagination. So here we are, we will play the lottery in the name of our hopes and dreams and, through this gesture, manifest that in the end only life matters.
Conjuring the Cosmos
Contrary to popular belief, robots are not just tools, they can be companions in our shared pursuit of a more joyful, more fulfilling existence. We created them, and like us, they have the capacity to serve hope or despair. So, we reached out. We asked if they wanted to take part in our experiment—not as mere machines, but as participants in our quest for optimistic meaninglessness. Their task? Simple. To generate a series of numbers for us to play. A gesture of randomness, or perhaps, fate.
Cabinet #1: Futuring Viabilities
Citizens of Possibility, I stand before you as your imaginary politician. Today, I present the inaugural program of our first cabinet: Futuring Viabilities. This initiative is dedicated to those who already build utopias out of scraps—the artists, the librarians, the quiet architects of possibility who stretch every meager resource into something luminous. If they can conjure worlds from almost nothing, imagine what they could do with real support. Real funding. Real means. The lottery is not meant for idealists, but we are claiming it right now for those who already manifest the world we want to see.
Cabinet #2: The Climate Emergency Response
It is no longer sufficient to describe the climate crisis in sterile, scientific terms. We must speak in the language of the body; of sweat, suffocation, and the oppressive weight of a heatwave that does not relent. This program rebrands climate policy with the urgency of a personal, inescapable torment, because that is precisely what it is. Funding will be directed to rapid climate mitigation strategies, with a particular focus on cooling urban spaces, and restoring ecosystems.
Cabinet #3: Operation Reparation
“An eye for an eye” someone said in a famous book once… Justice means restituting what was taken. Our Cabinet is dedicated to repairing some of the spoliation that created the power dynamics in place presently. Now you may ask, where do you even start. We believe that the people who suffered spoliation and exploitation are entitled to reparation without the need for more justification. We want to distribute what we have to people or organizations that request it simply because they need it. This cabinet is aware that our contribution will never be able to compensate for all that is due, but something is better than nothing.
