From the Office of Imaginary Threats
When the news is slow, just make something up. The new ballroom will come complete with walls that perpetually close in on 47, no matter where he is.
From the Office of Imaginary Threats
by Jim Reynolds | with a nod to Scott Adams | www.reynolds.com
Grook: The Age of Imaginary Peril
They conjured storms from quiet air,
and called the stillness proof of care.
The models rose, the graphs were fed,
till panic bought what reason shed.
Each phantom threat became a creed,
each fear a bureaucratic need.
The cure was worse, the cause was blurred,
and faith replaced the spoken word.
We used to build, now we pretend —
imagined crises never end.
The truth still waits, calm and unfair:
there was never a monster there.
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Scott Adams once joked about the “Office of Imaginary Problems.” He meant it as satire — a cartoon version of bureaucratic madness. But like most good jokes, it turned out to be prophecy. Somewhere between fear and funding, the imaginary became official policy.
The modern world now runs on what Adams predicted: manufactured emergencies administered by professionals of panic. They don’t sell products anymore; they sell anxiety — repackaged hourly, subsidized by taxpayers, and distributed through glowing rectangles.
Every empire finds its sustaining myth. Ours is that we are one headline away from extinction.
Welcome to the Office of Imaginary Threats — the only government branch that never faces budget cuts because the danger it manages can never be defeated.
Top 17 Imaginary Threats of the Modern Era
The Climate Point of No Return™
Perpetually ten years away since 1988. Always urgent, never verifiable.Systemic Everything
A moral fog that justifies every consultant’s invoice.Misinformation
A virus that only infects political opponents. Treatment: censorship.The Maskless Stranger
Lethal while standing, harmless while seated. Science with table service.Hate Speech
A category that expands precisely as vocabulary shrinks.The Russian Meme War
Apparently, three Facebook jokes overthrew democracy. Caesar never had it so easy.Equity Gaps in Emotion
Unequal feelings are now oppression. Measured by HR, monetized by DEI.The Gender Apocalypse
Forget climate change — the real threat is pronoun drift.Domestic Extremism (Red Hat Division)
A coup without a plan, weapons, or logistics — just an open gift shop.The Return of Normal
The one thing the media truly fears: a quiet week.Net-Zero by Tuesday
A fantasy where windmills power Bitcoin and feelings replace fuel.Microaggressions
Emotional splinters visible only under the grievance microscope.The Invisible Wage Gap
A ghost statistic that survives every economist who disproves it.The Algorithm of Oppression
Your toaster might be racist. Don’t ask questions — it’s funded research.The Existential Threat of Free Speech
Once the symbol of liberty, now treated like a leak in the hull.Trump’s Ballroom of Doom
A chandeliered menace where democracy dances on the brink. Bring your pearls — you’ll need to clutch them.Competent White Guys in the White House
The scariest specter of all: people who might actually fix things.
This is the new theology of fear. It doesn’t require belief — only compliance. The imaginary threat never dies because it never has to prove itself real. Every crisis creates another grant, another position, another regulation.
We don’t eliminate problems anymore; we manufacture them. Fear is the only renewable energy we’ve mastered.
Bob: “They say the age of miracles is over,” he said. “Not true. We still turn imaginary problems into real profits.”
Epilogue — Adams Was Right
Scott Adams saw this years before it arrived — an age where imaginary threats generate real power. The rest of us are just living in his cartoon now, dutifully coloring inside the lines while the ink runs out.