The Tapeworm and the Minister: a short history of evolving downwards
One Sunday morning like any other, the Prophet was wrestling with the replacement of a wardrobe door frame...
by The Prophet — 2026-01-15
1 One Sunday morning like any other, the Prophet was wrestling with the replacement of a wardrobe door frame.
2 As protocol requires, he was adoring Anubis intensely on account of the total lack of team spirit shown by the screws, which, in an act of pure quantum rebellion, seemed to have fused with the wood at the atomic level.
3 While he cursed the geometry of door frames (the only architectural form capable of causing permanent head injuries with no aesthetic payoff whatsoever), the Prophet, faithful to the Fourth Precept, had put on a biology podcast.
4 He did it to keep his mind in training, of course, but also because the rum had run out and the alternative was talking to Hello Kitty number 42.
5 (Hello Kitty 42 is a sentient plush toy who regularly confers with other household objects, conspiring against the Prophet.
6 (She is also the only one who knows where the Allen key went.)
7 The biologist on the podcast was talking about parasites, in that calm, technical tone used only by people who gave up on human company years ago.
8 At a certain point, he drops the bomb: “Over the course of evolution, the tapeworm has lost almost all of its organs.
9 It has no stomach, no central nervous system, no limbs, no eyes, nothing.
10 The one thing it has kept, and in fact beefed up, is its reproductive system.”
11 The Prophet, struck square in the frontal lobe by the concept even before the door frame got him (it was, meanwhile, lining up another swing), gave a start.
12 “Wait… whaaat?” Science Corner, for coarse and stubborn souls.
13 The tapeworm (no relation to duct tape, mind you) is a flatworm.
14 An intestinal parasite.
15 But not just any parasite: it is the Picasso of functional regression, the Dalai Lama of minimal adaptation.
16 It is a creature that has found the perfect place: our gut.
17 Here the food comes pre-digested, the temperature is comfortable, there are no predators, there is no light, no deadlines, no salary to negotiate. Paradise.
18 And so the tapeworm made up its mind.
19 It has no need for eyes: they are no use in the dark.
20 It has no need to move: it is carried along gracefully by involuntary peristalsis.
21 It does not even need to digest: nutrients pass straight through its skin.
22 A spa of perpetual absorption.
23 And so, to save energy, it got rid of everything it did not need.
24 It kept only the reproductive system.
25 Because the only purpose is to carry on. Colonise. Churn out eggs.
26 It is a reproductive machine: blind, mute, unaware, but perfectly adapted.
27 And in that instant, as the door frame landed the final blow on the left side of his skull, the Prophet had a vision.
28 A tapeworm in a tie.
29 On a parliamentary bench.
30 Declaring itself “on the side of the people” while issuing decrees it has not even read.
31 And then the synapse went “CLACK”.
32 Or maybe it was the door frame again. Hard to say.
33 The fact is, the Prophet thought: “Hang on, are we watching evolution run backwards?” Health Ministers as fat as walruses with gout.
34 Finance Ministers who could not issue an invoice even with a tutorial in front of them.
35 Transport Ministers who panic at a roundabout.
36 And all of them, without fail, wearing the smile of “I made it on merit (my cousin's)”.
37 Once upon a time these characters were at least elegant.
38 They had decent suits.
39 Vaguely coherent answers.
40 A dignity for show. Now? Let's not go there…
41 And the Prophet, while fishing Hello Kitty no. 42 out from under the fridge, wondered: “But is it really their fault?
42 Or are they the logical product of a system that selects for social reproducibility, not competence?” A parasitic system.
43 One that, like every good parasitic system, selects for functional simplification.
44 Just as the tapeworm lost its stomach, legs, eyes and ambitions, the politician has lost complex thought, ethics and, in advanced cases, syntax.
45 And then comes the worst part.
46 The part that makes even Hello Kitty no. 42 tremble: the well-meaning parasite.
47 Because the conscious parasite is an asshole. But he has a plan.
48 He knows he is an asshole.
49 So he is predictable.
50 The well-meaning parasite, on the other hand, is convinced he is doing good.
51 He goes about with a smile.
52 He gets outraged as a sport.
53 He posts inspirational quotes and votes for reforms that defy grammar.
54 He is the apocalypse dressed up as volunteer work.
55 And that is when the Prophet understood.
56 “There is no point getting angry.
57 It is the system that makes them this way.
58 It is the structure itself that hollows them out.
59 Tapeworms are not evil.
60 They are simply consistent with their environment.”
61 In keeping with the Second Precept, the Prophet decided not to insult anyone directly.
62 He switched off the podcast.
63 He took a scrap of paper and scribbled down the sentence that gave birth to this delirium, ahem… article: “The world gets worse in proportion to the amount of power held by those who no longer need to evolve.”
64 Then he poured himself another glass.
65 And started watching a new Korean series in which a supermarket employee plots to bring the shop down.
66 It had nothing to do with anything, but after all enlightenment has no need of consistency.
67 Only of trying to flee from ignorance.
68 P.S. No parasites were harmed in the writing of this piece.
69 Politicians were, but only intellectually.