The Marching Morons
E871839
"The Marching Morons" is a classic 1951 science fiction short story by Cyril M. Kornbluth that satirically depicts a future society overwhelmed by mass stupidity and the ethical dilemmas of an elitist solution.
All labels observed (1)
| Label | Occurrences |
|---|---|
| The Marching Morons canonical | 1 |
How this entity was disambiguated
This entity first appeared as the object of triple T10568073 — resolving that mention is where its identity was fixed. The disambiguator weighed these candidate entities and picked the highlighted one (or “None”, minting a new entity). This is how homonymy is resolved: the same surface form can point to different entities.
NED1
Entity disambiguation (via context triple)
gpt-5-mini-2025-08-07
Target entity: The Marching Morons Context triple: [Cyril M. Kornbluth, notableWork, The Marching Morons]
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A.
The Marching Twenty-Four
The Marching Twenty-Four is the elite, 24-Marine precision drill unit of the United States Marine Corps renowned for its silent, rifle-spinning ceremonial performances.
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B.
Mighty Maroon Machine
The Mighty Maroon Machine is the nickname of the 5th Canadian Armoured Division, a World War II Canadian Army formation noted for its armoured warfare operations in the Italian Campaign and Northwest Europe.
-
C.
Swing Mob
Swing Mob was a 1990s R&B/hip-hop collective and production crew founded by DeVante Swing that launched the careers of artists like Missy Elliott, Timbaland, and Ginuwine.
-
D.
Army Mule
Army Mule is the live animal mascot representing the United States Military Academy’s athletic teams, symbolizing strength, endurance, and the historic role of mules in the U.S. Army.
-
E.
Army of Difficulty
The "Army of Difficulty" refers to the Muslim force that accompanied the Prophet Muhammad on the arduous Tabuk expedition, noted for its severe hardship and scarcity of resources.
- F. None of above. chosen
- G. Unsure - the case is ambiguous/there is not enough information to decide.
NED2
Entity disambiguation (via description)
gpt-5-mini-2025-08-07
Target entity: The Marching Morons Target entity description: "The Marching Morons" is a classic 1951 science fiction short story by Cyril M. Kornbluth that satirically depicts a future society overwhelmed by mass stupidity and the ethical dilemmas of an elitist solution.
-
A.
The Marching Twenty-Four
The Marching Twenty-Four is the elite, 24-Marine precision drill unit of the United States Marine Corps renowned for its silent, rifle-spinning ceremonial performances.
-
B.
Mighty Maroon Machine
The Mighty Maroon Machine is the nickname of the 5th Canadian Armoured Division, a World War II Canadian Army formation noted for its armoured warfare operations in the Italian Campaign and Northwest Europe.
-
C.
Swing Mob
Swing Mob was a 1990s R&B/hip-hop collective and production crew founded by DeVante Swing that launched the careers of artists like Missy Elliott, Timbaland, and Ginuwine.
-
D.
Army Mule
Army Mule is the live animal mascot representing the United States Military Academy’s athletic teams, symbolizing strength, endurance, and the historic role of mules in the U.S. Army.
-
E.
Army of Difficulty
The "Army of Difficulty" refers to the Muslim force that accompanied the Prophet Muhammad on the arduous Tabuk expedition, noted for its severe hardship and scarcity of resources.
- F. None of above. chosen
Statements (49)
| Predicate | Object |
|---|---|
| instanceOf |
satirical work
ⓘ
science fiction short story ⓘ |
| author | Cyril M. Kornbluth NERFINISHED ⓘ |
| centralTheme |
class division
ⓘ
elitism ⓘ ethical dilemmas ⓘ eugenics ⓘ mass stupidity ⓘ overpopulation ⓘ technocracy ⓘ |
| countryOfOrigin |
United States of America
ⓘ
surface form:
United States
|
| depicts | a small intelligent elite managing a vast unintelligent majority ⓘ |
| explores |
consequences of long-term dysgenic trends
ⓘ
moral responsibility of intellectual elites ⓘ |
| firstPublishedIn | Galaxy Science Fiction NERFINISHED ⓘ |
| form | prose fiction ⓘ |
| genre |
dystopian fiction
ⓘ
satire ⓘ science fiction ⓘ |
| hasAlternativeClassification | novelette ⓘ |
| hasCulturalImpact | frequently cited in discussions of intelligence and social policy in science fiction criticism ⓘ |
| hasMoralQuestion | Is it justifiable to commit mass murder to "improve" society? ⓘ |
| hasSubject |
mass media manipulation
ⓘ
propaganda ⓘ social engineering ⓘ |
| hasTitleCharacter | John Barlow NERFINISHED ⓘ |
| influenced | later dystopian satire about mass media and stupidity ⓘ |
| language | English ⓘ |
| literaryMovement | Golden Age science fiction NERFINISHED ⓘ |
| mainCharacter | John Barlow NERFINISHED ⓘ |
| medium | magazine ⓘ |
| narrativePerspective | third-person narration ⓘ |
| notableFor |
controversial depiction of eugenic ideas
ⓘ
darkly comic tone ⓘ early exploration of the "idiocracy" concept ⓘ |
| originalLanguage | English ⓘ |
| originalPublicationType | short story ⓘ |
| originalPublisher | Galaxy Science Fiction magazine NERFINISHED ⓘ |
| periodOfStoryPublication | post–World War II era ⓘ |
| plotSummary | A time-displaced con man proposes a genocidal solution to a future world overrun by unintelligent masses. ⓘ |
| protagonist | John Barlow NERFINISHED ⓘ |
| publicationDecade | 1950s ⓘ |
| publicationYear | 1951 ⓘ |
| settingTime | far future ⓘ |
| targetAudience | adult readers ⓘ |
| tone |
cynical
ⓘ
darkly humorous ⓘ satirical ⓘ |
| wordCountApproximate | novelette length ⓘ |
How these facts were elicited
The pipeline generated the facts above by prompting gpt-5.1 with this entity's name + description and the instruction below.
Instruction
You are a knowledge base construction expert. Given a subject entity and a description of it, return factual statements that you know for the subject as a JSON list of dictionaries(triples), where keys must be "subject", "predicate" and "object". The number of facts may be very high, between 25 to 50 or more, for very popular subjects. For less popular subjects, the number of facts can be very low, like 5 or 10. # Requirements - If you don't know the subject at all, return an empty list. - If the subject is not a named entity, return an empty list. - Include at least one triple where predicate is "instanceOf". - Do not get too wordy. - Separate several objects into multiple triples with one object.
Input
Subject: The Marching Morons Description of subject: "The Marching Morons" is a classic 1951 science fiction short story by Cyril M. Kornbluth that satirically depicts a future society overwhelmed by mass stupidity and the ethical dilemmas of an elitist solution.
Referenced by (1)
Full triples — surface form annotated when it differs from this entity's canonical label.