The best absurdity is global finance .... the idea and belief that there is trillions of dollars worth of promised wealth everywhere yet the majority of it doesn't exist, except as promissory funds or glorified paper IOUs, yet we have so much faith in it that that belief is what runs our modern world.
If you have a dollar, and lend it to me, and I lend it to my friend Alice, we have 1 dollar, but the total debt is 2$.
Nobody is claiming there are trillions of wealth around. But there are trillions worth of debts. Because countries, companies and people lend to each others a lot.
I seem to remember one techno-Asian-dystopia book that may have highlighted this, where every week all the major banks have a ceremonial exchange of tons of gold bricks, as a proof to solidify their claims of having money that’s owed/exchanged.