For a few years, we all sat around in awe of TED Talks, forwarding the videos to our friends and just generally worshiping the smart people who took the time to entertain us with their ingenious, outside-the-box ideas. But the backlash is definitely on, with a slew of recent articles taking a closer look at the conference, its limitations, and its ambiguous effects on American culture. So it’s about time for The Onion stepped in to draw out the absurdity inherent in TED and events like it. Their new weekly video series is called Onion Talks, and the first episode — “Compost-Fueled Cars: Wouldn’t That Be Great?” — takes aim at the lack of practicality and specificity in many of these free-thinking speeches. “I’m an idea man. I link up with implementers, and then we share the money,” explains a “young media professional” named Cameron Hughes. “Once the car is produced, we will sell its designs to a major automaker. That’s another idea! We just need people to do those things.” We know we’re reaching for our checkbook.