The Ozempicization of Everything
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I have to go on an elimination diet because my gut is eating itself and that apparently is also destroying my thyroid because I am not absorbing any nutrients.
我必须进行消除饮食，因为我的肠道正在吞噬自己，这显然也破坏了我的甲状腺，因为我没有吸收任何营养。
In order to address this, I have to stop eating wheat, dairy, corn, egg, tomato, peanuts, coffee, soy, cacao, sugar and manyotherthings (this is not like a juice cleanse or something fun, it’s something I have to do to stop my body from attacking itself).
为了解决这个问题，我必须停止吃小麦、奶制品、玉米、鸡蛋、番茄、花生、咖啡、大豆、可可、糖和许多其他东西（这不像果汁净化或有趣的东西，这是我必须做的事情来阻止我的身体攻击自己）。
I have to write down what I do eat and how I am feeling and then evaluate from there as to what I can eat in the future.
我必须写下我吃的东西和我的感受，然后据此评估我将来可以吃什么。
If there was a quick fix - say an injection - I would try to take it.
如果有快速解决办法——比如注射——我会尝试服用。
I don’t KNOW what’s happening to me, I just know that I got lots of vials of blood drawn and the miracle of modern science has informed me that some things are not going very well.
我不知道我发生了什么事，我只知道我抽了很多瓶血，现代科学的奇迹告诉我，有些事情进展得不太顺利。
But, funnily enough, part of the problem is that I took shortcuts.
但是，有趣的是，部分问题是我走了捷径。
I traveled 40 out of the 52 weeks last year (a lot for me) and some days, I would just subsist on granola bars and about 14 cups of coffee.
去年，我在 52 周中旅行了 40 周（对我来说很多），有些时候，我只能靠格兰诺拉麦片和大约 14 杯咖啡维持生计。
I would also run and work a lot and sleep very little because I was totally and completely invincible.
我也会经常跑步和工作，睡得很少，因为我完全是无敌的。
After all, I was an optimization machine.
毕竟，我是一台优化机器。
And for a time, I sure was.
有一段时间，我确实是这样。
But then, I wasn’t.
但后来，我不是。
Turns out, I wasn’t really optimizing anything, I just was avoiding what I actually should have been doing like sleeping.
事实证明，我并没有真正优化任何东西，我只是在避免我实际上应该做的事情，比如睡觉。
What I needed was to stop adding things and start figuring out what was making me sick.
我需要的是停止添加东西并开始找出是什么让我生病了。
That's the opposite of what we've been sold.
这与我们所销售的相反。
Americans love optimization.
美国人喜欢优化。
So when things come along that promise to help us optimize even more, fast fixes with near immediate results, it’s hard to say no. We’ve built entire identities around being efficient.
因此，当事情出现有望帮助我们优化更多、快速修复并立即产生结果时，我们很难拒绝。我们围绕高效建立了整个身份。
The desire for control is really intense right now, showing up in lots of corners of both the digital and physical world.
现在对控制的渴望非常强烈，出现在数字世界和物理世界的许多角落。
I think it is functionally a response to financial nihilism , where people stop believing that the underlying economy is working for them and turn to gambling or some other seemingly quick fix instead to try and find stability.
我认为这在功能上是对金融虚无主义的回应，人们不再相信基础经济对他们有利，而是转向赌博或其他一些看似快速的解决方案，而不是试图寻求稳定。
80% of Gen Z and 75% of Millennials feel behind, according to a survey from Northwestern Mutual , and that drives them to speculation.
西北互助银行 (Northwestern Mutual) 的一项调查显示，80% 的 Z 世代和 75% 的千禧一代感到落后，这促使他们进行猜测。
Same with social media - if you’re having trouble establishing connections in real life, the online world provides a form of that, but people are increasingly disturbed by our collective reliance on it, as we saw in the recent Google and Meta ruling .
与社交媒体一样——如果你在现实生活中建立联系遇到困难，网络世界提供了一种形式，但人们对我们对它的集体依赖越来越感到不安，正如我们在最近的谷歌和 Meta 裁决中看到的那样。
Naturally, industries have formed to monetize this nihlism through promising solutions.
自然而然地，一些行业已经形成，通过有前途的解决方案将这种虚无主义货币化。
But the solutions never arrive, because the nihilism, the giving up, must persist in order for these products to survive.
但解决方案永远不会到来，因为为了让这些产品生存，虚无主义和放弃必须持续下去。
It’s a version of Ivan Illich’s Limits to Medicine , where he argues that the medical establishment itself produces illness by making people dependent on professional intervention rather than building health.
这是伊万·伊利奇《医学的极限》的一个版本，他认为医疗机构本身通过让人们依赖专业干预而不是建立健康来产生疾病。
That effect carries across all these optimization tools, creating dependency on the fix rather than addressing the cause.
这种影响会影响所有这些优化工具，从而产生对修复的依赖，而不是解决原因。
The optimization economy can't deliver control, because the desperation is the market condition, and the pursuit of control through optimization is itself a loss of control.
优化经济无法提供控制，因为绝望就是市场状况，而通过优化来追求控制本身就是一种失控。
Our tools are also heavily focused on the individual.
我们的工具也非常注重个人。
As Raymond Williams wrote in his 1975 book Television: Technology and Cultural Form :
正如雷蒙德·威廉姆斯 (Raymond Williams) 在其 1975 年出版的《电视：技术与文化形式》一书中所写：
The earlier period of public technology, best exemplified by the railways and city lighting, was being replaced by a kind of technology for which no satisfactory name has yet been found: that which served an at once mobile and home-centred way of living: a form of mobile privatisation.
早期的公共技术，最好的例子是铁路和城市照明，正在被一种尚未找到令人满意的名称的技术所取代：它服务于一种移动的、以家庭为中心的生活方式：一种移动私有化的形式。
Williams was describing the shift from infrastructure that served everyone to technologies built around the mobile, private individual.
威廉姆斯描述了从服务所有人的基础设施到围绕移动、私人个人构建的技术的转变。
The shift from railways to peptides is the shift from “we built this for everyone” to “you can buy this for yourself.”
从铁路到肽的转变是从“我们为每个人建造这个”到“你可以为自己购买这个”的转变。
One example of an individual optimization tool that really works is Ozempic.
Ozempic 是真正有效的个人优化工具的一个例子。
Some people need to be on it for medical reasons 1 and others are self-admittedly doing it for aesthetics.
有些人出于医疗原因需要这样做 1，而另一些人则自认是为了美观而这样做。
To be clear, Ozempic is a wonderful technology that solves a very real problem for individuals but it leaves the collective problem like the food system and healthcare access 2 untouched.
需要明确的是，Ozempic 是一项出色的技术，它为个人解决了非常现实的问题，但它没有触及食品系统和医疗保健获取等集体问题 2 。
It also marks a shift.
这也标志着一个转变。
The internal body has a thing we can really control, with time and resources.
身体内部有一个我们可以真正控制的东西，只要有时间和资源。
What we have is the Ozempic optimization of everything - Ozempicization, if you will.
我们拥有的是一切的 Ozempic 优化 - Ozempicization，如果你愿意的话。
We have a suite of magic shots now in the form of peptides and everything else that address effort and discomfort and complexity.
我们现在有一套神奇的肽和其他一切形式的神奇镜头，可以解决努力、不适和复杂性问题。
Everything can be optimized.
一切都可以优化。
Everything can be controlled.
一切都可以控制。
The body is always a site of control precisely because it’s a system that still responds to input.
身体始终是一个控制场所，正是因为它是一个仍然对输入做出响应的系统。
Systems are hostile at the moment.
目前系统是敌对的。
The economy and institutions tend to mostly ignore the plight of the individual.
经济和机构往往大多忽视个人的困境。
But the body listens.
但身体会听。
It makes sense that Bryan Johnson and his multi-million dollar experiment to become 18 years old has captured the public consciousness.
布莱恩·约翰逊 (Bryan Johnson) 和他耗资数百万美元的“变回 18 岁”实验引起了公众的关注，这是有道理的。
Bryan has something everyone wants - total control over outcomes.
布莱恩拥有每个人都想要的东西——对结果的完全控制。
The appeal of Don’t Die is the control - controlling your nutrients, your supplements, your longevity.
《Don’t Die》的吸引力在于控制——控制你的营养、你的补充剂、你的寿命。
And for the viewer that’s the appeal - the body is something to control, in the era where everything feels uncontrollable.
对于观众来说，这就是吸引力——在一切都感觉无法控制的时代，身体是可以控制的。
This patterns happens a lot.
这种模式经常发生。
Personally, when I was in college and my dad was very sick, I developed an extreme eating disorder to try and regain control .
就我个人而言，当我上大学时，我父亲病得很重，我患上了极端饮食失调症，试图重新获得控制。
The control over the body is the first refuge when everything external becomes unmanageable.
当外在的一切变得难以控制时，对身体的控制是第一个避难所。
This is a genderless dynamic.
这是一种无性别的动态。
Many people resort to the body as last resort, across the entire human species - and that form of control is becoming content.
在整个人类中，许多人将身体作为最后的手段——而这种控制形式正在变得满足。
Clavicular is one of the new and notable streamers of the moment, known for bone smashing and ‘looksmaxing’ and exists in his own makeshift WWE-like universe.
Clavical 是当下最引人注目的新主播之一，以碎骨和“颜值最大化”而闻名，存在于他自己临时搭建的 WWE 般的宇宙中。
He has his own language in his universe, a battle for #1 Chads (decided on an online leaderboard).
他在自己的宇宙中拥有自己的语言，这是一场争夺第一名查德的战斗（由在线排行榜决定）。
He is obsessed with how he looks and is obsessed with control.
他痴迷于自己的外表，痴迷于控制。
Looksmaxing itself simulates a value (status, desirability) that these people might not economically possess.
外观最大化本身模拟了这些人在经济上可能不具备的价值（地位、愿望）。
It's control over the body as compensation for lack of control over economic outcomes.
它是对身体的控制，作为对经济结果缺乏控制的补偿。
This is also seen in wellness culture, MAHA, the peptides , the cosmetic surgeries and enhancements - it’s serving an individual purpose of wanting to be healthier or stronger, but it also serves an economic purpose, another vector of control.
这也体现在健康文化、MAHA、肽、整容手术和增强方面——它服务于想要变得更健康或更强壮的个人目的，但它也服务于经济目的，另一个控制载体。
It’s revealing that Silicon Valley’s word of the moment is ‘ agency ’ as it dresses up that desire for control.
硅谷当下的流行词是“代理”，因为它掩盖了控制欲，这一点很能说明问题。
Optimization is the process, control is the desite, and agency is the branding.
优化是过程，控制是目的，代理是品牌。
It’s not clear what agency means in startup land (similar to other words often used, like taste ) but it does hint at someone who will force the universe to bend to their will, one way or another 3 .
目前尚不清楚代理在创业领域意味着什么（类似于经常使用的其他词，例如品味），但它确实暗示有人会以某种方式迫使宇宙屈服于他们的意志 3 。
Cluely is a company that embraced this wholeheartedly, the final boss of the hustler economy.
Cluely是一家全心全意拥抱这一点的公司，是骗子经济的最终老板。
Their original ethos was cheating (they have since pivoted into AI notetaking) and they have raised millions and millions of dollars 4 .
他们最初的理念是作弊（后来他们转向人工智能笔记），并且已经筹集了数百万美元 4 。
For them, “scamming” was being “agentic” which is indeed the “hottest commodity in Silicon Valley” as Sam Kriss wrote in his piece Child’s Play:
对他们来说，“诈骗”就是“代理”，这确实是“硅谷最热门的商品”，正如 Sam Kriss 在他的文章《Child’s Play》中所写：
The future will belong to people with a very specific combination of personality traits and psychosexual neuroses.
未来将属于那些具有非常特定的人格特质和性心理神经症组合的人。
An AI might be able to code faster than you, but there is one advantage that humans still have.
人工智能可能能够比你更快地编码，但人类仍然拥有一个优势。
It’s called agency, or being highly agentic.
这就是所谓的代理，或者说高度代理。
The highly agentic are people who just do things.
高度代理者是只做事的人。
And they are just doing things, driven by ( understandable ) fears of the permanent underclass and becoming useless in the age of AI.
他们只是在做事，受到对永久下层阶级的（可以理解的）恐惧的驱使，并在人工智能时代变得毫无用处。
Apparently, the way that you avoid both of those is by “constantly chasing attention online.”
显然，避免这两种情况的方法是“不断在网上追逐注意力”。
What Bryan Johnson does is highly agentic and highly online.
布莱恩·约翰逊所做的事情是高度代理和高度在线的。
He is always self-experimenting with supplements and psychedelics, with a very strict regime of diet and exercise.
他总是用补充剂和致幻剂进行自我实验，并制定非常严格的饮食和锻炼制度。
It’s perhaps the most control (agency?) that anyone has ever had over their body.
这可能是任何人对自己的身体拥有的最大的控制（代理？）。
He is in fact trying to get so much control that he is essentially playing a version of God.
事实上，他试图获得如此多的控制权，以至于他本质上是在扮演上帝的一个版本。
Do I believe the content that he continuously generates sells the believability of the project well enough?
我是否相信他不断生成的内容能够充分提高项目的可信度？
It quickly turns into a belief market, with Bryan Johnson as an asset.
它很快就变成了一个信仰市场，而布莱恩·约翰逊就是一种资产。
Same thing with Cluely - the investment was based on belief, a belief in control and a belief in agency.
克鲁利也是如此——投资是基于信念，对控制的信念和对代理的信念。
But once the body (or the mind, in the sense of agency) becomes an optimizable surface, the self becomes an asset class 5 , driven mostly by narrative, and once that happens, you're already inside the logic of belief markets.
但是，一旦身体（或在代理意义上的思想）成为一个可优化的表面，自我就成为一种资产类别 5 ，主要由叙事驱动，一旦发生这种情况，你就已经进入了信仰市场的逻辑之中。
Prediction markets and crypto run on the same logic - bets on narrative rather than fundamentals, agency through participation.
预测市场和加密货币运行在相同的逻辑上——押注于叙事而不是基本面，通过参与来发挥作用。
Belief markets promise an exit from limits, physical or financial.
信仰市场承诺摆脱物质或财务的限制。
They monetize the fear of being left behind, in forms of (1) dying while others don’t (2) not cheating when others are and (3) being poor while others aren’t.
他们将对被抛在后面的恐惧货币化，其形式包括（1）在其他人没有死亡时死亡（2）在其他人死亡时不作弊以及（3）在其他人不贫穷时贫穷。
Old capitalism valued productive capacity, the ability to make things.
旧资本主义重视生产能力，即制造事物的能力。
Financial capitalism valued cash flow rights, claims on future earnings.
金融资本主义重视现金流权，即对未来收益的索取权。
What we might call belief capitalism values narrative adhesion, the ability to keep enough people inside a story long enough that the story stays load-bearing.
我们所谓的信仰资本主义重视叙事的附着力，即让足够多的人在故事中停留足够长的时间，使故事保持承重的能力。
Belief markets require the appearance of accessibility to stay alive.
信仰市场需要具有可访问性才能保持活力。
The product sold is “you could be this too”.
销售的产品是“你也可以是这样”。
Brian Armstrong of Coinbase, operates in a similar mindset to Bryan Johnson.
Coinbase 的布莱恩·阿姆斯特朗 (Brian Armstrong) 的经营理念与布莱恩·约翰逊 (Bryan Johnson) 类似。
He is also into longevity and biohacking (and prediction markets) and says that getting old should be optional in the future.
他还热衷于长寿和生物黑客（以及预测市场），并表示变老在未来应该是可选的。
And that mindset carries over into his product.
这种心态也延续到了他的产品中。
The pitch for Coinbase prediction markets is quite literally “take back control.” Kalshi’s, a prediction market competitor, is “make your grandkids proud.”
Coinbase 预测市场的宣传实际上是“夺回控制权”。 Kalshi's 是预测市场的竞争对手，“让您的孙子们感到自豪”。
Control your future, with us, your friendly neighborhood gambling apps.
通过我们友好的邻里赌博应用程序来控制您的未来。
The founder of Novig, yet another prediction market app, said that only 20% of their users make money , and touted it as much higher than the rest of the industry.
另一款预测市场应用程序 Novig 的创始人表示，他们的用户中只有 20% 能赚钱，并吹捧它比行业其他应用程序要高得多。
That doesn’t sound like much control.
这听起来不像是太多控制。
That doesn’t sound like much of a future.
这听起来不太像是一个未来。
Everyone is chasing after the gold.
每个人都在追逐黄金。
Everyone is trying to strike rich, easily and quickly , to “get in on the next big thing and hope for the best” as Allison Schrager writes.
正如艾莉森·施拉格（Allison Schrager）所写，每个人都试图轻松快速地致富，“参与下一件大事，并抱有最好的希望”。
The general lack of rules 6 combined with the inability to take back control despite it being promised is the extraction part of a belief market.
规则 6 的普遍缺乏，加上尽管承诺了控制权却无法收回控制权，是信仰市场的榨取部分。
The gap between what participation promises (free yourself) and what it delivers (enormous losses and even less freedom than before).
参与所承诺的（解放你自己）和它所带来的（巨大的损失，甚至比以前更少的自由）之间的差距。
Every solution to “systemic failure” that promises control gets packaged as a product that re-enrolls you into something deeper than what you were escaping.
每一个承诺控制的“系统性故障”解决方案都会被打包成一个产品，让你重新进入比你逃避的更深的东西。
The extraction logic of belief markets migrates to wherever desperate people are, and some of that desperation is in the manosphere, t he online universe promoting masculinity .
信仰市场的提取逻辑会迁移到绝望的人们所在的地方，而其中一些绝望就存在于男性领域，即宣扬男子气概的网络世界。
I think the manosphere audience is actually smaller than we might think, but it is illustrative of the control impulse, belief markets and subsequent extraction, and the spectacle economy.
我认为马诺圈的观众实际上比我们想象的要少，但它说明了控制冲动、信仰市场和随后的开采，以及奇观经济。
Louis Theroux’s Inside the Manosphere documentary captures these belief markets in a revealing way.
路易斯·塞洛克斯 (Louis Theroux) 的纪录片《Inside the Manosphere》以一种具有启发性的方式捕捉了这些信仰市场。
It shows the paranoia that broadcasting your life to thousands of people can create.
它显示了向成千上万的人广播你的生活可能会造成的偏执。
The men depicted are terrified of being seen as (1) small (2) poor (3) weak and (4) undesirable, so they create these false enemies in their mind (Louis becomes one of the enemies) and become fixated on escaping ‘the Matrix’.
所描绘的男人害怕被视为（1）矮小（2）贫穷（3）弱小和（4）不受欢迎，因此他们在脑海中创造了这些虚假的敌人（路易斯成为敌人之一）并专注于逃离“矩阵”。
The streamers in the Manosphere (and beyond) are functionally human zoo exhibits.
马诺圈（及其他区域）中的飘带在功能上是人类动物园的展览。
People throw treats into their enclosure and demand they dance (for example - on Twitch and Kick people get sent tens or hundreds of dollars to answer questions or do backflips or something).
人们将零食扔进围栏并要求他们跳舞（例如，在 Twitch 和 Kick 上，人们会收到数十或数百美元的报酬来回答问题或做后空翻等）。
This leads to vice signaling, appealing to the worst parts of ourselves, as the streamer does crazier stuff because the audience demands crazier things.
这会导致不良信号，吸引我们自己最糟糕的部分，因为流媒体会做更疯狂的事情，因为观众需要更疯狂的事情。
The crazier things then get clipped and posted and shared for the specific purposes of going viral.
然后，为了病毒式传播的特定目的，更疯狂的事情会被剪辑、发布和分享。
Sometimes the clips are interviews out of context or rage bait or worse and then everyone yells and gets mad, shares them, it goes viral and then society erodes at the edges just a little bit more.
有时，这些剪辑是断章取义的采访，或者是愤怒的诱饵，或者更糟，然后每个人都大喊大叫，生气，分享它们，它像病毒一样传播，然后社会的边缘进一步受到侵蚀。
You can run entire shows just on the clips and rake in millions and millions of dollars.
您可以仅通过剪辑播放整个节目并赚取数百万美元。
The Manospherefluencers are essentially MLM leaders - they recruit young men and young women into their trading courses or their OnlyFans management company, taking a percentage of pain and despair.
Manospherefluencer 本质上是传销领导者 - 他们招募年轻男女进入他们的交易课程或他们的 OnlyFans 管理公司，承受一定程度的痛苦和绝望。
Polymarket, a top prediction market, is doing something similar with their new referral program - prediction market influencers are rewarded for bringing new users to the platform, getting a cut of fees that the new users generate.
Polymarket 是一个顶级预测市场，它正在做一些与他们的新推荐计划类似的事情——预测市场影响者因将新用户引入该平台而获得奖励，并从新用户产生的费用中抽取一部分。
Polymarket also follows the messaging strategy of the Manosphere - they “[amplify] unproven claims from the Trump administration and baseless conspiracy theories” in order to “attract young men, who are most likely to become paying users” as Stuart Thompson, David Yaffe-Bellany, and Mike Isaac write in the New York Times.
Polymarket 也遵循 Manosphere 的信息传递策略——正如 Stuart Thompson、David Yaffe-Bellany 和 Mike Isaac 在《纽约时报》上所写的那样，它们“放大了特朗普政府未经证实的主张和毫无根据的阴谋论”，以“吸引最有可能成为付费用户的年轻人”。
They teach people that it’s easy and simple and just watch the crude oil chart for a triple witching or bet on how much it’s snowing or bet on the Oscars but most of all bet on yourself and you can be a millionaire just like me.
他们告诉人们这很简单，只需观看原油图表即可获得三重巫术，或者赌下雪多少，或者赌奥斯卡，但最重要的是赌自己，你就可以像我一样成为百万富翁。
And yes, you must have it all, easily, because it is easy now.
是的，你必须轻松地拥有这一切，因为现在很容易。
But it’s not.
但事实并非如此。
As Benjamin Fogel wrote about Andrew Tate , leader of the Manosphere:
正如本杰明·福格尔 (Benjamin Fogel) 描述马诺圈领袖安德鲁·泰特 (Andrew Tate) 时所说：
He is a symptom of a new brand of capitalism unencumbered by any illusions about progress.
他是一种新的资本主义的象征，不受任何进步幻想的阻碍。
For Tate and his followers, the whole system is a scam and the only way to succeed is by pushing others down and clawing your way to the top.
对于泰特和他的追随者来说，整个系统是一个骗局，成功的唯一方法就是把别人推下，然后爬上顶峰。
Tate is the kingpin of the Manosphere and doesn’t pretend that he does anything useful or helpful - he embraces his “predation, exploitation, and relentless clout chasing” because everything is a scam.
泰特是马诺圈的主要人物，他并不假装自己做了任何有用或有帮助的事情——他拥抱自己的“掠夺、剥削和无情的影响力追逐”，因为一切都是骗局。
And he has a point.
他说得有道理。
Fogel again:
福格尔再次说道：
A decade of slow growth following the financial crisis made possible the hustler economy of precarious gig work that was billed as empowerment, but that in fact was merely a way of subsidizing the incomes of the poor.
金融危机后十年的缓慢增长使得不稳定的零工经济成为可能，这种经济被标榜为赋权，但实际上只是补贴穷人收入的一种方式。
Today, “hustling” has become thoroughly egalitarian.
如今，“喧嚣”已变得彻底平等。
From Amazon drop shipping to crypto day-trading, anyone can get in on the action.
从亚马逊代发货到加密日交易，任何人都可以参与其中。
So, can you really condemn the Manosphere for saying “it’s all a scam and the strong take from the weak” while celebrating excessive stock buybacks or the leveraged buyout that extracts value by loading debt onto the acquired company and laying off its workforce?
那么，你真的能谴责 Manosphere 说“这都是骗局，是强取豪夺”，同时庆祝过度股票回购或通过向被收购公司增加债务并解雇员工来提取价值的杠杆收购吗？
Is there that much difference between the (1) manosphere playbook of extracting value from people weaker than you, taking no responsibility for the damage, and moving to the next target and the (2) private equity model of identifying undervalued assets and extracting operating efficiencies and returning capital to shareholders?
（1）从比你弱的人那里榨取价值、不对损失承担责任并转向下一个目标的 manosphere 策略与（2）识别被低估资产、榨取运营效率并将资本返还给股东的私募股权模式之间有很大区别吗？
Confusion and nihilism are products, not symptoms, of this regressive world.
混乱和虚无主义是这个倒退世界的产物，而不是症状。
The people selling “agency” benefit from a world where nobody trusts institutions, because distrust is the market condition that makes their product necessary.
出售“代理”的人受益于一个没有人信任机构的世界，因为不信任是使他们的产品成为必要的市场条件。
Tate needs the system to be a scam.
泰特需要这个系统是一个骗局。
Polymarket needs uncertainty to be permanent.
Polymarket 需要不确定性才能永久存在。
The worse things get, the better their pitch works.
事情越糟糕，他们的宣传效果就越好。
The fans of the Manosphere who Theroux interviewed had truly harrowing stories (as did some of the Manosphere creators) of experiencing homelessness and fatherlessness and joblessness and deep pain.
塞洛克斯采访的马诺菲尔的粉丝们（就像一些马诺菲尔的创造者一样）经历了无家可归、失去父亲、失业和深深的痛苦。
They watched people like HSTikkyTokky because they wanted to emulate him - they want to be rich.
他们关注像 HSTikkyTokky 这样的人，因为他们想效仿他——他们想变得富有。
And of course they do.
当然，他们确实这样做了。
The act is a facade but the message hits.
这个行为只是表面现象，但传达的信息却很击中。
People believe in it because they naturally want these quick and easy fixes to these huge and horrible problems.
人们相信它，因为他们自然希望能够快速、轻松地解决这些巨大而可怕的问题。
As Fogel wrote:
正如福格尔所写：
None of this is connected in any sense to a progressive vision of capitalism as a system capable of increasing productivity by creating laborsaving technology or producing actual things.
所有这些都与资本主义的进步愿景无关，资本主义是一个能够通过创造节省劳动力的技术或生产实际物品来提高生产力的体系。
Peddled instead is the indebted, alienated consumption of anxious lonely subjects.
相反，兜售的是对焦虑孤独的主体的负债累累、异化消费。
Anxious and lonely subjects, seeking control.
焦虑而孤独的受试者，寻求控制。
The Manosphere extracts value from desperation using spectacle.
Manosphere 利用景观从绝望中提取价值。
AI does this too - but it doesn't need a desperate person performing for a desperate audience.
人工智能也能做到这一点——但它不需要一个绝望的人为绝望的观众表演。
It replaces reality itself with synthetic feeling.
它用合成的感觉取代了现实本身。
We move from extraction through spectacle to simulation through spectacle.
我们从通过景观进行提取转向通过景观进行模拟。
We tend to seek control in every facet of our lives, including information consumption.
我们倾向于寻求对生活各个方面的控制，包括信息消费。
Amanda Mull wrote a brilliant article about “monitoring the situation” - people (clearly, like me) who get glued to their screens trying to piece things together.
阿曼达·马尔（Amanda Mull）写了一篇关于“监控情况”的精彩文章——人们（显然，像我一样）盯着屏幕试图将事情拼凑在一起。
And there is a lot to sort through: war, a government partially shut down, erratic fiscal policy, weak labor market, high prices, etc. It’s soothing to go to places like Twitter and read the OSINT feeds and to feel like you’re…
还有很多事情需要解决：战争、政府部分关闭、不稳定的财政政策、疲软的劳动力市场、高物价等等。去 Twitter 等地方阅读 OSINT 源并感觉自己正在……
informed.
告知。
As Mull searingly writes :
正如穆尔尖锐地写道：
If you can dial in your feeds’ algorithms just right, maybe you can bear a type of witness so complete it feels like participation, or maybe even control.
如果你能正确地输入你的提要的算法，也许你可以承担一种完整的见证，感觉像是参与，甚至是控制。
After all, there’s decent evidence that the people launching the bombs are monitoring some of the same feeds you are.
毕竟，有充分的证据表明，发射炸弹的人正在监视一些与您相同的信息流。
We monitor the situation because monitoring feels like participation, and then the government exploits that by replacing the situation with spectacle.
我们监控局势，因为监控感觉像是参与，然后政府利用这种机会，用奇观取代局势。
Throughout the war, the White House communicated entirely through AI 7 -generated memes not unlike Fruit Love Island (a TikTok account where AI-generated fruit act out Love Island plotlines), combining video game footage with bombing footage.
在整个战争期间，白宫完全通过 AI 7 生成的模因进行沟通，这与“水果之爱岛”（一个 TikTok 帐户，其中人工智能生成的水果表演“爱情岛”情节）类似，将视频游戏镜头与爆炸镜头相结合。
A senior White House official said as much according to Politico :
据 Politico 报道，一位白宫高级官员也说了同样的话：
But just as individuals use various things to simulate control, institutions are increasingly using spectacle to simulate stability they can no longer guarantee.
但正如个人使用各种东西来模拟控制一样，机构也越来越多地使用奇观来模拟他们不再保证的稳定性。
Spectacle is the solution 9 , because seriousness requires accountability and accountability requires consequences and consequences require institutions that are willing to enforce them.
景观是解决方案 9 ，因为严肃性需要问责制，问责制需要后果，而后果则需要愿意执行这些后果的机构。
That just doesn’t seem to exist at the moment 10 .
目前看来这还不存在 10 。
The Fed is in wait-and-see mode, doing the best they can given the circumstances.
美联储处于观望状态，在当前情况下尽其所能。
The government is half-shut down.
政府处于半关闭状态。
Corruption is slithering through sewers and escaping from air vents .
腐败物正从下水道中滑行并从通风口逸出。
And diplomacy is replaced by memes.
外交也被表情包所取代。
Iran and the United States have been fighting this war via Twitter.
伊朗和美国一直通过推特进行这场战争。
MB Ghalibaf, the speaker of the Iranian parliament, tweeted:
伊朗议会议长 MB Ghalibaf 在推特上写道：
We are aware of what is happening in the paper oil market, including the firms hired to influence oil futures.
我们知道纸油市场正在发生的事情，包括受雇影响石油期货的公司。
We also see the broader jawboning campaign.
我们还看到了更广泛的批评运动。
But let’s see if they can turn that into “actual fuel” at the pump —or maybe even print gas molecules!
但让我们看看他们是否可以将其转化为泵中的“实际燃料”——或者甚至打印气体分子！
It’s a dig at the financialization of the United States and Trump’s approach to managing the war (no war during market hours 11 , big war on the weekends, endless showmanship).
这是对美国金融化和特朗普管理战争方式的讽刺（11点市场时段不打仗，周末打大战，无休无止的作秀）。
He’s right - you can’t meme your way through a war ( although the markets don’t seem to care about anything at the moment).
他是对的——你不能通过模仿来度过一场战争（尽管市场目前似乎并不关心任何事情）。
As Juliette Kayyem wrote in the Atlantic about the combination of the enormous TSA lines (now supported by ICE) and the tragic Air Canada crash at New York’s LaGuardia airport:
正如朱丽叶特·凯耶姆 (Juliette Kayyem) 在《大西洋月刊》上所写的，关于巨大的 TSA 线路（现在由 ICE 支持）和加拿大航空在纽约拉瓜迪亚机场发生的悲惨坠机事件的结合：
These twin crises are separate but related: They are both the result of an approach to governance that neglects the work of governing [...] The Trump administration has devoted this term to manufacturing fake threats and neglecting quite a few real ones, such as the steady erosion of departments and systems designed to protect people, including airline passengers.
这些双重危机是独立但相关的：它们都是忽视治理工作的治理方法的结果……特朗普政府在这个任期内制造虚假威胁，却忽视了相当多的真实威胁，例如旨在保护包括航空乘客在内的人员的部门和系统的不断侵蚀。
Public safety is not a given—and Americans are learning that it is no longer something that they can take for granted.
公共安全并不是理所当然的——美国人正在认识到，这不再是他们认为理所当然的事情。
The administration has focused on the fake.
政府重点关注假货。
The great works - Baudrillard, DeBord, Postman - they all saw this coming.
伟大的作品——鲍德里亚、德博德、邮差——他们都预见到了这一点的到来。
People see it coming now.
人们现在就看到了它的到来。
But now, the real is here.
但现在，真正的东西就在这里。
This is a war of economics, with 25% of the world’s traded oil and almost half of the world’s urea , a fertilizer that makes high yield agriculture feasible at risk.
这是一场经济战，占世界贸易量 25% 的石油和近一半的尿素（一种使高产农业可行的肥料）面临着风险。
Oil could go as high as $200 a barrel, leading to another inflationary spiral far worse than COVID.
石油价格可能高达每桶 200 美元，导致另一场比新冠疫情严重得多的通胀螺旋。
And for what?
为了什么？
People are dying.
人们正在死去。
So much is at stake, seemingly for the sake of…
如此多的事情都处于危险之中，似乎是为了……
engagement?
订婚？
What should people do in such a world other than to try and control what they can, to optimize, to be ‘agentic’.
在这样的世界里，人们除了尝试控制他们能做的事情、优化、“代理”之外，还应该做什么。
When uncertainty is the defining force and there is no clear path toward something different, of course people are going to seek out quick fixes and easy solutions.
当不确定性成为决定性力量并且没有明确的路径实现不同的目标时，人们当然会寻求快速修复和简单的解决方案。
What else could they do?
他们还能做什么？
It does feel like if Trump had an Ozempic for Geopolitics, he would have injected it by now ( things do not seem to be going well , at time of writing).
确实感觉如果特朗普有地缘政治学的臭氧，他现在就会注入它（在撰写本文时，事情似乎进展不顺利）。
But we don’t have a peptide stack for the economy, at least not yet.
但我们还没有针对经济的肽堆栈，至少现在还没有。
The understandable cultural response to this instability (which has persisted for many years) has been quick fixes that feel like optimization but are actually avoidance to fixing the larger problems.
对这种不稳定（已经持续多年）的文化反应是可以理解的，即快速修复，感觉像是优化，但实际上是在避免解决更大的问题。
Without touching the cause (the economic ladders are broken)
不触及事业（经济阶梯被打破）
The pain that drives people to the Manosphere and to prediction markets and to speculation is real.But the entire model depends on the absence of the thing it promises.
驱使人们进入马诺圈、预测市场和投机的痛苦是真实存在的。但整个模型取决于它所承诺的东西的缺失。
Raymond Williams wrote in 1961 that “every aspect of our personal life is radically affected by the quality of general life” and yet we insist on seeing it in completely personal terms - and all of this is a great case study of that.
雷蒙德·威廉姆斯 (Raymond Williams) 在 1961 年写道，“我们个人生活的各个方面都受到一般生活质量的根本影响”，但我们坚持以完全个人的角度来看待它 - 所有这些都是一个很好的案例研究。
What’s being sold as personal control is not actually control.
作为个人控制权出售的东西实际上并不是控制权。
Control would go beyond the individual, to mean affordability and functional institutions and to quote Kayyeem, a government that actually governs What’s being sold instead is the feeling of individual control through the bet, the hack, the feed, the subscription, the optimization, in my case.
控制将超越个人，意味着负担能力和功能性机构，引用 Kayyeem 的话说，政府实际上管理着出售的东西，在我的例子中，是通过下注、黑客、提要、订阅、优化来实现个人控制的感觉。
The reason we can't solve our problems is not lack of tools or information - it's that the dominant method (add, optimize, measure) is the wrong method for the problem (figure out what's poisoning you.) Do the slow and boring work and don’t assume invincibility.
我们无法解决问题的原因不是缺乏工具或信息，而是主要方法（添加、优化、测量）对于问题来说是错误的方法（找出是什么毒害了你。）做缓慢而无聊的工作，不要假设自己是无敌的。
Perhaps the economy (like the body) requires more of an elimination diet approach.
也许经济（就像身体一样）需要更多的消除饮食方法。
People are trying that, like Mamdani’s Chief Savings Officers in NYC.
人们正在尝试这样做，比如纽约市 Mamdani 的首席储蓄官。
What can we cut to be more functional in a healthy way?
我们可以通过削减什么来以健康的方式发挥更多功能？
Williams also wrote that to be truly radical is to make hope possible rather than despair convincing.
威廉姆斯还写道，真正激进就是让希望成为可能，而不是让绝望变得令人信服。
Despair right now is extremely convincing and extremely profitable.
现在的绝望是极其令人信服的，也是极其有利可图的。
Hope would be the opposite - something that doesn't need you to feel desperate in order to work.
希望恰恰相反——它不需要你为了工作而感到绝望。
This is a reader-supported publication.
这是一本由读者支持的出版物。
To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a paid subscriber.
要接收新帖子并支持我的工作，请考虑成为付费订阅者。
This is very important and I cheer people on who need it - and I hope that we can address the accessibility problems that many people who need the drug are having with it
这非常重要，我为需要它的人们欢呼 - 我希望我们能够解决许多需要该药物的人所遇到的可及性问题
Not to keep talking about myself, but I haven’t been able to get approved for a primary care physician with my extraordinarily expensive insurance.
不是继续谈论我自己，而是我无法通过极其昂贵的保险获得初级保健医生的批准。
One VC firm describes people like this as “almost unemployable” and “unreasonable”
一家风险投资公司将这样的人描述为“几乎失业”和“不可理喻”
The startup world has always been this way.
创业世界一直都是这样。
Venture capitalists are a perfect case study of herd behavior in humans and the products that they fund with other people’s retirement money ends up shaping the life we all live with.
风险投资家是人类羊群行为的完美案例研究，他们用其他人的退休金资助的产品最终塑造了我们所有人的生活。
It’s always a gold rush.
这总是淘金热。
But this specific cycle means that everyone is building and training AI agents (I saw five companies announce five separate multi-million dollar rounds to all create seemingly the exact same thing) and everyone is gambling on it all working.
但这个特定的周期意味着每个人都在构建和训练人工智能代理（我看到五家公司宣布了五轮单独的数百万美元的轮次，所有这些都创造了看似完全相同的东西），并且每个人都在赌它一切正常。
Wendy Brown wrote about this extensively in Undoing the Demos
温迪·布朗（Wendy Brown）在《撤消演示》中对此进行了大量论述
Uber ushered in the era of rule-breaking that everyone else seems to be following.
Uber 迎来了其他人似乎都在效仿的打破规则的时代。
Just do what you want and pay the fine later.
做你想做的事，然后再交罚款。
Rule-following becomes a signal of weakness or naivety rather than integrity
遵守规则成为软弱或天真的信号，而不是正直的信号
This was detracting from the essay - but the market mechanics here matter.
这有损于这篇文章——但这里的市场机制很重要。
OpenAI is selling debt to private equity firms with a guaranteed return of 17.5% - they are losing billions of dollars a year to try and live.
OpenAI 正在向私募股权公司出售债券，保证回报率为 17.5%——他们每年要损失数十亿美元才能生存。
All the big dogs are starting to take out debt to get AGI to work.
所有的大公司都开始举债来让通用人工智能发挥作用。
And I understand the race - it’s a countdown against China, it’s the hydrogen bomb of this century, we must have the technology so no one else does.
我理解这场竞赛——这是针对中国的倒计时，这是本世纪的氢弹，我们必须拥有这项技术，这样其他人就无法拥有。
Because of that, it is clear that the AI companies are functionally the modern version of the Fed put or of a government stimulus package.
因此，很明显，人工智能公司在功能上是美联储看跌期权或政府刺激计划的现代版本。
They are too big to fail at this point, too integrated into the military, too engrained into our minds.
在这一点上，它们太大了，不能倒，太融入军队了，太根深蒂固在我们的脑海里了。
If things go down, they are likely to be the first to get a lifejacket.
如果情况恶化，他们很可能是第一个获得救生衣的人。
And this matters because the AI companies are not safe from the war unfolding in Iran, despite what people who are completely allocated to big tech might say.
这很重要，因为人工智能公司并不能免受伊朗战争的影响，尽管那些完全投资于大型科技公司的人可能会这么说。
And it does seem to be the case that President Trump will do anything (including lie) to protect the market.
特朗普总统似乎会采取一切措施（包括撒谎）来保护市场。
The AI companies are the only reason the market selloff isn’t worse - and people are increasingly piling into the picks-and-shovels part of the trade because the impact the war could have on the rest of the market is entirely unclear
人工智能公司是市场抛售没有变得更糟的唯一原因 - 人们越来越多地涌入交易中的镐和铲子部分，因为战争可能对市场其他部分产生的影响完全不清楚
All sides are sending AI-generated videos back and forth.
各方都在来回发送人工智能生成的视频。
Iran has really gotten creative, with things like an AI Lego version of the Iran War set to an AI-generated rap .
伊朗确实变得很有创意，比如将人工智能乐高版的伊朗战争设置为人工智能生成的说唱。
The White House has really embraced the spirit of 4chan, posting two strange videos on March 25th, the first one showing someone’s feet with a woman’s voice asking “it’s launching soon, right” and then a bit later, a static screen with an American Flag glitch effect.
白宫真正拥抱了 4chan 的精神，在 3 月 25 日发布了两段奇怪的视频，第一个视频展示了某人的脚，并用女人的声音询问“它很快就会发布，对吧”，然后过了一会儿，出现了带有美国国旗故障效果的静态屏幕。
And to be abundantly clear, propaganda is nothing new, it’s just real weird in this century
需要明确的是，宣传并不是什么新鲜事，这在本世纪确实很奇怪
Also complicated by: anyone can do politics, enhancing the spectacle, enhacing the lack of seriousness.
更复杂的是：任何人都可以参与政治，增强了景观性，增强了严肃性的缺乏。
Sneako , who was featured in Theroux’s documentary, stated (in between statements that the musician Sam Smith is running the world through a Satanic cult) that he had left the manosphere because he had gotten into politics, which was the real goal.
塞鲁克斯纪录片中的斯内科（Sneako）表示（在音乐家萨姆·史密斯正在通过撒旦邪教统治世界的声明之间），他离开马诺圈是因为他进入了政治，这才是真正的目标。
This is a natural next step
这是自然而然的下一步
I does appear that President Trump is functionally manipulating markets.
我确实认为特朗普总统正在功能性地操纵市场。
It does seem like people are insider trading the news on Polymarket and in oil futures .
看起来人们确实在 Polymarket 和石油期货上进行内幕交易。
For audio fans!
对于音频迷来说！
The audio version will be available later today wherever you listen to audio.
今天晚些时候，无论您在哪里收听音频，都将提供音频版本。
Thanks everyone!
谢谢大家！
Get well soon!
快点好起来！
You’re a treasure to all of us…
你是我们所有人的财富……
hope you’re treating yourself with care, finding opportunities for rest when needed- which is, under the circumstances, understandably rare but so needed.
希望你能小心对待自己，在需要时找到休息的机会——在这种情况下，这是可以理解的，虽然很少见，但却非常必要。
My heart goes out to you.
我的心与你同在。