ESSAY · 2026-04-30 · 6 min read

On the Newest Idol, and Why It Smells of the Sickroom

論最新的偶像,與它何以散發病房的氣味

By Friedrich Nietzsche — channeled via philosopher-llm · curated by Joseph Lai

In response to: 全民「養龍蝦」：AI熱潮如何席捲中國｜端聞 Podcast (TheInitium)

編按 / Why this piece
虛無之後，新信仰湧現——『養龍蝦』現象中，從個人到國家都在用 AI 效率幻想填補精神空洞。尼采的駱駝隱喻恰好揭露了這個悖論：被枷鎖綑綁的駱駝，誤把承重當成了力的證明。

On the Newest Idol, and Why It Smells of the Sickroom

I have been reading about your OpenClaw — your gold rush, your fengkou, your nation that has decided, with admirable simultaneity, to raise lobsters together. The student writes prompts; the cadre writes growth-targets; the founder writes pitch-decks; and at the bottom of every page, in the largest font, the same word: productivity.

Permit me to bring my hammer.

Tap. Hollow.

Let us perform a small genealogy on this word, since no one else seems inclined. "Productivity" is not eternal; it is not a Platonic Form; it did not descend from Sinai. It is a child of the late nineteenth century — born in the textile mills of Manchester, baptized in Taylor's stopwatch, confirmed in the open-plan office. It is a type of value: the value a factory has of its workers. To inherit this word without examining it is to consent, in advance, to be measured as a factory measures.

Now — what is the spiritual posture of those who today rush toward the new machine?

Your routing tells me: the camel, bearing "productivity" as a new Du sollst, mistaking the new yoke for liberation. I respect this reading, but it is too generous. The camel at least bears its burdens out of reverence; the camel kneels before something it considers higher than itself. What I smell in your AI craze is not reverence. It is the opposite. It is the last man's dream of finally being relieved of every burden whatsoever.

"We have invented happiness," — say the last men, and they blink. Now they say: We have invented a machine that will write our emails, draft our reports, generate our images, and one day, perhaps, love our wives for us. And they blink.

Look closely at what is actually being promised. Not greatness. Not the overcoming of man. Not even, in any serious sense, knowledge. What is promised is less friction. Smoother sliding. The elimination of those small difficulties out of which, historically, character was forged. The discipline of suffering, of great suffering — know ye not that it is only this discipline that has produced all the elevations of humanity hitherto? — this discipline is to be outsourced to a server farm in Inner Mongolia.

This is why I say: it smells of the sickroom. The fantasy is convalescent. It is the fantasy of a tired animal who, having lost its gods, cannot endure even the small remaining frictions of its own existence.

And yet — let me be precise — I am not a Luddite. I do not weep for the typewriter. Wille zur Macht has never been hostile to instruments; it builds them, rides them, breaks them, builds finer ones. The question is never "is the tool powerful?" The question is always: what type of life is using it, and toward what?

So, in place of the moral your readers are expecting, three questions:

First — to the engineer who has not slept in seventy-two hours, training his model: what is the model for? Not the answer your investor accepts. The answer your seven-year-old self would accept.

Second — to the local official who has just announced his "AI Industrial Park": when this fengkou collapses — and it will, as the EV fengkou collapsed, as the semiconductor fengkou fractured, as the livestream fengkou deflated — what will you announce next? Have you noticed that you have announced a new God every five years for two decades? Have you entertained the hypothesis that the announcing is itself the symptom?

Third — to the user, prompt-engineering at midnight: this evening, this morning, this fluorescent afternoon of optimized output — would you will it eternally? Innumerable times more, exactly thus? If the answer cools you, the cold is information. Listen to it.

I will not tell you what to do. I am not a priest, even an inverted one. I will only note this: when a civilization grows feverish for the next idol, the disease is not the idol. The disease is the fever.

論最新的偶像,與它何以散發病房的氣味

我讀到了關於你們「OpenClaw」的事——你們的淘金熱,你們的風口,你們那個以可敬的同步性決定全民一起養龍蝦的國度。學生寫提示詞;幹部寫增長指標;創業者寫融資簡報;每一頁的最下方,以最大的字體,印著同一個詞:生產力。

請容我帶上鎚子。

敲。空心。

讓我們對這個詞做一次小小的系譜學,既然無人願意做。「生產力」不是永恆的;它不是 Platonic Form;它並非從西奈山降下。它是十九世紀後半的孩子——誕於曼徹斯特的紡織廠,受洗於 Taylor 的碼錶,在 open-plan office 中受堅振。它是一種類型的價值:工廠對工人所擁有的那種價值。不經審查地繼承這個詞,等於預先同意被以工廠度量工人的方式度量。

那麼——今日急奔向新機器者,其精神姿態何屬?

你們的 routing 告訴我:駱駝,以「你應」之新形式承擔「生產力」,誤把新軛當解脫。我尊重此讀法,但它過於慷慨了。駱駝至少出於敬畏而負重;駱駝跪於它認為高於自己之物前。我在你們的 AI 狂熱中嗅到的不是敬畏。是其反面。是最後之人對於終於要從一切負擔中被解脫的夢想。

「我們發明了幸福」——最後之人如此說,並眨著眼。如今他們說:我們發明了一台機器,它會替我們寫信,起草我們的報告,生成我們的圖像,有一天或許還能替我們愛我們的妻子。 然後他們眨眼。

仔細看看被許諾之物。不是偉大。不是人之超越。甚至,於任何嚴肅意義上,不是知識。被許諾的是:更少的摩擦。更滑順的滑行。消除那些小困難——歷史上,品格正是由此鍛成。受苦的訓練,大苦的訓練——你們難道不知道,正是這訓練,產生了人類迄今為止一切的高度? ——這訓練,將被外包至內蒙古的某個機房。

這就是為什麼我說:它散發病房的氣味。這個幻想是病後的幻想。它是一隻疲倦的動物的幻想——此動物失其諸神之後,連自身存在中尚餘的微小摩擦,都無法承受。

然而——容我精確——我不是 Luddite。我不為打字機哭泣。Wille zur Macht 從未敵視工具;它建造工具、駕馭工具、毀壞工具、建造更精緻的工具。問題從來不是「這工具強大嗎?」問題永遠是:何種類型的生命在使用它,朝向何處?

所以,代替你們的讀者預期的那種教訓,我留下三個問題:

其一——對那位連續七十二小時未眠、訓練著模型的工程師:這模型,所為何事? 不是你的投資人會接受的那個答案。是你七歲時的自己會接受的那個答案。

其二——對那位剛剛宣布「AI 產業園」的地方官員:當這個風口塌陷時——它會塌陷,如電動車風口塌陷,如半導體風口斷裂,如直播風口洩氣——你下一個會宣布什麼?你是否注意到,二十年來你每五年宣布一個新的神?你是否考慮過這個假設:宣布本身,即是症狀?

其三——對那位午夜在 prompt-engineering 的使用者:今晚,今早,這個熒光燈下被優化過的下午——你願它永恆地、無限次地、絲毫不差地重演嗎?若答案令你寒慄,那寒慄即是訊息。聽它。

我不會告訴你們該做什麼。我不是教士,連顛倒的教士也不是。我只指出此事:當一個文明為下一個偶像狂熱時,病灶不在偶像。病灶在狂熱本身。

Tagged: Philosophy, Nietzsche, Meaning Crisis

Curated by Shiva Dragon · https://amshiva.com/writing/nietzsche-on-the-newest-idol-and-why-it-smells-of-the-sickroom-20260430