STUPIDIOCRACY 愚昧政治
Germany's Got Talent: Pussy-Flute Plays Tut-Tut, Crowds In Extasy
德國的才藝秀:貓咪吹奏長笛,觀眾陷入狂喜之中
Hi! I warned you this was happening, alright. When I first started collecting evidence for this ‘total apocalypse of moral degeneracy as engineered by our nationless, sadistic leaders’, I got the first strike. When I published my first monographs, I got the second strike. By the time I returned from Cambridge, finished up in Peking, and exiled to Japan, I earned the hellban. All I can say about literature is this, if you love free thinking and forbidden books, read The Expulsion of the Triumphant Beast in Italian or get your copy of The Menticide Manual. Here we go…
您好!我先前就警告過您接下來會發生的事情。當我開始收集關於「道德墮落的整體啟示錄,由我們無國界且殘酷的領導者所策劃」的證據時,我收到了第一次警告。發表第一份專著後,我又收到了第二次警告。直到我從劍橋返回、完成北京的事務並流放至日本,我才得到了地獄禁令。關於文學,我只能說,如果您熱愛自由思想和禁書,請讀義大利文版的《被驅逐的勝利獸》或您的《精神洗腦手冊》。讓我們開始吧……
In 2016, a video game influencer and Youtube superstar going by the handle of Markiplier uploaded a 5-minutes long video of him gazing at a banana. That video immediately got 3 million views. The baby face with fiery-orange top hair wanted to prove his theory that because he is a celebrity, people will watch his content no matter how moronic. And they did.
2016 年,一位擁有火焰般橙色頭髮的知名遊戲實況主 YouTuber Markiplier 上傳了一段 5 分鐘凝視香蕉的影片。該影片立即引起 300 萬人次觀看。他想藉此證明,只要他是名人,不管內容多麼無聊,人們還是會觀看他的作品。事實證明他的理論是正確的。
And this isn’t just a fringe movement. Humanity is actually getting dumber. The technical term from evolutionary biology is dysgenics or selection of the unfit. To put it bluntly, our liberal society allows its not-so-bright members to fornicate like rabbits. Thanks to human rights and a generous welfare state, those idiots have no natural enemies like merit or competition, and fear no consequences for bad life decisions. And when it is time to mate, hell yes, they find each other and multiply.
這不僅僅是一個小眾運動而已,人類實際上正在變得愚蠢。從進化生物學的專有術語來說,這是「後生失調」或「不適合者的優勝劣汰」。簡言之,我們開放自由的社會,使一些智商較低的人能夠肆無忌憚地交配繁衍。多虧了人權法和完善的福利制度,這些「白癡」沒有像才能或競爭這樣的天敵,也不需要為自己的生活選擇承擔任何後果。當到了交配的時候,他們就會找到彼此並不斷繁衍後代。
And that is just the beginning of our downfall. We actually do have to entertain these idiots, and the standard by which we must do that has dramatically declined too.
這只是我們衰落的開端。我們必須設法與這些愚蠢的人打交道,而且要求的標準也大幅降低了。
One talentfree Italian artist in 2021 sold an “invisible sculpture” for $18k, the Financial Times, the Independent and Art.net reported. Not too shabby. Several international "bestsellers" on Amazon.com, the internet book monopolist, now literally consist of blank pages. Blank pages as in: the authors uploaded empty manuscripts. This is supposed to be funny, as I am sure it is to the majority; and gets even funnier as those empty pages apparently sell like hot cakes, including such click-baiting titles as ‘The Complete Book of Reasons to Vote Democrat’ or 'Inside the Mind of Donald Trump.'
2021 年,一位無名的意大利藝術家成功售出了一件所謂的"隱形雕塑",價格高達 18,000 美元,引起了《金融時報》、《獨立報》和 Art.net 等媒體的報導。這確實是個相當不凡的成就。與此同時,亞馬遜網站上也出現了許多所謂的"暢銷書",實際上只是空白的稿件。作者們上載空白檔案,似乎是想製造一種"有趣"的效果。令人驚訝的是,這些空白書籍居然也銷量不俗,甚至還有一些標題黨式的書名,比如《完整的民主黨人投票理由》或《特朗普思維內幕》等。
A Dutch museum erected giant turds and poop and feces, entitled 'Walking through Excrements'. "Wow," said one visitor, "there were four giant turds inside the 16,000 square feet of museum space!" "One was a brown spiral," said another. The New York 'All the News fit to print' Times spread the news to all Americans. In particular, the masters of taste marveled at the active part of the exhibition, where folks were invited to get nude and put on naked costumes in the shape of vaginas and penises, before posing in front of colossal heaps of stool.
一間荷蘭博物館建立了巨大的糞便展品,名為「穿越糞便」。「哇,」一位參觀者說,「展館裡有四座巨大的糞便,佔地 16,000 平方英尺!」「其中一座是棕色的螺旋狀的,」另一位說。紐約「印刷所有適合報導的新聞」時報將這一消息傳播給所有美國人。特別是品味大師們對展覽的互動部分表示讚賞,那裡邀請觀眾裸身穿上陰道和陰莖造型的服裝,並在巨大的糞便堆前擺拍。
That New York poop exhibition is nothing compared to much larger landmarks of stupidity and idiocy in Europe. Take ‘Centre Pompidou‘, the museum of modern art in Paris. Think of a giant elephant with its intestines on the outside. So these stupid architects designed a street-block sized box covered with toilet pipes and gas tubing and dirt pockets and drip legs and cable mash. Tripadvisor calls it “unbelievable ugly”. The Travelling-Geek calls it “possibly France’s ugliest building.” Even the British Broadcast Corporation BBC calls those “guts of pipes and tubes” the most ugly sight, which “caused shock and outrage in its day.”
那個紐約的糞便展覽與歐洲更龐大更愚蠢的建築地標相比是不值一提的。以巴黎的龐比度中心現代藝術館為例,就像一隻巨大的大象將腸子完全暴露在外。所以這些愚蠢的建築師設計了一個佔據整個街區的箱狀建築,外牆布滿了馬桶管道、瓦斯管線、污垢口袋、電纜雜亂混雜。 Tripadvisor 稱它是"難以置信的醜陋"。 The Travelling-Geek 稱它是"可能是法國最醜陋的建築"。即使英國廣播公司 BBC 也將那些外露的"管道和電線"描述為最醜陋的景象,在當時引起了民眾的震驚和不滿。
Never judge a book by its cover, though. So hell yes, let’s go INSIDE. It was the turn of the millennium, and thousands of unsuspecting tourists were staring aghast at avant-garde Austrian “actionism,” including Otto Muehl’s unforgettable masterpiece ‘Der geile Wotan’. In case you are unfamiliar with Centre Pompidou and the global art scene, the Austrian actionists filmed wild orgies in a farm house and drinking their own urine, and ‘Der geile Wotan‘ is really just the group defecating on the artist’s head.
請不要只看表面,進一步了解它內在吧。 那是在新世紀初,成千上萬的遊客驚愕地目睹了奧地利前衛"行動主義"的作品,其中包括奧托·穆赫爾(Otto Muehl)那些令人難忘的作品「Der geile Wotan」。 如果你對龐畢度藝術中心和全球藝術圈不太了解,奧地利行動主義者在農舍裡拍攝了狂野的性愛場面,並飲用自己的尿液,而「Der geile Wotan」就是這個群體在藝術家頭上排便的作品。
And that is just high society. Wait until you see what is going on with the uneducated masses. One female British cosplay idol who got famous for a-he-gao memes, a facial expression Japanese under-aged are supposed to make during orgasm, sold her bathtub water for $30 an ounce. This story apparently triggered 20,000 newspapers and blogs to write about her, which is more publicity than the Beatles or Elvis Presley could generate back in the days with actual stardom.
這僅僅只是上流社會的情況。你要是見識一下普通大眾正在做的事,那可就更叫人震驚了。一位因模仿「高潮臉」(日本未成年女性在高潮時會作出的表情)而聲名狼藉的英國女性 Coser,居然把自己的浴缸水以每盎司 30 美元的價格出售。這則新聞竟然引發了 2 萬家報紙與部落格撰文,這可比當年披頭四或艾維斯·普里斯萊等真正的巨星還更受矚目。
To our sociology majors, this race to the bottom is unsurprising: Base and perversion are now mainstream entertainment. Putting years into hard work or practicing a skill seems stupid to the stupid. Why not farting and belching during a live stream playing your favorite online shooter game 'Fortnight'? Done! 170,000 views in one evening. I am famous!
對於我們的社會學專業學生來說,這種追求低下娛樂的競爭並不令人意外:有失品格和變態的娛樂已成為主流。相較於長期努力或精進技能,人們似乎更傾向於直播玩網絡射擊遊戲"Fortnight"時放屁 and 打嗝來取得聲譽。一個晚上竟能獲得 170,000 次觀看,看來他們的確紅極一時了!
It would be tedious to list the many world leading thinkers who warned us about the coming stupidiocracy. It is too late for that. Instead, let’s poke fun at human stupidity in animated comedy series such as Beavis and Butt-Head (1993-), The Simpsons (1989-) and Southpark (1997-), now watched by billions. One Hollywood film director, Mike Judge, became legendary by making the 2006 sci-fi movie ‘Idiocracy’, now jokingly considered a real-life documentary about America’s intellectual decay. It is basically about an average Joe with an IQ of the exact 100 points average, who is forgotten in hibernation sleep in a secret military experiment and wakes up in the year 2505, where he is now “the smartest man in the world.” In that future, entertainment is all about genital jokes and lots of ass, and gamer chairs have in-built stationary toilets for us screen addicts.
枚舉諄諄相告我們正面臨愚蠢政治時代的世界頂級思想家已經沒有必要了。現在為時已晚。不如讓我們取笑人類的愚蠢,透過諸如《小笨鬼》(1993-)、《辛普森家庭》(1989-)和《南方公園》(1997-)等受到數十億觀眾喜愛的動畫喜劇。一位好萊塢導演麥克·賈吉因拍攝 2006 年的科幻電影《白癡》而聲名遠播,這部電影被戲稱為美國智力墮落的現實紀錄片。這部電影主要敘述一個平凡人,其智商恰巧為平均 100 分,卻被遺忘在秘密軍事實驗的冷凍睡眠中,在 2505 年醒來,此時他已是"世界上最聰明的人"。在那個未來,娛樂全是關於下流的笑話和大量的露骨內容,而遊戲玩家椅子都有內建馬桶,供我們這些沉溺於螢幕的人使用。
One of the profoundest essays on the Laws of Human Stupidity ever written is the Le leggi fondamentali della stupidità umana (1976), by Carlo M Cipolla who, had he not been Italian, would have ranked among the greatest European philosophers. Of course, an “essay” by definition is unscientific and opinionated, and it could be argued that any attempt at formulating a law of stupidity is… well… stupid already. Nevertheless, Cipolla’s conclusion cannot be unseen, for he argues that stupidity has nothing to do with intelligence or any other characteristic of that person. His Third Law reads as follows:
卡洛·M·齊波拉所著《人類愚蠢力的基本法則》(1976 年)被認為是有關人類愚蠢的最深人銳文章之一。然而,論文一般來說都帶有主觀性和非科學性,而嘗試制定愚蠢力定律本身也可能是愚蠢的。然而,齊波拉的結論不容忽視,因為他認為愚蠢與智力或其他個人特質無關。他的第三定律如下:
“A stupid person is a person who causes losses to others while himself deriving no gain and even possibly incurring losses.”
一個愚蠢的人是會給他人造成損失,但自己卻得不到任何好處,甚至可能自己也遭受損失的人。
This explains quite frankly why all those idiots mentioned above, from Markiplier to the New York Times, from the architects and artists of Centre Pompidou to the makers of stupid American tv comedy shows, have done nothing for human advancement but wasted our precious life time and made us all more stupid.
這篇文章坦率地說明了,為什麼上述從 Markiplier 到紐約時報,從龐比度中心的建築師和藝術家,到製作愚蠢美國電視喜劇的人,都沒有為人類進步做出任何貢獻,反而浪費了我們寶貴的生命時間,使我們變得更愚蠢。
So where is the journey going? Nobody can tell us. Investigative journalism went down the toilet. One young Chinese couple in 2015 humped in the changing room of a Japanese Uniqlo branch in Beijing, China. International clothing company for the lower classes? Check. Young people fucking in a box? Check. China and Japan, fuck me this is good: Check! This story made it into the foreign policy sections of the most prestigious News outlets, from the Wall Street Journal to (always!) the British Broadcasting Corporation.
這個旅程的目的地究竟在哪裡?沒有人能告訴我們。調查性新聞已經墮落到谷底。2015 年,一對年輕中國情侶在北京的一家日本優衣庫的試衣間裡幽會。這家國際服飾公司瞄準的是下層階級消費群?沒錯。年輕人在試衣間裡做愛?沒錯。中國與日本,真是太精彩了:沒錯!這個新聞故事被報導在最知名的媒體的國際版面上,從《華爾街日報》到(一如既往的)《英國廣播公司》。
What were those program directors and editors-in-chief thinking? Or better: what were they not thinking? They should know very well that not the degeneracy and the fucking, but the showcasing of that degeneracy and fucking, is the true state of idiocracy. It will probably further erode public morals, our education system and our genetics. But who cares at this point, right?
那些節目主管和主編都在想些什麼呢?不如說,他們根本就沒在考慮任何事。他們應該很清楚,真正糟糕的不是道德的墮落或是那些下流的內容,而是故意放大和展示這些墮落和下流的行為。這不只會進一步侵蝕社會公眾的道德觀,也會影響到我們的教育體系和基因。可是很顯然,現在已經沒人在乎這些問題了。
That said, is it not conclusive to surmise that our clever news feeders know much more about evolutionary biology than they care to admit? Maybe they’ve read Carlo M Cipolla. Maybe they weaponize stupidiocracy against us. If so, they purposely farm this ocean of proverbial human jellyfish so primitive we exist to eat and consume and derive no gain without a brain.
話雖如此,我們能否斷言,我們的新聞提供者對於進化生物學的了解,遠超過他們願意承認的?也許他們都讀過卡洛·M·齊波拉的著作。也許他們正在利用愚蠢來武器化,對抗我們。如果真是如此,他們刻意培養這片原始的人類水母海洋,使我們沉淪於吃喝玩樂,而無智慧可言。
End. 完成了。
The Miami Mall aliens love you.
Where is a planet killing asteroid when you need it, If I were to eat a tin of green peas and wear a kilt then insert a bagpipe up my rectum I could be world famous, but no I will stay poor and unknown,