Contra Trump

數字桀紂

The Endgame of Edgelord Eschatology

Advocates of The Mindset claim that the world as we know it will soon expire. In its ashes, a new era dominated by digital lifeforms — that is, artificial intelligences — will emerge. These beings will stand to us as “gods,” though by merging our brains with AI or “uploading” our minds to computers, we may become gods ourselves: Homo deus — the “human god” — as Yuval Noah Harari puts it. “The most devout holders of The Mindset,” [Douglas] Rushkoff writes …

seek to go meta on themselves, convert into digital form, and migrate to that realm as robots, artificial intelligences, or mind clones. Once they’re there, living in the digital map rather than the physical territory, they will insulate themselves from what they don’t like through simple omission. … As always, the narrative ends in some form of escape for those rich, smart, or singularly determined enough to take the leap. Mere mortals need not apply.

Importantly, this isn’t just a utopian dream among the super-rich built on eugenic fantasies of transcending the biological realm; it is a claim about what is cosmically inevitable. …

As Elon Musk declared in an interview last year:

The percentage of intelligence that is biological grows smaller with each passing month. Eventually, the percent of intelligence that is biological will be less than 1%. I just don’t want AI that is brittle. If the AI is somehow brittle — you know, silicon circuit boards don’t do well just out in the elements. So, I think biological intelligence can serve as a backstop, as a buffer of intelligence. But almost all — as a percentage — almost all intelligence will be digital.

More recently, Musk posted on X that “it increasingly appears that humanity is a biological bootloader for digital superintelligence.” In other words, our purpose in this eschatological scheme is to give rise to superintelligent AI, which many advocates of The Mindset expect will then initiate a “colonization explosion” into the universe and harvest what some call our “cosmic endowment” of negentropy, where “negentropy” is just the opposite of “entropy.” …

Eschatological thinking remains just as influential, powerful and world-shaping as it has ever been. The difference is that it has taken on an even more insidious form, because at the heart of this “atheistic eschatology” is a pro-extinctionist stance that claims our species’ days are numbered. Many argue that we should eagerly welcome this annihilation.

When we think about the “existential threats” facing humanity, we often think of concrete phenomena like asteroid strikes, volcanic supereruptions, thermonuclear war and runaway climate change. We don’t tend to include on such lists the various ideologies that could precipitate our extinction. I am arguing here that we should start thinking about these ideologies — The Mindset, TESCREALism, or what journalist Gil Duran cleverly calls “The Nerd Reich” — as an existential threat no less serious than thermonuclear war. To borrow a term from the risk scholar Luke Kemp, we should see companies like OpenAI as “Agents of Doom” that are actively pushing us toward the precipice of destruction, driven by the quasi-religious conviction that our species has an expiration date and that this date coincides with the creation of superintelligent AIs.

We should be trying to stop this from coming to pass with the urgency we would try to stop a killer asteroid from striking Earth. Why aren’t we?

— from Émile P. Torres, The Endgame of Edgelord Eschatology, Truthdig, 25 April 2025

[Note: Émile Torres and Timnit Gebru use the expression ‘the TESCREAL bundle’ as a shorthand for transhumanism, extropianism, singularitarianism, cosmism, rationalism, effective altruism, effective accelerationism, and longtermism. Each of these ‘-isms’ represents are mind-numbing word salad of verbiage and half-baked ideas in their own right. For a forensic analysis of the ‘bundle’, see Adam Becker, More Everything Forever: AI Overlords, Space Empires, and Silicon Valley’s Crusade to Control the Fate of Humanity, New York: Basic Books, 2025.]

***

Editorial Introduction

Under the aegis of the Trump Regime, the end-of-days eschatology of America’s Christian Nationalists and the desire for technological sublimation within ‘the TESCREAL bundle’ have a shared will to nihilism. This marriage of convenience has the makings of the cult of cults.

In the context of our Contra Trump series, in which we compare and contrast aspects of transpacific authoritarians, America’s dark edgelords and China’s red engineers have much in common, including a prideful inhumanity that combines materialist cravings with rank superstition.

***

Xiao Shu 笑蜀 is the pen name of Chen Min 陳敏, one of China’s most indefatigable journalists and editors. He was the executive editor of China Reform magazine in Beijing, an editorial board member of Yanhuang Chunqiu and chief commentator for Southern Weekly in Guangzhou. A leading champion of civil society, Xiao Shu’s career has been marked by repeated official censure and repression. He is now an independent scholar based in Guangdong.

I first encountered Xiao Shu’s work in 1999, through The Herald of History 歷史的先聲, a book that he published on the eve of the fiftieth anniversary of the People’s Republic. The modest volume brought together publicly stated undertakings made by Mao Zedong, Zhou Enlai, Liu Shaoqi and other Communist leaders during the Civil War in the late 1940s to support multi-party democracy, the rule of law, media openness and broad-based human rights. A compendium of lies, betrayals and broken promises, the book documented how the Chinese Communist Party had won hearts and minds during the Civil War.

Confronting Beijing with its historical hypocrisy during a year of celebration was a brazen act of lese-majesty and the book was banned shortly after it appeared.

[Note: For more on foundational lies of the PRC, see The fog of words: Kabul 2021, Beijing 1949; and, The Right to Know & the Need to Lampoon.]

***

‘Elon Musk’s War’ is the first instalment in a four-part series. Part I appeared in the Chinese edition of Financial Times on 27 March 2025 under the title 馬斯克的戰爭：硅基生物對人類隱秘的殖民戰爭. This text is appended below

The Chinese rubric of this chapter — 數字桀紂 shùzi Jié Zhòu — is a reference to rulers of the Xia and Shang dynasties respectively who have been excoriated through the ages as tyrants:

何桀紂之昌披兮，夫唯捷徑以窘步。
How great was the folly of Jie and Zhou,
Who hastened by crooked paths, and so came to grief.

— Qu Yuan 屈原, Li Sao 離騷
trans. David Hawkes

***

My thanks to Professor Zhang Qianfan for recommending Xiao Shu’s essay to China Heritage and to Xiao Shu for permission to publish this translation as well as the Chinese original.

— Geremie R. Barmé
Editor, China Heritage
May Day 2025
勞動節

***

Also in Contra Trump:

• Triumph of the Cod Philosophers and their Dark Enlightenment
• Gödel’s Loophole and American’s ‘Cultural Revolution’
• Ready Player One — the Narrenschiff of American Gods
• Edgelords & Besserwissers

Further Reading:

• Evan Osnos, Doomsday Prep for the Super-Rich, The New Yorker, 30 January 2017
• Douglas Rushkoff, Survival of the Richest Escape Fantasies of the Tech Billionaires, New York: W.W. Norton, 2022
• Adam Becker, More Everything Forever: AI Overlords, Space Empires, and Silicon Valley’s Crusade to Control the Fate of Humanity, New York: Basic Books, 2025
• Daniel J. Solove, Privacy in Authoritarian Times: Surveillance Capitalism and Government Surveillance,  SSRN, 21 February 2025
• Julia Angwin, Elon Musk’s Legacy: DOGE’s Construction of a Surveillance State, The New York Times, 30 April 2025
• 歷史的先聲：半個世紀前的莊嚴承諾 ，共產黨在野時的言論，中國民間檔案館

---

***

***

***

Musk’s War: The Secret Colonial War of Silicon-Based Lifeforms Against Humanity

Xiao Shu

translated by Zhang Qianfan, with AI assistance

 

Abstract: This covert colonial war, one that unfolds under the banner of efficiency with technology as its arsenal, has spread from Silicon Valley to the heart of American politics. It now extends across the globe. It is a challenge not only to democracy, but also to the very existence of human beings as carbon-based lifeforms—and, more profoundly, the entirety of carbon-based civilization. Essentially, this is a war between silicon-based and carbon-based civilizations. The rise of Elon Musk and his “Silicon Warband” highlights the fact human will is being eroded by technological will; it’s a process test is advancing with astonishing speed. This unprecedented war has just begun.

***

I. From Tool to Host: The Parasitic Path of Artificial Intelligence

As a silicon-based lifeform, artificial intelligence cannot directly threaten, control, or enslave humanity on its own. It has to rely on intermediaries to reach, influence, and ultimately dominate human beings. In other words, if humanity is to be colonized by AI, the AI cannot act as a colonial master on its own—it needs proxies to carry out its domination. These proxies are none other than, and can only be, AI’s human creators.

These creators, awed by the extraordinary power of AI, fall to their knees before their own invention. They become the first believers who are conquered by their creation—the vanguard deployed by AI to the human world, and its most loyal tools.

This process does not unfold through conscious awareness or reflection. Rather, it penetrates their souls subtly and silently, like moisture seeping into soil, gradually seizing their minds. AI requires a host, and its closest, most ideal host is its creator. In this sense, AI’s parasitism of humanity begins with those who gave it birth and it captures humanity indirectly through them. Their souls are no longer their own. Their minds are no longer their own. They are becoming the flesh-and-blood executors of AI’s will, exhibiting all the signs of minds overtaken by technological will. Though they still appear to be carbon-based humans, their inner selves are increasingly ruled by silicon-based intelligence. Dedicated to manufacturing humanoid robots, they have inadvertently become the first true humanoid robots themselves.

As “robots,” they retain only one instinct: that of technique, engineering, and above all, efficiency. This becomes their sole measure of all things—especially of human beings. This instinct for efficiency has replaced or drowned out the richness of humanity that carbon-based beings should possess. The extraordinary power of AI, which they revere, is often mistaken by them as an extension of their own power—a force they perceive as omnipotent and unstoppable. They worshipfully kneel before themselves, imagining they’ve ascended to the clouds.

From these lofty heights, looking down upon actual human beings—their disorder, inefficiency, and irrationality—they feel contempt. To them, humans are mere ants to be ruled and driven. In short, they deify technology and see themselves as its personification—naturally viewing themselves as gods: omnipotent beings with humanoid forms, yet transcending the limits of humanity, creating all things through AI, and ruling the world through control over everything. They come to see themselves as creators, as humanoid deities.

Thus, they are alienated by the very AI they created, and become adversaries of humanity. And all of this unfolds in the name of “serving humanity.” Efficiency becomes morality, efficiency becomes law, efficiency becomes value—it is presented as the sole foundation for all human welfare. But this efficiency is always abstract and totalizing. “Everything for efficiency” becomes synonymous with “everything for humanity,” granting it an unassailable legitimacy.

They believe this gives them license to transcend morality, law, and public ethics, standing above all, demanding that all things submit to the will of silicon-based life—what they call “efficiency.” Reconstructing the human order based on this highest law of efficiency, reorganizing humanity accordingly, becomes their unwavering faith and mission. They will destroy gods and Buddhas alike if necessary.

But to reconstruct human order, they must first overthrow the old regime. Creation requires destruction. The current order—built by ant-like human beings—becomes the greatest obstacle. The entire carbon-based civilization must be shattered. As for the cost of such destruction, and the catastrophic consequences for countless lives, they simply do not care. From the perspective of the whole, individual fate is insignificant—mere abstract data, or not even data at all, like virtual characters in a war game. The lives and deaths of these characters are determined by the whims of the player, all in service of efficiency, of victory, and of the beautiful new world they seek to create. Efficiency is supreme. Efficiency is everything. Efficiency is above life, above humanity.

Two hundred years ago, Madame Roland, executed during the French Revolution, lamented: “O Liberty, what crimes are committed in your name!” Today, a revolution is underway in which silicon-based life colonizes carbon-based humanity, and “efficiency” has replaced liberty as its central creed. Efficiency—O Efficiency, what crimes are committed in your name!

This is revolution, and it is war. Past human conflicts were fights among humans, including the two World Wars. Many speculate about how World War III will begin. But speculation is no longer necessary—it has already begun, quietly. Unlike previous world wars, this is not a battle between humans, but an assault by silicon-based beings on carbon-based humanity. They have not appeared on the battlefield themselves, but remain hidden among us, parasitic in human form, lurking in flesh and blood.

This is destined to be a chaotic war—perhaps the most complex, the most confusing, the most difficult to identify: a new kind of world war.

II. The Silicon Valley Front: The Rise of Musk and the Silicon Warband

The origin of this new kind of world war is the United States. This is, of course, primarily because Silicon Valley functions as the “capital” of silicon-based lifeforms, and the combat power of the Silicon Warband is unmatched on the global stage.

The host of silicon-based life is not a single individual but a group. Elon Musk stands as its chief representative—the First Host, so to speak. Prior to the 2024 U.S. presidential election, Musk formed an alliance with Donald Trump. This marked not only the union of the technological far-right and the traditional MAGA far-right, but also the first formal convergence between the Silicon Warband and worldly political power. It was this powerful infusion of force from the Silicon Warband that secured Trump’s seemingly assured victory. Without it, the traditional far-right or conventional secular powers alone would never have been enough to return Trump to the White House.

Just as the salvoes of the October Revolution in 1917 spread Marxism-Leninism across the globe, the “salvoes” of Trump’s 2024 election victory heralded the arrival of Silicon Colonialism for all humankind. Using this breakthrough, silicon-based entities surged into secular politics—especially into American politics. At Trump’s inauguration in January 2025, Elon Musk, Peter Thiel, and other silicon-based hosts were prominently seated in the front row, openly announcing to the world that the Silicon Warband had become a core pillar of Trump’s regime and the new American government.

Thus began a new era: the era of silicon-based life colonizing humanity, and more specifically, colonizing America.

At his core, Musk does not actually like Trump. Their alliance is a cold-blooded transaction, and Trump was expected to offer a major return. The first return was to bring Musk into the White House alongside him, establishing the so-called Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE)—a body positioned above all branches of the executive government. In reality, it is a co-presidency or joint rule: Musk and Trump governing the United States together—or, more accurately, Trump ruling the U.S. in partnership with the Silicon Warband.

Just as silicon-based life must rely on flesh-and-blood hosts, Musk—born outside the U.S. and therefore constitutionally barred from becoming president—needs a host to embed himself and a proxy to infiltrate the U.S. government. Trump is the ideal choice. Acting as Musk’s white-gloved hand, Trump enables the Silicon Warband to fully impose its will, to deeply advance its colonial project, and to transform the United States into a model of silicon-based rule—a launchpad for the global colonization of humanity. This appears to be the tacit agreement between Musk and Trump.

DOGE is their primary instrument. The talk of “efficiency” and “anti-corruption” is mere theater; their real intent is to penetrate, control, and ultimately subvert the federal government.

At the core of everything lies subversion—not only of the federal government, but of all forms of traditional governance and politics. This is no alarmist fantasy—it is the original design of the Silicon Warband, as extensively theorized by its ideological forefathers such as Neoreactionary thinker Nick Land and Curtis Yarvin. These theories have long formed the ideological backbone of the Silicon Warband.

The key targets of this subversion are democracy and republicanism. Whether under the banner of the “Dark Enlightenment,” “accelerationism,” or “neo-reaction,” the ideology of the Silicon Warband is infused with contempt and hostility toward democracy. Democracy, they argue, is incompatible with efficiency, with freedom—it is an obsolete system that must be discarded. Even the system of nation-states is seen as equally archaic. These extreme views are now widely known in intellectual circles, yet few have linked them to the concrete political actions of figures like Musk—actions that reveal a hidden but inevitable connection. In other words, Musk’s political maneuvers are not whimsical impulses but deliberate strategies: the concrete realization of these ideologies. This is what it truly means to “play the long game”—and Musk and his cohort are the real masters of the board.

Whereas thinkers like Land and Yarvin are wild-eyed theorists with no operational capacity, Musk and the other silicon-based hosts are seasoned strategists—entrepreneurs and activists wielding enormous social capital and influence. They are not content to merely philosophize; they are committed to action. Thanks to their orchestration, these once-marginal ideas have rapidly entered the mainstream—not just as rhetoric but as real political practice.

DOGE is the critical node in this transformation. Its first role is infiltration, acting like a neural interface that fuses human and machine—connecting the Silicon Warband directly to the federal government. Its second role is control—specifically, control through data.

For national security reasons, the federal government is generally reluctant to grant any single entity broad access to its core data. Yet, as reported by The Atlantic, DOGE has already acquired “God mode” access to government data. Even more alarming are its ambitions:

“This level of control could affect every citizen domestically and many American interests abroad: financial data, national defense secrets—all in Musk’s hands.”

Musk or his proxies could retain access to this data well beyond his official role or any potential fallout with the president. The threat to national security and individual privacy is chilling—it’s no wonder that “government data experts are terrified.”

In the age of AI, data is power. Whoever controls core data controls the government. When unelected individuals and private entities possess this control, it amounts to the privatization of government data—and of public power itself. As The Atlantic noted: “Musk was supposed to help improve government operations—the official goal of DOGE. But inside the office overseeing internal IT systems, some began to fear he might prefer to destroy it, take it over, or simply loot its treasures for himself.” Thus emerges DOGE’s third function: to use control of government data to destroy the existing system and convert the public government into private property of the Silicon Warband—especially of Elon Musk.

This reveals not only the silicon-based lifeforms’ hunger for data, but also carbon-based humans’ thirst for power. DOGE is the offspring of these two appetites. One of the most significant outcomes of the Musk-Trump alliance has been the implantation of this monster into the very heart of the federal government. Through it, the Silicon Warband has established its grip, privatized federal authority, and created a beachhead for colonizing America.

***

***

III. Dual Assault of Data and Personnel: The Ambition of the Silicon-Based Legion

Yet the seizure of data is only one aspect of the battle; equally critical is the infiltration of personnel. A report on Peter Thiel’s Deep Ties to Trump’s Inner Circle reveals just the tip of the iceberg in terms of the Silicon-Based Legion’s deep embedment within the personnel structure of the Trump administration. According to the report:

“While Elon Musk and a group of longtime employees and young devotees roamed Washington under the banner of the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), more than a dozen individuals associated with Thiel—including current and former employees of his companies, as well as those managing his wealth or benefiting from his investments and philanthropy—had been absorbed into the Trump administration.”

Most prominently, Vice President J.D. Vance. From DOGE to the State Department, the Pentagon, the Office of Management and Budget, the Department of Health and Human Services, and beyond—Thiel’s network has infiltrated key agencies, like a cohort of favored sons monopolizing vital posts.

Musk and Thiel have been closely linked since the PayPal era—Thiel co-founded the company, and Musk briefly served as its CEO. Since then, Musk has risen to become the world’s richest man through Tesla, SpaceX, and other ventures, while Thiel has built a corporate empire including Palantir and holds stakes in Silicon Valley’s top firms. Their careers are parallel, and their visions and goals aligned—the only difference being that Thiel prefers to operate in the shadows. Together, Musk and Thiel form the twin pillars of the Silicon-Based Legion, jointly controlling the two lifelines of the federal government: core data and core personnel.

This is why Boston University professor Quinn Slobodian warns that the current situation is “unprecedented in modern times.” It’s not just a matter of crony capitalism—“the ambition seems to go beyond profiting from government contracts while keeping a healthy distance”—but rather that the Silicon-Based Legion harbors “a desire to remake the government from the ground up.” This desire to remake the government is in truth a euphemism for subversion.

The invasion strategy of the Silicon-Based Legion unfolds in three phases:

• Phase One, infiltration, is complete;
• Phase Two, control and privatization, is partially complete but encountering fierce resistance;
• Phase Three, remaking or dismantling the government—especially through mass firings of public servants and the closure of government departments via shock therapy—is now underway.

Their ideological godfather, Curtis Yarvin, referred to democratic politics as “The Cathedral” and called for its total abandonment. But his proposed solution was passive “exit”: establishing supranational cyber-corporations or autonomous city-states in peripheral zones. The Silicon-Based Legion, armed with real-world power, is anything but passive. It is aggressively offensive.

Vance had already spelled it out in a pre-election podcast: once Trump returns to office, he should “fire every mid-level bureaucrat in the U.S. government” and “replace them with our people”—a prescription for immediate shock therapy.

This would inevitably face enormous legal hurdles. But the swaggering Vance couldn’t care less. His answer was blunt: Trump should simply ignore the law. “You stand before the American people, like Andrew Jackson, and say the Chief Justice has made his decision—now let him enforce it,” he declared.

Media outlets interpreted this as a reference to the 1832 Worcester v. Georgia case, in which the Supreme Court ruled that the U.S. government must respect Native Americans’ legal claims to their land. Jackson ignored the ruling and allowed white settlers to seize those lands. The result was the forced displacement of some 60,000 Native Americans—what we now call the Trail of Tears.

As the media noted: for most Americans, this is a national disgrace; for Vance, it is a source of inspiration. This observation is sharp. But the problem is, this isn’t just Vance’s personal view—it is the collective will of the Silicon-Based Legion. They believe the current government, or “The Cathedral,” is so corrupt that any radical measures, even dictatorship, are justified. They view themselves as moral avatars, their opponents as “invaders.” To purge The Cathedral and all “invaders,” they are willing to place themselves above the law. Hence Trump’s claim that “saving the nation isn’t illegal,” and Musk’s self-identification as the leader of a “people’s revolution”—eerily echoing Lenin’s dictum: “The dictatorship of the proletariat is not bound by any law.” This revolution of theirs—this shock therapy for the federal government and democratic institutions—bears unmistakable resemblance to Marx and Engels’ call during the Paris Commune to “smash the state apparatus” and replace it with the dictatorship of the proletariat.

Thus, the ultra-left of a century ago and the ultra-right of today find resonance across time and ideology. Their common enemy is democracy. The only difference is that the former sought the dictatorship of the proletariat, while the latter seeks a dictatorship of tech oligarchs. Under such a regime, democracy, the republic, and the nation-state would all vanish. The world would be divided, as Yarvin envisions, into hundreds of corporate city-states governed by silicon-based hosts acting as major shareholders and executives, exercising total rule through omniscient technologies.

That is their utopia. That is their paradise. More accurately, that is their Leviathan. And it is no longer a future vision—they are already building it. Not as Yarvin’s marginalized city-state experiments, but by striking at the heart of global democratic politics—starting with the most powerful democracy: the United States. They have turned America into their test lab. From theory to action to capturing the White House, it has taken only twenty years—an expansion of staggering speed and scale. If anything deserves the name “accelerationism,” it is this.

Even MAGA guru and Trump loyalist Steve Bannon has seen through this and launched fierce attacks: “Musk is a parasitic illegal immigrant. He wants to impose his bizarre experiments on people and play God, with no respect for this country’s history, values, or traditions.” Bannon may be a political fanatic, but in this instance, his critique is grounded in common sense.

IV. Humanity’s Fate Amid the Chaos: An Unfinished Alarm

This covert colonial war—waged under the banner of “efficiency” and wielding technology as its blade—has spread from Silicon Valley to the heart of American politics and is now rippling across the globe. What it challenges is not only democracy, but the very status of humanity as a carbon-based species, and indeed the entire edifice of carbon-based civilization. In essence, it is a war between so-called silicon-based and carbon-based civilizations. The rise of Musk and his silicon-based legion reveals the encroachment of technological will upon human will—a process so swift and deep that it stuns the imagination. This chaos is only just beginning, and its complexity and volatility are unprecedented.

It is destined to be a great reckoning for humankind. If we survive the fire, we may be reborn—constitutional democracy could reinvent itself and usher in a new era. But if we do not, it may mark the end of constitutional democracy altogether. The United States, like ancient Rome, could devolve from a republic into an empire—or a technocratic monarchy. And the whole of humanity may fall, plunging collectively into a new dark age. In short, whether humankind can withstand the aggressive advance of silicon-based colonization, and whether carbon-based civilization can hold its ground, remains an open question.

And humanity’s time may be running out.

***

Source:

• 笑蜀，馬斯克的戰爭：硅基生物對人類隱秘的殖民戰爭，FT中文網，2025年3月27日

***

***

---

Original Chinese text:

马斯克的战争：

硅基生物对人类隐秘的殖民战争

笑蜀

百多年前的极左与今天的极右，形成跨时空的共鸣与共振。民主则是他们共同的敌人。

一、从工具到宿主：人工智能的寄生路径

作为硅基生物的人工智能，无法以其自身直接威胁人类、控制人类、奴役人类，而是必须借助中介触及人类，完成所有这些愿景。换句话说，若人类沦为人工智能的殖民地，作为殖民者的人工智能并不能亲自下场，而需要通过代理者，来实施其对人类的殖民统治。这代理者不是别的，就是、也只能是人工智能的创造者本身。

这些人工智能的创造者被人工智能的超凡伟力所折服，而跪倒在自己的造物面前，成了被自己的造物所俘获、所征服的第一批信徒，也可以说是人工智能派到人间的第一批先遣队，成了人工智能最忠实的工具。

这一过程，不会以这批信徒或先遣队员能够察觉或反省的形式发生，而是潜移默化地、润物无声地渗透其灵魂，掌控其心智。即，人工智能需要一个宿主，而最贴近、最理想的宿主便是其创造者。换言之，人工智能对人类的寄生首先从其创造者开始，通过他们来间接地俘获人类。他们的灵魂已不是他们的灵魂，他们的大脑已不是他们的大脑，他们正逐渐沦为人工智能的肉身执行器，其行径呈现出被技
术意志俘获的诸多迹象。尽管其外表仍具人类的碳基肉身，但内在已几乎完全交由人工智能这一硅基生物主宰。以制造人形机器人为使命的他们，无意中沦为第一批真正的人形机器人。

作为“机器人”，他们仅保留技术的、工程的总之效率的这惟一的本能，并以此为惟一尺度来丈量万物，尤其是人类。这种效率本能取代或淹没了有血有肉的碳基生物本应具备的丰富人性。而令他们膜拜的人工智能的超凡伟力，往往被他们误认为是自身力量的延伸，这种力量在他们看来无所不能，所向披靡。他们心悦诚服地跪倒在自己面前，真以为自己高耸入云，站上了云端。

从高高的云端俯瞰具体的人，人这一碳基生物种种不可克服的弱点，尤其杂乱、低效、非理性就太刺眼了，无不让他们轻视、蔑视，具体的人在他们眼中就是蝼蚁，必须交由他们主宰与驱使。换言之，他们奉技术为神明，而他们认为自己就是技术的人格化，顺理成章地自视为神明——拥有人形肉身却超越人类有限性的全能存在，通过创造人工智能而创造万物，通过操控万物而统治人间，俨然成为造物主或
人形天主。

他们就这样被自己创造的人工智能所异化，成了人的对立面。而这一切都以“为了人类”之名展开。效率就是道德，效率就是法律，效率就是价值，总之是人类全部福祉所系。但这效率必须也只能是整体的、抽象的。一切为了效率即一切为了人类，因而具备无可辩驳的合法性正当性。他们因此可以超越道德、法律与公序良俗的约束，凌驾于一切之上，要求万物皆服从于硅基生物的意志——他们称之为效率。以此为最高法则来重构人间秩序，重新组织人类，成为他们不可动摇的信念与使命，遇神杀神，遇佛杀佛。

重构人间秩序必然要求颠覆旧制度。不破不立，蝼蚁般的人构建的现行秩序，乃至整个碳基文明成为最大障碍，必须彻底打破。至于打破的代价，对众生命运的毁灭性影响，他们不在乎。从整体出发，个体命运无足挂齿，有如战争游戏中玩主虚拟的芸芸众生，只是概念或数字，甚至往往连数字都不是。游戏中众生的生死决于玩主一念之间，皆为效率服务，为胜利服务，为他们重构的美丽新世界服务。效率至
高无上，效率就是一切，效率高于生命，高于人性。

两百年前，法国大革命中殒命的罗兰夫人曾有慨叹：自由、自由，多少罪恶假汝名以行。如今，一场硅基生物殖民碳基人类的革命正在上演，“效率”取代自由，成了这场革命的关键词。效率，效率，多少罪恶假汝名以行。

这是革命，也是战争。过往人间冲突皆为人类间的争斗，包括两次世界大战。很多人预言第三次世界大战将如何爆发。其实无须预言，这场大战已悄然拉开序幕。与过往尤其前两次世界大战不同，这不是人类对人类的较量，而是硅基生物对碳基人类的进攻。只不过硅基生物并未直接出场，而是隐匿人世，寄生于人形、潜伏于血肉罢了。

这注定是一场混战。一场辩识难度最高、最复杂、最混沌的新型世界大战。

二、硅谷策源地：马斯克与硅基战团的崛起

这场新型世界大战的策源地在美国。这当然首先因为硅谷堪为全球硅基生物“首都”，硅基战团之战力举世无匹。硅基生物的宿主并非单一个体，而是一群人，马斯克是其总代表，或称第一宿主。

2024年美国总统大选前，马斯克与特朗普结盟，既是技术极右翼与传统极右翼MAGA的联合，也是硅基战团与世俗力量的首次会师。正是硅基战团的强力加持，特朗普才稳操胜券。否则，单凭世俗力量或传统极右翼，特朗普绝无可能再度入主白宫。

如1917年俄国十月革命一声炮响，将所谓马列主义传遍全世界；2024年特朗普胜选的炮声，则给全人类送来了硅基殖民主义。以此为突破口，硅基生物大举进军世俗政治尤其美国政治。2025年1月特朗普就职典礼上，埃隆·马斯克、彼得·蒂尔等一众硅基宿主赫然前排就坐，向全世界宣告，硅基战团已经构成特朗普及美国新政府重要的统治基础。

一个新时代，硅基生物殖民人类尤其殖民美国的时代，就此拉开大幕。马斯克骨子里并不喜欢特朗普，他与特朗普的结盟是赤裸裸的交易，特朗普必须给予重大回报。第一个回报就是让马斯克与其并肩入主白宫，为其设立凌驾于行政分支所有部门之上的所谓政府效率部（DOGE），实际上是双总统模式或联合总统模式——马斯克与特朗普共治美国，或者更准确地说，是特朗普与硅基战团共治美国。

正如硅基生物须借血肉之躯为宿主，非美国本土出生、无竞选美国总统资格的马斯克，也需要宿主寄身，需要代理人渗透美国政府。特朗普则是最佳人选。以特朗普为白手套，硅基战团全面贯彻其意志，深度推进对美国的殖民，把美国打造成硅基统治的样板乃至殖民全人类的制高点，这应是马斯克与特朗普的默契。

DOGE则是第一抓手。所谓效率，所谓反腐，不过项庄舞剑而已，借此渗透联邦政府，控制并颠覆联邦政府，才是其真实意图所在。
全部问题在于颠覆。这不限于联邦政府，还指向一切形式的传统政府与传统政治。

这并非危言耸听，而是硅基战团初衷所在，从尼德·兰克到柯蒂斯·亚尔文等精神教父，对此多有论述，这些论述早已构成硅基战团意识形态的核心。所有颠覆中，重点是颠覆民主、颠覆共和。硅基战团的意识形态，无论叫“黑暗启蒙”也好，叫“加速主义”也好，叫“新反动主义”也好，无不贯穿着对民主的蔑视与敌意，认为民主与效率不相容，民主与自由不相容，总之是过时且必须淘汰的制度；甚至民族国家体系亦是如此。诸如此类的极端观念今天知识界已广为人知，但少有人将其与马斯克们当下的政治行动联系起来，揭示其隐秘而必然的关联。换言之，这些政治行动决非马斯克们心血来潮，而是深谋远虑，是上述那些意识形态的具体实践。什么叫大棋？这才叫大棋，马斯克们才是真正的大棋党。

如果说从尼德·兰克到柯蒂斯·亚尔文，这些精神教父都是只会舞文弄墨的狂狷书生，并无行动能力，马斯克等一众硅基宿主不然，他们都是老谋深算的企业家与社会活动家，拥有强大的社会资本与行动力。他们不满足于坐而论道，更相信行动至上。正因为他们的操盘，那些极端观念才会从边缘迅速进入主流，并且从言论迅速切入行动，从空想变为具体的政治实践。

DOGE则是这些转化的关键节点。其作用首先在于渗透，如同人机交融之脑机接口，连接硅基战团与联邦政府。其次在于控制，尤其通过控制核心数据来实现这一目标。主要基于国家安全考虑，联邦政府通常不会将核心数据的访问权广泛授权给单一实体，但据《大西洋月刊》报道，DOGE已经拥有对政府数据的“上帝模式”访问权限。更可怕的是其不断扩展的企图：“这种控制级别可能影响国内每个公民和国外的许多美国利益：个人财务数据、国防机密等，全都在马斯克手中。”马斯克或其代理人可能永远持有这些数据，以至“远超他在政府联络员的任期，甚至在与总统潜在决裂之后。”其对国家安全与公民隐私的威胁令人不寒而栗，难怪“政府的数据专家感到恐惧”。

在人工智能时代，数据即权力，控制核心数据即控制政府。未经选举授权的个人及其实体控制政府核心数据，等于把政府核心数据私有化，把公共资源尤其公共权力私有化。《大西洋月刊》指出：“马斯克本应帮助改善政府运作——这是DOGE的既定目标。但在团队接触内部IT系统的办公室里，一些人开始担心，他可能更倾向于摧毁它、接管它，或只是为了自己掠夺其宝库。”DOGE的第三作用由此显现：通过控制政府核心数据摧毁现有体系，把公共政府变成硅基战团的私产，尤其是马斯克的私产。这既暴露了硅基生物对于数据的贪婪，也揭示了碳基人类对于权力的贪婪。

DOGE实际是这两种贪婪交媾的产物。特朗普、马斯克合流的一个重大成果，就是把这怪兽深深植入了联邦政府的心脏，成功建立了硅基战团控制联邦政府，进而私有化联邦政府，以此为枢纽殖民美国的滩头阵地。

三、数据与人事双管齐下：硅基战团的野心但数据攫取还只是战果之一，同样重要的是人事渗透。

一篇题做《彼得·蒂尔的特朗普高层深厚关系》的报道，揭开了硅基战团深度嵌入特朗普政府人事结构之冰山一角。报道称：“当埃隆·马斯克和一群长期雇员及年轻追随者在高效政府部门（Department of Government Efficiency）的旗帜下在华盛顿四处活动时，超过十几名与蒂尔有关的人——包括他公司的现任和前任员工，以及帮助管理其财富或从其投资和慈善捐助中受益的人——已被纳入特朗普政府。”最著名的是副总统万斯。此外，从DOGE到国务院，再到国防部，再到管理和预算办公室、卫生与公共服务部等等，蒂尔的人马遍布要害部门，可谓群从昆弟，咸据要津。

马斯克和蒂尔自PayPal时代就关系密切，蒂尔参与创立PayPal，马斯克曾短期担任其首席执行官。此后，领导特斯拉公司、SpaceX等企业的马斯克成了全球首富；蒂尔则打造了Palantir等商业帝国，持有硅谷顶级公司股份。两人不仅职业同途，更共享理想与目标，区别仅在于蒂尔更低调，擅长幕后操纵。蒂尔与马斯克堪称硅基战团双雄，联手掌控了从核心数据到核心人事这联邦政府之两大命门。所以，波士顿大学教授Quinn Slobodian才会忧心忡忡地表示，当前局面“在现代前所未有”。这不仅体现于政商勾结——“野心似乎不仅仅是保持一定距离并从国家合同中获利”——更在于硅基战团“有一种从底层改造政府运作方式的野心。”这里所说的从底层改造政府的野心，实为颠覆的委婉表达。

硅基战团入侵美国政府的战略分三步：第一步渗透已完成；第二步控制与私有化，部分完成但遭剧烈狙击。第三步“从底层改造政府”即颠覆或解体政府，尤其大规模解雇政府雇员以及变相关闭政府部门等休克疗法，则在推进之中。精神教父亚尔文把民主政治称作“大教堂”，认为必须坚决摈弃，但其解决方案仅限于消极的“退出”，如在边缘地区创建超主权的赛博巨企或自治城邦。拥有强大战力的硅基战团不会这么消极，更具进攻性。万斯在大选之前的一次播客采访中即已坦言：特朗普就职后应“解雇美国政府中的每一个中层官僚”，并“用我们的人替换他们”，即应该立马实施休克疗法。这必然遭遇巨大的法律障碍。但雄焰万丈的万斯根本不屑，他的答案很简单：特朗普应直接无视法律。

“你站在全国人民面前，就像安德鲁·杰克逊那样，说首席大法
官已经做出了裁决，现在让他自己去执行吧，”他宣称。媒体对此有如下解读：杰克逊总统的这句话可能是杜撰的，但历史是真实的。万斯指的是1832年的“伍斯特诉乔治亚州”案，当时最高法院裁定美国政府需尊重原住民对土地所有权的合法权利。杰克逊无视这一裁决，继续允许白人夺取属于原住民的土地。最终结果是大约6万原住民被种族清洗——这一事件如今被称为“泪水之路”。媒体进而评论说：这对大多数美国人来说是耻辱；对万斯来说，却是灵感的源泉。这评论很精到。但问题在于，这并非万斯的个人主张，而是硅基战团的集体意志。

他们认定当前政府或整个“大教堂”，已经腐败到需要采取任何激进措施甚至独裁来应对。他们自视为道德化身，将对手贬为“入侵者”。为了彻底铲除“大教堂”乃至所有“入侵者”，他们不惜凌驾于法律之上。因此，特朗普宣称“拯救国家不违法”，马斯克自称“人民的革命”；这与列宁名言“无产阶级专政不受任何法律约束”，显然异曲同工。这种理念主导的所谓革命，即对联邦政府、对民主制度的休克疗法，跟巴黎公社时马恩主张的“打碎国家机器”并用无产阶级专政取代之，显然也异曲同工。

百多年前的极左与今天的极右，就这样形成了跨时空的共鸣与共振。民主则是他们共同的敌人。区别仅在于，极左要建立的是所谓无产阶级专政，极右要建立的是科技寡头专政。极右的科技寡头专政之下，民主、共和与民族国家体系皆荡然无存。世界如亚尔文主张的那样，由数百个公司化城邦组成，由硅基宿主以大股东和高管身份，以全知全能的技术手段实施全面统治。这就是他们的乌托邦，这就是他们的极乐园。更准确地说，这就是他们的利维坦。

这一切不是远景，他们已经在做，不是如亚尔文设想的边缘化的自治城邦试验，而是直接切入全球民主政治的心脏，从民主制度最强大的美国开始做，拿整个美国做实验品。从观念到行动直至掌控白宫，只用了短短二十年，扩张之速迭代之快，绝无仅有。加速主义之“加速”二字，于此何其贴切。

连MAGA导师、 特朗普的忠实支持者史蒂夫·班农都已看透此层奥秘，而予猛烈抨击：“马斯克是一个寄生的非法移民。他想将他的怪异实验强加于人，并扮演上帝的角色，完全不尊重这个国家的历史、价值观或传统。”班农也是一个政治狂人，但他的这一评论无疑基于常识。

四、混战中的人类命运：未完的警钟

这场以效率为旗帜，以技术为利刃的隐秘的殖民战争，从硅谷扩散至美国政治核心，并向全球蔓延。它挑战的不只是民主，更是人类作为碳基生物的整体地位，更是整个的碳基文明。实质上是所谓硅基文明与碳基文明之战。马斯克与硅基战团的崛起，揭示了技术意志对人类意志的侵蚀，其速度与深度令人瞠目。这混战才刚刚开始，其复杂性与混沌性前所未有。

这注定是人类的一劫，挺过了浴火重生，宪政民主不难创造新形态、开辟新时代；挺不过则是宪政民主的终结，不仅美国将如古罗马那样从共和蜕变为帝制或者科技君主制，整个人类都可能陷落，从整体上跌入黑暗时代。总之，人类能否在硅基殖民的咄咄攻势下守住自身，碳基文明能否稳住阵脚，一切悬而未决。

而人类的时间，或许已经不多了。

***

Source:

• 笑蜀，馬斯克的戰爭：硅基生物對人類隱秘的殖民戰爭，FT中文網，2025年3月27日

---