演講MP3+雙語文稿:短視的一代：如今我們可能會覺得只有當(dāng)下，沒有其他了

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【演講人】Bina Venkataraman

【演講主題】《短視的一代》

如今我們可能會覺得只有當(dāng)下，沒有其他了。那些即時和轉(zhuǎn)瞬即逝的東西主宰著我們的生活——我們很容易為今天走了多少步而興奮， 或為某個網(wǎng)紅最新的推文而著迷。 生意人也容易追逐短期利潤而忽視對未來發(fā)明有益的那些東西。 ”作家BinaVenkataraman分析了我們在設(shè)想未來的生活、商業(yè)和集體時犯的幾個錯誤，揭示了我們怎樣才能重新獲得我們擁有的內(nèi)在遠(yuǎn)見。

在這場富有遠(yuǎn)見的演講中，作家比娜·文卡塔拉曼（Bina Venkataraman）回答了我們時代中的一個關(guān)鍵問題：怎樣才能保護(hù)我們的未來并且為下一代做出正確的選擇？她分析了我們在設(shè)想未來的生活、商業(yè)和集體時犯的幾個錯誤，揭示了我們怎樣才能重新獲得我們擁有的內(nèi)在遠(yuǎn)見。該演講所呈現(xiàn)出來的是令人意想不到的希望——以及一條通往我們渴望成為的“好祖先”的路。

【中英文雙語字幕】

翻譯：丹 李校對：psjmz mz

00:01

So in the winter of 2012,I went to visit my grandmother's housein South India,a place, by the way,where the mosquitos have a special taste for the blood of the American-born.

在2012年的冬天，我拜訪了祖母，她住在印度南部，順便說一句，在這里，美國出生的人很招蚊子的喜歡。

00:15

(Laughter)（笑聲）

00:17

No joke 不開玩笑。

00:18

When I was there, I got an unexpected gift.It was this antique instrumentmade more than a century ago,hand-carved from a rare wood,inlaid with pearlsand with dozens of metal strings.It's a family heirloom,a link between my past,the country where my parents were born,and the future,the unknown places I'll take it.

我在那兒的時候， 收到了一份出乎意料的禮物。就是這個古董樂器，是一百多年前制造的，從罕見的木頭中 手工雕刻出來的，上面鑲嵌著珍珠，還有幾十根金屬弦。這是一件家傳寶物，它連接著我的過去，和我父母所出生的國家，以及未來，那些我將帶它游歷的未知的地方。

00:46

I didn't actually realize it at the time I got it,but it would later become a powerful metaphor for my work.

當(dāng)我得到它時，并沒有意識到，這件物品后來會成為與我工作 相關(guān)的一個有力的隱喻。

00:54

We all know the saying,"There's no time like the present."But nowadays, it can feel like there's no time but the present.What's immediate and ephemeral seems to dominate our lives,our economy and our politics.It's so easy to get caught up in the number of steps we took todayor the latest tweet from a high-profile figure.It's easy for businesses to get caught up in making immediate profitsand neglect what's good for future invention.And it's far too easy for governments to stand bywhile fisheries and farmland are depletedinstead of conserved to feed future generations.I have a feeling that, at this rate,it's going to be hard for our generation to be remembered as good ancestors.If you think about it, our species evolved to think ahead,to chart the stars,dream of the afterlife,sow seeds for later harvest.Some scientists call this superpower that we have "mental time travel,"and it's responsible for pretty much everything we call human civilization,from farming to the Magna Cartato the internet --all first conjured in the minds of humans.

我們都知道這句俗話，“現(xiàn)在就是最好的時機(jī)?！钡侨缃瘢覀兛赡軙X得 只有現(xiàn)在，沒有其他了。這些即時和轉(zhuǎn)瞬即逝的東西 似乎主宰著我們的生活，我們的經(jīng)濟(jì)和政治。我們很容易就為今天 走了多少步而興奮，或為推特上某個網(wǎng)紅 最新的推文而著迷。生意人也容易追逐短期利潤而忽視對未來發(fā)明有益的那些東西。對政府而言，與為了 供養(yǎng)子孫后代而開展保護(hù)相比，對漁場和農(nóng)場被耗用枯竭袖手旁觀實在是再容易不過了。我感覺，以這樣的速度下去，我們的子孫后代很難認(rèn)為 我們是好的祖先。想想看，我們這個 種族進(jìn)化到能夠提前計劃，繪制星系圖，幻想來世，播下種子，以供未來收獲。有些科學(xué)家管這樣的超能力 叫做“精神時空旅行?！边@個能力幾乎使得我們?nèi)祟愇拿髦?所有的東西成為了可能，從農(nóng)業(yè)到《大憲章》，到互聯(lián)網(wǎng)——一切都首先是在人類的 頭腦中被設(shè)想出來的。

02:21

But let's get real:if we look around us today,we don't exactly seem to be using this superpower quite enough,and that begs the question: Why not?What's wrong is how our communities, businesses and institutions are designed.They're designed in a way that's impairing our foresight.I want to talk to you about the three key mistakesthat I think we're making.

但讓我們面對現(xiàn)實：如果我們環(huán)顧四周，我們似乎并沒有很好地 使用這個超能力，那這就引出了問題：為什么？問題在于我們的社區(qū)、商業(yè) 和機(jī)構(gòu)的設(shè)計方式。它們的設(shè)計方式損害了我們的遠(yuǎn)見。我想和你們談?wù)勅齻€我們正在犯的主要錯誤。

02:51

The first mistake is what we measure.When we look at the quarterly profits of a companyor its near-term stock price,that's often not a great measureof whether that company is going to grow its market shareor be inventive in the long run.When we glue ourselves to the test scores that kids bring back from school,that's not necessarily what's great for those kids' learningand curiosity in the long run.We're not measuring what really matters in the future.

第一個錯誤是我們所測量的東西。如果我們看看公司的季度收益或者是近期的股票價格，這一般都不是衡量公司未來市場份額會增長或長期創(chuàng)造力的好標(biāo)準(zhǔn)。當(dāng)我們沉浸在孩子從學(xué)校 帶回家的考試分?jǐn)?shù)時，這不一定對孩子們長期學(xué)習(xí)和好奇心有好處。我們沒有測量那些對未來 真正重要的東西。

03:23

The second mistake we're making that impairs our foresightis what we reward.When we celebrate a political leader or a business leaderfor the disaster she just cleaned upor the announcement she just made,we're not motivating that leaderto invest in preventing those disasters in the first place,or to put down payments on the future by protecting communities from floodsor fighting inequalityor investing in research and education.

我們正在犯的損害我們 遠(yuǎn)見的第二個錯誤是我們所回報的東西。當(dāng)我們?yōu)橐晃徽晤I(lǐng)袖或商界領(lǐng)袖慶祝她剛剛清理的災(zāi)難或她剛剛發(fā)表的聲明時，我們并沒有在激勵這個領(lǐng)袖去投資長遠(yuǎn)的未來， 避免災(zāi)難的再次發(fā)生，比如通過保護(hù)社區(qū)免受洪水的侵襲， 為未來支付首付款，或是對抗不平等或是投資研究和教育。

03:54

The third mistake that impairs our foresightis what we fail to imagine.Now, when we do think about the future,we tend to focus on predicting exactly what's next,whether we're using horoscopes or algorithms to do that.But we spend a lot less time imagining all the possibilities the future holds.When the Ebola outbreak emerged in 2014 in West Africa,public health officials around the world had early warning signsand predictive toolsthat showed how that outbreak might spread,but they failed to fathom that it would,and they failed to act in time to intervene,and the epidemic grew to kill more than 11,000 people.When people with lots of resources and good forecastsdon't prepare for deadly hurricanes,they're often failing to imagine how dangerous they can be.

損害我們遠(yuǎn)見的第三個錯誤是缺乏想象力。當(dāng)我們討論未來的時候，我們傾向于關(guān)注在預(yù)測 接下來究竟會發(fā)生什么，不管我們是用星座還是算法去預(yù)測。但是我們不怎么花時間去 想象未來的所有可能性。2014年西非爆發(fā)埃博拉時，全世界的公共衛(wèi)生官員的預(yù)警和預(yù)測工具都顯示這場疫情可能如何傳播，但是他們沒有想到真的傳播了，于是他們沒有及時采取措施去干預(yù)，這場疫情愈演愈烈， 超過一萬一千人為之送命。當(dāng)人們擁有資源和準(zhǔn)確的預(yù)告卻不為致命的颶風(fēng)做準(zhǔn)備時，他們通常沒有想象到 這些颶風(fēng)有多危險。

04:54

Now, none of these mistakes that I've described,as dismal as they might sound,are inevitable.In fact, they're all avoidable.What we need to make better decisions about the futureare tools that can aid our foresight,tools that can help us think ahead.Think of these as something like the telescopesthat ship captains of yore used when they scanned the horizon.Only instead of for looking across distance and the ocean,these tools are for looking across time to the future.I want to share with you a few of the toolsthat I've found in my researchthat I think can help us with foresight.

我所說的這些錯誤聽起十分令人沮喪，不可避免。但事實上，它們都是可以避免的。為未來做更好的決定，我們需要的是有助于我們的遠(yuǎn)見，能幫助我們提前規(guī)劃的工具。把這些工具想象成往昔的船長們尋找地平線的望遠(yuǎn)鏡。區(qū)別僅在于這些工具不是 為了在海洋中尋找遠(yuǎn)方，而是預(yù)見未來。我想和你們分享幾個這樣的工具，在我的研究中，我發(fā)現(xiàn)這些工具有助于提高我們的遠(yuǎn)見。

05:35

The first tool I want to share with youI think of as making the long game pay now.This is Wes Jackson, a farmer I spent some time with in Kansas.And Jackson knowsthat the way that most crops are grown around the world todayis stripping the earth of the fertile topsoilwe need to feed future generations.He got together with a group of scientists,and they bred perennial grain crops which have deep rootsthat anchor the fertile topsoil of a farm,preventing erosion and protecting future harvests.But they also knewthat in order to get farmers to grow these crops in the short run,they needed to boost the annual yields of the cropsand find companies willing to make cereal and beer using the grainsso that farmers could reap profits today by doing what's good for tomorrow.

第一個我想分享的工具是讓長期的游戲現(xiàn)在有回報。這是 Wes Jackson， 一位堪薩斯州的農(nóng)民。Jackson知道當(dāng)今全球大多數(shù)作物的生長方式都在剝離我們需要養(yǎng)活后代的肥沃的表層土壤。他和一些科學(xué)家一起培育了多年生谷物， 這些作物有很深的根，可以固定農(nóng)場肥沃的表層土壤，從而阻止水土流失， 保護(hù)未來的收成。但是他們也知道要讓農(nóng)民在短期內(nèi)種植這些作物，他們需要提高這些作物的年產(chǎn)量，并找到愿意用這些谷物 生產(chǎn)麥片和啤酒的公司。這樣農(nóng)民在做對明天有益的事情時， 今天也能獲得利潤。

06:26

And this is a tried-and-true strategy.In fact, it was used by George Washington Carverin the South of the United States after the Civil Warin the early 20th century.A lot of people have probably heard of Carver's 300 uses for the peanut,the products and recipes that he came up withthat made the peanut so popular.But not everyone knows why Carver did that.He was trying to help poor Alabama sharecropperswhose cotton yields were declining,and he knew that planting peanuts in their fieldswould replenish those soilsso that their cotton yields would be better a few years later.But he also knew it needed to be lucrative for them in the short run.

這是一個已經(jīng)被證明可靠的策略。實際上，早在二十世紀(jì)初期，在美國內(nèi)戰(zhàn)后的南部，喬治·華盛頓·卡弗就用過這個策略。很多人也許都聽過卡弗 的“花生的三百種用法”，他所發(fā)明的這些產(chǎn)品和配方使得花生非常受歡迎。但是并不是每個人都知道 卡弗為什么要做這些。他當(dāng)時想要幫助阿拉巴馬 棉花產(chǎn)量在銳減的貧窮佃農(nóng)，卡弗知道如果在田里種了花生，土壤就能得到養(yǎng)分，這樣棉花產(chǎn)量就可以 在幾年后恢復(fù)。但是卡弗也知道，在短期內(nèi) 有利可圖也是必要的。

07:07

Alright, so let's talk about another tool for foresight.This one I like to think of as keeping the memory of the past aliveto help us imagine the future.So I went to Fukushima, Japanon the sixth anniversary of the nuclear reactor disaster therethat followed the Tohoku earthquake and tsunami of 2011.When I was there, I learned about the Onagawa Nuclear Power Station,which was even closer to the epicenter of that earthquakethan the infamous Fukushima Daiichi that we all know about.In Onagawa, people in the city actually fled to the nuclear power plantas a place of refuge.It was that safe.It was spared by the tsunamis.It was the foresight of just one engineer,Yanosuke Hirai,that made that happen.In the 1960s, he fought to build that power plantfarther back from the coastat higher elevation and with a higher sea wall.He knew the story of his hometown shrine,which had flooded in the year 869 after a tsunami.It was his knowledge of history that allowed him to imaginewhat others could not.

好的，讓我們來聊聊另一個 能讓我們有遠(yuǎn)見的工具。我把這個工具比做是 保持過去的鮮活記憶從而幫助我們想象未來。所以我去了日本的福島，在核電站災(zāi)難的第六個紀(jì)念日，即2011年日本東北 大地震大海嘯的六年后。我在那里時了解到了女川核電站，這個核電站比我們都知道 的福島核電站距離地震震中更近。事實上，當(dāng)時女川市的居民還都撤離到核電站內(nèi)避難。就是這么安全。這個核電站免受海嘯的破壞。全因為一個工程師的遠(yuǎn)見，他就是平井彌之助。在六十年代，他力爭讓核電站建在遠(yuǎn)離海岸，在海拔更高，海堤更高的地方。他知道他家鄉(xiāng)的神社在869年的海嘯后被水淹沒的故事。對歷史的了解使得他能夠想到其他人所想不到的。

08:23

OK, one more tool of foresight.This one I think of as creating shared heirlooms.These are lobster fishermen on the Pacific coast of Mexico,and they're the ones who taught me this.They have protected their lobster harvest therefor nearly a century,and they've done that by treating it as a shared resourcethat they're passing on to their collected children and grandchildren.They carefully measure what they catchso that they're not taking the breeding lobster out of the ocean.Across North America, there are more than 30 fisheriesthat are doing something vaguely similar to this.They're creating long-term stakes in the fisheries known as catch shareswhich get fishermen to be motivatednot just in taking whatever they can from the ocean todaybut in its long-term survival.

還有另一個關(guān)于遠(yuǎn)見的工具。我把這個工具想成 創(chuàng)造共享的傳家寶。在墨西哥的大西洋海岸， 有一群捕捉龍蝦的漁民教會了我這個工具。他們在過去將近一個世紀(jì)的時間里保護(hù)著龍蝦的收成，他們的做法是 將龍蝦看作是共享的資源，而這個資源將傳承給 他們的后代子孫，他們仔細(xì)地衡量這些收成，這樣就不會將還在繁殖中的 龍蝦捕捉出來。橫跨北美，有超過三十個漁場在做著多多少少相似的事情。他們在捕魚業(yè)中建立了長期 的利益關(guān)系，即所謂的“捕撈份額”，這激發(fā)了漁民不僅關(guān)注今天從海中 能夠獲得的東西，還有海洋更長期的生存和回報。

09:14

Now there are many, many more tools of foresightI would love to share with you,and they come from all kinds of places:investment firms that look beyond near-term stock prices,states that have freed their electionsfrom the immediate interests of campaign financiers.And we're going to need to marshal as many of these tools as we canif we want to rethink what we measure,change what we rewardand be brave enough to imagine what lies ahead.

實際上有很多能夠幫助 我們看得更遠(yuǎn)的工具，我很樂意與你們分享，它們來自于各行各業(yè)：投資公司不僅僅看短期股價，那些將選舉從競選資助者眼前利益中解放出來的州。如果我們想要重新思考 我們所衡量的東西，改變我們的獎勵方式，并勇敢地想象未來會發(fā)生什么，我們就需要盡可能多地使用這些工具。

09:43

Not all this is going to be easy, as you can imagine.Some of these tools we can pick up in our own lives,some we're going to need to do in businesses or in communities,and some we need to do as a society.The future is worth this effort.

你們可以料到，這些都不會容易。有些工具是我們 在生活中可以學(xué)會的，有些需要在行業(yè)或者團(tuán)體中 才能發(fā)揮作用，有些則需要我們整個社會的合作。未來是值得付出這些努力的。

10:06

My own inspiration to keep up this effort is the instrument I shared with you.It's called a dilruba,and it was custom-made for my great-grandfather.He was a well-known music and art critic in Indiain the early 20th century.My great-grandfather had the foresight to protect this instrumentat a time when my great-grandmother was pawning off all their belongings,but that's another story.He protected it by giving it to the next generation,by giving it to my grandmother,and she gave it to me.

我自己繼續(xù)努力的動力來自 我剛與你們分享的工具。它叫迪爾魯巴琴，這是我曾祖父找人定制的。二十世紀(jì)初，我曾祖父 曾是印度知名的音樂家和藝術(shù)評論人。我的曾祖父有保護(hù)這件樂器的遠(yuǎn)見，那時候我曾祖母不得不 當(dāng)?shù)羲械臇|西維持生計，但這是另一個故事了。他通過把它傳給下一代來保護(hù)它，我的祖母獲得了這件樂器，她又給了我。

10:46

When I first heard the sound of this instrument,it haunted me.It felt like hearing a wanderer in the Himalayan fog.It felt like hearing a voice from the past.

當(dāng)我第一次聽到這件樂器的聲音時，我深受感動，仿佛漫步于喜馬拉雅的晨霧之中，聽見了歷史的聲音。

11:00

Music

（音樂響起）

11:36

（音樂結(jié)束）

11:40

That's my friend Simran Singh playing the dilruba.When I play it, it sounds like a cat's dying somewhere,so you're welcome.

這是我的朋友 習(xí)慕蘭·辛格所演奏的片段。我試著彈奏的時候， 聽起來好像有只貓瀕臨慘死，所以不用感謝我 播放這段美妙的旋律。

11:49

（笑聲）

11:51

This instrument is in my home today,but it doesn't actually belong to me.It's my role to shepherd it in time,and that feels more meaningful to me than just owning it for today.This instrument positions me as both a descendant and an ancestor.It makes me feel part of a story bigger than my own.

這件樂器今天還在我家，當(dāng)實際上卻不屬于我。我的角色是在時間的長河中照管它，與只是今天擁有它相比， 這對我來說更有意義。這件樂器將我置身于 后人和祖先之間。這使我感受到我是 歷史長河的一部分。

12:20

And this, I believe,is the single most powerful way we can reclaim foresight:by seeing ourselves as the good ancestors we long to be,ancestors not just to our own childrenbut to all humanity.Whatever your heirloom is,however big or small,protect itand know that its music can resonate for generations.

我堅信，這是我們可以重新獲得遠(yuǎn)見的 唯一最有力的方式：就是讓自己渴望成為好的祖先，不僅僅是我們自己的子女，而是全人類的祖先。無論你的傳家寶是什么，無論或大或小，保護(hù)好它，要知道它的音樂可以 在代際之間產(chǎn)生共鳴。

12:54

謝謝。