索羅斯在達沃斯炮轟“黑幫國家”與科技巨頭

George Soros pulled few punches as he addressed an audience in Davos on Thursday, bemoaning the rise of “mafia states”, such as Russia, and the threat to innovation posed by Facebook and Google.

周四，喬治•索羅斯(George Soros)在達沃斯(Davos)發(fā)表了直言不諱的講話，他抱怨了俄羅斯等“黑幫國家”的崛起，以及Facebook和谷歌(Google)對創(chuàng)新帶來的威脅。

Addressing diners at his annual dinner at the World Economic Forum the billionaire fund manager set the mood by saying the severity of the problems confronting the world forced him to scrap plans for the usual 50-50 speech and Q&A format for lengthier diatribe. “[P]repare yourselves,” he said.

在世界經(jīng)濟論壇(WEF)的年度索羅斯晚宴上，這位億萬富翁和基金經(jīng)理用這樣一番話給講話定下了基調——他對就餐者說，世界面臨的問題的嚴重性，迫使他放棄了通常演講和問答各占一半的形式，轉而進行更長篇大論的抨擊。“你們自己做好準備，”他說。

Mr Soros described this moment in history as “rather painful”. Open societies around the world were “in crisis”, he continued, singling out Russia as an exemplification of the “dictatorships and mafia states” that were on the rise.

索羅斯稱，現(xiàn)在是一個“相當痛苦”的歷史時刻。世界各地的開放社會都“處于危機之中”，接著，他把單獨點名俄羅斯，作為正在崛起的“獨裁和黑幫國家”的代表。

Beyond the survival of open society, Mr Soros said that “the survival of our entire civilisation is at stake”, pointing to the nuclear stand-off between Donald Trump and North Korea’s Kim Jong-Un.

除了開放社會的存續(xù)以外，索羅斯表示“我們整個文明的存續(xù)正處在危險之中”，他指的是唐納德•特朗普(Donald Trump)和朝鮮的金正恩(Kim Jong-Un)的核對峙。

“Both seem willing to risk a nuclear war in order to keep themselves in power,” he said.

“為了維護自己的統(tǒng)治，雙方似乎都愿意冒爆發(fā)核戰(zhàn)爭的風險，”他說。

Mr Soros reiterated his concerns about climate change and the “severe and intractable” problem of forced migration. “I don’t want to go into the details on climate change because it is well known what needs to be done. We have the scientific knowledge, it is the political will that is missing, particularly in the Trump administration.”

索羅斯重申了他對氣候變化以及“嚴重和棘手”的被迫遷移問題的憂慮。“我不想細談氣候變化問題，因為人們都知道需要做什么。我們有科學知識，缺失的是政治意愿，尤其是在特朗普政府之中。”

Mr Soros then turned his attention towards the huge, monopolistic internet platforms, arguing that the likes of Google and Facebook had become “obstacles to innovation” whose quest to increase their share of users’ attention was inducing people to give up their autonomy.

接下來，索羅斯把焦點轉向龐大的、壟斷性的互聯(lián)網(wǎng)平臺，他認為，谷歌和Facebook這樣的公司已經(jīng)變成“創(chuàng)新的障礙”，這些平臺努力提高自身產(chǎn)品在用戶注意力中的占比，誘使用戶放棄自主。

At the quickening pace Facebook had added its first and then second billion users, it would run out of people to convert within three years, he said.

他表示，以Facebook增加其第一個和第二個10億用戶的速度，它將在三年內收盡可以“皈依”的人群。

That could lead to a more alarming prospect, Mr Soros warned, in the form of alliances between authoritarian states and these data-rich companies that would combine systems of corporate surveillance, in their infancy, with an already developed system of state-sponsored surveillance.

索羅斯警告稱，這可能導致一個更令人擔憂的前景——威權國家與這些擁有大量數(shù)據(jù)的公司結成聯(lián)盟，將處于初創(chuàng)階段的企業(yè)監(jiān)控系統(tǒng)與國家支持的已經(jīng)很先進的監(jiān)控系統(tǒng)結合起來。

“This may well result in a web of totalitarian control the likes of which not even Aldous Huxley or George Orwell could have imagined.”

“這最終很可能會形成一個極權控制網(wǎng)絡——連奧爾德斯•赫胥黎(Aldous Huxley)或喬治•奧威爾(George Orwell)都未曾想象到的控制。”

He added: “The owners of the platforms consider themselves the masters of the universe but, in fact, they are slaves to preserving their dominant position.”

他還表示：“這些平臺的所有者認為自己是宇宙的主人，但實際上，他們是維護自己統(tǒng)治地位的奴隸。”

It is only a matter of time before the global dominance of the US monopolies is broken, he went on, suggesting that Davos was a good place to announce that their days were numbered. Regulation and taxation would be their undoing, he said, with Margrethe Vestager, the EU competition commissioner, their likely nemesis.

他接著說，美國壟斷公司的全球主導地位被打破只是時間問題，暗示達沃斯是宣布他們的日子已經(jīng)屈指可數(shù)的恰當之地。他說，監(jiān)管和稅收將是他們失敗的原因，歐盟競爭專員瑪格麗特•維斯特格(Margrethe Vestager)或將成為他們的“復仇女神”。

Mr Soros acknowledged concerns about the dominance of these platforms and rising levels of inequality and said the impact of innovations, such as driverless cars, on unemployment would depend heavily on government policies.

索羅斯承認對這些平臺的主導地位和日益加劇的不平等感到擔憂，他表示，各種創(chuàng)新(如無人駕駛汽車)帶來的影響將嚴重依賴政府政策。

Lastly, the “man who broke the Bank of England” had a dig at the cryptocurrency phenomenon. “Cryptocurrency is a typical bubble, which is always based on some misunderstanding. It is not a currency.”

最后，這個“讓英國央行(Bank of England)破產(chǎn)的男人”還挖苦了加密貨幣現(xiàn)象。“加密貨幣是一種典型的泡沫，總是建立在一些誤解的基礎上。它不是一種貨幣。”