50. The Earth's Learning Curve.
50、人類的學(xué)習(xí)曲線、
1. Imagine a chart that begins when man first appeared on the planet and tracks the economic growth of societies from then forward. It would be a long, fiat line until the late 16th or early 17th century, when it would start trending upward. Before then the fruits of productive labor were limited to a few elites—princes, merchants and priests. For most of humankind life was as the English philosopher Thomas Hobbes famously described it in 1651—"solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short." But as Hobbes was writing those words, the world around him was changing. Put simply, human beings were getting smarter.
1、想象一下，如果從人類首次在地球上出現(xiàn)開始畫一條曲線，追蹤在此之后人類社會的經(jīng)濟發(fā)展軌跡，那么會發(fā)現(xiàn)16世紀(jì)晚期或17世紀(jì)初期之前，是一條長長的沒有多少起伏的線條，之后這條線才開始上揚。在此之前，生產(chǎn)勞動的成果限制在少數(shù)上層人士—王子、商人和神職人員—手中。大多數(shù)人的生活就像英國哲學(xué)家托馬斯·霍布斯1651年所作的描述那樣：“孤獨、貧窮、骯臟、粗野、淺薄。”但是就在霍布斯寫下這些的時候，他周圍的世界正在發(fā)生改變。簡而言之，人類正變得越來越聰明。
2. People have always sought knowledge, of course, but in Western Europe at that time, men like Galileo, Newton and Descartes began to search systematically for ways to understand and control their environment. The scientific revolution, followed by the Enlightenment, marked a fundamental shift. Humans were no longer searching for ways simply to fit into a natural or divine order; they were seeking to change it. Once people found ways to harness energy—using steam engines—they were able to build machines that harnessed far more power than any human or horse could ever do. And people could work without ever getting tired. The rise of these machines drove the Industrial Revolution, and created a whole new system of life. Today the search for knowledge continues to produce an ongoing revolution in the health and wealth of humankind.
2、當(dāng)然，人們一直都在探索知識，但是在當(dāng)時的西歐，像伽利略、牛頓和笛卡爾這樣的人開始系統(tǒng)地尋求了解和支配周圍環(huán)境的方式?？茖W(xué)革命以及隨后出現(xiàn)的啟蒙運動標(biāo)志著一次根本性的轉(zhuǎn)變。人類不再只是尋求適應(yīng)自然法則或神的指示，他們正想方設(shè)法改變這一切。人類在找到駕馭能源—使用蒸氣機—的方式后，他們便得以制造出機器，而這些機器產(chǎn)生的力量遠(yuǎn)比任何人或馬所產(chǎn)生的力量大。這樣一來，人們工作起來就不再覺得累了。這些機器的出現(xiàn)帶動了工業(yè)革命，創(chuàng)造了一種全新的生活方式。如今，對知識的探尋繼續(xù)在人類的健康和財富領(lǐng)域帶來一場持續(xù)不斷的革命。
3. If the rise of science marks the first great trend in this story, the second is its diffusion. What was happening in Britain during the Industrial Revolution was not an isolated phenomenon. A succession of visitors to Britain would go back to report to their countries on the technological and commercial innovations they saw there. Sometimes societies were able to learn extremely fast, as in the United States. Others, like Germany, benefited from starting late , leapfrogging the long-drawn-out process that Britain went through.
3、如果科學(xué)的興起是這一歷程中第一個偉大的動向，那么第二個偉大的動向就是科學(xué)的傳播。工業(yè)革命期間英國發(fā)生的一切并不是孤立的現(xiàn)象。接連不斷的到訪英國的人回國后描述了他們在那里看到的科技和商業(yè)上的創(chuàng)新。有時，某些社會能夠以極快的速度學(xué)習(xí)，正如美國那樣。另外一些社會—比如德國—因起步晚而受益，因為它們越過了英國所經(jīng)歷的漫長過程。
4. This diffusion of knowledge accelerated dramatically in recent decades. Over the last 30 years we have watched countries like Japan, Singapore, South Korea and now China grow at a pace that is three times that of Britain or the United States at the peak of the Industrial Revolution. They have been able to do this because of their energies and exertions, of course, but also because they cleverly and perhaps luckily adopted certain ideas about development that had worked in the West—reasonably free markets, open trade, a focus on science and technology, among them.
4、近幾十年來，知識的傳播速度大大加快。在最近30年里，我們目睹了日本、新加坡、韓國以及當(dāng)今中國取得的飛速發(fā)展，其發(fā)展速度是英國或美國在工業(yè)革命巔峰時發(fā)展速度的3倍。它們之所以能夠做到這一點，當(dāng)然是由于它們的能力與努力，不過也是由于它們明智地而且可能也是幸運地采納了在西方行之有效的一些關(guān)于發(fā)展的理念—其中包括相當(dāng)自由的市場、開放的貿(mào)易和對科技的關(guān)注。
5. The diffusion of knowledge is the dominant trend of our time and goes well beyond the purely scientific. Consider the cases of Turkey and Brazil. If you had asked an economist 20 years ago how to think about these two countries, he would have explained that they were classic basket-case, Third World economies, with triple-digit inflation, soaring debt burdens, a weak private sector and snail's-pace growth. Today they are both remarkably well managed, with inflation in single digits and growth above 5 percent. And this shift is happening around the world. From Thailand to South Africa to Slovakia to Mexico, countries are far better managed economically than they have ever been. Even in cases where political constraints make it difficult to push far-reaching reforms, as in Brazil, Mexico or India, governments still manage their affairs sensibly, observing the Hippocratic oath not to do any harm.
5、知識的傳播是我們這個時代的主流，而且遠(yuǎn)遠(yuǎn)超越了單純的科技領(lǐng)域。想想土耳其和巴西的情況。如果你在20年前問一名經(jīng)濟學(xué)家如何看待這兩個國家，他會說它們是典型的瀕臨崩潰的國家，第三世界經(jīng)濟體，通貨膨脹率達(dá)到3位數(shù)，債臺高筑，經(jīng)濟中的私營部分薄弱，增長速度極為緩慢。如今，它們?nèi)脊芾碛蟹?，通貨膨脹率降?位數(shù)，經(jīng)濟增長率則達(dá)到了5%以上。而且這種改變在世界各地都在發(fā)生。從泰國、南非、斯洛伐克到墨西哥，各國在經(jīng)濟方面的表現(xiàn)遠(yuǎn)比過去要好。就連像巴西、墨西哥及印度這樣的因政治限制難以推行全面改革的國家，政府仍然能夠明智地處理事務(wù)，恪守著不做任何有害之事的希波克拉底誓。
50、人類的學(xué)習(xí)曲線、
1. Imagine a chart that begins when man first appeared on the planet and tracks the economic growth of societies from then forward. It would be a long, fiat line until the late 16th or early 17th century, when it would start trending upward. Before then the fruits of productive labor were limited to a few elites—princes, merchants and priests. For most of humankind life was as the English philosopher Thomas Hobbes famously described it in 1651—"solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short." But as Hobbes was writing those words, the world around him was changing. Put simply, human beings were getting smarter.
1、想象一下，如果從人類首次在地球上出現(xiàn)開始畫一條曲線，追蹤在此之后人類社會的經(jīng)濟發(fā)展軌跡，那么會發(fā)現(xiàn)16世紀(jì)晚期或17世紀(jì)初期之前，是一條長長的沒有多少起伏的線條，之后這條線才開始上揚。在此之前，生產(chǎn)勞動的成果限制在少數(shù)上層人士—王子、商人和神職人員—手中。大多數(shù)人的生活就像英國哲學(xué)家托馬斯·霍布斯1651年所作的描述那樣：“孤獨、貧窮、骯臟、粗野、淺薄。”但是就在霍布斯寫下這些的時候，他周圍的世界正在發(fā)生改變。簡而言之，人類正變得越來越聰明。
2. People have always sought knowledge, of course, but in Western Europe at that time, men like Galileo, Newton and Descartes began to search systematically for ways to understand and control their environment. The scientific revolution, followed by the Enlightenment, marked a fundamental shift. Humans were no longer searching for ways simply to fit into a natural or divine order; they were seeking to change it. Once people found ways to harness energy—using steam engines—they were able to build machines that harnessed far more power than any human or horse could ever do. And people could work without ever getting tired. The rise of these machines drove the Industrial Revolution, and created a whole new system of life. Today the search for knowledge continues to produce an ongoing revolution in the health and wealth of humankind.
2、當(dāng)然，人們一直都在探索知識，但是在當(dāng)時的西歐，像伽利略、牛頓和笛卡爾這樣的人開始系統(tǒng)地尋求了解和支配周圍環(huán)境的方式?？茖W(xué)革命以及隨后出現(xiàn)的啟蒙運動標(biāo)志著一次根本性的轉(zhuǎn)變。人類不再只是尋求適應(yīng)自然法則或神的指示，他們正想方設(shè)法改變這一切。人類在找到駕馭能源—使用蒸氣機—的方式后，他們便得以制造出機器，而這些機器產(chǎn)生的力量遠(yuǎn)比任何人或馬所產(chǎn)生的力量大。這樣一來，人們工作起來就不再覺得累了。這些機器的出現(xiàn)帶動了工業(yè)革命，創(chuàng)造了一種全新的生活方式。如今，對知識的探尋繼續(xù)在人類的健康和財富領(lǐng)域帶來一場持續(xù)不斷的革命。
3. If the rise of science marks the first great trend in this story, the second is its diffusion. What was happening in Britain during the Industrial Revolution was not an isolated phenomenon. A succession of visitors to Britain would go back to report to their countries on the technological and commercial innovations they saw there. Sometimes societies were able to learn extremely fast, as in the United States. Others, like Germany, benefited from starting late , leapfrogging the long-drawn-out process that Britain went through.
3、如果科學(xué)的興起是這一歷程中第一個偉大的動向，那么第二個偉大的動向就是科學(xué)的傳播。工業(yè)革命期間英國發(fā)生的一切并不是孤立的現(xiàn)象。接連不斷的到訪英國的人回國后描述了他們在那里看到的科技和商業(yè)上的創(chuàng)新。有時，某些社會能夠以極快的速度學(xué)習(xí)，正如美國那樣。另外一些社會—比如德國—因起步晚而受益，因為它們越過了英國所經(jīng)歷的漫長過程。
4. This diffusion of knowledge accelerated dramatically in recent decades. Over the last 30 years we have watched countries like Japan, Singapore, South Korea and now China grow at a pace that is three times that of Britain or the United States at the peak of the Industrial Revolution. They have been able to do this because of their energies and exertions, of course, but also because they cleverly and perhaps luckily adopted certain ideas about development that had worked in the West—reasonably free markets, open trade, a focus on science and technology, among them.
4、近幾十年來，知識的傳播速度大大加快。在最近30年里，我們目睹了日本、新加坡、韓國以及當(dāng)今中國取得的飛速發(fā)展，其發(fā)展速度是英國或美國在工業(yè)革命巔峰時發(fā)展速度的3倍。它們之所以能夠做到這一點，當(dāng)然是由于它們的能力與努力，不過也是由于它們明智地而且可能也是幸運地采納了在西方行之有效的一些關(guān)于發(fā)展的理念—其中包括相當(dāng)自由的市場、開放的貿(mào)易和對科技的關(guān)注。
5. The diffusion of knowledge is the dominant trend of our time and goes well beyond the purely scientific. Consider the cases of Turkey and Brazil. If you had asked an economist 20 years ago how to think about these two countries, he would have explained that they were classic basket-case, Third World economies, with triple-digit inflation, soaring debt burdens, a weak private sector and snail's-pace growth. Today they are both remarkably well managed, with inflation in single digits and growth above 5 percent. And this shift is happening around the world. From Thailand to South Africa to Slovakia to Mexico, countries are far better managed economically than they have ever been. Even in cases where political constraints make it difficult to push far-reaching reforms, as in Brazil, Mexico or India, governments still manage their affairs sensibly, observing the Hippocratic oath not to do any harm.
5、知識的傳播是我們這個時代的主流，而且遠(yuǎn)遠(yuǎn)超越了單純的科技領(lǐng)域。想想土耳其和巴西的情況。如果你在20年前問一名經(jīng)濟學(xué)家如何看待這兩個國家，他會說它們是典型的瀕臨崩潰的國家，第三世界經(jīng)濟體，通貨膨脹率達(dá)到3位數(shù)，債臺高筑，經(jīng)濟中的私營部分薄弱，增長速度極為緩慢。如今，它們?nèi)脊芾碛蟹?，通貨膨脹率降?位數(shù)，經(jīng)濟增長率則達(dá)到了5%以上。而且這種改變在世界各地都在發(fā)生。從泰國、南非、斯洛伐克到墨西哥，各國在經(jīng)濟方面的表現(xiàn)遠(yuǎn)比過去要好。就連像巴西、墨西哥及印度這樣的因政治限制難以推行全面改革的國家，政府仍然能夠明智地處理事務(wù)，恪守著不做任何有害之事的希波克拉底誓。