為大家準(zhǔn)備了雅思閱讀全真模擬題：企業(yè)的社會(huì)責(zé)任。雅思模擬試題在雅思備考過(guò)程中所起的作用不可小覷，通過(guò)模擬練習(xí)題，我們可以很直接地了解到自己的備考狀況，從而可以更有針對(duì)性地進(jìn)行之后的復(fù)習(xí)。希望以下內(nèi)容能夠?qū)Υ蠹业难潘紓淇加兴鶐椭?更多雅思報(bào)名的最新消息，最專業(yè)的雅思備考資料，將第一時(shí)間為大家發(fā)布。
THE GAP of INGENUITY 2
Ingenuity, as I define it here, consists not only of ideas for new technologies like computers or drought-resistant crops but, more fundamentally, of ideas for better institutions and social arrangements, like efficient markets and competent governments.
How much and what kinds of ingenuity a society requires depends on a range of factors, including the society's goals and the circumstances within which it must achieve those goals——whether it has a young population or an aging one, an abundance of natural resources or a scarcity of them, an easy climate or a punishing one, whatever the case may be.
How much and what kinds of ingenuity a society supplies also depends on many factors, such as the nature of human inventiveness and understanding, the rewards an economy gives to the producers of useful knowledge, and the strength of political opposition to social and institutional reforms.
A good supply of the right kind of ingenuity is essential, but it isn't, of course, enough by itself. We know that the creation of wealth, for example, depends not only on an adequate supply of useful ideas but also on the availability of other, more conventional factors of production, like capital and labor. Similarly, prosperity, stability and justice usually depend on the resolution, or at least the containment, of major political struggles over wealth and power. Yet within our economics ingenuity often supplants labor, and growth in the stock of physical plant is usually accompanied by growth in the stock of ingenuity. And in our political systems, we need great ingenuity to set up institutions that successfully manage struggles over wealth and power. Clearly, our economic and political processes are intimately entangled with the production and use of ingenuity.
The past century’s countless incremental changes in our societies around the planet, in our technologies and our interactions with our surrounding natural environments have accumulated to create a qualitatively new world. Because these changes have accumulated slowly, It’s often hard for us to recognize how profound and sweeping they've. They include far larger and denser populations; much higher per capita consumption of natural resources; and far better and more widely available technologies for the movement of people, materials, and especially information.
In combination, these changes have sharply increased the density, intensity, and pace of our inter actions with each other; they have greatly increased the burden we place on our natural environment; and they have helped shift power from national and international institutions to individuals and subgroups, such as political special interests and ethnic factions.
As a result, people in all walks of life-from our political and business leaders to all of us in our day-to-day——must cope with much more complex, urgent, and often unpredictable circumstances. The management of our relationship with this new world requires immense and ever-increasing amounts of social and technical ingenuity. As we strive to maintain or increase our prosperity and improve the quality of our lives, we must make far more sophisticated decisions, and in less time, than ever before.
When we enhance the performance of any system, from our cars to the planet's network of financial institutions, we tend to make it more complex. Many of the natural systems critical to our well-being, like the global climate and the oceans, are extraordinarily complex to begin with. We often can't predict or manage the behavior of complex systems with much precision, because they are often very sensitive to the smallest of changes and perturbations, and their behavior can flip from one mode to another suddenly and dramatically. In general, as the human-made and natural systems we depend upon become more complex, and as our demands on them increase, the institutions and technologies we use to manage them must become more complex too, which further boosts our need for ingenuity.
The good news, though, is that the last century's stunning changes in our societies and technologies have not just increased our need for ingenuity; they have also produced a huge increase in its supply. The growth and urbanization of human populations have combined with astonishing new communication and transportation technologies to expand interactions among people and produce larger, more integrated, and more efficient markets. These changes have, in turn, vastly accelerated the generation and delivery of useful ideas.
But—and this is the critical "but"——we should not jump to the conclusion that the supply of ingenuity always increases in lockstep with our ingenuity requirement: While it's true that necessity is often the mother of invention, we can't always rely on the right kind of ingenuity appearing when and where we need it. In many cases, the complexity and speed of operation of today's vital economic, social, arid ecological systems exceed the human brains grasp. Very few of us have more than a rudimentary understanding of how these systems work. They remain fraught with countless "unknown unknowns," which makes it hard to supply the ingenuity we need to solve problems associated with these systems.
In this book, explore a wide range of other factors that will limit our ability to supply the ingenuity required in the coming century. For example, many people believe that new communication technologies strengthen democracy and will make it easier to find solutions to our societies' collective problems, but the story is less clear than it seems. The crush of information in our everyday lives is shortening our attention span, limiting the time we have to reflect on critical matters of public policy, and making policy arguments more superficial.
Modern markets and science are an important part of the story of how we supply ingenuity. Markets are critically important, because they give entrepreneurs an incentive to produce knowledge. As for science, although it seems to face no theoretical limits, at least in the foreseeable future, practical constraints often slow its progress. The cost of scientific research tends to increase as it delves deeper into nature. And science's rate of advance depends on the characteristic of the natural phenomena it investigates, simply because some phenomena are intrinsically harder to understand than others, so the production of useful new knowledge in these areas can be very slow. Consequently, there is often a critical time lag between the recognition between a problem and the delivery of sufficient ingenuity, in the form of technologies, to solve that problem. Progress in the social sciences is especially slow, for reasons we don't yet understand; but we desperately need better social scientific knowledge to build the sophisticated institutions today’s world demands.
Questions:
Complete each sentence with the appropriate answer, A, B, C, or D
Write the correct answer in boxes 27-30 on your answer sheet.
27 The definition of ingenuity
28 The requirement for ingenuity
29 The creation of social wealth
30 The stability of society
A depends on many factors including climate.
B depends on the management and solution of disputes.
C is not only of technological advance, but more of institutional renovation.
D also depends on the availability of some traditional resources.
Question 31-33
Choose the correct letter, A, B, C, or D.
Write your answers in boxes 31-33 on your answer sheet.
31 What does the author say about the incremental change of the last 100 years?
A It has become a hot scholastic discussion among environmentalists.
B Its significance is often not noticed.
C It has reshaped the natural environments we live in.
D It benefited a much larger population than ever.
32 The combination of changes has made life.
A easier
B faster
C slower
D less sophisticated
33 What does the author say about the natural systems?
A New technologies are being developed to predict change with precision.
B Natural systems are often more sophisticated than other systems.
C Minor alterations may cause natural systems to change dramatically.
D Technological developments have rendered human being more independent of natural systems.
Question 34-40
Do the following statements agree with the information given in Reading Passage 3?
In boxes 34-40 on your answer sheet, write
YES if the statement is true
NO if the statement is false
NOT GIVEN if the information is not given in the passage
34 The demand for ingenuity has been growing during the past 100 years.
35 The ingenuity we have may be inappropriate for solving problems at hand.
36 There are very few who can understand the complex systems of the present world.
37 More information will help us to make better decisions.
38 The next generation will blame the current government for their conduct.
39 Science tends to develop faster in certain areas than others.
40 Social science develops especially slowly because it is not as important as natural science.
(轉(zhuǎn)第二頁(yè))
文章題目：The Gap of Ingenuity2
篇章結(jié)構(gòu)
體裁：論說(shuō)文
題目：創(chuàng)新的空白2
結(jié)構(gòu)：(一句話概括每段大意)
A段:創(chuàng)新的定義
B段:一個(gè)社會(huì)需要多少創(chuàng)造及哪種創(chuàng)造，取決于多種因素
C段:一個(gè)社會(huì)能提供多少或何種創(chuàng)造，同樣取決于多種因素
D段:充足優(yōu)質(zhì)的創(chuàng)造非常重要，但是還不夠
E段:這些年來(lái)發(fā)生了很多重大改變，但是整個(gè)改變過(guò)程比較慢，人們可能沒意識(shí)到它們有多重要
F段:改變使人們之間的互動(dòng)變得多了，壓力變得大了，環(huán)境被破壞了
G段:呼吁人們做出精準(zhǔn)的抉擇
H段:控制生存體系的制度和科技增強(qiáng)對(duì)創(chuàng)意的需求
I段:社會(huì)與科技的變革加速了創(chuàng)意時(shí)代的解放思想
J段:對(duì)于經(jīng)濟(jì)、社會(huì)、生態(tài)系統(tǒng)的未知使人們很難創(chuàng)造充足的創(chuàng)意解決問題
K段:新世紀(jì)中限制人們?cè)O(shè)計(jì)創(chuàng)意能力的各種因素
L段:現(xiàn)代市場(chǎng)和科學(xué)是創(chuàng)意設(shè)計(jì)的重要組成成分
參考譯文：
創(chuàng)新過(guò)程的空白
創(chuàng)造，就像筆者在這里定義的一樣，不僅僅指那些關(guān)于計(jì)算機(jī)、抗早作物之類的新科技的構(gòu)想，更重要的是指那些關(guān)于優(yōu)化制度和社會(huì)安排的思想，例如高效市場(chǎng)、法定 政府等。
一個(gè)社會(huì)需要多少創(chuàng)造及哪種創(chuàng)造，取決于多種因素，包括社會(huì)目標(biāo)和達(dá)成這些社會(huì)目標(biāo)時(shí)所處的社會(huì)環(huán)境一一無(wú)論它是年輕型社會(huì)還是老齡化社會(huì)：是自然物資豐富或是物資匱乏;是氣候宜人或氣候惡劣。
一個(gè)社會(huì)能提供多少或何種創(chuàng)造，同樣取決于眾多因素，例如人類創(chuàng)造和理解的本性、 有用知識(shí)的制造者所獲得的經(jīng)濟(jì)回報(bào)、以及社會(huì)制度改革的政治反對(duì)派的力量等。
充足優(yōu)質(zhì)的創(chuàng)造非常重要，當(dāng)然這還不夠。例如，我們知道財(cái)富的創(chuàng)造不僅取決于充足 的、有價(jià)值的創(chuàng)意，還需要更多其他傳統(tǒng)生產(chǎn)因素，如資本和勞動(dòng)力。同樣，繁榮、穩(wěn)定、公正通常取決于對(duì)財(cái)富和權(quán)力的重大政治斗爭(zhēng)的決議,或者至少是針對(duì)它們的遏制政策。然而目前，我們的經(jīng)濟(jì)創(chuàng)意常常將勞動(dòng)力排擠在外，隨著創(chuàng)意的增長(zhǎng)，機(jī)器設(shè)備實(shí)體通常也隨之增長(zhǎng)。在現(xiàn)有的政治體系中，我們需要更多的創(chuàng)意來(lái)建設(shè)社會(huì)制度,從而成功地管控財(cái)富和權(quán)力斗爭(zhēng)。很明顯，我們的經(jīng)濟(jì)政治進(jìn)程正緊密地與這些創(chuàng)意產(chǎn)物 結(jié)合在一起。
過(guò)去的一個(gè)世紀(jì)中，在我們的整個(gè)社會(huì)范圍、科技領(lǐng)域和我們與周圍自然環(huán)境的互動(dòng)中產(chǎn)生的不計(jì)其數(shù)并不斷增加的變化，己經(jīng)積累到了足以創(chuàng)造一個(gè)高品質(zhì)的新世界。由于這些變化是慢慢積累起來(lái)的，所以我們通常很難認(rèn)識(shí)到它們所影響的深度與廣度。這些變化波及了更廣泛、更密集的人群，它們使得人均自然資源消耗變得更高，并提供了更有效、更廣泛的交通運(yùn)輸技術(shù)，尤其是信息傳播技術(shù)。
總的來(lái)說(shuō)，這些變化已經(jīng)大大增加了我們彼此互動(dòng)的深度、強(qiáng)度和速度：但也顯著增加 了人類對(duì)自然環(huán)境造成的負(fù)擔(dān);同時(shí)也促使人類社會(huì)將權(quán)力從國(guó)家和國(guó)際組織轉(zhuǎn)移到 個(gè)人和群體組織中，例如特殊政治利益和民族派別。
因此，來(lái)自不同領(lǐng)域的人們——從政治經(jīng)濟(jì)領(lǐng)袖到我們?nèi)粘Ｉ钪械钠胀ㄈ恕仨?應(yīng)對(duì)更為復(fù)雜、緊迫、甚至不可預(yù)料的社會(huì)環(huán)境。我們需要大量的、不斷增長(zhǎng)的社會(huì)和 技術(shù)創(chuàng)新來(lái)處理我們與新世界的關(guān)系。當(dāng)人類努力保持或增強(qiáng)社會(huì)繁榮、提高生活質(zhì)量時(shí)，我們必須在比以往更短的時(shí)間內(nèi)做出更精確的決策。
從汽車到環(huán)球金融網(wǎng)絡(luò)，我們?cè)偬嵘魏我粋€(gè)體系的效能時(shí)，都會(huì)不由自主地把它復(fù)雜化。人類賴以生存的自然環(huán)境體系通常也是相當(dāng)復(fù)雜的，例如全球氣候和海洋。由于這些復(fù)雜體系對(duì)微小擾動(dòng)極其敏感，系統(tǒng)表現(xiàn)可以從一種模式急劇切換到另一種模式，所以人類很難精確預(yù)測(cè)它們的各種變化。通常，當(dāng)我們賴以生存的人造體系和自然體系越來(lái)越復(fù)雜時(shí)，當(dāng)我們對(duì)這些生存體系的要求越來(lái)越多時(shí)，我們用來(lái)控制這些體系的制度和科技也會(huì)越來(lái)越復(fù)雜，而這則會(huì)進(jìn)一步增強(qiáng)我們對(duì)創(chuàng)意的需求。
好消息是，在社會(huì)與技術(shù)發(fā)生巨大變革的上個(gè)世紀(jì)中，我們不進(jìn)增加了對(duì)創(chuàng)意的需求， 也創(chuàng)造出了大量的創(chuàng)意.隨著人口的增加、城市化進(jìn)程的加速，新的通訊和物流技術(shù)也迅速增長(zhǎng)，這大大拓展了人與人之間的交流，并催生了更廣泛、更綜合、更高效的市場(chǎng)： 反過(guò)來(lái)，這些變化在很大程度上也加速了這個(gè)創(chuàng)意時(shí)代的思潮解放。
但是——用批判的眼光來(lái)看——我們不能直接得出結(jié)論說(shuō)，我們的創(chuàng)意能一直跟上需求的腳步：雖然說(shuō)需求是創(chuàng)造之母，但我們不能總指望在我們有需要的時(shí)候，恰好就有相應(yīng)的創(chuàng)造產(chǎn)生。今天，在許多情況中，經(jīng)濟(jì)、社會(huì)、生態(tài)系統(tǒng)運(yùn)轉(zhuǎn)的復(fù)雜性和速度， 都遠(yuǎn)遠(yuǎn)超出了人類大腦的應(yīng)變范圍。大部分人對(duì)這些系統(tǒng)的運(yùn)轉(zhuǎn)原理都知之甚少，人們?nèi)匀怀錆M了數(shù)不勝數(shù)的“未知的未知”，這些未知使得人們很難創(chuàng)造出充足的創(chuàng)意來(lái)解決生活體系中的種種問題。
本書中，筆者研究分析了那些可能在新世紀(jì)中制約我們?cè)O(shè)計(jì)創(chuàng)意能力的各種因素。例如，許多人認(rèn)為新的信息技術(shù)增強(qiáng)了社會(huì)民主性,并使得人們解決社會(huì)群體事件變得更容易，但事實(shí)似乎并非如此.日常生活中的信息擁塞反而分散了我們的注意力，減少了 人們對(duì)公共政治等重要事件的思考時(shí)間，并使得政治觀點(diǎn)更加表面化。
現(xiàn)代市場(chǎng)和科學(xué)是我們創(chuàng)意設(shè)計(jì)的重要組成部分。市場(chǎng)的重要性在于，它為企業(yè)家創(chuàng)造 知識(shí)提供了經(jīng)濟(jì)動(dòng)力。對(duì)于科學(xué)來(lái)說(shuō)，盡管似乎沒什么理論限制，但在實(shí)踐環(huán)節(jié)上的制約會(huì)減緩科學(xué)的實(shí)現(xiàn)進(jìn)程，至少在今后一段時(shí)間內(nèi)都會(huì)如此。隨著科學(xué)研究的深入， 其成本也在逐漸上升。同時(shí)，科學(xué)的進(jìn)步速率取決于人們研究的自然現(xiàn)象的特征，有些現(xiàn)象或領(lǐng)域就是比其他的現(xiàn)象或領(lǐng)域難,所以這些領(lǐng)域中的知識(shí)進(jìn)步會(huì)非常緩慢。因此，在人們發(fā)現(xiàn)問題到提供解決問題的創(chuàng)意或技術(shù)之間，通常會(huì)有一段很長(zhǎng)的滯后期。由于某些未知的原因，社會(huì)科學(xué)的進(jìn)步尤其緩慢：但我們迫切需要更好的社會(huì)科學(xué)理論，以 建立起符合現(xiàn)代世界需求的龐大制度體系。
THE GAP of INGENUITY 2
Ingenuity, as I define it here, consists not only of ideas for new technologies like computers or drought-resistant crops but, more fundamentally, of ideas for better institutions and social arrangements, like efficient markets and competent governments.
How much and what kinds of ingenuity a society requires depends on a range of factors, including the society's goals and the circumstances within which it must achieve those goals——whether it has a young population or an aging one, an abundance of natural resources or a scarcity of them, an easy climate or a punishing one, whatever the case may be.
How much and what kinds of ingenuity a society supplies also depends on many factors, such as the nature of human inventiveness and understanding, the rewards an economy gives to the producers of useful knowledge, and the strength of political opposition to social and institutional reforms.
A good supply of the right kind of ingenuity is essential, but it isn't, of course, enough by itself. We know that the creation of wealth, for example, depends not only on an adequate supply of useful ideas but also on the availability of other, more conventional factors of production, like capital and labor. Similarly, prosperity, stability and justice usually depend on the resolution, or at least the containment, of major political struggles over wealth and power. Yet within our economics ingenuity often supplants labor, and growth in the stock of physical plant is usually accompanied by growth in the stock of ingenuity. And in our political systems, we need great ingenuity to set up institutions that successfully manage struggles over wealth and power. Clearly, our economic and political processes are intimately entangled with the production and use of ingenuity.
The past century’s countless incremental changes in our societies around the planet, in our technologies and our interactions with our surrounding natural environments have accumulated to create a qualitatively new world. Because these changes have accumulated slowly, It’s often hard for us to recognize how profound and sweeping they've. They include far larger and denser populations; much higher per capita consumption of natural resources; and far better and more widely available technologies for the movement of people, materials, and especially information.
In combination, these changes have sharply increased the density, intensity, and pace of our inter actions with each other; they have greatly increased the burden we place on our natural environment; and they have helped shift power from national and international institutions to individuals and subgroups, such as political special interests and ethnic factions.
As a result, people in all walks of life-from our political and business leaders to all of us in our day-to-day——must cope with much more complex, urgent, and often unpredictable circumstances. The management of our relationship with this new world requires immense and ever-increasing amounts of social and technical ingenuity. As we strive to maintain or increase our prosperity and improve the quality of our lives, we must make far more sophisticated decisions, and in less time, than ever before.
When we enhance the performance of any system, from our cars to the planet's network of financial institutions, we tend to make it more complex. Many of the natural systems critical to our well-being, like the global climate and the oceans, are extraordinarily complex to begin with. We often can't predict or manage the behavior of complex systems with much precision, because they are often very sensitive to the smallest of changes and perturbations, and their behavior can flip from one mode to another suddenly and dramatically. In general, as the human-made and natural systems we depend upon become more complex, and as our demands on them increase, the institutions and technologies we use to manage them must become more complex too, which further boosts our need for ingenuity.
The good news, though, is that the last century's stunning changes in our societies and technologies have not just increased our need for ingenuity; they have also produced a huge increase in its supply. The growth and urbanization of human populations have combined with astonishing new communication and transportation technologies to expand interactions among people and produce larger, more integrated, and more efficient markets. These changes have, in turn, vastly accelerated the generation and delivery of useful ideas.
But—and this is the critical "but"——we should not jump to the conclusion that the supply of ingenuity always increases in lockstep with our ingenuity requirement: While it's true that necessity is often the mother of invention, we can't always rely on the right kind of ingenuity appearing when and where we need it. In many cases, the complexity and speed of operation of today's vital economic, social, arid ecological systems exceed the human brains grasp. Very few of us have more than a rudimentary understanding of how these systems work. They remain fraught with countless "unknown unknowns," which makes it hard to supply the ingenuity we need to solve problems associated with these systems.
In this book, explore a wide range of other factors that will limit our ability to supply the ingenuity required in the coming century. For example, many people believe that new communication technologies strengthen democracy and will make it easier to find solutions to our societies' collective problems, but the story is less clear than it seems. The crush of information in our everyday lives is shortening our attention span, limiting the time we have to reflect on critical matters of public policy, and making policy arguments more superficial.
Modern markets and science are an important part of the story of how we supply ingenuity. Markets are critically important, because they give entrepreneurs an incentive to produce knowledge. As for science, although it seems to face no theoretical limits, at least in the foreseeable future, practical constraints often slow its progress. The cost of scientific research tends to increase as it delves deeper into nature. And science's rate of advance depends on the characteristic of the natural phenomena it investigates, simply because some phenomena are intrinsically harder to understand than others, so the production of useful new knowledge in these areas can be very slow. Consequently, there is often a critical time lag between the recognition between a problem and the delivery of sufficient ingenuity, in the form of technologies, to solve that problem. Progress in the social sciences is especially slow, for reasons we don't yet understand; but we desperately need better social scientific knowledge to build the sophisticated institutions today’s world demands.
Questions:
Complete each sentence with the appropriate answer, A, B, C, or D
Write the correct answer in boxes 27-30 on your answer sheet.
27 The definition of ingenuity
28 The requirement for ingenuity
29 The creation of social wealth
30 The stability of society
A depends on many factors including climate.
B depends on the management and solution of disputes.
C is not only of technological advance, but more of institutional renovation.
D also depends on the availability of some traditional resources.
Question 31-33
Choose the correct letter, A, B, C, or D.
Write your answers in boxes 31-33 on your answer sheet.
31 What does the author say about the incremental change of the last 100 years?
A It has become a hot scholastic discussion among environmentalists.
B Its significance is often not noticed.
C It has reshaped the natural environments we live in.
D It benefited a much larger population than ever.
32 The combination of changes has made life.
A easier
B faster
C slower
D less sophisticated
33 What does the author say about the natural systems?
A New technologies are being developed to predict change with precision.
B Natural systems are often more sophisticated than other systems.
C Minor alterations may cause natural systems to change dramatically.
D Technological developments have rendered human being more independent of natural systems.
Question 34-40
Do the following statements agree with the information given in Reading Passage 3?
In boxes 34-40 on your answer sheet, write
YES if the statement is true
NO if the statement is false
NOT GIVEN if the information is not given in the passage
34 The demand for ingenuity has been growing during the past 100 years.
35 The ingenuity we have may be inappropriate for solving problems at hand.
36 There are very few who can understand the complex systems of the present world.
37 More information will help us to make better decisions.
38 The next generation will blame the current government for their conduct.
39 Science tends to develop faster in certain areas than others.
40 Social science develops especially slowly because it is not as important as natural science.
(轉(zhuǎn)第二頁(yè))
文章題目：The Gap of Ingenuity2
篇章結(jié)構(gòu)
體裁：論說(shuō)文
題目：創(chuàng)新的空白2
結(jié)構(gòu)：(一句話概括每段大意)
A段:創(chuàng)新的定義
B段:一個(gè)社會(huì)需要多少創(chuàng)造及哪種創(chuàng)造，取決于多種因素
C段:一個(gè)社會(huì)能提供多少或何種創(chuàng)造，同樣取決于多種因素
D段:充足優(yōu)質(zhì)的創(chuàng)造非常重要，但是還不夠
E段:這些年來(lái)發(fā)生了很多重大改變，但是整個(gè)改變過(guò)程比較慢，人們可能沒意識(shí)到它們有多重要
F段:改變使人們之間的互動(dòng)變得多了，壓力變得大了，環(huán)境被破壞了
G段:呼吁人們做出精準(zhǔn)的抉擇
H段:控制生存體系的制度和科技增強(qiáng)對(duì)創(chuàng)意的需求
I段:社會(huì)與科技的變革加速了創(chuàng)意時(shí)代的解放思想
J段:對(duì)于經(jīng)濟(jì)、社會(huì)、生態(tài)系統(tǒng)的未知使人們很難創(chuàng)造充足的創(chuàng)意解決問題
K段:新世紀(jì)中限制人們?cè)O(shè)計(jì)創(chuàng)意能力的各種因素
L段:現(xiàn)代市場(chǎng)和科學(xué)是創(chuàng)意設(shè)計(jì)的重要組成成分
參考譯文：
創(chuàng)新過(guò)程的空白
創(chuàng)造，就像筆者在這里定義的一樣，不僅僅指那些關(guān)于計(jì)算機(jī)、抗早作物之類的新科技的構(gòu)想，更重要的是指那些關(guān)于優(yōu)化制度和社會(huì)安排的思想，例如高效市場(chǎng)、法定 政府等。
一個(gè)社會(huì)需要多少創(chuàng)造及哪種創(chuàng)造，取決于多種因素，包括社會(huì)目標(biāo)和達(dá)成這些社會(huì)目標(biāo)時(shí)所處的社會(huì)環(huán)境一一無(wú)論它是年輕型社會(huì)還是老齡化社會(huì)：是自然物資豐富或是物資匱乏;是氣候宜人或氣候惡劣。
一個(gè)社會(huì)能提供多少或何種創(chuàng)造，同樣取決于眾多因素，例如人類創(chuàng)造和理解的本性、 有用知識(shí)的制造者所獲得的經(jīng)濟(jì)回報(bào)、以及社會(huì)制度改革的政治反對(duì)派的力量等。
充足優(yōu)質(zhì)的創(chuàng)造非常重要，當(dāng)然這還不夠。例如，我們知道財(cái)富的創(chuàng)造不僅取決于充足 的、有價(jià)值的創(chuàng)意，還需要更多其他傳統(tǒng)生產(chǎn)因素，如資本和勞動(dòng)力。同樣，繁榮、穩(wěn)定、公正通常取決于對(duì)財(cái)富和權(quán)力的重大政治斗爭(zhēng)的決議,或者至少是針對(duì)它們的遏制政策。然而目前，我們的經(jīng)濟(jì)創(chuàng)意常常將勞動(dòng)力排擠在外，隨著創(chuàng)意的增長(zhǎng)，機(jī)器設(shè)備實(shí)體通常也隨之增長(zhǎng)。在現(xiàn)有的政治體系中，我們需要更多的創(chuàng)意來(lái)建設(shè)社會(huì)制度,從而成功地管控財(cái)富和權(quán)力斗爭(zhēng)。很明顯，我們的經(jīng)濟(jì)政治進(jìn)程正緊密地與這些創(chuàng)意產(chǎn)物 結(jié)合在一起。
過(guò)去的一個(gè)世紀(jì)中，在我們的整個(gè)社會(huì)范圍、科技領(lǐng)域和我們與周圍自然環(huán)境的互動(dòng)中產(chǎn)生的不計(jì)其數(shù)并不斷增加的變化，己經(jīng)積累到了足以創(chuàng)造一個(gè)高品質(zhì)的新世界。由于這些變化是慢慢積累起來(lái)的，所以我們通常很難認(rèn)識(shí)到它們所影響的深度與廣度。這些變化波及了更廣泛、更密集的人群，它們使得人均自然資源消耗變得更高，并提供了更有效、更廣泛的交通運(yùn)輸技術(shù)，尤其是信息傳播技術(shù)。
總的來(lái)說(shuō)，這些變化已經(jīng)大大增加了我們彼此互動(dòng)的深度、強(qiáng)度和速度：但也顯著增加 了人類對(duì)自然環(huán)境造成的負(fù)擔(dān);同時(shí)也促使人類社會(huì)將權(quán)力從國(guó)家和國(guó)際組織轉(zhuǎn)移到 個(gè)人和群體組織中，例如特殊政治利益和民族派別。
因此，來(lái)自不同領(lǐng)域的人們——從政治經(jīng)濟(jì)領(lǐng)袖到我們?nèi)粘Ｉ钪械钠胀ㄈ恕仨?應(yīng)對(duì)更為復(fù)雜、緊迫、甚至不可預(yù)料的社會(huì)環(huán)境。我們需要大量的、不斷增長(zhǎng)的社會(huì)和 技術(shù)創(chuàng)新來(lái)處理我們與新世界的關(guān)系。當(dāng)人類努力保持或增強(qiáng)社會(huì)繁榮、提高生活質(zhì)量時(shí)，我們必須在比以往更短的時(shí)間內(nèi)做出更精確的決策。
從汽車到環(huán)球金融網(wǎng)絡(luò)，我們?cè)偬嵘魏我粋€(gè)體系的效能時(shí)，都會(huì)不由自主地把它復(fù)雜化。人類賴以生存的自然環(huán)境體系通常也是相當(dāng)復(fù)雜的，例如全球氣候和海洋。由于這些復(fù)雜體系對(duì)微小擾動(dòng)極其敏感，系統(tǒng)表現(xiàn)可以從一種模式急劇切換到另一種模式，所以人類很難精確預(yù)測(cè)它們的各種變化。通常，當(dāng)我們賴以生存的人造體系和自然體系越來(lái)越復(fù)雜時(shí)，當(dāng)我們對(duì)這些生存體系的要求越來(lái)越多時(shí)，我們用來(lái)控制這些體系的制度和科技也會(huì)越來(lái)越復(fù)雜，而這則會(huì)進(jìn)一步增強(qiáng)我們對(duì)創(chuàng)意的需求。
好消息是，在社會(huì)與技術(shù)發(fā)生巨大變革的上個(gè)世紀(jì)中，我們不進(jìn)增加了對(duì)創(chuàng)意的需求， 也創(chuàng)造出了大量的創(chuàng)意.隨著人口的增加、城市化進(jìn)程的加速，新的通訊和物流技術(shù)也迅速增長(zhǎng)，這大大拓展了人與人之間的交流，并催生了更廣泛、更綜合、更高效的市場(chǎng)： 反過(guò)來(lái)，這些變化在很大程度上也加速了這個(gè)創(chuàng)意時(shí)代的思潮解放。
但是——用批判的眼光來(lái)看——我們不能直接得出結(jié)論說(shuō)，我們的創(chuàng)意能一直跟上需求的腳步：雖然說(shuō)需求是創(chuàng)造之母，但我們不能總指望在我們有需要的時(shí)候，恰好就有相應(yīng)的創(chuàng)造產(chǎn)生。今天，在許多情況中，經(jīng)濟(jì)、社會(huì)、生態(tài)系統(tǒng)運(yùn)轉(zhuǎn)的復(fù)雜性和速度， 都遠(yuǎn)遠(yuǎn)超出了人類大腦的應(yīng)變范圍。大部分人對(duì)這些系統(tǒng)的運(yùn)轉(zhuǎn)原理都知之甚少，人們?nèi)匀怀錆M了數(shù)不勝數(shù)的“未知的未知”，這些未知使得人們很難創(chuàng)造出充足的創(chuàng)意來(lái)解決生活體系中的種種問題。
本書中，筆者研究分析了那些可能在新世紀(jì)中制約我們?cè)O(shè)計(jì)創(chuàng)意能力的各種因素。例如，許多人認(rèn)為新的信息技術(shù)增強(qiáng)了社會(huì)民主性,并使得人們解決社會(huì)群體事件變得更容易，但事實(shí)似乎并非如此.日常生活中的信息擁塞反而分散了我們的注意力，減少了 人們對(duì)公共政治等重要事件的思考時(shí)間，并使得政治觀點(diǎn)更加表面化。
現(xiàn)代市場(chǎng)和科學(xué)是我們創(chuàng)意設(shè)計(jì)的重要組成部分。市場(chǎng)的重要性在于，它為企業(yè)家創(chuàng)造 知識(shí)提供了經(jīng)濟(jì)動(dòng)力。對(duì)于科學(xué)來(lái)說(shuō)，盡管似乎沒什么理論限制，但在實(shí)踐環(huán)節(jié)上的制約會(huì)減緩科學(xué)的實(shí)現(xiàn)進(jìn)程，至少在今后一段時(shí)間內(nèi)都會(huì)如此。隨著科學(xué)研究的深入， 其成本也在逐漸上升。同時(shí)，科學(xué)的進(jìn)步速率取決于人們研究的自然現(xiàn)象的特征，有些現(xiàn)象或領(lǐng)域就是比其他的現(xiàn)象或領(lǐng)域難,所以這些領(lǐng)域中的知識(shí)進(jìn)步會(huì)非常緩慢。因此，在人們發(fā)現(xiàn)問題到提供解決問題的創(chuàng)意或技術(shù)之間，通常會(huì)有一段很長(zhǎng)的滯后期。由于某些未知的原因，社會(huì)科學(xué)的進(jìn)步尤其緩慢：但我們迫切需要更好的社會(huì)科學(xué)理論，以 建立起符合現(xiàn)代世界需求的龐大制度體系。