Annie Lowrey on the Time Tax, Fraud, and Rationing by Paperwork (Ep. 290)
Hello, everyone, and welcome back to Conversations with Tyler.
大家好，欢迎回到《与泰勒对话》。
Today, I’m very happy to be chatting with Annie Lowrey.
今天，我很高兴能与安妮·洛瑞聊天。
She has a new book out, new and excellent book called The Time Tax: How the Government Wastes Our Time—and How to Fix It.
她出了一本新书，一本很棒的新书，书名叫《时间税：政府如何浪费我们的时间——以及如何解决它》。
The government does not just waste your money.
政府不只是浪费你的钱。
Annie is a staff writer at The Atlantic.
安妮是《大西洋月刊》的特约撰稿人。
She has worked in the past and written for New York Times, Slate.com, and many other outlets.
她过去曾为《纽约时报》、Slate.com 和许多其他媒体撰稿。
She also has an earlier book, Give People Money, on universal basic income.
她还有一本较早的书《给人们钱》（Give People Money），内容是关于全民基本收入。
Annie, welcome.
安妮，欢迎。
Thank you.
谢谢。
On taxing our time
关于对我们的时间征税
Could you start by giving us a single clear example of your main thesis about The Time Tax?
您能否先给我们一个关于时间税的主要论文的一个清晰的例子？
Absolutely.
绝对地。
In most of our peer countries, so wealthy countries, democratic countries with decent public administration, you do not have to do your own taxes.
在我们大多数的同类国家，富裕国家，公共管理良好的民主国家，你不必自己纳税。
In Japan, if you earn a salary, you do not have to do anything.
在日本，只要有工资，就什么都不用做。
You do not have to engage in the tax process at all.
您根本不必参与税务流程。
In many other countries, they pre-fill your tax forms, send them to you.
在许多其他国家/地区，他们会预先填写您的纳税表格并将其发送给您。
You can make a correction if desired or if necessary.
如果需要或有必要，您可以进行更正。
The tax authority does much of the work for you.
税务机关会为您完成大部分工作。
We could do this.
我们可以做到这一点。
Nine in 10 American households take the standard deduction and have fairly simple tax situations.
十分之九的美国家庭采用标准扣除，并且纳税情况相当简单。
We do not do this.
我们不这样做。
The IRS is legally not allowed to do it.
法律上不允许国税局这样做。
If you had to pick a part of government, taxes aside, where in general these obstacles and time taxes are the worst, what else would you name?
如果你必须选择一个政府部门，除了税收之外，一般来说这些障碍和时间税是最糟糕的，你还能说出什么？
The single worst program in my mind is TANF, which is cash welfare and a lot of other things.
我心目中最糟糕的计划是贫困家庭临时援助 (TANF)，它包括现金福利和很多其他东西。
This is the program that hypothetically is supposed to address child poverty.
假设该计划旨在解决儿童贫困问题。
It does not change the child poverty rate.
它不会改变儿童贫困率。
It is enormously onerous and punitive to comply with.
遵守它是非常繁重和惩罚性的。
It’s a terrible waste of the $16.5 billion a year associated with it.
这是对每年 165 亿美元相关资金的严重浪费。
Just in general, I would say safety net programs are not great.
总的来说，我认为安全网计划并不是很好。
Programs that are mostly used by higher-income Americans are much, much, much better.
主要由高收入美国人使用的程序要好得多。
The safety net, and specifically welfare, is the worst.
安全网，特别是福利，是最糟糕的。
As you know, under Biden, for a brief while, we had a child tax credit.
如你所知，在拜登的领导下，我们曾短暂地享受过儿童税收抵免。
It seemed to me from a distance pretty clean and simple.
从远处看，我觉得它非常干净简单。
Yet it was not greatly loved.
然而它并没有受到很大的喜爱。
What is your read of the political economy of that?
您对其中的政治经济学有何看法？
I think that there is a tension with all submerged benefits.
我认为所有隐藏的利益都存在紧张关系。
They work much better.
他们工作得更好。
They’re easier for the government to administer.
它们对政府来说更容易管理。
They have higher participation or take-up rates because most people do file a tax return.
他们的参与率或接受率较高，因为大多数人都会提交纳税申报表。
It’s fairly unusual not to.
不这样做是相当不寻常的。
Even very, very low income, because below a certain level, you’re not actually required to file federal taxes.
即使收入非常非常低，因为低于一定水平，您实际上不需要缴纳联邦税。
That’s pretty uncommon.
这很不常见。
They work better.
他们工作得更好。
The problem with them is, and I look to Suzanne Mettler’s work on this, is that people don’t know that they are receiving benefits.
他们的问题是，我关注苏珊·梅特勒（Suzanne Mettler）在这方面的工作，人们不知道他们正在领取福利。
These programs are not visible.
这些程序是不可见的。
They’re not understood by the recipients.
收件人不理解它们。
You could look at the CTC.
你可以看看CTC。
I remember I went reporting about it.
我记得我去报道过这件事。
People had no idea what it was even when they were getting the money.
即使人们拿到钱后也不知道那是什么。
I think that there’s ways to get around that.
我认为有办法解决这个问题。
You could send checks.
你可以寄支票。
The IRS could send checks with the program name on it instead of direct deposit.
美国国税局可以寄送带有计划名称的支票，而不是直接存款。
That’s a little bit less elegant too.
这也有点不太优雅。
If you had to pick an area of government that works pretty well, US government, and does not have such a big time tax overall, what would you point to as us getting it right?
如果你必须选择一个运作良好的政府领域，即美国政府，并且总体上没有如此高的税收，那么当我们做得对时，你会指出什么？
The postal service and Social Security’s retirement programs.
邮政服务和社会保障的退休计划。
Those are both pretty good.
这两个都不错。
Social Security also has other programs, SSI, which is mostly used by very, very low-income seniors with disabilities or who are blind.
社会保障还有其他计划，SSI，主要由非常低收入的残疾或盲人老年人使用。
Disability insurance is run by the Social Security Administration.
残疾保险由社会保障管理局管理。
The retirement program, it’s less than 1 percent overhead.
退休计划的管理费用不到 1%。
It’s great.
这很棒。
It does all the work for you.
它为您完成所有工作。
Isn’t our whole postal service a time tax in the aggregate?
我们整个邮政服务难道不是一种时间税吗？
Denmark, just this year, abolished its postal service.
丹麦今年就废除了邮政服务。
They don’t have any.
他们没有。
Now, I understand we’re not in a position to do exactly the same, but shouldn’t we be moving away from postal service, basically zeroing it out over the next 10 years?
现在，我知道我们无法做到完全相同，但我们不应该放弃邮政服务，在未来 10 年内将其基本上归零吗？
Did they make it so that it’s all digital?
他们是否做到了全数字化？
Did they digitize things?
他们把东西数字化了吗？
Well, I don’t know who the “they” is.
好吧，我不知道“他们”是谁。
Direct mail there has gone away.
那里的直邮已经消失了。
Oh, yes, that’s interesting.
哦，是的，这很有趣。
I don’t know.
我不知道。
I think in a high inequality country such as ours, where you still have a lot of people who don’t have smartphones and don’t have computers, that’s why I would be very concerned about the postal service going away.
我认为在像我们这样的高度不平等的国家，仍然有很多人没有智能手机，也没有电脑，这就是为什么我非常担心邮政服务的消失。
That’s why we need 10 years.
这就是为什么我们需要10年。
You want to tax people, tax in the broad sense of the term, living in rural areas, if only because it’s much harder to have government help them, right?
你想对生活在农村地区的人们征税，广义上的征税，哪怕只是因为让政府帮助他们要困难得多，对吗？
Yes.
是的。
If rural areas don’t get mail anymore, maybe that’s a good thing.
如果农村地区不再收到邮件，也许这是一件好事。
I don’t think that that’s a good thing for the people in the rural areas, though.
但我认为这对于农村地区的人们来说并不是一件好事。
There’s always going to be people in rural areas.
农村地区永远都有人。
As a general point, do you want the government to be encouraging people to not live in rural areas?
总的来说，您希望政府鼓励人们不要生活在农村地区吗？
Absolutely, that’s me.
绝对是我。
Welcome to the show.
欢迎来到节目。
That’s feels very nanny state-ish of you, Tyler.
泰勒，你给人的感觉非常保姆式。
I don’t want to subsidize rural areas, and we do it in so many ways, including with our farm programs.
我不想补贴农村地区，我们通过多种方式做到这一点，包括我们的农业计划。
We do.
我们做到了。
We really, really absolutely do.
我们真的、真的绝对这么做。
It gets harder to help people with government.
为政府提供帮助变得更加困难。
There’s a lot more market power in rural areas, like how many supermarkets are there, how many hospitals, probably just one, if that.
农村地区的市场力量要大得多，比如有多少家超市、多少家医院，如果有的话，可能只有一家。
Let’s get everyone into the suburbs, or heaven forbid, the cities.
让我们让每个人都进入郊区，或者天堂禁止，城市。
I can’t imagine a less popular policy than that.
我无法想象还有比这更不受欢迎的政策了。
Absolutely.
绝对地。
All of our policies are aimed at allowing people to be in place.
我们所有的政策都是为了让人们就位。
We’re very stuck as people.
我们作为人被困住了。
We don’t move in the way that we used to.
我们不再像以前那样行动。
You can never suggest that we should just depopulate places.
你永远不能建议我们减少一些地方的人口。
If you’re running for president, Tyler, I don’t think you’re going to win.
如果你竞选总统，泰勒，我认为你不会赢。
Now let’s think about our COVID experience.
现在让我们想想我们的新冠疫情经历。
In a number of ways, we relaxed controls on benefits.
我们通过多种方式放松了对福利的控制。
We did.
我们做到了。
It became much easier to get unemployment insurance.
获得失业保险变得更加容易。
Interviews were just hard to pull off flat out, right?
面试很难顺利进行，对吧？
Yes.
是的。
It seems that fraud went up a lot.
看来诈骗案增加了不少。
In net terms, maybe we need the time taxes and the other nonsense just to prevent what happens when we take them away.
从净值来看，也许我们需要时间税和其他废话，只是为了防止我们拿走它们时发生的事情。
We tried that in 2020, 2021, it didn’t go that well.
我们在2020年、2021年尝试过，效果不太好。
I do not think that time taxes, administrative burdens, having more of them, would have prevented the fraud at all.
我认为，如果税收、行政负担再多的话，根本就不会阻止欺诈行为。
This was, in part, because we didn’t have these programs set up.
部分原因是我们没有设置这些程序。
There were two things that they were taking advantage of.
他们利用了两件事。
A lot of it was criminal groups, criminal actors.
其中很多是犯罪集团、犯罪分子。
One was the aid to small businesses.
一是对小企业的援助。
They were setting up sham small businesses and getting checks.
他们建立虚假的小企业并获取支票。
That was legitimately a really big problem.
这确实是一个很大的问题。
Again, the book is about people, so I would separate that.
再说一次，这本书是关于人的，所以我会把它分开。
I didn’t get into business regulation.
我没有涉及商业监管。
This is entirely about individual citizens.
这完全是关于公民个人的。
Then in UI, this was really bad.
然后在 UI 中，这真的很糟糕。
This was a catastrophe.
这是一场灾难。
The problem is, even going into the pandemic, every single recession that we have, we have this conversation about how stupid it is that we have these ancient infrastructures, literally, programs running on COBOL, and that states don’t have the right incentive to upgrade service delivery and their digital systems.
问题是，即使进入新冠疫情大流行，每次经济衰退时，我们都会讨论我们拥有这些古老的基础设施（字面意思是在 COBOL 上运行的程序）是多么愚蠢，而各州没有适当的激励来升级服务提供及其数字系统。
If you’re a governor and you have a low unemployment rate, what governor is going to devote a huge amount of money to upgrading a state UI system?
如果你是州长，而且失业率很低，哪个州长会投入巨额资金来升级州失业保险系统？
Some states have gotten better systems since, but broadly, no. They’re just as bad.
自那以后，一些州已经有了更好的系统，但总的来说，没有。他们也一样糟糕。
Then the next time the next recession comes, we’ll have the exact same conversation over again.
然后，下次经济衰退到来时，我们将再次进行完全相同的对话。
I think that the government actually having more state capacity and more agile digital systems would help with fraud prevention.
我认为政府实际上拥有更多的国家能力和更敏捷的数字系统将有助于预防欺诈。
I do not think that putting more work on individuals is going to reduce the amount of fraud.
我不认为对个人投入更多的工作会减少欺诈的数量。
Let me give you another example: Medicare.
让我再举一个例子：医疗保险。
It’s a big chunk of the federal budget, right?
这是联邦预算的很大一部分，对吧？
Huge, yes.
巨大，是的。
It seems to me they cover too many medical procedures.
在我看来，它们涵盖了太多的医疗程序。
You’re going to have knee surgery.
你将要接受膝盖手术。
You can just get it covered.
你可以把它覆盖起来。
Wouldn’t it be better if you had to go through a big time tax to get your knee surgery covered than just indiscriminately having Medicare pick up the bill?
如果你必须缴纳一大笔时间税才能获得膝盖手术的承保，这不是比不加区别地让医疗保险来买单更好吗？
No.
不。
Why not?
为什么不呢？
There are many other ways to reduce medical spending, and I really do think that we should look at those ways.
还有很多其他方法可以减少医疗支出，我确实认为我们应该考虑这些方法。
There’s no more popular policy proposal out there for both Democrats and Republicans than having the government do price controls in more pharmaceuticals.
对于民主党和共和党来说，没有比让政府对更多药品进行价格管制更受欢迎的政策建议了。
That would really, really help with medical spending.
这真的非常有助于医疗支出。
I do not think making it onerous to get your knee repaired is a good use of anybody’s time.
我认为让膝盖修复变得繁重是浪费任何人时间的好方法。
It is not a way to ration medical care.
这不是一种配给医疗服务的方法。
It’s not fair.
这不公平。
It shouldn’t be that if you are going to get your knee repaired, it’s because you have Medicare and are good at paperwork.
如果你要修复膝盖，不应该是因为你有医疗保险并且擅长文书工作。
It’s not a nice way to ration.
这不是一个好的配给方式。
Even if we want to do these other policies to lower costs, there’s way too many knee surgeries.
即使我们想采取其他政策来降低成本，膝盖手术也太多了。
A lot of them don’t work.
其中很多都不起作用。
There’s also a problem with back surgeries.
背部手术也存在问题。
Shouldn’t we just be tougher and force people to go through more hoops?
难道我们不应该更加强硬，强迫人们经历更多的困难吗？
I know it’s not nice, but most ways of saving money are not nice.
我知道这不好，但大多数省钱的方法都不好。
If it’s not an effective medical procedure, let’s be much tougher.
如果这不是有效的医疗程序，我们就采取更强硬的态度。
Maybe not cover it at all.
也许根本就没有覆盖它。
Just give people some cash.
给别人一些现金就可以了。
Why not lower the payment rate?
为什么不降低缴费率？
Absolutely.
绝对地。
Make it like Medicaid.
让它像医疗补助一样。
Make it so that it’s not profitable for doctors to perform in that case.
做到这一点，这样医生在这种情况下执行手术就无利可图。
There’s got to be other ways to do it.
必须有其他方法来做到这一点。
You could tax things that you can produce more of.
你可以对那些你可以生产更多的东西征税。
More work, more income, more natural resources.
更多的工作，更多的收入，更多的自然资源。
You can’t give people more time.
你不能给人们更多的时间。
I think it should be a really serious thing to take it away from them.
我认为从他们手中夺走它应该是一件非常严肃的事情。
I just think that there’s a lot of policy options to accomplish the goal that you’re describing, and I see the addition of paperwork as being a particularly illegitimate way to go about it.
我只是认为有很多政策选择可以实现你所描述的目标，而且我认为增加文书工作是一种特别非法的方式。
Let’s consider another example.
让我们考虑另一个例子。
Medicaid fraud in Minnesota over Somali autism claims.
明尼苏达州因索马里自闭症索赔而发生医疗补助欺诈。
I’m not sure it’s a lot of money.
我不确定这是否是很多钱。
I know it’s debated.
我知道这是有争议的。
I looked into it.
我调查了一下。
It’s probably not a lot of money, but it became a big headline, and people claim it’s a lot of money.
这可能不是很多钱，但它成为了一个大头条，人们声称这是很多钱。
They feel outraged.
他们感到愤怒。
There’s an immigration issue, maybe there’s a race issue, there’s an autism issue.
有移民问题，也许有种族问题，还有自闭症问题。
The result is that it turns into a big thing, and it makes policy much worse, it makes discourse much worse, but there was clearly some fraud.
结果是它变成了一件大事，它使政策变得更糟，它使言论变得更糟，但显然存在一些欺诈。
Would we not have been better off with more procedures to limit Somali autism claim fraud through Medicaid just to protect the rest of the integrity of the systems?
如果我们通过更多程序来限制通过医疗补助的索马里自闭症索赔欺诈，只是为了保护系统的其余部分的完整性，我们的情况不是会更好吗？
Now it seems like the whole system is fraudulent.
现在看来整个系统都是骗人的。
I think that public confidence in programs is very, very important.
我认为公众对项目的信心非常非常重要。
I think that reducing fraud is part of that.
我认为减少欺诈是其中的一部分。
I think if we had simpler systems that the government was better at administering, we would have less fraud and people would feel more supportive of the government.
我认为，如果我们有更简单的系统，政府更擅长管理，我们就会减少欺诈，人们也会更加支持政府。
I also think that we have a huge problem with trust because the government is so ineffective and treats the time of citizens as valueless.
我还认为我们在信任方面存在巨大问题，因为政府效率低下，并且将公民的时间视为毫无价值。
I think that we’re lacking confidence in public systems for that reason also, and politicians don’t always take that seriously.
我认为我们也因为这个原因对公共系统缺乏信心，而政客们并不总是认真对待这一点。
I saw this quite vividly in San Francisco where I lived for many years, that the state was so incompetent at doing anything, the San Francisco government—a lot of this came up in terms of building and housing policy, that there was just like a pox on everybody’s house attitude.
我在旧金山生活了很多年，清楚地看到了这一点，旧金山政府在做任何事情上都是无能的——很多都是在建筑和住房政策方面出现的，每个人对房子的态度就像痘一样。
I think that that’s a problem, too.
我认为这也是一个问题。
I do note that in Medicare and Medicaid, the problem with fraud is almost all on the provider side.
我确实注意到，在医疗保险和医疗补助中，欺诈问题几乎全部出现在医疗服务提供者方面。
It’s nursing homes that are defrauding the government.
是疗养院在欺骗政府。
It’s doctors’ offices, it’s hospital systems that are defrauding the government.
是医生办公室、医院系统在欺骗政府。
Individual fraud can only be so bad.
个人欺诈只能如此严重。
There’s only so much money that you’re going to get from the government for claims or whatever else it is.
你只能从政府那里得到这么多钱用于索赔或其他任何事情。
To do big fraud, you have to be doing a lot of processing.
要进行大规模欺诈，您必须进行大量处理。
I would actually love to reduce overhead in other programs so that we can focus on the criminal groups and organizations and legitimate providers that are engaging in fraudulent activity.
我实际上很想减少其他计划的开销，以便我们可以专注于从事欺诈活动的犯罪集团和组织以及合法提供商。
Voters often seem more outraged by individual fraud, even though it costs less.
选民往往似乎对个人欺诈更加愤怒，尽管其成本较低。
There were actual Somalians who showed up and said, “My kid has autism,” when the kid probably didn’t have autism.
有真正的索马里人出现并说：“我的孩子患有自闭症”，而这个孩子可能没有自闭症。
Then people end up turning against immigration, or immigration of Somalians.
然后人们最终转而反对移民，或索马里人的移民。
Sure.
当然。
For that reason, don’t we need to really be pretty strict with the individuals because that’s what bugs voters?
出于这个原因，我们难道不需要对个人非常严格，因为这才是选民的烦恼吗？
I think that reducing incidents of fraud is a good and important thing to do.
我认为减少欺诈事件是一件好事且重要的事情。
I’m not pro-fraud.
我并不赞成欺诈。
I wouldn’t make a pro-fraud argument.
我不会提出支持欺诈的论点。
However, I think that there are ways to do it that don’t require inconveniencing everyone and the 99.9 percent of people who are not engaging in fraud.
然而，我认为有一些方法可以做到这一点，不需要给每个人以及 99.9% 不参与欺诈的人带来不便。
I do think that fraud has also been a way of making these programs seem illegitimate so that voters will tolerate cutting them even if voters might want us to have more progressivity or the current level of progressivity in the current system.
我确实认为，欺诈也是使这些计划看起来不合法的一种方式，这样选民就会容忍削减这些计划，即使选民可能希望我们在当前体系中拥有更多的进步性或当前的进步水平。
Maybe this is impossible to do, but in the aggregate, if you had to estimate, how much time does the time tax cost us, say per person, how many minutes or hours in a day, what’s your best estimate?
也许这是不可能做到的，但总的来说，如果你必须估计，时间税花费了我们多少时间，比如说每人，一天多少分钟或小时，你的最佳估计是多少？
The best estimate I have come up with comes from the American Time Use Survey.
我得出的最佳估计来自美国时间使用调查。
The problem with the American Time Use Survey when it comes to measuring what people are doing is that it’s very ineffective at measuring time use when you are doing many things at once.
美国时间使用调查在衡量人们在做什么时存在的问题是，当你同时做很多事情时，它在衡量时间使用方面非常无效。
If you are waiting on hold on the telephone while you’re cooking dinner, you’re only doing one thing.
如果您在做饭时正在等待电话，那么您只是在做一件事。
It might say that you’re cooking or you’re taking care of your kids.
它可能会说你正在做饭或者你正在照顾你的孩子。
The other thing is, the time tax is in all kinds of little different categories, and so it’s not agglomerated.
另一件事是，时间税属于各种不同的类别，因此它不是聚集的。
If you’re looking at what I think of as roughly as bureaucratic time total spent, it’s 50 hours per person per year.
如果你粗略地看一下我所认为的官僚机构花费的总时间，那就是每人每年 50 小时。
It’s close to an hour a week?
每周接近一个小时吗？
Yes, something like that.
是的，类似的事情。
Some people it’s way more, some people it’s way less.
有的人多一些，有的人少一些。
There’s a lot of inequality in it.
这里面有很多不平等。
I would think it’s higher than that, but obviously you’ve studied this.
我认为它比这个更高，但显然你已经研究过这个。
Again, I don’t think that ATUS is picking up a lot of data.
再说一次，我不认为 ATUS 收集了大量数据。
The other issue is that OIRA does not measure this functionally at all.
另一个问题是 OIRA 根本没有从功能上衡量这一点。
What best predicts the inequality?
什么最能预测不平等？
Who are the groups that pay the highest time taxes?
缴纳时间税最高的群体是谁？
People with involvement with the criminal justice system, immigrants, and poor people.
参与刑事司法系统的人、移民和穷人。
Of the wealthy, which are the wealthy who pay the highest time taxes?
在富人中，哪些富人缴纳的时间税最高？
They may pay it indirectly.
他们可能会间接支付。
Their subordinates have to do things, but they have to pay the subordinates more, right?
他们的下属要做事，但是他们也要给下属更多的报酬不是吗？
Yes.
是的。
They vault over them.
他们跳过他们。
I think a lot of it is subordination.
我认为很多都是从属关系。
It’s really interesting to see the places where the wealthy have to use the same services or have to pay the same time taxes as lower income people.
看到富人必须使用与低收入人群相同的服务或缴纳相同时间的税的地方真的很有趣。
The one that I think bizarrely has no care for whether you’re wealthy or poor is something like permitting to renovate your house.
我认为奇怪的是，不关心你是富有还是贫穷，就像允许翻新你的房子一样。
Even very, very wealthy people in San Francisco will wait 500 days for a permit, going through many rounds of public comment.
即使是旧金山非常非常富有的人也会等待 500 天才能获得许可，并经过多轮公众评议。
Low-income San Franciscans are not renovating their homes, they’re very unlikely to own them, and probably don’t have the money for renovation.
低收入的旧金山人不会翻修他们的房屋，他们不太可能拥有这些房屋，而且可能没有钱翻修。
That’s one where I think something like taxes, high-income people obviously are much, much, much, much, much more likely to itemize, so their tax process is going to be much longer, but they’re also much more likely to use a high-priced accountant, something like that.
我认为像税收这样的事情，高收入人群显然更有可能逐项列出，因此他们的税务流程会更长，但他们也更有可能使用高价会计师，类似的东西。
They’re still paying the tax.
他们仍在纳税。
They have to pay for the accountant.
他们必须支付会计师的费用。
Yes, they’re paying the accountant.
是的，他们正在付钱给会计师。
Now, you mentioned something like an hour a week, say it’s somewhat more than that, but how much of that time do you think people really don’t mind that much?
现在，你提到每周一个小时，说比这个多一点，但你认为人们真的不介意那么多时间吗？
Sort of in the same way that people enjoy errands.
就像人们享受差事一样。
Yes.
是的。
I go shopping when I could just order from Amazon.
当我可以从亚马逊订购时，我就会去购物。
And I enjoy the shopping—I’m not sure I enjoy it; but I don’t stop doing it either.
我喜欢购物——我不确定我喜欢它；但我喜欢购物。但我也没有停止这样做。
I don’t know anybody who likes this stuff.
我不知道有谁喜欢这个东西。
I know a handful of people, I should say, who like this stuff.
我应该说，我认识一些人喜欢这些东西。
I think that some people like doing their own taxes.
我认为有些人喜欢自己报税。
I’m sure you know people who act as a VITA, like a volunteer tax preparer, but a lot of this is just quite miserable and pointless.
我相信你认识一些充当 VITA 的人，比如志愿报税员，但其中很多都是相当悲惨且毫无意义的。
I don’t think that there are necessarily people who find it rewarding.
我认为不一定有人觉得它有价值。
There’s always somebody, but I don’t know.
总有人，但我不知道。
Putting aside the extreme cases like, oh, you’re sent to jail, or, oh, you’re kicked out of the country, but of tasks that you do and finish and complete, which is psychologically the most tortuous in your view?
抛开那些极端的情况，比如，哦，你被送进监狱，或者，哦，你被赶出了这个国家，但是你所做的、完成的、完成的任务，在你看来，这在心理上是最曲折的？
Like, I hate filling out visa applications, because I always have these photos, and I have to shrink them down to a smaller JPEG size and then upload it to a website, and I’m terrible at that.
比如，我讨厌填写签证申请，因为我总是有这些照片，我必须将它们缩小到较小的 JPEG 尺寸，然后将其上传到网站，而我对此很糟糕。
Do you mean for me personally?
你的意思是针对我个人吗？
For you and then just overall.
对于你来说，然后只是整体。
For me personally, the great irony is that I am terrible at all of these bureaucratic things, and I am married to a person who has a very different brain and is very on top of them and manages basically all of the personal administration, the household administration.
对我个人来说，最大的讽刺是，我对所有这些官僚事务都很糟糕，而我嫁给了一个有着非常不同的大脑的人，他非常擅长管理所有的个人行政、家庭行政。
I didn’t go to the dentist for 20 years, not because I have something against dentistry, but just because it wasn’t front of mind.
我已经 20 年没有去看牙医了，不是因为我有什么反对牙科的想法，而是因为我没有把它放在心上。
I’m currently having an issue where when I moved from California to New York, I didn’t get a New York driver’s license, but now I’ve lost my California license, and it appears to be that the only way to get a driver’s license and thus to be able to rent a rental car is for me to go get a learner’s permit from the state of New York, and I have to go to driving school.
我目前遇到一个问题，当我从加利福尼亚州搬到纽约时，我没有获得纽约的驾驶执照，但现在我失去了加利福尼亚州的驾驶执照，似乎获得驾驶执照并因此能够租车的唯一方法是我去纽约州获得学习许可证，而且我必须去驾驶学校。
I have to take the test, the written and the test, but I don’t have a car, so I’m going to have to borrow a car to take the driving test because I can’t rent one.
我必须参加考试、笔试和考试，但我没有车，所以我必须借一辆车来参加驾驶考试，因为我租不到车。
Anyway.
反正。
All of them.
所有的人。
I am bad at absolutely all of them.
我绝对不擅长所有这些。
Also, I have a rare degenerative disease which requires a lot of documentation and managing of medical stuff.
另外，我患有一种罕见的退行性疾病，需要大量的文件记录和医疗资料管理。
I had to trigger my short-term disability policy.
我不得不触发我的短期残疾政策。
That took forever.
那花了很长时间。
I needed The Atlantic to give me a second computer, which they wanted to do, so I simply had to get a letter from a doctor.
我需要《大西洋月刊》给我第二台电脑，这是他们想要的，所以我只需要收到医生的一封信即可。
It took forever.
这花了很长时间。
I hate all of this.
我讨厌这一切。
This is the stuff that I personally struggle with the most.
这是我个人最挣扎的事情。
In terms of the burdens that the government is putting on other people, the psychologically torturous stuff is really, really bad.
就政府给其他人带来的负担而言，心理上的折磨真的非常非常糟糕。
On many assistance applications, there are detailed questions about your height and your weight, which can be painful for some people.
在许多援助申请中，都有关于您的身高和体重的详细问题，这对某些人来说可能会很痛苦。
Questions about the paternity of your children, where your children were conceived, what day they were conceived.
有关您孩子的父亲身份、您的孩子在哪里受孕、在哪一天受孕的问题。
That’s the stuff that I think it’s the government saying that it doesn’t care about you.
我认为这就是政府说的，它不关心你。
That it wants it to be painful.
它希望它是痛苦的。
It’s really, really invasive and really upsetting.
这真的非常具有侵略性，而且非常令人不安。
Child support, as a general point, I agree with it in concept, but as actually administered can be really painful for people to deal with.
子女抚养费，作为一般观点，我在概念上同意它，但实际上管理起来对人们来说确实很痛苦。
On private-sector time taxes
关于私营部门的时间税
Let’s say we’re comparing with the private sector.
假设我们正在与私营部门进行比较。
Now, say, medicine, it’s half public-funded, give or take.
现在，比如说医学，无论给予还是接受，一半都是公共资助的。
That’s a joint public-private sector.
这是一个公私联合部门。
I consider it public, just given how heavily regulated it is and how big the government is.
我认为它是公开的，只是考虑到它的监管有多严格以及政府的规模有多大。
I have private insurance, but the government is setting the rules there.
我有私人保险，但政府在那里制定规则。
Something that is more or less pure private sector, where is the worst time tax both for you, and you think in the aggregate?
或多或少是纯粹的私营部门，对您和您总体而言，最糟糕的税收时间在哪里？
Amazon is a tiny time tax.
亚马逊是一种微小的时间税。
You fill it out, you click, the package comes.
你填好，点击，包裹就来了。
It’s great.
这很棒。
Where is it bad?
哪里不好了？
I think that there’s nothing like the health system in terms of just the bureaucratic morass.
我认为，就官僚主义泥沼而言，没有什么比卫生系统更好的了。
I think as a general point, businesses have every incentive to reduce time taxes for people who are consuming things and to increase them as much as they are legally allowed to and as much as is practical for people who are trying to stop spending, which I think you can see.
我认为一般而言，企业有充分的动机减少正在消费的人的时间税，并在法律允许的范围内尽可能多地增加时间税，并且对于试图停止消费的人来说尽可能多地增加时间税，我想你可以看到。
A lot of businesses don’t do it because it’s bad for business for people to hate your business.
很多企业不这样做，因为人们讨厌你的企业对企业不利。
They’re cross-pressured in that way.
他们以这种方式受到交叉压力。
I think that there’s nothing like healthcare and associated, like getting your parents into a skilled nursing facility type thing—it’s absolutely miserable.
我认为没有什么比医疗保健和相关的事情更好的了，比如让你的父母进入熟练的护理机构类型的事情——这绝对是痛苦的。
This is a small thing, but it bugs me all the time.
这是一件小事，却一直困扰着我。
I’m on a purely private sector website.
我在一个纯粹的私营部门网站上。
I can’t blame the government at all, and it turns out I already have an account at the website.
我根本不能责怪政府，事实证明我已经在该网站上有一个帐户了。
I try to register as a guest, and it’s never that simple.
我尝试注册为访客，但事情从来没有那么简单。
No.
不。
Why does this go wrong?
为什么会出错？
Why is this not fixed in a world with AI agents?
为什么在人工智能代理的世界中这个问题没有得到解决？
I’m convinced that white-collar technology, labor-saving stuff, I’m convinced it’s all Jevons paradoxical.
我确信白领技术、节省劳动力的东西，我确信这都是杰文斯悖论。
I think that basically anything that is designed like email to make your life easier will at some point make it worse.
我认为基本上任何像电子邮件这样旨在让你的生活更轻松的东西都会在某些时候让你的生活变得更糟。
We’ve made it so that it just multiplies the number of tasks.
我们这样做是为了让任务数量成倍增加。
The things that companies can do to you multiplies.
公司可以为你做的事情成倍增加。
I do not want to use passkeys.
我不想使用密钥。
It feels like private companies are just hell-bent on—I don’t want to know what a passkey is—getting you to use them.
感觉就像私人公司一心想要让你使用它们——我不想知道万能钥匙是什么。
It’s absolutely nutty.
这绝对是疯狂的。
The password managers, but then you have to manage the manager.
密码管理器，但你必须管理管理器。
It’s all a lot.
这一切都很多。
If I travel to Harvard and maybe I bought a plane ticket for $400 and I can get reimbursement, that is hell.
如果我去哈佛旅行，也许我花 400 美元买了一张机票，并且可以获得报销，那就太糟糕了。
That’s one of the worst private sector experiences I have is learning a new software system to be reimbursed for a small sum of money and having to go through a whole rigmarole.
这是我在私营部门经历过的最糟糕的经历之一，就是学习一个新的软件系统，只需要一小笔钱就能得到报销，并且必须经历整个繁琐的过程。
Yes, exactly.
是的，完全正确。
There’s some amount that you just won’t do it because you value your own time and your blood pressure, right?
有些事情你就是不会做，因为你珍惜自己的时间和血压，对吗？
It’s absolutely annoying.
这绝对很烦人。
There were these rules that used to make airlines reimburse you if they bounced you off a plane.
过去有一些规则，如果航空公司把你从飞机上赶下来，航空公司会向你提供补偿。
That’s gone.
那已经消失了。
Anything having to do with airlines, and they’re like, “We’ve severely inconvenienced you, so we’ve given you some miles,” or some credit or something.
任何与航空公司有关的事情，他们都会说，“我们给你带来了严重的不便，所以我们给了你一些里程”，或者一些积分什么的。
This is the first book: Give People Money.
这是第一本书：给人们钱。
Give them cash.
给他们现金。
They like that.
他们喜欢那样。
On AI eliminating paperwork
人工智能消除文书工作
Now, government, virtually by definition, operates at scale, unless it’s, say, a small town.
现在，政府实际上按照定义进行大规模运作，除非是一个小镇。
How long will it be before AI agents are just built to do almost all of this for us?
人工智能代理需要多长时间才能为我们完成几乎所有这些工作？
You just say to your agent, “Hey, fill out these benefits form,” and then you go away, you go to sleep and it’s done?
你只需对你的代理人说，“嘿，填写这些福利表格”，然后你就走开，你去睡觉，就完成了？
Won’t that happen within five years?
这不会在五年内发生吗？
I imagine so.
我想是这样。
The questions that I have are, one, are the lower-income people, who are the users of the most burdensome programs, do they know about those agents?
我的问题是，第一，低收入人群，他们是负担最重的计划的用户，他们了解这些代理吗？
Do they feel comfortable using them?
他们使用它们感觉舒服吗？
I don’t know.
我不知道。
Not now—
不是现在——
Not now.
现在不行。
—but, say, within five years—
——但是，比如说，五年之内——
Yes, definitely.
是的，绝对是。
—if it’s just a pure gain.
——如果这只是纯粹的收益的话。
The second thing is that a lot of it is not really paperwork.
第二件事是，其中很多并不是真正的文书工作。
It’s mandatory interviews, it’s urine screens, it’s collecting data that might be hard to collect, and answering questions that an AI agent might not be able to answer for you.
这是强制性的采访，是尿液筛查，是收集可能难以收集的数据，并回答人工智能代理可能无法回答的问题。
For instance, unlike other programs, jobless benefits are given to the individual.
例如，与其他计划不同的是，失业救济金是提供给个人的。
It’s state and individual.
这是国家和个人。
SNAP benefits depend on your household.
SNAP 福利取决于您的家庭。
You, in some cases, will have to say how you split up the cost of staples with the people in your house.
在某些情况下，您必须说明您如何与家里的人分摊主食的费用。
It’s really hard because the government doesn’t have a stable definition of what a household is, and it could be very hard to say who is in your household and how you’re splitting things up.
这真的很难，因为政府对家庭没有一个稳定的定义，而且很难说你的家庭中有谁以及你如何分配东西。
I think that AI will help with a lot of this.
我认为人工智能将在这方面提供很多帮助。
I was skeptical, but the best civic technologist I know thinks that it’ll help a lot—and he’s a guy who’s been in the muck of this for a really long time, and knows the technology part of it—he’s convinced that AI will help.
我对此表示怀疑，但我认识的最好的公民技术专家认为这会有很大帮助——而且他是一个在这件事上呆了很长时间的人，并且了解其中的技术部分——他相信人工智能会有所帮助。
I don’t know.
我不知道。
The AI can interview you and say, “Well, please tell me these things.
人工智能可以采访你并说：“好吧，请告诉我这些事情。
I’m going to need it to answer the questions for your SNAP benefit.” You intermediate through the AI, which is nicer, friendlier, easier to deal with, and then it deals with the nasty person in the government.
我需要它来回答您的 SNAP 福利问题。”你通过人工智能进行调解，它更好、更友好、更容易打交道，然后它会处理政府中讨厌的人。
Yes, and very often, the government will ask you a question in a way that some lawyer wrote in some very legalistic fashion.
是的，而且很多时候，政府会用一些律师以非常法律主义的方式写的方式来问你一个问题。
I think the AI is unusually good at saying, “Oh, this is what they’re actually asking, and this is what the general advice is for how to do that.”
我认为人工智能非常擅长说：“哦，这就是他们实际上要问的，这就是如何做到这一点的一般建议。”
On immigration as a filter
论移民作为过滤器
Now, very big picture question.
现在，非常重要的问题。
Fertility rates are low in the US, lower elsewhere.
美国的生育率很低，其他地方也更低。
They’re not going to pop up anytime very soon.
它们不会很快出现。
The future of this country, it really depends on the quality of immigrants we attract.
这个国家的未来，实际上取决于我们吸引的移民的质量。
If we have a welfare system where it’s really hard to get benefits, don’t we, in fact, attract a higher quality of immigrant, more ambitious people and more self-sustaining, than if benefits are just easy to get?
如果我们的福利制度确实很难获得福利，那么与容易获得福利相比，我们实际上是否能吸引更高素质的移民、更有雄心的人和更自给自足的人？
Isn’t the significance of that really quite large in a future where native fertility is so low?
在未来生育率如此之低的情况下，这一点的意义难道不是很大吗？
Why do you think it is that if we have such a clunky system now we’ve managed to attract such a good quality of immigrants thus far?
您认为为什么如果我们现在有这样一个笨拙的系统，我们迄今为止却能吸引到如此优质的移民？
Because people who want to come just to get the benefits might say, “Oh, in Europe, they’ll just hand me the money, give me the free apartment, put me up in the hotel.”
因为那些想来只是为了获得好处的人可能会说，“哦，在欧洲，他们只会给我钱，给我免费的公寓，让我住在酒店。”
I see what you mean.
我明白你的意思了。
You come to the US, it’s a huge pain.
你来到美国，这是一个巨大的痛苦。
Maybe there’s a wisdom in that.
也许这里面有智慧。
Yes, and you can come.
是的，你可以来。
My understanding was that the welfare magnet hypothesis didn’t pan out.
我的理解是，福利磁铁假说并没有成功。
It makes some sense, but I think that the issue is, can you actually get here and come here is a big problem.
有一定道理，但我觉得问题是，你能不能真正到达这里，来到这里是一个大问题。
Then you’re barred from accessing the safety net as an immigrant for long periods of it.
然后你将在很长一段时间内被禁止作为移民进入安全网。
Part.
部分。
Much of it, yes.
大部分，是的。
Not all of it.
不是全部。
Yes, not all of it.
是的，不是全部。
Your children, especially if they’re born here, they have access, so there’s that.
你的孩子，特别是如果他们出生在这里，他们就有机会，所以就是这样。
In general, I think the policies work well when they have a direct goal rather than relying on indirect mechanisms like these.
总的来说，我认为当政策有直接目标而不是依赖于此类间接机制时，它们就会发挥良好作用。
If we want to attract more and better immigrants, why don’t we just create policies that will get them to come here.
如果我们想吸引更多更好的移民，为什么我们不制定政策让他们来到这里呢？
Like, if you get your PhD here, you automatically get a Green Card, that kind of thing.
就像，如果你在这里获得博士学位，你就会自动获得绿卡之类的东西。
I think that that would lead a lot of immigrants to come back.
我认为这会导致很多移民回来。
The current system, it selects for people having stamina, conscientiousness, focus, drive, willing to put up with indignities, and smart enough to get through the systems that may not be in their language.
当前的系统选择的人具有耐力、责任心、专注力、干劲、愿意忍受侮辱，并且足够聪明，能够通过可能不以他们的语言表达的系统。
You could argue what we have is those policies.
你可能会说我们拥有的就是这些政策。
I know plenty of lazy PhDs.
我认识很多懒惰的博士。
Most PhDs are lazy, I would say.
我想说，大多数博士都很懒。
Really?
真的吗？
I don’t want that to be the standard.
我不希望这成为标准。
Of course, they are.
当然，他们是。
It’s become negative selection, relative to IQ.
相对于智商来说，它已经变成了负选择。
Huh.
呵呵。
You’re looking for entrepreneurial people with a lot of get-up-and-go, people who can make it through the maze that we have set up.
你正在寻找那些有很多起床和行动的企业家，那些能够穿过我们设置的迷宫的人。
More O-1s, and then somewhat reform H-1B, and to have more of them, and none of these crazy $100,000 fees.
更多的 O-1，然后对 H-1B 进行一些改革，并拥有更多的 O-1，并且没有这些疯狂的 100,000 美元费用。
If you’re thinking that the H-1B and the O-1 is working well, why not just make those much, much, much bigger programs?
如果您认为 H-1B 和 O-1 运作良好，为什么不直接制定那些更大、更大、更大的计划呢？
Oh, of course, but keep the benefits tough and stingy, or, in some cases, impossible, which is not a time tax.
哦，当然，但是要保持福利严格和吝啬，或者在某些情况下，这是不可能的，这不是时间税。
If you know you can’t get it, you don’t bother to apply, but it’s like a time tax in the sense that it keeps you away from the benefit.
如果您知道自己无法获得，您就不会费心去申请，但这就像时间税，让您远离福利。
Right.
正确的。
I just don’t think that you should be creating chaos and taking people’s time by making the actual administrative part of it difficult.
我只是认为你不应该通过让实际的管理部分变得困难来制造混乱并占用人们的时间。
I think there’s always many other ways to get the policy outcome that you are searching for than larding the government up.
我认为除了让政府支持之外，还有很多其他方法可以实现你所寻求的政策结果。
It means that the government is wasting more money.
这意味着政府正在浪费更多的钱。
Your overhead cost is going to be higher.
你的管理费用将会更高。
I know that immigration is self-financing because we are applying these fees, but nevertheless, I just think that there’s better ways to go about it.
我知道移民是自筹资金的，因为我们正在收取这些费用，但尽管如此，我只是认为有更好的方法来实现这一点。
On reducing fraud
关于减少欺诈
Here’s a question from a reader, which I’m paraphrasing: “Do you favor much easier access to benefits, but randomized harsh, credible punishments for offenders?
这是一位读者提出的问题，我将其解释为：“你是否赞成更容易地获得福利，但对违法者进行随机严厉、可信的惩罚？
So you audit one in every 100, every 1,000 applications.
因此，您会审核每 100 份、每 1,000 份申请中的一份。
If the person did something wrong, you come down on them really hard.
如果这个人做错了事，你就会严厉地批评他们。
The time tax mostly vanishes, but there’s still this somewhat arbitrary punishment meted out to some of the people who are frauds.”
时间税基本上消失了，但对于一些欺诈者来说，仍然受到有些武断的惩罚。”
I think you have to separate out the issue of improper payments from purposeful fraud.
我认为你必须将不当付款问题与故意欺诈问题区分开来。
Improper payments are a function of the complexity of this system.
不当支付是该系统复杂性的一个函数。
If the system were easier and the rules were more straightforward, and you weren’t asking people who don’t own a computer for their monthly gross income and also their net income over the past six months, and that’s really hard to do, and a million other little questions, the improper payment rate would go down if the government were doing more work and the rules were simpler.
如果系统更简单，规则更简单，而且你不询问没有电脑的人的每月总收入和过去六个月的净收入，这真的很难做到，还有一百万个其他小问题，如果政府做更多的工作，规则更简单，不当付款率就会下降。
You would also have lower bureaucratic costs.
您的官僚成本也会降低。
Yes, I absolutely support making the rules much simpler.
是的，我绝对支持简化规则。
And maybe that means that you have to adjust the benefit threshold.
也许这意味着你必须调整福利门槛。
Meaning that you get it, and then auditing on the back end.
这意味着您得到了它，然后在后端进行审核。
I don’t know that I think that you have to have obscenely harsh punishment, though.
不过，我不知道我认为你必须受到极其严厉的惩罚。
Why do you need the harsh punishment as opposed to the auditing and the threat of that and the threat of civil penalties?
为什么你需要严厉的惩罚，而不是审计、审计威胁以及民事处罚的威胁？
If you only audit one in 5,000, people will think, “Oh, I can get away with it.” The punishment needs to really be harsh to scare them off.
如果你只审核五千分之一的人，人们会想，“哦，我可以逃脱惩罚。”惩罚必须非常严厉才能吓跑他们。
Yes.
是的。
I think you could just do more reasonable audits.
我认为你可以做更合理的审计。
I don’t necessarily think that you need to have extremely harsh punishments for this kind of thing.
我觉得这种事情不一定需要极其严厉的惩罚。
Also, for fraud, intent is important, to show that they intended; they knew that they didn’t have access to the benefit, they knew that they put the wrong paperwork in there.
此外，对于欺诈来说，意图很重要，要表明他们的意图；他们知道他们无法获得这项福利，他们知道他们放错了文件。
As a general point, I think that the benefit fraud rate is quite low.
总的来说，我认为福利欺诈率相当低。
I’m not concerned that we’re losing too much money to fraud.
我并不担心我们因欺诈而损失太多钱。
Now, from 1990 to 2014, the number of people on disability insurance increased by about four times.
现在，从1990年到2014年，领取伤残保险的人数增加了约四倍。
Even though jobs got safer, the number of people killed by their job went down steadily.
尽管工作变得更加安全，但因工作而死亡的人数却稳步下降。
Does that not mean that disability insurance should just be much tougher to get?
这是否意味着残疾保险应该更难获得？
More bureaucracy, more standards, more process, more whatever.
更多的官僚主义、更多的标准、更多的流程等等。
Yes.
是的。
I think that there were some reasons that more Americans became disabled.
我认为更多的美国人成为残疾人是有一些原因的。
Population aging is one, the general rise of chronic health conditions related to obesity is another.
人口老龄化是其中之一，与肥胖相关的慢性健康状况普遍上升是另一个原因。
And so I think that we should be somewhat more neutral in saying, “Is it people defrauding the system just because that number has gone up so much?” I don’t think so.
因此，我认为我们应该更加中立地说：“人们是否只是因为这个数字上升了这么多而欺骗了系统？”我不这么认为。
I don’t think so.
我不这么认为。
Disability is extraordinarily onerous to apply for and has very, very stringent fraud checks already.
申请残疾申请非常繁琐，而且已经有非常非常严格的欺诈检查。
In 5 percent of applications, the applicant submits more than 1,000 pages of medical paperwork.
在 5% 的申请中，申请人提交了超过 1,000 页的医疗文件。
It’s a lot.
很多。
11,000 Americans die waiting on a disability determination each year.
每年有 11,000 名美国人在等待残疾认定的过程中死去。
Yes, the caseload has gone up, but recently it’s been going down, so I don’t think that we’re worrying that it’s just going up and up and up and up and up and up.
是的，案件数量有所增加，但最近一直在下降，所以我不认为我们担心案件数量只是不断上升、上升、上升、上升。
Yes, it’s gone down a lot since 2014.
是的，自 2014 年以来已经下降了很多。
Gone down a lot, right?
下降很多了吧？
The job market got better, is part of it.
就业市场变得更好，是其中的一部分。
I worry that we are giving benefits to people who are not disabled and do not need them.
我担心我们正在向非残疾人且不需要它们的人提供福利。
I also worry that we are denying benefits to people who actually do, so I don’t know that I see a strong case for making disability much more burdensome as opposed to looking for other ways to help the system.
我还担心我们正在剥夺那些真正这样做的人的福利，所以我不知道我是否认为有充分的理由让残疾变得更加负担，而不是寻找其他方法来帮助系统。
Disability, I do think that it’s a program that is extremely important.
残疾，我确实认为这是一个非常重要的项目。
It is the only long-term help for people who are impaired in their ability to work, but it’s an extremely burdensome program for the government to manage, so I don’t know that I see the case for adding paperwork to it at this juncture.
这是对工作能力受损的人唯一的长期帮助，但对于政府来说，这是一个极其繁重的管理计划，所以我不知道现在是否有必要在其中添加文书工作。
On federalizing bureaucracy
论官僚机构联邦化
If I look at governments where processes seem pretty straightforward, they very often seem to have smaller populations, say, below 20 million.
如果我观察那些流程看起来相当简单的政府，他们的人口通常似乎较少，比如低于 2000 万。
Now, I’m not sure what is causing what here, but what do you think is the exact reason why a small population is correlated with better processes?
现在，我不确定是什么导致了这里的问题，但您认为小群体与更好的流程相关的确切原因是什么？
Is it less federalism?
是不是联邦制变少了？
Is it somehow the smaller number of people; they feel more cooperative, or is it something else?
是不是人数少了？他们感觉更加合作，还是其他原因？
Do you have a view on that?
您对此有何看法？
Yes, I think it’s, in some cases, federalism.
是的，我认为在某些情况下这是联邦制。
I think it’s homogeneity.
我认为这是同质化。
Finland, it’s basically mostly ethnically Finnish people.
芬兰，基本上主要是芬兰人。
The United States is quite unusual in our ethnic and racial diversity.
美国的民族和种族多样性是很不寻常的。
I think when you’re thinking about small nations, they tend to be fairly racially, ethnically homogeneous.
我认为当你想到小国家时，他们往往在种族、民族上相当同质。
It feels like there’s higher social trust.
感觉社会信任度更高。
Functionally, everybody is related to one another.
从功能上来说，每个人都是相互关联的。
That’s really not true in the United States.
在美国事实并非如此。
Should the US have less federalism?
美国是否应该减少联邦制？
Yes.
是的。
I’m not saying it’s practical in the sense of getting support, but some way you could bring that about?
我并不是说这在获得支持方面是实用的，但你可以通过某种方式实现这一点吗？
Absolutely.
绝对地。
What would it be?
会是什么？
I think that there is the case for local control of certain things; some things: policing, sewers.
我认为某些事情有必要由地方控制；有些东西：治安、下水道。
Makes sense, right?
有道理，对吧？
We need to do that locally.
我们需要在本地做这件事。
I think that for the administration of mass programs, if it is legally possible to have the federal government do it, the federal government should be doing it.
我认为，对于大规模项目的管理，如果在法律上可以让联邦政府来做，那么联邦政府就应该做。
For one, people move from state to state and locality to locality constantly.
其一，人们不断地从一个州迁移到另一个州，从一个地方迁移到另一个地方。
It makes sense if you have a jobless insurance program or similar to administer it.
如果您有失业保险计划或类似的计划来管理它，那就有意义了。
There’s just the simple multiplicity effect.
这只是简单的多重效应。
We have more than 100 TANF programs.
我们有 100 多个 TANF 计划。
We have 56 Medicaid programs.
我们有 56 个医疗补助计划。
In terms of overhead, it just makes sense to have one.
就开销而言，拥有一个是有意义的。
The federal government doesn’t have a balanced budget rule.
联邦政府没有平衡预算规则。
They, every year now, spend more than they take in tax revenue, and I think that generally, federal programs are better managed.
现在，他们每年的支出都超过了税收收入，我认为一般来说，联邦项目管理得更好。
Not always, but generally, yes.
并非总是如此，但一般来说，是的。
On breaking up New York
关于分裂纽约
Should Brooklyn be a separate city from the rest of New York?
布鲁克林应该是一个独立于纽约其他地区的城市吗？
No, but I don’t know about Staten Island.
不，但我不了解史泰登岛。
It’s big, right?
它很大，对吧？
I was just going to ask about Staten Island.
我只是想问一下史泰登岛的事
New Jersey is clamoring for it, right?
新泽西州正在呼吁这样做，对吗？
I think so.
我想是的。
I guess that the people of Staten Island should self-determine.
我认为史坦顿岛的人民应该自决。
What do you think they would do?
你认为他们会做什么？
I don’t know.
我不知道。
I don’t know.
我不知道。
Actually, I need to go over there and do some surveying and knocking on doors.
事实上，我需要去那里做一些调查和敲门。
I haven’t been there in 20 years.
我已经 20 年没去过那里了。
Is there Sri Lankan food?
有斯里兰卡菜吗？
Is that the reason to go?
这就是走的理由吗？
Yes, Sri Lankan food.
是的，斯里兰卡食物。
I took the ferry.
我乘坐渡轮。
The ferry costs $0.
渡轮费用为 0 美元。
You go there and back, and it’s a perfect happy hour, so I did that recently.
你去那里然后回来，这是一个完美的快乐时光，所以我最近就这么做了。
The time I was there, before that, I’ve not spent a lot of time on Staten Island.
在那之前，我在史坦顿岛待的时间并不长。
I was reporting there a couple of years ago, but look, I don’t have strong views on Staten Island.
几年前我曾报道过那里，但你看，我对史泰登岛没有强烈的看法。
I think it’s great.
我认为这很棒。
I also feel like I haven’t been in New York for long enough; I’m not a New Yorker; I can’t set policy for New York.
我也觉得我来纽约的时间还不够长；我不是纽约人；我是纽约人。我无法为纽约制定政策。
Brooklyn feels like it should be part of New York to me, now living in Brooklyn.
对于现在住在布鲁克林的我来说，布鲁克林感觉它应该是纽约的一部分。
On making voting easy
关于让投票变得简单
There’s a theme recurring through your book in a number of different places that it’s too hard to vote.
在你的书中，有一个主题在很多不同的地方反复出现，那就是投票太难了。
Yes.
是的。
Now, I’m of the view that it should not be that easy to vote, at least in the United States.
现在，我认为投票不应该那么容易，至少在美国是这样。
What exactly is the gain we get from having more people vote?
让更多人投票我们到底能得到什么好处？
Given that, for instance, people didn’t even know what the child tax credit was, even if they were receiving it.
例如，考虑到这一点，人们甚至不知道儿童税收抵免是什么，即使他们正在接受它。
Don’t we just get better outcomes if, say, only half the people vote, which of course will skew toward the more educated?
如果只有一半的人投票，这当然会倾向于受教育程度较高的人，难道我们不会得到更好的结果吗？
I don’t think so.
我不这么认为。
Why not?
为什么不呢？
I think that democracy is important for reasons of principle that are more important than policies.
我认为民主之所以重要，是因为原则原因比政策更重要。
I’m all for democracy, right?
我完全支持民主，对吗？
There’s no country where you can vote by just leaning back on your sofa and screaming out whom you favor.
没有哪个国家能让你靠在沙发上大声喊出你支持的人来投票。
There’s some cost.
有一定的成本。
You can set the cost where you want.
您可以根据需要设置成本。
Americans today seem fine with the costs being higher than in many places.
今天的美国人似乎对比许多地方都高的成本感到满意。
You make the costs lower, you get inferior outcomes, including on the issues you care about.
你降低了成本，却得到了较差的结果，包括你关心的问题。
I don’t know that I think that that’s true.
我不知道我是否认为这是真的。
Do we know that?
我们知道吗？
Maybe “no” is too strong a word, but we know that more educated people make better voting choices than less educated people on average.
也许“不”这个词太强烈了，但我们知道，平均而言，受教育程度较高的人比受教育程度较低的人会做出更好的投票选择。
I think my view is only principled.
我认为我的观点只是原则性的。
I don’t care about outcomes.
我不关心结果。
I think if you’re a democracy, people should be able to vote.
我认为如果你是一个民主国家，人们应该能够投票。
Oh, sure, they should be able to, but how easily?
哦，当然，他们应该能够做到，但是有多容易呢？
As easily as possible.
尽可能容易。
You would, even in countries with high voter participation rates, subsidize voting, give everyone a free ride, do whatever was necessary?
即使在选民参与率高的国家，你也会补贴投票，让每个人都搭便车，做任何必要的事情吗？
Yes, I think so.
是的，我想是的。
I think when you look at countries with very high voter participation rates, do you think that they have worse outcomes, or do you just think that their polities are different such that you end up with different policies?
我认为，当你观察选民参与率非常高的国家时，你是否认为他们的结果更糟，或者你只是认为他们的政治不同，导致你最终采取不同的政策？
The latter.
后者。
Voting is compulsory in some places.
在某些地方投票是强制性的。
They tend to be better educated at the lower end, for one thing.
一方面，他们往往在低端接受过更好的教育。
Right.
正确的。
Then I think, again, you want to do more education.
然后我再次认为你想要做更多的教育。
You want to make it easier for people to go to school.
您想让人们更容易上学。
You don’t want to make it hard for them to vote.
你不想让他们投票变得困难。
On updating universal basic income
关于更新全民基本收入
I’m all for making school easier.
我完全是为了让上学变得更容易。
Now, you have an earlier book called Give People Money, which is basically pro-UBI, to oversimplify a bit.
现在，您有一本早期的书，名为“给人们钱”，这本书基本上是支持全民基本收入的，但有点过于简单化了。
Indeed.
的确。
There have been UBI studies since then.
从那时起就出现了全民基本收入研究。
How does your current view differ from your earlier view?
您当前的观点与之前的观点有何不同？
I think that the studies have been sobering, and, yes, I have updated my priors, and I think that some of the ancillary benefits that I thought we could see through cash haven’t materialized, and I take that seriously.
我认为这些研究发人深省，是的，我已经更新了我的先验知识，我认为我认为我们可以通过现金看到的一些附带好处尚未实现，我认真对待这一点。
I think that there is still a case for doing it, because the point of giving people money is to merely give them money so that they can buy things, and I think that the case for that remains.
我认为这样做仍然有理由，因为给人们钱的目的只是给他们钱，以便他们可以买东西，我认为这样做的理由仍然存在。
I think it is noncorrupted, that their lives don’t improve as much as I would have thought, I think, isn’t necessarily a case against the policy.
我认为这是没有腐败的，他们的生活没有像我想象的那样改善，我认为这并不一定是反对这项政策的理由。
There’s an argument that your earlier argument is stronger than you thought.
有一种观点认为你之前的论点比你想象的更有力。
Say AI truly is a big deal, and we all live to 100, but day-to-day, we’re not really happier, per se, because of AI.
说人工智能确实是一件大事，我们都能活到 100 岁，但在日常生活中，我们本身并没有因为人工智能而变得更快乐。
This, to me, is one plausible scenario.
对我来说，这是一种可能的情况。
I’m not sure it will happen, but it could happen.
我不确定这会发生，但它有可能发生。
Then the purpose of UBI is not to make people happier, but just to stop them from being less happy due to instability.
那么全民基本收入的目的就不是让人们变得更幸福，而只是阻止他们因为不稳定而变得不那么幸福。
Yes.
是的。
The only benchmark is, can UBI keep people where they were at, on some dimensions, and they still get to live to 100, which of course they want, and then overall, it’s just a way of making the system stable?
唯一的基准是，UBI能否让人们在某些方面保持原来的水平，并且他们仍然可以活到100岁，这当然是他们想要的，然后总的来说，这只是使系统稳定的一种方式？
Yes, absolutely.
是的，绝对是。
When I wrote the prior book, the AIs that were out were garbage, and it was really not clear that they would ever get to the place that people said that they would get.
当我写上一本书时，已经淘汰的人工智能都是垃圾，而且真的不清楚它们是否会到达人们所说的地方。
I remember even when I first moved out to the Bay Area in 2018, you would talk to people who did AI work and they seemed like religious zealots in some ways.
我记得什至当我 2018 年第一次搬到湾区时，你会和从事人工智能工作的人交谈，他们在某些方面看起来像是宗教狂热分子。
Seemed like?
看起来像？
Yes, they’d be like, “No, I promise it’s going to change everything; I’ve seen inside the machine.” I’d be like, “Okay, buddy.
是的，他们会说，“不，我保证这会改变一切；我已经看到了机器的内部。”我会说：“好吧，伙计。
Sure, great.
当然，太好了。
The computer’s not really better, and they aren’t really getting better, and this is a time of really remarkably little technological progress.” I was very wrong about that and really found ChatGPT remarkable when I got access to it, and I do.
计算机并没有真正变得更好，它们也没有真正变得更好，这是一个技术进步非常少的时代。”我的想法是非常错误的，当我接触到 ChatGPT 时，我确实发现它非常出色，而且确实如此。
I was extremely dismissive at the time of the notion that AIs would necessitate UBI.
当我认为人工智能需要 UBI 时，我非常不屑一顾。
I don’t know that I would go so far as to say that I think that we’ll need a UBI because of AI, but I certainly think that we should be starting to think about that kind of policy if the improvements that we’re seeing continue forward, and if there is a lot of pressure on the white-collar workforce, which I think we won’t know for a couple of years.
我不知道我是否会说我认为我们因为人工智能而需要全民基本收入，但我当然认为，如果我们看到的改善继续下去，如果白领劳动力面临很大的压力，我认为我们应该开始考虑这种政策，我认为我们几年后才会知道。
Yes, I think that if we see a situation in which GDP is radically increasing, productivity is increasing, and unemployment is going up, that would be very strange, and I think we would have to start looking at UBI-type functions.
是的，我认为，如果我们看到 GDP 急剧增长、生产率提高、失业率上升的情况，那就很奇怪了，我认为我们必须开始研究 UBI 类型的函数。
On banning exotic pets
关于禁止饲养外来宠物
Are raccoons evolving into pets?
浣熊会进化成宠物吗？
No, they are not.
不，他们不是。
Should they?
他们应该吗？
No.
不。
Should more things be pets, or fewer things be pets?
应该多养一些宠物，还是少一些养宠物？
Fewer things.
东西少了。
No tigers?
没有老虎吗？
No, I don’t think that you should be able to have a nondomesticated animal as a pet.
不，我认为你不应该拥有非驯养的动物作为宠物。
This is one of my strongest-held and probably least popular positions, and that means that I do not think that you should be able to have sugar gliders.
这是我最坚定但可能最不受欢迎的立场之一，这意味着我认为你不应该拥有蜜袋鼯。
I do not think you should be able to have most types of fish.
我认为您不应该能够吃到大多数类型的鱼。
I don’t think you should be able to keep birds.
我认为你不应该养鸟。
That would be federal or local governments doing that?
联邦政府或地方政府会这样做吗？
Getting back to our earlier question.
回到我们之前的问题。
Federal.
联邦。
Federal?
联邦？
Nondomesticated birds, I should say.
我应该说，非驯化的鸟类。
You can have chickens.
你可以养鸡。
Chickens are domesticated, but tropical birds, I don’t think you should be able to keep.
鸡是家养的，但热带鸟类，我认为你不应该养。
On deserts and moss
在沙漠和苔藓上
Why are you visiting Namibia?
您为什么要访问纳米比亚？
Ah, the Namib Desert.
啊，纳米布沙漠。
I’m very, very excited to see petroglyphs.
看到岩画我非常非常兴奋。
As a general point, I organize a lot of my travel around deserts and moss, to see those, so I’m very, very excited.
总的来说，我组织了很多围绕沙漠和苔藓的旅行，看看这些，所以我非常非常兴奋。
I’m very excited for dark skies.
我对黑暗的天空感到非常兴奋。
I’ve been to South Africa, but I haven’t traveled extensively in that region.
我去过南非，但我并没有去过那个地区。
You said moss, M-O-S-S?
你说的是苔藓，M-O-S-S？
Moss.
苔藓。
Where is the best place in the world to go see moss?
世界上最适合观赏苔藓的地方是哪里？
The Pacific Northwest, I think, is the best moss that I have seen in the United States.
我认为太平洋西北地区是我在美国见过的最好的苔藓。
My understanding is that there are places in Japan that have extraordinary moss.
我的理解是，日本有些地方的苔藓非常奇特。
I have only ever been to Tokyo.
我只去过东京。
Have you been to mossy places in Japan?
你去过日本长满青苔的地方吗？
You’re better traveled than I am.
你比我更擅长旅行。
I think in retrospect, they seemed mossy, but I wasn’t very aware of it at the time.
我想现在回想起来，它们似乎长满了青苔，但当时我并没有意识到这一点。
You’re not a moss traveler.
你不是一个苔藓旅行者。
Have you been to the Sundarbans?
你去过孙德尔本斯吗？
I don’t know how to say that.
我不知道该怎么说。
The mangrove forest in Bangladesh?
孟加拉国的红树林？
No, never been to Bangladesh at all, I’m sorry to say.
不，我很遗憾地说，我根本没去过孟加拉国。
I haven’t either, and I very much want to go.
我也没有去过，而且非常想去。
On beautiful brutalism
论美丽的野蛮主义
Why do you like architectural brutalism?
你为什么喜欢粗野主义建筑？
Oh, I just find it visually interesting and beautiful.
哦，我只是觉得它在视觉上很有趣而且很漂亮。
I like to feel tiny in front of buildings, and I like the idea of creating warm spaces within imposing structures that make you feel uncomfortable.
我喜欢在建筑物前感受到自己的渺小，我喜欢在宏伟的建筑中创造温暖的空间，让你感到不舒服。
It’s like the jolie laide of architecture.
这就像建筑界的朱莉·莱德。
My favorite brutalism is in former communist countries.
我最喜欢的野蛮主义是在前共产主义国家。
Do you have a favorite brutalism?
你有最喜欢的野蛮主义吗？
Boston City Hall.
波士顿市政厅。
It’s really ugly.
真的很难看。
On tattoo culture
论纹身文化
Why are tattoos so popular now, including with women?
为什么纹身现在如此流行，包括女性？
For the same reason we scribble on cave walls.
出于同样的原因，我们在洞穴墙壁上乱涂乱画。
One of those is your body, and it’s still somewhat hard to reverse, right?
其中之一就是你的身体，还是有点难以逆转吧？
It can take 12 sessions to get it off, and it hurts.
可能需要 12 个疗程才能把它取下来，而且很痛。
Yes, it’s reversible.
是的，这是可逆的。
I actually think that the capacity to remove tattoos, while wonderful for some people who have a tattoo that is prohibiting them from getting employment, reminding them of something painful, or, goodness forbid, if you have hate speech or similar on your body, I think it’s good that you can take the tattoo off, but in general, I think that the idea of having and then removing tattoos is not good for tattoo culture.
事实上，我认为去除纹身的能力对于一些纹身的人来说很棒，因为纹身会阻止他们就业，让他们想起一些痛苦的事情，或者，天哪，如果你身上有仇恨言论或类似的内容，我认为你可以把纹身去掉，但总的来说，我认为先有纹身然后再去除纹身的想法对纹身文化来说并不好。
I have tattoos, and I think that they’re a really nice reminder of time and place.
我有纹身，我认为它们能很好地提醒我时间和地点。
They’re permanent ephemera.
它们是永久的蜉蝣。
On Christianity after Christianity
论基督教之后的基督教
You recently read a book called A History of Christianity.
您最近读了一本名为《基督教史》的书。
Which one was it, and what was interesting in the book to you?
是哪一本？书中的哪些内容让您感兴趣？
This was A History of Christianity: The First Three Thousand Years.
这是《基督教史：前三千年》。
One of the things that really stuck with me was that I, despite being Catholic, had not entirely internalized that Christians start off as a strange, tiny Jewish sect of people that are found to be often mentally unstable and deeply annoying.
真正困扰我的一件事是，尽管我是天主教徒，但我并没有完全认识到基督徒一开始是一个奇怪的、微小的犹太教派，人们发现他们经常精神不稳定，非常烦人。
This book communicates that?
这本书传达了这一点？
Indeed, that Judaism is not the predominant mode of worship or culture at the time, and Christianity, which then comes to dominate so much of the globe, starts off as an offshoot of that; of people who are insisting that they are seeing apparitions and people walking through walls.
事实上，犹太教并不是当时占主导地位的崇拜或文化模式，而后来统治全球大部分地区的基督教，一开始就是犹太教的一个分支。那些坚持认为自己看到了幽灵和有人穿墙而过的人。
It was a very, very, very good book.
这是一本非常非常非常好的书。
How essential do you view Christianity to Western liberalism?
您认为基督教对西方自由主义有多重要？
When you say “essential,” do you mean “positive,” or do you just mean “influential”?
当你说“重要”时，你的意思是“积极的”，还是仅仅意味着“有影响力的”？
Influential but positive: the notion that Jesus Christ was an individual.
有影响力但积极的：耶稣基督是一个个体的观念。
It’s a story very different from “might makes right.” We valorize the victim.
这是一个与“强权即公理”截然不同的故事。我们重视受害者。
It easily translates into talk of individual rights and liberties and constitutional procedures, at least that has been argued.
它很容易转化为对个人权利和自由以及宪法程序的谈论，至少有人认为是这样。
Yes, I agree with that, but I certainly don’t see Christianity as essential to enlightenment or good governance in any way, shape, or form.
是的，我同意这一点，但我当然不认为基督教以任何方式、形式或形式对启蒙或善政至关重要。
I do think that it had that effect, but I don’t think that it would be necessary in some other world.
我确实认为它有这种效果，但我认为在其他世界没有必要。
Not that many non-Christian countries have achieved the same, right?
并不是很多非基督教国家都取得了同样的成就，对吗？
You could say Japan has for a while.
你可以说日本已经有一段时间了。
Yes, I was going to say Japan.
是的，我本来想说的是日本。
Yes, that’s one.
是的，就是这样一个。
South Korea?
韩国？
South Korea’s pretty Christian in terms of actual belief.
就实际信仰而言，韩国相当基督教。
I’m not sure of the numbers.
我不确定这些数字。
Did it inform the structure of government, though?
但它是否告知了政府结构呢？
I don’t know.
我不知道。
I don’t know.
我不知道。
That’s an actual question; I don’t know enough about it.
这是一个实际问题；我对此了解不够。
I’ve been to South Korea, but I don’t know that much.
我去过韩国，但了解不多。
Other than Japan, I see very few examples.
除了日本，我看到的例子很少。
Yes.
是的。
I don’t know.
我不知道。
I would have to think about it more.
我得再考虑一下。
Also, there’s so much Christianity; it gets so everywhere-d that I don’t know.
而且，基督教也有很多。它无处不在，我不知道。
I’m not sure.
我不知道。
I tend to worry quite a bit, now that we are genuinely less Christian, that this will hurt the chances of liberalism in our future.
我很担心，现在我们真正不再是基督徒了，这会损害我们未来自由主义的机会。
I think that that might be right.
我认为这可能是对的。
I’m not saying, when I’m talking about the church, the political actor “the church,” which obviously has a very checkered history, but I do think that it was good that you had an institution that was so predominant in people’s lives, reminding them of the importance of sin and of being a person of integrity and caring for the neighbor.
当我谈论教会时，我并不是说政治演员“教会”，它显然有一段非常曲折的历史，但我确实认为，有一个在人们生活中占据主导地位的机构是件好事，提醒他们罪的重要性以及做一个正直的人和关心邻居。
Although, then again, the world, as it’s become less Christian, it’s become safer, more redistributive, so I’m not really sure.
不过，话又说回来，世界变得越来越不那么基督教化，它变得更加安全，更加重新分配，所以我不太确定。
What do you think of Ross Douthat’s famous comment?
您如何看待罗斯·杜塔特的著名评论？
It’s something like, “Well, if you don’t like the Christian right, wait till you see the post-Christian right,” which he said some while ago, right?
就像他不久前说过的那样，“好吧，如果你不喜欢基督教右派，那就等到你看到后基督教右派吧”，对吗？
Yes.
是的。
I think that’s completely accurate, and I think that our most notable Christians are not particularly Christian right now.
我认为这是完全准确的，而且我认为我们最著名的基督徒现在并不是特别基督徒。
Again, as a Catholic, the notion of being yelled at specifically by two successive popes, as J.
再次，作为一名天主教徒，被连续两任教皇专门吼叫的想法，如 J.
D.
D .
Vance has been, it’s tough to imagine that.
万斯曾经是，很难想象。
It’d be very painful.
这会非常痛苦。
On escaping the global monoculture
摆脱全球单一文化
Other than facts about moss, what is it you think you learn when you travel?
除了有关苔藓的知识之外，您认为旅行时还能学到什么？
Oh, goodness.
哦，天哪。
In some ways, I feel like the emergence of a global monoculture, this idea of it, I do think that shows up especially in urban places.
在某些方面，我觉得全球单一文化的出现，我认为这种想法尤其出现在城市地区。
I think that it is really, really important to recognize your own privilege and to see how other people live.
我认为认识到自己的特权并了解其他人如何生活是非常非常重要的。
I think it’s important in the sense of trusting that people know what they value and value very, very, very different things than you do.
我认为重要的是要相信人们知道他们看重什么，并且看重与你非常、非常、非常不同的东西。
It slows time down, which is a big thing for me.
它减慢了时间，这对我来说是一件大事。
The time I spend traveling seems to go 20 times as slowly as an average day in the office, and I really, really like that telescoping effect, and I look for nondrug ways for that to happen.
我花在旅行上的时间似乎比平常在办公室的时间慢了 20 倍，而且我真的非常喜欢这种伸缩效应，并且我正在寻找非药物的方法来实现这一点。
Could you name a city that you feel more or less successfully rebels against the global monoculture, but it’s not just a complete wreck?
你能说出一座你觉得或多或少成功地反抗了全球单一文化但又不只是一片废墟的城市吗？
You could say Lagos, but Lagos is a complete wreck.
你可以说拉各斯，但拉各斯完全是一片废墟。
A well-run city that avoids the traps of many places, where every coffee shop looks the same or whatever.
一个管理良好的城市，避免了许多地方的陷阱，每家咖啡店看起来都一样或什么的。
That’s a great question.
这是一个很好的问题。
A lot of the traveling I do is for outdoors stuff, and I do think that the global monoculture and Instagram has been very terrible for that, for opening beautiful places up to people who just want to take photographs and leave.
我所做的很多旅行都是为了户外活动，我确实认为全球单一文化和 Instagram 在这方面非常糟糕，因为它向那些只想拍照然后离开的人开放美丽的地方。
It’s really, really awful.
这真的非常非常糟糕。
There, I understand it’s the “you’re not in traffic, you are traffic” phenomenon, but I really mean people who are desecrating these places that are very fragile ecosystems and where you do want to meter access, and you do want people to, for instance, take out their trash and understand what to do if you encounter a wild animal and that kind of thing.
在那里，我理解这是“你不是在交通中，你是交通”现象，但我真正的意思是那些亵渎这些地方的人，这些地方是非常脆弱的生态系统，你确实想对这些地方的访问进行计量，你确实希望人们，例如，倒掉垃圾，并了解如果遇到野生动物之类的东西该怎么办。
In terms of a city that feels really, really wildly different, I just think that there’s lots of places I go that there’s no tourists, and they’re wonderful for that.
就一座感觉非常非常不同的城市而言，我只是认为我去过的很多地方都没有游客，而且它们对此非常棒。
When I report, even more so than being a tourist, being a reporter is the best way to find someplace because I’m always amazed by how much people will tell you about their lives and show you about their lives.
当我报道时，成为一名记者比成为一名游客更重要，这是寻找某个地方的最佳方式，因为我总是惊讶于有多少人会告诉你他们的生活并向你展示他们的生活。
You really get to see life on the edge of Lake Victoria or very close to the India-Bangladesh border.
您可以真正看到维多利亚湖边缘或非常靠近印度-孟加拉国边境的生活。
Similarly, going to weddings abroad is another way to do that, if you ever get invited to a wedding.
同样，如果您被邀请参加婚礼，去国外参加婚礼也是另一种方式。
One of my favorite weddings that I went to was in Pakistan, which I never would have gone to Pakistan, I think, without that, or maybe I would have.
我参加的最喜欢的婚礼之一是在巴基斯坦，我想，如果没有那个，我永远不会去巴基斯坦，或者也许我会去。
It was a perfect way to get a glimpse of Pakistani society.
这是了解巴基斯坦社会的完美方式。
That, for me, is a case where the private sector time tax is too high.
对我来说，这是私营部门时间税太高的情况。
Yes.
是的。
Oh, wow.
哦，哇。
If it were a half-day wedding, I would go, but a three-day wedding in South Asia, I’d just feel, no, I’ll be wanting to check my email the whole time, and that’s rude.
如果是半天的婚礼，我会去，但在南亚举行的三天婚礼，我只是觉得，不，我会一直想检查我的电子邮件，这很粗鲁。
Oh, yes.
哦是的。
No, no. They really, really do weddings well.
不，不。他们真的非常非常擅长婚礼。
I would also note that Pakistan, I believe, has much heavier time taxes than we do.
我还要指出，我认为巴基斯坦的时间税比我们重得多。
There’s a lot of interesting thinking about postcolonial states and paperwork burdens.
关于后殖民国家和文书工作负担有很多有趣的思考。
There’s a good book that I read about Pakistan that I forget the exact title, but it was about Pakistan’s issues with paperwork and the transition from British rule to self-rule.
我读过一本关于巴基斯坦的好书，我忘记了确切的书名，但它是关于巴基斯坦的文书工作问题以及从英国统治到自治的过渡。
On the time tax of friendship
论友谊的时间税
Should friendships have explicit time taxes?
友谊应该有明确的时间税吗？
For instance, people from the Soviet Union, they often expect their friends to pick them up from the airport—
例如，来自苏联的人，他们常常希望朋友来机场接他们——
Oh, I love that.
哦，我喜欢那个。
Yes.
是的。
—even though that’s not a thing anymore.
——尽管那已经不再是问题了。
You can just Uber, taxi.
你可以打 Uber、出租车。
It doesn’t matter if your income is high enough.
你的收入是否足够高并不重要。
It’s expected that someone goes to pick you up.
预计会有人去接您。
Is that good/bad?
这是好还是坏？
Yes, there’s no inconvenience in friendship if the point is to do things and spend time together.
是的，如果友谊的重点是一起做事和共度时光，那么友谊并没有什么不便。
I note that I think the best way to make friends is not to make yourself available for what other people need but to ask for help.
我注意到，我认为交朋友的最好方法不是让自己满足别人的需要，而是寻求帮助。
I remember one escalation of a friendship that happened to me recently: My older son had had a dental procedure in the morning, and I needed to pick my younger son up from school.
我记得最近发生在我身上的一次友谊的升级：我的大儿子早上做了牙科手术，我需要去学校接我的小儿子。
My husband wasn’t around, and no childcare was around, and my mom couldn’t make it.
我的丈夫不在身边，也没有托儿所，我妈妈也无法做到这一点。
The older son needed an adult to be with him, and I couldn’t leave him alone, so I asked a friend to come over and sit with this kid who had just been given a large dose of ketamine for 20 minutes.
大儿子需要一个大人陪伴，我不能丢下他一个人，所以我请朋友过来和这个刚刚注射了大剂量氯胺酮的孩子一起坐了20分钟。
I had a bunch of people say yes, and one friend came over and sat with my son in bed and looked at her phone for 20 minutes.
有一群人答应了，然后一位朋友走过来，和我儿子一起坐在床上，看手机 20 分钟。
There is no inconvenience in friendship.
友谊方面没有什么不便。
People like to be asked to do things, too, I think.
我认为人们也喜欢被要求做事。
That’s useful, right?
这很有用，对吧？
Say it’s not really useful, that it’s just an ongoing act of signaling to show you’re a true friend.
说它并不是真的有用，它只是一种持续的信号行为，表明你是一个真正的朋友。
Oh, absolutely.
哦，绝对是。
Definitely.
确实。
It’s because I think that the point is to spend time, certainly.
这是因为我认为重点当然是花时间。
Do you find that there are social conventions that you despise having to comply with in your life but still have to do it?
您是否发现生活中有一些您鄙视必须遵守但仍然必须遵守的社会习俗？
I don’t know.
我不知道。
I don’t think I ever despise, but there are various slight annoyances, or I wish things were more efficient.
我不认为我曾经鄙视过，但有各种轻微的烦恼，或者我希望事情更有效率。
Yes.
是的。
The one that I really struggle with is that I have email and text and WhatsApp and Signal and lots of other modes—Instagram messages.
我真正遇到的困难是我有电子邮件、短信、WhatsApp、Signal 以及许多其他模式——Instagram 消息。
I really, really despise having to keep up with people on all of those forms of communication.
我真的非常鄙视必须通过所有这些形式的沟通来跟上人们的步伐。
I think of texting as being fundamentally asynchronous, and that you shouldn’t have to socially respond to a text.
我认为发短信本质上是异步的，你不应该以社交方式回复短信。
I only like socializing in person; I want to see people, I want to be visually with them.
我只喜欢面对面的社交；我想见人，我想与他们进行视觉交流。
I hate all of the digital upkeep, and I’m really, really bad at it, and it’s known among my friends that I’m bad at this.
我讨厌所有的数字维护，而且我真的非常不擅长，而且我的朋友们都知道我不擅长这方面。
Even my husband is like, “You’re a terrible texter, and you’re mean over text.” I’m like, “Well, I’m not trying to be mean.” I text like a boomer, apparently.
就连我丈夫也说，“你发短信的能力很糟糕，而且你发短信的态度很刻薄。”我想，“好吧，我并不是想表现得很刻薄。”显然，我像婴儿潮一代一样发短信。
My slight gripe is there’s too many networks, so I feel there should be email and one system of texting.
我的小抱怨是网络太多了，所以我觉得应该有电子邮件和一个短信系统。
There’s Signal, there’s WhatsApp, there’s iMessenger.
有 Signal、有 WhatsApp、有 iMessenger。
It’s too much.
太多了。
There’s other stuff.
还有其他东西。
There’s Twitter Direct Message.
有 Twitter 私信。
Awful.
可怕。
I don’t do social media anymore, so I don’t do Twitter anymore at all.
我不再使用社交媒体，所以我根本不再使用 Twitter。
I have an Instagram account that I’m not on very often.
我有一个 Instagram 帐户，但我不经常使用。
I don’t Facebook, I don’t Bluesky, and I really appreciate the time that I’ve gotten back from that.
我不使用 Facebook，也不使用 Bluesky，我真的很感激从中恢复过来的时间。
Particularly X, I think, is a terrible mode of discourse, and I think that it rewards unseemly emotions in people.
我认为，特别是 X 是一种糟糕的话语模式，而且我认为它会奖励人们不恰当的情绪。
On what comes next
关于接下来会发生什么
Just to finish up with the last question, I ask this of many of the guests, but first, to mention your book again, Annie Lowrey, The Time Tax: How the Government Wastes Our Time—and How to Fix It.
为了结束最后一个问题，我向许多来宾提出了这个问题，但首先，再次提及您的书，安妮·洛瑞（Annie Lowrey），《时间税：政府如何浪费我们的时间——以及如何解决它》。
What is it you wish to learn about next?
接下来您想了解什么？
Oh, actually, I just got two books about the Mexica people, the Aztecs.
哦，实际上，我刚买了两本关于墨西加人，阿兹特克人的书。
I’d like to read those books and then go see Aztec artifacts and structures.
我想读这些书，然后去看阿兹特克文物和建筑。
That’s a Clendinnen book?
那是克伦丁宁的书吗？
A lot of people have been reading that lately.
最近很多人都在读这本书。
Yes, that was how I saw it.
是的，我就是这么看的。
It was a lot of people were reading it.
当时有很多人在读它。
Now I’m like, “Who was it who recommended it?” I had wanted to do more travel in Mexico, so I got Fifth Sun, and then just Aztecs, I think, is the other one, which I’m excited to read.
现在我想，“是谁推荐的？”我本来想在墨西哥进行更多旅行，所以我读了《第五太阳》，然后我想，另一本就是《阿兹特克人》，我很高兴读到它。
Actually, from your podcast, I got the book on Vermeer, which I’m excited—I know nothing about him, and I’m very excited to read that.
事实上，从你的播客中，我得到了关于维米尔的书，我很兴奋——我对他一无所知，但我很高兴读到这本书。
Great.
伟大的。
Annie Lowrey, thank you very much.
安妮·洛瑞，非常感谢你。
Thank you.
谢谢。