Charles C. Mann on Shaping Tomorrow’s World and the Limits to Growth (Ep. 33)
We are here today with Charles C.
今天我们和 Charles C.
Mann.
曼.
Charles is renowned for many things.
查尔斯因许多事情而闻名。
He has won writing awards.
他曾获得写作奖。
He’s written for just about every magazine I’ve ever heard of.
他几乎为我听说过的所有杂志撰稿。
His books 1491 and 1493 are both bestsellers and personal favorites of mine.
他的书 1491 和 1493 都是畅销书，也是我个人的最爱。
He is a tlamatini, which in Nahuatl means “he who knows things.” You could say he is a thinker-teacher who is writing wisdom.
他是一个特拉马蒂尼，纳瓦特尔语的意思是“知道事情的人”。可以说，他是一位书写智慧的思想家、教师。
And just about now he has a new book out called The Wizard and the Prophet: Two Remarkable Scientists and Their Dueling Visions to Shape Tomorrow’s World.
就在现在，他出版了一本新书，名为《巫师与先知：两位杰出的科学家和他们塑造明天世界的决斗愿景》。
This is a book about how to think about the environment.
这是一本关于如何思考环境的书。
It’s a book about American history.
这是一本关于美国历史的书。
It’s a book about biodiversity.
这是一本关于生物多样性的书。
It’s a history of the environmental movement, a book about pollution.
这是一部环境运动的历史，一本关于污染的书。
Like all of Charles’s works, it’s anthropology and history and economics and all social science rolled into one and fun and exciting and dynamic.
就像查尔斯的所有作品一样，它把人类学、历史学、经济学和所有社会科学融为一体，有趣、令人兴奋、充满活力。
And now we have today Charles with us.
现在查尔斯也和我们在一起。
Charles, thank you for coming.
查尔斯，谢谢你的到来。
Oh, it’s my pleasure.
哦，这是我的荣幸。
On air pollution
关于空气污染
I’d like to start with some questions about air pollution, since the environment actually is a topic of so many of your books.
我想从一些有关空气污染的问题开始，因为环境实际上是您许多书籍的主题。
The World Health Organization estimates that each year, six million to seven million people die from air pollution, and yet we in the United States, we hardly ever hear about this.
世界卫生组织估计，每年有 600 万到 700 万人死于空气污染，但我们美国人却几乎没有听说过这个事情。
Is this actually one of the world’s biggest environmental problems?
这实际上是世界上最大的环境问题之一吗？
And if so, why is it so neglected?
如果是这样，为什么它如此被忽视？
Well, it’s not a big problem here.
嗯，这不是一个大问题。
We’ve done enormous things to improve the environment in North America and in Europe.
我们为改善北美和欧洲的环境做了很多事情。
What they’re really talking about is mostly indoor cooking smoke in places like South Asia and China, as well as some urban places in Asia that have just absolutely horrific levels of smog from coal.
他们真正谈论的主要是南亚和中国等地的室内烹饪烟雾，以及亚洲一些城市的煤炭烟雾水平绝对可怕。
So this is one of those areas in which you have enormous impacts in one part of the world, and relatively little in another part of the world.
因此，这是您在世界某一地区产生巨大影响而在世界另一地区影响相对较小的领域之一。
Obviously, getting rid of indoor cooking, especially on biofuels and coal, especially for home heating, would be a great idea for human health in those areas.
显然，摆脱室内烹饪，尤其是生物燃料和煤炭，尤其是家庭供暖，对于这些地区的人类健康来说是一个好主意。
And in your book, environmental optimism versus environmental pessimism is a recurring theme.
在你的书中，环境乐观主义与环境悲观主义是一个反复出现的主题。
On this issue of the millions of deaths from air pollution, are you an optimist or a pessimist?
在空气污染导致数百万人死亡的问题上，您是乐观主义者还是悲观主义者？
Oh, I think I’m an optimist on this.
哦，我想我对此持乐观态度。
This one is a problem that we have a clear idea how to resolve.
这是一个我们清楚如何解决的问题。
There are obvious substitutes that would be much better than the kind of kerosene that you see in Indian villages.
有明显的替代品比你在印度村庄看到的煤油要好得多。
So I think this is a totally lickable problem.
所以我认为这是一个完全可以解决的问题。
There are other ones that I’m much more worried about.
还有其他一些我更担心的问题。
The Kuznets curve, it states a relationship between per capita income and how willing a country is to actually fight pollution.
库兹涅茨曲线表明了人均收入与一个国家实际对抗污染的意愿之间的关系。
Do you think the Kuznets curve is being rejiggered?
您认为库兹涅茨曲线正在被重新调整吗？
If you look at the history of the United States, we’re really pretty wealthy until we start tackling our air pollution problems in the 1960s.
如果你回顾一下美国的历史，就会发现在 20 世纪 60 年代我们开始解决空气污染问题之前，我们确实相当富有。
Is China going to beat our pace or are they going to lag behind?
中国会超越我们的步伐还是会落后？
Are we getting better or worse at fighting generalized air pollution?
我们在对抗普遍空气污染方面是变得更好了还是更差了？
Well, we’ve already licked most of that problem, not all of it by any means.
好吧，我们已经解决了大部分问题，但无论如何还不是全部。
Now it’s concentrated in certain areas.
现在主要集中在某些地区。
But Africa, Vietnam, China, India, Iran, they pollute a lot.
但非洲、越南、中国、印度、伊朗，他们污染很多。
Yeah.
是的。
Oh, they pollute an incredible amount.
哦，它们的污染量令人难以置信。
What’s remarkable is that if China follows through on what it says it’s going to do, they’re going to beat us all hollow.
值得注意的是，如果中国兑现其承诺，他们将击败我们所有人。
China is way poorer than we are, and they are taking some pretty draconian measures against air pollution — if they actually do it.
中国比我们穷得多，而且他们正在采取一些相当严厉的空气污染措施——如果他们真的这么做的话。
I’m skeptical that they’re going to close down as many coal plants, for example, as they say they’re going to close down.
例如，我怀疑他们是否会像他们所说的那样关闭那么多燃煤电厂。
I’m skeptical that they’re going to build all those green walls of trees that they say they’re going to build.
我怀疑他们是否会像他们所说的那样建造所有的树木绿墙。
I’ve seen them, and there’s a big difference between what is proposed at the top and what actually happens at the bottom.
我见过他们，高层提出的建议和底层实际发生的事情之间存在很大差异。
But I could be wrong.
但我可能是错的。
They could be great.
他们可以很棒。
COWEN: How much is China’s installed coal base a problem, preventing them from licking most of their air pollution issues?
COWEN：中国的煤炭装机量问题有多大，阻碍了他们解决大部分空气污染问题？
Oh, a huge problem.
哦，一个大问题。
They have other issues as well, but this is the kind of thing like, you take the big one first, the easy one first, and that would be coal.
他们还有其他问题，但就像这样的事情，你先处理大的问题，先处理简单的问题，那就是煤炭。
Although, in China’s case, to be fair, it’s not so easy.
不过，公平地说，就中国而言，这并不容易。
Most of those coal plants are brand new, so you’re essentially asking them to trash an infrastructure they’ve just built and replace it, and that’s a big problem.
这些燃煤电厂大多数都是全新的，所以你实际上是在要求他们扔掉刚刚建造的基础设施并更换它，这是一个大问题。
This, for me, is one of the reasons that I’m kind of upset about environmentalists in our country arguing against the idea of carbon capture and storage, which is the leading proposal for what to do with coal plants like the ones in China.
对我来说，这就是我对我国环保主义者反对碳捕获和储存的想法感到不安的原因之一，碳捕获和储存是如何处理像中国这样的燃煤电厂的主要建议。
It might make sense for us to just say, “Stop using coal altogether.” But I think that’s a much harder call in India and China and other parts of Southeast Asia.
对我们来说，“完全停止使用煤炭”可能是有意义的。但我认为，在印度、中国以及东南亚其他地区，这是一个更加困难的决定。
And carbon capture seems to be the only technology that’s available, possibly, to deal with it without requiring India and China to trash an infrastructure they’ve just built.
碳捕获似乎是唯一可用的技术，可能可以解决这个问题，而不需要印度和中国废弃他们刚刚建造的基础设施。
On carbon capture and sequestration
关于碳捕获和封存
What’s the main barrier toward carbon capture and sequestration working?
碳捕获和封存工作的主要障碍是什么？
It’s super expensive.
超级贵。
Give us an example of what it would cost.
给我们举个例子，说明它的成本。
Okay, what you’re doing in carbon capture and sequestration for a coal plant is, you’re taking all the gases that are emitting from it, and you’re combining it with a toxic chemical, big silo full of it, called MEA, and then you’re boiling it.
好吧，你在燃煤电厂的碳捕获和封存方面所做的就是，你要吸收从燃煤电厂排放的所有气体，然后将其与有毒化学物质（充满它的大筒仓，称为MEA）混合，然后将其煮沸。
And in the process, it combines with the carbon dioxide, and then you .
在此过程中，它与二氧化碳结合，然后你。
.
。
.
。
I actually said that wrong.
其实我说错了。
You cool it, it combines the carbon dioxide, and you boil it.
你将其冷却，它与二氧化碳结合，然后将其煮沸。
It releases the carbon dioxide, and you set up a cycle.
它释放二氧化碳，然后你就建立了一个循环。
The cost of this are what they call parasitic cost, meaning that it takes a certain amount of the energy produced by your power plant just to run the cleaning apparatus, and typical estimates are 30 to 50 percent.
其成本就是他们所说的寄生成本，这意味着仅仅运行清洁设备就需要消耗发电厂产生的一定量的能量，一般估计为 30% 到 50%。
And then on top of that, you’re basically boiling a giant silo full of super-toxic chemicals all the time.
最重要的是，你基本上一直在煮沸一个装满超毒化学物质的巨大筒仓。
And there’s all kinds of novel metallurgy that’s required.
并且需要各种新颖的冶金技术。
There’s a bunch of technical development that’s required.
需要进行大量的技术开发。
This is an area, basically, that the coal companies have been saying that they’ve been developing for decades: “Clean coal, clean coal!” You can find advertisements for that from the 1950s.
基本上，这是煤炭公司几十年来一直在开发的一个领域：“清洁煤炭，清洁煤炭！”你可以找到 20 世纪 50 年代的广告。
They’ve done practically no work, and as a result, there’s a huge technological catch-up to be done.
他们几乎没有做任何工作，因此，还有大量的技术追赶工作要做。
And on carbon issues overall, are you an optimist or a pessimist?
总体而言，在碳问题上，您是乐观主义者还是悲观主义者？
And why?
为什么？
Well, I’d say, if you think about it, in 1800, look at the situation of the world: We’re vastly poorer; a huge portion of the earth’s population is enslaved in one way or another.
好吧，我想说，如果你想一想，在 1800 年，看看世界的情况：我们更加贫穷；我们变得更加贫穷。地球上很大一部分人口都以这样或那样的方式受到奴役。
There’s actually estimates from people like Adam Hochschild that it’s three-quarters of the earth’s population.
事实上，像亚当·霍克希尔德这样的人估计，它占地球人口的四分之三。
I think that seems high, but you get the general idea.
我认为这似乎很高，但你明白了总体想法。
Women aren’t allowed to own property, I think, anywhere.
我认为，任何地方都不允许女性拥有财产。
They aren’t allowed to go to college, you name it.
他们不被允许上大学，凡是你能想到的。
Our world has totally transformed in the last 200 years.
过去 200 年来，我们的世界发生了彻底的变化。
Slavery was one of the foundational institutions of civilization.
奴隶制是文明的基本制度之一。
So to me, it would just be incredibly disappointing.
所以对我来说，这将是非常令人失望的。
Carbon in the air seems, by comparison to slavery, a much easier challenge, although it’s not to say a small one.
与奴隶制相比，空气中的碳似乎是一个更容易的挑战，尽管这并不是一个小问题。
And what do you think the solution will look like?
您认为解决方案会是什么样子？
I think there’s multiple possible solutions, and that’s, in fact, what the argument of the book is.
我认为有多种可能的解决方案，事实上，这就是这本书的论点。
There’s different ways to go about it, and it really depends on what kind of future you want to have.
有不同的方法可以实现，这实际上取决于您想要拥有什么样的未来。
If you’re what I call a wizard — maybe I should call them, to be more exact, what would it be?
如果你是我所说的巫师 —— 也许我应该称呼他们，更准确地说，它会是什么？
A Schumpeterian meliorist or something like technophiliac meliorist or something.
熊彼特的改良论者或者类似技术迷的改良论者之类的东西。
Okay.
好的。
So I call them wizards.
所以我称他们为巫师。
You want to have big, centralized, super efficient facilities, and that typically translates into nuclear power.
你想要拥有大型、集中、超高效的设施，这通常会转化为核能。
If you’re a prophet — typical environment movement — you don’t like these giant, centralized facilities in and of themselves, and you want smaller and much more networked systems.
如果您是一位预言家 ——“典型的环境运动”—— 您不喜欢这些巨大的集中式设施本身，并且您想要更小、网络化程度更高的系统。
And that looks like a complete reconstruction of the grid to use solar and wind, as well as lots and lots and lots of planting.
这看起来像是对电网进行彻底重建，以利用太阳能和风能，以及大量的种植。
Both of them — from the point of view of today’s technology — are equally impossible.
两者 ——“从当今技术的角度来看”—— 同样不可能。
It’s a leap in the dark no matter what we do, but then that’s the human condition, isn’t it?
无论我们做什么，这都是在黑暗中跳跃，但这就是人类的处境，不是吗？
But say I make an argument that you yourself have considered in print: As some parts of the world lower their demand for fossil fuels, the prices of those fossil fuels will fall, and there’ll always be someone who’s going to burn it, whether it’s Vietnam or Africa or Brazil.
但是假设我提出一个你自己在印刷品中考虑过的论点：随着世界上某些地区降低对化石燃料的需求，这些化石燃料的价格将会下跌，并且总会有人会燃烧它，无论是越南、非洲还是巴西。
And essentially, we’re going to burn through everything we have at some price, and the flow of that into the atmosphere will continue more or less unabated.
从本质上讲，我们将以某种代价烧掉我们拥有的一切，而这些物质进入大气层的流量将或多或少地继续有增无减。
True or false?
是真是假？
Well, I think that’s an excellent argument, and I’m proud to have made it.
嗯，我认为这是一个很好的论点，我很自豪能够做到这一点。
MANN: So let me consider why this Mann guy might be totally wrong.
曼：所以让我考虑一下为什么这个曼的家伙可能是完全错误的。
Okay.
好的。
One is that there seems to be a growing popular conception of “carbon dioxide is pollution,” which it isn’t, obviously, in the same way as sulfur dioxide and the other stuff.
一是“二氧化碳是污染”的概念似乎越来越流行，但显然它与二氧化硫和其他物质不同。
Right.
正确的。
One of the things that’s fascinating to me is that when you talk to people in China about cleaning up, they regard cleaning up the particulates in the aerosols and carbon pretty much in the same breath.
让我着迷的一件事是，当你与中国人谈论清洁时，他们认为清洁气溶胶中的颗粒物和碳几乎是同时进行的。
If people are going to make that mental category, then this Mann guy might have then gotten it all wrong.
如果人们要做出这样的心理分类，那么这个曼恩人可能就完全错了。
And we won’t just see scrubbers .
我们不仅会看到洗涤器。
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。
.
。
The second thing is that there seems to be a respect for international community and international agencies that, frankly, surprises the hell out of me.
第二件事是，人们似乎对国际社会和国际机构表示尊重，坦率地说，这让我感到非常惊讶。
Yes, our current president is obviously a counterexample against that, but people seem to be interested in kinds of collective action that I would not have guessed, both on the international front, which I think is very weak but still there, and on the regional front.
是的，我们现任总统显然是反对这一点的反例，但人们似乎对我没想到的集体行动感兴趣，无论是在国际战线上（我认为这非常弱但仍然存在），还是在地区战线上。
Personally, I would see the evidence of cities taking a lead in this, regions taking a lead in this, and then, to some extent, individual households — so there’s a whole institutional framework that seems to be swinging into effect to counter this sort of Jevons-type paradox that you were talking about, where things get cheaper and people use more of it.
就我个人而言，我会看到城市在这方面起带头作用的证据，地区在这方面起带头作用，然后在某种程度上，个体家庭 ——因此，似乎有一个完整的制度框架正在发挥作用，以应对你所谈论的这种杰文斯式悖论，即东西变得更便宜，人们使用更多。
Right.
正确的。
So I don’t know.
所以我不知道。
I made that argument.
我提出了这个论点。
I still think it’s a strong argument, but maybe I’m wrong.
我仍然认为这是一个强有力的论据，但也许我错了。
And are you a geoengineering optimist, given uncertainty it may be hard to experiment with?
鉴于不确定性可能很难进行实验，您是地球工程乐观主义者吗？
And also the notion that countries may not agree.
还有各国可能不同意的观点。
We might want to do one kind of geoengineering, but Russia will have other ideas because it’s a colder country.
我们可能想做一种地球工程，但俄罗斯会有其他想法，因为它是一个寒冷的国家。
Can that work?
那可以吗？
I think you’ve hit on, to me, the big issue.
我想你已经说到了对我来说是个大问题。
I think the social issues in almost all these cases are much harder to solve than the technical issues.
我认为几乎所有这些案例中的社会问题都比技术问题更难解决。
Geoengineering is a science in its total infancy, and right now the leading technology is solar radiation management, as they call it, SRM, which basically means sprinkling shiny, little, tiny, shiny particles into the air and reflecting back the sunlight.
地球工程是一门处于起步阶段的科学，目前领先的技术是太阳辐射管理，他们称之为 SRM，这基本上意味着将闪亮的、微小的、闪亮的颗粒撒到空气中并反射回阳光。
But there’s lots of other kinds that are at least potentially possible.
但还有很多其他类型至少是可能的。
So it’s difficult for me to believe that all of them will fail to prove.
所以我很难相信他们都无法证明。
I’m not sure about the institutional frameworks because there is the problem of the greenfinger, as it’s called, which is that geoengineering is sufficiently cheap because all you need is a bunch of airplanes that an eccentric, rich person .
我不确定制度框架，因为存在所谓的“绿手指”问题，即地球工程足够便宜，因为你所需要的只是一群古怪的富人的飞机。
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It may be too cheap.
可能太便宜了。
Yeah, may be too cheap, right.
是的，可能太便宜了，对吧。
And Weitzman and Wagner, the two very good economists, have written a book about that, which they call the free-driver problem— as opposed to the “free-rider problem” — that it’s so cheap that people would just take the wheel and go.
韦茨曼和瓦格纳，这两位非常优秀的经济学家，写了一本关于这个问题的书，他们称之为“搭便车问题”——而不是“搭便车问题”——因为它太便宜了，以至于人们会直接开车走。
Right.
正确的。
Imagine if you’re Indonesia, and you’re threatened by rising seas and so forth.
想象一下，如果您是印度尼西亚，并且受到海平面上升等的威胁。
Indonesia has about 70 billionaires in it, each one of whom could actually set a course of geoengineering on his own.
印度尼西亚大约有 70 位亿万富翁，他们中的每一位实际上都可以自己开设一门地球工程课程。
So you add that; that’s at the bottom.
所以你补充一下；那是在底部。
Then you add at the top the difficulty of international coordination.
然后你在顶部添加国际协调的难度。
I think that’s the tough problem as opposed to the technical problem.
我认为这是一个棘手的问题，而不是技术问题。
On the water problem
关于水的问题
The environment and water.
环境和水。
Do you think there are water problems that can’t be solved simply by having higher prices when needed, better-defined property rights when needed, and also some kind of regulation when needed?
您是否认为有些水问题不能仅仅通过在需要时提高价格、在需要时更明确的产权以及在需要时进行某种监管来解决？
Or is water something we absolutely can do — we just need the will to do it?
或者水是我们绝对可以做的事情——我们只需要有意愿就能做到吗？
I would say this is, again, complicated by people’s ideas about water.
我想说，这又因人们对水的看法而变得复杂。
What you’re saying is totally standard economic good sense, right?
你所说的完全是标准的经济常识，对吗？
Yes.
是的。
Right.
正确的。
And it is absolutely true that people waste staggering amounts of water, and this is the kind of thing that people who study water, like Peter Gleick and the Pacific Institute, they tear their hairs out about all the different ways that we waste water.
确实，人们浪费了大量的水，而研究水的人们，比如彼得·格莱克和太平洋研究所，他们对我们浪费水的各种不同方式感到抓狂。
Seventy percent of the world’s water, or something like that, goes to agriculture.
世界上百分之七十的水或类似的水都用于农业。
Most of that is for irrigation, and estimates in the amount of water that’s lost and just totally wasted in irrigation range up to 70 percent of that.
其中大部分用于灌溉，估计灌溉中损失的水量和完全浪费的水量高达 70%。
So 70 percent of 70 percent, you’re getting close to half the world’s water just wasted.
因此，70% 中的 70%，世界上接近一半的水被浪费了。
So they say all the things you should do, which you were just talking about, which is charge people, act intelligent about this.
所以他们说你应该做的所有事情，你刚才谈到的，就是让人们在这方面表现得聪明。
Opposing this is the fact that people are not rational about water and have never been, as far as I can tell.
与此相反的是，据我所知，人们对水并不理性，而且从来没有理性过。
When people feel water is threatened, they want more.
当人们感到水受到威胁时，他们就会想要更多。
So then their view is to do these giant mega projects.
所以他们的想法是做这些巨型项目。
Like Israel, for example, has just built these huge desalination plants all over the Mediterranean coast.
例如，以色列刚刚在地中海沿岸建造了这些巨大的海水淡化厂。
They have five big ones and they plan to build three more.
他们有五个大的，并计划再建造三个。
There’s another one that’s going to be in Aqaba in Jordan — it’s even larger.
还有一个将在约旦的亚喀巴举行——规模更大。
California has 20 of these planned.
加州已计划建设 20 个此类项目。
And then these mega projects, which I think from a strictly economic cost-benefit or benefit-cost point of view, are kind of crazy, given the wastage.
然后，考虑到浪费，我认为从严格的经济成本效益或效益成本角度来看，这些大型项目有点疯狂。
But there’s a real pull toward doing that, and I just don’t know how it’s going to come out.
但这样做确实有动力，但我只是不知道结果会如何。
Isn’t Israel a good example of why we should be optimistic?
以色列难道不是我们应该乐观的一个很好的例子吗？
Yeah.
是的。
Now, Israel has 70 times the GDP they had in 1948, 10 times the number of people, half the rainfall, and they do water reclamation, desalination, drip irrigation.
现在，以色列的国内生产总值是1948年的70倍，人口数量增加了10倍，降雨量减少了一半，而且他们进行了水回收、海水淡化、滴灌。
They have regulation when needed.
他们在需要时进行监管。
I’m not saying they have no water problems, but it’s pretty well-off as a nation.
我并不是说他们没有水问题，但作为一个国家来说，他们相当富裕。
Water’s not what’s holding them back.
水并不是阻碍他们前进的因素。
They do some wasteful things that may be for national security reasons.
他们做了一些可能出于国家安全原因的浪费行为。
Doesn’t Israel show it can be done?
难道以色列没有表明这是可以做到的吗？
The whole world will, when it needs to, solve its water problems, or no?
全世界都会在需要的时候解决水问题，还是不会？
Israel’s certainly an example of what you can do.
以色列无疑是您可以做的事情的一个例子。
One of the striking things is they’ve oscillated between these two sides, what I call the wizards and the prophets.
引人注目的事情之一是他们在这两方之间摇摆，我称之为巫师和先知。
They began by constructing these enormous water projects, the National Water Project, which is this huge canal that takes water from the north, which has relatively plentiful water, and channels it down in the Negev Desert.
他们首先建造了这些巨大的水利工程，即国家水利工程，这是一条巨大的运河，从水量相对丰富的北方取水，然后将其引入内盖夫沙漠。
Then they realize, “Oh my gosh, we’re getting in tremendous trouble with our neighbors because that water is supposed to be for the Jordan River, and we’ve taken 70 percent of the water of the Jordan River.
然后他们意识到，“哦，天哪，我们给邻居带来了巨大的麻烦，因为这些水应该用于约旦河，而我们已经拿走了约旦河 70% 的水。
So now we have to do this conservation program.”
所以现在我们必须实施这个保护计划。”
This is exactly what you’re talking about, the water reclamation.
这正是你所说的水回收。
It’s very innovative drip irrigation, basically an Israeli technology, and was invented .
这是非常创新的滴灌技术，基本上是以色列的技术，是发明的。
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。
.
。
Desalination, also basically an Israeli technology, both of them were invented .
海水淡化，基本上也是以色列的技术，两者都是发明的。
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。
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。
the fundamentals elsewhere, and Israel took them and developed them.
其他地方的基本原理，以色列借鉴并发展了它们。
They’re kind of the Japan of water, and they have done this extraordinary thing.
他们就像水里的日本，他们做了这件非凡的事情。
But as soon as desalination kicked in at the beginning of this century, all those little tags that you used to see about “every drop counts” — they’re all gone, and only in the south now do you see them.
但是，随着本世纪初海水淡化的开始，所有那些你以前看到的“每一滴都很重要”的小标签都消失了，现在只有在南方你才能看到它们。
And the water .
还有水。
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。
.
。
I just came back from there a few months ago, and the water guy .
几个月前我刚从那里回来，还有那个送水的。
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。
.
。
I was talking to her, sort of tearing her hair out in the way the water guys always are.
我一边跟她说话，一边像水手们一贯的做法一样，扯着她的头发。
On privatizing water companies
论自来水公司私有化
The idea of privatizing water companies — in your view, is this an underrated or an overrated idea?
将自来水公司私有化的想法 ——在您看来，这是一个被低估还是被高估的想法？
I think it’s simultaneously both because it’s a solution that should be on the table in many more places than it is, because the fact is that governments at every level have failed with water systems, and almost anything would be better than that.
我认为这两者是同时发生的，因为它是一个应该在更多地方提出的解决方案，因为事实是各级政府在供水系统方面都失败了，几乎任何事情都会比这更好。
The problem is that the private companies do make the investments and they have to get paid back.
问题是私营公司确实进行了投资，他们必须得到回报。
Yes.
是的。
And the governments then don’t pay them back.
然后政府就不会偿还他们的钱。
The individual customers do, and that’s frequently really tough on them.
个人客户确实如此，这对他们来说往往非常艰难。
I think this is a real case where you can make an argument that government failures over time require government subsidies to make up for them.
我认为这是一个真实的案例，你可以提出这样的论点：随着时间的推移，政府失灵需要政府补贴来弥补。
Because you talk to these people in China who are paying a quarter to a third of their income for water; that’s quite tough.
因为你和这些中国人交谈，他们将收入的四分之一到三分之一用于购买水；那是相当困难的。
That’s a lot.
就这么多了。
And that’s obviously something that is a big punch in the face in terms of what they’re trying to do.
就他们想要做的事情而言，这显然是一记重拳。
And you’re going to get that and you get rebellion, and you don’t want to have people revolting against their own water supply.
你会得到这个，你就会反抗，你不想让人们反抗他们自己的供水。
So I think that it should be done more and the government should pay more attention.
所以我认为这方面应该做得更多，政府应该更加重视。
is a solution that should be on the table in many more places than it is, because the fact is that governments at every level have failed with water systems, and almost anything would be better than that.
这是一个应该在更多地方提出的解决方案，因为事实是各级政府在供水系统方面都失败了，几乎任何事情都会比这更好。
On feeding the global population
关于养活全球人口
Let’s consider a common interest we both have: food and food in the environment.
让我们考虑一下我们共同的兴趣：食物和环境中的食物。
Yeah.
是的。
Now, as you well know, global population has continued to rise, but for the most part, at least relative to expectations, we’ve fed many more people than most commentators ever expected was possible.
现在，正如您所知，全球人口持续增长，但在大多数情况下，至少相对于预期，我们养活的人口比大多数评论家预期的要多得多。
Can this simply continue forever, or is there some fixed factor in the system where you can’t just keep on increasing your population and your food supply and every year feed a higher and higher share of the global population?
这种情况能否永远持续下去，还是系统中存在某些固定因素，导致您无法继续增加人口和粮食供应，并每年养活越来越多的全球人口？
Well, that’s the question, right?
嗯，这就是问题，对吧？
Yes, but what’s your view?
是的，但是你的看法是什么？
And if there’s a fixed factor, what exactly is the fixed factor?
如果有一个固定因素，那么这个固定因素到底是什么？
Well, one of the things that’s interesting is that on some level, obviously the earth is finite.
嗯，有趣的事情之一是，在某种程度上，地球显然是有限的。
And so on some level there is .
在某种程度上是这样的。
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。
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。
Sure.
当然。
Georgescu-Roegen, yes.
乔治斯库-罗根，是的。
Wait, what?
等等，什么？
Georgescu-Roegen makes this point.
乔治斯库-罗根提出了这一点。
Right, right.
对，对。
So clearly, there is some limit somewhere.
很明显，某处存在一些限制。
But where it is, we just don’t really have a clue.
但它在哪里，我们真的不知道。
One of the arguments I actually point out in this book is that there’s this idea, right at the beginning of the environmental movement, which is making this argument that we can’t do everything we want, that there’s carrying capacity.
我在本书中实际上指出的一个论点是，在环保运动一开始就有这样的想法，它提出了这样的论点：我们不能做我们想做的一切，有承载能力。
It has a whole bunch of different names — ecological limits, planetary boundaries — gets dressed up in different guises.
它有一大堆不同的名称——“生态极限、行星边界”——有着不同的外貌。
But the whole idea is that there’s these fixed points that we cannot surpass.
但整个想法是，有这些我们无法超越的固定点。
Yet, when you look at it, the argument, however intuitively appealing — and it’s enormously intuitively appealing because the earth is round and it’s finite — is very, very difficult to substantiate.
然而，当你审视它时，这个论点无论在直觉上多么有吸引力——而且它在直觉上非常有吸引力，因为地球是圆的，而且它是有限的——是非常非常难以证实的。
And you could, because it depends on what you consider those limiting factors to be.
你可以，因为这取决于你认为这些限制因素是什么。
In fact, one of the earliest calculations of this was done by the great physicist and mathematician Warren Weaver, and he said, “Well, the usable energy is what we need.” And there’s just an inordinate amount of energy coming in from the sun.
事实上，最早的计算之一是由伟大的物理学家和数学家沃伦·韦弗完成的，他说：“好吧，可用的能量就是我们所需要的。”而且来自太阳的能量过多。
Every day.
每天。
Every day, 24/7.
每天，24/7。
So if that’s what your idea is, this is a ridiculous thing to worry about because people will not want to live in a world of hundreds of billions of people, that’s just too crowded to move.
因此，如果这就是你的想法，那么担心这是一件荒谬的事情，因为人们不会想生活在一个拥有数千亿人口的世界中，因为那里太拥挤而无法移动。
And this is the wrong thing to consider, the limiting factor.
这是错误的考虑因素，也是限制因素。
Other people say, “That’s crazy.
其他人说：“这太疯狂了。
We need to have these ecosystems.”
我们需要拥有这些生态系统。”
Yet all of these concepts — because they’re ecology, they’re very difficult.
然而所有这些概念 —— 因为它们是生态学，所以它们非常困难。
Ecology is like studying .
生态就像学习。
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Ecology and macroeconomics are sort of the same thing.
生态学和宏观经济学在某种程度上是同一件事。
They’re studying these huge systems with a zillion moving parts, none of which we understand very well.
他们正在研究这些拥有无数移动部件的庞大系统，而我们对其中的任何一个都不是很了解。
COWEN: Partisan and poorly understood, also.
COWEN：也存在党派偏见，而且人们对此知之甚少。
Right, right.
对，对。
And they’re partisan and poorly understood.
而且他们有党派之争，而且人们对其知之甚少。
And there’s something there obviously.
显然那里有一些东西。
The economy exists.
经济存在。
Obviously there is something for macroeconomics to study, but we don’t really have very good tools to do it.
显然，宏观经济学有一些值得研究的东西，但我们确实没有很好的工具来做到这一点。
They’re also afflicted with models that are adhered to far more often than they are — in terms of people’s belief — far more often than they are actually empirically tested.
他们还受到模型所困扰，这些模型被遵守的次数远多于实际情况（就人们的信念而言），远多于实际经过经验检验的次数。
Ecology and macroeconomics are sort of the same thing.
生态学和宏观经济学在某种程度上是同一件事。
They’re studying these huge systems with a zillion moving parts, none of which we understand very well.
他们正在研究这些拥有无数移动部件的庞大系统，而我们对其中的任何一个都不是很了解。
But if you had to pick a leading candidate to be the fixed factor, I’m not saying you have to endorse it, but what’s the most likely fixed factor if there is one?
但如果你必须选择一个主要候选人作为固定因素，我并不是说你必须认可它，但如果有的话，最可能的固定因素是什么？
Well, water is certainly a big candidate.
嗯，水无疑是一个重要的候选者。
There just really isn’t that much fresh water.
确实没有那么多淡水。
But we can price it more, and since we have growing wealth — global economy grows at 4 percent a year — we can subsidize those who need subsidies.
但我们可以定价更高，而且由于我们的财富不断增长 ——全球经济以每年 4% 的速度增长——我们可以补贴那些需要补贴的人。
Right, well, you asked me what was a candidate.
好吧，你问我什么是候选人。
I didn’t say I was a believer.
我没说我是信徒。
COWEN: Okay, yeah.
考恩：好的，是的。
You’re right.
你说得对。
But water’s obviously one of them.
但水显然是其中之一。
But hovering over it is these questions about whether these natural cycles .
但悬而未决的是这些自然循环是否存在的问题。
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。
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is kind of a fundamental question about life itself.
这是关于生命本身的一个基本问题。
Is an ecosystem an actual system with an integrity of its own, with rules of its own that you violate at your peril?
生态系统是一个真实的系统吗？它有自己的完整性，有自己的规则，如果违反，后果自负？
Which is the fundamental premise of the environmental movement.
这是环保运动的基本前提。
Or is an ecosystem more like an apartment building in which it is just a bunch of people who happen to live in the same space and share a few common necessities?
或者生态系统更像是一栋公寓楼，其中只是一群碰巧住在同一个空间并共享一些共同必需品的人？
I don’t think ecology really has settled on this.
我认为生态学还没有真正解决这个问题。
There’s a guy in Florida, Dan Simberloff, who is a wonderful ecologist who has kind of made a career out of destroying all these models, these elegant models, one after another.
佛罗里达州有一个人，丹·辛伯洛夫 (Dan Simberloff)，他是一位出色的生态学家，他的职业就是靠毁掉所有这些模型，这些优雅的模型，一个接一个地毁掉。
So that’s the fundamental guess.
这就是基本的猜测。
If it turns out that it’s just a collection of factors that we can shift around, that nature’s purely instrumental and we can do with it what we want, then we have a lot more breathing room.
如果事实证明这只是我们可以改变的因素的集合，大自然纯粹是工具性的，我们可以用它做我们想做的事，那么我们就有更多的喘息空间。
If it turns out that there really are these overarching cycles, which seems to be the intuition of the ecologists who study this, then we have less room than we think.
如果事实证明确实存在这些总体循环，这似乎是研究这一问题的生态学家的直觉，那么我们的空间就比我们想象的要小。
On topsoil
表土上
David R.
大卫·R。
Montgomery wrote, and I quote, “The United States Department of Agriculture estimates it takes 500 years to produce an inch of topsoil.” Is that a plausible candidate for the fixed factor, topsoil?
蒙哥马利写道，我引用一下，“美国农业部估计需要 500 年才能产生一英寸的表土。”这是固定因素表土的合理候选者吗？
I don’t think so.
我不这么认为。
Topsoil’s really important, and nations that screw up their soil — that’s a bad thing that happens.
表土非常重要，而那些破坏土壤的国家——这是一件糟糕的事情。
When I went to the Fertile Crescent a couple of times, and you see these soils that used to be part of the Fertile Crescent and were irrigated .
当我去过新月沃土几次时，你会看到这些土壤曾经是新月沃土的一部分并被灌溉过。
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。
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Or in Haiti, yes.
或者在海地，是的。
Or in Haiti or something like that.
或者在海地或类似的地方。
You walk across the border between the Dominican .
您步行穿过多米尼加之间的边界。
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。
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。
So obviously that is something you should really pay attention to.
显然，这是你应该真正关注的事情。
But the tools we have for measuring it are pretty poor.
但我们用来衡量它的工具非常差。
For instance, the soil people have this thing called the universal soil loss equation.
例如，土壤学家有一个叫做通用土壤流失方程的东西。
Do you know about this?
你知道这件事吗？
No.
不。
This is how they measure how much erosion it is.
这就是他们衡量侵蚀程度的方法。
When you hear that there’s one-third of the farmland in the Middle West, or whatever the figure is, has been eroded, it’s with the universal soil loss equation.
当你听说中西部有三分之一的农田，或者无论这个数字是多少，已经被侵蚀时，这是与通用土壤流失方程有关的。
And it’s the best thing that people can do at the time, but it really measures soil movement.
这是当时人们能做的最好的事情，但它确实测量了土壤运动。
An awful lot of erosion is when soil goes from one place to another.
当土壤从一处转移到另一处时，会发生严重的侵蚀。
If we’re next-door neighbors and some of my soil blows onto your farm and your farm blows onto my farm, they’re both counted as eroded even though we may actually have the same amount of topsoil.
如果我们是隔壁邻居，我的一些土壤吹到了你的农场，而你的农场又吹到了我的农场，它们都被算作侵蚀，即使我们实际上可能有相同数量的表土。
And that’s not because people are faking it or anything.
这并不是因为人们在假装或其他什么原因。
It was just the best tool that was available in the 1950s, and of course people like to have consistent tools.
它是 20 世纪 50 年代最好的工具，当然人们喜欢拥有一致的工具。
So it’s got through it.
所以就熬过去了。
That said, there are estimates from people in Wageningen, where that great Dutch university, great Dutch agricultural university is, sort of behind the Dutch agricultural .
也就是说，瓦赫宁根人的估计是，那所伟大的荷兰大学、伟大的荷兰农业大学所在的地方，在某种程度上落后于荷兰农业。
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。
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。
And they believe that the actual issue is more soil contamination.
他们认为，实际问题是更多的土壤污染。
And they say that something like a third of the world’s arable land has some problems from contamination.
他们说，世界上大约三分之一的耕地因污染而存在一些问题。
As in China.
就像在中国一样。
And soil contamination is harder to fix than air pollution.
土壤污染比空气污染更难修复。
Oh boy, yeah.
噢，孩子，是的。
It’s a big deal.
这是一件大事。
You don’t want soil contamination.
您不希望土壤受到污染。
In that case, it’s a plausible limiting factor, particularly if we don’t develop remediation techniques.
在这种情况下，这可能是一个限制因素，特别是如果我们不开发补救技术的话。
So I’m very interested.
所以我很感兴趣。
Here’s an underrated thing for you, which is phytoremediation.
对你来说，有一件被低估的事情，那就是植物修复。
If you could really develop that technique and you could plant some crops that would suck out the aluminum or the salt or whatever it is that’s your problem with your soil, that would be pretty neat.
如果你真的可以开发这种技术，并且可以种植一些可以吸收铝或盐或任何土壤问题的作物，那就太棒了。
On pessimist views
论悲观主义观点
A general question: At what point can we say the pessimist views are wrong?
一个普遍的问题：什么时候我们可以说悲观主义者的观点是错误的？
As you know, Malthus is writing about subsistence wages and even starvation in the 1790s.
如您所知，马尔萨斯正在撰写有关 1790 年代生存工资甚至饥饿的文章。
There are pessimists well before Malthus.
早在马尔萨斯之前就有悲观主义者。
Paul Ehrlich is writing The Population Bomb.
保罗·埃利希正在撰写《人口炸弹》。
Those predictions haven’t panned out.
这些预测尚未实现。
So there have been centuries, century after century where, war aside, siege of Leningrad aside, the optimists essentially are correct.
因此，几个世纪以来，除了战争、列宁格勒围困之外，乐观主义者本质上是正确的。
Most of the time, the relative price of food is falling; labor employed in agriculture as a percentage of the workforce is declining.
大多数时候，食品的相对价格正在下降；农业劳动力占劳动力的比例正在下降。
So what would have to happen for us to say, “Well, we simply decided the pessimists are wrong.
那么，如果我们说：“好吧，我们只是认为悲观主义者是错误的。
We can keep on doing this.”
我们可以继续这样做。”
If you take the argument — the pessimists are saying there’s a finite world.
如果你接受这个论点——悲观主义者说世界是有限的。
We can only get so much from it.
我们只能从中得到这么多。
That obviously is true.
这显然是真的。
The question is not so much whether they’re wrong, it’s whether they’re relevant.
问题不在于它们是否错误，而在于它们是否相关。
If the limit is so far out there that we don’t even need to bother with it, they could still be right, it just wouldn’t matter.
如果限制太远以至于我们甚至不需要费心，他们仍然可能是对的，那就没关系了。
One of the ways, I think, of looking at it is, supposedly in the next part of this century, all the demographers believe that world population is going to roughly level off somewhere around the realm of 10 billion.
我认为，看待这个问题的方法之一是，据说在本世纪下半叶，所有人口统计学家都相信世界人口将大致稳定在 100 亿左右。
The, quote, pessimists think it’ll be 11 or 12, the optimists think it’ll be 9.
悲观主义者认为会是 11 或 12，乐观主义者认为会是 9。
But basically, the population is not going to double again.
但基本上，人口不会再翻倍。
Nobody seems to believe that.
似乎没有人相信这一点。
So if that’s the case and that stretches out as far as we can see, which is what they say — not that we can see that far — then if we can feed everybody and everybody’s in pretty good comfort by 2070 or whenever this point is, I think the optimists can declare victory, even though the pessimists could still be right in that there are limits.
因此，如果情况确实如此，并且一直延伸到我们所能看到的范围，就像他们所说的那样——“不是我们能看到那么远”——那么，如果我们能够在 2070 年或任何时候让每个人都吃饱，每个人都过上相当舒适的生活，我认为乐观主义者可以宣布胜利，尽管悲观主义者可能仍然是正确的，因为存在限制。
They just aren’t relevant.
它们只是不相关。
The pessimists are saying there’s a finite world.
悲观主义者说世界是有限的。
We can only get so much from it.
我们只能从中得到这么多。
That obviously is true.
这显然是真的。
The question is not so much whether they’re wrong, it’s whether they’re relevant.
问题不在于它们是否错误，而在于它们是否相关。
If the limit is so far out there that we don’t even need to bother with it, they could still be right, it just wouldn’t matter.
如果限制太远以至于我们甚至不需要费心，他们仍然可能是对的，那就没关系了。
And when evaluating these issues, how much do you trust market price data?
在评估这些问题时，您对市场价格数据的信任程度如何？
You can look at the relative price of food, the price of potatoes, the price of rice, and that’s giving you some measure of what the market thinks will be happening in the future.
你可以查看食品的相对价格、土豆的价格、大米的价格，这可以让你对市场认为未来会发生的情况有所了解。
Will there be forthcoming supplies?
后续会有货源吗？
If there are not forthcoming supplies, people will buy them and hoard them or speculate.
如果没有即将到来的供应，人们就会购买并囤积或投机。
Do you trust market prices enough to infer judgments from them, or do you dismiss that information?
您是否足够信任市场价格并从中推断出判断，或者您是否忽略这些信息？
It’s funny you should ask.
有趣的是你应该问。
I do trust market prices, but food is one of those areas in which the government tinkers so much with this that I’m really not sure what to make of them.
我确实相信市场价格，但食品是政府对此进行大量修改的领域之一，我真的不知道如何利用它们。
One kind of eye-opening, at least for me in this, was I went to Illinois, northwest Illinois, and I talked to a bunch of the farmers in Marengo, Illinois, which is a corn and bean place.
至少对我来说，其中一种令人大开眼界的事情是，我去了伊利诺伊州西北部的伊利诺伊州，与伊利诺伊州马伦戈的一群农民交谈，那里是玉米和豆类的产地。
And they described for me all the different programs that they are eligible for and participate in.
他们向我描述了他们有资格参加的所有不同项目。
I now understand why economists complain about farm subsidies.
我现在明白为什么经济学家抱怨农业补贴了。
Because they were saying these were reduced, and I couldn’t believe the number of things that you can do if you’re a farmer who produces the right commodity crops.
因为他们说这些减少了，我不敢相信如果你是一个生产正确商品作物的农民，你可以做这么多事情。
And certain crops are very definitely much more in tune with what the government wants than others.
某些作物肯定比其他作物更符合政府的需求。
So I talked to two farmers, both in Marengo, next-door neighbors.
因此，我与隔壁邻居马伦戈的两位农民进行了交谈。
One guy is your sort of Michael Pollan ideal and an amazing farm.
有一个人是你理想中的迈克尔·波伦（Michael Pollan），他是一个令人惊叹的农场。
He grows a thousand different varieties of crops, just everything you could imagine, mimicking natural systems.
他模仿自然系统，种植了上千种不同的农作物，应有尽有。
He doesn’t like to call himself organic because he doesn’t like to submit to rules that he thinks are arbitrary and outdated, but we’ll call him an organic with quotes.
他不喜欢称自己为有机人，因为他不喜欢遵守他认为任意且过时的规则，但我们会称他为有机人，并加引号。
You get the idea.
你明白了。
It’s really an amazing information processing system that he has, this extraordinarily complex thing.
他拥有的确实是一个令人惊叹的信息处理系统，这个异常复杂的东西。
He produces a staggering amount of food off of it because he grows a lot of trees and tubers, and trees and tubers are more inherently productive than cereals like wheat and barley and so forth.
他用它生产了大量的食物，因为他种植了大量的树木和块茎，而树木和块茎的生产力比小麦和大麦等谷物更高产。
And he is eligible for nothing.
而他没有资格得到任何东西。
He has not gotten a dime from the government.
他没有从政府那里得到一分钱。
He wouldn’t mind it.
他不会介意的。
It’s not a matter of principle, but as far as the government is concerned, he doesn’t exist.
这不是原则问题，但对政府来说，他不存在。
Whereas his next-door neighbor has 1200 acres of corn and wheat, and there’s an entire parade of things that he is eligible for.
而他的隔壁邻居拥有 1200 英亩的玉米和小麦，而且他有资格获得各种各样的东西。
So one guy’s produce is much more expensive than the other guy’s produce, but it’s very hard for me, as an outsider, without conducting a serious study, to tell.
因此，一个人的产品比另一个人的产品贵得多，但作为一个局外人，如果不进行认真的研究，我很难判断。
And then, there’s all these aspects which the system has tied together.
然后，系统将所有这些方面联系在一起。
One of the things you always hear is that meat — every pound of beef takes 10 pounds of grain and so forth.
你经常听到的一件事是“肉”——“每磅牛肉需要 10 磅谷物”等等。
You’ve heard all this, and meat is terrible.
这些你都听说过，肉很糟糕。
It’s actually much more complicated than that because you’d think that would give you some idea of price and so forth, but in fact, the grain that they’re doing is distiller’s grain, which has already been used for a couple of other processes before it.
它实际上比这复杂得多，因为你可能认为这会让你对价格等有所了解，但事实上，他们正在做的谷物是酒糟，之前已经用于其他几个过程。
It’s used to make high fructose corn syrup and alcohol and so forth.
用于制造高果糖玉米糖浆和酒精等。
So the costs of these things are all getting disseminated around to all these different products that each have their own set of programs and their own set of incentives and so forth.
因此，这些东西的成本都被分散到所有这些不同的产品上，每个产品都有自己的一套计划和一套自己的激励措施等等。
So the market data from agriculture, while obviously very important, especially for individual people, is really tough to tell what it means.
因此，农业市场数据虽然显然非常重要，尤其是对于个人而言，但很难说出其含义。
On beef being cheaper than we think
牛肉比我们想象的便宜
Are you saying beef is possibly environmentally cheaper than many of us believe?
你是说牛肉对环境的影响可能比我们许多人想象的要便宜吗？
Yes.
是的。
Now, I should say, of course, it’s all complicated.
现在，我应该说，当然，这一切都很复杂。
Right, right.
对，对。
For example, I live in the country and there’s a small farm just down the street from me.
例如，我住在乡下，离我不远的街道上有一个小农场。
This is western Massachusetts?
这是马萨诸塞州西部吗？
Western Massachusetts.
马萨诸塞州西部。
Sorry, I live in western Massachusetts, and we have a boutique farm next to us that us yuppies support because we like Jeremy, and it’s all a sort of friendly but slightly ridiculous enterprise.
抱歉，我住在马萨诸塞州西部，我们旁边有一个精品农场，我们雅皮士支持这个农场，因为我们喜欢杰里米，这都是一种友好但有点荒谬的企业。
The beef and pork he has is absolutely delicious, so we pay a ludicrous amount for it.
他的牛肉和猪肉绝对美味，所以我们为此付出了可笑的代价。
Any normal person would think we were idiots.
任何正常人都会认为我们是白痴。
But his stuff, his animals, they eat scraps.
但他的东西，他的动物，他们吃残渣。
They eat leftovers, and they graze on weeds.
他们吃剩菜，吃杂草。
As far as I can tell, the environmental cost to what they do is zero or negative in the sense that they also have manure, and the manure is then plowed back into the fields.
据我所知，他们所做的事情的环境成本为零或负数，因为他们也有粪便，然后将粪便犁回田间。
So obviously what he’s doing is having extremely small impact on the environment.
显然他所做的事情对环境的影响极小。
Possibly the methane.
可能是甲烷。
Now you get to these giant feed lots, and this is where they’re talking about how terrible it all is.
现在你来到了这些巨大的饲料场，他们就是在这里谈论这一切是多么可怕。
But that grain is used for so many things, and the cattle themselves are used for so many things.
但谷物有很多用途，牛本身也有很多用途。
Even if you didn’t eat meat, there’d still be need for leather, there’d still be need for keratin and collagen and all the other things that come from cattle.
即使你不吃肉，仍然需要皮革，仍然需要角蛋白和胶原蛋白以及所有其他来自牛的东西。
When you take these things and just say, “Oh, 10 pounds of grain produces a pound of meat,” it also produces all this other stuff, as does the grain.
当你拿着这些东西并只是说，“哦，10磅谷物生产一磅肉”时，它也会生产所有其他东西，就像谷物一样。
So I think that the environmental impact is overstated.
所以我认为对环境的影响被夸大了。
I’m sorry, that was a very long-winded answer.
抱歉，这是一个非常冗长的答案。
Great.
伟大的。
Due in part to the influence of Rachel Carson, the use of DDT has been highly restricted.
部分由于雷切尔·卡森的影响，滴滴涕的使用受到严格限制。
Some people have charged this cost a fairly high number of human lives, and other people are more skeptical.
有些人认为这造成了相当高的人命损失，而另一些人则持怀疑态度。
What’s your view?
你的看法是什么？
I’m skeptical of these claims in the sense that, from what I have read — and I’m certainly not a expert on this — the implication seems to be that .
我对这些说法持怀疑态度，因为从我读到的内容来看——而且我当然不是这方面的专家——暗示似乎是……。
.
。
.
。
We’re always talking about poorer nations that don’t use it.
我们总是在谈论不使用它的贫穷国家。
Implication seems to be that these nations would’ve mounted the kind of systematic DDT spraying campaigns that were seen in this country from the First World War to about the 50s.
言下之意似乎是，这些国家可能会开展系统性的 DDT 喷洒活动，就像这个国家从第一次世界大战到 20 世纪 50 年代左右所见的那样。
Most of all in the South, yes.
尤其是在南方，是的。
Most of all in the South.
尤其是在南方。
But also in places like Long Island and the Middle West.
但在长岛和中西部等地也是如此。
Sure.
当然。
And the little I have seen in malarial countries and places like Niger and Chad and Nigeria and so forth, it just seems implausible to me that the government could’ve done this.
就我在尼日尔、乍得和尼日利亚等疟疾国家和地区所见的情况来看，政府竟然能做到这一点，这对我来说似乎难以置信。
So clearly it had some impact on the margins, but I don’t know if we have a good idea of how much it is.
很明显，它对利润率产生了一些影响，但我不知道我们是否清楚其影响有多大。
And I often think that the debate is more heat than light.
我常常认为争论是激烈的而不是光明的。
On population control
关于人口控制
Now William Vogt is one of the two centerpieces of your book.
现在，威廉·沃格特是你书中的两个核心人物之一。
One of his environmental solutions was population control and eugenics.
他的环境解决方案之一是人口控制和优生学。
Julian Huxley, who also plays a role in your book, brother of Aldous, he was a big advocate of eugenics.
朱利安·赫胥黎（Julian Huxley）也在你的书中扮演了一个角色，他是奥尔德斯的兄弟，他是优生学的大力倡导者。
These ideas have faded from favor within the environmental movement, though not in China, of course, where they had a one-child policy.
这些想法在环保运动中已经不再受青睐，当然，在实行独生子女政策的中国，情况并非如此。
Do you think the future of environmentalism lies in population control at all or not?
您认为环保主义的未来是否取决于人口控制？
Population control’s had such a terrible record because those ideas about population control were then embraced by the ecological elite, if you want to call it that, in North America and Europe, as well as governments in poor nations like particularly India and China, and the result was just terrible abuses.
人口控制的记录如此糟糕，因为这些关于人口控制的想法随后被北美和欧洲的生态精英（如果你想这样称呼它的话）以及贫穷国家（特别是印度和中国）的政府所接受，其结果只是可怕的滥用。
But say China’s one-child policy.
但说中国的独生子女政策。
Was it a major disaster or was it something .
是发生了大灾难还是发生了什么事。
.
。
.
。
Well, the studies that I have seen suggest that if you look at the impact that it actually had on China, it was negligible.
嗯，我看到的研究表明，如果你看看它对中国的实际影响，它可以忽略不计。
But if you look at the impact it had on individual families, it was terrible.
但如果你看看它对个别家庭的影响，那就很可怕了。
So, you had a policy where you caused maximum social disruption and personal trauma that had relatively limited impact on population itself.
因此，你制定了一项政策，造成了最大程度的社会混乱和个人创伤，但对人口本身的影响相对有限。
And the reason that they do this is, they compare the trajectory of China’s population and birth rate with similar nations that didn’t have this and they aren’t that different.
他们这样做的原因是，他们将中国的人口和出生率轨迹与没有这些的类似国家进行比较，发现它们并没有那么不同。
And a lot of the TFR decline came before the one-child policy.
生育率的下降很大一部分发生在独生子女政策出台之前。
Yes, exactly.
是的，完全正确。
TFR is total fertility rate.
TFR是总生育率。
Yes.
是的。
Yeah.
是的。
So it looks like, if you take this evidence seriously, which I think you should — the Chinese demographers are pretty good — it looks like this was just an awful mess, and that they shouldn’t have done it, and that, just like the sort of boring thing they say, empowering women and educating women is actually what you really want to do.
所以看起来，如果你认真对待这个证据，我认为你应该 ——“中国人口统计学家相当不错”——“看起来这只是一团糟，他们不应该这样做，而且，就像他们说的那种无聊的事情一样，赋予女性权力和教育女性实际上是你真正想做的事情。
COWEN: My colleague, Robin Hanson, wonders if it isn’t one of the world’s biggest problems, that we’ll have too few children and too low a population.
考恩：我的同事罗宾·汉森（Robin Hanson）想知道，我们的孩子太少、人口太少，这是否不是世界上最大的问题之一。
Countries such as Italy, I think, now have TFR of about 1.3.
我认为意大利等国家现在的 TFR 约为 1.3。
For Singaporean Chinese it’s, I think, 1.1.
我认为对于新加坡华人来说是1.1。
If you have enough countries — not all of them wealthy, by the way; Iran, Algeria have rapidly falling rates of childbirth — and you just have a shrinking population all the time, you have fiscal imbalances, you may have lower creativity, you may have a problem with aggregate demand.
如果你有足够多的国家 ——顺便说一句，并不是所有国家都是富裕的；伊朗、阿尔及利亚的生育率迅速下降——而且人口一直在减少，财政失衡，创造力可能较低，总需求可能存在问题。
So you’ll have bad macroeconomic outcomes.
所以你会得到糟糕的宏观经济结果。
Do you worry too much that the global population will be too low and will be shrinking too rapidly?
您是否过于担心全球人口过少且减少过快？
I think your colleague is completely right that the population crashes that he’s talking about are going to face society as challenges they never faced before.
我认为你的同事说得完全正确，他所说的人口崩溃将给社会带来前所未有的挑战。
Always there’s been what they call the population pyramid, which is a small number of older people and lots of younger people, in theory to support them, certainly by their taxes.
一直存在着他们所谓的人口金字塔，即少数老年人和大量年轻人，理论上可以养活他们，当然是通过税收。
And what happens is the birth rate declines, is that the pyramid turns into a cylinder or something like that, and you have an age structure that’s never really existed in human history before.
发生的情况是出生率下降，金字塔变成圆柱体或类似的东西，并且你有一个人类历史上从未真正存在过的年龄结构。
Not only that, but there’s all these old people like me who are hanging around endlessly, and what we seem to really want to do is push down that retirement age, so that the ever-shrinking number of younger people will have to do more and more to support us, if you go by the European example.
不仅如此，还有像我这样的老人无休无止地闲逛，我们似乎真正想做的是推迟退休年龄，这样，如果按照欧洲的例子，不断减少的年轻人将不得不做越来越多的事情来支持我们。
So I do think this is going to be a big problem, and the only upside I can see of this is that if all these people retire, maybe it will postpone the problems with the shrinking amount of work that’s available if we all do this.
所以我确实认为这将是一个大问题，我能看到的唯一好处是，如果所有这些人都退休，如果我们都这样做，也许会推迟解决可用工作量减少的问题。
Or maybe robots will be our savior.
也许机器人会成为我们的救世主。
Or robots will be our savior, yeah.
或者机器人将成为我们的救世主，是的。
There’s all these science fiction stories from the 1950s where the robots are doing everything.
20 世纪 50 年代的科幻故事里，机器人无所不能。
I remember one, it was called “The Midas Touch” or something like that , where there’s so much productivity from the robots that people had to spend all their days energetically consuming stuff just to keep up.
我记得有一个，它被称为“点石成金”或类似的东西，机器人的生产力如此之高，人们不得不花上一整天的时间精力充沛地消耗东西才能跟上。
On things under- and overrated
关于被低估和高估的事情
In all of these conversations, we have a segment in the middle, overrated versus underrated.
在所有这些对话中，我们有一个中间部分，高估与低估。
You’re free to pass on any of my questions.
您可以随意转达我的任何问题。
I just don’t think I have a particularly interesting taste, but go ahead.
我只是觉得我的品味不是特别有趣，但继续吧。
Jackie Chan, overrated or underrated?
成龙，被高估还是被低估？
Oh, I think it’s impossible to overrate him.
哦，我认为不可能高估他。
Jackie Chan’s amazing.
成龙真是太棒了。
Have you ever seen those .
你见过那些吗？
.
。
.
。
You must’ve seen .
你一定见过。
.
。
.
。
I’m a big fan obviously.
显然我是它的忠实粉丝。
My favorite is Drunken Master II, which on some reissues is now just called Drunken Master.
我最喜欢的是《醉拳 II》，在一些重新发行的版本中，它现在被称为《醉拳》。
Right.
正确的。
But what’s the best one in your view?
但你认为最好的是什么？
Oh god, they’re all so good.
天啊，他们都太好了。
I would’ve said Drunken Master.
我会说《醉拳》。
Do you like Steve Chow?
你喜欢周史蒂夫吗？
Yeah.
是的。
Yeah, okay.
是啊，好吧。
So, he’s .
所以，他是。
.
。
.
。
look, to compare: Jackie Chan has done, I don’t know, 150 movies or something.
看看，比较一下：成龙拍过，我不知道，150部电影什么的。
COWEN: A lot.
考恩：很多。
Yeah.
是的。
And an incredibly large number of them are good.
其中有相当多的都是好的。
Steve Chow has done about a third as many movies.
周星驰拍过的电影数量约为其三分之一。
He’s much younger, of course, and what is his hit rate, 20 out of the 50 or something like that are good?
当然，他年轻得多，他的命中率是多少，50 中的 20 或类似的数字就不错了？
So, that’s why I say it’s impossible .
所以，所以我才说这是不可能的。
.
。
.
。
The hit-to-miss ratio of Jackie Chan is unbelievable.
成龙的命中率令人难以置信。
Fake meat, overrated or underrated?
假肉，被高估还是被低估？
I think it’s overrated in the sense that it’s often described as something that’s basically around the corner, and I don’t think it is from what I can tell.
我认为它被高估了，因为它经常被描述为基本上即将到来的东西，而且我不认为这是我所能知道的。
Although I have to say, I ate an Impossible Burger for the first time the other day, and it was pretty good.
虽然我不得不说，前几天我第一次吃到了Impossible Burger，而且还不错。
If I had been served that burger at a church social barbecue, where they give you these mediocre burgers and so forth, I wouldn’t have batted an eye; I would’ve thought it was a real one.
如果我在教堂社交烧烤会上吃到那个汉堡，他们给你这些平庸的汉堡等等，我不会眨眼睛；我本以为这是真的。
I ate an Impossible Burger for the first time the other day and it was pretty good.
前几天我第一次吃到了 Impossible Burger，味道还不错。
If I had been served that burger at a church social barbecue where they give you these mediocre burgers and so forth, I wouldn’t have batted an eye; I would’ve thought it was a real one.
如果我在教堂社交烧烤会上吃到那个汉堡，他们给你这些平庸的汉堡等等，我不会眨眼睛；我本以为这是真的。
You live in or near Amherst, so I have to ask you: Emily Dickinson, overrated or underrated?
你住在阿默斯特或其附近，所以我不得不问你：艾米莉·狄金森，被高估还是被低估？
Oh wow.
哦哇。
I think her reputation is pretty sky high, so probably then she is overrated, but I feel like that’s almost like saying that I don’t like the Boston Red Sox.
我认为她的声誉很高，所以可能她被高估了，但我觉得这几乎就像在说我不喜欢波士顿红袜队。
So, sorry, I’ll pass.
所以，抱歉，我会过去。
COWEN: She could be properly rated.
COWEN：她可以得到适当的评价。
Properly rated.
正确评价。
Okay, yeah.
好吧，是的。
She’s a good poet, boy.
她是一位好诗人，孩子。
Robert Frost, the other Amherst poet, is also a really good poet.
另一位阿默斯特诗人罗伯特·弗罗斯特也是一位非常好的诗人。
I think he’s my top favorite American poet for the 20th century.
我认为他是我最喜欢的 20 世纪美国诗人。
If someone is approaching Robert Frost for the first time, what would be your pointer on how to make sense of it?
如果有人第一次接近罗伯特·弗罗斯特，你会如何指导他如何理解它？
The simpler the rhymes, the more singsongy it is, the more lethal the point.
越是简单的韵律，越是唱腔，就越具有杀伤力。
The city of Oaxaca, overrated or underrated?
瓦哈卡市，被高估还是被低估？
Oh, I’m a huge Oaxaca fan, so I don’t think it’s possible to overrate.
哦，我是瓦哈卡的忠实粉丝，所以我认为不可能高估。
I just love that town.
我就是喜欢那个小镇。
Other than Oaxaca, what is the most underrated travel destination in the Americas that you would recommend?
除了瓦哈卡之外，您会推荐哪个美洲最被低估的旅游目的地？
And how should someone go about approaching a trip to that place?
人们应该如何着手去那个地方旅行呢？
Wow.
哇。
So you do have opinions on all of these matters.
所以你对所有这些问题都有意见。
I just don’t think they’re very interesting ones.
我只是认为它们不是很有趣。
Okay.
好的。
They’re interesting to me because whatever you say I’m going to go there .
它们对我来说很有趣，因为无论你说什么我都会去那里。
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。
.
。
Oh, no!
哦，不！
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。
.
。
.
。
unless I’ve been already, which is actually a pretty high probability.
除非我已经去过了，这实际上是一个相当高的可能性。
Okay.
好的。
It would probably be Brazil or Peru.
可能是巴西或秘鲁。
Where in Brazil or Peru?
巴西或秘鲁哪里？
I’m a big fan of São Paulo, just this amazing city with incredible stuff in it.
我是圣保罗的忠实粉丝，这座令人惊叹的城市拥有令人难以置信的东西。
Some of the best Japanese food I’ve ever had .
我吃过的一些最好的日本料理。
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。
.
。
And Italian food.
还有意大利菜。
It’s the best Italian food outside of Italy.
这是意大利以外最好的意大利菜。
Yeah, unbelievably, really good food.
是的，令人难以置信，食物真的很好吃。
Really good food.
真的很好吃。
Also, the beaches just outside the city are great.
此外，城外的海滩也很棒。
You have these fantastic gardens by Roberto Burle Marx.
你有罗伯托·伯勒·马克思设计的这些奇妙的花园。
I also really, really like — just because it’s so interesting; it’s not as beautiful — but I really like Manaus.
我也非常非常喜欢 —— 只是因为它太有趣了；它没有那么美丽 — 但我真的很喜欢马瑙斯。
It’s just such an interesting place, with this fascinating history, and it is, of course, the gateway to the Amazon.
这是一个非常有趣的地方，有着令人着迷的历史，当然，它也是通往亚马逊的门户。
So that would be the two places.
这就是两个地方。
In Peru — gosh, there’s so many different places in Peru, so let me pick the place you might not likely to be going to immediately, which is Arequipa.
在秘鲁——天哪，秘鲁有很多不同的地方，所以让我挑一个你可能不会立即去的地方，那就是阿雷基帕。
But you should also go from there to the Colca Valley, which is just dazzling.
但你也应该从那里去科尔卡山谷，那里真是令人眼花缭乱。
I love the food in Arequipa.
我喜欢阿雷基帕的食物。
Oh, boy.
哦，男孩。
Okay, you’ve been there.
好吧，你去过那里。
It’s the best spicy food in Peru.
这是秘鲁最好的辛辣食物。
Yeah, it’s really good, and it’s beautiful.
是的，确实很好，而且很漂亮。
There’s all these white stones.
这些都是白色的石头。
And lovely rooftops.
还有可爱的屋顶。
It’s perfect, yeah.
太完美了，是的。
Yeah.
是的。
What’s your favorite movie and why?
你最喜欢的电影是什么？为什么？
But you can’t mention Jackie Chan again.
但不能再提成龙了。
“What’s your favorite movie and why?” The thing about favorites is the ones that have these emotional impacts on you, right?
“你最喜欢的电影是什么？为什么？”最喜欢的东西就是那些对你有情感影响的东西，对吗？
Sure.
当然。
I will tell you, as a college freshman, I had a summer job working in a movie theater, and I saw the movie Zardoz 100 times because I was stationed in the theater to stop people from sneaking in.
我告诉你，作为一名大学新生，我有一份在电影院工作的暑期工作，我把电影《扎多兹》看了100遍，因为我被派驻在电影院里阻止人们偷偷溜进去。
I love Zardoz.
我爱扎尔多斯。
So I think that movie’s drilled into my brain.
所以我认为那部电影已经深入我的大脑了。
So I have to say Zardoz.
所以我不得不说扎多兹。
I’m going to name three thinkers.
我将列出三位思想家的名字。
You don’t have to evaluate them overall, but just make some point that comes to mind when you ponder their work.
你不必对他们进行整体评价，只要提出一些当你思考他们的工作时想到的观点即可。
Okay.
好的。
Jared Diamond.
贾里德·戴蒙德.
I think an interesting guy who really should learn more about social sciences.
我认为一个有趣的人真的应该更多地了解社会科学。
Economics in particular.
尤其是经济学。
Yes.
是的。
Theory of common property resources.
共同财产资源理论。
Yeah.
是的。
He’s too much of a pessimist about the history of Easter Island?
他对复活节岛的历史太悲观了？
Yes.
是的。
I really admire his reach, what he’s trying for.
我真的很钦佩他的影响力和他的努力。
I don’t understand sometimes why, it seems to me — maybe I’m wrong — that he doesn’t do his homework.
有时我不明白为什么，在我看来 ——“也许我错了”—— 他不做作业。
For example, there is a bunch of French and Dutch archaeologists who went to Easter Island just as you said.
比如说，就像你说的，有一群法国和荷兰的考古学家去了复活节岛。
Oh, my gosh, I’ve lost his name.
哦，天哪，我忘记了他的名字。
I think he was head of UNESCO for a while, great French archaeologist.
我认为他曾担任过一段时间的联合国教科文组织主席，伟大的法国考古学家。
Anyway, he wrote three books about Easter Island.
不管怎样，他写了三本关于复活节岛的书。
The UMass Library, which is the one nearest me, which has 10 books about Easter Island, but four of them, three or four of them are by him.
麻省大学图书馆，离我最近的，有10本关于复活节岛的书，但其中四本，三四本是他写的。
So it’s not an obscure source.
所以它并不是一个晦涩的来源。
He went to the Dutch Archives; he pieced it together.
他去了荷兰档案馆；他把它拼凑起来。
Basically what happened to the islands is they were really small, defenseless islands at a time when European traders were particularly rapacious, and the place got just swept away by slavery, disease, and also the trees got cut down for masts.
基本上，这些岛屿所发生的事情是，在欧洲商人特别贪婪的时候，它们真的很小，毫无防御能力，这个地方刚刚被奴隶制、疾病所席卷，树木也被砍伐作为桅杆。
James C.
詹姆斯·C.
Scott and his theories of anarchism in governance and conquest.
斯科特和他的治理和征服中的无政府主义理论。
I think they’re completely fascinating, really worth knowing.
我认为它们非常有趣，非常值得了解。
And I also think he pushes them too hard.
我还认为他把他们逼得太紧了。
Bjorn Lomborg and the Copenhagen Consensus.
比约恩·隆伯格和哥本哈根共识。
I just read The Skeptical Environmentalist.
我刚刚读了《持怀疑态度的环保主义者》。
I’m not familiar enough with what he’s doing now to say.
我不太熟悉他现在在做什么，所以无法说。
He contacted me about a bunch of stuff about that time.
他联系了我，询问了当时的一些事情。
I thought what he was trying to do was valuable.
我认为他所做的事情是有价值的。
I often think that people who do this tend to be this sort of person who .
我常常想，这样做的人往往是这样的人。
.
。
.
。
Knowing that they’re going to arouse opposition, sometimes people who do this tend to like to pick a fight.
知道自己会引起反对，有时这样做的人往往喜欢挑衅。
So I think he picked fights sometimes where they weren’t needed, and not just in a political sense, but in the sense that he would very strongly take a position this way or that when the evidence wasn’t that clear.
因此，我认为他有时会在不需要的地方挑衅，不仅仅是在政治意义上，而且是在证据不那么明确的情况下，他会非常强烈地以这种或那种方式采取立场。
I joke .
我开玩笑。
.
。
.
。
I have a friend, Gary Taubes, who writes about diet and so forth.
我有一个朋友，加里·陶布斯（Gary Taubes），他写有关饮食等方面的文章。
Yes, I know his work.
是的，我知道他的工作。
And I always say that there’s weak Gary and strong Gary.
我总是说加里有弱者和强者之分。
And weak Gary is the idea that the evidence that carbohydrates are the way to go for heart disease is very poor.
加里的弱点是，碳水化合物是治疗心脏病的证据非常缺乏。
That’s weak Gary.
那是弱者加里。
Strong Gary is that carbohydrates are actually bad.
加里强调碳水化合物实际上是有害的。
There’s a big distinction between these two.
这两者之间有很大的区别。
I think that Bjorn Lomborg didn’t often grasp this in The Skeptical Environmentalist, which is something I’m familiar with, often would go beyond saying the evidence for this or that is weak to saying the evidence where it’s opposite, it must mean that the opposite is true.
我认为比约恩·隆伯格（Bjorn Lomborg）在《持怀疑态度的环保主义者》中经常没有抓住这一点，这是我所熟悉的，他常常会超越说这个或那个的证据很弱，而说相反的证据，这必须意味着相反的情况是正确的。
On the history of the New World
论新世界的历史
Now, we turn our attention back to the history of the New World.
现在，我们把注意力转回新世界的历史。
Here’s a question from a reader, and I quote, “If Napoleon had not conquered France, leading to the Louisiana Purchase, would there have been no Indian Removal Act and no American Civil War?
这是一位读者提出的问题，我引用一下：“如果拿破仑没有征服法国，购买路易斯安那，就不会有印第安人迁移法案，也不会有美国内战吗？
Is Napoleon therefore responsible for the collapse of the Native American civilizations?”
因此，拿破仑对美洲原住民文明的崩溃负有责任吗？”
I think not, although your reader has obviously got an alt history book right there, in which that would be true.
我认为不是，尽管你的读者显然已经有一本另类历史书，其中那是真的。
Disease emptied these areas in the 1780s.
1780 年代，疾病使这些地区空无一人。
There’s a wonderful book by Elizabeth Fenn, called Pox Americana, which is about this enormous smallpox epidemic.
伊丽莎白·芬恩（Elizabeth Fenn）写了一本精彩的书，名为《美洲痘》（Pox Americana），讲述了这种巨大的天花流行病。
She also wrote a book about the Mandan that came out recently that talks about it as well.
她还写了一本关于曼丹的书，最近出版，其中也谈到了这一点。
So the native groups were just smashed by this disease.
所以土著群体就被这种疾病摧毁了。
It seems to have been maybe 40 percent, maybe even 50 percent mortality rates.
死亡率似乎可能是 40%，甚至可能是 50%。
Very difficult for societies to recover from that, and I think that people would have just moved in.
社会很难从中恢复过来，我认为人们会刚刚搬进来。
It is possible that Andrew Jackson didn’t have to be such a jerk.
安德鲁·杰克逊可能不必是这样一个混蛋。
I’m working now with a project with the Choctaw, who are in Oklahoma and used to be in Mississippi, and they certainly remember.
我现在正在与乔克托人合作一个项目，他们在俄克拉荷马州，曾经在密西西比州，他们当然记得。
They allied with him in 1812 and were partially responsible for his great victories in 1812, which led him to the presidency.
他们于 1812 年与他结盟，并对他在 1812 年取得的伟大胜利负有部分责任，这些胜利使他登上了总统宝座。
So, they feel like he directly and personally stabbed them in the back.
所以，他们感觉他是直接在背后捅了他们一刀。
In fact, when they said they’re taking him off the $20 bill, there was great rejoicing in Choctaw country.
事实上，当他们说要把他从 20 美元钞票上去掉时，乔克托国家一片欢腾。
COWEN: Now, as you well know, there’s huge literature on how Cortez and the Spaniards managed to conquer the Aztec Triple Alliance.
考恩：现在，正如你所知，有大量关于科尔特斯和西班牙人如何征服阿兹特克三国联盟的文献。
For me, it’s one of mankind’s most remarkable but also tragic stories.
对我来说，这是人类最非凡但也是最悲惨的故事之一。
But in the whole set of explanations, what do you think is the underrated factor in how so few people managed to take over such a mighty, and in many ways highly advanced, civilization?
但在整套解释中，你认为为何如此少的人能够接管如此强大且在许多方面高度先进的文明，被低估的因素是什么？
Well, it wasn’t so few.
嗯，数量并不少。
What I think is the underrated factor is that Cortez was much less a military genius than he was a political genius.
我认为被低估的因素是，科尔特斯与其说是军事天才，不如说是政治天才。
He was quite a remarkable politician, really deft.
他是一位非常出色的政治家，非常狡猾。
And what he did is .
而他所做的是。
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。
.
。
The Aztecs were an empire, the Triple Alliance, and they were not nice people.
阿兹特克人是一个帝国，三国联盟，他们不是好人。
They were rough customers.
他们是粗鲁的顾客。
And there was a lot of people whom they had subjugated, and people whom they were warring on who really detested them.
他们征服了很多人，也有很多与他们交战的人真正憎恨他们。
And Cortez was able to knit them together into an enormous army, lead that army in there, have all these people do all that, and then hijack the result.
科尔特斯能够将他们编织成一支庞大的军队，领导这支军队，让所有这些人都做这一切，然后劫持结果。
This is an act of political genius worthy of Napoleon.
这是堪比拿破仑的政治天才之举。
Actually, Napoleon did sort of the same thing: He hijacked the French Revolution and put himself into power.
事实上，拿破仑也做了同样的事情：他劫持了法国大革命并掌权。
Okay, Cortez is Napoleon.
好吧，科尔特斯就是拿破仑。
The Aztecs were an empire, and they were not nice people.
阿兹特克人是一个帝国，但他们并不是好人。
They were rough customers.
他们是粗鲁的顾客。
And there was a lot of people whom they had subjugated, and people whom they were warring on who really detested them.
他们征服了很多人，也有很多与他们交战的人真正憎恨他们。
And Cortez was able to knit them together into an enormous army, lead that army in there, have all these people do all that, and then hijack the result.
科尔特斯能够将他们编织成一支庞大的军队，领导这支军队，让所有这些人都做这一切，然后劫持结果。
This is an act of political genius worthy of Napoleon.
这是堪比拿破仑的政治天才之举。
Here’s a very general question I’ve wrestled with over the years.
这是我多年来一直在思考的一个非常普遍的问题。
If I travel to most parts of Asia, I actually feel really very safe, even late at night.
如果我去亚洲大部分地区旅行，我实际上感觉非常安全，即使是在深夜。
When I travel in the New World, it depends where I am, but very often, I don’t feel entirely safe.
当我在新世界旅行时，这取决于我在哪里，但很多时候，我感觉并不完全安全。
And if you look at murder rates, crime rates, it does seem, on average, many parts of the New World are quite a bit more violent than many parts of Asia.
如果你看看谋杀率和犯罪率，平均而言，新世界的许多地区似乎比亚洲的许多地区更加暴力。
What theories or what categories do you apply to help explain why the New World has evolved to be relatively so violent?
你运用什么理论或什么类别来帮助解释为什么新世界已经进化得相对如此暴力？
Not Canada, of course, but I’m sure you know what I’m talking about.
当然不是加拿大，但我相信你知道我在说什么。
How do you think about that?
您对此有何看法？
I’ve often thought about that and speculated about it because we lived in Tokyo for a year, and it’s the largest city in the world — 32 million people, and there’s no place in Tokyo .
我经常思考这个问题并推测它，因为我们在东京住了一年，它是世界上最大的城市 ——3200万人口，而东京没有地方。
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。
.
。
there’s not a bad neighborhood.
没有什么不好的邻居。
You can’t find trouble.
你找不到麻烦。
Right.
正确的。
One time I was riding on the train in Tokyo at one o’clock in the morning with a friend of mine, who was just from the United States.
有一次，凌晨一点，我和一位刚从美国来的朋友在东京乘坐火车。
He suddenly realized — we’d gone to a sake bar and had quite a bit of sake — that we were riding on the subway at one o’clock, and we were both a little unsteady on our feet, and he got alarmed, right?
他突然意识到——“我们去了一家清酒酒吧，喝了很多清酒”——“我们在一点点乘坐地铁，我们都有点站不稳，他就警觉了，对吗？”
Because this is something you wouldn’t do in many places in the United States, or certainly Mexico City or what have you.
因为在美国的许多地方，尤其是墨西哥城或其他地方，这是你不会做的事情。
And then he looked around, and he realized that every other person on the train was drunk, too.
然后他环顾四周，发现火车上的其他人也都喝醉了。
And you see these in the Cherry Blossom Festival, where everybody goes out to the parks, and everybody in Tokyo is completely plowed at eleven o’clock in the morning, and there’s no fights.
你可以在樱花节上看到这些，每个人都去公园，东京的每个人在早上十一点都完全忙碌起来，没有打架。
There’s hardly even any litter.
几乎连垃圾都没有。
It’s really remarkable.
这真的很了不起。
So, I thought, why do the Japanese do this?
所以我想，为什么日本人要这么做呢？
And to some degree, it has to do with a level of social engineering, I think, that we are really uncomfortable with.
我认为，在某种程度上，这与社会工程的水平有关，而我们对此感到非常不舒服。
If you get on the subways, you hear all the time these sort of chirpy female voices telling you something in Japanese.
如果你乘坐地铁，你总是会听到这些欢快的女声用日语告诉你一些事情。
And when I lived there, I learned enough Japanese to realize they’re always saying, “Hey, let’s not talk on our phones, it’s so rude,” or “Hey, don’t do this .
当我住在那里时，我学了足够的日语，意识到他们总是说，“嘿，我们不要用手机说话，这太粗鲁了”，或者“嘿，不要这样做……”。
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。
.”
”。
Those sort of admonishing nanny state–type things that we Americans find so irritating?
那些让我们美国人觉得如此令人恼火的保姆国家式的警告性事情？
They’re just all over the place.
它们无处不在。
And they also have a zillion cops who are just everywhere.
他们还有无数的警察，他们无处不在。
Tokyo has a huge police force.
东京拥有庞大的警察部队。
I mean, it’s a huge city, but it has a much .
我的意思是，这是一个巨大的城市，但它有很多。
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。
.
。
Police box on many corners, right?
很多角落都有警察岗亭，对吗？
Every corner they have one.
每个角落他们都有一个。
One time, because we were idiots, we didn’t understand how our new stove worked, and we caused a fire in our stove, and the police were there, I swear, within a minute.
有一次，因为我们都是白痴，我们不明白我们的新炉子是如何工作的，结果我们的炉子着火了，我发誓，警察在一分钟之内就到了。
Because the kiosks are always three blocks away from you.
因为售货亭总是距离您三个街区。
They ran over on foot and helped us put out the fire.
他们徒步跑过来帮我们扑灭了火。
When you have that degree of being watched and that degree of social control, it has some impact.
当你有一定程度的被监视和一定程度的社会控制时，它就会产生一些影响。
Unfortunately, I think this is a disquieting answer for people like me who are Americans who don’t like being supervised in this way.
不幸的是，我认为对于像我这样不喜欢以这种方式受到监督的美国人来说，这是一个令人不安的答案。
As you know, there are still many Nahuatl-speaking villages in Mexico.
如您所知，墨西哥仍有许多讲纳瓦特尔语的村庄。
Oh, yeah.
哦，是的。
Other non-Spanish languages.
其他非西班牙语语言。
Very often, a village of this kind would have 1,000 people, 2,000 people.
很多时候，这样的一个村子就有一千、两千人。
Say the Mexican government has you in to advise them — and maybe they have — and they say, “We’re looking to make some changes to improve well-being in those villages.” What would you recommend?
假设墨西哥政府请你为他们提供建议 ——也许他们已经这么做了——然后他们说：“我们正在寻求做出一些改变，以改善这些村庄的福祉。”你会推荐什么？
The big problem I think with Mexico is official corruption.
我认为墨西哥最大的问题是官员腐败。
It’s just terrible.
这太糟糕了。
I think it’s underreported if anything.
我认为如果有的话，这也被低估了。
It’s just staggering, the level of malfeasance and incompetence there, just on every level.
各个层面的渎职和无能程度都令人震惊。
Things that most governments wouldn’t even think to loot have already been looted there.
大多数政府甚至认为不会掠夺的东西已经在那里被掠夺了。
I was shocked .
我很震惊。
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。
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They have these CONASUPO and these systems for subsidizing corn, which they have in Mexico.
他们在墨西哥有这些 CONASUPO 和玉米补贴系统。
And every small village has those little shelters, those little concrete dome structures where you’re supposed to bring your corn in, and then it gets packaged and sent off to the factory.
每个小村庄都有那些小避难所，那些小的混凝土圆顶结构，你应该把玉米带进去，然后它被包装并送到工厂。
And it’s a kind of national — it’s a remnant of the ejido system.
它是一种国家的——它是 ejido 系统的残余。
When I went down to Oaxaca and I was looking at these — no, it’s Chiapas, excuse me.
当我去瓦哈卡州时，我正在看这些——不，这是恰帕斯州，对不起。
All of them had been made with defective concrete.
所有这些都是用有缺陷的混凝土建造的。
And somebody had .
有人有。
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。
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。
and they were all crumbling and falling apart, and the corn was being spoiled.
它们全都摇摇欲坠、四分五裂，玉米也都变质了。
And then you actually had to pay off the inspector.
然后你实际上必须付钱给检查员。
The corruption just permeates the thing.
腐败无处不在。
So basically, I would tell the government that if they fire pretty much everybody in the government and hired a new government, they would be better off.
所以基本上，我会告诉政府，如果他们解雇政府中的几乎所有人并聘请新政府，他们的情况会更好。
I’m joking, obviously, but .
显然我是在开玩笑，但是。
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The Mexican people are just wonderful.
墨西哥人民真是太棒了。
It’s a culture full of all these people who know how to do all this stuff.
这是一种充满了知道如何做所有这些事情的人的文化。
There are so many people in Mexico, in rural Mexico, who know how to wire their houses.
在墨西哥，在墨西哥农村，有很多人知道如何给他们的房子布线。
They know how to do the plumbing.
他们知道如何安装管道。
They know how to build with cement.
他们知道如何用水泥建造。
They come over to the United States, and they’re tremendously in demand all through the Southwest and California.
他们来到美国，整个西南部和加利福尼亚州对他们的需求量很大。
And you see these neighborhoods that are former dumps where they’re now middle-class neighborhoods, where everything is built by the people themselves.
你会看到这些以前是垃圾场的社区现在是中产阶级社区，一切都是人们自己建造的。
There’s no lack of knowledge or enterprise there.
那里并不缺乏知识或进取心。
You have to feel like what’s holding them back is the government.
你必须感觉到阻碍他们的是政府。
Where’s the best food in Mexico?
墨西哥哪里的美食最好吃？
I’m just a Oaxaca fan, so .
我只是瓦哈卡球迷，所以。
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。
Oaxaca?
瓦哈卡？
Yeah.
是的。
The city or the surrounding countryside and villages?
城市还是周边的乡村？
They’re different.
他们是不同的。
They’re different.
他们是不同的。
Boy, the city is the place where I’ve had the best food, but also some of it’s pretty touristy.
天哪，这座城市是我吃过最好吃的食物的地方，但也有一些是旅游胜地。
I like the suburbs of Oaxaca the best.
我最喜欢瓦哈卡州的郊区。
Yeah, yeah.
是啊是啊。
I think, actually, the immediate suburbs.
我认为，实际上，是近郊。
Yes, exactly.
是的，完全正确。
Yes, Yes, that’s where .
是的，是的，就是那里。
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。
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Oaxaca’s a bit spoiled at this point.
瓦哈卡现在有点被宠坏了。
Yeah.
是的。
Yeah.
是的。
On why the Amazon basin has been neglected
为什么亚马逊盆地被忽视
How much early civilization was there in the Amazon basin?
亚马逊河流域有多少早期文明？
And why has this topic been neglected for so long?
为什么这个话题这么长时间都被忽视了？
It appears there was much more than previously thought, and it was neglected for a variety of reasons.
看起来比以前想象的要多得多，但由于各种原因被忽视了。
One was, there was this longstanding belief that tropical forests simply couldn’t sustain complex civilizations.
一是，人们长期以来一直相信热带森林根本无法维持复杂的文明。
That began well in the 19th century with this whole idea that they’re too hot and people can’t do things in hot areas, and they’re too wet, and moved on with the idea that they don’t have stone.
这一切早在 19 世纪就开始了，当时人们认为那里太热了，人们无法在炎热的地区做事，而且那里太湿了，然后又认为他们没有石头。
And then, gotta give it an ecological gloss, largely by Betty Meggers and her late husband.
然后，必须给它一个生态的光泽，主要是贝蒂·梅格斯和她已故的丈夫。
And there was this whole idea that the soil is too poor and that people were incapable of overcoming this limitation.
人们普遍认为土壤太贫瘠，人们无法克服这一限制。
And so, consequently, you could not develop the tropical forest.
因此，你无法开发热带森林。
This was then embraced by environmental groups who wanted to preserve the tropical forests as a reason to do it, that you’re just going to wreck it.
然后，这一点受到了想要保护热带森林的环保组织的欢迎，他们认为这样做只会破坏它。
So there was a tremendous prejudice against it.
因此，人们对它抱有极大的偏见。
It was only really in the ’90s, when mainly Brazilian archeologists, but also some Americans, started looking, that they discovered every place that people have really seriously looked, they found much more than previously thought.
直到上世纪九十年代，主要是巴西考古学家，还有一些美国人，才开始寻找，他们发现了人们真正认真寻找过的每一个地方，他们发现的东西比以前想象的要多得多。
The work of Michael Heckenberger on the Xingu is the most famous one, where he’s found these network cities that are very reminiscent .
Michael Heckenberger 在 Xingu 上的作品是最著名的，他在那里发现了这些非常令人怀念的网络城市。
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Do you know Garden Cities of Tomorrow?
你知道明天的花园城市吗？
Yes.
是的。
Yes.
是的。
They’re quite reminiscent of those cities.
它们很让人想起那些城市。
In terms of complexity or living standards, what would you compare it to, say, from history?
就复杂性或生活水平而言，您会将其与历史中的什么进行比较？
Do you have a broad sense?
你有广泛的认识吗？
Well, it’s easy to live there.
嗯，住在那里很方便。
So in terms of living standards, they were doing great.
所以就生活水平而言，他们做得很好。
I mean, the environment is incredibly rich.
我的意思是，环境非常丰富。
Sure, for food.
当然，为了食物。
You don’t get that much meat, but food and water is fantastic.
你得不到那么多肉，但食物和水却很棒。
That was not a given in lots of places.
这在很多地方都不是理所当然的。
But in terms of material technology, it’s really unclear.
但在材料技术方面，还真不清楚。
They had no stone or metal; it just wasn’t available.
他们没有石头或金属；它只是不可用。
And so it’s unclear how much you need stone or metal to have enduring technological enterprises.
因此，尚不清楚需要多少石头或金属才能拥有持久的科技企业。
For instance, you can do a lot with rubber and these kinds of things, but they vanish.
例如，你可以用橡胶和类似的东西做很多事情，但它们会消失。
To really ascertain how much they had, it’s going to require some very sophisticated archaeological work.
要真正确定他们拥有多少，需要进行一些非常复杂的考古工作。
On agriculture
关于农业
There’s a wave of revisionist accounts suggesting that, in some ways, the invention of agriculture may have been, if not a mistake, at least bad for humanity for many, many centuries and that we’ve been underrating the lives of hunter-gatherers.
有一股修正主义的说法表明，在某些方面，农业的发明即使不是一个错误，至少在许多世纪以来对人类来说是有害的，而且我们一直低估了狩猎采集者的生活。
This isn’t anymore a new argument, and there’s much earlier versions, say, from Rousseau.
这不再是一个新的论点，而且有很多早期的版本，比如卢梭的观点。
But what’s your take on the whole debate of agricultural existence versus hunter-gatherers relative to other people?
但是，您对农业生存与狩猎采集者相对于其他人的整个争论有何看法？
Where do you stand on that question?
对于这个问题你持什么立场？
Agriculture is what allowed us to build up a surplus.
农业使我们能够积累盈余。
A surplus is what allowed people to specialize.
盈余使人们能够专业化。
It’s good for us, right?
这对我们有好处，对吗？
Yeah, it’s good for us.
是的，这对我们有好处。
Clearly.
清楚地。
It’s clearly good for us.
这显然对我们有好处。
But the overall comparison: A society moves to agriculture; 300 years later, is it better for them?
但总体比较：社会转向农业； 300年后，他们的处境会更好吗？
Well, if you listen to James C.
好吧，如果你听 James C.
Scott, no!
斯科特，不！
Right?
正确的？
Yes.
是的。
I think he underrates the potential for being awful outside of those states’ societies.
我认为他低估了在这些州社会之外变得糟糕的可能性。
I suspect that each of them was awful in their own way.
我怀疑他们每个人都有自己的可怕之处。
And yes, you certainly had more freedom of action in those nonstate societies.
是的，在那些非国家社会中你当然有更多的行动自由。
And that was particularly true .
事实尤其如此。
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You’ll notice in his book, Against the Grain, he carefully excludes tropical forests and other environments.
你会注意到在他的书《反对谷物》中，他小心翼翼地排除了热带森林和其他环境。
He’s really talking about grain civilizations.
他真正谈论的是谷物文明。
And so, the answer for them is, yeah, it was tough.
所以，他们的答案是，是的，这很艰难。
I don’t think that was true for tropical forests in Africa and Asia and South America.
我认为非洲、亚洲和南美洲的热带森林并非如此。
And it may not even have been true in places like Peru.
甚至在秘鲁这样的地方也可能不是这样。
Most archeologists think that it was plentiful there.
大多数考古学家认为那里有丰富的东西。
There was so much fish, that you could be in a state and you really didn’t have to work that hard.
鱼太多了，你可以处于一种状态，你真的不需要那么努力。
It’s only when you get to the Inca and those kind of people that you start getting these sort of totalitarian enterprises.
只有当你接触到印加人和那些人时，你才会开始接触到这类极权主义企业。
On what pain relievers he uses
他使用什么止痛药
Now a much earlier Charles C.
现在是更早的 Charles C.
Mann wrote a book, coauthored a book called The Aspirin Wars, and a reader writes to me the following question, quote: “Maybe simply ask him what pain reliever he uses, and ask what he has to say about the FDA’s delays in addressing known health risks of high doses of Tylenol combined with alcohol.” You’re free to pass, but if you would care to address this?
曼恩写了一本书，与人合着了一本名为《阿司匹林战争》的书，一位读者写信给我提出了以下问题，引用：“也许只是问他使用什么止痛药，并询问他对 FDA 迟迟未能解决高剂量泰诺与酒精混合使用的已知健康风险有何看法。”你可以通过，但你愿意解决这个问题吗？
Well, I take aspirin for my heart.
好吧，我服用阿司匹林来治疗我的心脏。
I have been instructed to do this by my doctor, so I take a baby aspirin.
我的医生指示我这样做，所以我服用了一片婴儿阿司匹林。
And we typically have ibuprofen around the house because my daughter takes it for the reasons that women especially take ibuprofen for period pain.
我们家里通常都有布洛芬，因为我女儿服用它是因为女性特别服用布洛芬来治疗经期疼痛。
So I do that by default.
所以我默认这样做。
They all work pretty much the same for me.
它们对我来说几乎都是一样的。
What’s happening with the delay in that is that the FDA has lost any power other than to delay.
拖延的结果是 FDA 除了拖延之外失去了任何权力。
There’s a whole complex of reasons why some of the drugs and things that they’re asked to regulate are enormously complicated.
有很多复杂的原因导致他们被要求监管的一些药物和事物变得极其复杂。
They’re very, very short-staffed, they’re underfunded, they’re under considerable political pressure.
他们人手非常非常短缺，资金不足，承受着相当大的政治压力。
It’s sort of a good idea that needs to be shaken out and rethought, I think.
我认为这是一个好主意，需要重新思考。
And overall, how efficient are aspirin markets today?
总体而言，当今阿司匹林市场的效率如何？
I just don’t know the answer to that question now because it’s been a while since I’ve looked at them.
我现在只是不知道这个问题的答案，因为我已经有一段时间没有看过它们了。
But in the 1990s, what was your argument?
但在 20 世纪 90 年代，你的论点是什么？
Well, you’re dealing with pure capitalism.
好吧，你面对的是纯粹的资本主义。
You’re dealing with products that for most people can’t really distinguish them.
对于大多数人来说，您正在处理的产品无法真正区分它们。
And so they’re kind of an exemplar of the power of marketing.
所以它们是营销力量的典范。
I don’t know if that counts as efficient or not.
我不知道这算不算有效。
On the Charles C.
关于查尔斯·C.
Mann production function
曼生产函数
There’s a question I like to ask many of our guests.
我想问我们的许多客人一个问题。
You don’t work from inside the traditional academy.
你不是在传统学院内部工作。
You don’t have tenure.
你没有终身职位。
You don’t have an overwhelmingly single academic specialization, but yet you’re remarkably productive.
你没有绝对单一的学术专业，但你却非常高效。
Your works are, in scholarly circles, very highly respected.
您的作品在学术界备受推崇。
Hardly anyone, if anyone, knows more about the history of the New World than you do, as illustrated in your books, 1491 and 1493.
几乎没有人（如果有的话）比您更了解新世界的历史，正如您在 1491 年和 1493 年的书中所阐述的那样。
The breadth and also depth of your knowledge of the environment and history of environmental movements in your new book, The Wizard and the Prophet, again seems virtually without parallel.
您在新书《巫师与先知》中对环境和环境运动历史的了解的广度和深度似乎又是无与伦比的。
So I would ask, what is the Charles C.
所以我想问，什么是 Charles C.
Mann production function?
曼生产函数？
How do you get this stuff done?
你如何完成这些事情？
What is it you know about being productive in your path?
关于在你的道路上保持高效，你知道什么？
I’m not saying you would tell other people to do exactly what you did, but what’s your insight into how you’ve become Charles C.
我并不是说你会告诉其他人完全按照你所做的去做，而是你对如何成为 Charles C.
Mann?
曼？
What’s your production function?
你的生产函数是什么？
What’s the secret?
秘诀是什么？
Well, I don’t go to meetings.
嗯，我不去参加会议。
And unfortunately, academia is replete with meetings.
不幸的是，学术界充满了会议。
One of the reasons for living in Amherst is that they don’t request me to come and talk to people.
住在阿默斯特的原因之一是他们不要求我来和人们交谈。
So there’s a huge amount of the overhead of, say, an academic job, that I’m very lucky not to have to do.
因此，比如说学术工作，有大量的开销，我很幸运不用做这些工作。
The other thing is that, because I live near a university, I’m able to use the University of Massachusetts Library.
另一件事是，因为我住在大学附近，所以我可以使用马萨诸塞大学图书馆。
And there’s a bunch of colleges and universities around here, good libraries, a wonderful thing, and they’re kind enough to let me use it even though I’m like a parasite.
这里有很多学院和大学，有很好的图书馆，这是一件很棒的事情，他们很友善地让我使用它，即使我像寄生虫一样。
The second thing is the wonderful tradition of scholars in which, if somebody with a plausible interest in what they’re doing calls them up or writes to them, nine times out of ten, they’re very happy to talk to you about what they’re interested in.
第二件事是学者们的美好传统，在这种传统中，如果有人对他们正在做的事情感兴趣，给他们打电话或写信给他们，十分之九，他们很乐意与你谈论他们感兴趣的事情。
I can’t tell you how grateful I am to this tradition.
我无法告诉你我对这个传统有多么感激。
People will talk to me for hours; it gains them nothing.
人们会跟我聊上几个小时；这对他们一无所获。
I try to make it pleasant for them, but frankly, it’s sort of nuts, but they’re willing to do this.
我尽力让他们感到愉快，但坦率地说，这有点疯狂，但他们愿意这样做。
Then the third thing is that I am able to sit down and read a lot of stuff, and my secret weapon is that I can read.
第三件事是我能够坐下来阅读很多东西，我的秘密武器就是我会阅读。
That you can read, you can read quickly perhaps?
你能读，也许你能读得很快？
I can read fairly quickly, and I’m not afraid of numbers.
我的阅读速度相当快，而且我不害怕数字。
An awful lot of journalists aren’t afforded the pleasure, or time or whatever, to read, and an even larger percentage of them are much more scared about numbers than they should be.
大量记者没有享受阅读的乐趣、时间或其他什么，而且他们中更大比例的人对数字的恐惧超出了他们应有的程度。
I was always raised by my father that if you stare at something long enough and ask enough questions, you can always figure out the gist of it.
我父亲总是教育我，如果你凝视某件事足够长的时间并提出足够多的问题，你总能弄清楚它的要点。
I can read fairly quickly, and I’m not afraid of numbers.
我的阅读速度相当快，而且我不害怕数字。
An awful lot of journalists aren’t afforded the pleasure, or time or whatever, to read, and an even larger percentage of them are much more scared about numbers than they should be.
大量记者没有享受阅读的乐趣、时间或其他什么，而且他们中更大比例的人对数字的恐惧超出了他们应有的程度。
I was always raised by my father that if you stare at something long enough and ask enough questions, you can always figure out the gist of it.
我父亲总是教育我，如果你凝视某件事足够长的时间并提出足够多的问题，你总能弄清楚它的要点。
And how do you organize your workday then?
那么你如何安排你的工作日呢？
I’m a night person, for whatever reason.
无论出于什么原因，我都是一个夜猫子。
Your work night.
你的工作之夜。
Yeah.
是的。
I typically spend the morning dealing with correspondence and the sort of overhead of the modern electronic era.
我通常会花一上午的时间处理信件和现代电子时代的日常开支。
And then I am able to work from, say, 1:00 to 5:00.
然后我就可以从 1:00 到 5:00 工作。
Then I cook dinner for the family with my wife, and then I work late at night.
然后我和妻子一起为家人做饭，然后工作到深夜。
And living in the countryside with few distractions has been very good for me.
生活在乡村，没有什么干扰，对我来说非常好。
Just to recap, the subtitle of Charles C.
回顾一下，Charles C. 的副标题
Mann’s book is Two Remarkable Scientists and Their Dueling Visions to Shape Tomorrow’s World.
曼恩的书是《两位杰出的科学家及其塑造明天世界的决斗愿景》。
Those two scientists are Norman Borlaug and William Vogt, environmental optimists and pessimists, respectively.
这两位科学家分别是诺曼·博洛格和威廉·沃格特，他们分别是环境乐观主义者和悲观主义者。
The title is The Wizard and the Prophet.
标题是《巫师与先知》。
I love this book.
我喜欢这本书。
I encourage you all to read it.
我鼓励大家阅读它。
And I thank you, Charles, for coming and joining us today.
查尔斯，我感谢你今天来到我们这里。
Oh, it was totally my pleasure.
哦，这完全是我的荣幸。