Nassim Nicholas Taleb and Bryan Caplan on What’s Missing in Education (BONUS)
This transcript has been lightly edited for clarity.
为了清晰起见，本文字记录经过了轻微编辑。
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如果您发现错误，请给我们发送电子邮件。
We now welcome to the stage, Bryan Caplan of our own George Mason University.
现在我们欢迎乔治梅森大学的布莱恩·卡普兰登上舞台。
Bryan and Nassim Nicholas Taleb will converse.
布莱恩和纳西姆·尼古拉斯·塔勒布将进行交谈。
I simply will open it up by handing it over to Bryan to start.
我只需将其交给 Bryan 来打开它即可。
Bryan?
布莱恩？
Thanks a lot.
多谢。
Actually, this whole event started with two tweets by Taleb.
事实上，整个事件是从塔勒布的两条推文开始的。
The first tweet begins very promisingly: “Excellent argument by Bryan Caplan.”
第一条推文的开头非常有希望：“布莱恩·卡普兰的论点非常出色。”
And then, “But missed something central — convexity of trial-and-error & heuristic learning.
然后，“但是错过了一些核心的东西——试错和启发式学习的凸性。
I sort of wrote Antifragile using Kealy’s argument & transcending it.
我使用基利的论点写了《反脆弱》，并超越了它。
Would love a diskushshun/debate @tylercowen.”
会喜欢diskushshun/辩论@tylercowen。”
When I said I’d be happy to do this and I was willing to go to New York, then Nassim wrote back, second tweet, “I will go to DC if you agree to read Antifragile, including the appendix.”
当我说我很乐意这样做并且我愿意去纽约时，纳西姆回复了第二条推文，“如果你同意阅读《反脆弱》，包括附录，我会去华盛顿。”
Per our agreement, I have read Antifragile, including the appendix, and now I can see several possible central things I missed.
根据我们的协议，我已经阅读了《反脆弱》，包括附录，现在我可以看到我错过的几个可能的核心内容。
Since I’ve actually got you here, what specifically did you have in mind?
既然我真的把你带到这里，你具体有什么想法呢？
The first thing I wanted to discuss was something I called the “green lumber fallacy.” Let me describe it.
我想讨论的第一件事是我所说的“绿色木材谬论”。让我描述一下。
There’s a book called What I Learned Losing A Million Dollars, which, in fact, is the only book, I think, that’s not charlatanic within finance, telling you how not to lose money, because it’s much more robust than how to make money.
有一本叫做《我从损失一百万美元中学到的东西》的书，事实上，我认为，这是唯一一本在金融领域不是江湖骗子的书，它告诉你如何不赔钱，因为它比如何赚钱更稳健。
The fellow who wrote the book was trading in the green lumber, and he knew everything about green lumber, how it was made, the chemistry, the weather pattern, everything.
写这本书的人从事生木材贸易，他了解有关生木材的一切，包括它的制造方法、化学成分、天气模式，一切。
There was that fellow in the pit, an old fellow, who was very rich, who made his money trading the green lumber, called Jeremy Siegel, Joey Siegel, or something like that.
矿坑里有一个非常富有的老家伙，靠买卖绿色木材赚钱，他的名字叫杰里米·西格尔、乔伊·西格尔，或者类似的名字。
One day the manager who’d lost all his money, that fellow, it was discovered, didn’t know that green lumber was not lumber painted green.
有一天，经理失去了所有的钱，人们发现，那个家伙不知道绿色木材不是漆成绿色的木材。
It was freshly cut lumber.
这是刚砍伐的木材。
The lesson that, from the outside, it’s not that the fellow, Siegel knew nothing about lumber.
这个教训是，从外部来看，西格尔这个家伙并不是对木材一无所知。
He knew a lot of stuff, but not the stuff you’re naively inclined to know.
他知道很多东西，但不是你天真地想知道的东西。
That’s the green lumber fallacy.
这就是绿色木材谬误。
That’s the first thing in Antifragile, I remember dealing because I was a trader, or was .
这是《反脆弱》中的第一件事，我记得交易是因为我是一名交易员，或者说曾经是。
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Is that something I missed?
这是我错过的吗？
Yeah, because the point is that there are hidden secrets within a profession that can only be discovered within a profession, not outside the profession.
是的，因为重点是，职业内部隐藏着一些秘密，这些秘密只能在职业内部发现，而在职业之外却无法发现。
The second one is the convexity argument.
第二个是凸性论证。
In real life, we operate not by top-down knowledge, but by trial and error and try to solve this thought experiment.
在现实生活中，我们不是通过自上而下的知识来操作，而是通过反复试验来解决这个思想实验。
Thought experiment is if you went and rounded up every single chemist in town, on one hand, and the other part would be to round up every single overweight person you can find who wears a jacket, or is sort of well-dressed.
思想实验是，一方面，你去围捕镇上的每一位化学家，另一方面，围捕你能找到的每一个穿着夹克或穿着得体的超重人士。
We have two groups of people, and then you want to engineer the best possible recipe.
我们有两组人，然后你想设计出最好的配方。
What’s your favorite dish?
你最喜欢的菜是什么？
Fettuccine Alfredo.
阿尔弗雷多宽面条。
Very good, Alfredo.
非常好，阿尔弗雷多。
The chemists will have to work out the equations.
化学家必须计算出方程式。
We’ve got so many chemists here, NIH and all that stuff.
我们这里有很多化学家、国立卫生研究院和所有这些东西。
Boy, you’ve got a lot of chemists.
男孩，你有很多化学家。
You’ve got 500, 600 chemists working on equations all week.
每周都有 500、600 名化学家在研究方程式。
The other people, the fat, well-dressed people, will do the following.
其他人，那些肥胖、衣着考究的人，会做以下事情。
You take an existing recipe, you randomize.
你采用现有的食谱，然后随机化。
You add something to the recipe.
你在食谱中添加一些东西。
If you have an improvement, you keep your action up.
如果你有进步，你就继续行动。
If you have a bigger degradation, you just give the food to the chemists, who won’t notice the difference.
如果降解程度更大，你只需将食物交给化学家，他们不会注意到差异。
On one hand, you’ve got to ratchet up by convex trial and error because the errors don’t cost you anything.
一方面，你必须通过凸性试验和错误来逐步提高，因为这些错误不会让你付出任何代价。
It’s like an option.
这就像一个选择。
You have optionality on what to keep or not to keep.
您可以选择保留或不保留什么。
The other one is a top-down thing.
另一个是自上而下的事情。
The difference between them is optionality, when we guess: Who’s going to win?
它们之间的区别在于当我们猜测时的选择性：谁会赢？
Who’s going get you a better fettuccine at the end of the day?
谁会在一天结束时为您提供更好的意大利宽面条？
I feel pretty good because that’s close to my first guess about what you had in mind.
我感觉很好，因为这很接近我对你的想法的第一次猜测。
Exactly.
确切地。
Optionality, yes.
选择性，是的。
Yes, my first guess was actually you agree the traditional academic curriculum isn’t very useful, and learning by doing is, which are two things I said.
是的，我的第一个猜测实际上是你同意传统的学术课程不是很有用，而边做边学很有用，这是我所说的两件事。
Then I missed the chance to explain why learning by doing works so well.
然后我错过了解释为什么边做边学如此有效的机会。
That sounds .
听起来。
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I’m not blaming your evidence.
我并不是责怪你的证据。
You use your argument for society to improve by maybe changing the way we teach people and also put some historical background, since we have Tyler here, put some Greco-Roman stuff .
你用你的论点来改善社会，也许可以改变我们教人的方式，并添加一些历史背景，因为我们有泰勒在这里，添加一些希腊罗马的东西。
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You know the Romans despised theory, and the Greeks despised practice, which is why The Black Swan is dedicated to Mandelbrot, a Greek among Romans, and the next one is dedicated to Ron Paul, a Roman among Greeks.
你知道罗马人鄙视理论，希腊人鄙视实践，这就是为什么《黑天鹅》献给曼德尔布罗特，一个罗马人中的希腊人，下一部献给罗恩·保罗，一个希腊人中的罗马人。
Understanding that the engine behind everything is convexity, the chapter, or the comment I made, was I’d rather be antifragile than smart.
理解一切背后的引擎是凸性，这一章，或者我所做的评论，是我宁愿反脆弱，也不愿聪明。
You can model it, and I did the Monte Carlo by showing the population of people who actually are stupid but not very stupid.
你可以对其进行建模，我通过展示实际上很愚蠢但不是很愚蠢的人的人口来进行蒙特卡罗。
But they do a lot of trial and error.
但他们做了很多尝试和错误。
And people who are very smart, like the chemists, but they can’t do a lot of trial and error.
非常聪明的人，比如化学家，但他们无法进行大量的试验和错误。
They have the intelligence to realize what they’ve got is slightly better than the previous day.
他们有足够的智慧意识到自己所得到的比前一天稍好一些。
Far ahead, you need 1,000 IQ points to match someone who will aggressively go trial and error.
遥遥领先，你需要 1,000 IQ 点才能匹配一个积极尝试和犯错的人。
That was the idea, teaching people that it’s impossible unless you have practice.
这就是这个想法，告诉人们除非你有练习，否则这是不可能的。
The route I was suggesting, education, is you send people, you make people work as nurses and then they go to medical school.
我建议的教育途径是派人去当护士，然后他们去医学院。
Effectively, I spoke to a lot of doctors, and they think it’s a good idea because they’re afraid of medicine being now too theorized, becoming too theorized.
实际上，我和很多医生交谈过，他们认为这是一个好主意，因为他们担心医学现在过于理论化，变得过于理论化。
You make people run a local racketeering shop or a casino or something like that, for seven-eight years and then you go study economics.
你让人们经营当地的敲诈勒索商店或赌场或类似的东西，七八年，然后你去学习经济学。
We’re living longer, so this idea of front-loading education makes no sense.
我们的寿命越来越长，所以这种提前教育的想法毫无意义。
There are plenty of countries where you don’t have to get an undergraduate degree to go to medical school.
在很多国家，您不必获得本科学位即可上医学院。
In the US, first you do an undergraduate degree, then you go to medical school.
在美国，首先你获得本科学位，然后你去医学院。
Like you were saying, better to be a practitioner for four years and then maybe go to medical school, and just skipping undergraduate.
就像你说的，最好当四年的从业者，然后也许去医学院，然后跳过本科。
Not skipping undergraduate.
不跳本科。
Start undergraduate later in life, age 30.
晚年开始读本科，30岁。
Think about that model.
想想那个模型。
I know because I started trading .
我知道，因为我开始交易。
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I had no idea.
我不知道。
First of all, I didn’t like school.
首先，我不喜欢上学。
I liked to read books.
我喜欢读书。
I was at these schools, and it was boring for me.
我在这些学校上学，这对我来说很无聊。
I started trading and then discovered math.
我开始交易，然后发现了数学。
I said, “Oh, this is interesting.” I started discovering math, so I got immersed into math, and 15 years later, I went back to school.
我说：“哦，这很有趣。”我开始发现数学，所以我沉浸在数学中，15年后，我回到了学校。
I went back to try to do math and effectively doing those classes.
我回去尝试做数学并有效地完成这些课程。
I did my thesis and that was it.
我完成了我的论文，仅此而已。
But the idea — I started writing papers — the idea of having to start by theory and ending up with practice doesn’t work.
但这种“我开始写论文”的想法是行不通的。
You should try practice, then theory.
你应该先尝试实践，然后再尝试理论。
What do you think about people who make the following argument?
您对提出以下论点的人有何看法？
Only you can decide whether it’s a true black swan argument, but people might put it forward as their version of the black swan argument.
只有你可以决定这是否是真正的黑天鹅论，但人们可能会将其作为他们的黑天鹅论版本提出。
I’ve heard a lot of people say, “Well, sure, virtually all these subjects that you’re learning in school are useless, but there are positive black swans.
我听到很多人说：“好吧，当然，实际上你在学校学习的所有这些科目都是无用的，但也有积极的黑天鹅。
Once in your life, an academic subject that you study is going to turn out to be absolutely crucial.”
在你的一生中，你所学习的一门学科将变得绝对至关重要。”
One example of this — there was a guy who said, “Well, look, actually French was really important.
有一个例子 —— 有一个人说：“嗯，你看，实际上法语真的很重要。
It was totally worth the time because one time I was at Charles De Gaulle Airport, and if I hadn’t spoken French, I would have missed my flight.” Should you spend three years studying French to avoid one missed flight?
这完全值得花时间，因为有一次我在戴高乐机场，如果我不会说法语，我就会错过航班。”你应该花三年时间学习法语以避免错过一趟航班吗？
That seems like a pretty .
这看起来很漂亮。
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It is, yeah.
是的，是的。
Anyway, you can imagine someone, giving something like that, saying, “Sure, almost all the subjects are no good, but you’re going to get one positive black swan out of your whole education.
不管怎样，你可以想象有人给出类似的话，说：“当然，几乎所有科目都不好，但你将从你的整个教育中得到一只积极的黑天鹅。
That alone makes it worth all that effort.”
仅此一点就值得所有的努力。”
No. The counterargument’s vastly more important, you’re spending how many hundreds of hours studying something you’re not going to remember later, or you can spend that time learning a craft like, I don’t know, how to break into safes.
不。反驳更重要，你花了数百个小时学习一些你以后不会记住的东西，或者你可以花这些时间学习一门手艺，比如我不知道如何闯入保险箱。
You can learn that in about that time, so the payoff — and plus, it tells me that the other one won’t have an equivalent amount of tail events that are positive.
你可以在大约那个时间了解到这一点，所以回报 - 而且，它告诉我另一个不会有等量的正尾部事件。
You’re ruling out that the other activities would have a theory class.
你排除了其他活动会有理论课的可能性。
The problem with education now is that it’s a business.
现在教育的问题在于它是一门生意。
Like any business, it’s a huge financial business.
与任何企业一样，它是一项庞大的金融业务。
It’s become a racket.
它变成了一个球拍。
You’re spending how many hundreds of hours studying something you’re not going to remember later, or you can spend that time learning a craft like, I don’t know, how to break into safes.
你花了数百个小时学习一些你以后不会记住的东西，或者你可以花这些时间学习一门手艺，比如我不知道如何闯入保险箱。
It’s very hard now to argue against education when we know all the empirical data — if you want to have a few minutes to explain it, or let’s say, to convince — or have all the empirical data that at the individual level, education — and that’s how I’ve called them antifragile — education, it appears that it’s good for you because it’s a great way to transmit wealth to a generation, because your children are certain to stay in middle class if you educate them.
当我们知道所有的经验数据时，现在就很难反对教育了——如果你想花几分钟来解释它，或者比方说，说服你——或者拥有个人层面上的所有经验数据，教育——这就是我所说的反脆弱性——教育，它似乎对你有好处，因为它是将财富转移给一个人的好方法。因为如果你教育你的孩子，他们肯定会留在中产阶级。
It’s a great way, but at the level of a country, it doesn’t seem to work.
这是一个很好的办法，但在国家层面上，似乎行不通。
In fact, it’s the reverse kind of thing.
事实上，这是相反的事情。
Alison Wolf’s data.
艾莉森·沃尔夫的数据。
Even more interesting that people think that by educating people they’re actually transmitting knowledge instead of technique because of places like Germany and Switzerland.
更有趣的是，由于德国和瑞士等地，人们认为通过教育人们实际上是在传播知识而不是技术。
These places had a very low level of formal education and a huge amount of apprenticeship, and a huge amount of built-in.
这些地方的正规教育水平非常低，学徒数量巨大，内置数量巨大。
I was with Alison Wolf at a party.
我和艾莉森·沃尔夫一起参加一个聚会。
We’re saying that education didn’t work.
我们说教育没有起到作用。
I was talking to her.
我正在和她说话。
I said, “What are you guys talking about?” “How education doesn’t work.” “What?
我说：“你们在说什么？” “教育怎么行不通。” “什么？
Education doesn’t work?
教育不起作用？
You mean knowledge doesn’t work?” “No. This is knowledge.”
你的意思是知识不起作用？” “不，这是知识。”
This works and the knowledge won’t be had at a cocktail party, but education in terms of something formatted to be taught in school doesn’t seem to work empirically.
这是有效的，并且知识不会在鸡尾酒会上获得，但是按照在学校教授的格式进行的教育似乎在经验上不起作用。
So that’s his argument and the one he’s presenting .
这就是他的论点，也是他所提出的论点。
Now we’re looking at either to go deeper into what’s a reason, or the other one is, what is the alternative?
现在我们正在考虑要么更深入地了解原因，要么另一个是，替代方案是什么？
The alternative, more apprenticeship visibly, how we’re going to destroy that deep state of education that tries to sell you something for a quarter-million dollars that’s worth nothing — factually, it’s negative because of the time we spend there — and why we should have effectively knowledge or education or academy but formatted for something more optional and later in life.
另一种方式，更明显的是学徒制，我们将如何摧毁那种试图以 25 万美元的价格向你出售毫无价值的东西的深层教育状态 ——事实上，它是消极的，因为我们在那里度过的时间 ——以及为什么我们应该有效地拥有知识、教育或学院，但要为以后的生活做更多选择。
What you learn in grad school is definitely something useful for you, no?
你在研究生院学到的东西绝对对你有用，不是吗？
Yeah.
是的。
What I usually tell people who say, “Look, give me a reason why school is great” is that there’s going to be something you learn there that’s going to be invaluable.
我通常会告诉那些说“听着，给我一个学校很棒的理由”的人，你在那里学到的东西将是无价的。
Say, “Look, I agree that it makes sense to expose people to a variety of subjects, but it seems like it makes a lot more sense to expose them to 10 or 20 subjects that they’re actually likely to use than 10 subjects that virtually no one on Earth uses.”
说：“看，我同意让人们接触各种主题是有意义的，但让他们接触 10 或 20 个他们实际上可能使用的主题似乎比让他们接触 10 个地球上几乎没有人使用的主题更有意义。”
Rather than saying, “Let’s make sure everyone studies poetry and art history and a foreign language in America, and everyone learns a bunch of sports.” Instead, why not make sure everyone spends a few weeks learning some plumbing, a few weeks learning some electricity, a few weeks going into learning some customer service?
而不是说，“让我们确保每个人在美国都学习诗歌、艺术史和外语，每个人都学习很多体育运动。”相反，为什么不确保每个人都花几周的时间学习一些管道、几周的时间学习一些电力、几周的时间学习一些客户服务呢？
Yeah, you do want to have a diverse menu.
是的，您确实想要一个多样化的菜单。
You don’t want to lock a 12-year-old into a career when he’s 12.
你不想让一个 12 岁的孩子在 12 岁时就被锁定在他的职业生涯中。
But it’s still far better to go expose him to a tasty menu of realistic options, rather than the tasty menu of pipe dreams, which is what seems to be education is mostly about.
但让他接触现实选择的美味菜单仍然要好得多，而不是白日梦的美味菜单，这似乎是教育的主要内容。
Then, the root of that, my feeling, in the Anglo-Saxon world is the desire — this is why they call it liberal arts education — to aristocratic ties to themselves.
那么，我的感觉，在盎格鲁-撒克逊世界中，其根源在于渴望“——这就是为什么他们称之为文科教育”——对贵族与自己之间的联系的渴望。
Again, let’s talk about the Greco-Roman world.
再次，我们来谈谈希腊罗马世界。
You had the trivium or quadrivium, absolutely nothing practical about them, the rhetoric, the grammar, some things.
你有三艺或四艺，它们绝对没有任何实用性，修辞，语法，一些东西。
The liberal education was what people learned in order to become aristocrat and idle upper class.
通识教育是人们为了成为贵族、游手好闲的上层阶级而学习的。
Then you had the real professions of becoming a baker, how to do something with wood.
然后你就有了成为一名面包师的真正职业，如何用木头做一些事情。
And the English, the upper class — of course they didn’t want to be working class, so they sent their kids to learn that stuff.
而英国人，上层阶级——当然他们不想成为工人阶级，所以他们送孩子去学习这些东西。
And this is what came to America.
这就是来到美国的。
Education is split in two.
教育一分为二。
You have technical education like law — not technical, but professional education — law, medicine, what else?
你接受的是像法律这样的技术教育 ——不是技术教育，而是职业教育 —— 法律、医学，还有什么？
Engineering and all these things, and then you have mathematics.
工程学和所有这些东西，然后就是数学。
If you look at it historically, the engineers didn’t really connect to the other ones because the Roman engineers did not use Greek geometry.
如果你回顾历史，工程师们并没有真正与其他工程师联系，因为罗马工程师没有使用希腊几何学。
We only started using Greek geometry late in life after the educational system started including mathematics for these people.
在教育系统开始为这些人提供数学课程之后，我们才开始使用希腊几何学。
Engineers built cathedrals without clear geometry.
工程师建造的大教堂没有清晰的几何形状。
It was actually more robust.
它实际上更强大。
Geometry will give you these ugly corners.
几何会给你这些丑陋的角落。
Before, we didn’t even know what the right angle is.
以前，我们甚至不知道什么是直角。
Before, it was more involved, it was rule of thumb, and it was different.
以前，它涉及更多，这是经验法则，而且有所不同。
They had the separation, segregation.
他们有分离、隔离。
So what you want to do?
那么你想做什么？
Is this liberal education that’s contaminating the rest?
这种自由教育会污染其他教育吗？
Or is it the technical that’s contaminating the expectation of what education should be like?
或者是技术因素影响了人们对教育的期望？
You say, “OK, this is the kind of thing you do like piano lessons on the weekends.” You read Homer and stuff like that.
你说：“好吧，这就像周末上钢琴课一样。”你读过荷马之类的书。
It’s important, and you become civilized.
这很重要，你就会变得文明。
Stuff you do to be civilized and be able to have dinner with the vice president of the World Bank, these are the things you do.
你做的事情是文明的，能够与世界银行副行长共进晚餐，这些都是你做的事情。
And these are the things you do to get you ahead in life.
这些都是你为了让自己在生活中取得进步而做的事情。
Your problem has been a known problem ever since you had Rome and Greece competing.
自从罗马和希腊比赛以来，你的问题就一直是一个众所周知的问题。
What do you say?
你怎么说？
My most controversial policy proposal is just less, so educational austerity, spending less on education.
我最有争议的政策建议就是少一点，所以教育紧缩，少一点教育开支。
I’ve noted that when someone says, “We need more money for education,” the reaction is normally, “Yay,” not “What specifically do you plan to spend the money on?”
我注意到，当有人说“我们需要更多的钱用于教育”时，反应通常是“是的”，而不是“你具体打算把钱花在什么地方？”
On the other hand, when I say, “Let’s spend less on education,” the normal reaction is, “Precisely what exactly do you propose to cut anyway?” Not something that a lot of people are interested in.
另一方面，当我说“让我们减少在教育上的支出”时，正常的反应是“你到底打算削减什么？”这不是很多人感兴趣的事情。
But reading through, I get the feeling that you might actually be willing to countenance a draining of the educational swamp through cutting off some of the money.
但读完之后，我有一种感觉，你可能实际上愿意通过削减一些资金来支持教育沼泽的枯竭。
You bet.
你打赌。
I went to India once, and I probably had no advice to give anyone.
我去过印度一次，我可能没有什么建议可以给任何人。
So I said, “Better to open a thousand schools than one university.” I opened, I said that.
所以我说，“开一千所学校比开一所大学更好。”我打开了，我就这么说了。
Sure enough, a year later, I see a headline, “Modi speech saying .
果然，一年后，我看到了一个标题：“莫迪演讲说。
.
。
.” Actually, I said that to Modi, to the president.
”。事实上，我对莫迪、对总统说过这句话。
The headline: “Modi saying he would rather open a thousand schools than a single university.” Then, a focus on technical .
标题是：“莫迪说他宁愿开设一千所学校，也不愿开设一所大学。”然后，重点关注技术。
.
。
.
。
What’s the problem with India?
印度有什么问题？
India has a lot of educated people who are sociologists.
印度有很多受过教育的社会学家。
Who cares?
谁在乎？
It’s nice, it’s the thing for dinner with the VP of World Bank.
很好，这是与世界银行副总裁共进晚餐的东西。
Whereas, if you want to know electricity, how to make batteries or something like that, that’s more useful.
然而，如果你想了解电、如何制造电池或类似的东西，那就更有用了。
Now, the trend is effectively to cure that problem of having theoretical education coupled with complete misery, with something in the middle, which is the technical schools.
现在的趋势是有效地解决理论教育加上完全痛苦的问题，中间有一些东西，那就是技术学校。
Your standard critique in the elementary education is that it’s also terrible.
你对基础教育的标准批评是它也很糟糕。
The teachers don’t even bother showing up, very little learning going on there.
老师们甚至懒得出现，那里的学习很少。
A normal American reaction is to say, “We need to go and get the Indian schools in order, so that teachers show up and do their job.”
美国人的正常反应是：“我们需要去整顿印度学校的秩序，以便教师能够出现并做好他们的工作。”
My reaction is more of, given this has gone on for at least decades, why don’t we cut the spending first and then say, “Maybe you can have some of the money back if you actually start doing your jobs?” Skin in the game.
我的反应更多的是，考虑到这种情况已经持续了至少几十年，为什么我们不先削减开支，然后说：“如果你真的开始做你的工作，也许你可以拿回一些钱？”游戏中的皮肤。
Better skin in the game is, teach people young, very young, spend three or four hours doing something.
更好的游戏皮肤是，教人们年轻，非常年轻，花三四个小时做某事。
How did people learn medicine in the old days?
古代人是怎样学医的？
It was a generational thing.
这是一代人的事情。
Your father was a doctor, and you walked around with your father, or maybe mother.
你的父亲是一名医生，你和你的父亲，或者也许是母亲一起走来走去。
Actually, there were a lot of women in the Levant in the health sector.
事实上，黎凡特卫生部门有很多女性。
Then you learned, and this profession stayed within the families.
然后你就学会了，这个职业就留在了家庭里。
Their secrets weren’t transmitted to the outside.
他们的秘密没有传到外面。
Which, unfortunately, we don’t have because the problem now with an education is it’s already broad and open, whereas, transmission of technical skills are worked by guilds and secrecy, like the masonry, to the point that today — the Romans had phenomenal concrete that we don’t know the recipe.
不幸的是，我们没有，因为现在教育的问题是它已经广泛和开放，而技术技能的传播是由行会和秘密进行的，就像砖石一样，以至于今天罗马人拥有我们不知道其配方的惊人混凝土。
CAPLAN: Reading your book, I feel like one thing we have in common is things that we’ve seen with our own eyes weigh heavily upon both of us.
卡普兰：读了你的书，我觉得我们有一个共同点，那就是我们亲眼所见的事情对我们俩都有沉重的负担。
To me, a lot of my extreme negativity about education actually comes not only from memory of my own education.
对我来说，我对教育的许多极端消极实际上不仅来自于我自己的教育记忆。
When I go to back-to-school nights, when I go to parent-teacher nights, I just think if you wanted to go and tell these people, “Teach your kids to go learn and do something,” would I trust these people to carry out that order?
当我去返校之夜，当我去家长教师之夜时，我只是想，如果你想去告诉这些人，“教你的孩子去学习并做一些事情”，我会相信这些人会执行这个命令吗？
My reaction is, no way.
我的反应是，没办法。
These are touchy-feely people who do not want to think about anything in terms of practical results.
这些人都是感情用事的人，不想考虑任何实际结果。
They don’t like the idea of there being a task like, “Did he learn it or not?” Instead, for so many of the teachers that I saw, it really is all about the experience.
他们不喜欢这样的任务：“他学会了吗？”相反，对于我见过的很多老师来说，真正重要的是体验。
Did you enjoy the experience?
你喜欢这次经历吗？
I’m there saying, “No, it’s not just about the experience.
我在那里说：“不，这不仅仅是体验的问题。
It’s about do you know something at the end?
这是关于你最后知道什么吗？
Can you do something?
你能做点什么吗？
Can you show me?” And don’t say that it can’t be measured.
你能展示给我看吗？并且不要说它无法测量。
If you really knew something, you could come up with a test to measure it.
如果你真的知道某件事，你可以想出一个测试来衡量它。
What do you think?
你怎么认为？
I think that the idea, again, if we go back to the ancients, when you were learning a profession, you learned a profession from the professional, so skin in the game.
我认为这个想法，如果我们回到古人，当你学习一个职业时，你从专业人士那里学到了一个职业，所以皮肤在游戏中。
I put in Skin in the Game what happens to fields where the feedback is peer reviewed, not feedback coming from reality.
我在“游戏中的皮肤”中加入了同行评审反馈的领域会发生什么，而不是来自现实的反馈。
In other words, the carpenter has feedback from his clients, or her clients, whereas a macroeconomist only has feedback from Paul Krugman, so it’s closer.
换句话说，木匠有他的客户或她的客户的反馈，而宏观经济学家只有保罗·克鲁格曼的反馈，所以它更接近。
It’s the closed system, and they can give themselves Nobels.
这是一个封闭的系统，他们可以给自己颁发诺贝尔奖。
When you want to learn something, you will learn.
当你想学某样东西时，你就会学。
This is why I have a section, where for 280 years, there was the fundamental problem with probability that it’s so obvious that Murray Gell-Mann picked it up.
这就是为什么我有一个章节，其中 280 年来，概率的根本问题是如此明显，以至于默里·盖尔曼 (Murray Gell-Mann) 发现了它。
Every trader knows what nobody in decision science or no psychologist knows because they’re not risk-takers.
每个交易者都知道决策科学界或心理学家不知道的事情，因为他们不是冒险者。
They’re not going to do reality.
他们不会做现实。
You are split into these two things.
你被分成了这两件事。
Learn from a professional who has done the stuff.
向做过这件事的专业人士学习。
If you want to learn how to become a Mafia lord, you learn from a Mafia lord.
如果你想学习如何成为黑手党领主，你就向黑手党领主学习。
You don’t go learn from Francis Ford Coppola.
你不会去向弗朗西斯·福特·科波拉学习。
You learn from the people who do it.
您可以向这样做的人学习。
In the old days, the other stuff, you’re supposed to be autodidact under a tutor who supervises what books you’re going to read.
在过去，其他的事情，你应该在导师的指导下自学成才，导师会监督你要读什么书。
There was none of this stuff from high-security prison environment that we have today.
我们今天拥有的高度安全的监狱环境中没有这些东西。
You see, that’s a liberal education, the way you have mentors and you define mentors.
你看，这就是自由教育，你拥有导师和定义导师的方式。
The English Oxford-Cambridge system still has these, where you’re self-directing your own learning.
英语牛津-剑桥体系仍然有这些，你可以在其中自我指导自己的学习。
If you apply it to high school, I think what I learned the most was from my years in high school, but not from high school.
如果应用到高中，我认为我学到最多的东西是在高中的那几年，而不是从高中。
At some point, this great idea to be a Marxist for a few hours or a Trotskyist because you make sure you read a lot of interesting books, and you go through these phases.
在某些时候，成为几个小时的马克思主义者或托洛茨基主义者是一个好主意，因为你确保你读了很多有趣的书，并且你经历了这些阶段。
Let’s see.
让我们来看看。
We have to reform education to turn people into autodidacts.
我们必须改革教育，把人们变成自学者。
Plus, there is another thing.
另外，还有一件事。
You cannot possibly trust two classes of people: educators who are better at explaining than understanding because they’re selectively better, and science journalists, who are better at communicating than understanding.
你不可能信任两类人：教育工作者更擅长解释而不是理解，因为他们选择性更好；而科学记者则更擅长沟通而不是理解。
Then, you end up with things like scientism.
然后，你最终会得到诸如科学主义之类的东西。
No self-practicing scientist would rule out skepticism and tell you that science is settled and stuff like that.
没有一个自我实践的科学家会排除怀疑主义并告诉你科学是确定的等等。
These people have a mindset that science is scientism because they don’t know enough science.
这些人有一种心态，认为科学就是科学主义，因为他们对科学了解不够。
All they know is how to communicate, and that is a problem.
他们只知道如何沟通，这是一个问题。
You’re learning.
你正在学习。
You realize that you’re not learning from someone who does science.
你意识到你不是向从事科学研究的人学习。
You’re learning from someone who transmits science.
你正在向传播科学的人学习。
I will tell you now I was lucky that I didn’t have a good math teacher when I was kid — I started zoning out — because then I would become a mathematician much earlier.
我现在告诉你，我很幸运，我小时候没有一个好的数学老师 —— 我开始走神 —— 因为那样我就会更早成为一名数学家。
But I’m self-taught in almost everything that I really like.
但我几乎在所有我真正喜欢的事情上都是自学成才的。
The teaching, the way that they teach you mathematics, is really to deter you from liking mathematics.
他们教你数学的方式，实际上是为了阻止你喜欢数学。
You probably don’t get this a lot, but when I was reading Antifragile, I often kept thinking, “My God, he’s such an optimist.
你可能不太明白这一点，但当我读《反脆弱》时，我经常想，“天啊，他真是个乐观主义者。
I can’t believe that he thinks the world works this well.”
我不敢相信他认为世界运转得这么好。”
Yeah, I’m an optimist.
是的，我是一个乐观主义者。
Yes, but this is a criticism.
是的，但这是一种批评。
When you said that you either learn from peers or reality, how about the thing that usually happens, which is that you are learning from a person who doesn’t even know the subject they are teaching?
当你说你要么向同龄人学习，要么向现实学习时，通常发生的事情怎么样，即你正在向一个甚至不知道他们所教的科目的人学习？
Which is what I see happening in so many classrooms, when I see history teachers who know less history than the better students in the class, and these are the teachers.
这就是我在很多教室里看到的情况，当我看到历史老师比班上更好的学生了解更少的历史时，这些就是老师。
I would rather that they have someone, somebody you’re talking about, someone who only knows what they know in books, but at least they know that.
我宁愿他们有一个人，你正在谈论的一个人，一个只知道书本上知识的人，但至少他们知道这一点。
I’d rather have that person teaching the class.
我宁愿让那个人来教课。
What’s happening now, more and more, in the education system is, how do you become a professor and get tenure?
现在教育系统中越来越多地发生的事情是，如何成为一名教授并获得终身教职？
By writing some kind of garbage about something.
通过写一些关于某事的垃圾。
For example, I was trying to read something the Republic of Letters on Wikipedia.
例如，我试图在维基百科上阅读有关《文学共和国》的内容。
All the commentary was about gender study.
所有的评论都是关于性别研究的。
I didn’t want the theory.
我不想要这个理论。
I wanted the facts, and you can’t get the facts.
我想要事实，而你却得不到事实。
You end up with a lot of people, in fact, today, this generation — because of the competitive environment and the closed circuit in the humanities — that basically don’t know anything about humanities.
事实上，今天，这一代人——因为竞争环境和人文学科的闭环——基本上对人文学科一无所知。
All they know is the theories du jour about this and this, and the postcolonial approach to this or that.
他们所知道的只是有关这个或这个的流行理论，以及处理这个或那个的后殖民方法。
For example, when you start arguing with people who studied about something called Middle Eastern studies — which shouldn’t exist as a discipline — they start talking about colonialism of the French.
例如，当你开始与研究中东研究的人争论时——“这不应该作为一门学科存在”——他们开始谈论法国的殖民主义。
The French spent 21-and-a-half years in the Levant as a United Nation mandate.
法国作为联合国托管地在黎凡特度过了 21 年半的时间。
Explain to me the colonialism.
给我解释一下殖民主义。
They say, “Well .
他们说：“好吧。
.
。
.” They don’t even know the basic facts because the more you have a ratio of theories and way more -isms, and stuff like that and the Marxism, so someone that’s good at Marxist interpretation of this and this in the postgender world.
”。他们甚至不知道基本事实，因为你的理论比例越多，主义、诸如此类的东西和马克思主义就越多，所以有人擅长在后性别世界中对这个和这个进行马克思主义解释。
And they don’t know the facts.
他们不知道事实。
This is why we can’t rely on these instructors to teach you the humanities — because you don’t get tenure from knowing the facts.
这就是为什么我们不能依靠这些导师来教你人文学科——因为你不会因为了解事实而获得终身教职。
You get tenure from inventing some full structural theory of baking beans and mint in Sassanid Persia.
你可以通过在萨珊波斯发明一些烘焙豆子和薄荷的完整结构理论来获得终身教职。
That’s how you get your tenure.
这就是你获得任期的方式。
These guys are ignorant.
这些家伙很无知。
Wouldn’t it be a big step up if we replaced current academics with equally highly talented academics who just have a command of facts?
如果我们用同样才华横溢、掌握事实的学者取代当前的学者，这不是一个很大的进步吗？
Yes, but how do you select for these?
是的，但是你如何选择这些呢？
Basically, in Europe, for example, they have the separation between researchers, and in France, for example, and instructors.
基本上，例如在欧洲，研究人员之间是分离的，而在法国，则是与教师之间分离的。
Instructors are supposed to know the curriculum.
教师应该了解课程。
Actually, they’re tested.
事实上，他们是经过测试的。
I assume they’re tested on a subject.
我认为他们在某个主题上进行了测试。
The people who produce papers go produce papers that nobody reads.
发表论文的人发表了没有人读的论文。
“Put your energy there, and we’re going to give you a good lifestyle and some income that’s lower middle class for researching, and leave us alone.”
“把你的精力放在那里，我们将为你提供良好的生活方式和一些中下阶层的研究收入，别打扰我们。”
This, I understand, is not important.
我明白，这并不重要。
You get some people who instruct, give you history lessons, who know actually some history.
有些人会指导你，给你上历史课，他们实际上了解一些历史。
They don’t have that in a more competitive environment.
在竞争更加激烈的环境中，他们无法做到这一点。
One argument I made is that almost every student has an intuitive understanding of the signaling model that I’m defending in my book, where I say the main thing you’re trying to do is impress employers, not actually learn the material.
我提出的一个论点是，几乎每个学生都对我在书中捍卫的信号模型有直观的理解，我在书中说，你要做的主要事情是给雇主留下深刻印象，而不是真正学习材料。
Here’s a passage from Antifragile that is very signaling friendly.
这是《反脆弱》中的一段非常友好的信号。
“I wasn’t exactly an autodidact, since I did get degrees; I was rather a barbell autodidact as I studied the exact minimum necessary to pass any exam, overshooting accidentally once in a while, and only getting in trouble a few times by undershooting.”
“我不完全是一个自学者，因为我确实获得了学位；我更像是一个杠铃自学者，因为我学习了通过任何考试所需的最低限度的知识，偶尔会意外地超过，只有几次因为未达到目标而陷入麻烦。”
Would you say that you had an intuitive understanding of the signaling model by getting the stamp on your forehead?
你是不是说，通过额头上的印记，你对信号模型有了直观的了解？
Exactly, I decided to come to work, decided to come to business school in America.
确切地说，我决定来工作，决定来美国商学院。
Why?
为什么？
It’s very difficult to get in.
想要进去是非常困难的。
I said, “OK, let me try.” What you have to do, you have to take this test.
我说：“好吧，我试试。”你必须做的，你必须参加这个测试。
What do you do to pass the GMAT or something like that?
你会做什么来通过 GMAT 或类似的考试？
You go in, and you buy a lot of coffee.
你进去，买了很多咖啡。
You lock yourself up for months, taking these, and then you go take the tests.
你把自己锁起来几个月，接受这些测试，然后你去参加测试。
First of all, you forget right after, once you’ve taken the test.
首先，一旦你参加了考试，你就会忘记。
You go to business school, but you realize that business school is mostly a way to meet people, or to get a job, the first job after business school.
你去商学院，但你意识到商学院主要是一种结识朋友的方式，或者找工作的方式，这是商学院毕业后的第一份工作。
Everybody will forget the three phases of a public company.
每个人都会忘记上市公司的三个阶段。
Then, later on, I became an employer.
后来，我成为了一名雇主。
When I was employed, I had never met anybody going to business school, nobody who was signaling, plus they come and argue.
当我工作时，我从未见过任何人去商学院，没有人发出信号，而且他们还来争论。
So you hire someone from — for example, you notice there’s something.
所以你雇佣了来自 的人——例如，你注意到有一些东西。
If you went to business school, unless you went to the top 20 at the time, it was a waste of money.
如果你去商学院，除非你当时进入前20名，否则就是浪费钱。
The mathematics, if you can go to the top 25,000th schools, there were 25,000 and still useful.
数学，如果你能去前25000所学校，有25000所，仍然有用。
So you realize that there’s some things that can be taught in that structured environment, like engineering, mathematics, or chemistry or, I don’t know, belly dancing or stuff like that, where at business school, you have no skills basically.
所以你意识到有些东西可以在那种结构化环境中教授，比如工程、数学或化学，或者我不知道，肚皮舞或类似的东西，在商学院，你基本上没有技能。
It’s the signaling that you discover, but I didn’t need the signaling beyond my first job.
这是你发现的信号，但除了我的第一份工作之外，我不需要信号。
We all know you’re a maverick, but suppose that you had undershot very consistently in academics, and you hadn’t finished degrees.
我们都知道你是一个特立独行的人，但假设你在学业上一直表现不佳，而且还没有完成学位。
Do you think you would still be where you are today?
你认为你还会是今天的样子吗？
No, I tell you, this is problem with society because the way it’s organized.
不，我告诉你，这是社会的问题，因为它的组织方式。
First of all, I was in civil war in Lebanon.
首先，我正处于黎巴嫩内战之中。
If it worked, I had a family with money, I would have been writing my poetry and maybe a failed novel or something.
如果它成功了，我就有了一个有钱的家庭，我就会写我的诗，也许还会写一本失败的小说什么的。
That would’ve been my life.
那就是我的生活。
I was the product of reaction against the war, the anxiety, displacement, the moving from it.
我是对战争、焦虑、流离失所和逃离战争的反应的产物。
You have anxiety, the plus being pushed from the area, you don’t know whether — it’s very scary to be a Christian from the area particularly at the time.
你感到焦虑，加上被赶出了该地区，你不知道是否——作为一名来自该地区的基督徒是非常可怕的，尤其是在当时。
This is why I said, “Well, I want to make it.”
这就是为什么我说：“好吧，我想成功。”
So you want to get the degrees.
所以你想获得学位。
You want to do this.
你想要这样做。
You want to do that.
你想这么做。
You want to buy a nice suit.
你想买一套漂亮的西装。
All the signaling, you have to cover the signaling and, on top of that, have the skills.
所有的信号，你必须涵盖信号，最重要的是，你必须具备技能。
This is what pushed me.
这就是推动我的原因。
Effectively, I am certain that I discovered another thing, the mathemata pathemata effectively I learned from Antifragile, sorry, from the last book, I have an interest in addiction.
实际上，我确信我发现了另一件事，即我从 Antifragile 中学到的数学路径，抱歉，从上一本书中，我对成瘾感兴趣。
I’m not addicted myself, but I had a family member when I was a kid.
我自己并没有上瘾，但我小时候有一个家庭成员。
Discover how smart addicts are at procuring money for their addiction, but they’re incapable of making money outside of that.
了解成瘾者如何聪明地为他们的毒瘾筹集资金，但他们无法除此之外赚钱。
This is some skill, some gland that comes in, that’s producing IQ when they want the drugs.
这是一些技能，一些腺体，当他们需要药物时就会产生智商。
Then they can find ways to make money for the drug, but not elsewhere.
然后他们就可以找到为药物赚钱的方法，但在其他地方却找不到。
I was thinking about it, and I explained that when I started trading, effectively, under the pressure, you are so much in trouble, you have to think.
我正在思考这个问题，我解释说，当我开始交易时，实际上，在压力下，你遇到了很多麻烦，你必须思考。
You learn a lot of stuff about probability.
你学到了很多关于概率的东西。
You start high-dimensional matrices to get inverted by tomorrow morning, and you end up inverting them.
你开始对高维矩阵进行求逆，并在明天早上进行求逆，最终将它们求逆。
You don’t know how you got the result.
你不知道你是如何得到结果的。
You show to a mathematician, they don’t believe you did it, and yet you did it.
你向数学家展示，他们不相信你做到了，但你做到了。
Very slow at the time, computing that.
当时计算速度非常慢。
You push to do a lot of stuff under necessity.
在必要的情况下，你会推动做很多事情。
Necessity is the mother of invention.
需要是发明之母。
The stuff you do then that you learn under these pressures stay with you.
你在这些压力下所做的事情和你学到的东西会一直伴随着你。
It’s not like the drug addict, who loses back his faculties elsewhere.
这不像吸毒者，他在其他地方失去了他的能力。
That’s what I was explaining, how basically war was a way for people to learn stuff.
这就是我所解释的，战争基本上是人们学习东西的一种方式。
Then effectively, a lot of the invention we had came during war episode, and of course, in preparation for war.
实际上，我们的很多发明都是在战争时期出现的，当然，是为了战争做准备。
Got to replace that model, of course, we’re not going to wage war — we hope not — and figure out how to force people to learn by getting them in trouble.
当然，我们必须取代这种模式，我们不会发动战争——我们希望不会——并找出如何通过让人们陷入困境来迫使他们学习。
Another mode of learning to activate, upregulate something in them that makes them branch .
另一种学习方式是激活、上调其中的某些东西，使它们分支。
Definitely not by putting them in a classroom and giving them credentials.
绝对不是把他们放在教室里并给他们颁发证书。
Got to do something else.
得做点别的事。
Plus, there is another thing about you that, I disagree with you on one point — minor — that you have your metric to gauge if education is good, is performance on the job.
另外，关于你的另一件事，我不同意你的一点 —— 次要 ——你有衡量教育是否良好的标准，那就是工作表现。
Reasonably good metric, anyway.
无论如何，相当不错的指标。
It is a good metric for people wanting to become employees, but the world needs people who create things — the artisans — or people who would mend things.
对于想要成为雇员的人来说，这是一个很好的衡量标准，但世界需要创造东西的人——“工匠”——或者会修理东西的人。
Because I had this idea that Bill Gates, as much as I hate him, he created something.
因为我有这样的想法：比尔·盖茨，尽管我很恨他，但他创造了一些东西。
Or Steve Jobs.
或者史蒂夫·乔布斯。
These are the people who make the engine work, and the other people are just around.
这些人是让引擎运转的人，其他人就在附近。
For these people, we’ve got to look at these people as a disproportionate part of the sample not the variables they take.
对于这些人，我们必须将这些人视为样本中不成比例的部分，而不是他们所采用的变量。
That is why I disagree.
这就是我不同意的原因。
Then my idea of IQ, I remember when you hire a trader.
然后我对智商的看法，我记得当你雇用交易员时。
You would not quiz him on something because you know they all have probably very high IQ who get there.
你不会向他询问某些事情，因为你知道他们都可能拥有很高的智商。
First of all, we only hire people from math or physics or engineering.
首先，我们只雇用数学、物理或工程领域的人才。
They have some kind of ability.
他们有某种能力。
They have all been given SAT tests — done it, GREs — done it.
他们都参加了 SAT 考试 ——完成了，GRE 考试了——完成了。
So what do you give them?
那么你给他们什么？
The best test is you tell someone, “Listen, I want a French suit, and you have an hour to get it.
最好的测试是你告诉别人，“听着，我想要一套法式西装，你有一个小时的时间去拿。
Just this size, this model, this size, and you have an hour to go get it in New York City,” for example.
只要这个尺寸、这个型号、这个尺寸，你就有一个小时的时间去纽约买它，”例如。
That’s the kind of test we give people, to see if they can go find that suit.
这就是我们给人们的测试，看看他们是否能找到那套衣服。
Or you give them projects and tell them, “I want you to get this, this, this.” And they have an hour to do it, or two hours.
或者你给他们项目并告诉他们，“我希望你得到这个，这个，这个。”他们有一个小时或两个小时的时间来做这件事。
You see, first of all, how many get confused at your request.
首先，你会看到有多少人对你的要求感到困惑。
These are the real IQ tests.
这些是真正的智商测试。
Sounds like a test of common sense.
听起来像是常识测试。
I actually do have a whole separate set of common sense tests, which are interesting because common sense is something where people keep improving into their 50s, unlike IQ, where actually, at least sometimes, people are getting worse.
事实上，我确实有一整套独立的常识测试，这很有趣，因为常识是人们在 50 多岁时不断提高的东西，不像智商，实际上，至少有时，人们会变得更糟。
These tests are actually very interesting.
这些测试实际上非常有趣。
There’s tests like your car breaks down on a mountain road in the middle of a snowy night.
有一些测试，比如你的车在雪夜的山路上抛锚了。
What do you do?
你做什么工作？
Smart 18-year-olds give answers that get them killed, whereas normal 50-year-olds give answers where they survive.
聪明的 18 岁年轻人给出的答案会导致他们丧命，而普通的 50 岁年轻人给出的答案却会让他们活下来。
Wow, so there is actually something besides — I’m thinking of getting the suit as part — a lot of that is actually testing common sense, which is important but actually a different kind of skill.
哇，所以实际上还有一些东西除了 —— 我正在考虑把这套衣服作为一部分 —— 其中很多实际上是在测试常识，这很重要，但实际上是一种不同的技能。
That’s a central skill you need in life.
这是你生活中需要的核心技能。
Yeah!
是的！
It is important.
这很重要。
There’s a skill you need.
有一项你需要的技能。
It’s how you make it through an airport and get me an Auntie Anne — I like Auntie Anne — and you have 45 minutes to get one.
这就是你如何通过机场给我买一个安妮阿姨 —— 我喜欢安妮阿姨 —— 你有 45 分钟的时间去买一个。
You had no internet at the time, there’s not going to be a search engine.
当时没有互联网，也不会有搜索引擎。
These are the tests that really will tell you the person who succeeds.
这些测试确实会告诉您谁是成功者。
Starting in that progression.
从这个进展开始。
What do you do when the car breaks down?
当汽车抛锚时你会做什么？
That’s a good question.
这是一个好问题。
The original tests were actually written before there were cellphones.
最初的测试实际上是在手机出现之前编写的。
Then it normally involved getting on the other side of the barrier and then walking carefully to a call box.
然后通常需要走到障碍物的另一边，然后小心地走到呼叫亭。
It’s a winding mountain road.
这是一条蜿蜒的山路。
A lot of people say, “Try to wave down a car,” but it’s a winding mountain road, so you get hit by the car.
很多人说，“试着挥手拦车”，但这是一条蜿蜒的山路，所以你会被车撞到。
Get on the other side of the barricade and then, holding the barricade, walk to the call box, and then call for help is a pretty good answer to that.
走到路障的另一边，然后拿着路障，走到呼叫亭，然后呼救，这是一个很好的答案。
A totally different question.
一个完全不同的问题。
It seems like you and I are very much on the same page.
看来你和我的意见非常一致。
You value vocational education.
您重视职业教育。
There are a lot of academics who say, “No, no, no, vocational education’s no good because you never know if any vocation is going to be wiped out.” One referee said, “Oh, should we send them to go to typewriter repair school?” No, you shouldn’t send them to typewriter repair school.
有很多学者说：“不不不，职业教育没有好处，因为你永远不知道是否有职业会被消灭。”一位裁判说：“哦，我们应该送他们去打字机维修学校吗？”不，你不应该把他们送到打字机维修学校。
My answer here is, it’s better to go and train people for things that seem likely to be useful, like plumbing, than to train them for things we know are not going to be useful, like poetry.
我的回答是，最好去培训人们做那些看起来可能有用的事情，比如管道，而不是培训他们去做我们知道不会有用的事情，比如诗歌。
If you know anything about the economy in 40 years, it’s that poetry will not be a big part of the economy.
如果你对 40 年后的经济有所了解的话，那就是诗歌将不会成为经济的重要组成部分。
What do you think about this?
您对此有何看法？
There’s a separation of things we do to become civilized and things we do to make money later on.
我们为了变得文明而做的事情和为了以后赚钱而做的事情是分开的。
People conflate one for the other.
人们将其中一种混为一谈。
To come back, to reiterate for the moment, geometry was like poetry, something you do as an intellectual exercise.
回过头来，暂时重申一下，几何学就像诗歌，是一种智力练习。
It was not required because it actually, degrades the way .
它不是必需的，因为它实际上会降低方式。
.
。
.
。
Conflating the two has actually led to a lot of problems.
实际上，将两者混为一谈会带来很多问题。
The first thing we’ve got to establish is that we have another bigger problem.
我们首先要确定的是，我们还有另一个更大的问题。
The bigger problem is, where is the propaganda that we’re getting?
更大的问题是，我们得到的宣传在哪里？
It looks like the ratio of theories and indoctrination to finance is very high and it’s the humanities.
看起来金融学的理论和灌输比例很高，而且是人文学科。
It effectively stays lower than mathematics because you can’t really have .
它实际上低于数学，因为你无法真正拥有。
.
。
.
。
Although we have proposals to remove the square root of -1 because it was too phallic or something — I think it was some kind of hoax — but mathematics, stuff like that.
尽管我们建议删除 -1 的平方根，因为它太阳具了或者什么 —— 我认为这是某种骗局 —— 但是数学之类的东西。
So you separate these two by institutions that are completely insulated from one another.
因此，您可以通过彼此完全隔离的机构将这两者分开。
Things you do to become civilized like knowing the history of Scotland and things you do for skills.
为了变得文明而做的事情，比如了解苏格兰的历史和为了技能而做的事情。
If we bring that back, computer science, accounting .
如果我们带回来，计算机科学、会计。
.
。
.
。
In business school, I know there’s two classes that were useful for me: business law and accounting.
在商学院，我知道有两门课程对我有用：商法和会计。
But then these are the lead business schools.
但这些都是领先的商学院。
You can go get them from .
你可以去拿它们。
.
。
.
。
Actually, I’m doing something on the side with people who are in the risk business.
事实上，我正在与从事风险业务的人一起做一些事情。
Myself, a former Renaissance partner, a trader, and a third person.
我自己是文艺复兴时期的前合伙人、交易员和第三人。
The three of us mathematically are inclined mathematicians, the three of us, and we’re teaching people risk from risk-takers’ standpoint.
我们三个人在数学上都是倾向数学家的人，我们三个人，我们正在从冒险者的角度教人们风险。
The demand is huge.
需求量巨大。
People want to learn from professionals, so you may have a model of accountants teaching accountants.
人们想向专业人士学习，所以你可能有一个会计师教会计师的模式。
This person teaching that one, a significant thing you can get throughout your life rather than the block education, and then you go to the job market.
这个人教那个人，这是你一生中可以获得的一件重要的事情，而不是块教育，然后你就去就业市场。
To me, the risk business, I treat it like plumbing.
对我来说，风险业务就像管道一样。
It’s like being a plumber.
这就像成为一名水管工。
It has a lot of stuff and you only learn to be a plumber from a plumber.
它有很多东西，你只能从水管工那里学会成为水管工。
You can’t have an English teacher also teaching plumbing.
你不能让英语老师同时教授管道工程。
The professionals should be insulated from the humanities and the things you do to become civilized.
专业人士应该与人文学科以及你为变得文明而所做的事情隔离开来。
It doesn’t mean that we should eliminate poetry from school.
这并不意味着我们应该从学校中消除诗歌。
Of course you do that like you take piano lessons.
当然，你这样做就像上钢琴课一样。
I would just like to interject a question.
我只是想插话问一个问题。
I’d like a sentence from each of you on what you is see the biggest difference between you.
我希望你们每个人都用一句话来描述你们之间最大的差异是什么。
You agree on a lot, but let me give you my one-sentence take on what I’ve heard is the biggest difference: The extent to which you take a kind of shaped civilization for granted is different.
你们在很多方面都同意，但让我用一句话来表达我所听到的，这是最大的区别：你们认为一种有形文明是理所当然的程度是不同的。
Bryan, you take it for granted.
布莱恩，你认为这是理所当然的。
You don’t think formal education is so much needed to produce it.
你认为正规教育并不需要那么多来产生它。
And Nassim, you’re taking it less for granted, and you still see some room for poetry, the humanities and so on, provided they’re treated the proper way and segregated from the actual doing of stuff.
纳西姆，你不再认为这是理所当然的，你仍然看到诗歌、人文学科等的一些空间，只要它们得到正确的对待，并与实际做的事情分开。
Each of you give your take.
你们每个人都给出自己的看法。
That was my takeaway.
这就是我的收获。
Exactly my thing.
正是我的事。
I want to separate things you do to be civilized — the liberal arts — from things you do to be effective.
我想把你为了文明而做的事情（文科）和为了高效而做的事情区分开来。
This is why.
这就是原因。
I do a lot of mathematics but I know I do it for pleasure, not for anything practical.
我做了很多数学工作，但我知道我这样做是为了乐趣，而不是为了任何实际的东西。
And, of course, I do other technical stuff that are very practical.
当然，我还做其他非常实用的技术工作。
Statistics, stuff like that, and some mathematics, applied math.
统计学之类的东西，还有一些数学、应用数学。
But when I play with geometry, absolutely no practical thing.
但当我玩几何时，绝对没有任何实际的东西。
I do it like I would with poetry.
我这样做就像我对待诗歌一样。
So long as you separate these two, you have a barbell.
只要把这两者分开，你就有了杠铃。
This is this, and this is that, and that’s that, and you separate the two of them, then you will avoid the problems we have.
这是这个，这是那个，那个，你把这两个分开，就可以避免我们的问题。
Also, you should have the professional stuff.
另外，你应该有专业的东西。
Taught to children alone by professionals in that field.
由该领域的专业人士单独向孩子们授课。
You should have the humanities stuff taught by people who like that stuff.
你应该让喜欢人文学科的人来教这些东西。
I would say, I don’t take civilization for granted at all.
我想说，我根本不认为文明是理所当然的。
What I say is that it can’t possibly be the case that an education in liberal arts and humanities is causing civilization or sustaining it because virtually no one acquires this knowledge.
我想说的是，文科和人文教育不可能创造或维持文明，因为几乎没有人获得这些知识。
Given that almost no adult can answer even basic questions about this stuff, I don’t see how you can say that schools are saving civilization because they aren’t achieving the goal that allegedly is required to save it.
鉴于几乎没有成年人能够回答有关这些东西的基本问题，我不明白你怎么能说学校正在拯救文明，因为它们没有实现据称拯救文明所需的目标。
Actually, I agree with you…
事实上，我同意你的观点……
…on one point that strikes me about education.
……关于教育，令我印象深刻的一点是。
It destroyed civilization, the classics.
它摧毁了文明，摧毁了经典。
I think we should separate the holy and the profane, in other words.
换句话说，我认为我们应该将神圣与世俗分开。
We should keep things in the holy instead of the profane.
我们应该把事物放在神圣的地方，而不是世俗的地方。
I think they destroyed the Latin language as well, the Catholic Church.
我认为他们也摧毁了拉丁语和天主教堂。
One comment again from theology: when they translated the texts from Latin or from Vulgar method into vernaculars.
神学界再次发表评论：当他们将拉丁文或通俗方法的文本翻译成白话文时。
Because then, when you do, you try to market our religion as something useful, but before it was something holy, this whole thing.
因为那时，当你这样做时，你试图将我们的宗教视为有用的东西，但在此之前它是神圣的东西，整个事情。
You notice that the reason the Pope presented, he said that it’s to increase the number of Catholics.
你注意到教皇提出的原因，他说是为了增加天主教徒的数量。
In fact, the Church contracted at the time, when compared to Islam, where you have one-and-a-half-billion Muslims praying in a language they don’t understand so visibly.
事实上，与伊斯兰教相比，当时的教会处于收缩状态，伊斯兰教中有五亿穆斯林用一种他们明显不理解的语言进行祈祷。
It’s exactly the same thing, is that its separating the holy and profane.
这是完全相同的事情，就是它区分了神圣和世俗。
Don’t translate to vernacular the beautiful Latin things.
不要将美丽的拉丁文翻译成白话。
Likewise, do not try to make poetry or literature or history — do not make it practical.
同样，不要试图创作诗歌、文学或历史——不要让它变得实用。
Just make the people study for their own sake, just like you go to church.
让人们为了自己的利益而学习，就像你去教堂一样。
It’s not for anything practical.
这不是为了任何实际的事情。
You don’t go to church because you’re going to meet an employer.
你去教堂不是因为你要去见雇主。
You go to church to go to church.
你去教堂就是为了去教堂。
Likewise, we have to separate these two.
同样，我们必须将这两者分开。
Closing statement from you Bryan.
布莱恩的结束语。
I’ve just got one question left.
我只剩下一个问题了。
I really desperately want to signal that I did read the appendix, so I have a question about the appendix.
我真的非常想表明我确实阅读了附录，所以我有一个关于附录的问题。
Last question and answer.
最后一个问题和答案。
Yes.
是的。
You wrote, “It is often easier to modify the f(x) than to get better knowledge of x.” When I was reading this, it seems like even the phrasing suggests that we should be weighing the relative ease of modifying the f(x) than learning about x case by case.
您写道：“修改 f(x) 通常比更好地了解 x 更容易。”当我读到这篇文章时，似乎连措辞都表明我们应该权衡修改 f(x) 的相对容易程度，而不是逐个了解 x。
Suppose we’re talking about the possibility that one day you were going to eat something lethally poisoned.
假设我们正在谈论有一天你会吃一些致命的毒物的可能性。
One thing you could do is take a lot of precautions against eating poison.
你可以做的一件事就是采取很多预防措施来避免吃毒药。
You could hire a poison taster, or you go and read up about what kinds of foods are hard to poison.
你可以聘请一名试毒者，或者你去了解哪些食物很难中毒。
On the other hand, you could just go and say, “Hardly anyone today gets poisoned by lethal poison put in their food.
另一方面，你可以直接说：“今天几乎没有人会因为食物中的致命毒物而中毒。
So low probability, and I’m not worried about it.”
可能性很小，我并不担心。”
The latter reaction is actually my reaction.
后面的反应其实就是我的反应。
Am I wrong?
我错了吗？
Should I have been worried about being lethally poisoned or not?
我是否应该担心被致命的中毒？
Let me rephrase the f(x) and x, then you’ll see it’s both right and wrong.
让我重新表述一下 f(x) 和 x，然后你就会发现它既是对的，也是错的。
When I say that the problem I noticed in probability statistics that people .
当我说这个问题时，我注意到人们在概率统计中。
.
。
.
。
you take x.
你拿x。
X is, what will the stock market do tomorrow?
X是，明天股市会怎样？
And you study the properties of x instead of studying f(x), how it affects you.
你研究 x 的性质，而不是研究 f(x)，它如何影响你。
You can have it pay off.
你可以得到回报。
You change the payoff.
你改变了回报。
X is knowledge, which is exactly the left side.
X是知识，正好是左边。
It’s one thing.
这是一回事。
Don’t conflate the conflation of x, how it affects you, f(x).
不要将 x 的合并与它对你的影响 f(x) 混为一谈。
For example, if you take random events, if f(x) is convex, you have optionality.
例如，如果你采取随机事件，如果 f(x) 是凸的，你就有选择权。
You see?
你看？
Some people have optionality for f(x), some people have negative optionality.
有些人对f(x)有选择性，有些人对f(x)有负选择性。
It’s technical.
这是技术性的。
It’s hard to explain it.
很难解释它。
But the gist of the point is one of them is knowledge.
但要点之一是知识。
The other one is how it affects you.
另一个是它如何影响你。
It can change you.
它可以改变你。
For example, one of them is what would happen if there is war.
例如，其中之一是如果发生战争会发生什么。
The second one is the insurance contract, f(x).
第二个是保险合同，f(x)。
When insurance company puts in a close-ended clause so it doesn’t affect them anymore.
当保险公司加入封闭式条款时，就不再影响他们了。
They put it in a clause.
他们把它放在一个条款中。
One of them needs a statistician.
其中之一需要一名统计学家。
The second one needs a lawyer, a contract.
第二个需要律师和合同。
You mitigate your risk either by understanding the risk, which is very large, or by having a lawyer who puts in a clause to protect you from that event if it happens.
您可以通过了解风险（风险非常大）或聘请律师制定条款来保护您免受该事件的影响来降低风险。
That’s f(x).
这就是 f(x)。
The idea that there’s a conflation between the two, I’m not saying that you should ignore x or ignore f(x).
两者之间存在混淆的想法，我并不是说你应该忽略 x 或忽略 f(x)。
I’m saying that we should know whether you’re dealing with x or f(x).
我是说我们应该知道你正在处理 x 还是 f(x)。
We’re either dealing with a food composition, or are we’re dealing with how it affects us?
我们要么正在处理食物成分，要么正在处理它如何影响我们？
See?
看？
That’s the f(x).
这就是 f(x)。
This is my answer.
这就是我的答案。
To put it in context, poetry is x, whatever it is.
放在上下文中，诗歌就是x，无论它是什么。
F(x), how it affects us.
F(x)，它如何影响我们。
F(x) is a techne, and x is the episteme.
F(x) 是技术，x 是知识。
The ancient always separated the episteme from techne.
古人总是将知识与技术分开。
The problem is, as society got rich, everybody wanted to reach education by imitating the aristocrats, with the illusion that it’s going to help them get rich.
问题是，随着社会变得富裕，每个人都想通过模仿贵族来获得教育，并幻想这会帮助他们致富。
When in fact, it’s the kind of thing you do when you’re already rich.
事实上，这是当你已经很富有时你会做的事情。
This is where Alison Wolf and Pritchett come in to discover that these educational things are effectively the product of societies that are rich and definitely not causative to wealth.
艾莉森·沃尔夫和普里切特正是在这个问题上发现，这些教育性的东西实际上是富裕社会的产物，而且绝对不是财富的原因。
Thank you both very much.
非常感谢你们俩。
Shortly after the live show, Taleb tweeted out a distillation of this conversation, elaborating on the idea of separating learning by its function in society,
现场表演结束后不久，塔勒布在推特上发布了这次对话的摘要，详细阐述了将学习与其在社会中的功能分开的想法，
While Caplan blogged a few follow-up questions for Taleb
卡普兰在博客中向塔勒布提出了一些后续问题
Click here to read Taleb’s conversation with Tyler Cowen.
点击此处阅读塔勒布与泰勒·考恩的对话。