Patrick Collison has a Few Questions for Tyler (Ep. 21 - Live at Stripe)

Thank you all very much for coming.

非常感谢大家的到来。

I would typically start out with a lengthy introduction of the speaker’s various accomplishments and things that make them notable and noteworthy.

我通常会首先详细介绍演讲者的各种成就以及使他们引人注目和值得注意的事情。

But Tyler told me that de rigueur in these conversations is to keep them to 90 minutes.

但泰勒告诉我，这些谈话的礼仪是将谈话时间控制在 90 分钟。

So I don’t think I can really go far down that list in this case.

所以我认为在这种情况下我真的不能在这个清单上走得太远。

Suffice it to say that you’ve published 15 books?

只要说你已经出版了 15 本书就够了吗？

Is that the right count?

这是正确的计数吗？

I don’t know; I’ve no idea.

我不知道;我不知道。

I think it’s more!

我觉得还有更多！

COLLISON: Well, he’s published at least the number of books in the stack here, along with — actually, I think, second from the top is his new book, which is about to come out, which I trust you’ve all preordered on Amazon.

科里森：嗯，他至少出版了这里书库里的书，还有——实际上，我想，倒数第二本是他即将出版的新书，我相信你们都在亚马逊上预订了。

I won’t be offended, or I’m sure Tyler won’t be offended, if you all take out your phone and go ahead and order it right now: The Complacent Class; I highly recommend it.

我不会被冒犯，或者我相信泰勒也不会被冒犯，如果你们都拿出手机，立即订购：自满阶层；我强烈推荐它。

And published more than 60 papers, obviously: the author of The Great Stagnation, which I think was the work that really brought you to top of mind, at least here in Silicon Valley.

显然，他发表了 60 多篇论文：《大停滞》的作者，我认为这是一本真正让你想起的作品，至少在硅谷是这样。

It was before I worked for them.

那是在我为他们工作之前。

Before he worked for them and before the era of fake news.

在他为他们工作之前和假新闻时代之前。

COLLISON: So you can all trust it.

COLLISON：所以你们都可以相信它。

It’s out of this conversation.

这是在这次谈话之外的。

My mother put it on her Facebook page.

我妈妈把它放在她的 Facebook 页面上。

So, the first thing I wanted to ask you about is, you’re an economist, at least originally.

所以，我想问你的第一件事是，你是一名经济学家，至少最初是这样。

And Paul Romer, who’s now, of course, the chief economist at the World Bank, he opened his most recent paper with the assertion that for the last 30 years, macroeconomics has been going backwards.

当然，保罗·罗默（Paul Romer）现在是世界银行的首席经济学家，他在最新论文的开头断言，在过去的 30 年里，宏观经济学一直在倒退。

And I looked into this and I realized that Tyler got his PhD exactly 30 years ago.

我对此进行了调查，发现泰勒在 30 年前就获得了博士学位。

I don’t necessarily want to imply anything causal, but do you agree with Paul?

我不一定想暗示任何因果关系，但你同意保罗的观点吗？

I don’t agree with Paul.

我不同意保罗的观点。

I think we understand credit crunches much better than we used to.

我认为我们比以前更了解信贷紧缩。

We understand the structure of asset returns and when and why risk matters, compared to earlier times.

与早期相比，我们了解资产回报的结构以及风险何时以及为何重要。

Models where you have multiple equilibria, where more than one thing can happen, we understand better.

我们更好地理解存在多个均衡、可能发生不止一件事的模型。

What do you think of the paper itself and the claims in it?

您如何看待这篇论文本身及其中的主张？

I thought the paper was quite a polemic.

我认为这篇论文充满了争论。

Writing a polemic can be useful.

写一篇论战可能会有用。

It attracts attention.

它引起了人们的注意。

It jolts people out of their “dogmatic slumbers,” to use the old philosophical term.

用古老的哲学术语来说，它把人们从“教条主义的沉睡”中惊醒。

But that said, a lot of the debate ended up being about either Paul Romer or a particular group of macroeconomists, rather than about what macroeconomics should do.

但话虽如此，很多争论最终都是关于保罗·罗默或特定的宏观经济学家群体，而不是关于宏观经济学应该做什么。

I would take it that’s partially because of your differences in temperament and not just the differences in belief structure.

我认为这部分是因为你们的气质差异，而不仅仅是信仰结构的差异。

Yes.

是的。

But Paul — when I talk with him, he has a very gentle temperament.

但是保罗——当我和他谈话时，他的性情非常温和。

So I don’t actually have a good theory of Paul.

所以我实际上对保罗没有一个很好的理论。

I get on with him very well; I enjoy exchanging ideas with him.

我和他相处得很好；我喜欢与他交流想法。

But sometimes he’s a firebrand when he writes.

但有时他写作时会很煽动。

I want to dig in on this question, where you just mentioned how we have much better models now, but you touched on this notion of our predictive ability.

我想深入探讨这个问题，您刚才提到我们现在如何拥有更好的模型，但您谈到了我们的预测能力的概念。

And it seems to me that the old joke about economists, where economics is the field where you can win the Nobel Prize for proving or for showing x, and then later, you can go on to win it for showing that x is in fact false.

在我看来，这是一个关于经济学家的老笑话，在经济学中，你可以因为证明或证明 x 而赢得诺贝尔奖，然后，你可以因为证明 x 实际上是错误的而继续赢得诺贝尔奖。

And the Nobel Prize in ’74, when Myrdal and Hayek shared it, was evidence for this.

74 年米尔达尔和哈耶克分享的诺贝尔奖就是证明。

Sure.

当然。

And does one drive the other?

一个驱动另一个吗？

And in which direction?

朝哪个方向？

What’s the nature of the comovement, and so on?

联动的本质是什么等等？

Or was the Washington Consensus correct?

或者华盛顿共识是正确的吗？

Is the Washington Consensus correct?

华盛顿共识正确吗？

How much freedom around the movement of capital should there be in developing nations, and so on?

发展中国家的资本流动应该有多大的自由度等等？

What’s the right policy to adopt if you’re a developing country?

如果你是发展中国家，应该采取什么政策？

Frank Knight once said something wise, maybe overstated, but he said, “The main function of economics was to offset the stupid theorizing of other people.” So it’s very useful as a form of discipline.

弗兰克·奈特曾经说过一些明智的话，也许有些言过其实，但他说，“经济学的主要功能是抵消其他人的愚蠢理论。”所以它作为一种纪律形式非常有用。

And economics is a way of thinking — it’s very useful for inoculating you against other kinds of mistakes, even though in some ways, it may be a mistake itself.

经济学是一种思维方式——它对于让你避免犯其他类型的错误非常有用，尽管在某些方面，它本身可能就是一个错误。

But I would say, in macro, we’re very good at retrodiction.

但我想说，从宏观角度来看，我们非常擅长回顾。

If you look at the Great Recession, and you try to trace when and where were the bad mortgages made, and which banks held them, and when did they go bad, we can trace that with a level of detail and care, that, say, we couldn’t have done for the 1979-1982 recession.

如果你看看大衰退，你试图追踪不良抵押贷款是何时何地发放的，哪些银行持有这些抵押贷款，它们何时变成坏账，我们可以以一定程度的细节和谨慎来追踪，而这在 1979-1982 年的经济衰退中是无法做到的。

And that’s a scientific advance.

这是一个科学进步。

Will it always be retrodictive, or does it become predictive at some point?

它总是具有追溯性，还是在某个时刻变得具有预测性？

I don’t think it will be predictive any time soon, not in our lifetimes.

我认为这不会很快成为预测，在我们的有生之年不会。

Not on a lot of important issues.

没有涉及很多重要问题。

There’s plenty of micro where it’s predictive.

有很多微观方面是可以预测的。

So people who work at Uber, they have a dataset and they can now answer questions with that.

因此，在 Uber 工作的人拥有一个数据集，他们现在可以用它来回答问题。

That works pretty well.

这效果很好。

OK, on what basis should we then be making macroeconomic decisions?

好吧，那么我们应该在什么基础上做出宏观经济决策呢？

Well, we have to make macroeconomic decisions.

好吧，我们必须做出宏观经济决策。

To do nothing is also a macroeconomic decision.

无所作为也是宏观经济决策。

Right.

正确的。

COWEN: I think the notion of having a Federal Reserve System that is predictable and tries to keep the nominal flow of purchasing power growing at some steady rate, we know that something like that is close to the best we can do in a fairly impressionistic way.

考恩：我认为建立一个可预测的联邦储备系统并试图保持购买力的名义流量以某种稳定的速度增长的概念，我们知道这样的事情已经接近我们以一种相当印象主义的方式所能做到的最好的了。

And that’s really important.

这真的很重要。

People didn’t know that in 1929.

1929 年人们并不知道这一点。

It’s a huge victory for the contemporary world.

这是当代世界的巨大胜利。

So do you think that, from a forward-looking standpoint, we should try to come up with some very minimal set of stable rules along the lines of what you just mentioned?

那么您是否认为，从前瞻性的角度来看，我们应该尝试按照您刚才提到的方式制定一些非常最小的稳定规则？

And after that, the, again, forward-looking predictive efforts we’ve done most of as much as we are likely to be able to do, and everything after that is filling in the details on what happened, ex post.

在那之后，我们已经做了尽可能多的前瞻性预测工作，之后的一切都是事后填写发生的事情的细节。

I agree with that, but I would add another caveat.

我同意这一点，但我想补充一点。

If you have a good rule, you have to wonder if all systems — including the US Constitution — all systems in the world eventually can be gamed.

如果你有一个好的规则，你必须想知道是否所有制度——包括美国宪法——世界上所有制度最终都可以被玩弄。

It could be your macro rule would be good for a long time, but it could be gamed if only through people figuring out how to use politics to distort or lie about the indicators.

你的宏观规则可能会在很长一段时间内有效，但如果只有人们弄清楚如何利用政治来扭曲或撒谎指标，它就可能被玩弄。

So I’m not sure there’s an eternal solution, but I think there are policy semi-solutions that at least are good for 20 or 30 years.

所以我不确定是否存在永恒的解决方案，但我认为有一些政策半解决方案至少可以持续 20 或 30 年。

You’re touching on this notion that maybe economics is a lot of post-hoc illustrative power.

你谈到了这样一个概念：也许经济学具有很强的事后说明能力。

Yes.

是的。

Uncertain how much predictive power it has.

不确定它有多少预测能力。

You’ve written a lot about how the study of economics has influenced your appreciation for the arts, and for literature, and for food, and all of the rest.

您写了很多关于经济学研究如何影响您对艺术、文学、食物以及其他所有事物的欣赏的文章。

You haven’t written as much about the influence in the reverse direction.

你还没有写太多关于反向影响的文章。

How has your appreciation for and study of the arts influenced your study of economics?

您对艺术的欣赏和研究对您的经济学研究有何影响？

And is this a version of that?

这是那个版本吗？

This is a version of that.

这是它的一个版本。

Here would be a simple example: If you think about Renaissance Florence, at its peak, its population, arguably, was between 60,000 and 80,000 people.

这是一个简单的例子：如果你想想文艺复兴时期的佛罗伦萨，在其鼎盛时期，其人口可以说在 60,000 到 80,000 人之间。

And there were surrounding areas; you could debate the number.

还有周边地区；你可以争论这个数字。

But they had some really quite remarkable achievements that have stood the test of time and lasted, and today have very high market value.

但他们确实取得了一些非常了不起的成就，这些成就经受住了时间的考验并持续存在，今天具有非常高的市场价值。

Now, in very naive theories of economics, that shouldn’t be possible.

现在，在非常幼稚的经济学理论中，这应该是不可能的。

People in Renaissance Florence, they didn’t produce a refrigerator that we’re still using or a tech company that we still consult.

文艺复兴时期的佛罗伦萨人，他们没有生产我们仍在使用的冰箱，也没有生产我们仍在咨询的科技公司。

What fraction of tenured economists in the US do you think would agree with your take on the predictive power of macroeconomics?

您认为美国终身经济学家中有多少人会同意您对宏观经济学预测能力的看法？

There’s really a sharp distinction here between people who do macro and people who don’t.

从事宏观工作的人和不从事宏观工作的人之间确实存在明显的区别。

So those who don’t are typically pretty cynical, but I think they’re actually too cynical.

所以那些不这样做的人通常非常愤世嫉俗，但我认为他们实际上太愤世嫉俗了。

Macro is the favored whipping boy of a lot of economists.

宏观经济是许多经济学家青睐的替罪羊。

And the public is always upset at the macroeconomy, so you’ll always find an audience for this.

公众总是对宏观经济感到不安，所以你总能找到听众。

But I think macro is slightly underrated.

但我认为宏观经济被稍微低估了。

But then in macro, you have too many people who are simply too arrogant.

但从宏观上看，有太多人太傲慢了。

They think they’re working on God’s chosen method in different ways.

他们认为他们正在以不同的方式致力于上帝选择的方法。

And that’s wrong also; it’s much more pluralistic than that.

这也是错误的；它比那更加多元化。

You’re just grabbing parts of the elephant in a fairly blind way, I think.

我认为，你只是以一种相当盲目的方式抓住了大象的一部分。

What field outside of economics has the most to say about macroeconomics?

经济学以外的哪个领域对宏观经济学最有发言权？

Well, if you’re discounting statistics or econometrics, I think psychology.

好吧，如果你不考虑统计学或计量经济学，我认为是心理学。

Some form of social psychology.

某种形式的社会心理学。

You mean, along the lines of .

你的意思是，沿着 .

.

。

.

。

Why there’s contagion of beliefs, why beliefs move together, why people move to fear and panic.

为什么信仰会蔓延，为什么信仰会一起移动，为什么人们会陷入恐惧和恐慌。

Yep, yep, the behavioral stuff?

是的，是的，行为方面的东西？

That’s right.

这是正确的。

Yeah.

是的。

What are the, say, top two most underinvested areas of economics today?

比如说，当今经济学中投资最不足的两个领域是什么？

Culture and economics, for me, is by far the most underinvested.

对我来说，文化和经济是迄今为止投资最不足的。

I still think randomized control trials, they’re expensive, but you do actually learn things from them, which are probably true.

我仍然认为随机对照试验很昂贵，但你确实从中学到了东西，这可能是真的。

That’s remarkable.

这太了不起了。

They contain actual knowledge.

它们包含实际知识。

Now, it’s true the questions you can ask are narrower, but it seems odd to turn down the reward of actual knowledge, right?

现在，确实你可以问的问题更窄了，但拒绝实际知识的奖励似乎很奇怪，对吧？

COLLISON: You recently linked to the new book whose title is escaping me — you’ll probably remember it — on the series of interviews on random control trials in economics.

科里森：你最近链接到了一本新书，书名我记不清了 ——你可能还记得它——关于经济学随机控制试验的系列访谈。

And there’s all these questions about to what degree they have external validity and so on.

所有这些问题都涉及它们的外部有效性在多大程度上等等。

Do you think the critics are overstating the case?

您认为批评者夸大了这个案例吗？

One of the main criticisms is, if you do randomized control trials, you’re studying something like, “Well, does paying mothers to bring their children in for vaccines work in getting the mothers to bring the children in?” You’re not asking big-picture questions of political economy.

主要的批评之一是，如果你进行随机对照试验，你会研究类似这样的内容：“好吧，付钱让母亲带孩子来接种疫苗是否可以让母亲带孩子来？”你不是在问政治经济学的大局问题。

But big-picture questions of political economy — they can be very hard to control.

但政治经济学的宏观问题——它们可能很难控制。

There’s no one who can steer, say, what will happen with India or Kenya, but you can change some policy regarding, “Do you reward mothers for bringing their children in for vaccinations?”

没有人可以指导印度或肯尼亚会发生什么，但你可以改变一些政策，“你会奖励母亲带孩子来接种疫苗吗？”

You said that culture is one of the most underinvested areas.

您说文化是投资最不足的领域之一。

Yes.

是的。

And you’ve written several books about culture, but among them Creative Destruction, and this is, at least as I read it, on the face of it, a defense of the effects of globalization on culture, right?

你写了几本关于文化的书，其中包括《创造性破坏》，至少在我读到的时候，从表面上看，这是对全球化对文化影响的辩护，对吗？

And that while globalization might cause a decrease in across-country cultural diversity, we shouldn’t look at it at some God’s eye view, objective level.

尽管全球化可能会导致跨国文化多样性的减少，但我们不应该从上帝的视角、客观的层面来看待它。

We should instead be focused on the individual, the subjective, and the operative level of diversity.

相反，我们应该关注多样性的个体、主观和操作层面。

Well, there are multiple readings of a number of my books.

嗯，我的很多书都有多次阅读。

And I would say, when you’re looking at the globalization of culture, we’ve engaged in a rather significant cashing-in exercise.

我想说，当你审视文化的全球化时，我们已经进行了相当重要的兑现活动。

Say you have a very small community, Inuit in Canada or artists in Bali, they’re very small in number.

假设你有一个非常小的社区，加拿大的因纽特人或巴厘岛的艺术家，他们的数量非常少。

And until they’re in some way reached by larger, richer cultures they can trade with, in many instances, they’re not that creative.

在许多情况下，除非他们以某种方式接触到更大、更丰富的文化，他们可以与之进行贸易，否则他们并不那么有创造力。

They have some tradition, but it’s not fully mobilized.

他们有一些传统，但还没有完全动员起来。

Then there’s this intense cultural interchange, and it’s very fruitful.

然后就是这种激烈的文化交流，而且非常富有成果。

There’s a flowering, there’s more commercial sale.

有开花，就有更多的商业销售。

Top creators come to be, more genres are defined.

顶尖创作者不断涌现，更多流派被定义。

There’s more diversity within the Balinese world or within Inuit sculpture, say.

例如，巴厘岛世界或因纽特雕塑内部存在更多多样性。

Right.

正确的。

And I worry now that people in Ireland hear too much American English, too much English English, and that style of writing, talking, joking, limericks, is becoming somewhat less distinct.

我现在担心爱尔兰人听了太多美式英语、太多英式英语，而写作、谈话、开玩笑、打油诗的风格正变得越来越不那么明显。

Still many wonderful writers from Ireland, but again, it’s like an optimal stock depletion problem, and maybe we’ve pressed on the button a little too hard.

仍然有许多来自爱尔兰的优秀作家，但同样，这就像一个最优库存耗尽问题，也许我们按下按钮有点太用力了。

The transaction costs should be higher?

交易成本应该更高吧？

Should be.

应该是。

But again, it’s a hard variable to control.

但同样，这是一个很难控制的变量。

With the tech world, in some ways, the tech world might be growing too quickly.

在科技世界中，从某些方面来说，科技世界可能发展得太快了。

People very quickly shift to Facebook, and that allows them to do much more socializing.

人们很快就会转向 Facebook，这使他们能够进行更多的社交活动。

And that, in some ways, actually limits the diversity of the world.

从某些方面来说，这实际上限制了世界的多样性。

They’re happier individually, but that’s another instance of cashing in that actually may not be socially optimal.

他们个人更快乐，但这是另一个赚钱的例子，实际上可能不是社会最优的。

Is it that you believe that we can’t do anything about this, and so we should appreciate the consequences as best we can and make the best of it?

是不是你认为我们对此无能为力，所以我们应该尽可能地理解后果并充分利用它？

Or you think that we should not do anything about this?

或者您认为我们不应该对此采取任何行动？

As an individual, there are definitely things you can do.

作为个人，你肯定可以做一些事情。

You can be quirkier.

你可以更古怪。

You can be eccentric.

你可以很古怪。

You can partake in some networks rather than others, and subsidize things that otherwise might have their stocks depleted too quickly.

你可以参与一些网络而不是其他网络，并对那些可能导致其库存很快耗尽的事物提供补贴。

At the macro level, it’s hard to steer.

从宏观层面来看，很难驾驭。

So is connectivity the worst thing that ever happened to global culture?

那么连通性是全球文化中发生过的最糟糕的事情吗？

You need connectivity.

你需要连接。

Today’s world has much longer life expectancy, people are happier, they’re better off, we produce more things.

当今世界的预期寿命更长，人们更快乐，生活更富裕，我们生产更多的东西。

But there’s a danger in connectivity.

但连接存在危险。

And the extreme acceleration of connectivity through tech, I would say, is a huge, non-controlled experiment that we need to be a little cautious about.

我想说，通过技术实现的连接的极度加速是一个巨大的、不受控制的实验，我们需要对此保持谨慎。

You wrote with Derek Parfit back in the early ’90s about how our intuitions about the discount rate we should have for the future are wrong.

早在 90 年代初，您就与德里克·帕菲特 (Derek Parfit) 一起撰文，谈到我们对未来贴现率的直觉是多么错误。

The discount rate should be much lower, and we should care way more about people in the distant future.

折扣率应该低得多，我们应该更加关心遥远的未来的人们。

And if you believe that, shouldn’t that, on this particular cultural point, cause you even more concern?

如果你相信这一点，那么在这个特定的文化观点上，难道不应该引起你更多的关注吗？

Because 500, 1,000, 5,000 years’ time, we’re not just slightly but enormously decreasing the amount of culture that they can expect.

因为500年、1000年、5000年的时间里，我们不仅会略微减少，而且会大大减少他们可以期待的文化数量。

But keep in mind, if you don’t mine the stocks of these smaller diverse cultures, their outputs deteriorate and decay.

但请记住，如果你不开采这些较小的多样化文化的资源，它们的产出就会恶化和衰退。

So there’s so much from the past we’ll never have a clue about because it’s gone, and we never “exploited” it.

因此，过去有很多东西我们永远不会有任何线索，因为它已经消失了，而且我们从未“利用”过它。

That’s most of the culture, completely a closed book to us.

这就是文化的大部分内容，对我们来说完全是一本合上的书。

If we’re worried about the future, you actually want to do exploitation plus preservation.

如果我们担心未来，你实际上想要进行开发加保护。

Now, maybe we haven’t done enough preservation.

现在，也许我们保护得还不够。

But it doesn’t steer you away from the exploitation, caring a lot about the very distant future.

但这并不能引导你远离剥削，而是更加关心遥远的未来。

You point out that Taleb says that the things we’ll have to do in order to counteract this effect will be so totalitarian that they’re not really even worth taking seriously.

你指出，塔勒布说，为了抵消这种影响，我们必须做的事情将是如此极权主义，以至于根本不值得认真对待。

On the micro level, or on the local level, is there anything we can do to .

在微观层面，或者说在局部层面，我们有什么可以做的吗？

.

。

.

。

perhaps we can’t solve it, but we can reduce the effect somewhat?

也许我们解决不了，但是我们可以稍微降低一下影响吗？

Well, spend less time on Facebook.

好吧，少花点时间在 Facebook 上吧。

Use Google in funny ways.

以有趣的方式使用 Google。

Right?

正确的？

Be careful —

小心——

Should we just use Bing?

我们应该只使用 Bing 吗？

Well, Bing is too much like Google.

嗯，Bing 太像 Google 了。

Simply being a weirdo with Google will suffice, I think.

我认为，仅仅成为谷歌的怪人就足够了。

Be careful how you use Netflix streaming.

请小心使用 Netflix 流媒体。

If what’s streaming on Netflix is your filter, you are part of the problem, I would say.

我想说，如果 Netflix 上播放的内容是你的过滤器，那么你就是问题的一部分。

But these are all actions for the individuals.

但这些都是个人的行为。

I mean, us as a society, are there any policies we can enact or that we ought to follow?

我的意思是，我们作为一个社会，有什么我们可以制定或应该遵循的政策吗？

Well, our main policies toward the arts, more and more, have to do with copyright, patent, and intellectual property.

嗯，我们对艺术的主要政策越来越多地与版权、专利和知识产权有关。

I think, for the most part, those are too strict.

我认为，在大多数情况下，这些都太严格了。

We could improve them, and we’d get more creativity and more borrowing.

我们可以改进它们，我们会获得更多创造力和更多借鉴。

But I don’t think, at the margin, those changes, good though they may be, will have a major impact on this issue.

但我认为，这些变化虽然可能是好的，但在某种程度上不会对这个问题产生重大影响。

Just the core: How do ordinary people spend most of their time?

核心就是：普通人大部分时间是如何度过的？

That’s the big driver here.

这是这里的主要驱动力。

Other than having drastic changes in policy, I think most of what we have to do are these small steps at the individual level toward the much better world.

除了政策上的重大改变之外，我认为我们要做的大部分事情是在个人层面上迈出一些小步骤，迈向更美好的世界。

COWEN: And that seems horribly inefficient.

COWEN：这看起来效率极低。

It does.

确实如此。

But I think keeping a memory of why those odd, bizarre practices have some efficient elements when thought of as search algorithms.

但我认为记住为什么这些奇怪的做法在被视为搜索算法时具有一些有效的元素。

Preserving that knowledge is very important.

保存这些知识非常重要。

And I think people who write or think or communicate with others can do that.

我认为那些写作、思考或与他人交流的人可以做到这一点。

Would this all suggest that we should be even sadder than we are in the decline of various languages around the world?

这是否意味着我们应该对世界各地各种语言的衰落感到更加悲伤？

Yes .

是的 。

.

。

.

。

Spoken language.

口语。

We should try to preserve them when we can.

我们应该尽可能地保护它们。

Nahuatl is actually my favorite language when I hear it, and it still has well over a million speakers.

纳瓦特尔语实际上是我最喜欢的语言，而且仍然有超过一百万的使用者。

It’s not in immediate danger, but I would predict, in less than 200 years, it will be gone.

它并没有立即面临危险，但我预测，不到 200 年，它就会消失。

Gaelic has made somewhat of a comeback, but it’s still up in the air, perhaps.

盖尔语已经有所卷土重来，但也许仍悬而未决。

On this point, would you write the same book today?

在这一点上，你今天会写同一本书吗？

Not the same book.

Not the same book.

But when I reread that book, I think I capture the multiple layers of how globalization is dynamic and creative and welfare enhancing, but dangerous and stock depleting and giving us this funny monoculture of extreme diversity, patting ourselves on the back, but all being a bit diverse in the same way.

但当我重读那本书时，我想我捕捉到了全球化如何充满活力、富有创造力和提高福利的多个层面，但同时又是危险的、库存耗尽的，并给我们带来了这种有趣的极端多样性的单一文化，拍拍自己的背，但都以同样的方式有点多样化。

I think that’s in the book, and I’m happy about that.

我认为这在书中，我对此感到高兴。

We love to play at diversity theater.

我们喜欢在多元化剧院演出。

Say more.

多说一点。

That’s one thing striking to me about the current world.

这是当今世界令我震惊的一件事。

You need different kinds of representation.

您需要不同类型的表示。

But the kind of moves you make to get there often create a monoculture of its own.

但你为实现这一目标而采取的行动往往会造成其自身的单一文化。

And you see this when you compare the coasts to other parts of America.

当你将海岸线与美国其他地区进行比较时，你就会看到这一点。