Russ Roberts on Life as an Economics Educator (Ep. 68)

Russ runs a very famous podcast, EconTalk.

Russ 经营着一个非常著名的播客 EconTalk。

He is the godfather of economics podcasting.

他是经济学播客的教父。

He has produced some amazing rap videos, written numerous significant books, including several novels outlining economic concepts, and has done much, much more.

他制作了一些令人惊叹的说唱视频，写了许多重要的书籍，包括几本概述经济概念的小说，并且做了很多很多的事情。

Welcome, Russ.

欢迎，拉斯。

Let me say two things, actually.

其实我要说两件事。

One is that my optimism, my cheery view of growth in the past isn’t just that we’ve mismeasured inflation.

一是我对过去增长的乐观和乐观看法不仅仅是我们错误地衡量了通胀。

It’s that we’ve mismeasured the gains to the average American because of changes in household structure, for example, which I think is probably the most important fact.

例如，由于家庭结构的变化，我们错误地衡量了普通美国人的收益，我认为这可能是最重要的事实。

Just take a simple example: Everyone’s married and all households have two people in them, whether they’re both earners or not, but that makes it easiest just to assume they’re both working.

举一个简单的例子：每个人都结婚了，所有家庭都有两个人，无论他们是否都是挣钱的人，但这让我们最容易假设他们都在工作。

Now, all of the sudden, you increase the divorce rate or lower the marriage rate, two things that have actually happened in America, dramatically, over the last 40 years, especially among low-education individuals — people who didn’t finish high school, or finished high school but didn’t graduate college.

现在，突然间，离婚率上升或结婚率下降，这两件事在过去 40 年里在美国实际发生过，戏剧性地发生过，特别是在低教育人群中——那些没有读完高中，或者读完高中但没有大学毕业的人。

You start adding additional households in the left-hand tail of the distribution.

您开始在分布的左尾添加更多家庭。

That alone is a disproportionate share because of that difference in the marriage and divorce rate.

由于结婚率和离婚率的差异，仅此一项就占了不成比例的比例。

That’s going to pull the median down.

这将会拉低中位数。

The median has moved to the left.

中位数已向左移动。

I think that failure to recognize that is an extraordinary failure on the part of our profession, that so many studies have been done on quintiles and medians.

我认为未能认识到这一点对于我们这个行业来说是一个巨大的失败，因为我们已经对五分位数和中位数进行了如此多的研究。

Now, you should use the median relative to the average because the median takes out outliers, the high right-hand tail — good idea.

现在，您应该使用相对于平均值的中位数，因为中位数消除了异常值，即高右侧尾部  - 好主意。

But then you still have this other problem that people don’t acknowledge or seem to pay attention to, which is that your analysis is now going to be distorted by changes in household structure.

但你仍然面临人们不承认或似乎没有关注的另一个问题，那就是你的分析现在将因家庭结构的变化而扭曲。

So my first claim is that the —

所以我的第一个主张是——

Government — if they don’t spend the money wisely, if they dig holes and fill them back in, I don’t think that’s a good idea.

政府 ——如果他们不明智地花钱，如果他们挖坑然后再填回去，我认为这不是一个好主意。

I think the proper tax that the government is taking on the private sector is the amount it spends, not what it borrows or what it taxes.

我认为政府对私营部门征收的适当税是其支出金额，而不是其借款或征税。

We have two ways to finance government: taxes today and taxes tomorrow.

我们有两种方式为政府提供资金：今天纳税和明天纳税。

The mix is not as important to me as what we do with the money that government actually spends, unless, of course, we go to the point of bankruptcy, in which case, that’s a whole different story.

对我来说，这种组合并不重要，重要的是我们如何处理政府实际花的钱，当然，除非我们走到破产的地步，在这种情况下，那就是一个完全不同的故事了。

And I think it’s bizarre — to pick on our profession again — it’s bizarre how many economists are willing to say it doesn’t matter.

我认为这很奇怪——“再次挑剔我们的职业”——有多少经济学家愿意说这并不重要，这很奇怪。

It doesn’t make sense to me.

这对我来说没有意义。

Well, one thing I would do is, I’d seed some prizes and fund some prizes for breakthroughs in technology.

好吧，我会做的一件事是，我会播种一些奖项并为技术突破提供一些资金。

I think that would be a good use of the money, relative to some alternatives.

我认为，相对于某些替代方案，这将是这笔钱的一个很好的用途。

I’d try to think of some ways to get better outcomes in education, using that money — rather than just, say, increasing expenditure across the board — to try to find some ways to incentivize schools to get that money — not by scores, say, on tests, but by other methods.

我会尝试想出一些方法来获得更好的教育成果，利用这些钱——而不是仅仅增加全面的支出——尝试找到一些方法来激励学校获得这笔钱——不是通过考试成绩，而是通过其他方法。

What else would I spend it on?

我还能把它花在什么地方呢？

Well, other than infrastructure, of course, which we’re woefully inadequate on.

嗯，当然，除了基础设施，我们在这方面严重不足。

I don’t know if you know it, but the American Society of Engineers gave us, I think, a D.

我不知道你是否知道，但我认为美国工程师学会给了我们 D。

For example, some workers don’t have enough skills.

例如，有些工人没有足够的技能。

They don’t get enough education, so they have a low market wage.

他们没有接受足够的教育，因此市场工资很低。

How do we fix that?

我们该如何解决这个问题？

Well, we either pass a law that says they have to earn a certain amount, or we give them a subsidy to that.

好吧，我们要么通过一项法律，规定他们必须赚取一定数额的收入，要么我们为此提供补贴。

We don’t spend as much time, I believe, thinking about how would we improve the education, the skill set.

我相信，我们不会花太多时间思考如何改进教育和技能。

People worry about that, but that’s not necessarily the central worry, and I think it should be the central worry.

人们担心这一点，但这不一定是主要担心，我认为这应该是主要担心。

As you know, there’s a number of people talking now about the failure of SSRIs — the drugs that try to fight depression — to be effective.

如您所知，现在有很多人在谈论 SSRIs ——“试图对抗抑郁症的药物”——的失败。

A recent article — a recent book, I think; people are writing about that book — I think the author is Ann Harrison — are making the point that in the old days, psychiatrists had this model that mental illness was a chemical imbalance, and this drug — this psychiatric attempt to fix it — repairs the imbalance.

最近的一篇文章 ——我想是一本最近的书；人们正在写关于这本书的文章——我认为作者是安·哈里森——他们指出，在过去，精神病学家有这样的模型，即精神疾病是一种化学失衡，而这种药物——这种精神病学尝试修复它——可以修复这种失衡。

Turns out, it’s not true.

事实证明，这不是真的。

We don’t have any clinical measures of imbalance that are responsible for mental illness.

我们没有任何导致精神疾病的不平衡的临床测量方法。

Some of the drugs might work.

有些药物可能有效。

There’s debate about how effective they are, of course, but they’re definitely not doing what they claim to do.

当然，关于它们的有效性如何存在争议，但它们绝对没有做他们声称做的事情。

When you ask psychiatrists, “What about that claim that things are out of balance?” They say, “Oh, it’s just a metaphor.”

当你问精神科医生“事情不平衡的说法又如何呢？”他们说：“哦，这只是一个比喻。”

Suicide is a symptom of something horrible, something very, very wrong with people’s lives.

自杀是一些可怕的事情的症状，是人们生活中非常非常错误的事情。

You called it an epidemic.

你称其为流行病。

I looked at the data recently.

我最近看了一下数据。

It’s hard to believe the increase over a very short period of time.

很难相信在很短的时间内出现了这种增长。

Often, that’s due to a change in the way data is collected or a change in the way data is collected across states — that different states are reporting it in different ways.

通常，这是由于数据收集方式的变化或跨州收集数据的方式发生变化——不同的州以不同的方式报告数据。

The fact that it’s going up nationwide — if it’s really true and it’s not a data compositional issue — is quite striking.

事实上，它正在全国范围内上升——“如果这是真的，而且不是数据构成问题”——这是相当惊人的。

It should be almost all we’re talking about, trying to figure out why that is.

这几乎应该是我们谈论的全部内容，试图找出原因。

What are the characteristics?

有什么特点？

I think the rate’s growing quite rapidly among younger people.

我认为年轻人中这一比例增长得相当快。

I’d want to go to the core, if I could.

如果可以的话，我想深入核心。

If I couldn’t, maybe it would be worthwhile to subsidize .

如果我做不到，也许补贴是值得的。

.

。

.

。

What would you do?

你会怎么办？

What would be an idea of a subsidy for suicide?

为自杀提供补贴的想法是什么？

“If you don’t kill yourself, we’ll give you money.

“如果你不自杀，我们就给你钱。

If you do kill yourself, we’ll burn down your parents’ house.” No, that won’t work.

如果你自杀了，我们就烧毁你父母的房子。”不，那行不通。

That could go the other way.

这也可能会走向另一条路。

That could be a moral hazard problem.

这可能是一个道德风险问题。

What do you have in mind?

你有什么想法？

It’s still a pretty big problem.

这仍然是一个很大的问题。

I’d also argue, I don’t think we’re that good at altering culture in knowable ways.

我还想说，我不认为我们擅长以可知的方式改变文化。

I like the idea of it.

我喜欢这个主意。

Interesting.

有趣的。

On Hayek and behavioral economics

哈耶克与行为经济学

But for me, The Fatal Conceit is an incredible book.

但对我来说，《致命自负》是一本不可思议的书。

I think it’s 108 pages in the edition I usually look at, or maybe 118.

我觉得我平时看的版本有108页，也可能是118页。

It’s a very short book, so you think, “Well, that’s accessible.” You give it to people.

这是一本很短的书，所以你会想，“嗯，这是可以理解的。”你把它给人们。

I used to give it away a lot because I loved it.

我曾经经常把它送人，因为我喜欢它。

Nobody read it.

没有人读它。

They’d read a few pages.

他们读了几页。

The reason is, is that every page is a little bit dense.

原因是，每一页都有点密集。

It’s all interesting, but if you’re not really interested in it, it’s pretty slow going.

这一切都很有趣，但如果你不是真正感兴趣，那么进展就会相当缓慢。

But I do love that book, and I would say it’s by far the most influential Hayek book I’ve read.

但我确实喜欢那本书，我想说这是迄今为止我读过的最有影响力的哈耶克书。

By the way, some people said he didn’t write it, I should add, of course.

顺便说一句，有人说不是他写的，我当然要补充一下。

There’s a lot of ruin in a nation, as Adam Smith said.

正如亚当·斯密所说，一个国家有很多废墟。

There’s plenty of wiggle room for countries to fail horribly and still “do better than their neighbors.” So I don’t know.

一些国家有很大的回旋余地，即使它们惨遭失败，但仍然“比邻国做得更好”。所以我不知道。

That argument of cultural competition seems a bit overconfident.

这种文化竞争的论点似乎有点过于自信了。

I will say that one of the things that I loved when I came to George Mason in 2003 was how happy people were to take a piece of behavioral economics and say, “Well, in this area, people don’t maybe work as rationally as in other areas, and therefore I could assume this, that, and the other.” As opposed to wearing it as a religion in a form of clothing that you always had on.

我要说的是，2003 年我来到乔治梅森大学时，我喜欢的一件事是，人们多么高兴地接受了行为经济学的研究，并说：“嗯，在这个领域，人们可能不像其他领域那样理性地工作，因此我可以假设这个、那个和另一个。”而不是把它当作一种宗教信仰，以你一直穿着的衣服的形式来穿着。

I also feel like much of the behavioral economics field has been damaged by the replication crisis in psychology.

我还觉得行为经济学领域的大部分内容都因心理学的复制危机而受到损害。

Now, I would think that way because I’m not as big a fan of behavioral economics as some people are.

现在，我会这么想，因为我不像某些人那样热衷于行为经济学。

When I claim that, people will oftentimes say, “Well, but this finding still holds up, doesn’t it?” I’ll say, “Yeah, sometimes in a laboratory, in certain situations, with a large enough sample, maybe.”

当我这么说时，人们常常会说：“好吧，但这个发现仍然成立，不是吗？”我会说，“是的，有时在实验室，在某些情况下，也许有足够大的样本。”

I think for me, it’s more of a perspective than a discipline.

我认为对我来说，这更多的是一种观点而不是一门学科。

In many ways, I think its promise has been disappointing, right?

从很多方面来说，我认为它的承诺令人失望，对吧？

To gore neoclassical economics by proving that people aren’t totally rational seems like a very unexciting finding, but it is greeted with great glee in some circles.

通过证明人们并非完全理性来挑战新古典经济学，这似乎是一个非常平淡的发现，但在某些圈子里却受到了极大的欢迎。

We romanticize science a great deal, and I think we romanticize the objectivity of academics and scientific researchers.

我们把科学浪漫化了很多，我认为我们把学者和科学研究人员的客观性浪漫化了。

They have their own pet theories, their own fads, their own reputations.

他们有自己钟爱的理论、自己的时尚、自己的声誉。

It’s very hard to do science.

做科学是非常困难的。

It’s very hard to do good science.

做好科学研究是非常困难的。

If you ask me what policy lever I’d choose, it’s not obvious to me.

如果你问我会选择什么政策杠杆，这对我来说并不明显。

I will say that I’m not happy with the patent situation, particularly in the case of pharmaceuticals, so I think there is some research there.

我想说的是，我对专利状况不满意，特别是在药品方面，所以我认为那里有一些研究。

One thing that alarms me in the pharmaceutical business right now is that the return to certain research and development is too high.

目前制药行业让我感到震惊的一件事是某些研发的回报太高。

The patent system and the restrictions on generics have made research in pharmaceuticals less productive than it would otherwise be.

专利制度和对仿制药的限制使得药品研究的生产力低于其他制度。

That’d be one thing I would encourage changing — the patent landscape.

这是我鼓励改变专利格局的一件事。

I’m a big fan, as I think you are, of prizes to solve problems.

我和你一样，非常喜欢通过奖品来解决问题。

There’s a wonderful website called InnoCentive that just puts up prizes of $10,000, $25,000, I saw $100,000 — I don’t know if that’s the top or whether there are probably some that are bigger — where creative people from outside the field that’s usually being looked at come up with creative ideas.

有一个很棒的网站，叫做 InnoCentive，只设置了 10,000 美元、25,000 美元的奖金，我看到了 100,000 美元 —— 我不知道这是否是最高的，或者是否有一些更大的 —— 来自通常被关注的领域之外的有创造力的人提出了创造性的想法。

Other than that, I’m not sure what we can do.

除此之外，我不确定我们还能做什么。

Nothing else comes to my mind.

我脑子里没有其他的想法。

What would you do, Tyler?

泰勒，你会怎么做？

Perhaps unlike you, I think government funding of science, on average, works, though I don’t think we’re doing it especially well right now.

也许与您不同的是，我认为政府对科学的资助平均而言是有效的，尽管我认为我们现在做得不是特别好。

IP, I have mixed feelings on.

IP，我的心情很复杂。

In some areas I think it should be tighter, others looser.

我认为在某些领域应该更紧，而在其他领域则应该更宽松。

But I’m not sure that’s the main problem.

但我不确定这是主要问题。

It’s the number of yeses you need to get something done that I tend to focus on as the main barrier.

这是你需要完成某件事所需的“是”的数量，我倾向于将其视为主要障碍。

As you say, it’s too bureaucratic.

正如你所说，这太官僚了。

There’s a reason for that.

这是有原因的。

It’s done through the government.

这是通过政府完成的。

There’s a certain way that you rise to the top of that hand-out-the-money game.

有一种特定的方法可以让你在分发金钱的游戏中登上顶峰。

There’s a certain set of reputations.

有一定的声誉。

They’re not big on risk-taking.

他们不太愿意冒险。

But I’d like to fund more risk-takers, more outside-the-box thinkers.

但我想资助更多敢于冒险的人、更多打破常规的思考者。

Of course, one way to argue for that is to let foundations and philanthropic organizations do that, and they are.

当然，支持这一点的一种方法是让基金会和慈善组织这样做，而他们确实这样做了。

Obviously, there’s a lot of R&D going on in America right now that’s funded not by the government, not by corporations, but by foundations, which is encouraging.

显然，美国现在正在进行大量的研发活动，这些研发活动不是由政府、企业而是由基金会资助的，这是令人鼓舞的。

They too become sclerotic, of course, after a while, which is a whole —

当然，过了一段时间，它们也会变得硬化，这是一个整体——

That’s a tragedy.

这是一场悲剧。

It’s evidently a very human tragedy.

这显然是一场非常人性的悲剧。

It’s very hard to avoid that, so I think that’s a very good reason for philanthropists to sunset their foundations and have them die after a certain amount of time.

这是很难避免的，所以我认为这是慈善家们放弃他们的基金会并让他们在一定时间后消亡的一个很好的理由。

On good regulation

论良好的监管

Deregulation’s a little bit tricky, so I wanted to get that in.

放松管制有点棘手，所以我想把它加入进来。

I’m not sure how that pertains to the question.

我不确定这与这个问题有什么关系。

It does, probably, in some way.

或许，在某种程度上确实如此。

So give me something I should be more regulatory about.

所以给我一些我应该更加监管的东西。

You’re on a roll.

你进展顺利。

See what else you can come up with for me.

看看你还能为我想出什么。

What I realized — and it’s not a lightning bolt; it’s just over time — I realized at some point that my views had changed on a bunch of things.

我意识到——这不是一道闪电，而是一道闪电。只是随着时间的推移 —— 我意识到在某个时候我对很多事情的看法已经改变了。

If I had to say why, it’s because I’ve talked to a lot of people and read a lot of books.

如果非要我说原因的话，那是因为我和很多人交谈过，读过很多书。

Early on in EconTalk — not early on, but at some point in EconTalk — I realized I wanted to be open about my biases, and I discovered that by being open about my biases, I had to confront them a little bit because here I am, saying them out loud.

在 EconTalk 的早期——不是早期，而是在 EconTalk 的某个时刻——我意识到我想要公开我的偏见，而且我发现，通过公开我的偏见，我必须面对它们一点，因为我在这里，大声说出它们。

And I realized, “Well, gee, do I really believe this now?” Something I believed, say, a long time ago.

我意识到，“好吧，天哪，我现在真的相信这一点吗？”比如说，我很久以前就相信的东西。

As a result of the accumulation of those conversations, my views on a number of things, I think, have changed quite dramatically.

我认为，随着这些谈话的积累，我对很多事情的看法发生了很大的变化。

Early on in EconTalk — not early on, but at some point in EconTalk — I realized I wanted to be open about my biases, and I discovered that by being open about my biases, I had to confront them a little bit because here I am, saying them out loud.

在 EconTalk 的早期——不是早期，而是在 EconTalk 的某个时刻——我意识到我想要公开我的偏见，而且我发现，通过公开我的偏见，我必须面对它们一点，因为我在这里，大声说出它们。

And I realized, “Well, gee, do I really believe this now?” Something I believed, say, a long time ago.

我意识到，“好吧，天哪，我现在真的相信这一点吗？”比如说，我很久以前就相信的东西。

As a result of the accumulation of those conversations, my views on a number of things, I think, have changed quite dramatically.

我认为，随着这些谈话的积累，我对很多事情的看法发生了很大的变化。

Of course, sometimes it does.

当然，有时确实如此。

But the relentless application of price theory to the world, which is the way I was trained at the University of Chicago — proudly — which has helped me understand lots of things I wouldn’t otherwise understand, I think, a little too overconfident.

但是价格理论在世界上的不断应用，这就是我在芝加哥大学接受培训的方式——“自豪地”——帮助我理解了很多我原本无法理解的事情，我认为，有点过于自信了。

So I’m much more open to imperfect aspects of economic theory.

所以我对经济理论的不完美方面持更加开放的态度。

I’ve become disenchanted with economics in general in the following sense: We have this idea, which is a very strange idea when you go deeply into it, which is, we teach our students — I stopped doing it in undergraduate, but most people still do, and certainly in graduate school — we teach something called utility theory.

从以下意义上来说，我对经济学不再抱有幻想：我们有这样的想法，当你深入研究它时，这是一个非常奇怪的想法，那就是，我们教我们的学生 —— 我在本科时不再这样做，但大多数人仍然这样做，当然在研究生院 —— 我们教一些叫做效用理论的东西。

The real reason I think we developed utility theory in economics at the end of the 19th century, early part of the 20th century, was to explain why people buy what they buy.

我认为我们在 19 世纪末、20 世纪初发展经济学效用理论的真正原因是解释人们为何购买他们所购买的东西。

We’re trying to generate demand curves and explain why, when a price of some good goes up, you buy more of a different type of good.

我们试图生成需求曲线并解释为什么当某种商品的价格上涨时，您会购买更多不同类型的商品。

We call that a substitute.

我们称之为替代品。

There might be you buy less of it.

可能你买的少了。

We call that a complement.

我们称之为补语。

We were very focused on what I could call commercial behavior — what people do with their money.

我们非常关注我所说的商业行为——人们用他们的钱做什么。

Then somehow, we made a bizarre leap from that narrow focus to arguing that we have something to say about people’s well-being.

然后不知何故，我们从狭隘的关注点奇怪地飞跃到认为我们对人们的福祉有话要说。

You think about how strange that is.

你想想那是多么奇怪。

Now, if I said to you, “Does what people buy contribute to their well-being?” Of course it does.

现在，如果我对你说：“人们购买的东西对他们的幸福有贡献吗？”当然可以。

We want to buy things that add more to our well-being than things that add less.

我们希望购买能够增加我们幸福感的东西，而不是购买那些增加较少的东西。

That’s reasonable.

这是合理的。

Most people would agree with that.

大多数人都会同意这一点。

Would you then jump to the conclusion that what people consume determines how happy they are?

那么您是否会得出这样的结论：人们的消费决定了他们的幸福程度？

Now, that would be ludicrous.

现在，这将是荒谬的。

Adam Smith understood in 1759 that that isn’t the case.

亚当·斯密 (Adam Smith) 于 1759 年认识到事实并非如此。

If you asked economists, “Is that true?” “Well, of course not.

如果你问经济学家：“这是真的吗？” “嗯，当然不是。

No, when I mean utility, I mean everything.

不，当我说实用时，我指的是一切。

I mean the nonmonetary aspects of a job, for example, and the nonmonetary aspects of the steak you cook at night for the romantic dinner.

例如，我指的是工作的非金钱方面，以及您晚上为浪漫晚餐烹制的牛排的非金钱方面。

It’s the romance that’s more important than the consumption of the steak, of course.

当然，浪漫比吃牛排更重要。

We all know that.”

我们都知道这一点。”

Yet, somehow, we’ve become the arbiters of how policy translates into well-being.

然而，不知何故，我们已经成为政策如何转化为福祉的仲裁者。

I find that really deeply disturbing.

我发现这确实令人深感不安。

When I was younger — it’s like the fish in water — I was in that water.

当我年轻的时候——就像鱼在水中一样——我就在水里。

It was just the world I lived in.

这就是我生活的世界。

Now I look at it, and I think .

现在我看着它，我想。

.

。

.

。

I look at the things that I think are important in America today that we ignore as economists: tribalism, the feeling of belonging, the importance of community, conversation like right now that we’re having, you and I, across a table.

我着眼于我认为在今天的美国重要但我们作为经济学家所忽视的事情：部落主义、归属感、社区的重要性、就像现在我们坐在桌子旁进行的对话。

And you’re actually paying attention for a minute there, instead of looking at your questions.

事实上，你只是在那里集中注意力一分钟，而不是看你的问题。

It’s hard being the host of a podcast, folks.

伙计们，做播客主持人很难。

I know how it works.

我知道它是如何运作的。

Those things are what really make our hearts sing: pride, dignity, respect.

这些才是真正让我们内心歌唱的东西：骄傲、尊严、尊重。

They’re cliches, but they’re not in our model.

它们是陈词滥调，但它们不在我们的模型中。

So we say, “Well, yeah, they’re working in the background.” Or “We’re just holding them constant.” Or “They’re not important for the question I’m looking at.” Then we get to something like universal basic income, where we say, “Okay, we’re worried — because of, say, autonomous vehicles or artificial intelligence — that people aren’t going to be able to find work, but that’s okay.

所以我们说，“嗯，是的，他们在后台工作。”或者“我们只是让它们保持不变。”或者“它们对于我正在考虑的问题并不重要。”然后我们谈到全民基本收入，我们说，“好吧，我们担心 ——比如，因为自动驾驶汽车或人工智能 ——人们将无法找到工作，但这没关系。

We’ll just give them a check.”

我们只会给他们一张支票。”

Who would say, “Oh, that’s a good idea.

谁会说：“哦，这是个好主意。

That’s a good substitute for a feeling of pride and agency and responsibility and dignity that a job well done provides”?

这是一个很好的替代品，可以替代出色的工作所带来的自豪感、代理感、责任感和尊严感”？

We’d say, “Well, that’s absurd.” Yet, people on the left and the right have adopted the economist’s view that says there’s a function that translates stuff into well-being.

我们会说：“嗯，这太荒谬了。”然而，左派和右派的人都接受了经济学家的观点，即存在一种将物质转化为福祉的功能。

I think that’s just grotesque.

我认为这太荒唐了。

Where we’re talking about things I’ve changed on, that’d be a big one.

当我们谈论我改变的事情时，那将是一件大事。

Obviously, I’ve become much less enamored — my listeners know — I’ve become much less enamored of statistical modeling, which, again, when I was younger, I thought was just the truth: “Now, it’s true that the other side has their statistical models.

显然，我对统计模型的迷恋已经少了很多，当我年轻的时候，我认为这就是事实：“现在，对方确实有他们的统计模型。

Those are the bad models.

这些都是不好的模型。

Mine are the good ones.

我的是好的。

I have the good studies on my side.”

我这边有很好的学业。”

I’ve come to reject that view.

我开始拒绝这种观点。

I don’t think any of them are very good.

我认为他们中的任何一个都不是很好。

More importantly, I don’t think the reasons we hold the views we hold are due to the empirical results that we find from our models.

更重要的是，我不认为我们持有观点的原因是我们从模型中发现的实证结果。

It’s true some people change their minds based on “scientific” evidence or studies, but in general, it’s not really what happens much.

确实，有些人会根据“科学”证据或研究改变主意，但总的来说，这种情况并没有发生太多。

It’s deeply disturbing to me that our field has become so focused on advanced forms of econometrics as a way of understanding how the world works and to alter policy.

令我深感不安的是，我们的领域已经变得如此关注先进的计量经济学形式，将其作为理解世界如何运作和改变政策的一种方式。

I don’t think we have enough skin in the game to do that, and I don’t think we understand the relationships and causal connections as well as we think we do.

我认为我们没有足够的经验来做到这一点，而且我认为我们并不像我们认为的那样理解其中的关系和因果关系。

Interviewing Milton Friedman was a thrill.

采访米尔顿·弗里德曼令人兴奋。

One of my all-time favorites was the guy who does the potato chips for northern California.

我最喜欢的人之一是为北加州做薯片的那个人。

O’Donohoe was his last name.

奥多诺霍是他的姓氏。

Great episode where I learned a lot about industrial production and Frito-Lay strategies.

很棒的一集，我学到了很多关于工业生产和菲多利策略的知识。

He does Frito-Lay potato chips for northern California.

他为北加州生产菲多利薯片。

He was in charge of it.

他负责这件事。

Let’s see.

让我们来看看。

Any others that jump to mind?

还有其他人想到的吗？

There’s a fun interview with Mark Helprin, my favorite novelist, living novelist.

有一次对马克·赫尔普林（Mark Helprin）的有趣采访，他是我最喜欢的小说家、在世小说家。

That was just a thrill.

那只是一种兴奋。

Interviewing Bill James, who taught me to love statistics and data and baseball.

采访比尔·詹姆斯，他教会我热爱统计、数据和棒球。

It was an incredible thrill, and to get him to say something like we know 1,000th of what we could know in baseball, which is a very narrow, controlled environment.

这是一种令人难以置信的兴奋，让他说出我们所知道的事情是我们在棒球中所能知道的千分之一之类的话，这是一个非常狭窄、受控的环境。

I get a lot of flack for interviewing Nassim Taleb, because his online persona seems to be different from mine — I’ll say it judiciously.

我因采访纳西姆·塔勒布而受到很多批评，因为他的网上形象似乎与我不同 —— 我会明智地说。

I’ve learned an immense amount from him.

我从他身上学到了很多东西。

On religion

关于宗教

There’s a classic problem in, I want to say Leviticus, where if your ox gores a neighbor’s ox or gores a person, if it gores within your area versus a public area —

我想说《利未记》中有一个经典问题，如果你的牛撞到了邻居的牛或撞到了一个人，如果它在你的区域内与公共区域内发生冲突——

But that’s tort law, basically, is what those restrictions or those commandments are about — tort law.

但这基本上就是侵权法，这些限制或戒律的内容就是“侵权法”。

What we would call tort law.

我们称之为侵权法。

Can one find classical liberalism in the Hebrew Bible?

我们能在希伯来圣经中找到古典自由主义吗？

If you wanted to read it through classical liberal eyes, you would look at the decentralized nature of welfare.

如果你想用古典自由主义的眼光来阅读它，你就会看到福利的去中心化本质。

For example, a farmer’s not to cut the corners of the farmer’s field, to leave them for the poor.

例如，农民不得砍伐农田的角落，将其留给穷人。

If things fall that you’re loading onto the truck, you have to leave those for the poor.

如果你装载到卡车上的东西掉落，你必须把它们留给穷人。

There is a minimum expected 10 percent tithe to go toward communal institutions and to the poor as well.

预计至少有 10% 的什一税将用于公共机构和穷人。

Big negative thoughts on monarchy in the Bible and centralized power generally.

对圣经中的君主制和一般的中央集权有很大的负面想法。

But I think you have to be careful when you look at Jewish law and, in particular, Talmudic law.

但我认为，当你研究犹太法，特别是塔木德法时，你必须小心。

It’s written for a community structure where people know each other, interact with each other in repeated ways.

它是为人们相互认识、以重复的方式互动的社区结构而编写的。

So when we look at, say, the restriction on charging interest — which is clearly a restriction, to me — it’s clearly a restriction to get you to be a more humane person to your neighbor.

因此，当我们考虑收取利息的限制时——对我来说，这显然是一项限制——这显然是一项让你对邻居更加人道的限制。

As your neighbor gets more distant, it’s harder and harder to feel that, and so the rabbis found ways around that restriction because people were giving less.

当你的邻居变得越来越远时，你会越来越难感受到这一点，因此拉比们找到了绕过这一限制的方法，因为人们给予的越来越少。

There’s the economist reading of the Bible and the Talmud.

有《圣经》和《塔木德》的经济学家读物。

People weren’t as eager to lend out money as they could be.

人们并不那么急于借钱。

So there were ways to get around some of the interest restrictions or the restrictions of the Jubilee year — every 50 years, all debts are eliminated — and changes in land ownership.

因此，有办法绕过一些利息限制或禧年的限制——“每50年，所有债务都被消除”——以及土地所有权的变化。

So I think there’s a lot of decentralized aspects to the Bible, but a lot of people read it a different way.

所以我认为圣经有很多分散的方面，但很多人以不同的方式阅读它。

I think David Foster Wallace says it best.

我认为大卫·福斯特·华莱士说得最好。

Everyone worships.

每个人都崇拜。

We, as human beings, like things that are larger than ourselves.

作为人类，我们喜欢比我们更大的事物。

We like belonging to causes that are more than just our daily lives.

我们喜欢参与超越我们日常生活的事业。

His advice is to pick one of the bigger .

他的建议是选择较大的之一。

.

。

.

。

actually, any actual religion, rather than, say, beauty or money or fame.

事实上，任何真正的宗教，而不是美貌、金钱或名誉。

He says if you worship those, you’ll find yourself deeply disappointed as you get older.

他说，如果你崇拜这些，随着年龄的增长，你会发现自己深感失望。

Adam Smith would say the same thing in The Theory of Moral Sentiments.

亚当·斯密在《道德情操论》中也说过同样的话。

When you ask what are people missing — for me, a lot of religious belief in the modern age is two things.

当你问人们缺少什么时，对我来说，现代的许多宗教信仰有两件事。

It’s an ability to embrace a little bit of agnosticism, a little bit of intellectual humility, to say, “I don’t fully understand.” It’s not easy to fully embrace a belief in God in today’s age.

这是一种接受一点不可知论的能力，一点理智上的谦逊，说“我不完全理解”。在当今时代，完全接受对上帝的信仰并不容易。

That makes most people uncomfortable.

这让大多数人感到不舒服。

They tend to either be .

他们往往是。

.

。

.

。

Fundamentalism is very attractive, and then there’s nothing.

原教旨主义很有吸引力，然后就什么都没有了。

Those two extremes are very attractive.

这两个极端非常有吸引力。

The in-between, which says, “I’m not sure there’s a God, but I want to use religion as a way to express my sense of awe and wonder, being a human being alive in an extraordinary universe” — that’s a tough sell.

中间的内容是，“我不确定是否有上帝，但我想用宗教作为一种方式来表达我作为一个生活在非凡宇宙中的人类的敬畏和惊奇感” ——这是一个很难推销的东西。

That, I think, is the easiest sell to a thoughtful person in many ways.

我认为，从很多方面来说，这对于有思想的人来说是最容易的。

It’s a little bit like, for me and my experience, having an ear for music.

对于我和我的经验来说，这有点像拥有音乐的耳朵。

Some people don’t have an ear for music — it doesn’t speak to them — or for art or for bitter beer.

有些人对音乐没有耳朵——“音乐不会对他们说话”——或者对艺术或苦啤酒没有耳朵。

It just doesn’t appeal to them.

这对他们来说没有吸引力。

It doesn’t make their neurons fire in a particular way.

它不会让他们的神经元以特定的方式放电。

I think religion may be like that as well.

我想宗教也可能是这样的。

I think there’s some people who are very prone to it, who find either transcendence or belief easier to embrace than for others.

我认为有些人很容易出现这种情况，他们发现超越或信仰比其他人更容易接受。

I would never say someone’s missing something by not being religious, not leading a religious life.

我绝不会说某人因为不信教、不过宗教生活而错过了一些东西。

I will say that, in my case, religion is a lot like marriage, and I say this as someone who is very happily married now for almost 30 years.

我想说的是，就我而言，宗教很像婚姻，我是作为一个已经结婚近 30 年、非常幸福的人这么说的。

If we were doing this in front of a live audience, wild applause.

如果我们在现场观众面前这样做，就会得到热烈的掌声。

If you ever mention how long you’ve been married, if it’s more than a year, people applaud because it’s such an achievement, I guess.

如果你提到你结婚多久了，如果超过一年，人们会鼓掌，因为我想这是一项成就。

They don’t realize it could be my wife’s achievement, not mine.

他们没有意识到这可能是我妻子的成就，而不是我的。

At any rate, any one day, you might wish it were otherwise.

无论如何，任何一天，你都可能希望情况并非如此。

Any one day, as a religious Jew, there are days I wish I could have shrimp.

作为一名虔诚的犹太人，总有一天我希望能吃到虾。

There are days I wish I could watch the game on Saturday morning, Saturday afternoon on TV.

有些日子我希望能在周六早上、周六下午在电视上观看比赛。

There are times I wish I didn’t feel different.

有时我希望自己没有感觉不同。

But over a lifetime, it’s a very powerful enricher of the texture of everyday life.

但在一生中，它会非常有力地丰富日常生活的质感。

At any rate, any one day, you might wish it were otherwise.

无论如何，任何一天，你都可能希望情况并非如此。

Any one day, as a religious Jew, there are days I wish I could have shrimp.

作为一名虔诚的犹太人，总有一天我希望能吃到虾。

There are days I wish I could watch the game on Saturday morning, Saturday afternoon on TV.

有些日子我希望能在周六早上、周六下午在电视上观看比赛。

There are times I wish I didn’t feel different.

有时我希望自己没有感觉不同。

But over a lifetime, it’s a very powerful enricher of the texture of everyday life.

但在一生中，它会非常有力地丰富日常生活的质感。

I would say that’s true of marriage and religion

我想说婚姻和宗教也是如此

I would say that’s true of marriage and religion.

我想说婚姻和宗教也是如此。

Any one day, you might sometimes think it’s a hard deal.

有一天，你有时可能会认为这是一件很难的事。

Most days, it’s good or great, and then, more importantly, over a longer period of time, it’s deeply satisfying.

大多数时候，它是好的或伟大的，然后，更重要的是，在较长的一段时间内，它会带来深深的满足感。

I think in today’s world, those two institutions are struggling because for whatever reason, people are more interested in today.

我认为在当今世界，这两个机构正在苦苦挣扎，因为无论出于何种原因，人们对今天更感兴趣。

If I say to you, “Forgo this pleasure today, and you’ll have great pleasure tomorrow,” that’s a tough sell in today’s world.

如果我对你说：“放弃今天的快乐，明天你就会拥有巨大的快乐”，这在当今世界是很难推销的。

In my case, I don’t look at my cell phone for 25 hours over the Jewish Sabbath.

就我而言，犹太安息日期间我有 25 小时不看手机。

What?

什么？

It’s crazy because on any non-Sabbath day, I look at my phone compulsively.

这很疯狂，因为在任何非安息日，我都会不由自主地看手机。

Really, why would you give that up?

真的，你为什么要放弃呢？

How can you give that up?

你怎么能放弃呢？

Yet it’s been a good trade for me.

但这对我来说是一笔很好的交易。

That’s all I can say.

我只能说这么多。

I can’t say whether it’s good for other people.

我不能说这对其他人是否有好处。

A lot of people, I think, find the Sabbath idea very appealing, but if you don’t believe in God, it’s really hard to keep it with any regularity.

我想，很多人都觉得安息日的想法很有吸引力，但如果你不相信上帝，就很难有规律地遵守它。

Again, I would emphasize, you don’t have to embrace fundamentalism to have a taste of the transcendent in your life, and I think it’s an important part of being a human being.

我想再次强调，你不必接受原教旨主义才能体验到生活中的超验，我认为这是作为一个人的重要组成部分。

Recently read a book on neuroscience by Robert Burton.

最近读了罗伯特·伯顿（Robert Burton）写的一本关于神经科学的书。

I think there are three ways that we stimulate our brain’s love of the transcendent: psychedelics — mushrooms and LSD; direct brain stimulation — you can give someone an out-of-body feeling of being part of something enormous through a brain stimulus, according to Burton; and religion.

我认为我们可以通过三种方式来激发大脑对超然事物的热爱：致幻剂——蘑菇和LSD；直接大脑刺激——根据伯顿的说法，通过大脑刺激，你可以给某人一种灵魂出窍的感觉，让他成为巨大事物的一部分；和宗教。

The value of religion is it’s better than a knife, and it’s probably better than mushrooms, at least if you’re worried about some of the side effects.

宗教的价值在于它比刀更好，而且可能比蘑菇更好，至少如果你担心一些副作用的话。

I just think it’s part of being human, and if you struggle to make that leap of faith, which I think everyone should struggle, you don’t have to make the leap of faith.

我只是认为这是人类的一部分，如果你努力实现信仰的飞跃，我认为每个人都应该努力，那么你就不必实现信仰的飞跃。

You could just say, “I’m open to the possibility that the reason there’s something rather than nothing is because some force started it.” Then you need to choose a religion — you need an institutional framework for experiencing that.

你可以只是说，“我对这样一种可能性持开放态度：之所以有东西而不是没有，是因为有某种力量开始了它。”然后你需要选择一种宗教——你需要一个制度框架来体验它。

That works for me.

这对我有用。

Might not work for you.

可能不适合你。

On things under- and overrated

关于被低估和高估的事情

My dad loves Saul Bellow.

我爸爸喜欢索尔·贝娄。

To my mind, he’s not a great writer in the sense he’s not a poetic, elegant writer of sentences.

在我看来，他不是一位伟大的作家，因为他不是一位富有诗意、优雅的句子作家。

Nothing happens in his stories.

他的故事里什么也没发生。

He just follows around somebody who’s a lot like him and writes down what they say and his interactions.

他只是跟随一个很像他的人，并写下他们所说的话和他的互动。

I’ve always found him very disappointing.

我一直觉得他很令人失望。

I’ve read probably — I don’t know — three or four of his novels, trying to like him — can’t do it.

我大概读过 —— 我不知道 —— 他的三四部小说，试图喜欢他 —— 做不到。

That OPS adjusted is commonly used now is an extraordinary thing, an incredible achievement of Bill James and the others, John Thorne and Pete Palmer — the three people I associate with this revolution.

现在普遍使用经过调整的 OPS 是一件了不起的事情，是比尔·詹姆斯 (Bill James) 和其他人约翰·索恩 (John Thorne) 和皮特·帕尔默 (Pete Palmer) 所取得的令人难以置信的成就——我将这三个人与这场革命联系在一起。

It’s, of course, spread to other sports.

当然，它也传播到了其他运动中。

It continues to spread, the application of analytical technique.

它继续传播，分析技术的应用。

In that sense, it’s underrated in that I think there’s still some really bad sports commentary.

从这个意义上说，它被低估了，因为我认为仍然有一些非常糟糕的体育评论。

It’s overrated in that it’s part of a revolution that I’m deeply worried about — big data is part of that — that everything can be reduced to measurement.

它被高估了，因为它是我深感担忧的一场革命的一部分——大数据就是其中的一部分——一切都可以简化为可测量的。

We can measure everything important, and if we can’t, we will.

我们可以衡量一切重要的事情，即使做不到，我们也会这么做。

Eventually, everything will be quantified and we’ll get better lives as a result.

最终，一切都将被量化，我们将因此获得更好的生活。

I think that’s a misreading of the human experience, and I’m not an optimist on that.

我认为这是对人类经验的误读，我对此并不乐观。

What I find remarkable about that space is how uncomfortable it is, that there’s no place to sit down, except the Acela waiting room, which I’ve had the privilege of being in maybe three times.

我发现这个空间的非凡之处在于它是多么不舒服，除了 Acela 候诊室之外没有地方可以坐下，我有幸去过那里大概三次。

These people are standing around, often holding their bags on the shoulder, getting ready to race to a gate so they can get a seat that they already have reserved.

这些人站在周围，经常把行李扛在肩上，准备冲向登机口，以便获得已经预订的座位。

And I do it; I’m ashamed of it.

我就这么做了；我对此感到羞耻。

It’s so strange and it’s ugly.

这太奇怪了，而且很丑陋。

It’s ugly on the outside.

外面很难看。

It’s ugly on the inside.

里面很丑。

Most people know it, so it could be underrated.

大多数人都知道它，所以它可能被低估。

I don’t think there’s anybody who loves it.

我认为没有人喜欢它。

I also had a rule not to write in my books because I found that to be sacrilegious, in some sense, to deface the book.

我还有一条规则，就是不要在书里写字，因为我发现，从某种意义上来说，污损这本书是一种亵渎。

I never opened it all the way, so when I finished a book in my youth, it looked brand new, but I had read it.

我从来没有完全打开过它，所以当我年轻时读完一本书时，它看起来是全新的，但我已经读过了。

I’ve changed all of those things.

我已经改变了所有这些事情。

Now I write in my books.

现在我写在我的书中。

I don’t finish lots of books.

我没有读完很多书。

Quitting is a good strategy if you know when to do it.

如果您知道何时戒烟，戒烟是一个很好的策略。

Quitting school, or I would even say not attending in the first place, is underrated except that for a lot of people who don’t finish, they don’t do very well.

退学，或者我什至会说，一开始就不上学，是被低估的，除非对于很多没有完成学业的人来说，他们表现不佳。

I don’t think the average is a good predictor for necessarily what’s going to happen to you, Tyler.

我认为平均值并不能很好地预测你将会发生什么，泰勒。

Tyler, you could’ve not finished, and I wonder what would have happened to Tyler.

泰勒，你不可能完成的，我想知道泰勒会发生什么。

My favorite example of this outlier, of course, by definition, is Kevin Kelly.

当然，根据定义，我最喜欢的这个异常值的例子是凯文·凯利。

Kevin Kelly, who’s just a wonderful writer on technology and many, many other things and a brilliant photographer, by the way, also.

凯文·凯利（Kevin Kelly）是一位出色的技术作家和许多其他领域的作家，顺便说一句，他也是一位出色的摄影师。

I don’t think he ever went to college.

我认为他从来没有上过大学。

Most of our learning takes place elsewhere, but for some people, it’s good.

我们的大部分学习都是在其他地方进行的，但对于某些人来说，这很好。

“Okay, well, that’s an easy one,” he said after a long pause, about a minute and a half.

“好吧，这很简单，”他停顿了大约一分半钟后说道。

That’d be the Book of Esther.

那就是《以斯帖记》。

The Book of Esther comes across as a clown show.

《以斯帖记》就像一场小丑表演。

A crazy king listens to his crazy anti-Semitic advisor, wants to kill all the Jews.

一个疯狂的国王听从他疯狂的反犹太顾问的意见，想要杀死所有的犹太人。

The queen, who’s a secret Jew, a Marrano, in the court of Ahasuerus, entraps Haman, the advisor to the king, and gets him killed and saves the Jews.

王后是亚哈随鲁王宫中的秘密犹太人马拉诺人，她诱捕国王的顾问哈曼，并杀死了他，拯救了犹太人。

Ahasuerus is written as sort of a buffoon who’s somehow manipulated by this wicked advisor.

亚哈随鲁被写成一个被这个邪恶顾问以某种方式操纵的小丑。

There’s some moments in it, but a little more careful reading, I think, gives you a different impression.

其中有一些时刻，但我认为，仔细阅读一下，会给您带来不同的印象。

Yoram Hazony wrote a wonderful book on it called The Dawn, which I think has now been reissued under a different title, but it takes it more seriously, so I think it’s very underrated.

约拉姆·哈佐尼（Yoram Hazony）就此写了一本精彩的书，名为《黎明》（The Dawn），我认为这本书现在已经以不同的标题重新发行，但它更严肃地对待它，所以我认为它被严重低估了。

Of course, that person is going to be a lot like our friends, and our friends are a lot like the circle in society and culture we come from.

当然，那个人很像我们的朋友，而我们的朋友很像我们所在的社会和文化圈子。

And what is honorable and kind and thoughtful in one circle would not be so in another.

在一个圈子里是光荣、仁慈和体贴的事情，在另一个圈子里就不是这样了。

There’s no honor among thieves, as the saying goes.

俗话说，小偷之间没有荣誉。

So, do thieves have a different kind of impartial spectator who would judge them harshly for keeping a bargain, a deal that they made with someone?

那么，小偷是否有另一种公正的旁观者，他们会因为他们与某人达成的交易而严厉地评判他们呢？

I think that’s correct, and I think Smith’s own society of Hume and others is a pretty unusual one on so many crowds.

我认为这是正确的，而且我认为史密斯自己的休谟和其他人的社团在这么多人群中是一个非常不寻常的社团。

I think it’s a good point, so I do think it’s culturally subjective, and at the same time, I think it understands something deeply about the way we behave in the world, which is that we look to how our friends judge us and how people who are not our friends judge us, the people in our casual circle who might observe our behavior.

我认为这是一个很好的观点，所以我确实认为它在文化上是主观的，同时，我认为它深刻地理解了我们在世界上的行为方式，那就是我们关注我们的朋友如何评价我们，以及不是我们朋友的人如何评价我们，我们的休闲圈子里可能观察我们行为的人。

I think it’s incredibly useful, either as a way of understanding what people do or, if you wanted to improve your own behavior, to think about how you should behave if someone was watching all the time.

我认为它非常有用，无论是作为了解人们所做的事情的一种方式，还是如果你想改善自己的行为，思考如果有人一直在监视你应该如何表现。

But what really motivates us?

但真正激励我们的是什么？

Is it, do I really want Tyler to think I gave a great interview?

是吗，我真的想让泰勒认为我接受了一次很棒的采访吗？

Is that why I’m trying hard right now?

这就是我现在努力的原因吗？

Because I would like your approbation.

因为我希望得到你的认可。

I’d like you to say, “Oh, great job,” afterward.

我希望你事后能说：“哦，干得好”。

I suspect you’ll say that.

我怀疑你会这么说。

I think about this a lot with Steve Jobs.

我和史蒂夫·乔布斯一起思考了很多这个问题。

Steve Jobs claimed he didn’t care what people thought.

史蒂夫·乔布斯声称他不在乎人们的想法。

He acted that way a lot.

他经常这样做。

He went barefoot to the office when he was young.

他年轻时赤脚去办公室。

He was cruel.

他很残忍。

He was incredibly demanding and didn’t care whether he was loved by his employees.

他的要求极其严格，并不关心自己是否受到员工的爱戴。

I think he would’ve said he was oblivious to the praise of others.

我想他会说他对别人的赞美毫不在意。

Yet he wanted to put a dent in the universe.

然而他想在宇宙中留下痕迹。

He wanted somebody’s praise.

他想要得到别人的赞扬。

I’m not sure whose.

我不确定是谁的。

That’s an aside, but my point is that I think you could read Smith — and I think this would be wrong — but you can read Smith as saying, “People are dishonest.

这是题外话，但我的观点是，我认为你可以读一下史密斯 —— 我认为这是错误的 —— 但是你可以读一下史密斯的话：“人们是不诚实的。

They’re not true to themselves.

他们不忠于自己。

They dissemble because they want the praise of other people.” I think that’s the wrong way to think about it as a human being.

他们掩饰是因为他们想要得到别人的赞扬。”我认为作为一个人，这是错误的思考方式。

Again, I don’t know what Smith really thought, but for me, when I think about how pleasant it is when someone says something nice about me, I try to discount it.

再说一遍，我不知道史密斯的真实想法，但对我来说，当我想到有人对我说好话是多么令人愉快时，我会试着低估它。

I try not to use that as a motivator for me.

我尽量不用它作为我的动力。

I don’t want to use that as a motivator.

我不想用它作为动力。

I want to do it for its own sake — the right thing, whatever it is.

我想这样做是为了它本身——“正确的事情，无论它是什么。”

I know I’m prone to manipulation through praise, as I think many of us are, as human beings.

我知道我很容易被赞美所操纵，我认为作为人类，我们很多人都是如此。

There’s a certain tension that Adam Smith doesn’t write about so much that I think it’s not easily resolved.

亚当·斯密（Adam Smith）并没有写太多关于某种紧张关系的文章，因此我认为它不容易解决。

I am struck by how the hand of Plato and Aristotle reaches across so many things, certainly modern religion, certainly our love of mathematics as a perfect source.

我对柏拉图和亚里士多德的手如何触及如此多的事物感到震惊，当然包括现代宗教，当然还有我们对数学作为完美源泉的热爱。

Mention Yoram Hazony again.

再次提及 Yoram Hazony。

I think he makes the point that there’s no circle in the real world.

我认为他指出了现实世界中不存在圆的观点。

Circle’s a concept.

圆是一个概念。

And yet the idea that it’s out there, this human creation, a mathematical definition, is a very powerful, I think, influence on our thinking still.

然而，我认为，这种人类创造的想法，一种数学定义，仍然对我们的思维产生非常强大的影响。

Maybe we’re hardwired to think that way.

也许我们生来就有这样的想法。

I don’t know.

我不知道。

To come back to your question, I think it’s a really interesting question in modern America.

回到你的问题，我认为这在现代美国是一个非常有趣的问题。

There are parts of America that have a respect for, say, military culture that’s very scarce, right?

美国的某些地区对军事文化的尊重非常稀缺，对吧？

There aren’t a lot of places that have respect for military culture.

尊重军事文化的地方并不多。

I’m going to ask you a question, Tyler.

我要问你一个问题，泰勒。

I used to quote Milton Friedman all the time when he testified, allegedly, when he was advocating for a volunteer army that would be paid to come to serve rather than drafted.

据称，当米尔顿·弗里德曼作证时，我经常引用他的话，当时他主张建立一支有偿服役而不是应征入伍的志愿军。

They said, “You’d want to be defended by an army of mercenaries?” He brilliantly responded, “Better than an army of slaves, where you force people to serve.” I always found that compelling, given my libertarian youth.

他们说：“你想要一支雇佣军来保护你吗？”他精彩地回答道：“这比强迫人们服役的奴隶军队要好。”考虑到我年轻时的自由主义倾向，我总是觉得这一点很有吸引力。

But the argument on behalf of that, of why that was actually a good thing — besides philosophically — was, “Well, if we had to pay soliders instead of forcing them to serve and paying them a pittance, the budgetary costs of enlarging the army would start to bite, and that would discourage a large army.”

但代表这一点的论点是，为什么这实际上是一件好事——“除了哲学上”——是，“好吧，如果我们必须向士兵支付工资，而不是强迫他们服役并支付他们微薄的工资，那么扩大军队的预算成本就会开始增加，这会阻碍一支庞大的军队。”

I’m not sure that’s true.

我不确定这是真的。

Because on the flip side, excuse me, on the other side is that if the average American doesn’t have to serve — which they don’t anymore — then it’s cheaper to go to war.

因为另一方面，对不起，另一方面，如果普通美国人不再需要服役——“他们不再这样做了”——那么参战会更便宜。

I don’t know.

我不知道。

I think that tension’s ignored by most of my friends who favor a volunteer army.

我认为我的大多数支持志愿军的朋友都忽视了这种紧张局势。

Three simple questions to close, super simple.

三个简单的问题就结束了，超级简单。

Hayek is an obvious one, although he’s hard to understand.

哈耶克是一个显而易见的人，尽管他很难理解。

His German accent’s pretty thick, so he wouldn’t be the best guest.

他的德国口音很重，所以他不会是最好的客人。

He taught a great class on the philosophy of pragmatism.

他教授了一堂关于实用主义哲学的精彩课程。

I think I took three classes from him.

我想我从他那里上了三门课。

Later in my life — I was probably 50 or so — I realized a lot of Hayek is echoing this view that reason’s overrated, which is one way to summarize pragmatism in a sentence.

在我生命的后期 ——“我大概50岁左右”—— 我意识到哈耶克的很多人都赞同理性被高估的观点，这是用一句话来概括实用主义的一种方式。

Let me just think about it.

让我想一想。

Can we take another 15 seconds?

我们可以再花 15 秒吗？

I’m going to think about it.

我会考虑一下。

But I think there’s an implicit idea that the inequality comes at the expense of the poor.

但我认为有一个隐含的想法，即不平等是以牺牲穷人为代价的。

There are cases where that’s true, of course, where rent-seeking and other privileges that people have taken from the government — from government power — have allowed them to impoverish others.

当然，在某些情况下，情况确实如此，人们从政府（从政府权力）那里夺取的寻租和其他特权使他们能够使他人陷入贫困。

But most people who are poor are poor because they do not have the tools, the skills to contribute in the modern economy.

但大多数穷人之所以贫穷，是因为他们没有为现代经济做出贡献的工具和技能。

They have circumstances that keep them from rising.

他们的处境阻碍了他们的崛起。

I’ve been deeply saddened by the failure of people on so-called our side — the people who believe in smaller government — to think at all about that, to think at all about human flourishing by the people who are struggling.

我对那些所谓的我们这边的人——那些相信小政府的人——没有认真思考这一点，没有认真思考通过奋斗的人民实现人类繁荣而深感悲痛。

I think that has been a terrible mistake.

我认为这是一个可怕的错误。

At the same time, we’ve failed to make the case for freedom, and to the extent that even saying that seems foolish .

与此同时，我们未能为自由辩护，甚至连这样说都显得愚蠢。

.

。

.

。

It’s not literally true, but the last prominent politician, I think, who made the case for liberty and freedom in and of itself was Maggie Thatcher.

这并不完全正确，但我认为最后一位为自由和自由本身辩护的杰出政治家是玛吉·撒切尔。

Reagan, to some extent, also, but Maggie Thatcher did it relentlessly.

里根在某种程度上也是如此，但玛吉·撒切尔却毫不留情地做到了这一点。

That’s so out of fashion in our times.

这在我们这个时代已经不流行了。

We’ve become so consequentialist.

我们变得如此结果主义。

The idea that liberty is a principle worth defending in and of itself is really, really difficult.

认为自由本身就是一项值得捍卫的原则的想法确实非常困难。

I find it strange that people tie small government to the Republican party.

我觉得很奇怪，人们把小政府与共和党联系在一起。

The Republican party doesn’t make the case for liberty.

共和党并没有为自由辩护。

Republican politicians love to spend money.

共和党政客爱花钱。

I like to say that the only difference between .

我想说的是，两者之间的唯一区别。

.

。

.

。

Well, both Republicans and Democrats like to spend money on their friends.

嗯，共和党人和民主党人都喜欢为朋友花钱。

They just have different friends.

他们只是有不同的朋友。

Except they have one friend in common, which is the financial sector, so they both coddle the financial sector because that’s where the money is.

只是他们有一个共同的朋友，那就是金融部门，所以他们都对金融部门宠爱有加，因为那是钱的所在。

We don’t have a political home for our ideas, and I think the intellectual home has failed badly for our inability to make the case, either for liberty in and of itself, and to understand how and why people who are being left behind by our economy, and what policies might help them.

我们的思想没有政治家园，而且我认为知识分子家园已经严重失败，因为我们无法为自由本身提供理由，也无法理解人们如何以及为何被我们的经济抛在后面，以及哪些政策可以帮助他们。

I think that’s an utter failure of our side, and it’s a tragedy.

我认为这是我们这边的彻底失败，这是一场悲剧。

In terms of books, I think I’m writing a book on data and our need for certainty and our challenge of interpreting numbers authentically and correctly.

就书籍而言，我想我正在写一本关于数据、我们对确定性的需求以及真实、正确地解释数字的挑战的书。

I think it’s really hard for us to consume numbers.

我认为我们消耗数字真的很难。

We tend to see them as facts.

我们倾向于将它们视为事实。

They’re not facts.

它们不是事实。

Some of them are.

其中一些是。

Most of them aren’t.

大多数都不是。

And we’re prone to manipulation, I think, from the use of numbers.

我认为，我们很容易因为数字的使用而受到操纵。

It causes us to look under the lamppost — which is, I think, a huge failing — where the light is, rather than maybe out in the dark a little bit.

它让我们看向灯柱下面——我认为这是一个巨大的失败——那里有光，而不是在黑暗中一点点。

We need to edge out into the dark, where the numbers aren’t.

我们需要慢慢走向黑暗，那里没有数字。

That’s one book I’m trying to start.

这是我想开始的一本书。

I’m trying to write a book on prayer for people who struggle with prayer, and I think most people do, at least the ones I know.

我正在尝试为那些在祷告中挣扎的人写一本关于祷告的书，我想大多数人都会这样做，至少是我认识的人。

Then I’d like to write a book on forgiveness and the virtues of forgiveness, which is totally alien to me.

然后我想写一本关于宽恕和宽恕的美德的书，这对我来说是完全陌生的。

If you had said to me five years ago, “You’re going to write a book on forgiveness,” I would have said, “Forgiveness is a really mixed bag.

如果你五年前对我说，“你要写一本关于宽恕的书，”我会说，“宽恕真是一个复杂的东西。

Some you should bear a grudge.”

有些你应该记仇。”

I’ve changed my mind on that, and I want to see if I can make the case for forgiving yourself and forgiving others more readily, and how that might actually work.

我改变了主意，我想看看我是否可以更容易地原谅自己和他人，以及这实际上是如何运作的。

It’s a great cliché: “You need to forgive yourself so you can forgive others.” But most of us struggle to do that.

这是一句很俗的话：“你需要原谅自己，这样你才能原谅别人。”但我们大多数人都很难做到这一点。

I’m not sure.

我不知道。

The connection’s not so obvious.

联系并不那么明显。

The same thing — you need to love yourself before you can love others.

同样的事情 —— 你需要先爱自己，然后才能爱别人。

That seems counterintuitive to me.

这对我来说似乎违反直觉。

Those kinds of interpersonal, human aspects of life, I think, are fascinating, and maybe I can say something about them.

我认为生活中的这些人际交往和人性方面是令人着迷的，也许我可以谈谈它们。