663: How I Read It - This American Life
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00:00 00:00 Transcript Share This American Life Life Partners How to Listen Episodes Recommended About Overview Staff Announcements Fellowships Jobs Music Make Radio On The Road FAQ Submissions Merch Contact Us Our Other Shows Merch Follow Us Life Partners Subscribe to our newsletter Full episode Toggle Audio and Transcript Sync Transcript | Episode #663 | December 7, 2018 663: How I Read It Note: This American Life is produced for the ear and designed to be heard.
00:00 00:00 文字记录 分享此 美国生活 生活伙伴 如何收听 剧集 推荐 关于 概述 员工公告 奖学金 工作 音乐 在路上制作电台 常见问题解答 提交 商品 联系我们 我们的其他节目 商品 关注我们 生活伙伴 订阅我们的时事通讯 整集 切换音频和文字记录同步 文字记录 | 内容第 663 集 | 2018 年 12 月 7 日 663：我是如何阅读的 注：《美国生活》是为耳朵而制作的，旨在让人们听到。
If you are able, we strongly encourage you to listen to the audio, which includes emotion and emphasis that's not on the page.
如果可以的话，我们强烈建议您收听音频，其中包括页面上没有的情感和重点。
Transcripts are generated using a combination of speech recognition software and human transcribers, and may contain errors.
文字记录是使用语音识别软件和人工转录员结合生成的，可能包含错误。
Please check the corresponding audio before quoting in print.
请在印刷版引用前检查相应的音频。
Prologue: Prologue Ira Glass From WBEZ Chicago, it's This American Life.
序言：序言 来自 WBEZ 芝加哥的 Ira Glass，这就是美国生活。
You can call me Jesper.
你可以叫我杰斯珀。
Ira Glass Jasper?
艾拉·格拉斯·贾斯珀？
Yeah, hi, Ira.
是的，嗨，艾拉。
Ira Glass Jasper and Peder.
艾拉·格拉斯·贾斯珀和佩德。
Are those your actual names?
这些是你的真名吗？
Yeah.
是的。
It's not a joke.
这不是玩笑。
Ira Glass Peder Jorgensen and Jesper Sundnes, this is the first time they've ever agreed to do an interview about this thing that they created or even identify themselves as the creator of that thing.
Ira Glass Peder Jorgensen 和 Jesper Sundnes，这是他们第一次同意接受关于他们创造的这个东西的采访，甚至承认自己是那个东西的创造者。
This thing they made, they said it all began back in 2015.
他们制作的这个东西，他们说这一切都始于 2015 年。
They were basically hanging out, killing time together, strolling through Facebook, bored.
他们基本上都是闲逛，一起消磨时间，无聊地浏览 Facebook。
The location for this?
这个的位置？
Because you had a lot of free time at that job?
因为你在那份工作上有很多空闲时间？
No, no, we were working all the time, working really hard.
不，不，我们一直在工作，非常努力。
It's probably during a lunch break.
大概是午休的时候吧。
I like that one of you said yes and one of you said no.
我喜欢你们中的一个人说是，而你们中的一个人说不。
They were working in radio.
他们在广播电台工作。
They live in Oslo, Norway.
他们住在挪威奥斯陆。
Anyway, they noticed on their friends Facebook feeds, very common--
不管怎样，他们在朋友的 Facebook 上注意到，很常见——
People were posting lots of, like, inspirational images with inspirational words.
人们发布了很多鼓舞人心的图片和鼓舞人心的文字。
And it kind of looked like there was a system behind the whole thing.
看起来整个事情背后有一个系统。
It kind of felt like a machine should be able to do this.
感觉就像一台机器应该能够做到这一点。
Yeah, a robot could probably make that.
是的，机器人也许可以做到这一点。
Could make an inspirational quote.
可以引用一句励志的话。
After all, they're so formulaic-- every day might not be a good day, but there's good in every day.
毕竟，它们是如此公式化——也许每一天都不是美好的一天，但每一天都有美好的一面。
You fell down yesterday.
昨天你摔倒了。
Stand up today.
今天站起来。
The secret to getting ahead is getting started.
取得成功的秘诀就是开始。
So Jesper and Peder set out to program a computer to create these to generate inspirational sentences and paste them onto stock photos of beaches, and starry nights, and people staring into the distance.
因此，杰斯珀和佩德开始对计算机进行编程，以创建这些句子来生成鼓舞人心的句子，并将它们粘贴到海滩、星夜和人们凝视远方的库存照片上。
And what's interesting is just how quickly the program kind of took on a mind of its own.
有趣的是这个程序很快就形成了自己的想法。
At first, they said the computer really did generate very typical, kind of predictable inspirational quotes.
起初，他们说计算机确实生成了非常典型的、可预测的励志名言。
They said that wasn't terribly difficult.
他们说这并不是非常困难。
But as they gave it a bigger vocabulary and taught it to string together a wider variety of sentences, the kinds of sayings that it started to crank out started to evolve.
但当他们给它提供了更大的词汇量并教它把更多种类的句子串在一起时，它开始说出的各种说法开始演变。
As they got more random, they got funnier and darker and-- I don't want to oversell this, but it's true-- actually, sometimes kind of profound.
随着它们变得更加随机，它们变得更加有趣和黑暗，而且——我不想过分夸大这一点，但这是事实——实际上，有时有点深刻。
The bot started to take on a personality, the personality that it actually has now.
机器人开始呈现出它现在实际拥有的个性。
Yeah, I can remember very well the moment we were looking at the quotes, and it wasn't what we had imagined.
是的，我清楚地记得我们看报价的那一刻，但这不是我们想象的那样。
It felt like something that we hadn't created really.
感觉就像是我们没有真正创造过的东西。
I've saved some of these on my laptop.
我已将其中一些保存在我的笔记本电脑上。
Here's one.
这是一个。
OK, so each one is a quote on top of some peaceful, contemplative image.
好吧，所以每一张都是在一些平静、沉思的图像之上的引言。
This one, first one, the picture is a nighttime sky.
这一张，第一张，图片是夜空。
And-- I don't know-- maybe that's the Aurora Borealis.
而且——我不知道——也许那就是北极光。
And the words say, love is an animal eating your brain.
这句话说，爱是一只吃掉你大脑的动物。
This one here is a close-up of a coin.
这是一枚硬币的特写镜头。
It says, never think of it as a job.
它说，永远不要把它当作一份工作。
Think of it as health insurance, which, you know, people definitely feel, some people about their jobs.
把它想象成健康保险，你知道，人们肯定会感觉到，有些人对他们的工作有这种感觉。
I love this one.
我喜欢这个。
OK, so this is a picture of Big Ben.
好的，这是大本钟的照片。
It says, when you're eating dinner, don't forget that everything and everyone will someday be gone forever.
它说，当你吃晚饭时，不要忘记一切和每个人有一天都会永远消失。
A bunch of them have this kind of cold-water-in-the-face, wake-up-to-reality, slap-you-across-the-cheeks quality to them.
他们中的很多人都有这种泼冷水、醒悟现实、打你脸颊的品质。
There's one that says-- there's a photo of a man.
有一个说——有一张男人的照片。
This is a manager, starry sky, it says, your time on Earth is random.
这是一位经理，星空，上面写着，你在地球上的时间是随机的。
A woman offers a lit sparkler.
一位女士递上点燃的烟火。
It says simply, you're average.
简单地说，你很平均。
A man stands on a shore, it says, don't explore your true self.
一个人站在岸边，它说，不要探索真实的自我。
It's not worth it.
这是不值得的。
But most of them are not like that.
但大多数人并非如此。
Here's a picture of a spiral galaxy.
这是一张螺旋星系的图片。
It says, all you need in order to travel to Mars is a boy and a flag, which, in a certain way, is actually kind of true.
它说，去火星旅行所需要的只是一个男孩和一面旗帜，从某种程度上来说，这实际上是正确的。
These are all made by a machine.
这些都是机器做的。
They're made by a bot.
它们是由机器人制作的。
And a certain number of them do seem like gibberish.
其中有一些确实看起来像是胡言乱语。
An education can be like an angry child.
教育就像一个愤怒的孩子。
What does that mean?
这意味着什么？
Or be fine, systematized, spouse finity-- it's like, OK.
或者很好，系统化，配偶有限——就像，好吧。
But a surprising number of these, they not only makes sense, they seem to have something on their mind.
但其中数量惊人，他们不仅有道理，而且似乎有什么想法。
They have something to say.
他们有话要说。
Celebrity is basically just another term for pretentious burglar.
名人基本上只是自命不凡的窃贼的另一个术语。
Life on Earth is just one long commercial for sperm.
地球上的生命只是精子的一则长篇广告。
Urinating on an electric fence could be the mistake of a lifetime, which that's true.
在电围栏上小便可能是一生的错误，这是事实。
Normies unite.
规范团结起来。
Cooperate and fight your common adversary-- mass hysteria.
合作并对抗你的共同对手——大众歇斯底里。
I reached out to Jesper and Peder, because I was wondering, how does this really work?
我联系了 Jesper 和 Peder，因为我想知道这到底是如何运作的？
How do you get a machine that does not understand what words mean, does not understand what it's saying at all, how do you get it to turn out sayings that mean something to us?
如何让机器不理解单词的含义，根本不理解它在说什么，如何让它说出对我们有意义的话语？
And neither of these guys had been a professional programmer or studied it in school.
而且这些人都不是专业程序员，也没有在学校学习过编程。
Peder had taught himself to code years before.
佩德多年前就自学了编程。
And he made this with just kind of a grab bag of standard programming tools.
他只用了一些标准编程工具就做到了这一点。
He explained the recipe for an inspirational quote like this.
他解释了这样一句励志名言的秘诀。
So right now, we're in the studio in Oslo.
现在，我们在奥斯陆的工作室里。
And the sun is shining outside, but the drapes are pulled down.
外面阳光明媚，窗帘却拉了下来。
So if I say something like, you have to pull the drapes up to see the sun, it kind of makes sense in a practical way.
因此，如果我说，你必须拉起窗帘才能看到阳光，这在实际中是有道理的。
However, as soon as you put something like that on a beautiful backdrop, it starts speaking to you on a different level.
然而，一旦你把这样的东西放在美丽的背景上，它就会开始在不同的层面上对你说话。
You have to pull up the drapes to see the sun.
你必须拉起窗帘才能看到阳光。
It sounds like the cure for depression when it's put in the right picture.
如果把它放在正确的位置，这听起来像是治疗抑郁症的良药。
But it's just a very practical, normal thing to say really.
但这确实是一件非常实际、正常的事情。
Another thing they noticed in lots of inspirational sayings, they were juxtapositions-- opposites glued into the same sentence.
他们在许多励志名言中注意到的另一件事是，它们是并置的——对立面粘在同一个句子中。
Yeah, so there are no limits to what you can accomplish, except the limits you place on your own thinking.
是的，所以除了你对自己的想法施加的限制之外，你可以完成的事情没有任何限制。
So that's just--
所以这只是——
Limits is the keyword.
限制是关键字。
Peder Jorgensen Yeah, and then you just take the words and then turn them around after a comma.
Peder Jorgensen 是的，然后你只需要把这些词在逗号后面转过来。
So it's, like, the two-part sentences.
所以它就像由两部分组成的句子。
They can be pretty obvious, but still, it feels inspirational when you put it on a nice picture.
它们可能非常明显，但当你把它放在一张漂亮的照片上时，仍然会感觉很鼓舞人心。
To make the bot able to do this, the way to do it, really, they said, is just imitation.
他们说，为了让机器人能够做到这一点，真正做到这一点的方法就是模仿。
The algorithm imitates the sentence structure and the kinds of words that appear in real inspirational quotes on the internet.
该算法模仿了互联网上真实励志名言中出现的句子结构和单词种类。
They fed it thousands of inspirational quotes.
他们给它提供了数千条励志名言。
At first, of course, it was a little buggy.
起初，当然，这有点麻烦。
The grammar, the syntax was a total mess.
语法，语法完全是一团糟。
I can read one here.
我可以在这里读到一篇。
It's don't be jealous of spilled wife.
这不是嫉妒被泄露的妻子。
Just jump.
跳吧。
Don't be jealous of a spilled wife.
不要嫉妒一个出轨的妻子。
Just jump.
跳吧。
So it's kind of got this structure in a way, but the words don't make any sense.
所以它在某种程度上有这样的结构，但这些词没有任何意义。
It just becomes random, like gibberish.
它只是变得随机，就像胡言乱语一样。
How does it get to one like, if one expects a friendship, one has to prepare for a volcano?
如果一个人想要一份友谊，就必须为火山爆发做好准备，这是怎么回事？
Well, what it knows for sure is that expects and prepare are words that go well together.
嗯，它确信的是，“期望”和“准备”是相辅相成的词。
And does it know friendship and volcano will go together, or that's just totally random?
它是否知道友谊和火山会在一起，或者这只是完全随机的？
How?
如何？
Ira Glass It's like saying, when you have a friend, you have to prepare for the bad times when things get explosive.
Ira Glass 这就像说，当你有一个朋友时，你必须为事情变得爆炸的糟糕时刻做好准备。
That's not in the algorithm.
这不在算法中。
Ira Glass They say the same thing about the inspirational quotes that actually could be taken as inspirational by somebody, like, for instance, don't let nightmares get in the way of infinity.
艾拉·格拉斯（Ira Glass） 他们对励志名言也说了同样的话，这些名言实际上可以被某人视为励志名言，例如，不要让噩梦妨碍无限。
You kind of realize, you're making them inspirational yourself.
你意识到，你自己也在让它们鼓舞人心。
Our heads, our minds, you try so hard to give them meaning, so they start making sense in a way.
我们的头脑，我们的思想，你努力赋予它们意义，所以它们在某种程度上开始有意义。
What was the one you said?
你说的那个是什么？
Nightmares are--
噩梦是——
Don't let nightmares get in the way of infinity.
不要让噩梦阻碍无限。
Yeah, to me, that's saying, don't let the things that you're scared of get in the way of the big life you're trying to create for yourself.
是的，对我来说，这就是说，不要让你害怕的事情妨碍你试图为自己创造的美好生活。
Yeah, it's true.
是的，这是真的。
When you said that, it was harder for me to make the same.
当你这么说时，我就更难做出同样的事情了。
I heard something else in the quote.
我在引用中听到了其他内容。
Yeah.
是的。
Ira Glass So you guys really aren't just writing those?
Ira Glass：那么你们真的不只是在写这些吗？
No, no. Jesper Sundnes Oh, no, we couldn't do that.
不，不。 Jesper Sundnes 哦，不，我们不能那样做。
There's too many.
太多了。
Everything is generated.
一切都是生成的。
We do get, like, sometimes people are-- oh, there's no way this is a bot people would say in comments and stuff like that.
我们确实得到，有时人们会——哦，人们不可能在评论和类似的东西中说这是一个机器人。
But we don't go in and edit any of them.
但我们不会进去编辑其中任何一个。
We've never done that.
我们从来没有这样做过。
In fact, they logged onto the website during our interview, and 60 people were on the site at the same time right then, clicking away and generating quotes, way too many for them to edit.
事实上，他们在我们采访期间登录了该网站，当时有 60 人同时访问该网站，点击并生成报价，数量太多，他们无法编辑。
It's over a half million people a month.
每月有超过五十万人。
And they say that they are surprised sometimes when the bot comes up with something funny or kind of vaguely profound.
他们说，有时当机器人想出一些有趣或有点深刻的东西时，他们会感到惊讶。
Occasionally, it's blowing my mind really.
有时候，它真的让我大吃一惊。
I don't know how it came up with that.
我不知道它是怎么想出来的。
It's weird that you can get to something profound out of a machine that's actually just generating random words in sentence structures that you've given it.
奇怪的是，你可以从一台机器中得到一些深刻的东西，而这台机器实际上只是在你给它的句子结构中生成随机单词。
That sounds like something the bot would say.
这听起来像是机器人会说的话。
You've become too inspired by the bot.
你已经受到机器人的太多启发了。
Do you know what I mean?
你知道我的意思吗？
It's like, oh, really, we are so primitive that a machine can randomly throw together words in a sentence structure.
就像，哦，真的，我们太原始了，机器可以随机地将单词拼凑成句子结构。
And then, I have to say, looking at them, some of them are like, yeah, that's actually pretty true.
然后，我不得不说，看着他们，他们中的一些人会说，是的，这实际上是非常正确的。
Well, it doesn't necessarily mean that we're pathetic.
嗯，这并不一定意味着我们很可悲。
It also is a lot of credit to you as a reader just how much you add to something when you see it, how much of the things that you see is actually your contribution.
作为一名读者，当你看到某些东西时，你对它做了多少添加，你所看到的东西中有多少实际上是你的贡献，这对你来说也是很大的荣誉。
Well, today on our radio show, we have stories of this happening to people.
好吧，今天在我们的广播节目中，我们讲述了发生在人们身上的故事。
They are presented with documents, some words on a paper.
他们收到文件，纸上写着一些文字。
And how they read it, what they read into it really comes from them, and they have strong reactions.
他们如何阅读它，他们读到的内容确实来自他们自己，并且他们有强烈的反应。
As the InspiroBot might say, it's not what the words say.
正如 InspiroBot 可能会说的那样，事实并非如此。
It's what they say to you.
这就是他们对你说的话。
I've learned so much.
我学到了很多。
Anyway, stay with us.
无论如何，留在我们身边吧。
Act One: The Veritas Is Out There Ira Glass Act 1, the veritas is out there.
第一幕：真理就在那里 Ira Glass 第一幕，真理就在那里。
So I just found this out that since the 1990s, if you got into college, and you decided to attend the college, at lots of schools, you can work at your own admissions file.
所以我刚刚发现，自 20 世纪 90 年代以来，如果你进入大学，并且你决定上大学，在很多学校，你可以在自己的招生档案中工作。
See what the admissions people said about you when you were applying.
看看你申请时招生人员对你的评价。
In fancy schools that are hard to get into, you can try to figure out why they decided to admit you in the first place, which lots of kids do.
在很难进入的名牌学校，你可以试着弄清楚他们为什么决定录取你，很多孩子都是这么做的。
But the downside is, you might find something you didn't want to see, and then you have to deal with that.
但缺点是，你可能会发现一些你不想看到的东西，然后你必须处理它。
Diane Wu does the story of one Harvard student that happened to.
黛安·吴（Diane Wu）讲述了一位哈佛学生的故事。
At Harvard, going to see your admissions file has suddenly got caught up into something much bigger.
在哈佛，查看招生档案突然被卷入了更大的事情中。
As you might have heard, Harvard's being sued for allegedly discriminating against Asians.
您可能听说过，哈佛大学因涉嫌歧视亚裔而被起诉。
Asian applicants with high GPAs and test scores have a lower acceptance rate than other students with the same numbers.
GPA 和考试成绩较高的亚洲申请者的录取率低于其他同等水平的学生。
Harvard does consider a student's race when they apply as one of many factors.
哈佛在申请时确实将学生的种族作为众多因素之一。
The group that's suing them wants them to stop doing that altogether.
起诉他们的组织希望他们完全停止这样做。
It's a group called Students For Fair Admissions.
这是一个名为“学生公平招生”的组织。
They're trying to get rid of affirmative action all across the country.
他们正试图在全国范围内废除平权行动。
And this case is likely to be appealed all the way up to the Supreme Court.
而这个案子很可能会一直上诉到最高法院。
Alex Zhang is a junior, co-president of the Chinese Students Association.
Alex 张是一名大三学生，中国学生会联席主席。
I met him the first week of the trial.
我在审判的第一周见到了他。
He's solidly team Harvard in the lawsuit, because Harvard is on the side of keeping affirmative action.
他在诉讼中坚定地支持哈佛，因为哈佛站在维持平权行动的一边。
For him, it was a moral decision.
对他来说，这是一个道德决定。
Of course, diversity is good, and getting rid of affirmative action is bad.
当然，多元化是好事，而取消平权行动则是坏事。
So he wrote a statement for an amicus brief, and got his student group to sign on to another one.
因此，他写了一份非当事人意见陈述声明，并让他的学生团体签署了另一份声明。
Friends of his were looking at their admissions files.
他的朋友们正在查看他们的招生档案。
So Alex decided to go as well, partly because he was curious how his file stacked up against the claims made in the lawsuit.
因此亚历克斯决定也去，部分原因是他很好奇他的文件与诉讼中提出的主张有何不同。
But also, he just wanted to see how he got in.
不过，他也只是想看看他是怎么进来的。
He'd always wanted to find out.
他一直想弄清楚。
I'm really curious about the interview component, because I just feel like that's what did it.
我真的对面试部分很好奇，因为我觉得这就是它的作用。
Yeah, a really good interview with a really old and experienced alumni.
是的，对一位非常年长且经验丰富的校友的一次非常好的采访。
The way this usually works-- you meet with an alumni volunteer for an hour or so in a coffee shop or wherever in your hometown.
通常的运作方式是——你在咖啡馆或家乡的任何地方与校友志愿者会面一个小时左右。
Alex is from Portland, Oregon.
亚历克斯来自俄勒冈州波特兰。
He had an exceptional interview.
他接受了一次非同寻常的采访。
It lasted two hours.
持续了两个小时。
Then even more unusual, his interviewer set up a second meeting.
更不寻常的是，他的面试官安排了第二次会面。
He did this whole thing, where he ran through all my extracurriculars, kind of tallied up hours and stuff, just was very rigorous, even asked for some contacts for references, which, apparently, he wasn't supposed to do.
他做了这整件事，他浏览了我所有的课外活动，统计了时间之类的东西，非常严格，甚至要求一些联系人作为参考，显然，他不应该这样做。
He was really-- Alex Zhang He did that because he wanted to have everything on the table for him to advocate for me.
他真的——Alex 张他这样做是因为他想把一切都摆在桌面上，让他为我辩护。
Alex wanted to know, did this guy get me in?
亚历克斯想知道，是这个人让我进去的吗？
The alumni interview is important at Harvard, because usually, it's the only face-to-face contact the school has with an applicant.
校友面试在哈佛很重要，因为通常这是学校与申请人唯一的面对面接触。
And admissions officers use it, plus other information, to assign applicants this thing called a personal rating.
招生人员使用它和其他信息来给申请人分配这种称为个人评级的东西。
The personal rating is actually the crux of the lawsuit.
个人评分实际上是诉讼的症结所在。
It's basically a rating of your personality.
这基本上是对你个性的评价。
The words Harvard uses to describe what they're looking for are things like leadership, courage, sense of humor, effervescence.
哈佛用来描述他们所寻找的人才的词语包括领导力、勇气、幽默感、热情等。
It's like they want to fill the school with future senators, perky Griffindors, and Reese Witherspoon in Legally Blonde types.
就好像他们想让学校充满未来的参议员、活泼的格兰芬多和《律政俏佳人》类型的瑞茜·威瑟斯彭。
Students for Fair Admissions says the personal rating is where the discrimination happens, where implicit bias leaks in.
公平招生组织的学生表示，个人评分是歧视发生的地方，也是隐性偏见渗入的地方。
Because at Harvard, Asian applicants get a lower personal rating than white applicants.
因为在哈佛，亚洲申请者的个人评分低于白人申请者。
Harvard does not dispute those numbers, but says they don't consider an applicant's race when assigning the personal rating.
哈佛大学对这些数字没有异议，但表示他们在分配个人评级时不会考虑申请人的种族。
A couple days after I met him, Alex called me from a study lounge.
我见到他几天后，亚历克斯在自习室给我打电话。
He'd just gone to see his file, sat with 15 other kids around a table at the registrar's office and paged through it.
他刚刚去看了自己的档案，和另外 15 个孩子坐在登记办公室的一张桌子旁，翻阅着档案。
He wasn't allowed to take the file with him, but could take pictures on his phone.
他不被允许随身携带文件，但可以用手机拍照。
He scrolled through the photos and read parts of it to me.
他滚动浏览照片并向我朗读其中的部分内容。
Let me take a quick look.
让我快速浏览一下。
The first sheet is the Harvard scores, so they have this weird coding jargon that I don't really understand yet.
第一张表是哈佛的分数，所以他们有一些我不太明白的奇怪的编码术语。
I'll probably look it up later.
我稍后可能会查一下。
We got quickly to the part he was curious about-- the report from his alumni interviewer, which was the most remarkable part of his file.
我们很快就谈到了他感兴趣的部分——他的校友面试官的报告，这是他的档案中最引人注目的部分。
For starters, it was long.
对于初学者来说，时间很长。
My interviewer wrote, like, five pages of notes.
我的面试官写了五页笔记。
Wow.
哇。
Alex Zhang Which I think is kind of unusual.
Alex 张 我认为这有点不寻常。
It is.
这是。
Everyone else I checked with had only two pages.
我检查过的其他人都只有两页。
Reading through, Alex saw that his interviewer, Jim McCandlish was really going to bat for him.
读完之后，亚历克斯发现他的面试官吉姆·麦坎德利什真的会为他辩护。
He told Alex that he was one of the best candidates he'd met in more than 20 years of interviewing.
他告诉 Alex，他是 20 多年来面试中遇到的最好的候选人之一。
Though Alex learned, a lot of Jim's thoroughness-- the extra interview, the references he called-- that was Jim checking into whether or not Alex was for real.
尽管亚历克斯了解到，吉姆的很多彻底性——额外的面试，他打电话的推荐人——都是吉姆检查亚历克斯是否是真实的。
It seems like he was skeptical of a lot of stuff I did, at least was concerned about this resume-builder mentality and wanted to verify whether I did that authentic work.
看起来他对我所做的很多事情都持怀疑态度，至少担心我这种简历制作者的心态，并想验证我是否做了真正的工作。
Like when Alex said he worked on homelessness at the youth commission, Jim wondered, is he just saying that because he googled my law firm and read that I represent disadvantaged people?
就像亚历克斯说他在青年委员会从事无家可归问题一样，吉姆想知道，他这么说只是因为他在谷歌上搜索了我的律师事务所并了解到我代表弱势群体吗？
Quote, "was this a perfect for MIT mechanical engineer playing me?" Perfect for MIT, I guess, is code for too boring for Harvard.
引用：“这是麻省理工学院机械工程师扮演我的完美选择吗？”我想，对于麻省理工学院来说，完美的代码对于哈佛来说太无聊了。
Jim called up Alex's supervisor at the youth commission and found out, no, Alex genuinely cared about homelessness and works there even more than he'd let on.
吉姆打电话给亚历克斯在青年委员会的主管，结果发现，不，亚历克斯真正关心无家可归者并在那里工作，甚至比他表现出来的还要多。
Alex read Jim's interview notes to me matter-of-factly, then paused to note this one section.
亚历克斯实事求是地给我读了吉姆的采访笔记，然后停下来记下了这一节。
Oh, here's an interesting portion actually.
哦，实际上这是一个有趣的部分。
Jim was writing about a conversation he'd had with that supervisor.
吉姆正在写他与那位主管的一次谈话。
Apparently, he had asked not just about Alex, but about Alex's mom, too.
显然，他不仅询问了亚历克斯的情况，还询问了亚历克斯妈妈的情况。
He writes--
他写道——
She is far from the stereotypical, quote, "tiger mother." His mom is supportive, but not directive.
她远非刻板印象中的“虎妈”。他的妈妈很支持，但不指导。
So I guess there's just those two, three sentences on my mom.
所以我想关于我妈妈的只有这两、三句话。
How do you feel about that?
你对此有何感想？
How would you feel about that characterization of your mom?
你对你妈妈的这个性格有何看法？
I mean, it's true.
我的意思是，这是真的。
Yeah, she's supported, but not directive.
是的，她是支持的，但不是指导的。
She pushes me.
她推我。
She pushes me hard, but has always sort of let me push in the direction I wanted.
她给我很大的压力，但总是让我朝着我想要的方向前进。
Is it weird to you at all that the interviewer is pointing to stereotypes that you aren't?
面试官指出你不是的刻板印象，你对此感到奇怪吗？
Is he a perfect-for-MIT engineer playing me, or does he have a tiger mom?
他是一位完美的麻省理工工程师来扮演我，还是他有一个虎妈？
As soon as I asked the question, I felt like I overstepped, like I was planting the idea in Alex's head that something racial was going on.
当我问这个问题时，我感觉自己有点逾越了，就像我在亚历克斯的脑海中植入了种族歧视正在发生的想法。
But when I heard tiger mother, I thought, there is the implicit bias they're talking about in the lawsuit in a way more explicit form than I was expecting.
但当我听到虎妈的话时，我想，他们在诉讼中以比我预期更明确的形式谈论了隐性偏见。
Alex did have a strange feeling about it, even if he wasn't sure exactly why.
亚历克斯确实有一种奇怪的感觉，尽管他不确定具体原因。
Yeah, that is really weird.
是的，这真的很奇怪。
I guess it kind of goes into a narrative like the Asian applicant has to disprove certain things to be considered viable for something ivy league.
我想这有点像亚洲申请人必须反驳某些事情才能被认为对常春藤盟校可行的叙述。
In other words, if you want to get into Harvard, don't be too Asian.
换句话说，如果你想进入哈佛，就不要太亚裔。
Hmm.
唔。
That makes sense.
这是有道理的。
I don't know what his motivations are, my interviewer's motivations.
我不知道他的动机是什么，我的面试官的动机是什么。
Maybe the interviewer was like, oh, I should distinguish him from other Asians, or maybe he just does it subconsciously.
也许面试官会说，哦，我应该把他和其他亚洲人区分开来，或者也许他只是下意识地这样做。
There's another thing like this in Jim's notes, another spot where he points to an Asian stereotype and says it doesn't fit Alex.
吉姆的笔记中还有类似的事情，他指出亚洲人的刻板印象并说这不适合亚历克斯。
It has to do with the fact that Alex is quiet, which is a stereotype about Asian students.
这与 Alex 很安静有关，这是对亚洲学生的刻板印象。
One, actually, that Harvard was called out for using in a 1990 federal investigation.
事实上，哈佛在 1990 年的一项联邦调查中被要求使用这一点。
But in Alex's case, Jim casts it as a plus.
但就亚历克斯的情况而言，吉姆认为这是一个优点。
He writes, "Alex is reserved, quietly confident, uses language frugally but effectively.
他写道：“亚历克斯性格内向，安静而自信，使用语言节俭但有效。
There is no teenage patois." Perfect-for-MIT engineer, by the way, also plays into a stereotype of Asians only being interested in science and math.
没有青少年的方言。”顺便说一句，麻省理工学院的完美工程师也体现了亚洲人只对科学和数学感兴趣的刻板印象。
This one didn't bother Alex, though, since he literally wanted to be an engineer when he was applying.
不过，这并没有困扰亚历克斯，因为他在申请时确实想成为一名工程师。
The tiger mother part is definitely interesting.
虎妈的部分确实很有趣。
No other mom is called a tiger mom.
没有哪个妈妈被称为虎妈妈。
That's what you call a Chinese mom.
这就是所谓的中国妈妈。
Only Chinese moms are called tiger moms.
只有中国妈妈才被称为虎妈妈。
It definitely seems like he's trying to disprove what a reviewer might assume about the reasoning for why I do things.
看起来他显然是在试图反驳评论者可能对我做事的理由的假设。
I don't know.
我不知道。
So he actually has a Chinese wife.
所以他实际上有一个中国妻子。
No, he's an old white guy, very American, grew up very American, went to Harvard during the time when it was, like, four white people played baseball on the baseball team.
不，他是一个白人老人，非常美国化，长大后也非常美国化，在哈佛上学的时候，就像有四个白人在棒球队打棒球一样。
Everything's with good intentions.
一切都是出于好意。
But I think he might just be a little more old-fashioned.
但我认为他可能只是比较守旧一点。
Alex actually knows Jim pretty well.
亚历克斯实际上很了解吉姆。
They kept in touch after his interview.
采访结束后他们一直保持联系。
Their families became friends.
他们的家人成了朋友。
Alex's mom helped teach Jim's wife how to drive.
亚历克斯的妈妈帮助教吉姆的妻子如何开车。
He gets dinner with Jim whenever he's back home.
每当吉姆回到家时，他都会和他一起吃晚饭。
Alex left our conversation feeling pretty fine about what he'd read.
亚历克斯在结束我们的谈话时对他所读到的内容感到非常满意。
But then he stepped back into a campus caught in the force field of the lawsuit, where anything to do with race, and bias, and admissions felt hypercharged.
但随后他又回到了陷入诉讼力场的校园，在那里，任何与种族、偏见和招生有关的事情都让人感觉过度紧张。
One of the biggest ways the lawsuit has shaken up Harvard is that certain statistics are now public, like the school said that without affirmative action, one out of two black kids wouldn't get it.
这起诉讼震动哈佛的最大方式之一是某些统计数据现已公开，就像学校所说的，如果没有平权行动，二分之一的黑人孩子就无法得到它。
Latino kids-- they'd lose one out of three.
拉丁裔孩子——他们会失去三分之一。
Kids whose parents went to Harvard, who are, by the way, mostly white have a seven times better chance of getting in than regular kids.
顺便说一句，父母上过哈佛的孩子大部分是白人，他们被录取的机会比普通孩子高七倍。
It's making students ask questions they'd rather not about how they got in.
这让学生们提出了一些他们不愿意回答的关于他们是如何入学的问题。
It's uncomfortable.
很不舒服。
I talked to two black students who chose not to see their files this fall.
我与两名黑人学生交谈，他们今年秋天选择不看自己的档案。
Both were worried it would say, let's take her because she's black.
两人都担心它会说，我们带她走吧，因为她是黑人。
They didn't think it would, but still.
他们不认为会这样，但仍然如此。
One of them had the request form open on her computer for more than a week before she decided, nah, maybe senior year.
其中一个人在她的电脑上打开了申请表一个多星期，然后她决定，不，也许是高年级。
For Asian students, the question is the opposite.
对于亚洲学生来说，问题恰恰相反。
It's not am I here because of my race, but am I here in spite of it?
我来这里并不是因为我的种族，而是尽管如此，我还是在这里吗？
It's cranked people's race goggles up to level 10.
它将人们的比赛护目镜调至 10 级。
One of Alex's friends wrote on Facebook about a comment in her file.
亚历克斯的一位朋友在 Facebook 上针对她文件中的一条评论发表了评论。
"She's a bright student, but what distinguishes her from other bright students?"
“她是一个聪明的学生，但是她和其他聪明的学生有什么不同呢？”
To her, this was racially coded.
对她来说，这是种族编码。
When she read it she saw, she seemed smart, but is there anything that makes her different from other Asian students?
当她读到的时候发现，她看起来很聪明，但是她和其他亚洲学生有什么不同吗？
Well, if that was racially coded, Alex thought, you should see mine.
好吧，如果那是种族编码的话，亚历克斯想，你应该看看我的。
He texted some close friends from his freshman year Chinese class.
他给一年级中文班的一些好朋友发了短信。
I sent a couple screen grabs from my admissions file to them.
我从我的招生文件中发送了几张屏幕截图给他们。
I was like, hey, I can't get this off my mind.
我当时想，嘿，我无法把这件事从我的脑海中抹去。
I didn't react that strongly to it until after I saw this stuff online.
直到我在网上看到这些东西之后，我才对此做出如此强烈的反应。
And now, I'm starting to feel pretty troubled by it.
现在，我开始为此感到非常困扰。
What was the part that was troubling to you?
让您感到困扰的部分是什么？
My main trouble was, oh, does he feel like he needs to prove that I'm not like other Asians to the admissions office?
我主要的麻烦是，哦，他是否觉得他需要向招生办公室证明我不像其他亚洲人？
And is that what it takes to get in nowadays?
如今这就是进入的必要条件吗？
Most other college interviewers, I just talked for, like, an hour, an hour and a half.
大多数其他大学面试官，我只聊了一个小时，一个半小时。
But Jim was doing a background check, you know?
但吉姆正在进行背景调查，你知道吗？
Why did he feel the need to do so rigorous of a background check?
为什么他觉得有必要进行如此严格的背景调查？
Alex's friends saw his screen grab saying tiger mom and perfect-for-MIT engineer and texted him back, oh, my god and that's kind of horrible.
亚历克斯的朋友们看到他的屏幕截图上写着“虎妈”和“麻省理工学院的完美工程师”，然后给他回了短信，哦，天哪，这太可怕了。
Tiger mom was actually a lot more explicit than any of the examples of bias that came up at the trial.
虎妈实际上比审判中出现的任何偏见例子都要明确得多。
It was really a fight over statistics and economic models, but a few stereotypes did come up.
这确实是一场关于统计和经济模型的争论，但确实出现了一些刻板印象。
They were subtle.
他们很微妙。
Things like Harvard referring to Asian applicants as one-dimensional or book smart.
像哈佛这样的学校将亚洲申请者称为“一维”或“书本聪明”。
Alex wanted to see what Jim was actually thinking when he wrote tiger mother.
亚历克斯想看看吉姆在写虎妈妈时到底在想什么。
See if it really was a racial thing, like his friends were saying.
看看这是否真的像他的朋友们所说的那样是种族问题。
So he gave him a call.
于是就给他打了电话。
Alex taped the call and with Jim's permission, sent it to me.
亚历克斯对通话进行了录音，并在吉姆的允许下将其发送给了我。
First, they catch up a little bit.
首先，他们赶上了一点。
Alex tells Jim about how he went to go see his file.
亚历克斯告诉吉姆他是如何去看他的档案的。
He mentions an op-ed he co-wrote for the student newspaper.
他提到了他为学生报纸共同撰写的一篇专栏文章。
Did you read the op-ed I wrote, by any chance?
你读过我写的专栏吗？
I don't think I sent it to you.
我想我没有把它寄给你。
Yes, you did send it.
是的，你确实发送了。
I read it, and I totally regret that I did not respond.
我读了它，我非常后悔没有回复。
It was very well done.
做得非常好。
Oh, really?
哦真的吗？
You thought so?
你是这么想的吗？
Jim Mccandlish Yes.
吉姆·麦坎德利什 是的。
I'm glad you thought so.
我很高兴你这么想。
Diane Wu They talk about the lawsuit.
吴黛安 他们谈论诉讼。
And before Alex can even bring up tiger moms, Jim volunteers his own ideas about implicit bias in admissions.
在亚历克斯甚至可以提出虎妈之前，吉姆自愿提出了他自己关于招生中隐性偏见的想法。
He's been thinking about the effect of the interviewer's biases because--
他一直在思考面试官偏见的影响，因为——
Most likely, at least certainly from a place like Oregon, the interviewer is Caucasian.
最有可能的是，至少可以肯定，来自俄勒冈州这样的地方，面试官是白人。
And we know there are stereotypes.
我们知道存在刻板印象。
I'm just curious how that plays out.
我只是好奇结果如何。
If you have an expectation that an Asian interviewee is going to have a drab personality or meek and mild, you may play into your stereotype and not develop the rapport that would defeat the stereotype or at least resist it.
如果你预期亚洲受访者性格单调或温顺，你可能会陷入你的刻板印象，而不会发展出能够打破刻板印象或至少抵制它的融洽关系。
You're in a really gray area of human nature.
你处于人性的灰色地带。
Jim, of course, went above and beyond to spend the time with Alex to get that rapport, to make sure he really understood Alex as an individual, not to write him off immediately.
当然，吉姆不遗余力地花时间与亚历克斯相处，以建立融洽的关系，以确保他真正理解亚历克斯作为一个人，而不是立即注销他。
So I'm actually kind of curious about some stuff you wrote.
所以我实际上对你写的一些东西很好奇。
Yeah, so you wrote five pages of notes.
是的，所以你写了五页笔记。
There's probably 2,000 words at least.
大概至少有2000字吧。
[INAUDIBLE] Alex Zhang Yeah, and most of that was in the personal quality section, which I was the most curious about reading.
[听不清] Alex 张 是的，其中大部分是在个人素质部分，这是我最好奇的阅读内容。
OK.
好的。
So here I am right on the edge.
所以我现在正处于边缘。
What do they say?
他们怎么说？
It takes another eight minutes for Alex to get the nerve to bring it up-- tiger mom.
亚历克斯又花了八分钟才鼓起勇气提起这件事——虎妈。
You mentioned that you asked her about my parents.
你提到你向她询问了我父母的情况。
Yeah, I was trying to figure out whether or not you were basically driven by the parents in any way.
是的，我想弄清楚你是否基本上是受到父母的驱使。
You use the term tiger mother, saying my mom's not like that.
你用虎妈这个词，说我妈不是那样的人。
That's very much affiliated with Asian parenting.
这与亚洲的育儿方式密切相关。
So when I read that, it just was a little unexpected.
所以当我读到这篇文章时，有点出乎意料。
I live with one, Jim's saying.
“我和一个住在一起，”吉姆说。
He's talking about his wife, who is Chinese.
他正在谈论他的中国妻子。
They have a young daughter.
他们有一个小女儿。
I live with a tiger mom and fight it all the time.
我和虎妈妈住在一起，一直在和虎妈妈斗争。
You think that's a particularly Chinese thing?
你认为这是一个特别中国的事情吗？
I think the Chinese on the west side have a very definite, strong influence that way.
我认为西方的中国人在这方面有非常明确、强大的影响力。
West side-- Jim's talking about the wealthier side of Portland where he and Alex lived.
西区——吉姆正在谈论他和亚历克斯居住的波特兰较富裕的一面。
No question in my mind.
我心里没有疑问。
Alex Zhang Huh, gotcha.
Alex 张 嗯，明白了。
Because for me, it's kind of like, if you had a Chinese applicant, would you be suspicious that perhaps their parent or their mom was like that?
因为对我来说，这有点像，如果你有一个中国申请人，你会怀疑他们的父母或他们的妈妈是这样的吗？
If I saw somebody, Alex, that had their fingers in a lot of pies, and I had no way to ascertain the depth of what they were doing-- what I'm looking for and looked for was the person who was thriving on their own, that is self-motivated.
如果我看到某个人，亚历克斯，涉足很多领域，而我无法确定他们所做事情的深度——我正在寻找并寻找的是那些靠自己的力量蓬勃发展的人，即自我激励的人。
And it isn't just Chinese.
而且这不仅仅是中国人的事。
I use that term because I'm an Amy Tan Fan.
我使用这个词是因为我是谭恩美的粉丝。
Amy Tan wrote The Joy Luck Club.
谭恩美写了《喜福会》。
Apparently, after this conversation, Jim's wife told him that she did not also write Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother.
显然，这次谈话之后，吉姆的妻子告诉他，她也没有写过《虎母战歌》。
That was Amy Chua.
那是蔡美儿。
His wife offered to buy him the book.
他的妻子提出给他买这本书。
But anybody I interview, the longer I did it, the more suspicious I was.
但我采访的任何人，采访的时间越长，我就越怀疑。
After doing these interviews for 20 years, Jim was not naive to kids puffing up their extracurriculars or getting coached on how to act in the interview.
在进行了 20 年的采访之后，吉姆对于孩子们夸耀他们的课外活动或接受采访中如何表现的指导并不天真。
He's saying he was tough on everyone.
他说他对每个人都很严厉。
I talked to Jim later.
后来我和吉姆谈过。
He didn't want to be recorded, but he was open about what he wrote.
他不想被记录，但他对自己所写的内容持开放态度。
He told me, yeah, part of what he was doing was overtly pointing out to the admissions officers that Alex was different from other Chinese-American applicants.
他告诉我，是的，他所做的部分工作就是公开向招生人员指出亚历克斯与其他华裔美国申请者不同。
That this young man did not fit whatever stereotypes that he or the admissions officers might have.
这个年轻人不符合他或招生人员可能有的任何刻板印象。
And his no-holds-barred strategy to get Alex in, it seemed to work.
他毫无保留地让亚历克斯加入的策略似乎奏效了。
The first reviewer, who went through Alex's file before his interview, wrote, "hope the alumni interview can add." The next reviewer saw Jim's report, then wrote, "interview in and is pretty remarkable for its in-depth review, comes out in the right place and is reassuring."
第一个审稿人在采访前浏览了亚历克斯的档案，写道：“希望校友采访能够补充。”下一位审稿人看到了吉姆的报告，然后写道：“接受采访，其深入的审查非常出色，出现在正确的地方，令人放心。”
Besides his write-up, Jim gave Alex a personal rating of 1, the highest possible score.
除了他的评论之外，吉姆还给亚历克斯个人打了1分，这是可能的最高分。
He gave Alex ones across all categories.
他给了亚历克斯所有类别的东西。
The official admissions officers were not as effusive.
官方招生官员则没有那么热情。
They gave him a 2 for his personal rating, twos and threes for the rest.
他们给他的个人评分为 2 分，其余评分为 3 分和 3 分。
Wrote that his personal qualities seem to be still evolving.
写道他的个人品质似乎仍在不断发展。
After I read mine, my impression was that if you hadn't written such an in-depth, positive review that I probably wouldn't have gotten it, which is kind of an interesting thought.
读完我的文章后，我的印象是，如果你没有写出如此深入、积极的评论，我可能不会得到它，这是一个有趣的想法。
That's surprises me.
这让我很惊讶。
You were at the top of everything.
你处于一切的顶端。
That surprises me.
这让我很惊讶。
I thought I was a gravy.
我以为我是一坨肉汁。
Yeah, I really appreciate how much you did.
是的，我真的很感激你所做的一切。
Well, I appreciate you.
嗯，我很欣赏你。
So how was New York?
那么纽约怎么样？
They go on to talk about Alex's summer job in Manhattan, the classes he's taking this fall.
他们继续谈论亚历克斯在曼哈顿的暑期工作以及他今年秋天要参加的课程。
Jim starts in on a story about his kid before telling Alex, oh, hey, turn that recorder off.
吉姆开始讲述他孩子的故事，然后告诉亚历克斯，哦，嘿，把录音机关掉。
I met up with Alex again after that phone call.
那个电话之后我再次见到了亚历克斯。
He wasn't totally satisfied by it, thought Jim didn't get the gravity of tiger mother, hadn't thought it all the way through.
他对此并不完全满意，认为吉姆没有理解虎妈妈的严肃性，没有想清楚。
But he had no hard feelings.
但他并没有什么难受的感觉。
Though when Alex thought more about tiger mother, he realized, it was not just the use of the term that unsettled him, but also, the assumption that it was a bad thing in the first place.
然而，当亚历克斯更多地思考“虎妈”时，他意识到，让他不安的不仅仅是这个词的使用，而且是认为这从一开始就是一件坏事的假设。
Something that Harvard would want to make sure none of its students had.
哈佛希望确保它的学生没有一个拥有这样的东西。
This idea that a tiger mom would even be-- I know it is a thing in our culture for a lot of parents, but also is weird that there's a fixation on that by American society.
虎妈甚至是这样的想法——我知道这对很多父母来说是我们文化中的一件事，但美国社会对此的执着也很奇怪。
Also, the question is, why does it matter if your parents pushed you in that way?
另外，问题是，如果你的父母这样逼迫你，为什么会很重要呢？
Is that not part of your upbringing and who you are now?
这难道不是你成长经历和你现在的身份的一部分吗？
I don't know.
我不知道。
There seems to be these very negative connotations about the way Asians are raised or the way that they behave growing up.
亚洲人的成长方式或他们成长过程中的行为方式似乎存在着非常负面的含义。
And it just seems like there's this very deeply ingrained prejudice and misunderstanding.
似乎存在着根深蒂固的偏见和误解。
Alex, personally, was grateful for when his mom pushed him when he was younger.
就个人而言，亚历克斯很感激他年轻时妈妈对他的督促。
I remember in high school, my mom was gave me a lot of pressure.
记得高中的时候，妈妈给了我很大的压力。
Make sure you connect with the teachers and talk to them during break time, so they can get to know you, because it's really important.
确保你在课间休息时与老师联系并交谈，这样他们就可以了解你，因为这非常重要。
They're going to have to write you recommendations.
他们必须给你写推荐信。
And I didn't want to do it, but I guess I had to.
我本来不想这样做，但我想我不得不这样做。
Your mom was on the ball.
你妈妈很活跃。
Alex Zhang Yeah, she's really on top of stuff, which is really good.
Alex 张 是的，她真的很擅长，这真的很好。
Because she did it without killing me, overworking me.
因为她做到了这一点，但没有杀死我，也没有让我过度劳累。
She's a really good mom.
她真是一位好妈妈。
In race-conscious admissions, it's not just the university that's conscious of race.
在注重种族的招生中，不只是大学才注重种族。
It's also the applicants themselves.
也是申请人自己。
Almost all the students of color I asked had considered whether and how to portray their race in their package.
我询问的几乎所有有色人种学生都考虑过是否以及如何在他们的包裹中描绘他们的种族。
Just one white student had.
只有一名白人学生有。
Alex is from a mostly white neighborhood in Portland, Oregon.
亚历克斯来自俄勒冈州波特兰市一个以白人为主的社区。
Growing up, his classmates often couldn't see past his race.
在成长过程中，他的同学常常看不到他的种族。
They teased him for having a flat face, about being a nerd.
他们嘲笑他脸平，是个书呆子。
One girl exclusively called him Asian instead of Alex.
一个女孩专门称他为亚洲人，而不是亚历克斯。
In middle school, he started playing basketball, partly to downplay his Chinese-ness, fit in with the white kids.
中学时，他开始打篮球，部分原因是为了淡化自己的中国血统，与白人孩子融为一体。
Out on the court, though, someone would still always call him Yao Ming.
但在球场上，仍然有人会叫他姚明。
But he didn't write about any of that in his personal essay.
但他在个人论文中没有提及任何内容。
Instead, it's about how he transforms from a lonely elementary school kid playing video games by himself to big man on campus at his high school.
相反，这是关于他如何从一个孤独地玩电子游戏的小学生变成高中校园里的大人物。
You didn't talk about race in your essay.
你在文章中没有谈论种族。
That's not the topic.
那不是主题。
It doesn't mention race at all.
它根本没有提到种族。
Was that part of the subtext of what you were writing, looking back on it?
回想起来，这是否是你所写内容的潜台词的一部分？
Probably, yeah.
可能是的。
In high school, I had a lot of internalized hatred about being Asian.
在高中时，我对自己是亚洲人有很多内在的仇恨。
I had this whole perception that I needed to differentiate myself.
我有这样的整体观念：我需要让自己与众不同。
So I think one of my views is that, oh, we aren't seen.
所以我认为我的观点之一是，哦，我们没有被看到。
This also goes to myself being really cautious of the system or potential biases.
这也导致我对系统或潜在偏见非常谨慎。
So I was like, oh, I probably need to show that I have been more social, or I have been a leader, have done these cool things.
所以我想，哦，我可能需要表明我更加社交，或者我一直是一个领导者，做过这些很酷的事情。
Diane Wu It struck me that it might be that while you were preparing your application, you were making some similar-ish calculation to maybe what Jim was making.
黛安·吴（Diane Wu） 让我惊讶的是，当你准备申请时，你可能正在做一些与吉姆正在做的类似的计算。
Yeah.
是的。
Diane Wu Not I want to differentiate myself from all other applicants, but I extra want to differentiate myself from other Asian applicants.
Diane Wu 不是我想将自己与其他申请者区分开来，而是我更想将自己与其他亚洲申请者区分开来。
Probably.
大概。
And again, looking back, I don't like it in the same way that I don't like if Jim would have had to talk me up just because I'm Asian.
回想起来，我不喜欢这样，就像我不喜欢吉姆仅仅因为我是亚洲人就不得不夸奖我一样。
I don't like that I [INAUDIBLE] that way if it was because of that.
如果是因为这个的话，我不喜欢这样[听不清]。
I asked Alex if what he saw in his file shifted his position at all in the lawsuit.
我问亚历克斯，他在档案中看到的内容是否改变了他在诉讼中的立场。
No, he said.
不，他说。
To him, tiger mom was weird for sure, but it wasn't discrimination.
对他来说，虎妈确实很奇怪，但这并不是歧视。
It didn't sway the argument one way or another.
它并没有以某种方式影响这一论点。
For Alex, what he saw in his file, what his friends have been seeing, it's more personal.
对于亚历克斯来说，他在文件中看到的内容，他的朋友们看到的内容，更加个人化。
A lot of the comments my friends have been making and stuff, they're not things that make as much of an argument for either side as much as, like, oh, this is what being Asian is like.
我的朋友们发表的很多评论之类的，它们并不是为任何一方提供那么多争论的东西，就像，哦，这就是亚洲人的样子。
In other words, even when you make it into one of the fanciest colleges in the world, when you finally feel like people see you for who you are, your whole complicated self, just one word or phrase can snap you out of it.
换句话说，即使你进入了世界上最豪华的大学之一，当你最终感觉人们看到了你是谁，看到了你整个复杂的自我时，仅仅一个词或短语就能让你摆脱困境。
Remind you, right, right, this is how they see me.
提醒你，对了，对了，他们就是这样看我的。
This is how it really works.
这就是它真正的运作方式。
Diane Wu is one of the producers of our show.
吴黛安是我们节目的制作人之一。
Coming up-- quoting Snoop Dogg fails to impress state regulators in New York.
即将到来——引用《史努比狗狗》未能给纽约州监管机构留下深刻印象。
What a shocker.
真是令人震惊。
That's in a minute.
就在一分钟之内。
From Chicago Public Radio when our program continues.
当我们的节目继续进行时，来自芝加哥公共广播电台。
It's This American Life.
这就是美国生活。
I'm Ira Glass.
我是艾拉·格拉斯。
Today's show-- how I read it, stories where people look at words on a page or words on a screen and see something of the rest of us might not always see.
今天的节目——我是如何阅读的，故事中人们看着页面上的文字或屏幕上的文字，看到了我们其他人可能看不到的东西。
We've arrived at Act Two of our show.
我们已经到了节目的第二幕了。
Act Two-- I'm just going to see if the InspiroBot can come up with a good title for this act.
第二幕——我只是想看看 InspiroBot 能否为这一幕想出一个好的标题。
Hold on.
坚持，稍等。
Pushing the button, and the thing is flashing.
按下按钮，东西就会闪烁。
And there's a picture of a tree and a night sky.
还有一张树和夜空的照片。
It says, know that you are unprecedentedly negative, which, I have to say, that's actually a shockingly decent title for the act that we're about to do.
它说，知道你是前所未有的消极，我不得不说，这实际上是我们即将要做的行为的一个令人震惊的体面标题。
We were going to call it side effects may include bankruptcy or whatever the thing came up with.
我们将其称为副作用，可能包括破产或任何出现的事情。
And then the bot actually did a really good job.
然后这个机器人实际上做得非常好。
Act 2, Know That You Are Unprecedentedly Negative.
第二幕，知道你是前所未有的消极。
One of our producers, David Kestenbaum, recently came across this kind of amazing collection of documents on a government website.
我们的制作人之一 David Kestenbaum 最近在政府网站上发现了此类令人惊叹的文件集。
These documents-- letters and emails, like thousands of them-- they're part of the usual machinery of bureaucratic decision-making.
这些文件——信件和电子邮件，就像成千上万的文件一样——它们是官僚决策通常机制的一部分。
But David saw something more in them.
但大卫在他们身上看到了更多的东西。
I found these letters about four clicks deep on a website for the Department of Financial Services for the state of New York.
我在纽约州金融服务部的网站上点击四次后发现了这些信件。
I was digging around, looking for some numbers on a different story, and there they were-- page after page of detailed, handwritten letters and emails going on, at length and with great passion and precision, about their health insurance plans.
我四处挖掘，寻找不同故事中的一些数字，结果就在那里——一页又一页详细的手写信件和电子邮件，详细、充满热情和精确地讲述了他们的健康保险计划。
They'd been buying them through the Affordable Care Act, Obamacare.
他们是通过平价医疗法案（奥巴马医改）购买的。
And every year, their plans were getting more expensive and not just by a little.
每年，他们的计划都变得更加昂贵，而且不仅仅是一点点。
I printed these letters out.
我把这些信打印出来了。
They filled two binders, and I read them all.
它们装满了两个活页夹，我全部读完了。
There's something about the intimacy of these letters that makes them hard to stop reading.
这些信件的亲密感让人难以停止阅读。
You can feel people sitting down to write them in their homes, coming face to face with the cost of their insurance, and just searching for the right words.
你可以感觉到人们坐在家里写下这些话，面对他们的保险费用，只是在寻找合适的词语。
Some are desperate.
有些人很绝望。
Some are exhausted.
有些人已经筋疲力尽了。
Some people are funny.
有些人很有趣。
It's this record of our fellow citizens shouting into the abyss.
这是我们同胞向深渊呼喊的记录。
And they got to me in this way that news stories about this never have.
他们以这种新闻报道从未有过的方式找到我。
These are people reacting to a situation that would drive anyone crazy.
这些人对会让任何人发疯的情况做出反应。
The first year, 2015, the cost of their plans increased 6% on average.
第一年，即 2015 年，他们的计划成本平均增加了 6%。
Next year, they went up again by 7%.
明年，它们又上涨了 7%。
Then the next year, up again by 17%.
然后第二年，又增长了 17%。
Then the next year, another 15%.
然后第二年，再增加 15%。
That's a 50% increase over just four years.
短短四年内就增加了 50%。
So if you were paying $12,000 a year at the start for your family, the price might have gone up to $18,000.
因此，如果您一开始每年为家人支付 12,000 美元，那么价格可能会上涨到 18,000 美元。
And the reason these people were writing this year is that it looked like prices were going to go up again.
这些人今年写这篇文章的原因是，价格看起来会再次上涨。
Insurance companies wanted to raise prices another 24%.
保险公司希望将价格再提高 24%。
So for a family that started at $12,000, that would bring you to $22,000 a year for insurance.
因此，对于一个起价为 12,000 美元的家庭来说，每年的保险费用将达到 22,000 美元。
People were not pleased.
人们不高兴。
The approaches varied.
方法多种多样。
There were the, I'm a serious person, this is a serious letter about a serious matter ones.
我是一个严肃的人，这是一封关于严肃问题的严肃信。
Dear sir, or sometimes, dear sir or madam, or to whom it may concern, they begin.
亲爱的先生，或者有时，亲爱的先生或女士，或者可能涉及到的人，他们开始。
And then something like this one-- a premium rate hike is unconscionable.
然后像这样的事情——加息是不合理的。
I'm appalled that such a significant premium increase is being sought after my first year of coverage.
我感到震惊的是，在我投保第一年之后，人们却寻求如此大幅度的保费增长。
There is clearly no consumer protection for the public.
显然没有对公众的消费者保护。
I object strenuously to this requested rate increase for mediocre coverage.
我强烈反对这种因覆盖范围平庸而提高费率的要求。
So formal.
这么正式。
Another letter ended, I will pray for an acceptable solution of this horrible situation and that good sense, goodwill, and fairness prevail.
在另一封信的结尾，我将祈祷这一可怕的情况能得到一个可接受的解决方案，并祈求良好的理智、善意和公平占上风。
But honestly, those are the minority.
但老实说，这些人只是少数。
This one's more typical.
这个比较典型。
Are you freaking kidding me about letting them raise the rate $88.29 per month?
你让他们提高每月 88.29 美元的费率是在开玩笑吗？
That was in all caps.
全部大写。
And then there's this one.
还有这个。
If this happens, I will drop this plan and company faster than Snoop Dogg drops it like it's hot.
如果发生这种情况，我会比 Snoop Dogg 放弃这个计划和公司的速度更快。
That was basically the whole email.
这基本上就是整个电子邮件。
Another started, ha, ha, ha, this is a joke, which was a common thought.
另一个开始，哈哈哈，这是一个笑话，这是一个普遍的想法。
Is this a joke?
这是一个笑话吗？
I don't think any additional comments are needed.
我认为不需要任何额外的评论。
That person then went on to give quite a number of comments.
那人接着又发表了不少评论。
The reason all these people took the time to write to their state government about this is that in New York, like in a lot of states, actually, when a health insurance company wants to charge people more money, it can't just do it.
所有这些人花时间写信给州政府谈论此事的原因是，在纽约，就像在许多州一样，实际上，当健康保险公司想要向人们收取更多费用时，它不能就这样做。
For policies that are sold directly to individuals, as these were on the Affordable Care Act exchanges, the insurance company has to get approval from government regulators to raise its prices.
对于直接出售给个人的保单，因为这些保单是在《平价医疗法案》的交易所上出售的，保险公司必须获得政府监管机构的批准才能提高价格。
And in New York, health insurance companies have to be really clear they are proposing raising their rates.
在纽约，健康保险公司必须明确表示他们正在提议提高费率。
They have to send out a letter to everyone who has their insurance saying they want to raise their prices, exactly how much.
他们必须向每个拥有保险的人发出一封信，表示他们希望提高价格，具体提高多少。
And toward the end of the letter, they have to stick in this paragraph.
在信的最后，他们必须坚持这一段。
It feels kind of perfunctory.
感觉有点敷衍了。
It mentions there is a 30-day public comment period.
它提到有 30 天的公众意见征询期。
It gives an address and a website.
它给出了一个地址和一个网站。
So if people have any comments or questions, they can write to the state of New York, which they do.
因此，如果人们有任何意见或问题，他们可以写信给纽约州，他们也这样做了。
This year, New York got 754 letters in 30 days.
今年，纽约在 30 天内收到了 754 封信件。
Most states, as far as I can tell, do not go out of their way to make these letters public, but New York does.
据我所知，大多数州都不会特意公开这些信件，但纽约却这样做了。
Someone there carefully scans them all, organizes them, and puts them online.
那里有人仔细扫描它们，整理它们，然后将它们放在网上。
I went through the letters from years past.
我翻阅了过去几年的信件。
The government has blacked out people's names to protect their privacy.
政府已将人们的名字涂黑以保护他们的隐私。
But sometimes, you get this little window into someone's life.
但有时，你可以通过这个小窗口了解某人的生活。
One person is a Pilates teacher in Long Island.
其中一人是长岛的普拉提老师。
Another said her husband had died.
另一位说她的丈夫已经去世。
Another was contemplating a knee replacement and was in pain.
另一个人正在考虑进行膝关节置换手术，并且感到疼痛。
One wrote that the family had just gotten back from vacation.
其中一位写道，这家人刚刚度假回来。
You can kind of imagine the person finding the notice of rate increase in the mail, then sitting down in total anger to write, maybe not even taking their coat off.
你可以想象一下，一个人在邮件中发现了涨价通知，然后愤怒地坐下来写信，甚至可能没有脱掉外套。
And you can feel people struggling with the fact that a bunch of keyboard keys do not seem adequate to express their emotions.
你可以感觉到人们在苦苦挣扎，因为一堆键盘按键似乎不足以表达他们的情感。
They'll throw an extra exclamation point in, or two, or 46.
他们会多加一个感叹号、两个感叹号或 46。
Yes, 46.
是的，46。
I imagine the person sticking their finger on the key and just leaving it there for a while, thinking, there, that's about right.
我想象那个人将手指放在琴键上，然后将其放在那里一段时间，心想，就这样，就这样了。
And reading these letters, which took a day, I realized, it is not just names that are getting blacked out, other things too.
花了一天的时间阅读这些信件，我意识到，不仅仅是名字被涂黑，其他事情也被涂黑。
Where the blank do you people get off raising health insurance almost $200 a month?
你们每个月筹集近 200 美元的医疗保险，哪里来的空白？
You have to be blank kidding me, you blank.
你一定是在开玩笑，你一定是空白的，你空白的。
But you know that already.
但你已经知道了。
Which made me wonder about this other letter that was entirely blacked out.
这让我对另一封完全被涂黑的信感到好奇。
People were so angry.
人们非常愤怒。
It was like reading Yelp reviews for a bad restaurant, but where the meal cost $20,000 and in some cases, you don't even get to eat it, which of course, is the nature of insurance, but still.
这就像在 Yelp 上阅读一家糟糕餐厅的评论，但一顿饭要花 20,000 美元，在某些情况下，你甚至吃不到它，这当然是保险的本质，但仍然如此。
I don't like writing these letters, as I feel like a ranting old man, one guy wrote.
“我不喜欢写这些信，因为我感觉自己像个咆哮的老人，”一个人写道。
But between watching premiums rise out of control and seeing the insurance I have not cover actual costs, I am that ranting fool.
但在看着保费上涨失控和看到我的保险没有支付实际费用之间，我就是那个咆哮的傻瓜。
His insurance company wanted to raise rates by 40%.
他的保险公司希望将费率提高 40%。
One question a lot of people had, why were prices going up so much?
很多人都有一个疑问，为什么房价涨得这么厉害？
I don't get a raise, one person wrote.
“我没有得到加薪，”一位人士写道。
Why should they?
他们为什么要这么做？
Nobody got back to these people with an explanation.
没有人向这些人做出解释。
So if any of you letter writers are listening, here's what happened.
如果各位写信的人在听的话，这就是发生的事情。
When the Obamacare exchanges launched in 2013, the premiums for that first year were a lot lower.
当奥巴马医改交易所于 2013 年推出时，第一年的保费要低得多。
And after a rough start, things seem to be working.
在经历了一个艰难的开始之后，事情似乎正在发挥作用。
People who couldn't afford health care suddenly could.
那些买不起医疗保健的人突然可以买得起了。
And in some places, there were lots of options to choose from.
在某些地方，有很多选择可供选择。
Let's say a grizzly bear escaped from the zoo.
假设一只灰熊从动物园逃走了。
Now let's say he gave you a hug.
现在假设他给了你一个拥抱。
Well, you might be needing some health care right about then.
嗯，那时您可能需要一些医疗保健。
This is an ad for a health insurance company called Oscar that launched around this time.
这是一家名为 Oscar 的健康保险公司的广告，大约在这个时候推出。
Its animated, children's book style, which, can I just say, I admire the ingenuity of this advertising strategy.
它的动画、儿童读物风格，我只能说，我很欣赏这种广告策略的独创性。
It's better than, you should have insurance in case you get cancer or get in a car accident, which honestly, is what I think about.
这比你应该购买保险以防万一你得癌症或遭遇车祸要好，老实说，这就是我的想法。
I never thought about getting hugged by a well-meaning bear, who then later visits me with a get well balloon that says I'm sorry.
我从来没有想过会被一只善意的熊拥抱，然后它带着一个康复气球来看我，说对不起。
It's a much better sell.
这是一个更好的销售。
Introducing Oscar, individual health insurance that's simple, intuitive, and maybe even fun.
向您介绍 Oscar，这是一种简单、直观、甚至有趣的个人健康保险。
So you can focus on the important things, like staying healthy.
这样您就可以专注于重要的事情，例如保持健康。
We're Oscar, a new kind of health insurance company.
我们是奥斯卡，一家新型健康保险公司。
David Kestenbaum The next year, Oscar, like most insurance companies on the exchanges, raised their rates.
大卫·凯斯滕鲍姆 (David Kestenbaum) 第二年，奥斯卡像交易所里的大多数保险公司一样提高了利率。
I dug into some of the older letters to see what the reaction was back then.
我翻阅了一些较旧的信件，看看当时的反应如何。
Stop counting my money.
别再数我的钱了。
Stop trying to figure out how much more I should owe your company.
别再想着我还应该欠你们公司多少钱了。
And stop writing stupid cutesy blurbs about bears hugging you and crushing your ribs.
别再写一些关于熊拥抱你、压碎你肋骨的愚蠢可爱的宣传语了。
Adults are reading this, not 12 year olds.
成年人正在读这篇文章，而不是 12 岁的孩子。
Do not raise my premium.
不要提高我的保费。
Not to pick on Oscar, but I think, as a new insurance company, people hope things might be different.
不是要批评奥斯卡，但我认为，作为一家新的保险公司，人们希望事情会有所不同。
In the years since 2013, insurance companies in New York and around the country raised their prices on the Obamacare exchanges.
自2013年以来，纽约和全国各地的保险公司都提高了奥巴马医改交易所的价格。
You know, I said from the beginning, let Obamacare implode.
你知道，我从一开始就说过，让奥巴马医改崩溃。
That, of course, is President Trump with his diagnosis of what was going on, or maybe it was a prescription for what he wanted to happen.
当然，这是特朗普总统对正在发生的事情的诊断，或者也许这是他想要发生的事情的处方。
Let Obamacare implode.
让奥巴马医改崩溃吧。
[CHEERING AND APPLAUSE]
[欢呼和掌声]
But according to economists who study these things and, frankly, the insurance companies themselves, the exchanges were not imploding.
但根据研究这些问题的经济学家以及坦率地说保险公司本身的说法，这些交易所并没有崩溃。
What was going on was that the insurance companies had set premiums too low at the beginning, some combination of wanting to attract customers and genuinely not knowing how sick or healthy the people who signed up were going to be.
原因是保险公司一开始将保费定得太低，一方面是想吸引客户，另一方面又真的不知道投保的人会生病或健康。
So the prices had been going up to correct for that.
因此，价格一直在上涨以纠正这一点。
But contrary to Trump's claim, the exchanges seemed unlikely to implode, unless of course, someone did something to make that happen.
但与特朗普的说法相反，这些交易所似乎不太可能崩溃，当然，除非有人采取行动让这种情况发生。
The individual mandate is being repealed.
个人授权正在被废除。
Here is that someone, which of course, is the same someone as before-- President Trump.
这就是那个人，当然，和以前是同一个人——特朗普总统。
This was last year just after the Republicans passed the tax cut bill.
这是去年共和党刚刚通过减税法案之后的事。
Tucked into that bill was this other thing that did not get a lot of attention.
该法案中还有另一件事没有引起太多关注。
They had done away with a mandate to buy health insurance.
他们取消了购买健康保险的强制规定。
This was a key part of Obamacare, the thing that was supposed to encourage people to sign up, even if they were healthy.
这是奥巴马医改的一个关键部分，旨在鼓励人们加入，即使他们是健康的。
That was gone as part of the tax bill.
这作为税收法案的一部分消失了。
We didn't want to bring it up.
我们不想提起它。
I told people specifically, be quiet with the fake news media.
我特别告诉人们，对假新闻媒体保持安静。
Because I don't want them talking too much about it, because I didn't know how people would-- but now that it's approved, I can say, the individual mandate on health care where you had to pay not to have insurance-- think of that one.
因为我不想让他们谈论太多，因为我不知道人们会怎么想——但现在它已经获得批准，我可以说，医疗保健的个人强制规定，你必须付费才能没有保险——想到这一点。
You pay not to have insurance.
你付钱却没有保险。
The individual mandate has been repealed.
个人授权已被废除。
When this happened, the health insurance companies went, uh-oh.
当这种情况发生时，健康保险公司就走了。
They ran the numbers and predicted that a bunch of healthy people would drop it like it's hot, go without insurance, meaning the remaining pool of people would be sicker.
他们计算了数据并预测，一群健康的人会像热天一样放弃它，没有保险，这意味着剩下的人会病情更严重。
And so premiums would have to rise again.
因此保费必须再次上涨。
That is what was driving a lot of the requested price increase this year and all those letters begging the state of New York to somehow stop it.
这就是今年许多人要求涨价的原因，也是所有那些恳求纽约州以某种方式阻止涨价的信件的原因。
This one letter stood out to me, in part, because the person wasn't demanding anything, just explaining.
这封信对我来说很突出，部分原因是这个人没有要求任何东西，只是解释。
It was from a woman whose husband had died.
这是一位丈夫去世的妇女发来的。
So she was getting a little money from Social Security, but still having to work.
所以她从社会保障中得到了一点钱，但仍然必须工作。
Quote, "I do not live above my means.
引用：“我不会入不敷出。
I can't.
我不能。
The expenses of living leave me little to spend on luxury items, such as eating out, going to a movie, or taking a vacation.
生活费用让我几乎没有钱花在奢侈品上，比如外出就餐、看电影或度假。
It seems this year, everything has gone up.
看来今年，一切都上涨了。
Car insurance-- I drive a 14-year-old car that is starting to need more costly repairs, groceries, cable, electric, rent.
汽车保险——我开的是一辆 14 年车龄的汽车，它开始需要更昂贵的维修、杂货、电缆、电力和租金。
When this insurance was first introduced, it was called affordable for whom?
这项保险刚推出时，被称为“谁买得起”？
I have worked since I was 16, minus a few years I was home raising children.
我从 16 岁起就开始工作，除了几年我在家抚养孩子。
I have faithfully paid my taxes every year.
我每年都忠实地缴纳税款。
At this point in time, I am at a loss on what to do.
此时此刻，我不知道该怎么办。
I am so discouraged.
我很沮丧。
There's not much more I can give up just to afford to live.
为了维持生活，我已经没有什么可以放弃的了。
Can you suggest any options?
你能建议一些选择吗？
Thanks for your time." I wondered if anyone read these letters and if they made a difference.
谢谢您的宝贵时间。”我想知道是否有人读过这些信，它们是否有所作为。
You get a lot of mail.
你会收到很多邮件。
Maria Vullo I get a lot of mail?
Maria Vullo 我收到很多邮件？
Of public comments.
公众意见。
Maria Vullo Oh, I get a lot of mail that I never even see.
Maria Vullo 哦，我收到了很多我从未见过的邮件。
There's lots of mail that's addressed to me.
有很多邮件是写给我的。
This is Maria Vullo, the superintendent of the Department of Financial Services for the state of New York.
我是玛丽亚·乌洛 (Maria Vullo)，纽约州金融服务部部长。
And yes, when I requested the interview, I'd said I wanted to talk about the letters.
是的，当我要求采访时，我说过我想谈谈这些信件。
But I get that reading all these letters and the others she receives-- probably not the best use of her time.
但我知道，阅读所有这些信件和她收到的其他信件——可能不是她时间的最佳利用方式。
Do you want to see what these look like printed out?
您想看看这些打印出来是什么样子吗？
Here.
这里。
These are all of them.
这些就是全部。
That's one book.
那是一本书。
OK, sure.
好的，当然。
We receive comments from the public on a whole number of issues, and we believe in the receipt of public comments.
我们收到公众对许多问题的评论，并且我们相信收到公众评论。
And my staff reviews them all.
我的员工都会对它们进行审查。
So I ask this without judgment.
所以我不带任何判断地问这个问题。
I'm literally just curious.
我真的只是好奇。
Do you ever read these?
你读过这些吗？
Some I do.
有些是我做的。
David Kestenbaum So I read through all these.
David Kestenbaum 所以我通读了所有这些。
I found them really interesting.
我发现它们真的很有趣。
Some of them are funny.
其中一些很有趣。
Some of them are sad.
他们中的一些人很伤心。
A lot of them are just really angry.
他们中的很多人真的很生气。
People took the time to write in by hand.
人们花时间手写。
I received this letter and have been so upset since.
我收到这封信后一直很沮丧。
This thing goes on for pages.
这件事持续了好几页。
There's-- what if it was your mother?
如果是你妈妈怎么办？
Help, cannot pay what I have now.
求助，无法支付我现在拥有的钱。
I will say that this year, David Kestenbaum The person jumping in here is Richard Loconte.
我要说的是，今年 David Kestenbaum 跳进来的人是 Richard Loconte。
He was in the room for the interview.
他在房间里接受采访。
He heads the communications department.
他领导通讯部门。
That this year in particular, the tone definitely was angrier.
尤其是今年，语气肯定更加愤怒。
That I knew.
我知道。
I would hear from Ron on my team on an almost daily basis saying, you have to see these letters.
我几乎每天都会从我的团队中听到罗恩说，你必须看到这些信件。
People are angry.
人们很生气。
Did you read any of these?
你读过这些吗？
Richard Loconte I have read through some of them.
理查德·洛孔特（Richard Loconte） 我读过其中一些。
Ron would forward me some of the more-- some of the particular ones.
罗恩会给我转发一些更多的——一些特别的。
So they got all this mail, and they had to decide what to do.
所以他们收到了所有这些邮件，他们必须决定该怎么做。
Maria Vullo, the superintendent, said the decision about whether to let insurance companies charge more comes down to numbers not letters.
负责人玛丽亚·乌洛 (Maria Vullo) 表示，是否让保险公司收取更多费用的决定取决于数字而不是字母。
While people were writing in with the exclamation points, the insurance companies were sending in all kinds of financial data.
当人们用感叹号写信时，保险公司却在发送各种财务数据。
The state had actuaries who went over it all.
国家有精算师负责这一切。
We look at what their claims were last year.
我们看看他们去年的主张。
We look at what their administrative expenses are, what percentage of profit.
我们看看他们的管理费用是多少，利润的百分比是多少。
We look at risk adjustment.
我们关注风险调整。
We look at a whole bunch of things.
我们会考虑很多事情。
And here is what they decided.
这就是他们的决定。
Some of the increase the insurance companies were asking for was unavoidable.
保险公司要求的部分加价是不可避免的。
But about half the increase they were asking for was because the mandate was being taken away.
但他们要求的增长大约有一半是因为授权被取消。
And here, Vullo and the others made an interesting decision, which is basically, look, you may be right that the mandate going away is going to really mess things up.
在这里，Vullo 和其他人做出了一个有趣的决定，基本上，看，你可能是对的，取消授权确实会让事情变得一团糟。
Maybe lots of healthy people will drop their coverage, but you don't know.
也许很多健康的人会放弃他们的保险，但你不知道。
We don't have any data.
我们没有任何数据。
And if we let you raise rates as much as you are asking, for sure, people will drop coverage.
如果我们让您按照您的要求提高费率，那么人们肯定会放弃承保。
But I was not going to allow it to be a self-fulfilling prophecy.
但我不会让它成为一个自我实现的预言。
Because if you raise rates, people will drop insurance.
因为如果你提高利率，人们就会放弃保险。
Vullo also made this other point.
乌洛还提出了这一点。
What if you did let them raise rates now, and it turns out a year later, they didn't need to.
如果你现在让他们加息，一年后发现他们不需要加息怎么办？
And what if I gave them the 20%, and then it doesn't turn out to be that?
如果我给了他们 20%，但结果却不是这样怎么办？
Then who's got the money?
那么谁有钱呢？
The consumer or the insurance company?
消费者还是保险公司？
The insurance company.
保险公司。
Yeah, the insurance company.
是的，保险公司。
Fair point.
公平点。
And of course, next year, the insurance companies might come back and say, look, our projection was right.
当然，明年，保险公司可能会回来说，看，我们的预测是正确的。
We do need to charge more.
我们确实需要收取更多费用。
I hate to think of the letters if that happens.
如果发生这种情况，我不愿意想起那些信。
And good news-- it might not happen.
好消息——这可能不会发生。
The cost of insurance on the exchanges seems like it might finally be leveling out.
交易所的保险成本似乎最终可能会趋于平稳。
On average, across the country, rates are dropping by 1% next year.
平均而言，明年全国范围内的利率将下降 1%。
And the policies on the New York exchange right now, they're not really more expensive than other plans.
目前纽约交易所的保单并不比其他计划贵。
It's just that, unlike most of us, people who get their insurance through their employer or who are on Medicare, Medicaid, which are paid for by the government, these people are really seeing the full cost of their insurance.
只是，与我们大多数人不同，通过雇主获得保险或享受由政府支付的医疗保险、医疗补助的人，这些人确实看到了保险的全部费用。
Some get tax credits to help, but lots don't.
有些人获得了税收抵免来提供帮助，但很多人却没有。
Those people have to write a check each month.
这些人每个月必须写一张支票。
For a lot of them, it's more than their mortgage or their rent.
对于他们中的许多人来说，这不仅仅是他们的抵押贷款或租金。
They are writing the letters we might all be writing if we actually got the bill.
他们正在写的信，如果我们真的收到账单的话，我们可能都会写信。
David Kestenbaum is one of the producers of our show.
大卫·凯斯滕鲍姆是我们节目的制片人之一。
ACT 3, Bladen Runner.
第三幕，布莱登亚军。
OK, so up until now, in our show, we've had stories about people reading words.
好的，到目前为止，在我们的节目中，我们已经讲述了人们阅读文字的故事。
Now, we have a story about somebody looking into some numbers and noticing things that the rest of us haven't.
现在，我们有一个故事，讲述的是某人研究了一些数字并注意到了我们其他人没有注意到的事情。
Ben Calhoun tells the story.
本·卡尔霍恩讲述了这个故事。
This election cycle, it wasn't strange for voters to have to wait for races to be called.
在这个选举周期中，选民必须等待选举结果并不奇怪。
Seems like there were so many squeakers.
好像有很多吱吱声。
Among the squeakiest, still unresolved a month after the election, North Carolina's 9th congressional district.
其中最棘手的是北卡罗来纳州第九国会选区，选举一个月后仍未解决。
The district is this long stretch of eight counties along the state's southern border.
该地区是沿着该州南部边界延伸的由八个县组成的狭长地带。
It's so gerrymandered, it looks like a hockey stick.
它是如此不公正，看起来像一根曲棍球棒。
In that district, a Republican former Baptist pastor named Mark Harris narrowly beat his Democratic opponent.
在该选区，一位名叫马克·哈里斯（Mark Harris）的共和党前浸信会牧师以微弱优势击败了他的民主党对手。
The Democrat was this Boy Scouty, former Marine named Dan McCready.
这位民主党人是一名童子军，前海军陆战队队员，名叫丹·麦克雷迪。
The margin of victory in that race-- 905 votes-- crazy close, but a win.
那场比赛的胜率——905票——非常接近，但还是一场胜利。
Until the North Carolina State Board of Elections had a meeting-- the board is four Democrats, four Republicans, one unaffiliated member-- and the board decided in a bipartisan unanimous vote not to approve the results in the ninth congressional district.
直到北卡罗来纳州选举委员会召开会议——委员会由四名民主党人、四名共和党人、一名无党派成员组成——委员会两党一致投票决定不批准第九国会选区的选举结果。
That late Tuesday afternoon decision by the board not to certify the ninth really kind of sent shockwaves through the state.
周二下午晚些时候，董事会决定不认证第九号，这确实在全州引起了震动。
This is Michael Bitzer, PolySci professor at Catawba College in North Carolina.
我是迈克尔·比泽尔 (Michael Bitzer)，北卡罗来纳州卡托巴学院的 PolySci 教授。
To say, this is something that looks pretty serious.
不得不说，这是一件看起来相当严重的事情。
Trouble in River City.
河城的麻烦。
Michael Bitzer Yes.
迈克尔·比泽尔 是的。
Bitzer says he can't remember this ever happening before.
比泽尔说他不记得以前发生过这种事。
It turns out, behind this bipartisan emergency break-throwing-- voter fraud allegations, specifically funny business with mail-in absentee ballots.
事实证明，在这场两党紧急投掷的背后是选民欺诈指控，特别是邮寄缺席选票的有趣事情。
So Bitzer did what PolySci professors do in a crisis like this.
因此，比泽尔做了 PolySci 教授在这样的危机中所做的事情。
He dove into the data, downloaded it from the state.
他深入研究数据，从国家下载数据。
And in it, he saw one thing that didn't look like the others.
在其中，他看到了一件与其他东西不同的东西。
One county, Bladen county, only 19% of the people voting by mail were registered Republicans.
其中一个县，布莱登县，通过邮寄投票的人中只有 19% 是注册共和党人。
But among the mail-in ballots, the Republican candidate got 61% of the vote.
但在邮寄选票中，共和党候选人获得了61%的选票。
Mathematically, this just seems super unlikely.
从数学上来说，这似乎是极不可能的。
He'd have to win all the Republicans, and all the independents, and some Democrats.
他必须赢得所有共和党人、所有独立人士以及一些民主党人的支持。
Normally, professors quantify how unusual something is in statistics, standard deviation and that kind of thing.
通常，教授们会量化统计数据、标准差等事物的异常程度。
But I have trouble following that.
但我很难遵循这一点。
If you were Luke Skywalker in this situation, how big was the disturbance in the force?
如果你是卢克·天行者，在这种情况下，原力的扰动有多大？
Alderaan.
奥德朗。
Ben Calhoun For those slightly less nerdy than Professor Bitzer and myself, that's the planet that gets destroyed by the Death Star.
本·卡尔霍恩 对于那些比比泽教授和我稍微不那么书呆子的人来说，那是一颗被死星摧毁的行星。
The destruction of a planet?
一个星球的毁灭？
Michael Bitzer Yes.
迈克尔·比泽尔 是的。
And just eyeballing it, this is not normal.
只是看了一下，这并不正常。
So Bitzer writes a blog post explaining what he was reading in the data that most people had not.
因此，比泽尔写了一篇博文，解释了他在数据中读到的大多数人没有读过的内容。
Then it spreads rapidly through the internet.
然后它通过互联网迅速传播。
And then around the same time, news starts to trickle in.
然后大约在同一时间，消息开始陆续传来。
There's stories of voters who say there were people coming and telling them to give them their mail-in absentee ballots before they filled them in.
有一些选民的故事，他们说有人过来告诉他们在填写缺席选票之前先把选票邮寄给他们。
And they handed them over, and then they don't know what happened to their ballot.
他们把选票交给了他们，然后他们不知道选票发生了什么。
Reporters started digging around, and they zeroed in on this one particular character who might be behind all this.
记者们开始四处挖掘，他们把注意力集中在了这个可能是这一切背后的特定人物身上。
Liz, this is McCrae Dowless.
莉兹，这是麦克雷·道利斯。
Here's a picture of him on the left there.
左边是他的照片。
He's being sworn in as the Bladen county soil and water conservation district supervisor.
他即将宣誓就任布莱登县水土保持区主管。
Now it's Dowless who finds himself in potentially hot water.
现在，道利斯发现自己陷入了潜在的困境。
And when we around this office heard those stories, we were like, wait a minute-- Leslie McCrae Dowless?
当我们在这个办公室周围听到这些故事时，我们就像，等一下——莱斯利·麦克雷·道利斯（Leslie McCrae Dowless）？
You mean, the vice chair of the Soil and Water Commission of Bladen county?
你是说布莱登县水土委员会副主席？
We know that guy.
我们认识那个人。
This is tape of my colleague, Zoe Chace, doing a story in North Carolina two years ago.
这是我的同事 Zoe Chace 两年前在北卡罗来纳州做一个故事的磁带。
She's talking to Leslie McCrae Dowless.
她正在和莱斯利·麦克雷·道利斯谈话。
Zoe was there because Dowless had filed complaints alleging Democratic voter fraud, absentee ballot fraud.
佐伊在那里是因为道利斯提出了指控民主党选民欺诈、缺席选票欺诈的投诉。
She went to this hearing about those complaints, where Dowless' complaints actually got dismissed, found unsubstantiated.
她参加了有关这些投诉的听证会，道利斯的投诉实际上被驳回，但发现没有得到证实。
But then-- this gets wild-- in the hearing, Dowless gets questioned.
但随后——事情变得疯狂——在听证会上，道利斯受到了质询。
And he starts describing things that he and Republican campaign workers have been doing.
他开始描述他和共和党竞选工作人员一直在做的事情。
So you keep saying GOTV.
所以你一直说GOTV。
Does that mean--
这是否意味着——
Get out to vote.
出去投票吧
Attorney You did pay her--
律师 你确实付钱给她了——
Get out to vote.
出去投票吧
OK, and what exactly was it that she got paid to do?
好吧，那她拿钱到底是做什么的呢？
Dowless ended up being accused of paying campaign workers to gather absentee ballots from people, fill them out, and fraudulently vote in their place.
道利斯最终被指控付钱给竞选工作人员，让他们收集缺席选票、填写选票，并以欺诈手段代替他们投票。
That is illegal.
那是非法的。
Ben Calhoun One family signed an affidavit saying Dowless' workers had them request absentee ballots.
本·卡尔霍恩的一个家庭签署了一份宣誓书，称道利斯的工作人员让他们要求缺席选票。
Those ballots never showed up.
这些选票从未出现过。
And then when they went to vote on election day, they were told they already voted.
然后，当他们在选举日去投票时，他们被告知他们已经投票了。
Dowless insisted he'd done nothing wrong.
道利斯坚称他没有做错任何事。
But this, this is exactly the kind of thing that, if it happened this year, would explain the statistical weirdness that Professor Bitzer found when he was reading the data from Bladen county.
但这正是这种事情，如果发生在今年，就能解释比泽尔教授在阅读布莱登县数据时发现的统计怪异现象。
In the last few weeks, there have been affidavits from voters in the county, describing what Dowless partially confessed to two years earlier-- campaign workers showing up, asking for their mail-in ballots, offering to fill them in for them.
在过去的几周里，该县选民提交了宣誓书，描述了道利斯两年前部分承认的事情——竞选工作人员出现，索取邮寄选票，并主动提出代为填写。
And it turns out, Leslie McCrae Dowless spent this last year in Bladen county, working for the Republican candidate, Mark Harris.
事实证明，莱斯利·麦克雷·道利斯去年在布莱登县为共和党候选人马克·哈里斯工作。
We all know the wah-wah-wah of the voter fraud election fraud conversation.
我们都知道选民欺诈选举欺诈对话中的哇哇哇的声音。
Democrats say it's proven not to be happening.
民主党人表示，事实证明这不会发生。
Republicans say it does happen.
共和党人说这确实发生了。
We need tougher laws.
我们需要更严厉的法律。
Researchers say, no, actually, it's not a problem, to which Republicans say, you're a bunch of liberal academics.
研究人员说，不，实际上，这不是问题，共和党人对此说，你们是一群自由派学者。
We don't trust what you say.
我们不相信你说的话。
Like so much of our political conversation, so enjoyable.
就像我们的很多政治对话一样，非常有趣。
So for once, or, I guess, twice now, in North Carolina, we see, when we dive into the data that everyone's wrong and everyone's right.
因此，在北卡罗来纳州，当我们深入研究数据时，这一次，或者我想，现在两次，我们发现每个人都错了，每个人都是对的。
The Democrats must concede that fraud is, apparently, quite possible.
民主党必须承认，欺诈显然是很有可能的。
The Republicans must concede, at least in this case, it is not the product of a democratic scheme made up of non-ID-having double voters.
共和党人必须承认，至少在这种情况下，这不是由非身份证双重选民组成的民主计划的产物。
But if the facts bear out, the largest voter fraud scandal to hit North Carolina in recent memory is the work of a Republican operative bringing votes for a Republican candidate.
但如果事实证明，北卡罗来纳州近年来最大的选民欺诈丑闻是一名共和党特工为共和党候选人投票的行为。
Ben Calhoun is one of the producers of our show.
本·卡尔霍恩是我们节目的制片人之一。
Zoe Chace is away this week.
佐伊·切斯本周不在。
This program was produced today by Nadia Raymond and Anna Martin.
该节目今天由纳迪亚·雷蒙德和安娜·马丁制作。
The people who worked on today's show includes Elna Baker, Ben Calhoun, Zoe Chace, David [INAUDIBLE], Sean Cole, Jarrett Floyd, Stephanie Foo, Damien Grave, Jay Caspian Kang, David Kestenbaum, Seth Lind, Miki Meek, Katharine Mae Mondo, Lilly Sullivan, Christopher Swetala, Matt Tierney, Julie Whitaker, and Diane Wu, our senior producer, Brian Reed, our managing editor, Susan Burton.
参与今天节目的人员包括 Elna Baker、Ben Calhoun、Zoe Chace、David [听不清]、Sean Cole、Jarrett Floyd、Stephanie Foo、Damien Grave、Jay Caspian Kang、David Kestenbaum、Seth Lind、Miki Meek、Katharine Mae Mondo、Lilly Sullivan、Christopher Swetala、Matt Tierney、Julie Whitaker 和 Diane Wu（我们的高级制片人 Brian）里德，我们的总编辑苏珊·伯顿。
Special thanks today to Heidi Schreck, Larry Levitt, Jeremy deVine, Matt Ross, Josh Gerstein, Ilya Mouzykantskii, Lee Chen, Danielle Eisenman, Derek Wang, Kevin Moy, Daniel Wu, and all the students that Diane talked to at Harvard, our website, ThisAmericanLife.org, where you can listen to our archive of over 600 episodes for absolutely free or get our app.
今天特别感谢 Heidi Schreck、Larry Levitt、Jeremy deVine、Matt Ross、Josh Gerstein、Ilya Mouzykantskii、Lee Chen、Danielle Eisenman、Derek Wang、Kevin Moy、Daniel Wu 以及 Diane 在哈佛交谈过的所有学生、我们的网站 ThisAmericanLife.org，在这里您可以完全免费收听我们的 600 多集档案或获取我们的应用程序。
This American Life is delivered to public radio stations by PRX, the Public Radio Exchange.
《美国生活》由公共广播电台 PRX 向公共广播电台播出。
Thank you as always to our program's co-founder, Mr. Torey Malatia.
一如既往地感谢我们项目的联合创始人 Torey Malatia 先生。
I have trouble with calculus.
我在微积分方面有困难。
No matter how many times Torey tells me over and over--
不管托雷一遍又一遍地告诉我多少次——
Limits is the keyword.
限制是关键字。
Ira Glass I'm Ira Glass, back next week with more stories of This American Life.
艾拉·格拉斯（Ira Glass） 我是艾拉·格拉斯（Ira Glass），下周回来，带来更多《美国生活》的故事。
This American Life This American Life is produced in collaboration with WBEZ Chicago and delivered to stations by PRX The Public Radio Exchange.
This American Life This American Life 与 WBEZ Chicago 合作制作，并由 PRX 公共广播电台传送到各电台。