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[饭文]劝酒拼酒何时休

劝酒拼酒何时休
辉格
2013年1月4日

多年来,无论在公款消费、官场应酬、商务宴请,还是私人聚宴中,高档酒的地位越来越受尊崇,其在餐饮账单上所占份额也日见高涨,成为许多酒店的主要利润来源;这也让国内高档白酒的股票广受追捧,经年坚挺;最近,军队里传出要限制喝酒的风气,白酒股闻风应声大跌,也可见白酒在腐败类消费中的领导地位。

除了满足个人偏好之外,喝酒很大程度上是一种社会性消费,是为了实现某些社会性功能而喝,因而总是伴随着某些特定的社会活动和人际交往,在此意义上,酒被称为社会交往的润滑剂,倒也贴切;酒类消费中的大部分,大概都可归之于这种功能性需求。

不过,同样是社会性消费,具体的喝法却随所需实现的功(more...)

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劝酒拼酒何时休 辉格 2013年1月4日 多年来,无论在公款消费、官场应酬、商务宴请,还是私人聚宴中,高档酒的地位越来越受尊崇,其在餐饮账单上所占份额也日见高涨,成为许多酒店的主要利润来源;这也让国内高档白酒的股票广受追捧,经年坚挺;最近,军队里传出要限制喝酒的风气,白酒股闻风应声大跌,也可见白酒在腐败类消费中的领导地位。 除了满足个人偏好之外,喝酒很大程度上是一种社会性消费,是为了实现某些社会性功能而喝,因而总是伴随着某些特定的社会活动和人际交往,在此意义上,酒被称为社会交往的润滑剂,倒也贴切;酒类消费中的大部分,大概都可归之于这种功能性需求。 不过,同样是社会性消费,具体的喝法却随所需实现的功能不同而迥然相异,最常见的一类是助兴型的,此时喝酒是为了让人进入某种状态,而这种状态适合于他正在参与的社会活动和交往,因为酒精可以解除大脑对某些低级冲动的抑制,让人变得更加放松、兴奋、甚至放纵。 在诸如歌舞、嬉戏、看球之类的群体娱乐中,这样的状态会让参与者表现更好,而许多社交活动也需要参与者比平时更为松弛,不再拘谨,甚至略带兴奋,容易打开话匣子,所以作为社区社交中心的英国乡村小酒馆,或中国茶馆,作为私人社交场的沙龙客厅、鸡尾酒会,都会以酒助兴。 当参与者平时并不十分亲密,只是为了特定目的而聚在一起时,或者平时碍于等级身份或社会规范约束而不得亲密时,那么,在此类场合借助酒精来解除拘谨和戒备的需要就会变得更强烈。 沙龙客人可能只与主人熟识,相互间并不亲密,而且不时还有新人被引介进圈子,单位同事平日受等级职务拘束,年终聚餐时则需要营造一种平等参与氛围,分离多年的老同学,文化和价值观上已多有隔膜,却仍想重叙旧情,还有大家族的众多亲戚,平时来往寡浅,家族纽带全赖各种节庆婚丧宴席维系,等等。 以酒助兴的习俗在各大文化中都有,不过中国的酒文化还有另一种类型的功能性需求,不妨称之为对抗型,表现为以醉倒对方为目的的高强度劝酒,相互轮番劝酒直至大部分参与者都达到承受极限,这种习俗在其他文化中十分罕见,而且过去二十年,无论官场、商务还是私人交往中,有愈演愈烈之势,也正是这一习俗,创造了酒类消费中的极大一部分。 劝酒拼酒习俗中所涉及的心理因素看来相当复杂微妙,其原因颇难究考,不过从某些线索中还是能看出些渊源;在助兴式喝酒时,借助酒精暂时剥夺某些自控和协调能力,是为了更好地参与社交活动,所以各人自己喝就行了,而在对抗性劝酒中,酒精的这一作用被用作了武器:剥夺对方的自控与协调能力,但尽可能保持自己的。 然后,当所有参与者都意识到别人在用这一武器对付自己时,也都拿起该武器参战,于是战斗轮番升级,最终,博弈各方达成一个规范:确保所有人都被剥夺自控能力,这成了酒桌上的游戏规则;问题是,这究竟有什么社会功能?常见的通俗说法是,这能热络感情,拉近关系,更准确的说,酒精能够解除戒备。 或许正是因为中国文化中横亘于人际关系的种种戒备太多太深,才特别需要通过酒精来解除它;劝酒者在敬酒时,或许是在告诉对方,我同意解除戒备,请你也这样,这类似于握手礼的起源,告诉对方:瞧,我手里没有武器,让我知道你也没有,甚至我们可以想象,劝酒习俗在古代或许真的发挥过确保聚宴各方同时丧失战斗力的作用,因为喝醉酒的人是很难保持格斗能力的。 之所以人际交往中充满了戒备,或许是因为缺乏信任机制和社会规范对行为的约束,社会交往中充斥着尔虞我诈的机会主义行为,为此人人都须时刻保持警惕,才能保护自己的利益不受伤害;在这场长期的机会主义攻防战,导致了心理武库的军备竞赛,精明、理智、审慎、诡诈、圆滑、伪装、设套、声东击西、拐弯抹角……等等心理武器都被一一开发出来,装备在身,而真实意图被却包裹在重重伪装之下,难以看透。 果若如此,我们便可预期,越是那些可能被对方设陷欺骗或伤害,因而越需要加以警惕和戒备的社会交往,劝酒风气便越盛行,而那些真正亲密的,或已经建立了充分信任关系的交往,则会表现的较为平和,事实看来正是如此,酒风炽烈的程度,从官场、涉及国企或政府项目的商务交往,到私人企业间交往、半生不熟的圈子,到亲密朋友、核心家庭,依次递减,高档酒的消费量大概也按此坐标呈梯度分布。 过去二十年酒风日盛的趋势,或许也是社会变迁的结果之一,市场开放,社会流动性增加,各种交往和交易关系大量涌现,但这些关系和交易中所需的规范和信任却未能及时建立,于是传统酒俗被改造而移用过来,为这些交往构造一个可让其顺畅运行的舞台。 可是,尽管发挥了这样的作用,劝酒习俗带给参与者的健康代价却是非常高昂的,很少有人真正乐在其中,更多人出于无奈,并对此苦不堪言,也想出种种办法加以逃避,可以相信,此陋俗以当今之炽烈程度的泛滥,只是阶段性的,随着人们对其健康代价的认知加深,价值观的变化,以及新的社会规范和信任机制的逐渐成型和成熟,新生代当不至于全盘继承这一陋俗。 【2021-06-26】 斯大林用灌酒来考验手下的忠诚,见Simon Montefiore - Stalin: The Court of the Red Tsar,第46章。  
[译文]重新审视六度分隔理论

How small is the world, really?
世界何其小,真的吗?

作者:Duncan Watts @ 2016-02-10
译者:龟海海
校对:辉格(@whigzhou)
来源:七分钟阅读,https://medium.com/@duncanjwatts/how-small-is-the-world-really-736fa21808ba

Last week’s finding by a team of data scientists at Facebook that everyone in the social network is connected by an average of 3.5 “intermediaries” has renewed interest in the longstanding “Six Degrees of Separation” hypothesis: that everyone in the world is connected by some short chain of acquaintances.

上周,一个脸书数据分析专家小组发现,社交网络中的每个人都可经由平均3.5个“媒介好友”而联系起来,这一发现刷新了之前长期流行的“六度分隔”理论,即世上任何两人皆可通过某条较短的熟人链条连接起来。

Not surprisingly, the attention has focused on the plausible assertion that online social networks like Facebook have made the world smaller: that whatused to be six degrees is now almost half that. But really what it has revealed is how little we understand this intriguing phenomenon and what it might mean for our world.

无出意外,人们的注意力被吸引到了一个看似可能的判断上:像脸书这样的社交网络让世界变得更小:以前的六度现在一半就足够。但它真正揭示的是,对此令人神迷的现象和它对我们世界的意义何在,我们的理解何等浅薄。

This “small world” hypothesis, as it is known in sociology, has been percolating in popular culture for a long time. Almost a century ago the Hungarian poet Frigyes Karinthy wrote a short story called “Chain Links” in which he claimed he could reach anyone in the world, whether a Nobel Prize winner or a worker in a Ford auto factory, through a series of no more than five intermediaries.

在社会学领域内,大家都已了解,这个“小小世界”假说久已渗透进我们的文化之中。早在一个世纪前,匈牙利诗人Frigyes Karinthy就写了一则题为“链接”的小故事,文中他声称可以通过一系列不超过5个的“媒介”,联络到世界上任何人,无论是诺奖得主,或是一名福特工厂的工人。

Subsequently, writers like Jane Jacobs, John Guare, and Malcolm Gladwell have periodically reinvigorated the idea with their own colorful characters and fantastical speculations about who really runs the world.

此后,像Jane Jacobs, John Guare, and Malcolm Gladwell等等作家时不时的通过他们自己书中丰富的人物重塑了这一假说,并天马行空的猜测究竟是谁在真正掌控这个世界。

But arguably no one has had more impact on the question of how small the world is than Stanley Milgram, a Harvard psychologist who in the 1960s conducted an ingenious experiment to test it (Milgram is even more famous for another experiment of his, on obedience to authority, but that’s for another day).

但是,毋庸置疑,没有人对此“小小世界”问题的影(more...)

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How small is the world, really? 世界何其小,真的吗? 作者:Duncan Watts @ 2016-02-10 译者:龟海海 校对:辉格(@whigzhou) 来源:七分钟阅读,https://medium.com/@duncanjwatts/how-small-is-the-world-really-736fa21808ba Last week’s finding by a team of data scientists at Facebook that everyone in the social network is connected by an average of 3.5 “intermediaries” has renewed interest in the longstanding “Six Degrees of Separation” hypothesis: that everyone in the world is connected by some short chain of acquaintances. 上周,一个脸书数据分析专家小组发现,社交网络中的每个人都可经由平均3.5个“媒介好友”而联系起来,这一发现刷新了之前长期流行的“六度分隔”理论,即世上任何两人皆可通过某条较短的熟人链条连接起来。 Not surprisingly, the attention has focused on the plausible assertion that online social networks like Facebook have made the world smaller: that whatused to be six degrees is now almost half that. But really what it has revealed is how little we understand this intriguing phenomenon and what it might mean for our world. 无出意外,人们的注意力被吸引到了一个看似可能的判断上:像脸书这样的社交网络让世界变得更小:以前的六度现在一半就足够。但它真正揭示的是,对此令人神迷的现象和它对我们世界的意义何在,我们的理解何等浅薄。 This “small world” hypothesis, as it is known in sociology, has been percolating in popular culture for a long time. Almost a century ago the Hungarian poet Frigyes Karinthy wrote a short story called “Chain Links” in which he claimed he could reach anyone in the world, whether a Nobel Prize winner or a worker in a Ford auto factory, through a series of no more than five intermediaries. 在社会学领域内,大家都已了解,这个“小小世界”假说久已渗透进我们的文化之中。早在一个世纪前,匈牙利诗人Frigyes Karinthy就写了一则题为“链接”的小故事,文中他声称可以通过一系列不超过5个的“媒介”,联络到世界上任何人,无论是诺奖得主,或是一名福特工厂的工人。 Subsequently, writers like Jane Jacobs, John Guare, and Malcolm Gladwell have periodically reinvigorated the idea with their own colorful characters and fantastical speculations about who really runs the world. 此后,像Jane Jacobs, John Guare, and Malcolm Gladwell等等作家时不时的通过他们自己书中丰富的人物重塑了这一假说,并天马行空的猜测究竟是谁在真正掌控这个世界。 But arguably no one has had more impact on the question of how small the world is than Stanley Milgram, a Harvard psychologist who in the 1960s conducted an ingenious experiment to test it (Milgram is even more famous for another experiment of his, on obedience to authority, but that’s for another day). 但是,毋庸置疑,没有人对此“小小世界”问题的影响超过1960年代任教于哈佛大学的心理学家史丹利·米尔格拉姆,他进行了一个原创试验来测试此理论(米尔格拉姆其实有另一个更加有名的试验,“权力服从研究”,这个我们改天再谈)。 In brief, Milgram chose a single person, an acquaintance of his who was a stockbroker living in Sharon Mass, just outside of Boston, to be the “target” of the experiment. In addition he chose roughly 300 others — 100 from Boston itself and the other 200 from Omaha Nebraska, which Milgram figured was about as far away from Boston, socially and geographically, as one could get within the US. 简言之,米尔格拉姆选择他的一位朋友作为其实验的“靶标”,他是一位股票经纪人,住在波士顿城外的Sharon Mass。另外,他还另外选择了约300名实验对象——其中100名来自波士顿,其他200名来自内布拉斯加的奥马哈市,米尔格拉姆认为,就美国境内而言,奥马哈无论在社会关系上还是在地理上,都距离波士顿足够远。 Milgram then sent these 300 subjects special packets containing a good deal of information about the target — his name, address, occupation, etc. — and also instructions that they were to try to get the packet to him. But there was a catch: they could only send the packet to him if they knew him personally, meaning on a first-name basis. 随后,米尔格拉姆为这300名实验对象送出了特殊的包裹,其中包涵他这名股票经纪人(靶标)的许多信息——他的名字,地址,职业,等等——以及一些让他们试着将包裹寄给他的提示。但是,这儿有个坑:他们只能在个人直接认识他的情况下才能寄出包裹。 In the overwhelmingly likely event that that they did not, they were instead to send to someone they did know on a first name basis and who was closer to the target than they were themselves. These new participants would then get the same packet with the same instructions, and the process would repeat until — hopefully — some of the packets reached the target. 而实际上,在绝大部分情况下,他们不满足这一条件,所以只能将包裹寄给某位他们直接认识并且和靶标的关系距离更近一层的人。而这个收到包裹的新参与者,得到的是同样的包裹和提示,这一过程会一直持续循环下去,直到——幸运的话——有些包裹能顺利到达“靶标”。 Milgram’s question then was: for successfully delivered packets, how long would the chains be? Curiously, before he ran the experiment Milgram asked lots of people to guess the answer. Many assumed it wasn’t possible while others figured it would take hundreds of steps. So when Milgram found that not only did 64 packets, roughly one fifth of the initial sample, reached the target, but that the average length of the successful chains was just 6, he knew it would surprise many people. 米尔格拉姆接下来的问题是:如果包裹递送成功,那么这些链条有多长呢?有趣的是,在米尔格拉姆进行此实验之前就让很多人猜过答案。一些人表示根本不可能送达目标,另一些则认为至少得通过成百上千个步骤。所以,当米尔格拉姆得知不仅64个包裹(占初始样本的五分之一)到达了靶标,而且这些成功链条的平均长度仅仅为6。他知道这会让许多人咋舌。 In many ways, it still does. Although the phrase “Six Degrees of Separation” has become a cliché, when pressed many people still find it difficult to imagine how they could really reach anyone — not just someone like them or someone near to them, but anyone at all in the whole world — in something like six steps. 从许多方面看,这仍然令人惊奇。虽说“六度分隔”已经成了陈词滥调,但这一结果发布之后,许多人仍难以相信自己仅仅只需六步即可链接到世界上的任何人——不仅是自己一个圈子的人,或是周边的人,而是整个世界的任何人。 Understandably then, the Facebook result also attracted some resistance: “Facebook is an unrepresentative sample of the population;” “Facebook friends aren’t real friends” and so on. But although these critiques may have merit, they miss the point. In reality, the 3.5 number is simply incomparable to Milgram’s 6 for three reasons. 所以不难理解,脸书的研究结果发布后吸引了许多反对声音:“脸书是个不具代表性的人口样本;”“脸书的朋友并非真朋友”等等。虽说这些批评也许有可取之处,但是他们没抓住要点。实际上,这个3.5不能和米尔格拉姆的“六度”直接对比,理由有三: First, the number 3.5 counts intermediaries not degrees of separation. If I am “one degree” from someone I know them directly; there are zero intermediaries between me and them. Likewise, there is one intermediary between me and my “two degree” neighbors, and so on. 首先,3.5这个数字计算的是“媒介”的数量,而不是分隔度数。如果我是某人的“一度”友邻,我就直接认识此人;我和他们间没有“媒介”。类似的,我和我的“二度”友邻之间存在一个“媒介”,以此类推。 In general, therefore, an average of 3.5 intermediaries corresponds to 4.5 degrees of separation, which is almost exactly what Facebook itself found when it performed a similar exercise a few years ago. Conversely, Milgram’s six degrees result corresponds to five intermediaries, which is actually the number he reported in his original paper with Jeffery Travers. So already the difference is one less than it appears. 因此,平均3.5个“媒介”对应的是“4.5度分隔”,这和几年前脸书自己通过类似实验得出的发现几乎相同。反之,米尔格拉姆的“六度”所对应的是5个“媒介”——其实他和Jeffery Travers发表的文章中所用的正是这个数字。所以上述差异比表面看起来就已经少了1 。 Second, though, Milgram’s experiment was a subtly but importantly different test than the one run by Facebook. Whereas the latter measured the length of the shortest possible path between two people — by exhaustively searching every link in the underlying Facebook graph — the former is simply the shortest path that ordinary people could find given very limited information about the underlying social network. 第二,虽然米尔格拉姆的试验很巧妙,但是,和脸书做的这个测试有重要差异。后者度量的是两个人之间的最短可能路径的长度——通过穷举搜索脸书关系图上的每条链接,而前者则是普通人基于其所掌握的极为有限的社会关系信息而能够找到的路径长度。 There are, in other words, two versions of the small-world hypothesis — the “topological” version, which refers only to underlying network structure, and the “algorithmic” version, which refers to the ability of people to search this underlying structure. 换言之,其实“小世界假说”有两个版本:“拓扑版”,它度量的是社会关系网络结构,和“算法版”,它度量的则是人们在此网络中进行搜索的能力。 From these definitions, it follows that algorithmic (search) paths cannot be shorter than topological paths and are almost certainly longer. Saying that the world has gotten smaller because the shortest topological path length is 4.5 not 6 therefore makes no sense — because the equivalent number would have been smaller in Milgram’s day as well. 从这些定义得出,“算法版”(搜索)路径不可能短于“拓扑版”。仅仅因为最短拓扑路径的长度是4.5而非6就说世界变小了,这么说毫无意义——因为米尔格拉姆时代的相应数字同样小于6。 Finally, the number 6 is also in some respects too small. As has been pointed out many times since Milgram’s experiment, only about 20% of the letters made it to their target. More importantly, these letters were almost certainly on shorter paths than the ones that didn’t make it, meaning that estimates of path length that don’t take into account the missing data are almost certainly biased downwards. 最后,从某些角度看,数字6也太小了。因为自从米尔格拉姆试验后就被很多人指出,仅有20%的信封送到了靶标。更重要的是,这些信所通过的途径几乎肯定短于那些没有到达靶标的,这就意味着那些投递失败的长链条在估算链条长度时没有被计算在内,这肯定会造成向下偏差。 Fortunately it is possible to correct for this bias using standard statistical methods. In a 2009 paper my colleagues and I performed exactly this analysis both on Milgram’s original data and also on our data from a similar — but much larger — experiment that we had conducted ourselves in 2003. 有幸的是,我们可以通过标准的统计算法来更正这一偏差。在2009年的一篇论文中我和我的同事们对米尔格拉姆的原始数据和我们自己在2003年做的一个大得多的类似试验的数据进行了恰如上面所述的分析。 Remarkably we found that after the correction, both experiments yielded similar results: the median shortest path was 7, meaning that 50% of chains should complete in 7 or fewer steps while the other 50% would be longer. Many people find this result surprising because it seems so clear that the world has gotten smaller in the last 50 years. 我们惊喜的发现,在矫正了数据后,两个试验得出相似的结果:最短链条的中位值是7,即50%的链条会7步或少于7步时完成,而另外50%则会更长。许多人觉得这个结果不思议,因为过去50年世界变得更小了这个事实看起来如此明白无误。 Yet this apparent stability is exactly what one would predict from my early theoretical work with Steven Strogatz back in the late 1990’s. In a nutshell what we showed is that it is easy to turn a “large” world into a “small” one, just by adding a small fraction of random, long-range links, reminiscent of Mark Granovetter’s famous “weak ties.” 但这一明显的稳定性正是我和Steven Strogatz在1990年代后期的理论研究中预见到的。简言之,我们要证明的是,只需要在“大”世界中加入一小部分随机的“长范围”链接,就可以把世界变“小”,这让人联想起马克·格兰诺维特著名的“弱关系”理论。 The flip side of our result, however, is that once the world has already gotten small — as it was already by the 1960's — it is extremely hard to make it smaller. Obviously Facebook did not exist in 2003 so possibly since then something has indeed changed. But I suspect that the difference will be small. 实际上,这一结果反过来说就是,一旦世界变小之后——其实它在60年代已经变小了——想要把它变得更小就极为困难。很明显,脸书2003年并不存在,所以有可能某些东西真的已经改变了。但是我估计这个变化是微小的。 Why does any of this matter? There are three reasons. First, the two versions of the small-world hypothesis — topological and algorithmic — are relevant to different social processes. The spread of a sexually transmitted disease along networks of sexual relations, for example, does not require that participants have any awareness of the disease, or intention to spread it; thus for an individual to be at risk of acquiring an infection, he or she need only be connected in the topological sense to existing infectives. 何以见得这些差异是要紧的呢?理由有三:第一,两个版本的“小世界假说”——拓扑版和算法版——关乎不同的社会过程。例如,就像性病通过两性关系而传播,这并不需要参与者意识到疾病的存在或者拥有传播它的意图,而仅需要他或她在拓扑上链接到既有的感染者即可。 On the contrary, individuals attempting to “network” — in order to locate some resources like a new job or a service provider — must actively traverse chains of referrals, and thus must be connected in the algorithmic sense. Depending on the application of interest, therefore, either the topological or algorithmic distance between individuals may be more relevant — or possibly both together. 相反,若是个人想要“建立链接”寻找资源,比如找工作,寻找服务商,则必须积极的遍历中间人链条,因而必须在算法上建立链接。所以,根据实际应用中的关注重点,有些情况下个体之间的拓扑距离更切题,有时则算法距离更切题,或者两者同时切题。 Second, whereas the topological hypothesis has been shown to apply essentially universally, to networks of all kinds, the algorithmic hypothesis is largely (although not exclusively) concerned with social networks in which human agents make decisions about how to direct messages. 第二,拓扑版小世界假说已经表明普遍适用于所有类型的网络结构,而算法版假说则大致上量(虽然不完全)适用于社交网络,在这些网络中,人类主体就如何引导信息流向做出决定。 And third, whereas the topological version is supported by an overwhelming volume of empirical evidence — hundreds of studies, if not thousands — have found that nodes in even the very largest known networks are connected by short paths, the practical difficulty of running “small-world” experiments of the sort that Milgram conducted in the 1960s has meant that much less is known about the algorithmic version. 第三,鉴于“拓扑版”得到了压倒性数量的经验证据——来自数百甚至数千项研究——支持这些证据表明,即使在最大的关系网中,节点之间也可通过较短路径相连接,进行像米尔格拉姆在1960年代所做的那种“小世界效应”试验的实际困难意味着,我们对“算法版”的情况其实所知不多。 On this last point, for example, our 2009 analysis also found evidence that some of the longer paths could be much longer than the median, adding weight to the skeptics’ claims that in spite of the small-world phenomenon, some people remain socially isolated. 有关最后这一点,(例如)我们2009年的分析同样发现了证据表明,一些长路径可以远远长于中位值,这为那些怀疑者的主张提供了依据:即使存在小世界现象,总有些人在社会关系上是保持孤立的。 Given the importance of social networks in determining life outcomes, it would be extremely interesting and useful to understand better who these people are and why they are isolated. Is it something to do with their underlying networks or is it that their search strategies are somehow less effective? 考虑到社会关系网在决定生活质量上的重要性,研究并理解这些孤立者是谁,为何变得孤立,将是件极为有趣且有用的事情。这跟他们的下层关系网有关?【编注:此处underlying networks应是指亲戚、邻里等个人被预先给定的被动关系,相对于个人主动寻求建立的社会关系】还是他们的搜索策略不够有效? Could it be, as my coauthors and I speculated many years ago, some kind of self-fulfilling prophecy, in which the perception of social isolation discourages one from searching one’s network, and that the resulting lack of success reinforces the original perception of isolation? 有没有可能,正如多年前我和我的共同作者所推测的那样,是某种自我实现的预言?即,对社会孤立的感知,使得个人不愿意搜索自己的关系网,由此导致的关系建立失败进而强化了对孤立的最初感知? Answering these questions would require new experiments that are only now just becoming possible. But the answers would not only be of academic interest — they could also potentially help many people access currently inaccessible reserves of “social capital” thereby improving their lives. Far from being settled, the small-world problem still has much to teach us about the world, and ourselves. 要回答这些问题需要更新的试验,而此类实验直到最近才变得可行。但是,这些问题的答案不仅仅是满足学术兴趣——它们同样可能帮助很多人得以访问目前对他们来说还不可触及的“社会资本”储备,从而来改善他们的生活。 小世界问题还远未解决,在未来,它仍将为我们带来有关这个世界以及我们自身的诸多教益。 Duncan Watts is a principal researcher at Microsoft and author of Six Degrees: The Science of a Connected Age (WW Norton, 2003). 邓肯·J·瓦茨是微软首席研究员和《六度分隔理论》作者 (编辑:辉格@whigzhou) *注:本译文未经原作者授权,本站对原文不持有也不主张任何权利,如果你恰好对原文拥有权益并希望我们移除相关内容,请私信联系,我们会立即作出响应。

——海德沙龙·翻译组,致力于将英文世界的好文章搬进中文世界——

[微言]梅毒与六度空间

【2012-06-11】

@whigzhou: 哥伦布1493年回到葡萄牙,1494年梅毒出现在那不勒斯,然后被查理八世的军队带回法国,1498年来到印度,1505年到达广州,这传播速度当时很少有东西能超过,可见性关系是联系人类各大文明的坚强纽带,性关系网大概也是个六度或更小度空间,呵呵

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4356
【2012-06-11】 @whigzhou: 哥伦布1493年回到葡萄牙,1494年梅毒出现在那不勒斯,然后被查理八世的军队带回法国,1498年来到印度,1505年到达广州,这传播速度当时很少有东西能超过,可见性关系是联系人类各大文明的坚强纽带,性关系网大概也是个六度或更小度空间,呵呵
饭文#92: 茫茫人海已不再茫茫

茫茫人海已不再茫茫
辉格
2009年3月9日

日前,据南京市蒋宏坤市长在回答记者提问时透露,南京江宁区原房管局长周久耕因涉嫌严重违纪已被立案调查,这是人肉搜索的最新牺牲品;这一案件,连同此前一系列成为搜索对象的躲猫猫、林嘉祥、周春梅、谭静、王菲(男)、和若干公费旅游账单,使得人肉搜索在短短几年之内突然成为一股引人注目、影响广泛的潮流;对此,有人拍手叫好,有人担忧个人隐私陷入危境,有人甚至呼吁立法禁止;无论对此抱何态度,有一点是肯定的:我们今天所面临的信息环境,已经大大改变了。

所谓人肉搜索,(more...)

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454

茫茫人海已不再茫茫
辉格
2009年3月9日

日前,据南京市蒋宏坤市长在回答记者提问时透露,南京江宁区原房管局长周久耕因涉嫌严重违纪已被立案调查,这是人肉搜索的最新牺牲品;这一案件,连同此前一系列成为搜索对象的躲猫猫、林嘉祥、周春梅、谭静、王菲(男)、和若干公费旅游账单,使得人肉搜索在短短几年之内突然成为一股引人注目、影响广泛的潮流;对此,有人拍手叫好,有人担忧个人隐私陷入危境,有人甚至呼吁立法禁止;无论对此抱何态度,有一点是肯定的:我们今天所面临的信息环境,已经大大改变了。

所谓人肉搜索,是在网上组织大量的人力,借助以搜索引擎为主的工具,搜集和跟踪某一事件或人物的所有可能得到的信息,力图再现出事情的原貌。以前,类似的工作只能由记者、侦探、警察等专业调查和研究机构来做,互联网和搜索引擎使它成为可能,更重要的是,如今越来越多的事件会在网上留下痕迹;五六年前,我曾尝试搜索自己和一些亲友的名字,但得到的有价值信息很少,但今天已大不相同,我甚至能用Google来研究家谱。

手机、数码相机、DV让人们可以随时采集信息,目前这些产品都在强化与网络相册和流媒体的连接,用它们拍摄的照片和视频几分钟后就可出现在博客和YouTube上了,即时通信、博客和社会化网络等Web2.0应用的繁荣,也鼓励了的人们在网上创作和分享信息;网民不再仅仅是使用者和阅读者,涌现了大量山寨记者和评论家。信息来源的泛化使网络的触角遍及每个角落,而搜索引擎又将这些信息组织到一起,借助它,有心人可以对任何曾在公共视野中留下痕迹的事件进行跟踪;谷歌甚至已经为网络相册开发了人脸识别功能,如果把它融入通用引擎,人肉搜索将更为可观。

现代城市生活与传统部落、乡村和城镇生活的重要区别是,在乡村和部落,生活中见到的每个人几乎都是熟识的,偶尔才遇到陌生人,你走出家门后的一举一动都可能引起熟人的关注、评价和议论,其结果将影响他们和他们的听众对你的看法和今后交往中所采取的态度;每个人都知道村里其他人的历史:他做过些什么?别人怎么评价他?他是个好顾主吗?我会不会吃他亏?要不要让着点他?或者最好躲开他?传统社会的道德、习惯法和社会秩序,很大程度上就是靠这种相互熟知和舆论评价的约束来维持的。

在大城市,即使你交际很广,熟识的人也很少超过200个,而城市通常有几十数百万人;所以,一旦走入茫茫人海,你可以很有把握的假定:除非你与他直接发生关系,周围的人不会关心你在做什么,事后更不会记得。有人把这叫做人情冷漠,但如果你经历过小镇生活中无处不在的好奇目光、窃窃私语和指指点点,或许会欣然称之为“城市的自由空气”:它清晰的划分了私生活和公共生活,并在私生活中让你摆脱了传统的目光和舆论约束。在地铁上,或许50米内有几百双眼睛,但你却可以比在小镇的冷清街道上更旁若无人的接吻、打私密电话、或者傻笑。这也正是城市所以吸引年轻人的魅力所在,青年时代普遍的叛逆性让他们难以忍受传统生活中的那些约束,尤其是存在其他选择的时候。

现在,这一切即将改变,有趣的是,技术发展或许会部分的将我们带回乡村时代;80年代经济全球化初现端倪时,曾有人惊呼,现代交通运输工具、电信网络和贸易开放,正在把世界变成地球村,但那主要还是生产方面的改变,而信息技术的发展,才将真正从生活上建立起地球村,并唤回某些传统元素,至少在一些方面,它有望把我们拉回传统之中。今后,在大街上,在饭店、电影院、地铁站,“冷漠城市”这一假定不再可靠,或许你需要时刻留意,你此时的举动是否会被你家人、朋友或同事看见,如果这样,他们会怎么评价?或许会发现你和他们的印象大不相符?甚至当你卷入某些纠纷时,这些会成为对你不利的证据?

当然我们不会真正回到乡村,有一点差别是重要的:在乡村,目光和人言是“实时”的,舆论评价和约束和你的行为是同步的;而在未来信息环境下,行为发生时,旁人还是和以前一样漠不关心,人肉搜索和网络舆论是事后的,只会在某些条件触发下成为热点事件之后才会发生;但这一点也正是它的阴险之处:索性整天有熟人盯着倒也不会留下这么多丑态傻样,可怕的是,平时不觉得有啥,一出事就千年老账都被翻出来。

这一变化意义深远,它或许将改变城市生活的基本面貌,由于基本假定被改变了,人们的社会心理预期、行为方式、交往和信任关系,都将随之而调整,其结果很难预料,对此,及时的分析和评估是必要的,但要作出判断甚至采取立法行动,则为时尚早。