2015年发表的文章(230)

[译文]中产阶级在哪里死得最惨?

Where the Middle Class Goes to Die
哪里的中产阶级没活路?

作者:Kevin D. Williamson @ 2014-9-18
译者:Marcel ZHANG(@马赫塞勒张)
校对:史祥莆(@史祥莆),慕白(@李凤阳他说)
来源:National Review,http://www.nationalreview.com/article/388336/where-middle-class-goes-die-kevin-d-williamson

In progressive Manhattan, inequality is maxed out.

在进步主义盛行的曼哈顿,不平等已达到空前程度。

A new report being released today by the Census Bureau finds that Manhattan has the highest level of income inequality in the United States. That is not entirely surprising, though it would also not have been surprising if it had been San Francisco or another progressive fiefdom.

美国人口调查局(Census (more...)

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Where the Middle Class Goes to Die 哪里的中产阶级没活路? 作者:Kevin D. Williamson @ 2014-9-18 译者:Marcel ZHANG(@马赫塞勒张) 校对:史祥莆(@史祥莆),慕白(@李凤阳他说) 来源:National Review,http://www.nationalreview.com/article/388336/where-middle-class-goes-die-kevin-d-williamson In progressive Manhattan, inequality is maxed out. 在进步主义盛行的曼哈顿,不平等已达到空前程度。 A new report being released today by the Census Bureau finds that Manhattan has the highest level of income inequality in the United States. That is not entirely surprising, though it would also not have been surprising if it had been San Francisco or another progressive fiefdom. 美国人口调查局(Census Bureau)今天发表的一份报告显示,曼哈顿是全美收入差距最悬殊的地方。而这并不怎么出人意料,就算是出现在旧金山或其他进步主义大本营也不会令人吃惊。 For all the rhetoric about wicked 1 percenters and inequality, progressivism is a luxury good, and progressive-dominated enclaves are generally pretty okay places to live if you have a fair amount of money, but sort of stink if you’re in the middle or at the lower end of the earnings curve. 不论怎样夸张描绘那可恶的“1%”【译注:在近年来美国有关贫富差距和反全球化的抗议(比如“占领华尔街”运动)中,抗议者常自称为“99%”,而将最富裕阶层称为“1%”】和收入差距,进步主义都是一种奢侈品。此外,如果你手头有些钱的话,这些由进步派主导的地方都是很不错的安居之地;但若你处于收入曲线的中段或末端的话,那就有点不妙了。 Because most Americans experience New York City as tourists or in television shows and movies, it is easy to forget that the hometown of Wall Street and a very large population of obnoxious celebrities is a poor city: New York City is not only poorer than the New York State average, its median household income is, in absolute dollar terms, lower than that of such dramatically less expensive areas as Austin, Texas, or Cleveland County, Okla., where the typical household income is a few thousand dollars a year more than in New York City but the typical house costs less than a third of what the typical New York City home costs — and 17 percent of what the average Manhattan home costs. (And it’s a house, not a two-room coop.) 由于大多数美国人都只是到纽约旅行过,或是在电影电视中了解的纽约,所以很容易忘了,这个华尔街的故乡,这个充斥着众多令人生厌的名流的城市,其实是个“穷人之城”——在富裕程度方面,纽约市不仅低于纽约州的平均水平,而且其家庭中位数收入(以不变价美元计算)甚至还低于诸如德克萨斯州的奥斯汀和俄克拉何马州的克里夫兰县这样物价远低于纽约市的地区,这些地区的典型家庭年收入比纽约市高出几千美元,但是其一般房价却不足纽约一般房价的三分之一,甚至仅相当于曼哈顿房屋均价的17%。(而且这可是独栋屋,不是两居室公寓。) Inequality per se is a relatively minor and generally misunderstood issue, inasmuch as if New York’s median household earned four times what it does now but its top–5 percent households earned ten times what they do, there would be more income inequality but a much higher overall standard of living for rich and middle-class alike. 不平等本身其实是个相对次要并且被广泛误解的问题,因为如果纽约的家庭中位数收入是现有水平的四倍,但收入排名前5%的家庭收入是现在的10倍,那么收入差距就会更加悬殊,但是富裕阶层和中产阶层的总体生活水平却大大提高了。 What is particularly salient about the progressive governance of places such as New York City and San Francisco is not the income inequality coincident with it — which has many causes, only some of which are directly related to public policy — but the myriad ways in which misgovernment makes these cities such hostile places to live for people of relatively modest means. 像纽约和旧金山这种城市的进步主义治理模式,其最显眼的地方,不是与这种治理模式相伴的收入不平等(收入不平等的原因有很多,而只有一部分与公共政策有关),而是对于相对不富裕的人群来说,这些城市处处表现出敌意,而那都是由于治理不善的缘故。 As indicated above, the income figures by themselves hardly tell the story. The median household income in the city of New York is a few hundred dollars a year more than the median household income in the state of Texas, but in practical terms the average New York City household is much worse off. 正如上文所指出,收入数据本身并不能解释一切。纽约的家庭中位数年收入比德州高出几百美元,但实际上纽约普通家庭的状况要差得多。 The most obvious issue is the cost of housing, which for New Yorkers is about four times what it is for Texans. Housing prices are a function of supply and demand, and demand for New York City housing is relatively high, a fact that probably does not have very much to do with public policy. I have lived in New York City for some time, and I have never met anybody who says he moved here because it is so well governed. 其中最明显的问题就是住房成本,纽约人的住房成本大约是德州人的四倍。房价乃供求使然,而且纽约的住房需求相对较高,这个事实恐怕跟公共政策没多大关系。本人在纽约住过一段时间,而我从未听闻有人说搬到这是因为这儿的治理有多么好。 On the other hand, supply is highly restricted, and that is a direct consequence of bad public policy, an economic reality that is obvious even to such sympathetic progressives as Matt Yglesias, who sensibly notes that limitations on the number of new housing units in places such as Washington, D.C., bias construction toward high-priced luxury homes, while hostile zoning codes in places such as San Francisco prevent markets from responding to demand and lead to “deliberately underutilized” mass-transit arteries. 另一方面,住房供给却是被严格限制的,而这就是不良政策的直接后果了,这个经济现状非常显而易见,就连Matt Yglesias这样抱同情之心的进步派人士都说,在像华盛顿这样的地方对新建住房单位数量加以限制,会导致高价豪宅数量增多,而在旧金山等地实施的限制措施则阻碍了市场对需求的回应,从而导致了“蓄意不充分利用的”公交要道的产生。 In New York City, housing prices are kept artificially high by draconian restrictions on new construction, rent control and the less aggressive “rent stabilization,” political interference with development financing, onerous union rules that drive up construction prices, byzantine regulation that imposes enormous compliance costs, and more. Even in a city in which four of the five boroughs are located on islands, there are vast tracts of underused real estate, the development of which could alleviate housing expenses for the middle class and the poor. 在纽约,房价被人为抬高的原因有很多:针对新建房屋的严苛限制、租房管制以及不那么激进的“租房稳定措施”、政治因素对开发融资的妨碍、抬升造价的繁冗的工会规定、错综复杂的监管规章带来的巨大合规成本,如此等等不一而足。即使是在这个五个行政区中有四个都坐落在岛屿上的城市,也有大片的地产都未被充分利用,对这些地产的开发,将能够减轻中产和贫困阶层的住房负担。 There is also the problem of the 13th month’s rent in New York City. 纽约市还有个第13个月房租的问题。 If you earn the median income of $52,223 in New York City and you live within the city limits — not just in Manhattan but in the distant Bronx and Staten Island, too — you pay the city nearly $1,800 a year in additional income tax for the privilege. 在纽约市,如果你能赚到该市的中位数收入52,223美元,并且住在纽约市区里(不仅仅是曼哈顿,还包括布朗克斯和史泰登岛),那么你就要为这项特权支付每年近1,800美元的附加所得税。 You can basically forget about owning a home — the median house price in the city is more than a half a million dollars — but renting won’t be easy, either: Applying New York landlords’ prevailing 40-times-the-rent rule, you can afford about $1,300 a month; not impossible if you’re single, but a substantial challenge for a family. 你基本可以不用想买房子的事了,因为这个城市的房价中位数已经不止50万美元,但租房住也不容易:套用盛行于纽约房东之间的“40倍房租规则”,你仅能负担不到每月1,300美元的房租,如果你是单身的话,这个数目不至于完全租不到够你住的房子,但这点钱要想租到够一家人住的房子,那就难咯。 But in any case, you’ll be paying a 13th month’s rent and change to the city for the privilege of residing within its boundaries. Assuming you are single, taxes and rent would consume between 50 percent and 60 percent of your income. Move to Houston, and you’d get a $3,000-a-year discount before even accounting for the lower cost of housing. 但无论如何,你都要为了居于城内这项特权支付这第13个月的租金给这座城市。假设你是单身,那么光缴税缴租都要花掉你收入的五到六成。如果搬到休斯敦,你就能每年少付3,000美元,就这还没算更低的住房成本呢。 If you are truly concerned about inequality, then that matters a great deal, because income inequality is only one kind of economic inequality, and one of the less important kinds: Wealth inequality is more significant. If the majority of your income is being consumed by taxes and rent, saving and investing becomes hard. 如果你果真对不平等耿耿于怀的话,那这就是关乎要害的大事了,因为收入不平等只是经济不平等的一种,而且还是不那么重要的一种——财富不平等更加重要。如果你的大部分收入都用来缴税缴租了的话,那就很难进行储蓄和投资。 And given progressives’ abysmal record in providing key municipal services such as effective law enforcement and decent public schools to low-income communities, there are powerful incentives to take on additional expenses by paying the premium for living in a better neighborhood or enrolling your children in private schools. 而且考虑到进步派在提供关键市政公共服务上(比如有力的执法和面向低收入社群的适宜的公立学校)的糟糕记录,那你就有很强动机想要居住在更好的街区,或让你的孩子就读于私立学校,但这就要支付额外的费用。 When it comes time to pay for college or to leave behind a bequest for children or grandchildren — an important means of building wealth within families — you’re almost certainly better off in San Antonio or Provo than in New York or San Francisco. 一旦到了该支付大学学费或为你的子孙后代留下遗产(这是一种积累家族财富的重要方式)的时候,那么几乎可以肯定的是,如果你住在圣安东尼奥或普罗沃的话,会比住在纽约或旧金山的情况要好。 Highly skilled, highly educated people are likely to do well wherever they are, and creative, dynamic, global cities such as New York are gold mines for them. But not everybody is going to be an investment banker or a tech entrepreneur. If you want to get a picture of what progressive policies look like for everybody else, try living in New York City for a year with an average New York City income — and try it with a family. 高技能水平、高学历人群可能在哪里都会过得不错,而且像纽约这样富有创意和活力四射的国际大都市对于他们来说更是一座金矿。但并不是每个人都能成为投行家,或创办一家科技企业。如果你想了解一下在其他人眼中进步主义政策是怎么样的,那就试试在纽约市拿着平均收入生活一年,而且要拖家带口。 Kevin D. Williamson is roving correspondent at National Review. Kevin D. Williamson,《国家评论》杂志流动通讯记者 (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——

[译文]一位生态学家有关IPCC报告的国会证词

In House Testimony, Botkin Dismantles the IPCC 2014 Report
Botkin在众院听证中推翻了IPCC 2014年度报告

作者:Daniel B. Botkin @ 2014-5-31
译者:陈小乖(@lion_kittyyyyy)
校对:Eartha(@王小贰_Eartha),二校:沈沉(@你在何地-sxy)
来源:Anthony Watts的博客(Watts Up With That?), http://wattsupwiththat.com/2014/05/31/in-house-testimony-botkin-dismantles-the-ipcc-2014-report/

Policycritic writes: You need to read this, Anthony. He dismantles the IPCC 2014 report for Congress.

Policycritic写道:Anthony你得读读这个。他推翻了政府间气候变化专门委员会(IPCC)提交给国会的2014年度报告。

Botkin’s bio:

“Daniel B. Botkin, a world-renowned ecologist, is Professor (Emeritus), Department of Ecology, Evolution and Marine Biology, UC Santa Barbara, and President of The Center for The Study of The Environment, which provides independent, science-based analyses of complex environmental issues. The New York Times said his book, *Discordant Harmonies: A New Ecology for the 21st Century* is considered by many ecologists to be the classic text of the [environmental] movement.” His Environmental Science, now in its Sixth Edition, was named 2004′s best textbook by the Textbook and Academic Authors Association.”

Botkin的简历:

“Daniel B. Botkin是一位享誉世界的生态学家,也是加利福尼亚大学圣塔芭芭拉分校生态、进化和海洋生物学系荣休教授兼环境研究中心主任,该机构对复杂的环境问题进行独立的、基于科学的研究。《纽约时报》称,‘他的著作《不谐和的和谐:二十一世纪新生态学》被众多生态学家认可为环保运动经典教科书。’他的《环境科学》一书目前已出到第六版,该书曾被教科书及学术作家协会评选为2004年度最佳教科书。”

Indeed, and I’ve made the full written testimony available, plus a video showing Rep. Joe Kennedy (D-MA) poses questions to the witness panel at the Full Committee hearing titled, “Examining the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change Process.” where he grills Daniel B. Botkin with idiotic questions like: ‘Doctor, do you look both ways before you cross the street?’

我找到了Botkin的书面证词全文,还有一段众议员Joe Kennedy(民主党,马塞诸塞州)的一个视频,内容是在主题为“审查联合国政府间气候变化专门委员会的工作进程”的全体委员会听证会上,对证人小组作出的提问。听证会上,Joe用诸如“博士,您过马路前两边都需要看吗?”等愚蠢问题刁难Daniel B. Botkin。

WRITTEN TESTIMONY TO THE HOUSE SUBCOMMITTEE ON SCIENCE, SPACE, AND TECHNOLOGY. MAY 29, 2014
致众议院小组委员会关于科学、太空和技术的书面证词

DANIEL B. BOTKIN
证人:Daniel B. Botkin

Since 1968 I have published research on theoretical global warming, its potential ecological effects, and the implications for people and biodiversity. I have spent my career trying to help conserve our environment and its great diversity of species. In doing so I have always attempted to maintain an objective, intellectually honest, scientific approach in the best tradition of scientific endeavor.

1968年至今,我发表的学术论文涉及全球变暖的理论问题、它的潜在生态效应,以及对人类和生物多样性的影响。我的整个职业生涯都致力于保护我们的环境及其丰富的物种多样性。为此,我一直努力尝试继承科学事业的优良传统,坚守一种客观的、智识诚实的和科学的工作方法。

I have, accordingly, been dismayed and disappointed in recent years that this subject has been converted into a political and ideological debate. I have colleagues on both sides of the debate and believe we should work together as scientists instead of arguing divisively about preconceived, emotionally based “positions.”

因此,近几年,我对这个话题已被转变为一场政治和意识形态的辩论而倍感沮丧和失望。辩论双方都有我的同事,我坚信我们应当作为科学家共同努力,而不该为了先入为主的、基于情绪的“站队”互相争论。

I hope my testifying here (more...)

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In House Testimony, Botkin Dismantles the IPCC 2014 Report Botkin在众院听证中推翻了IPCC 2014年度报告 作者:Daniel B. Botkin @ 2014-5-31 译者:陈小乖(@lion_kittyyyyy) 校对:Eartha(@王小贰_Eartha),二校:沈沉(@你在何地-sxy) 来源:Anthony Watts的博客(Watts Up With That?), http://wattsupwiththat.com/2014/05/31/in-house-testimony-botkin-dismantles-the-ipcc-2014-report/ Policycritic writes: You need to read this, Anthony. He dismantles the IPCC 2014 report for Congress. Policycritic写道:Anthony你得读读这个。他推翻了政府间气候变化专门委员会(IPCC)提交给国会的2014年度报告。 Botkin’s bio: “Daniel B. Botkin, a world-renowned ecologist, is Professor (Emeritus), Department of Ecology, Evolution and Marine Biology, UC Santa Barbara, and President of The Center for The Study of The Environment, which provides independent, science-based analyses of complex environmental issues. The New York Times said his book, *Discordant Harmonies: A New Ecology for the 21st Century* is considered by many ecologists to be the classic text of the [environmental] movement.” His Environmental Science, now in its Sixth Edition, was named 2004′s best textbook by the Textbook and Academic Authors Association.” Botkin的简历: “Daniel B. Botkin是一位享誉世界的生态学家,也是加利福尼亚大学圣塔芭芭拉分校生态、进化和海洋生物学系荣休教授兼环境研究中心主任,该机构对复杂的环境问题进行独立的、基于科学的研究。《纽约时报》称,‘他的著作《不谐和的和谐:二十一世纪新生态学》被众多生态学家认可为环保运动经典教科书。’他的《环境科学》一书目前已出到第六版,该书曾被教科书及学术作家协会评选为2004年度最佳教科书。” Indeed, and I’ve made the full written testimony available, plus a video showing Rep. Joe Kennedy (D-MA) poses questions to the witness panel at the Full Committee hearing titled, “Examining the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change Process.” where he grills Daniel B. Botkin with idiotic questions like: ‘Doctor, do you look both ways before you cross the street?’ 我找到了Botkin的书面证词全文,还有一段众议员Joe Kennedy(民主党,马塞诸塞州)的一个视频,内容是在主题为“审查联合国政府间气候变化专门委员会的工作进程”的全体委员会听证会上,对证人小组作出的提问。听证会上,Joe用诸如“博士,您过马路前两边都需要看吗?”等愚蠢问题刁难Daniel B. Botkin。 WRITTEN TESTIMONY TO THE HOUSE SUBCOMMITTEE ON SCIENCE, SPACE, AND TECHNOLOGY. MAY 29, 2014 致众议院小组委员会关于科学、太空和技术的书面证词 DANIEL B. BOTKIN 证人:Daniel B. Botkin Since 1968 I have published research on theoretical global warming, its potential ecological effects, and the implications for people and biodiversity. I have spent my career trying to help conserve our environment and its great diversity of species. In doing so I have always attempted to maintain an objective, intellectually honest, scientific approach in the best tradition of scientific endeavor. 1968年至今,我发表的学术论文涉及全球变暖的理论问题、它的潜在生态效应,以及对人类和生物多样性的影响。我的整个职业生涯都致力于保护我们的环境及其丰富的物种多样性。为此,我一直努力尝试继承科学事业的优良传统,坚守一种客观的、智识诚实的和科学的工作方法。 I have, accordingly, been dismayed and disappointed in recent years that this subject has been converted into a political and ideological debate. I have colleagues on both sides of the debate and believe we should work together as scientists instead of arguing divisively about preconceived, emotionally based “positions.” 因此,近几年,我对这个话题已被转变为一场政治和意识形态的辩论而倍感沮丧和失望。辩论双方都有我的同事,我坚信我们应当作为科学家共同努力,而不该为了先入为主的、基于情绪的“站队”互相争论。 I hope my testifying here will help lead to a calmer, more rational approach to dealing with not only climate change but also other major environmental problems. The IPCC 2014 report does not have this kind of rational discussion we should be having. I would like to tell you why. 我希望此次作证能有助于开启一条更平和、更理性的进路,以便应对包括但不仅限于气候变化的重大环境问题。IPCC 2014年度报告不具备这种我们本应有的理性讨论。我想告诉你为什么。 The IPCC 2014 report is actually a series of reports, each long, complex in organization, and extensive in scope. Since it’s not possible to discuss the Summary Reports for Policymakers in detail today, I will highlight some of my thoughts for you here as they relate to the reports, hoping to bring a saner, more sober approach to this highly charged issue. IPCC 2014年度报告实际上是一系列报告的集结。这些报告每一篇都结构复杂,篇幅冗长,涉猎广泛。因为今天不可能就其中《决策者参考摘要》进行详细讨论,所以我将着重谈谈我与这些报告有关的一些想法。希望它们能给这个极具争议的话题带来更理智、更冷静的处理方法。 To characterize where we are with this report and this issue, I would like to quote James R. Schlesinger, the first U.S. Energy Secretary, who said:“We have only two modes — complacency and panic.”—commenting on the country’s approach to energy (1977) 为了描述我们在这份报告以及这个问题上的处境,我想引用美国首任能源部长James R. Schlesinger于1977年就美国能源政策所做的评论,他说:“我们只有两种状态——怡然自得和惊慌失措。” Now to my major points. 现在来谈谈我的主要观点。 1.I want to state up front that we have been living through a warming trend driven by a variety of influences. However, it is my view that this is not unusual, and contrary to the characterizations by the IPCC and the National Climate Assessment, these environmental changes are not apocalyptic nor irreversible. 1.我想声明在先,我们一直在经历由各种因素导致的变暖趋势。然而,我认为这并非异常,与IPCC及《国家气候评估》的描述恰恰相反,这些环境变化既不会带来世界末日也不是不可逆转的。 2.My biggest concern is that both the reports present a number of speculative, and sometimes incomplete, conclusions embedded in language that gives them more scientific heft than they deserve. The reports are “scientific-sounding” rather than based on clearly settled facts or admitting their lack. Established facts about the global environment exist less often in science than laymen usually think. 2.我最担忧的是,这两份报告都展示了一系列推测性的结论,有时候还并不完备,但经过语言修饰后却具有了名不副实的科学份量。他们只是“听上去科学”,并非基于真实确定的事实,或者没有承认这一点。在全球环境问题上, 科学界公认的既定事实远比外行通常认为的少。 3.HAS IT BEEN WARMING? Yes, we have been living through a warming trend, no doubt about that. The rate of change we are experiencing is also not unprecedented, and the “mystery” of the warming “plateau” simply indicates the inherent complexity of our global biosphere. Change is normal, life on Earth is inherently risky; it always has been. The two reports, however, makes it seem that environmental change is apocalyptic and irreversible. It is not. 3.一直在变暖吗?是的,我们一直在经历变暖的趋势,这一点毫无疑问。我们正在经历的升温速度也并非史无前例,持续变暖期的“神秘性”仅仅表明,全球生物圈具有内在的复杂性。变化是正常现象,地球上的生命从诞生之初就一直面临危险。然而,这两份报告令环境变化看起来像是末日灾难,并且无法逆转,可事实并非如此。 4.IS CLIMATE CHANGE VERY UNUSUAL? No, it has always undergone changes. 环境变化是极其异常的现象吗?不是的,环境一直在经历变化。 5.ARE GREENHOUSE GASES INCREASING? Yes, CO2 rapidly. 5.温室气体在增加吗?是的,二氧化碳浓度正快速上升。 6.IS THERE GOOD SCIENTIFIC RESEARCH ON CLIMATE CHANGE?Yes, a great deal of it. 6.关于气候变化,有优秀的科学研究吗?有,有很多。 7.ARE THERE GOOD SCIENTISTS INVOLVED IN THE IPCC 2014 REPORT? Yes, the lead author of the Terrestrial (land) Ecosystem Report is Richard Betts, a coauthor of one my scientific papers about forecasting effects of global warming on biodiversity. 7.有优秀的科学家参与到IPCC 2014年度报告中吗?有,例如陆地生态系统报告的主要作者Richard Betts,他是我的一篇关于预测全球变暖对生物多样性的影响的科学论文的共同作者。 8.ARE THERE SCIENTIFICALLY ACCURATE STATEMENTS AT PLACES IN THE REPORT? Yes, there are. 8.在报告中是否有科学、精确的表述呢?有。 9.What I sought to learn was the overall take-away that the reports leave with a reader. I regret to say that I was left with the impression that the reports overestimate the danger from human-induced climate change and do not contribute to our ability to solve major environmental problems. I am afraid that an “agenda” permeates the reports, an implication that humans and our activity are necessarily bad and ought to be curtailed. 9.我试图罗列读者能从这些报告中得到哪些有用的信息。遗憾的是,这些报告留给我的印象是:过分强调人为因素引起的气候变化的危险性,而对我们解决重大环境问题毫无贡献。恐怕报告前前后后都渗透了一个“意图”:一种关于人类及其活动必然有害、必须加以削减的暗示。 10.ARE THERE MAJOR PROBLEMS WITH THE REPORTS? Yes, in assumptions, use of data, and conclusions. 10.报告中是否存在重大缺陷?是,在提出假设、数据使用、以及结论部分,都存在问题。 11.My biggest concern about the reports is that they present a number of speculative, and sometimes incomplete, conclusions embedded in language that gives them more scientific heft than they deserve. The reports, in other words, are “scientific- sounding,” rather than clearly settled and based on indisputable facts. Established facts about the global environment exist less often in science than laymen usually think. 11.我最担忧的是,这两份报告中都展示了一系列推测性的结论,有时候还并不完备,但经过语言修饰后,却具有了名不副实的科学份量。他们只是“听上去科学”,并非基于真实确定的事实,或者没有承认这一点。在全球环境问题上, 科学界公认的既定事实远比外行通常认为的少。【译注:此条似与第二条重复,原文如此12.The two reports assume and/or argue that the climate warmingforecast by the global climate models is happening and will continueto happen and grow worse. Currently these predictions are way off the reality (Figure 1)Models, like all scientific theory, have to be tested against real-world observations. Experts in model validation say that the climate models frequently cited in the IPCC report are little if any validated. This means that as theory they are fundamentally scientifically unproven. 12.这两份报告或假设或肯定地表示,全球气候模型所作的气候变暖预测正一步步变成现实,并将一直持续,越来越糟。目前,这些预测都远远脱离现实(图一)。和所有的科学理论一样,模型需要通过对照现实观测进行检验。模型验证领域的专家说,IPCC报告频繁引用的气候模型极少通过了验证。这意味着作为理论他们根本未经科学证实。 Figure 1: Climate model forecasts compared to real worldtemperature observations (From John Christy, University of Alabama and Alabama State Climatologist. Reproduced with permission from him.) 图一:气候模型预测结果与真实气温观测数据对比(来自John Christy,阿拉巴马大学、阿拉巴马州气候学家,经许可转载) 【图一】 13.The reports suffers from the use term “climate change” with two meanings: natural and human-induced. These are both given as definitions in the IPCC report and are not distinguished in the text and therefore confuse a reader. (The Climate Change Assessment uses the term throughout including its title, but never defines it.) There are places in the reports where only the second meaning—human induced—makes sense, so that meaning has to be assumed. There are other places where either meaning could be applied. 13.这些报告因混淆了“气候变化”的两层含义而变得更糟,气候变化可以自然发生,也可以因人类活动而起。IPCC报告为两者都给出了定义,但在行文中却并未明确区分,并因此而迷惑了读者。(《气候变化评估》中随处可见“气候变化”一词,包括报告标题,但从未明言它是哪一种。)报告中的一些地方,只有按照第二层含义——人类活动引起的气候变化,才能让人看懂,此时,我们不得不假定作者采用了这层含义。而在另一些地方,这两种含义由都对得上。 In those places where either meaning can be interpreted, if the statement is assumed to be a natural change, then it is a truism, a basic characteristic of Earth’s environment and something people have always know and experienced. If the meaning is taken to be human-caused, then in spite of the assertions in the report, the available data do not support the statements. 在那些两种含义均可的地方,如果该陈述被假定为一种自然现象,那这便是不言而喻的老调,是地球环境的基本特征,是人们早已了解并不断经历着的。而假如它指的是人类导致的暖化,那么尽管报告言之凿凿,现有数据却并不支持这些陈述。 14.Some of the reports conclusions are the opposite of those given in articles cited in defense of those conclusions. For example, the IPCC 2014 Terrestrial Ecosystem Report states that “there is medium confidence that rapid change in the Arctic is affecting its animals. For example, seven of 19 subpopulations of the polar bear are declining in number” citing in support of this an article by Vongraven and Richardson, 2011. That report states the contrary, that the “‘decline’ is an illusion. 14.报告的部分结论与其所引用作为证据的文章给出的结论恰恰相反。例如,IPCC 2014陆地生态系统报告说:“北极的快速(气候)变化正影响着当地动物,这一论断具有中等可信度。比如,北极熊的19个亚种群中,有7个数量正在减少。”这一陈述引用了Vongraven和Richardson于2011年发表的一篇文章作为支撑。但原文所传达的信息与IPCC的报告恰好相反,他们认为“减少”是一种错觉。 In addition, I have sought the available counts of the 19 subpopulations. Of these, only three have been counted twice; the rest have been counted once. Thus no rate of changes in the populations can be determined. The first count was done 1986 for one subpopulation. 此外,我找到了这19个北极熊亚种群的可用数据。其中只有三个亚种群的数量被统计过两次,其余都只被统计过一次。因此,根本无法确定北极熊数量的变化速度。第一次统计完成于1986年,只对一个亚种群进行了计数。 The U. S. Marine Mammal Commission, charged with the conservation of this species, acknowledges“Accurate estimates of the current and historicsizes of polar bear stocks are difficult to obtain for several reasons–thespecies‘ inaccessible habitat, the movement of bears across internationalboundaries, and the costs of conducting surveys.” 美国海洋哺乳动物委员会负有保护北极熊的责任,委员会承认“对北极熊当前及历史存量的精确估计非常困难,原因很多:这一物种的栖息地位于人迹罕至的地方,北极熊的活动跨越国境以及调查成本高。” According to Dr. Susan Crockford, “out of the 13 populations for whichsome kind of data exist, five populations are now classified by the PBSG [IUCN/SSC Polar Bear Specialist Group] as ‘stable’ (two more than 2009),one is still increasing, and three have been upgraded from declining to datadeficient. . . . That leaves four that are still considered declining’‐ two of those judgments are based primarily on concerns of overhunting, and one is based on a statistically insignificant decline that may not be valid and is being reassessed (and really should have been upgraded to ‘data deficient’). That leaves only one population – Western Hudson Bay – where PBSG biologists tenaciously blame global warming for all changes to polar bear biology, and even then, the data supporting that conclusion is still not available.“ 根据Susan Crockford博士称,“在有部分数据的13个种群中,5个被PBSG【译注:PBSG,全称Polar Bear Specialist Group,是国际自然保护联盟物种存续委员会的北极熊专项小组】归为‘数量稳定’(比2009年多了两个),有1个数量仍在增加,有3个的数据信息从‘数量减少’更新为‘数据不足’……这样,被认为数量正在减少的就只剩下4个,其中有2个主要是受到过度捕猎的影响,另1个种群的数量减少在统计意义上则并不显著,这一数据信息可能无效,正在被重新评估(实在应该被更新为“数据不足”)。这样,唯一剩下的就是西哈德森湾种群。当地的所有北极熊生物学变化都被PBSG的生物学家坚定地归咎于全球变暖,而即便如此,仍然没有充分数据支持这一结论。” Polar Bear Status (Source: Polar Bear Science Website.) 北极熊的状况(来源:北极熊科学网站。) 【插图】 15.Some conclusions contradict and are ignorant of the best statistically valid observations. For example, the Terrestrial Ecosystems Report states that “terrestrial and freshwater ecosystems have sequestered about a quarter of the carbon dioxide emitted to the atmosphere by human activities in the past three decades (high confidence).” 15.有些结论无视统计上最有效的观测数据,甚至与其矛盾。例如,陆地生态系统报告指出“过去30年,陆地和淡水生态系统吸收了大约四分之一人类活动所排放的二氧化碳(高可信度)。” I have done the first statistically valid estimate of carbon storage and uptake for any large area of Earth’s land, the boreal forests and eastern deciduous forest of North America, and subtropical forests in Queensland, Australia. 我对地球上大面积陆地、北美寒带森林和东部落叶林以及澳大利亚昆士兰的亚热带森林对二氧化碳的储存和吸收做了第一次有效统计估计。【译注:意思是他这份更系统全面的研究却被无视了】 The estimates of carbon uptake by vegetation used by IPCC and in major articles cited by the reports are based on what can best be called “grab samples,” a relatively small number of studies done at a variety of times using a variety of methods, mainly in old- growth areas. The results reported by IPCC overestimate carbon storage and uptake by as much as 300 percent. IPCC报告及其所引用的主要文章在估计植物对二氧化碳的吸收时,采用的是最多能被称为“随意抓取样本”的方法,即一种在涉及多个时段、多种研究方法的课题上只做相对少量研究的做法,且集中于老林区域。IPCC报告的研究结果对二氧化碳的存储和吸收高估了百分之三百。 16.The report for policy makers on Impacts, Adaptation, and Vulnerability repeats the assertion of previous IPCC reports that “large fraction of species” face “increase extinction risks” (p15). Overwhelming evidence contradicts this assertion. And it has been clearly shown that models used to make these forecasts, such as climate envelope models and species-area curve models, make incorrect assumptions that lead to erroneous conclusions, over-estimating extinction risks. 16.向决策者提供的《关于影响、适应性及脆弱性》的报告,重复了之前IPCC报告中的断言:“大部分物种”面临“持续增加的灭绝风险”(第15页)。然而,压倒性的证据与这一断言相抵触。如今我们已经很清楚,这些预测所用的模型,如气候包络模型、物种-面积曲线模型,设置了不正确的假设,从而导致了错误的结论,高估了物种灭绝的风险。 Surprisingly few species became extinct during the past 2.5 million years, a period encompassing several ice ages and warm periods.Among other sources, this is based on information in the book Climate Change and Biodiversity edited by Thomas Lovejoy, one of the leaders in the conservation of biodiversity. The major species known to have gone extinct during this period are 40 species of large mammals in North America and Northern Europe. (There is a “background” extinction rate for eukaryotic species of roughly one species per year.) 过去250万年间,尽管经历了多个冰川期和温暖期,灭绝的物种却少得惊人。得出这一结论的证据,包括Thomas Lovejoy编辑的《气候变化和生物多样性》一书,Lovejoy是保护物种多样性的领军人物之一。这一时期内灭绝的物种,主要为生活在北美和北欧的40种大型哺乳动物。(真核生物物种有一个“背景”灭绝率,大约每年有一个物种灭绝。) 17.THE REPORT GIVES THE IMPRESSION THAT LIVING THINGS ARE FRAGILE AND RIGID, unable to deal with change. The opposite is to case. Life is persistent, adaptable, adjustable. 17.报告给人的印象是生物脆弱又呆板,无法应对变化,而事实恰恰相反。生命是持久的、具有良好的适应性和调整能力。 18.STEADY-STATE ASSUMPTION: There is an overall assumption in the IPCC 2014 report and the Climate Change Assessment that all change is negative and undesirable; that it is ecologically and evolutionarily unnatural, bad for populations, species, ecosystems, for all life on planet Earth, including people. This is the opposite of the reality: The environment has always changed and is always changing, and living things have had to adapt to these changes. Interestingly, many, if not most, species that I have worked on or otherwise know about require environmental change. 18.稳态假设:IPCC 2014年度报告和《气候变化评估》中有一个基本的假设:所有的变化都是负面的,会带来麻烦;变化在生态和进化上是非自然的,对生物种群、物种、生态系统、地球上包括人类在内的所有生命都是有害的。这与现实完全相反:环境过去一直在改变,现在也仍然在变化着,生物需要适应这些变化。有趣的是,许多我所研究过或者了解的物种,如果不是大部分的话,需要环境的变化才能生存。 19.The summary for policy makers on Impacts, Adaptation, and Vulnerability makes repeated use of the term “irreversible” changes. A species going extinct is irreversible, but little else about the environment is irreversible. The past confirms this. Glaciers have come and gone repeatedly. The Northwest Passage of North America has gone and come again. The average temperature has greatly exceeded the present and forecasted and has declined only to rise again. 19.有关《影响、适应性及脆弱性》的决策者参考摘要中,不断使用“不可逆转的”变化这一说法。一个物种灭绝是不可逆转的,但其他环境现象很少是不可逆转的。历史证实了这点。冰川周期性地累积、消融。曾经消失的北美西北航道再次出现。【校注:指北大西洋经北冰洋至太平洋的航道,可能因冰层融化而变得可通行】(全球)平均气温曾远高于今天,也远高于我们对未来的预测值,只是后来下降了,然后再次回升。 Implicit in this repeated use of irreversible is the belief that Earth’s environment is constant — stable, unchanging — except when subjected to human actions.This is obviously false from many lines of evidence, including the simple experience of all people who have lived before the scientific-industrial age and those who live now and so such work as farm, manage rivers, wildlife and forests. 大量重复使用“不可逆转”,表明报告作者相信地球环境是始终如一的——稳定、一成不变——除非受到人类活动影响。种种证据表明这显然是错的。这些证据包括所有生活在科学和工业时代之前的人们,以及当代从事农耕,管理河道、野生动物和森林的人们的普通生活经历。 20.The extreme overemphasis on human-induced global warming has taken our attention away from many environmental issues that used to be front and center but have been pretty much ignored in the 21st century. The Terrestrial report in a sense acknowledges this, for example by stating: “Climate stresses occur alongside other anthropogenic influences on ecosystems, including land-use changes, nonnative species, and pollution, and in many cases will exacerbate these pressures (very high confidence).” 20.过度强调人为因素对全球变暖的影响,已将我们的注意力从许多曾经备受关注的环境问题上转移开了,在21世纪,这些问题大都被忽视了。陆地生态系统报告在某种程度上承认了这点,比如,报告指出:“气候变化与其他对生态系统的人类影响同时发生,包括土地利用的变化,外来物种,污染等等,而且很多时候会加剧后者的压力(极高可信度)。” 【插图】 21.Do the problems with these reports mean that we can or should abandon any concerns about global warming or abandon any research about it?Certainly not, but we need to put this issue within an appropriate priority with other major here-and-now environmental issues that are having immediate effects. 21.这些报告中存在的问题,是不是就意味着我们能够或者应该对全球变暖这一问题漠不关心,或者放弃关于这一问题的任何研究呢?当然不是, 只是相比那些此时此地正对我们生活产生直接影响的主要环境问题,全球变暖议题应当被放在一个恰当的优先级上。 22.The concerns I have mentioned with the IPCC apply as well to the White House’s National Climate Assessment. I reviewed and provided comments on the draft White House’s National Climate assessment and, unfortunately, it appears that these issues have not been addressed in the final assessment. For example, I stated: 22.我提及的对IPCC年度报告的担忧,同样适用于白宫《国家气候评估》报告。我分析了白宫的国家气候评估报告草案,并提出了一些建议。可惜的是,我所指出的这些问题并没有在终稿中得到解决。例如,我曾表示: “The executive summary is a political statement, not a scientific statement. It is filled with misstatements contradicted by well-established and well-known scientific papers.” “它的执行摘要是一份政治声明,而非科学声明。摘要中充斥着与得到公认且广为人知的科学论文相抵触的虚假陈述。” “Climate has always affected people and all life on Earth, so it isn’t new to say it is ‘already affecting the American people.’ This is just a political statement.” “气候一直影响着人类及其他地球上的生命,所以说它‘已经影响到了美国人民’是毫无新意的。这只是一个政治声明。” “It is inappropriate to use short-term changes in weather as an indication one way or another about persistent climate change.” “用天气的短期变化作为气候持续变暖或变冷的指标是不恰当的。” WHAT HAS GONE WRONG, AND HOW TO FIX IT 问题出在哪里,要怎么解决 1.Rather than focus on key, specific and tractable aspects of climate-change science, the long-term approach throughout the 20th century was to try to create de nova a complete model of the climate. 1.气候变化科学贯穿整个20世纪的长期做法,是试图创造一个全新的、完备的气候模型,而不是将焦点集中于气候变化的关键、特定、可把握的方面。 2.This approach has been taken despite a lack of focus on monitoring key variables over time in statistically and scientifically valid ways, e. g. carbon sequestering by forests; polar bear population counts. As a result, there is an odd disconnect between theory and observation. The attempt to create complete models of every aspect of climate has meant that many factors had to be guessed at, rather than using the best scientific methods. Too many guesses, too little checking against real, observed effects. 2.尽管缺乏对关键变量——比如,森林对二氧化碳的吸收,北极熊的种群规模计算——统计上和科学上有效的观测手段的持续关注,上述做法还是被采用了。结果,在理论与观测值之间出现了奇怪的裂痕。尝试建立一个囊括每个气候因素的完备模型,意味着许多因素要靠猜测,而不是依靠最佳科学方法。太多猜测,太少基于真实观测数据的检验。 3.The IPCC reports are the result of a very large number of people doing long reviews of the scientific literature. This easily leads to people being so overburdened that they misinterpret specific papers, fail to understand where the major observational gaps are, and have trouble making an accurate list of citations and all sources of information. The fundamental IPCC and White House Climate Change Assessment approach has been to gather a huge number of scientists from a large number of disciplines, on the assumption that a kind of crowd approach to what can be agreed on is the same as true scientific advance. While this might seem a reasonable and effective approach, there is some danger in relying on this “crowd-sourced” model of information sharing. 3.IPCC报告是一大群人进行大规模科学论文综述的结果。这很容易导致人们负担过重而曲解某些论文,他们不能很好地理解哪些地方会产生主要的观测误差,也无法准确罗列出参考文献和各种信息来源。IPCC和白宫《气候变化评估》所采用的基本方法,是基于“人多势众就是科学进步”的假设,集合大批涉及大量学科的科学家。虽然这是个看似合理有效的方法,但依赖于这样一个“源于大伙”的信息共享模型有一定的危险。 Groups of people, particularly when credentialed “experts” are involved, are very prone to a condition called an “information cascade” in which error is compounded by group think, assumptions become unchallenged “fact” and observations play second fiddle to unchallenged models. 一群人,尤其是有权威的“专家”参与其中,很容易出现所谓“信息裹挟”的问题,这种情况下,错误是集体“智慧”的结果,假设则成了无可辩驳的“事实”,观测到的真实信息在不容挑战的模型中居于次要地位。 The excellent scientists involved with the IPCC reports are no less prone to this than the excellent scientists who relied on Aristotelian models of a geocentric universe. Entrenched beliefs are hard to extricate, even amongst supposedly rational thinkers. This is probably in part responsible for the problems listed with the White House Climate Assessment report’s table of Biological Effects, discussed in my document reviewing that report. 参与IPCC报告的优秀科学家们并不比那些依赖亚里士多德的地心说的科学家更不容易犯这种错误。根深蒂固的想法很难被改变,甚至那些理应理性的学者也很难改变固有的想法。这或许可以部分解释我在针对白宫《气候评估报告》里那个“生物效应”表格所做的评论中列出的那一系列问题。 4.What a scientist discovers is different from what a scientist says. The first is science, the second is opinion. Have small groups of scientists work on this problem, no more than can easily argue with one another, that is less than 20 and preferably even smaller, representing the primary disciplines. Divide the problem into areas, rather than try to answer all questions in one analysis. I have used this approach in my own work and found it to be successful. 4.科学家发现的不同于科学家所说的。前者是科学,后者是观点。组织一小群科学家研究这一问题,人数不应超过便于他们互相争论的范围,也就是少于20人甚至更少,让他们代表主要的学科。将这一问题划分为不同领域,而不是试图在一个分析中回答所有问题。我自己在研究中就用这个方法,发现这很有效。 5.The desire to do good has ironically overridden the desire to do the best science. 5.讽刺的是,行善的愿望盖过了做最佳科学研究的愿望。 6.Under the weight of this kind of crowd rule and approach, some specific alternative approaches to the science of climate change, have not been allowed to rise to the surface. 6.在这样一种集体规则和路线的重压下,研究气候变化科学的某些特定替代路线就没有机会得见天日。 7.Among the approaches that would improve climate science: 7.可以改进气候科学的做法包括: a.Return to the former reliance on science done by individuals and small groups with a common specific interest and focus. a.回归到之前的状态,信任个人的科学研究,信任对特定领域感兴趣且专注于此的小团体所做的研究。 b.Change the approach from trying to make a complete, definitive model of every aspect of climate to a different level. See kinds of models that explore specific possibilities and phenomena. b.在方法论上,由试图建立一个涵盖气候各个方面的、完备的、精确的模型,转变到另一层面,研究探索具体的可能性和现象的各种模型。 c.Get out of the blame game. None of the above suggestions can work as long as global warming remains a moral, political, ideologically dominated topic, with scientists pushed into, or at least viewed as, being either for or against a single point of view. c.停止互相指责。只要全球变暖还是由道德、政治、意识形态主导的话题,科学家要被迫卷入其中明确站队,或者至少仍被看作在这么做,那么以上所有的建议都不会有用。 9.We need to focus again on major environmental Issues that need our attention now (see the list above). 9.我们需要将目标移回真正需要我们关注的主要环境问题(参见上表)。【编注:编码有误,原文如此。10.ARE THERE EXAMPLES OF THE KIND OF RESEARCH I BELIEVE WE NEED MORE OF? YES. 10.能否举出一些依我看我们更为需要的此类研究? 能。 a.NASA Carbon Monitoring System (CMS) b. Hubbard Brook Ecosystem Study c. Whooping Crane monitoring, e.g. of an endangered species d. In-place monitoring on carbon flux, being done by the USGS in the Great Cypress Swamp, Florida. e. Many others. a.美国国家航空航天局碳排放监测系统。 b. 哈伯德·布鲁克生态系统研究。 c.对濒临灭绝的物种进行监测,例如,美洲鹤监测。 d. 碳排放波动实地监测,由美国地质调查局(USGS)在佛罗里达州大柏树沼泽实施。 e. 还有很多。 (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——

大卫的“双重巧合”

【2015-09-03】

@海德沙龙 大卫·弗里德曼代表了市场无政府主义的功利主义一派,此派对哲学的兴趣不大,所以他们有关制度的论证,往往从问题直接跳到经济学(包括法律经济学)层次上,却很少对其暗中预设的前提或原则作出交代,本文罕见的例外,从中可以一窥大卫体系的伦理学基础

@whigzhou: 大卫的论证非常清晰,但依我看,这一论证很容易被击破,其实他对自己的薄弱环节(从均衡事实到伦理规则的过渡)应该也是清楚的,只是不想细究而已,结果最终,他用一个“令人欣慰的双重巧合”,就把自己的功利主(more...)

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【2015-09-03】 @海德沙龙 大卫·弗里德曼代表了市场无政府主义的功利主义一派,此派对哲学的兴趣不大,所以他们有关制度的论证,往往从问题直接跳到经济学(包括法律经济学)层次上,却很少对其暗中预设的前提或原则作出交代,本文罕见的例外,从中可以一窥大卫体系的伦理学基础 @whigzhou: 大卫的论证非常清晰,但依我看,这一论证很容易被击破,其实他对自己的薄弱环节(从均衡事实到伦理规则的过渡)应该也是清楚的,只是不想细究而已,结果最终,他用一个“令人欣慰的双重巧合”,就把自己的功利主义和直觉主义、和规定主义,都给调和了起来。 @whigzhou: 大卫试图用他的“双重巧合”来避开道德哲学上的争议,意思是,尽管功利主义、直觉主义和规定主义在哲学上完全不同,但既然他们要的结果恰好一样(至少在自由意志主义者中间),那就没必要在哲学上争了,在明确一组大家都要的简单原则之后,其他争议都可通过经济学分析解决。 @战拖拉夫卡: 大卫关于维持“三重巧合”的谢林点,其实质还是需要建立在参与者对某种价值标准的公认基础之上。可如果现实中只要有一人,他觉得偶尔的背叛是有助于实现短期利益的或者某个迫切愿望,那么这个谢林点是否就难以维系了?即布坎南所谓的脆弱的均衡 @whigzhou: 嗯,实际上根本没有(系统性的)巧合 @whigzhou: 在一些小的局部(特别是小型文化群体内部),确实可以观察到一些和普遍道德感相符、也和自由原则相符的自发规范,但从大范围看,绝大多数社会要么根本没走出霍布斯状态,要么其秩序远远不是自由的 @whigzhou: 比如大卫所引证的Robert Ellickson在《无需法律的秩序》所描绘的情况,之所以能发生,依我看,完全是因为当事人生活在美国,这个有着基本法律保障的地方,不会出现一伙农场主把另一伙挖坑埋了那种情况,在基本和平秩序有保障的前提下,发展出了一些私人秩序,但那根本算不上“无需法律的”。 @whigzhou: 这也是libertarian各种幼稚错误的根源所在,他们太熟悉美国以至于对这一背景条件完全熟视无睹,以为那是当然的、自动的,一个简单的质疑是:加州牧区的情况在阿富汗存在吗?
[译文]印欧语故乡之争:库尔干假说扳回一局

Mysterious Indo-European homeland may have been in the steppes of Ukraine and Russia
乌俄大草原或许是印欧人的神秘故乡

作者:Michael Balter @ 2015-2-13
译者:@Ulula_Ali_Reis
校对:林翠(@cwlinnil),小册子(@昵称被抢的小册子)
制图:amen
来源:sciencemag.org,http://news.sciencemag.org/archaeology/2015/02/mysterious-indo-european-homeland-may-have-been-steppes-ukraine-and-russia

What do you call a male sibling? If you speak English, he is your “brother.” Greek? Call him “phrater.” Sanskrit, Latin, Old Irish? “Bhrater,” “frater,” or “brathir,” respectively.

你如何称呼与你同父母的男性呢?如果用英语,他就是你的“brother”。在希腊语里,他就叫“phrater”。而在梵语、拉丁语、古爱尔兰语里,他分别是“bhrater”、“frater”、“brathir”。

Ever since the mid-17th century, scholars have noted such similarities among the so-called Indo-European languages, which span the world and number more than 400 if dialects are included. Researchers agree that they can probably all be traced back to one ancestral language, called Proto-Indo-European (PIE). But for nearly 20 years, scholars have debated vehemently when and where PIE arose.

自17世纪中叶起,学者们已注意到所谓“印欧系”各语言之间,有着诸如此类的相似性。印欧语系横跨全世界,算上方言的话,包括了超过400多种语言。研究者认为,这些语言都可追溯到同一始祖语言——原始印欧语(PIE)。然而关于原始印欧语在何时何地出现,学者们已经激烈争论了近20年。

Two long-awaited studies, one described online this week in a preprint and another scheduled for publication later this month, have now used different (more...)

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Mysterious Indo-European homeland may have been in the steppes of Ukraine and Russia 乌俄大草原或许是印欧人的神秘故乡 作者:Michael Balter @ 2015-2-13 译者:@Ulula_Ali_Reis 校对:林翠(@cwlinnil),小册子(@昵称被抢的小册子) 制图:amen 来源:sciencemag.org,http://news.sciencemag.org/archaeology/2015/02/mysterious-indo-european-homeland-may-have-been-steppes-ukraine-and-russia What do you call a male sibling? If you speak English, he is your “brother.” Greek? Call him “phrater.” Sanskrit, Latin, Old Irish? “Bhrater,” “frater,” or “brathir,” respectively. 你如何称呼与你同父母的男性呢?如果用英语,他就是你的“brother”。在希腊语里,他就叫“phrater”。而在梵语、拉丁语、古爱尔兰语里,他分别是“bhrater”、“frater”、“brathir”。 Ever since the mid-17th century, scholars have noted such similarities among the so-called Indo-European languages, which span the world and number more than 400 if dialects are included. Researchers agree that they can probably all be traced back to one ancestral language, called Proto-Indo-European (PIE). But for nearly 20 years, scholars have debated vehemently when and where PIE arose. 自17世纪中叶起,学者们已注意到所谓“印欧系”各语言之间,有着诸如此类的相似性。印欧语系横跨全世界,算上方言的话,包括了超过400多种语言。研究者认为,这些语言都可追溯到同一始祖语言——原始印欧语(PIE)。然而关于原始印欧语在何时何地出现,学者们已经激烈争论了近20年。 Two long-awaited studies, one described online this week in a preprint and another scheduled for publication later this month, have now used different methods to support one leading hypothesis: that PIE was first spoken by pastoral herders who lived in the vast steppe lands north of the Black Sea beginning about 6000 years ago. One study points out that these steppe land herders have left their genetic mark on most Europeans living today. 如今,有两份众人期待已久的研究报告,其中一份本周已在网上发布了预印本,而另一份则安排在本月稍晚时出版,通过不同方法,两份报告都支持了一个主流假说:最先使用原始印欧语的,是6000年前生活在黑海以北大草原的畜牧群体。其中一份研究指出,在今天大多数欧洲人身上均能找到这些草原牧民的遗传标记。 The studies’ conclusions emerge from state-of-the-art ancient DNA and linguistic analyses, but the debate over PIE’s origins is likely to continue. A rival hypothesis—that early farmers living in Anatolia (modern Turkey) about 8000 years ago were the original PIE speakers—is not ruled out by the new analyses, most agree. 这两份研究的结论,得自于最新技术下的古DNA研究以及语言学分析,不过有关原始印欧语起源的争论大约还得继续下去。大多数研究者同意,另一个与之竞争的假说——认为距今8000余年前生活在安纳托利亚(今土耳其)的早期农耕者,才是原始印欧语的最初使用者——并未被新的分析成果所排除。 Although the steppe hypothesis has now received a major boost, “I would not say the Anatolian hypothesis has been killed,” says Carles Lalueza-Fox, a geneticist at PompeuFabra University in Barcelona, Spain, who participated in neither of the new studies. 尽管如今草原假说得到了较多的支持【译注:草原假说又称库尔干假说】,卡勒斯·拉鲁扎-福克斯表示:"我不认为安纳托利亚假说已经寿终正寝。”他是西班牙巴塞罗那庞贝法布拉大学的一名遗传学家,未参与上述两项新研究。 Up until the 1980s, variations of the steppe hypothesis held sway among most linguists and archaeologists tracking down Indo-European’s birthplace. Then in 1987, archaeologist Colin Renfrew of the University of Cambridge in the United Kingdom proposed that PIE spread with farming from its origins in the Fertile Crescent of the Middle East, moving west into Europe and east further into Asia; over time the languages continued to spread and diversify into the many Indo-European languages we know today. 直到80年代,各种版本的草原假说深深影响着寻找印欧语发源地的多数语言学家和考古学家。之后在1987年,英国剑桥大学考古学家科林·伦弗鲁提出,原始印欧语是从其发源地中东新月沃地(Fertile Crescent)出发,伴随着农业扩张,向西传播至欧洲,向东传播远至亚洲。随着时间推移,印欧语持续四处传播,分化成了今天我们所知的诸多印欧语系语言。 Traditional linguists, meanwhile, painstakingly reconstructed PIE by extrapolating back from modern languages and ancient writings. (Listen to a short fable spoken in PIE here.) They disdained Renfrew’s idea of an Anatolian homeland, arguing for example that the languages were still too similar to have begun diverging 8000 years ago. 与此同时,传统语言学家则从现代语言和古代文字材料回推,煞费苦心地重建原始印欧语(点击此处收听一小段以原始印欧语讲述的传说故事)。他们鄙视伦弗鲁的安纳托利亚起源观点,他们的论证理由之一是,印欧诸语言迄今仍太过相似,因而还不可能从8000年前就开始分化了。【译注:这一论证基于某些语言学家的这样一个假设:语言分化程度随时间而提高,当两支语言分开五六千年以上时,其词汇上的同源关系就难以辨认了,分开一万年时,即便综合其他语言学特性,同源关系也难以辨认。】 【图一】 从右往左分别是:安纳托利亚语族,吐火罗语族,亚美尼亚语族,希腊语族,阿尔巴尼亚语族,印度-伊朗语族,波罗的-斯拉夫语族,日尔曼语族,意大利语族,凯尔特语族 More than 400 Indo-European languages diverged from a common ancestral tongue; the earliest ones (top right), Anatolian and Tocharian, arose in today’s Turkey and China, respectively. 超过400种印欧语系内的语言从一种共同的始祖语言分化而出;最早的两支(右侧顶部),安纳托利亚语族和吐火罗语族分别出现在今天的土耳其和中国。 But many archaeologists noted that genetic and archaeological studies did indeed suggest massive ancient migrations from the Middle East into Europe that could have brought PIE and sparked such language diversification. In 2003, evolutionary biologists Russell Gray and Quentin Atkinson of the University of Auckland in New Zealand used computational methods from evolutionary biology to track words as they changed over time, and concluded that the Anatolian hypothesis was right. But steppe supporters remained unconvinced, even after Gray’s team published a confirming analysis in Science in 2012. 但是很多考古学家注意到,遗传学和考古学研究证实了,由中东至欧洲的古代大规模迁徙确实发生过,这一迁徙可能令原始印欧语随之传播并促进其分化。2003年,新西兰奥克兰大学进化生物学家拉塞尔·格雷和昆廷·阿特金森使用进化生物学所发展出的计算技术,跟踪对比了词汇随时间推移而发生的变化,并断定安纳托利亚假说是正确的。但是,尽管格雷的团队2012年在《科学》杂志上发表了确认这一判断的分析,仍未能说服草原假说的支持者。 Fans of the steppe hypothesis are now hailing a genetics study that used ancient DNA from 69 Europeans who lived between 8000 and 3000 years ago to genetically track ancient population movements. 草原假说的支持者们如今正在为一项遗传学研究而欢呼雀跃,该研究利用了生活在3000至8000年前的69个古代欧洲人的DNA样本,从遗传学上追踪了古代人群的迁移活动。 The work, now posted on the bioRxiv preprint server, was done by a large team led by geneticists David Reich and Iosif Lazaridis of Harvard Medical School in Boston and Wolfgang Haak of the University of Adelaide in Australia. 这项研究由三位遗传学家——波士顿哈佛医学院的大卫·赖克、约瑟夫·拉扎里迪斯和澳大利亚阿德莱德大学的沃尔夫冈·哈克——所领导的一个庞大研究团队承担,其结果已公布在bioRxiv的预印本服务器上。 Among the team’s samples were nine ancient individuals—six males, two females, and a child of undetermined sex—from the Yamnaya culture north of the Black Sea in today’s Russia. Beginning about 6000 years ago, these steppe people herded cattle and other animals, buried their dead in earthen mounds called kurgans, and may have created some of the first wheeled vehicles. (Many linguists think PIE already had a word for “wheel.”) 该团队所使用的基因样本中,有9份古代个体样本采自黑海北岸今俄罗斯境内的颜那亚(Yamnaya)文化群体,其中包括6个男性、2个女性和一个无法确定性别的儿童。大约从6000年前开始,这群草原居民畜养牛群和其他动物,把族人的遗骸埋葬在被称为库尔干(kurgans)的土丘中,而且可能已制造出一些最早期的有轮车辆(许多语言学家认为原始印欧语中已有表示“车轮”的单词)。 The team also retrieved ancient DNA from four skeletons from the later Corded Ware culture of central Europe, known for the distinctive pottery for which they are named (see photo above), as well as their dairy farming skills. Archaeologists had noted similarities among these cultures, especially in their emphasis on cattle herding. 研究团队还从中欧地区属于晚期绳纹器(Corded Ware)文化的四具骨骸中提取了古DNA,该文化以其独具特色并因此得名的陶器(见图2)和发达的乳业技术而闻名。考古学家业已指出这些文化之间的相似性,特别是在重视养牛业这一点上。 【图2】 The creators of the Corded Ware culture, named after this intricate pottery, may have spoken an Indo-European language derived from one spoken by herders from the East. 绳纹器文化以其复杂的陶器而得名,该文化的创造者们可能讲一种从东部牧民语言衍化而来的印欧语。 The team focused on sections of DNA that they suspected would provide markers for past population movements and identified nearly 400,000 DNA positions across the genome in each individual. They used new techniques to zero in on the key positions in the nuclear DNA, allowing them to analyze twice as many ancient nuclear DNA samples from Europe and Asia as previously reported in the entire literature. 研究团队将注意力集中在一些DNA片段上,他们猜测其中包含了能够揭示过去人口迁移的标记,并在每一个体样本的基因组上识别了将近40万个基因位置。研究者借助新技术校正了核DNA上的关键点位,从而得以分析来自古代欧亚的大量核DNA样本,数量两倍于之前所有文献报告过的总数。 The comparison of the two cultures’ DNA showed that the four Corded Ware people could trace an astonishing three-quarters of their ancestry to the Yamnaya. That suggests a massive migration of Yamnaya people from their steppe homeland into central Europe about 4500 years ago, one that could have spread an early form of the Indo-European language, the team concludes. Thus the paper for the first time links two far-flung material cultures to specific genetic signatures and to each other—and suggests, the team says, that they spoke a form of Indo-European. 通过比对两种文化的DNA,发现四个绳纹器人样本中,有高达3/4的血统可以追溯到颜那亚人。研究团队的结论是,这一证据说明了,大约在4500年前,大量颜那亚人从他们的草原故土迁入中欧,并可能将一种早期形态的印欧语传播了出去。这份报告首次将两个相距甚远的物质文化通过明确的基因标识联系在了一起。同时,研究团队还指出,两个人群使用的都是某种印欧语言。 The Corded Ware culture soon spread across north and central Europe, extending as far as today’s Scandinavia. So the “steppe ancestry,” as the authors of the preprint call it, is found in most present-day Europeans, who can trace their ancestry back to both the Corded Ware people and the earlier Yamnaya. The work thus adds to genetic findings from last fall showing that the genetic makeup of today’s Europeans is more complicated than anyone expected. 绳纹器文化迅速扩散到整个北部和中部欧洲,最远到达今天的斯堪的纳维亚地区。所以预印本作者所说的“草原血统”,在当今大部分欧洲人身上都能找到,他们可以循系谱上溯到绳纹器人和更早的颜那亚人。这项工作因而补充了去年秋天的遗传学研究成果,揭示了当今欧洲人的基因构成比大家预计的要复杂得多。 The results are a “smoking gun” that an ancient migration into Europe from the steppe occurred, says Pontus Skoglund, an ancient DNA specialist who is now working in Reich’s lab but was not a co-author on the paper. (Although the paper is publicly available on a preprint server, it is not yet published, and the authors declined to discuss their work until it’s published.) The paper “levels the playing field between the steppe hypothesis and the Anatolian hypothesis by showing that the spread of farming was not the only large migration into Europe,”Skoglund says. 古DNA专家蓬图斯·斯科格隆目前在赖克实验室工作,但并未参与编写上述研究报告,他说上述研究成果为古代草原牧民入欧大迁徙提供了“确凿证据”。(尽管该报告已经在预印本服务器上公开,但尚未出版,编者们拒绝在正式出版前讨论他们的研究成果。)如斯科格隆所说,这一报告“显示了农业扩张并非唯一一次进入欧洲的大迁徙,从而拉平了草原假说与安纳托利亚假说之间的竞争局面。” The second new paper to address PIE’s origin, in press at Language and due to be published online during the last week of February, uses linguistic data to focus on when PIE arose. A team led by University of California, Berkeley, linguists Andrew Garrett and Will Chang employed the language database and evolutionary methods previously used by Gray to create a family tree of the Indo-European languages from their first origins in PIE. 第二份关于探寻原始印欧语起源地的新报告,已发表在Language杂志上,并准备于二月份最后一周在网上公布,该报告运用语言学数据来研究原始印欧语出现的时间。加州大学伯克利分校的语言学家安德鲁·加勒特和威尔·张所领导的团队使用了语言学数据库以及之前格雷使用过的进化生物学计算方法,构建了以原始印欧语为起点的印欧语系家族树。 But in certain cases, Garrett and Chang’s group declared that one language was directly ancestral to another and put that into their tree as a certainty. For example, they assumed that Latin was directly ancestral to Romance languages such as Spanish, French, and Italian—something that many but not all linguists agree on—and that Vedic Sanskrit was directly ancestral to the Indo-Aryan languages spoken on the Indian subcontinent. 但在某些实例中,加勒特和张领导的团队宣称某种语言为另一语言的直接先祖,并确切地将其安置在树状图中。例如他们认为拉丁语是罗曼语族(如西班牙语、法语和意大利语)的直接先祖(许多但并非所有语言学家赞同这一点),而吠陀梵语则是在印度次大陆盛行的印度-雅利安语支的直接先祖。 These constraints transformed the results from what Gray’s team has published: Garrett, Chang, and their colleagues found that the origins of PIE were about 6000 years ago, consistent with the steppe hypothesis but not the Anatolian, because the farming migration out of the Middle East was 8000 years ago. Once the original PIE speakers began to sweep out of the steppes about 4500 years ago, their languages spread and diversified, Garrett’s team says. 这些限定改变了格雷团队的研究报告所引出的结论:加勒特和张以及他们的同事发现,原始印欧语大致起源于6000年前,这与草原假说一致,而与安纳托利亚假说不符——因为走出中东的农业迁移发生在8000年前。加勒特团队认为,在约4500年前,使用最初原始印欧语的人群开始从草原向外迁徙,他们的语言也随之传播并分化。 But many supporters of the Anatolian hypothesis remain staunchly unconvinced. Paul Heggarty, a linguist at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig, Germany, questions Garrett’s methods, arguing that, for example, linguists cannot be sure if the Latin attested to in written documents really was the direct ancestor of later Romance languages, rather than some dialect of Latin for which no record remains. Even small differences in the true ancestral language, Heggarty insists, could throw off the timing estimates. 但是许多安纳托利亚假说的支持者依然坚持己见,德国莱比锡的马克斯·普朗克进化人类学研究所的语言学家保罗·赫加蒂质疑了加勒特的研究方法。例如,他认为语言学家无法确定,后来的罗曼语族的直接先祖,是由书写文档所见证的拉丁语,还是某种无文字记录留存的拉丁方言。赫加蒂坚称,即使在真正先祖语言的判定上仅有细微差异,也可使时间推算工作前功尽弃。 As for the Reich paper, many archaeologists and linguists praise the data on ancient migrations. But they challenge what they see as its speculative link to language. The movement out of the steppes, Renfrew says, “may be a secondary migration into central Europe 3000 to 4000 years later than the spread of farmers, which first brought Indo-European speech to Europe.” 至于赖克的那篇论文,许多考古学家和语言学家高度评价了其有关古代迁徙的数据资料,但他们质疑这些数据和语言传播的联系只是猜测性的。对于来自草原的大迁徙,伦弗鲁声称:“也许进入中欧的第二次大迁徙比农业扩张晚了3000到4000年,而第一次大迁徙已经将印欧语言带进了欧洲。” If so, the Yamnaya steppe people would not have spoken PIE but an already derived Indo-European tongue ancestral to today’s Balto-Slavic languages such as Russian and Polish, Heggarty says. He adds that the wording of the Reich paper is “misleading.” 赫加蒂说,如果是这样的话,那么颜那亚的草原居民说的就不是原始印欧语,而是一种已从原始印欧语中分化出来的印欧语言——也就是今日俄语、波兰语之类波罗的-斯拉夫语族的先祖语言。他认为赖克论文中的措辞具有“误导性”。 Indeed, in a lengthy discussion in the paper’s Supplementary Information section, Reich and colleagues do concede that “the ultimate question of the Proto-Indo-European homeland is unresolved by our data.” They suggest that more ancient DNA, especially from points east of the steppes, may finally tie our linguistic history with our genes. 实际上,在论文补充信息部分的一段冗长讨论中,赖克和他同事的确承认:“我们的数据并未彻底解决PIE起源地这一终极问题。”他们认为,如果能收集到更多古DNA,特别是来自草原东部边界的DNA的话,也许最终能够把基因与语言演变史联系起来。 (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。

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[译文]再论和平野蛮人神话

More on the Myth of the Peaceful Savage
再论和平野蛮人神话

作者: Peter Turchin @ 2015-7-22
译者:yusong ( [email protected] )
校对:Who视之(@Who视之),沈沉(@你在何地-sxy)
来源:Cliodynamica,http://peterturchin.com/blog/2015/07/22/more-on-the-myth-of-the-peaceful-savage/

In the current issue of Cliodynamics: The Journal of Quantitative History and Cultural Evolution the anthropologist Sarah Mathew reviews War, Peace, and Human Nature, edited by Douglas Fry. Fry is one of the large group of anthropologists and other social scientists who have been critical of Steven Pinker’s book The Better Angels of Our Nature.

在最新一期的《历史动力学:计量历史和文化演进》杂志中,人类学家Sarah Mathew对Douglas Fry主编的《战争、和平与人性》一书做了评论。许多人类学家和社会科学研究者对Steven Pinker那本《人性中善良天使》持批评态度,Fry是其中之一。

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More on the Myth of the Peaceful Savage 再论和平野蛮人神话 作者: Peter Turchin @ 2015-7-22 译者:yusong ( [email protected] ) 校对:Who视之(@Who视之),沈沉(@你在何地-sxy) 来源:Cliodynamica,http://peterturchin.com/blog/2015/07/22/more-on-the-myth-of-the-peaceful-savage/ In the current issue of Cliodynamics: The Journal of Quantitative History and Cultural Evolution the anthropologist Sarah Mathew reviews War, Peace, and Human Nature, edited by Douglas Fry. Fry is one of the large group of anthropologists and other social scientists who have been critical of Steven Pinker’s book The Better Angels of Our Nature. 在最新一期的《历史动力学:计量历史和文化演进》杂志中,人类学家Sarah Mathew对Douglas Fry主编的《战争、和平与人性》一书做了评论。许多人类学家和社会科学研究者对Steven Pinker那本《人性中善良天使》持批评态度,Fry是其中之一。 Sarah makes the following important point about War, Peace, and Human Nature: Sarah对《战争、和平与人性》提出了以下重要论点:
Note that the book is not just about warfare, but about conflict in general, which can include a variety of inter-personal conflict, including physical aggression between same-sex individuals, domestic violence, conflict within social relationships, verbal aggression, and alcohol-induced fights. 值得一提的是,这本书不只是关于战争,而是关于广义的冲突,后者包括各种各样的个人间冲突,比如同性个体间的身体攻击、家庭暴力、社会关系中的冲突、言语攻击和醉酒引发的斗殴等。 Some readers may find this problematic. The evolutionary forces that shape warfare differ from the evolutionary forces that shape inter-personal violence because warfare can occur only if the problem of collective action is solved. Thus, the evolution of warfare is tightly linked to the mechanisms underpinning the evolution of cooperation. 一些读者可能会发现这是有问题的。塑造战争的进化力量不同于塑造个体间暴力的进化力量,因为只有在解决了集体行动的问题之后,战争才有可能发生。因此,战争的进化与合作的进化在基础机制上有着十分紧密的联系。 This fact alone accounts for the rarity of warfare in most of the animal kingdom despite the prevalence of myriad other forms of conflict. So, for readers interested in the evolution of warfare, the book may seem like a grab bag of too many unrelated phenomena. 单单这个事实便可解释为何在动物世界战争如此罕见,尽管其它各式各样的冲突十分常见。所以,那些对战争的进化感兴趣的读者,可能会觉得这本书像是太多无关现象的杂糅之物。
There is a reason why many authors of the book conflate warfare and violence. To see this, I recommend taking a look at a recent article by Azar Gat, Proving Communal Warfare among Hunter-Gatherers: The Quasi-Rousseauan Error. 这本书中的许多作者把战争和暴力并在一起讨论,这么做是有理由的,对此,我建议参考Azar Gat最近发表的一篇文章:“对狩猎采集者之间群体战争的证明:准卢梭式缪见” The target of Gat’s critique is “Rousseauism,” the idea that humans were basically nonviolent before the transition to agriculture and the rise of complex societies—civilization. At the peak of the Rousseauism in the 1960s, anthropologists celebrated Kalahari Bushmen as “harmless people” and wrote books about the Inuits of polar Canada with titles like “Never in Anger.” 【插图1,图片来源:Australian Art Auction Records网站,http://www.artrecord.com/index.cfm/artist/11893-mcrae-tommy/medium/2-works-on-paper/?page=2】 Gat批评的是卢梭主义。卢梭主义认为:在转向农业之前,在复杂社会即文明诞生之前,人类总体上是非暴力的。在卢梭主义影响力达到顶峰的1960年代,人类学家们欣喜地把卡拉哈里沙漠布希曼人(Kalahari Bushmen)称为“无的民族”,并在描写加拿大极地因纽特人的书中使用了“从不发怒”之类的标题。 These descriptions of peaceful hunter-gatherer groups were revealed by subsequent research to be complete fantasies. The seminal publication that turned the tide against Rousseauism in modern anthropology was the 1996 book by Lawrence Keeley, War Before Civilization: the Myth of the Peaceful Savage. 然而,后续的研究指出,这些关于和平的狩猎采集群体的描述纯属想象。在现代人类学中,逆转卢梭主义潮流的开创性文献是1996年Lawrence Keeley的著作《文明之前的战争:和平野蛮人的神话》。 【插图2,图片来源:维基百科https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Showing_method_of_attack_with_boomerang_-_NMA-15147.jpg】 Meanwhile, another strand developed in the anthropological study of warfare. These researchers did not deny that small-scale societies studied by anthropologists had very high levels of homicide due to warfare, but argued that it was due to the contact of these previously peaceful societies with the intrusive states. 同时,关于战争的人类学研究中兴起了另一个学派。这些学者并不否认,人类学家研究过的小规模社会有着非常多的战争杀害,但他们争辩说,这是因为这些本来爱好和平的社会接触了具有侵略性的国家。 According to such anthropologists as Brian Ferguson, expanding states, both modern European colonial powers and ancient empires, create “tribal zones” on their frontiers, in which warfare is frequent and intense. 根据Brian Ferguson等人类学家的观点,正在扩张的国家,包括现代欧洲殖民势力和古代帝国,都在它们的扩张前沿创造了“部落地带”,在这些地带,战争显得尤其频繁和剧烈。 Professional anthropologists who, of course, come from civilized state-level societies study the tribal zone and are fooled to believe that all small-scale societies, even those before exposure to the corrupting influence of the states, are very violent. 他们认为,职业人类学家(当然都来自已经建立国家的文明社会)在研究这个部落地带时被愚弄了,以至于相信所有小规模社会,包括那些受国家腐蚀影响之前的,都非常暴力。 Empirical evidence supports the idea that the arrival of centralized states in a region increases the intensity of warfare. But that doesn’t mean that before such intrusion small-scale societies were peaceful. 经验证据确实支持集权国家的到来会增加一个区域战争强度的观点,但这并不意味着,在这种入侵之前,小规模社会就是和平的。 Gat reviews several lines of evidence, including archaeological, but probably the most convincing is his extended review of what we know about the pre-contact Australia. Gat回顾了几组不同证据,包括考古学上的,但其中最具说服力的,可能是他就我们所了解的澳大利亚接触现代文明之前的情况所做的长篇讨论。 Australia was an entire continent inhabited by hunter-gatherers, with no agriculturalists, pastoralists, or states. The first non-foraging society that arrived in Australia was the British, who established the penal colony at the Botany Bay in 1788, and for a while Australia was a dumping ground for the undesirables from the British Isles. It was not until the 1820s when the free settlers started to arrive, and massive immigration began during the Gold rush era, starting in 1851. 整个澳洲大陆原先由狩猎采集者居住,没有农民、牧人,也没有国家。到达澳大利亚的第一个非狩猎群体是英国人,他们在1788年把鲍特尼湾建成一个犯人流放地,澳大利亚一度曾是容纳不列颠群岛不良分子的垃圾场。直到1820年代,才有第一批自由定居者到达,大批移民则始于1851年后兴起的淘金热时代。 【插图3,图片来源:Gat 2015文章】 Much before that, in 1803, the 23-year old Englishman William Buckley escaped from a penalty settlement and lived with an Aboriginal tribe for 32 years. His account gives us an invaluable glimpse into the life of a hunter-gathering society before it was changed by the intruding state-level civilization. Buckley was not a trained anthropologist, but that doesn’t disqualify him from reporting on such basic issues as war and peace. 远在这之前的1803年,一个23岁的英国人William Buckley从罪犯流放地逃脱,在一个澳洲土著部落中生活了32年。他的叙述非常珍贵,让我们得以一窥尚未被有国家文明闯入并改变的狩猎采集社会的生活状态。Buckley并非受过专业训练的人类学家,但这并不意味着他没有能力来报告像战争与和平这样的基础事务。 Buckley recounts some dozen battle scenes, as well as many lethal feuds, raids, and ambushes, comprising a central element of the natives’ traditional way of life. He describes their weapons of war in great detail: clubs, spears, “war boomerangs,” throwing sticks, and shields. Buckley叙述了几十起战斗场景,还有致命的争斗、突袭和伏击,这些共同组成了土著传统生活方式的核心要素。他十分详细地描述了他们使用的武器:棍棒,矛,回旋镖,投掷棍,盾牌等。 Tribes typically consisted of 20–60 families each and were egalitarian, without chiefs. There was fighting at all levels: individual, familial, and tribal. Some of the intertribal encounters that Buckley recorded involved large numbers: five different tribes collected for battle; a battle and raid against an intruding enemy tribe, 300 strong; several full-scale intertribal encounters, the last one a raid with many dead; two other encounters, the second against a war party of 60 men. 这些部落通常由20-60个的家庭组成,内部平等,没有首领。争斗存在于各个层次上:个人间的,家庭间的,和部落间的。Buckley记录的一些部落间交战涉及大量人员:五个不同部落聚集在一起战斗;一场针对入侵部落的战斗和突袭有300多人参战;几场部落之间的全面战争,最后一场是次突袭,造成了许多死亡;还有另外两起遭遇战,其中第二起面对的是一支60人队伍。 Ceremonial cannibalism of the vanquished was customary. Buckley reported that the large-scale raid was the deadliest form of violence and often involved indiscriminate massacre: “The contests between the Watouronga, of Geelong, and the Warrorongs, of the Yarra, were fierce and bloody. I have accompanied the former in their attacks on the latter. When coming suddenly upon them in the night, they have destroyed without mercy men, women and children.” (Gat 2015) 针对败者的仪式性食人行为成立一种惯例。Buckley记述说,大规模突袭是最致命的暴力模式,而且其中经常包括无差别屠杀:‘ Geelong地区的Watouronga部落,与Yarra地区的Warrorongs部落之间的战斗激烈而血腥。我随队亲历了前者对后者的袭击。深夜里突然接近敌方居所后,他们无情地进行屠杀,包括男人、女人和小孩。’(引自Gat 2015年文) The Australian evidence is particularly important because it comes from eyewitnesses to the crime, so to speak. Archaeological evidence tells us that violent death was very frequent in prehistoric societies. But it is difficult to distinguish death in war from death resulting from within-group violence. 澳大利亚的这一证据尤其重要,因为它来自亲眼目睹这类罪行的人。考古学证据告诉我们,在史前社会,暴力造成的死亡非常频繁。但是要区分因为战争造成的死亡和群体内部暴力造成的死亡是十分困难的。 This uncertainty allows Douglas Fry to write, “whereas homicide has occurred periodically over the enduring stretches of Pleistocene millennia, warfare is young, that is, arising within the timeframe of the agricultural revolution.” But the Australian evidence decisively demonstrates that war precedes the agricultural revolution. 由于有这种不确定性, Douglas Fry就可以说,“尽管在漫长的旧石器时代,杀戮周期性地发生,但战争却是一种新事物,也就是说,它起源于农业革命那段时间。”但是澳大利亚的证据确切表明了,战争在农业革命之前就已存在。 ============================== Note added 22.VII.2015: As Scott Atran points out in the comments, the last sentence is too strong. But read the article by Azar Gat, which brings together numerous lines of evidence, making the case for war before civilization very convincing to me. 2015年7月22日注: 正如 Scott Atran在评论里指出的,最后一句显得过于肯定了。但是在读过Azar Gat这篇搜罗了大量证据的文章之后,战争诞生于文明之前的结论在我看来已经非常有说服力了。 (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——

[译文]关于财产权的一种实证解释

A Positive Account of Property Rights
关于财产权的实证解释

作者:David Friedman
翻译:思考一下名字
校对:小聂(@PuppetMaster),沈沉(@你在何地-sxy)
来源:作者个人网站,http://daviddfriedman.com/Academic/Property/Property.html

In thinking and talking about rights, including property rights, it seems natural to put the argument in either moral or legal terms. From the former viewpoint, rights are part of a description of what actions are right or wrong. The fact that I have a right to do something is an argument, although not necessarily a sufficient argument, that someone who prevents me from doing it is acting wrongly.

在我们思考和讨论包括财产权在内的权利时,我们的论证往往自然地使用道德的或者法律的语言。从道德角度来讲,权利是关于行为对错之描述的一部分。我有权利做一件事情这个事实,可以作为论据来论证(尽管未必充分):阻止我做此事的行为是错误的。

From the legal standpoint, rights are a description either of what the law says or of how it is enforced. On the latter interpretation, “I have a right to do X” translates as something like “If I do X the police will not arrest me; if someone tries to stop me from doing X the police will arrest him.” From this standpoint, one might claim that people in Holland have the right to buy marijuana and people in America have the right to drive 5 miles per hour over the speed limit, even though both are illegal.

从法律角度看,权利是对“法律讲了什么”或者“法律如何被执行”的描述。在第二种阐释中,“我有权利做X”大概可以理解为“假如我做了X,警察不会逮捕我;假如别人试图阻止我做X,警察会逮捕他。”从这个角度来说,我们可以说,荷兰人有权利买大麻,美国人有权利把车子开得比限速快5英里每小时,尽管二者都是违法的。

Both of these approaches have serious difficulties if our goal is to understand the phenomenon of rights, and associated phenomena, as they actually exist in the real world. We frequently observe behavior which looks like the claiming of rights and the recognition of rights in contexts where neither a moral nor a legal account seems relevant.

如果我们旨在理解现实世界中存在的权利现象及其相关现象,那么以上两种方法都有严重困难。我们经常观察到一些好像是在主张权利和认可权利的行为,而相关情境则与道德或法律解释都不相干。

Consider, for example, Great Britain’s “right” to control Hong Kong, Kowloon, and the New Territories. It is difficult to explain Communist China’s willingness to respect that right on legal grounds, given that, from the Maoist standpoint, neither the government of Britain nor previous, non-communist governments with which it had signed agreements were entities entitled to any moral respect.

比如说英国控制香港、九龙及新界的“权利”。从法律层面【译注:从上下文看,此处恐有笔误,“法律层面”似应为“道德层面”】很难解释清楚共产中国为何愿意尊重这一权利(假设事实确实如此),因为从毛主义的立场看,无论是英国政府,还是和它签订条约的以往非共产主义中国政府,都不是在道德上值得给予任何尊重的实体。

It seems equally difficult to explain it on legal grounds, given the general weakness of international law and the fact that for part of the period in question Great Britain (as a member state of the United (more...)

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A Positive Account of Property Rights 关于财产权的实证解释

作者:David Friedman 翻译:思考一下名字 校对:小聂(@PuppetMaster),沈沉(@你在何地-sxy) 来源:作者个人网站,http://daviddfriedman.com/Academic/Property/Property.html In thinking and talking about rights, including property rights, it seems natural to put the argument in either moral or legal terms. From the former viewpoint, rights are part of a description of what actions are right or wrong. The fact that I have a right to do something is an argument, although not necessarily a sufficient argument, that someone who prevents me from doing it is acting wrongly. 在我们思考和讨论包括财产权在内的权利时,我们的论证往往自然地使用道德的或者法律的语言。从道德角度来讲,权利是关于行为对错之描述的一部分。我有权利做一件事情这个事实,可以作为论据来论证(尽管未必充分):阻止我做此事的行为是错误的。 From the legal standpoint, rights are a description either of what the law says or of how it is enforced. On the latter interpretation, "I have a right to do X" translates as something like "If I do X the police will not arrest me; if someone tries to stop me from doing X the police will arrest him." From this standpoint, one might claim that people in Holland have the right to buy marijuana and people in America have the right to drive 5 miles per hour over the speed limit, even though both are illegal. 从法律角度看,权利是对“法律讲了什么”或者“法律如何被执行”的描述。在第二种阐释中,“我有权利做X”大概可以理解为“假如我做了X,警察不会逮捕我;假如别人试图阻止我做X,警察会逮捕他。”从这个角度来说,我们可以说,荷兰人有权利买大麻,美国人有权利把车子开得比限速快5英里每小时,尽管二者都是违法的。 Both of these approaches have serious difficulties if our goal is to understand the phenomenon of rights, and associated phenomena, as they actually exist in the real world. We frequently observe behavior which looks like the claiming of rights and the recognition of rights in contexts where neither a moral nor a legal account seems relevant. 如果我们旨在理解现实世界中存在的权利现象及其相关现象,那么以上两种方法都有严重困难。我们经常观察到一些好像是在主张权利和认可权利的行为,而相关情境则与道德或法律解释都不相干。 Consider, for example, Great Britain's "right" to control Hong Kong, Kowloon, and the New Territories. It is difficult to explain Communist China's willingness to respect that right on legal grounds, given that, from the Maoist standpoint, neither the government of Britain nor previous, non-communist governments with which it had signed agreements were entities entitled to any moral respect. 比如说英国控制香港、九龙及新界的“权利”。从法律层面【译注:从上下文看,此处恐有笔误,“法律层面”似应为“道德层面”】很难解释清楚共产中国为何愿意尊重这一权利(假设事实确实如此),因为从毛主义的立场看,无论是英国政府,还是和它签订条约的以往非共产主义中国政府,都不是在道德上值得给予任何尊重的实体。 It seems equally difficult to explain it on legal grounds, given the general weakness of international law and the fact that for part of the period in question Great Britain (as a member state of the United Nations) was at war with China. An alternative explanation—that the Chinese government believed that British occupation of Hong Kong was in its own interest—seems inconsistent with the Chinese failure to renew the lease on the New Territories, due to expire in 1997. 同样,考虑到国际法总体很羸弱,且当时英国(作为联合国一员)与中国有段时间曾处于战争状态【译注:指朝鲜战争】,想从法律角度解释这一点也很困难。而第三种解释——中国政府认为英国占领香港对自己有利——也和中国拒绝续签将于1997年过期的新界租约这一事实不符。 A second example is presented by the 1982 Falklands war. On the face of it, the clash looks like an attempted trespass repelled. Moral and legal accounts seem irrelevant, given the attitude of Argentina to the British claim. Yet the willingness of Britain to accept costs far out of proportion to the value of the prize being fought over is difficult to explain except on the theory that the British felt they were defending their property, which raises the question of what that concept means in such a context. 第二个例子是1982年的福克兰群岛战争。表面上看,此次冲突就是一次被击退的入侵。考虑到阿根廷对英国之权利主张的态度,道德和法律论述似乎都不相干。然而,英国愿意付出远超受争议领土价值的代价,这一点除非用“英国人觉得他们是在保卫自己的财产权”这一理论,否则很难解释。所以问题来了:财产权的概念在此情境中究竟意味着什么呢? A further difficulty with moral accounts of rights, in particular of property rights, is the degree to which the property rights that people actually respect seem to depend on facts that are morally irrelevant. This difficulty presents itself in libertarian accounts of property as the problem of initial acquisition. It is far from clear even in principle how unowned resources such as land can become private property. 对权利——特别是财产权——的道德解释所面临的另一个困难是:人们对财产权的实际尊重程度,似乎依赖于一些与道德无关的事实。这一困难在自由意志主义的财产权解释中,表现为初始占有问题。即便在理论上,土地这样的无主资源如何得以变成私人财产,也远非明白清楚。 Even if one accepts an account, such as that of Locke, of how initial acquisition might justly have occurred, that account provides little justification for the existing pattern of property rights, given the high probability that any piece of property has been unjustly seized at least once since it was first cleared. Yet billions of people, now and in the past, base much of their behavior on respect for property claims that seem either morally arbitrary or clearly unjust. 即使一个人接受某种如洛克那样的关于初始占有如何可能正当发生的解释,这种解释也很难给现存的财产权形式提供辩护,因为任何财产,在成为私产之后,都有很大可能被非正当地僭取过至少一次。但是古今数十亿人的多数行为,仍旧出于这一基础:尊重那些要么是道德上武断,要么是明显不义的权利主张。 A further difficulty with legal accounts of rights is that they are to some degree circular. We observe that police will act in certain ways and that their action (and related actions by judges, juries, etc.) implies that certain people have certain rights. But the behavior of police is itself in part a consequence of rights—such as the right of the state to collect taxes and pay them to the police as wages and the property right that the police then have over the money they receive. 权利的法律解释的另一个问题是,他们在某种程度上是循环论证。我们观察到警察按照确定方式行动,他们的行动(及法官、陪审团等的相关行动)表明某些人有某些权利。但是警察的行为本身就是权利的结果的一部分——比如政府收税发给警察作工资的权利,和警察对于他们收到的金钱的财产权。 For all of these reasons, I believe it is worth attempting a positive account of rights—an account which is both amoral and alegal. In part I of this essay I present such an account—one in which rights, in particular property rights, are a consequence of strategic behavior and may exist with no moral or legal support. 出于以上所有原因,我认为尝试一种关于权利的实证解释——一种既非道德也非法律的解释——是值得的。在本文的第一部分我将提出这一解释——其中权利,尤其财产权,是策略性行为的结果,无须道德或法律支持。 The account is presented both as an explanation of how rights could arise in a Hobbesian anarchy and as an explanation of the nature of rights as we observe them around us. In Part II I suggest ways in which something like the present structure of rights might have developed. 此解释既可以用来说明在霍布斯式的无政府世界里权利如何产生,又可以用来说明我们日常观察到的权利的性质。在第二部分,我会提出像现存权利体系这种事物得以发展出来的几种可能路径。 One puzzling feature of rights as we observe them is the degree to which the same conclusions seem to follow from very different assumptions. Thus roughly similar structures of rights can be and are deduced by libertarian philosophers trying to show what set of natural rights is just and by economists trying to show what set of legal rules would be efficient. 我们观察到的权利有一个令人困惑的特征:基于不同的假设似乎可以得出一样的结论。自由意志主义哲学家试图证明哪套自然权利是正义的;而经济学家则试图证明哪套法律规则是有效率的;二者可能并且已经推演出大致相似的权利架构。 And the structures of rights that they deduce seem similar to those observed in human behavior and embodied in the common law. In Part III of this essay I will try to suggest at least partial explanations for this triple coincidence—the apparent similarity between what is, what is just, and what is efficient. 而他们推演出的这套权利架构似乎与我们在人类行为中观察到的也相去不远,在普通法(common law)中亦有体现。在文章第三部分,我会试图对这种三重巧合——“实然”“应然”和“有效率”三者之间的明显相似,至少提出部分解释。 Part I: Schelling Points, Self-Enforcing Contracts, and the Paradox of Order 第一部分:谢林点,自执行契约和秩序悖论 Several writers have tried to analyze the transition from a Hobbesian state of nature to a state of civil order in terms of a set of hypothetical contracts establishing an initial distribution of property rights based on a preexisting distribution of power. One difficulty with this approach is that in the initial situation there are no institutions to enforce contracts. How can people in that situation change it by making contracts which are unenforceable and so of no effect? 一些作家曾尝试用一套基于既存权力分布而确定初始财产权分布的假想契约,来分析从霍布斯自然状态到文明秩序状态的过渡。这种方法的一个难点是,初始状况下没有强制执行契约的制度。人们又如何能通过订立无法强制执行、因而无效的契约,来改变现有状况呢? The same problem can be seen from the other side by asking in what sense we, or any society, are ever out of a Hobbesian state of nature. What do we have, what have we created, that does not exist in the Hobbesian jungle? 这一问题当我们从另一个方向上追问时同样可以看到:我们,或任何社会,到底在何种意义上已经走出霍布斯自然状态呢?我们拥有或创造了什么在霍布斯丛林中并不存在的东西呢? Civil order is not defined by the existence of physical objects—court rooms, police uniforms, law books. We can easily enough imagine a Hobbesian jungle—in the middle of a war, say—coexisting with all the physical appurtenances of civil society. And primitive peoples, without court rooms or law books, nonetheless live in a state of civil order. 文明秩序并不是按照法庭,警服,法律书等物理对象的存在而定义的。我们很容易想象一个拥有一切文明社会物质构件的霍布斯丛林,例如战争时期。而(同样可以想象)一个原始人群体,尽管没有法庭或法律典籍,却生活在文明秩序状态之中。 Nor does it suffice to say that we are in a state of civil order because we have judges to interpret our laws and police to enforce them. Why do those people act in that way? Presumably because it is in their private interest to do so—just as potential criminals obey the law for the same reason. But that is how people act in the Hobbesian jungle. 仅仅因为我们有法官来阐释法律,警察来执行法律,就说我们处于文明秩序状态之中,理由也是不充分的。法官和警察为何要按照此种方式行动?或许是因为这么做符合他们的私人利益——就好像潜在罪犯也出于同一理由而遵守法律。但这正是人们处于霍布斯丛林时的做法。 There too, one man may happen to enforce a rule, and another happen to obey it, because each finds it in his own interest to do so. What is it that we have and the Hobbesian jungle does not have that makes it in the interest of people to behave in a law abiding and peaceful manner? To say that the answer is "police, courts, government" only throws the question back a step; if civil order is enforced by men with guns, what controls them? 在那里,同样地,一个人碰巧执行一条规则,另一个人碰巧遵守它,正因为他们俩都觉得这样做符合个人利益。我们有而霍布斯丛林没有的是一种什么东西,能够使整个社会从全体的利益出发,遵守法律而和平相处呢?回答“警察,法庭和政府”只能把问题往前推进一步;如果文明秩序是靠手里有枪的人强制施行的,那么谁控制这些有枪的人呢? There are two sorts of answers to these questions. One is that the difference is a moral one. People somehow accept an obligation, agree not to behave according to simple self interest, feel themselves bound by that agreement and alter their actions accordingly. 这些问题有两类答案。其一认为区别是道德上的。不知何故,人们了接受了一项义务,同意不仅仅依照个人利益行事,认识到自己受该协定的约束,并依此调整自己的行为。 There are difficulties with this sort of explanation. First, there is the empirical observation that people do not feel themselves bound to obey laws; many, perhaps most, people feel free to violate those laws (speed limits, drinking laws, customs regulations) which they disagree with and believe they can get away with breaking. 这类解释有一些难点。首先,有经验观察发现,人们并不觉得自己有义务遵守法律;很多人,也许是大多数人,当他们不认同某项法律(比如限速,饮酒法律,海关规定),并且相信自己能够逃脱惩罚时,就会随意违反这些法律。 Second, to the extent that people do feel a moral obligation to obey social rules, it is hard to derive that feeling from any variant of social contract theory. The traditional variants encounter the difficulty eloquently described by Lysander Spooner; since we ourselves did not sign the contract we are not bound by it. 第二,即便在人们觉得自己有道德义务去遵守社会准则时,这种道德感也很难从任何版本的社会契约论中推导出来。传统的社会契约论版本都面临Lysander Spooner曾有力陈述过的困难:我们自己没有签订过契约,所以不受其约束。 The difficulties with deriving moral obligation from the sort of pairwise social contract suggested by Winston Bush are equally great. Even if we consider that each of us is, at every instant, in an implicit contract with each of his neighbors to respect some agreed upon set of rights, still that contract, in Bush's model, is based on the threat of coercion. It has no more moral legitimacy, according to conventional moral ideas, than the obligation to pay off a protection racket. 从Winston Bush提出的两两契约之类的理论推导出道德义务,也一样困难重重。即便设想,在Bush的模型之中,我们每个人在每一时刻,都和每个旁人处于一种隐性契约之中,约定尊重某一套协商好的权利,这种契约仍然是基于威胁使用强制手段的。依照传统的道德观念,其中所含的道德合法性并不比交保护费义务中所含的要多。 It may be possible to explain the difference between a Hobbesian state of nature and civil society as a moral difference, but I prefer the alternative explanation—that the essential difference is not in the motivation of the players but in the strategic situation they face. This raises the question of how making an agreement—in a society with no mechanisms for enforcing agreements—can change anything, the strategic situation included. 霍布斯自然状态和文明社会之间的区别,或许可以解释为一种道德区别,但我更喜欢另一种解释——其中本质区别不在于参与者的动机,而在于他们面临的策略处境。于是问题来了:在没有机制可以强制执行约定的社会,订下合约又能改变什么呢?包括,能改变他们面临的策略处境么? I. A. The Tool: Schelling Points 第一部分之一,工具:谢林点 Two people are separately confronted with the list of numbers shown above and offered a reward if they independently choose the same number. If the two are mathematicians, it is likely that they will both choose 2—the only even prime. Non-mathematicians are likely to choose 100—a number which seems, to the mathematicians, no more unique than the other two exact squares. Illiterates might agree on 69, because of its peculiar symmetry—as would, for a different reason, those whose interest in numbers is more prurient than mathematical. 向两个人分别出示以下数列:2,5,9,25,69,73,82,96,100,126,150。如果两人独立选择了同一数字就给予奖励。如果二人是数学家,他们有可能都选2——唯一的偶质数。非数学家们可能选择100——一个在数学家们看来和另外两个平方数并无区别的数字。文盲可能同时选69,出于它奇特的对称——那些对于数字的兴趣主要在色情而非数学的人,出于另一种理由,也可能选择69。 There are three things worth noting about this simple problem in coordination without communication. The first is that each pair of players is looking for a number that is in some way unique. To a mathematician, all three squares are special numbers, as are the three primes. But if they try to coordinate on a square or a prime, they have only one chance in three of success—and besides, one may be trying primes and the other squares. 2 is unique. If the set of numbers did not contain 2 but did contain only one prime (or only one square, or one perfect number) they would choose that. 这个简单的无交流协调问题有三点值得注意。第一是,每一对参与者都在找一个以某种方式看独特的数字。对于数学家,三个平方数都特别,三个质数也是。但如果他们协同选择一个平方数或质数,他们只有三分之一的成功机会——何况还可能一个人选质数而另一个选了平方数。2则是独一无二的。如果这列数字里不包含2,但只包含一个质数(或一个平方数,或一个完全数),他们就会选这个数。 The second thing to note is that there is no single right answer; the number chosen by one player, and hence the number that ought to be chosen by the other, depends on the categories that the person choosing uses to classify the alternatives. The right strategy is to find some classification in terms of which there is a unique number, then choose that number—a strategy whose implementation depends on the particular classifications that pair of players uses. Thus the right answer depends on subjective characteristics of the players. 第二点值得注意的是,这里没有唯一的正确答案;一人选中并且也应当被另一人选中的那个数字,取决于前者所用的分类方法。正确的策略是找出一种产生独一无二数字的分类,然后选择此数字——这种策略的实施取决于两个参与者选择的特定分类方法。因此正确答案也取决于参与者的主观特性。 The third point, which follows from this, is that it is possible to succeed in the game because of, not in spite of, the bounded rationality of the players. To a mind of sufficient scope every number is unique. It is only because the players are limited to a small number of the possible classification schemes for numbers, and because the two players may be limited to the same schemes, that a correct choice may exist. 第三点是,由此可知,在这一博弈中取得成功之所以可能,不是由于参与者克服了自己的有限理性,而正是由于他们只拥有有限理性。对于一个充分理性的头脑,每一个数字都是独特的。正因为参与者受限于少量几种可能的数字分类方法,并且两人或许受限于同样的几种,正确的选择才可能存在。 In this respect the theory of this game is radically different from conventional game theory, which assumes players with unlimited ability to examine alternatives and so abstracts away from all subjective characteristics of the players except those embodied in their utility functions. 从这个角度来看,这种博弈的理论和传统博弈论极为不同,后者假设参与者有无限的能力去考虑备选项,因此除体现于效用函数中的那些之外,它剥离了参与者其它所有主观特性。 Consider now two players playing the game called bilateral monopoly. They have a dollar to divide between them, provided they can agree how to divide it. Superficially there is no resemblance between this game and that discussed above; the players are free to talk with each other as much as they want. 现在设想两个参与者在玩一个叫“双边垄断”(bilateral monopoly)的游戏。如果能就如何分配达成同意的话,他们就可以瓜分一块钱。表面上看,这和之前讨论的博弈一点也不像:参与者只要愿意就可以和对方自由交谈。 But while they can talk freely, there is a sense in which they cannot communicate at all. It is in my interest to persuade you that I will only be satisfied with a large fraction of the dollar; if I am really unwilling to accept anything less than ninety cents, you are better off agreeing to accept ten cents than holding out for more and getting nothing. Since it is in the interest of each of us to persuade the other of his resolve, all statements to that effect can be ignored; they would be made whether true or not. 可即便他们可以自由交谈,从一种意义上说,他们仍是完全无法沟通的:我的利益所在,是劝说你接受,我只有得到这块钱中的大头才会满足;如果我真的不愿接受少于九毛,那么你同意接受一毛比要求更多却一分都没拿到更好。因为向对方展示决心对自己有利,所有表达此种意思的言论都可以忽略,因为无论真假双方都会做这样的声明。 What each player has to do is to guess what the other's real demand is, what the fraction of the dollar is without which he will refuse to agree. That cannot be communicated, simply because it pays each player to lie about it. The situation is therefore similar to that in the previous game; the players must coordinate their demands (so that they add up to a dollar) without communication. It seems likely that they will do so by agreeing to split the dollar fifty-fifty. 每个参与者必须要做的,是猜测对方的真实需求,即,少于几毛钱对方一定会拒绝同意。而这不可能付诸沟通,因为每人说谎对自己都有利。所以这个场景和上一个游戏类似;参与者必须在无法沟通的前提下协同他们的需求(使得总和是一块钱)。他们有可能会同意五五分成。 The same points made about the previous game apply here, although less obviously. The players are looking for a unique solution; if I decide that the natural split is one third-two thirds and you agree, both of us reasoning from a mystic belief in the significance of the number three, there is still the risk that each will decide he is entitled to the two-thirds. 关于头一个游戏的论点在此同样有效,尽管不如之前的明显。参与者们也在寻找一个独一无二的答案;如果我断定1/3和2/3是自然的分割,基于我们对于数字三的某种共同的神秘信仰,你也表示同意,但我们依旧有无法达成一致的风险,因为可能每个人都觉得自己应得2/3。 To see that the solution depends on the particular categories used by the players, imagine that both have been brought up to believe that utility, not money, is the relevant payoff, and suppose further that both believe the marginal utility of a dollar to be inversely proportional to the recipient's income. In that case, the solution to the game is not a fifty-fifty split of money but a fifty-fifty split of utility—implying a division of the dollar into shares proportional to the two players' incomes. 为了看清答案依赖于参与者们特有的分类方式,请想象两人的成长环境都让他们认为效用而非金钱才是被看重的回报;同时假设两人都认为一块钱的边际效用和受惠者的收入成反比。在这种情况下,博弈解不再是金钱的对半分成,而是效用的对半分成——意即一块钱被分成和两个参与者收入成比例的两部分。 Such an outcome, chosen because of its uniqueness, is called a Schelling point, after Thomas Schelling who originated the idea. It provides a possible solution to the problem of coordination without communication. As this example shows, it is relevant both to situations where communication is physically impossible and to situations where communication is impossible because there is no way that either party can provide the other with a reason to believe that what he says is true. 这种因其唯一性而被选中的结果,叫做谢林点,得名于提出这一观点的托马斯·谢林(Thomas Schelling)。这给无沟通协调问题提供了一个可能的解答。正如这个例子所表明的,即便交流在物理上不可能发生,或是交流可以发生但是双方都拿不出理由让对方相信自己所说为真时,协调同样能起作用。 Even if it is impossible for the players in such a game to communicate their real demands, it may still be possible for them to affect the outcome by what they say. They could do so, not by directly communicating their own strategies (any such statement will be disbelieved), but by altering the other player's categories, the ways in which he organizes the alternatives of the game, and so changing the Schelling points which depend on those categories. 即使在这个博弈中参与者无法交流他们的真实需求,他们仍然可能通过言语影响结果。做到这一点,需直接交流自己的他们不策略(这样的话说了也没人相信),而会去试图改变对方的分类方式,即对方为博弈构造不同备选项的方式,从而改变依赖于这些分类的谢林点。 In the example just discussed, for example, one player (presumably the richer) might remind the other of their shared belief in the importance of utility in order to make sure the equi-utility Schelling point would be chosen. If, in the first game I described, the players were allowed to talk before seeing the numbers, a conversation on the interesting properties of primes or the special uniqueness of the lowest of a series of numbers might well alter the Schelling point, and so the result of the game. One can interpret a good deal of bargaining behaviour in this light—as an attempt by one party to make the other see the situation in a particular way, so as to generate a Schelling point favorable to the first party. 在上述例子中,一个参与者(比如说更有钱的那个)可能提醒对方,两人都相信效用的重要性,试图保证同效用(equi-utility)谢林点被选中。假如在第一个博弈中,参与者在看到数字之前可以交谈,那么关于质数的有趣特征或是关于数列中最小值的特别之处的谈话,很可能会改变谢林点,进而改变博弈结果。人们可以如此解释很大一部分议价行为——它就是一方尝试让另一方用某种特定眼光看待当前场景,以便产生一个对自己有利的谢林点。 A slightly different way in which one may conceptualize the process of agreement on a Schelling point is in terms of bargaining costs in a context of continuous bargaining. Consider a situation in which the number of possible outcomes is very large. Suppose the process of bargaining is itself costly, either because it consumes time or because each player bears costs (such as staying out on strike) in trying to validate his threats. As long as the players are faced with a choice among a large number of comparable alternatives, each proposal by one player is likely to call forth a competing proposal from another, slanted a little more in his own interest. 概念化地理解协议达致谢林点的过程,还有个稍微不同的方式:那就是考虑持续议价情境中的议价成本。设想一个情境之中,可能的结果选项非常多。假设议价过程本身是有成本的,这或者是因为花费时间,或者是因为参与者证实自己的威胁需要成本(比如罢工)。只要参与者需要从很多备选项中做出选择,那么一个参与者提出的每个建议都很可能促使对方提出一个竞争性的选项,使之稍微向己方利益倾斜。 But suppose there is one outcome that is seen as unique. A player who proposes that outcome may be perceived as offering, not a choice between that outcome, another slightly different, another different still, . . . but a choice between that outcome and continued bargaining. 但假设有一个结果被认为是特殊的。那么一方提议这个结果,就可能被视为提出了一个“要么就这个结果”要么就“继续议价”的选择,而非那种你提一个我再提一个稍微不同的,你再提个又有所不同的……的情况。 A player who says that he insists on the unique outcome and will not settle for anything less may be believable, where a similar statement about a different outcome would not be. He can convincingly argue that he will stand by his proposed outcome because, once he gives it up, he has no idea where he will end up or how high the costs of getting there will be. 一个说自己坚持要该独特结果而不会屈就的参与者,可能是可信的;而换个结果,同样的声明则不可信。此人可以论证说,他会坚持自己提议的结果,因为一旦放弃,他就完全不知道自己的结局会怎样,也不知道到达该结局之前的议价成本会有多高。这种论证能够让人信服。, In order for a Schelling point to provide a peaceful resolution to a conflict of interest, both parties must conceptualize the alternatives in similar ways—similar enough so that they can agree about which possible outcomes are unique, and thus attractive as potential Schelling points. 为让谢林点能够于利益冲突之中提供和平解决方案,双方必须能用类似的方式去考虑备选项——类似到双方能够同意什么结果是独特的,因而有足够吸引力而可能成为谢林点。 So one interesting implication of the argument is that violent conflict is especially likely to occur on the boundary between cultures, where people with very different ways of viewing the world interact. 所以这一论证的一个有趣结论是:暴力冲突尤其可能在不同文化的边界发生,在那里,遭遇双方具有截然不同的世界观。 I. B. Up From Hobbes 第一部分之二,跳出霍布斯状态 Two people are living in a Hobbesian state of nature. Each can injure or steal from the other, at some cost, and each can spend resources on his own defense. Since conflict consumes resources, both could benefit by agreeing on what each owns and thereafter each respecting the other's property. 两人生活在霍布斯自然状态中。每人都可以以一定成本伤害或者窃取对方,也可以花费资源来增强个人防卫。因为冲突消耗资源,所以通过协议确定谁拥有什么,继而尊重对方的财产权,二者均可获益。 The joint benefit might be divided in different ways, according to the particular set of property rights they agree on—what property belongs to whom, and whether either has a property right in tribute from the other. This is a special case of the game—bilateral monopoly—described above. 根据他们约定的不同财产权组合,这一共同利益也有不同的分割方法——谁拥有哪些财产,一方是否拥有从对方那里索取贡奉的财产权。这是上述“双边垄断”博弈的一种特殊形式。 Each player, of course, will threaten to refuse to make any such agreement unless he gets the division he wants. Each will disbelieve most of the other's threats. If their ability to coerce and defend is roughly equal, and if there is some natural division of contested property (such as a stream running between their farms), it is likely that they will find a Schelling point in the form of an agreement to accept that division, respect each other's rights, and pay no tribute. 每个参与者当然会威胁拒绝任何此类协定——除非他得到自己想要的分额。每个人都会拒绝相信对方的大部分威胁。如果他们的胁迫和自卫能力大抵相当,而且争议财产有某种自然分割(比如他们各自农地之间有一条溪流),那么他们就有可能找到一个谢林点:其表现就是他们订立一个协定,接受这种分割,尊重彼此的权利并且贡奉无须纳贡。 If one (being, perhaps, slightly more powerful) tries to insist on a small tribute, arguing that it will still leave the other better off than continued conflict, the other may believably refuse, arguing that once he concedes any tribute there is no natural limit to what the other can demand. 如果一人(也许是稍微强壮的那个)试图要求一小部分贡奉,争辩说,即便如此对方的状况也会比继续冲突要好;那么对方能够可信地拒绝,其理由可以是,一旦他同意交纳任何贡奉,对方索求就没有一个自然上限。 Agreeing to tribute costs the victim not only the tribute but the only available Schelling point. The expected cost to him of such an agreement includes both the possible cost of paying higher tribute in the future and the risk of future conflicts if in the future he rejects demands for higher tribute. That cost may be high enough to make his insistence that he will choose continued conflict over the payment of even a small tribute believable. 对于受害者来说,同意纳贡不仅花费贡奉本身,还令其失去了仅有的谢林点。对他来说,这个协定的预期成本不仅包括未来可能支付的更多贡奉,还包括一旦未来拒绝更多贡奉所带来的冲突风险。这种成本可能足够高,足以使得他的这种宁愿选择延续冲突也不会支付哪怕是少许贡奉的坚持是可信的。 So far we have considered the Schelling point that generates an agreement. But the agreement itself, whether generated by a Schelling point or in some other way, is thereafter itself a Schelling point. It is a unique outcome of which both players are conscious. Once it has been made, a policy of "if you do not abide by the agreement I will revert to the use of force, even if the violation is small compared to the cost of conflict" is believable for precisely the same reason the refusal to pay tribute, or any insistence by a bargainer on a Schelling point, is believable. The signing of a contract establishes a new Schelling point and thereby alters the strategic situation. The contract enforces itself. 到此为止,我们考虑的是促成协定的谢林点。然而这一协定,无论是源于谢林点或别的什么,在此之后本身也成了谢林点。这是一个双方都知道的独特结果。一旦它得以确立,一种“你不遵守协定我就回归使用武力,哪怕毁约所害比冲突的代价要小”的策略就是可信的,正如拒绝纳贡,或任何对于谢林点的坚持是可信的一样。签订契约建立了新的谢林点,进而改变了策略场景。这种契约能够自我强制执行。 This applies not only to the initial pairwise social contract but to subsequent contracts as well. Suppose you have an orchard and I have an axe. After agreeing on our mutual property rights, you offer me a bushel of apples to cut down a tree that is shading your orchard. I cut down the tree as agreed, but you refuse to give me the apples. What happens? 以上论述不仅适用于初始的双边社会契约,也适用于后继的契约。假设你有一个果园而我有一把斧头。在我们确定了各自的财产权之后,你答应给我一蒲式耳苹果,换取我砍倒一棵遮挡你果园阳光的树。我依照协议砍倒了树,你却拒绝给我苹果。接下来怎么办呢? So far as our physical situation is concerned, I am in no more able to compel you to pay me a bushel of apples now than I was before you made the offer and I cut down the tree—our material resources, our ability to hurt each other and defend ourselves, are the same as they were. 就我们的物质状况来说,和你提出该建议然后我把树砍倒之前相比,现在我强迫你给我一蒲式耳苹果的能力并没有增加——我们的物质资源,我们伤害对方和保护自己的能力,都和之前一样。 Yet my threat to cut down your orchard unless you pay up is more credible than it would have been before, both because I have more reason to carry through on it and because you have less reason to resist it. Before, the attempt to get a bushel of apples from you would have been an attempt to move you away from the Schelling point established by the initial contract. Now it is an attempt to restore the Schelling point established by our subsequent agreement. 但是假设你不如约支付的话我就要砍倒你的果树,这个威胁会比之前更加可信;因为不仅我更有理由执行它,而且你也更少理由抗拒它。在(订立上述契约)之前,从你手中拿走一蒲式耳苹果,是一个试图使你偏离由该初始契约所确立的谢林点的行为。而现在,我(砍倒你果树)的行为,则是一个试图恢复由该契约所确立的谢林点的行为。 A more conventional explanation of this is that the reason it is in your interest to deliver the apples once you have agreed to do so is that you wish to establish a reputation for keeping promises, and that the reason it is in my interest to punish you if you do not deliver the apples is because I wish to establish a reputation for enforcing contracts made with me. While this may be true, there are two reasons why it cannot be a complete explanation. 对于这种情况的一个更通常的解释是:你依约交出苹果之所以符合你的利益,乃是因为你想建立一个守信的名声;而如果你不交出苹果我就要惩罚你,这之所以符合我的利益,乃是因为我想建立一个与我签订的契约会得到强制执行的名声。这也许是真的,但是有两个理由告诉我们,这不是一个完备的解释。 First, it depends on a particular perception of consistent behavior—in pure logic, there is no more reason to think of "always enforce" as more consistent then "back down the first, third, fifth, ... time and fight the second, fourth, ...." Both describe single possible strategies. The important difference between them is that the former is a Schelling point and the latter is not— a fact not about the strategies but about the way we classify them. 首先,这取决于对行为一致性的某种特殊理解——纯逻辑来说,“永远强制执行”并不比“第一三五次退缩、第二四六次对抗”更一致。二者都是单一可能性策略。两者之间的重要区别是,前者是谢林点而后者不是——一个无关于策略本身,而是关乎于我们如何对策略进行分类的事实。 A second and related problem with the conventional account is that I might equally well wish to establish a reputation for following through on extortionary demands. We need some way of explaining why I cut down the shade tree first, instead of simply committing myself to demand your apples. If the former pattern creates a Schelling point of contract fulfillment and the latter does not, that provides a possible explanation. 传统解释的第二个问题(与第一个不无关系)是,我有同等的可能性,想要建立一种坚持实现勒索性要求的名声。我们需要某种方法来解释,为什么我会把遮阳的树砍倒,而不是直接强行索取你的苹果。如果前一个行为模式建立了一个履行协约的谢林点,而后者不能,那这就是一个可能的解释。 I believe I have now resolved the apparent paradox of contracting out of the Hobbesian jungle. The process of contracting changes the situation because it establishes new Schelling points, which in turn affect the strategic situation and its outcome. The same analysis can be used from the other side to explain what constitutes civil society. The laws and customs of civil society are an elaborate network of Schelling points. 我相信我现在已经解决了通过建立契约脱离霍布斯丛林的表面悖论。建立契约的过程能够改变情境,正因为它建立了新的谢林点;后者继而影响了策略场景及其结果。另一方面,同样的分析也可以用来解释文明社会如何构成。文明社会的法律和习俗组成了一个复杂精密的谢林点网络。 If my neighbor annoys me by growing ugly flowers, I do nothing. If he dumps his garbage on my lawn, I retaliate—possibly in kind. If he threatens to dump garbage on my lawn, or play a trumpet fanfare at 3 A.M. every morning, unless I pay him a modest tribute I refuse—even if I am convinced that the available legal defenses cost more than the tribute he is demanding. 如果我的邻居种了难看的花来烦我,我啥也不做。如果他把垃圾倒在我的草坪上,我就会反击——很可能把垃圾倒回去。如果他威胁要把垃圾倒在我的草坪上,或者要在每天凌晨三点大声吹号,除非我给他一点贡奉,那么我就会拒绝——即使我确信所需的法律诉讼成本要比他要的那点贡奉还多。 If a policeman arrests me—even for a crime I did not commit—I go along peacefully. If he tries to rob my house, I fight, even if the cost of doing so is more than the direct cost of letting him rob me. 如果警察要逮捕我——即使我没犯所控罪名——我也会平静配合。如果他企图抢劫我的家,我就反抗——即使这样做的成本比让他抢我的直接成本还高。 Each of us knows what behavior by everyone else is within the rules and what behaviour implies unlimited demands, the violation of the Schelling point, and the ultimate return to the Hobbesian jungle. The latter behaviour is prevented by the threat of conflict even if (as in the British defense of the Falklands) the direct costs of surrender are much lower than the direct costs of conflict. 我们每人都知道,别人什么行为是符合规则的,什么行为隐含着无限制的索求,而什么行为是对谢林点的违反,什么则是对霍布斯丛林的终极回归。最后一种情况之所以得以防止,是因为存在战斗威慑,即便投降的直接成本比战斗的直接成本低很多(比如英国保卫福克兰群岛)。 One question this raises is how we succeed in committing ourselves not to back down in such situations. One answer has been suggested already. It is in my long run interest not to back down because if I do I can expect further demands: "if once you have paid him the danegeld/You never get rid of the Dane." 由此引发的一个问题是,我们如何保证自己在这种场景中不会退缩。一个答案上文已经提及了。不退缩符合我的长期利益,因为一旦退缩我就可能面临更多索求——“一旦你交了丹麦金,就永远摆脱不了丹麦人。”【译注:丹麦金是9世纪到11世纪之间西欧受丹麦入侵者频繁劫掠的地区(特别是英格兰东南和布列塔尼),当地政府向居民征收用以向入侵者支付贡奉以免遭劫掠的一种特别税。】 This explanation is not entirely adequate. In some situations, the aggressor may be able to commit himself to keep your surrender secret and limit his own demands. In others, the short run costs of resistance may be larger than the long run costs of surrender. 这并不足以解释所有的情况。在某些场景中,侵略者可能会承诺保守你投降的秘密,并限制他自身的索求。另一些场景中,抵抗带来的短期成本也许高于投降并纳贡所带来的长期成本。 People (and nations) do sometimes surrender to such demands. If they do so less often then a simple calculation of costs and benefits might predict, the explanation may be found in a class of arguments made by Robert Frank and others. 人们(和国家)有时候会向这种索求投降。如果他们这样做的频率低于简单的收益成本分析所得出的结果,那么或许可以从Robert Frank等人提出的一类论证中找到解释。 The central insight of such arguments is that even if surrender is sometimes in my private interest, being the sort of person who will surrender when it is in his interest to do so may not be, since if it is known that I will not back down there is no point in making the initial demand. My first best option is to pretend to be tough, in the hope that the demand will not be made, while reserving the option of surrendering if my bluff is called. 此类论证的核心思想是,即便投降有时符合我的个人利益,做一个“符合个人利益时就投降”的人并不符合我的利益;因为如果人尽皆知我不会退缩,那么一开始就没理由提出索求。我的最优选择是装作强硬,期望不会有人提出索求,同时保留虚张声势被戳穿后投降的选择。 If, however, humans are imperfectly able to lie to each other about what sort of people they are—as seems to be the case—then the best available option may be to really be tough, despite the risk that I will occasionally find myself forced to fight when I would be better off surrendering. 但是如果人类对于自己是什么样的人并没有完美的撒谎能力——事实好像正是如此——那么最优选择也许是真正强硬,尽管这样做的话,就得冒这样的风险:有时投降更有利,但我却不得不战斗。 None of this argument depends on moral sanctions. I may (indeed do) believe that the tax collector is morally equivalent to the thief. I accept one and fight the other because of my beliefs about other people's behaviour—what they will or will not fight for—and because there are beliefs about my behaviour which I wish others to hold. We are bound together by a set of mutually reinforcing strategic expectations. 这些论证都不依赖于道德约束。我可能(其实就是)认为税官和窃贼在道德上没有区别。我接受其中一个而反抗另一个,是基于我对他人行为的信念——他们会(或不会)为何物而抗争——也基于我希望别人对我的行为能持有某种信念。我们被一套相互强化的策略期望束缚在一起。 Part II: Two Routes from Hobbes to Here 第二部分:从霍布斯到当今秩序的两种途径 My argument so far has dealt with two ends of an extended process. I started with an explanation of how it was possible, in a two person world, to take the first steps towards bargaining out of a Hobbesian state of nature. I ended with an explanation of how the same logic maintains civil order as we know it. Missing is any explanation of the intermediate steps by which the complicated and functional order in which we live might have been constructed. 到现在为止,我的论述集中在这个漫长过程的两端。一开始我解释了,在一个两人世界中,跨出通过议价而脱离霍布斯自然状态的第一步,何以是可能的。在结尾我解释了,同样的逻辑如何维持我们所了解的文明秩序。其中缺少的是,我们生活于其中的复杂功能秩序,是如何构建出来的,即对中间步骤的解释。 One possibility is legislation. If an important part of the way in which individuals classify actions is "legal/illegal," then the fact of legal change, whether by a king, legislature, or court system, changes the way in which they classify the alternatives, which in turn changes the set of Schelling points. 一种可能解释是立法。如果个人对行为的一个重要分类是“合法/非法”,那么无论是国王、立法者还是法院系统带来的法律变化,都会改变人们对备选项进行分类的方式,继而改变谢林点集合。 If the court has recognized property rights in water but not in air, I classify pollution of my section of the river as aggression and fight it, by legal, social, or even illegal means. I classify pollution of my air by my neighbor's soap factory as an inconvenient nuisance and either put up with it or try to buy him off. Under these circumstances legislation is, to a considerable degree, self-enforcing; the pattern of property rights might well survive even if the enforcement arm of the state vanished or became impotent. 如果法院认可对于水的财产权,而不认可对于空气的财产权,那么我就把针对我的河流段的污染看作是入侵,进而通过法律的、社会的、甚至非法手段进行抗争。而我把周边空气受到邻居肥皂厂的污染当作一个不便的日常琐事,或者忍了或者给钱让他不要再排污了。在这些情况下,立法在某种程度上是自我执行的;即使政府的强制执行机器消失或者变得无能了,这种财产权模式也很可能延续下去。 While this may be part of the explanation for civil order, it cannot be all of it, for at least three reasons. First, some rights have no legal rules associated with them. Second, many, perhaps most, people are selective about which legal rules they take seriously—as can easily be observed on any U.S. highway. And finally, there are well documented situations in which property rights exist and are respected even though they are inconsistent with the relevant legal rights. 尽管这也许能部分解释文明秩序,至少有三种原因使它不可能是全部的解释。第一,有些权利没有相关的法律规定。第二,很多人,或许是大部分人,只选择性的严肃对待一部分法规——在任何美国高速上都很容易看到。最后,即便和有关法规相悖,财产权仍然存在并受人们尊重,这种情形记录详多。 This final point brings up a second possible explanation of how the pattern of expectations might have come into existence—that it is due not to the creation of laws but to the evolution of norms. Robert Ellickson, in a recent book, describes how relations among neighbors function in Shasta County California. 最后一点提示了对于可能的模式如何成为现实的第二种可能解释——它的产生不基于法律的创制,而是基于规范的演化。Robert Ellickson在他最近的书中描述了在加州夏斯塔郡邻里关系是如何运作的。【编注:书名为Order Without Law,中译本《无需法律的秩序》。】 One of his most striking observations was that in several cases, including conflicts over trespass by animals and the allocation of the cost of building fences between neighbors, the inhabitants ignore the relevant laws and act instead according to well understood non-legal norms. 他最令人惊讶的发现之一是,在一些情况下,包括动物擅闯和邻里分担建造篱笆成本这样的纠纷中,居民忽略了相关法律,而依照众所周知的非法律规范(non-legal norm)行事。 Ellickson offers no adequate account of how such norms develop or of why they provide, in some contexts but not in all, at least approximately efficient rules. A possible answer to that puzzle brings us back to the two person social contract discussed in the previous section. 至于这些规范如何发展出来,或者它们为何能够在某些而不是全部情境中提供至少近乎高效的规则,Ellickson没有提供足够的解释。对这个谜团的可能回答,将带我们回到上一部分讨论过的二人社会契约。 One might try to explain functional norms by evolution. Perhaps, over time, societies with better norms conquer, absorb, or are imitated by societies with worse norms, producing a world of well designed societies. The problem with that explanation is that such a process should take centuries, if not millennia—which does not fit the facts as Ellickson reports them. Whaling norms in the 19th century, for example, seem to have adjusted rapidly to changes in the species being hunted. 演化也许可以用来解释功能性规范。也许随着时间流逝,有更好规范的社群征服、吸收了有不好规范的社群,或被后者所模仿——这造就了一个充满设计良好的社群的世界。这种解释的问题是,此过程应该需要几个世纪,如果不是几千年的话——但这和Ellickson所报告的事实不符。举例来说,19世纪的捕鲸规范似乎随着被猎物种的变化而迅速调整了。 Perhaps what is happening is evolution, but evolution involving groups much smaller and more fluid than entire societies. Consider a norm, such as honesty, that can profitably be followed by small groups within a society, applicable only within the group. Groups with efficient norms will prosper and grow by recruitment. Others will imitate them. Groups with similar norms will tend to fuse, in order to obtain the same benefits on a larger scale. 也许其中发生的确是一种演化,不过演化所涉及的是比整个社群更小更有流动性的团体。请设想一种可以被社群中的小团体遵守且受益的规范,设想它仅仅适用于此种小团体内部。有高效规范的团体能够繁荣并且通过吸收新成员而扩张。其他团体会模仿此类团体。有类似规范的团体为了在更大规模上取得此种收益,会倾向于融合。 If one system of norms works better than its competitors, it will eventually spread through the entire society. When circumstances change and new problems arise the process can repeat itself on a smaller scale, generating modified norms to deal with the new problems. In effect, what we have is the pairwise contracting out of the Hobbesian state of nature, repeated many times between pairs and within small groups. 如果一套规范比另一套好,它最终会变遍布整个社群。如果情况变化,出现了新问题,整个过程可以在较小的规模上重复,产生出改良的规范来应对新问题。结果我们将看到,两两订立契约而脱离霍布斯自然状态这一过程,将在两两之间、和在小团体内反复发生。 This conjecture about how norms arise and change suggests a prediction: Even if a norm is efficient, it will not arise if its benefits depend on its being generally adopted. Suppose we define a norm as locally efficient if, with regard to any two individuals following the norm, there is no different norm such that at least one would be better off and the other no worse off if they both switched to it. A norm is globally efficient if there is no different norm such that at least one person would be better off and nobody worse off if everyone switched to it. 这个关于规范如何出现和如何变化的猜想暗含一个预测:即使一个规范是高效的,假如它的好处依赖于对它的普遍遵循,它也无法出现。让我们定义:对任意两个遵循某规范的个体来说,如果没有别的规范能够使两人在转而遵循它之后,其中至少一人情况变得更好,而另一人情况不会变差,那么此规范就是局部高效的(locally efficient)。如果没有别的规范能够使得所有人在转而遵循它之后,其中至少一人情况变得更好,而所有人都不会变差,那么这个规范是全局高效的(globally efficient)。 Consider the whaling norms that Ellickson discusses. It is in the interest of any pair of captains to agree in advance to an efficient rule for dealing with whales that one ship harpoons and another one brings in, just as it is in the interest of a pair of individuals to agree to be honest with each other. 设想Ellickson提到的捕鲸规范。任何两个船长,若能先行达成一条有效规则,解决一船射中而另外一船捕获的鲸鱼处理问题,那对双方都是有好处的;就像答应相互诚实对两人都有好处一样。 But a rule for holding down the total number of whales killed so as to preserve the population of whales is useful only if almost everyone follows it. The former type of norm existed, the latter did not—with the result that 19th century whalers did an efficient job of hunting one species after another to near extinction. 但是降低捕杀鲸的总数,从而保存鲸种群这种规则,只有所有人都遵守时才会有用。前面这种规范存在过,后者就没有——结果是19世纪捕鲸人高效的把一个又一个鲸种驱向灭绝。 So the evolution of norms provides a second possible account of how we get from Hobbes to here. Where the recognition of rights between two people, such as neighbors, or within a small group, provides mutual benefits, it is in the interest of the parties concerned to recognize such rights. 所以,规范的演化为我们如何能从霍布斯抵达当今秩序这一问题提出了另一种可能解释。当两人,比如邻居之间,或者小团体内部,同时承认彼此权利能带来共同好处时,对于相关各方来说,承认权利均符合其利益。 By doing so they change the pattern of Schelling points that determines the equilibrium of their interaction, in a way which provides (some) protection for the rights in question. Over a long period of time, the result is to create a set of consistent mutual expectations, and one that tends to be locally, although not necessarily globally, efficient. 他们这样做的时候就改变了谢林点的格局——后者决定着他们之间的互动均衡——,使之朝着为相关权利提供(某些)保护的方向变化。长此以往,结果是创造出一套一致的共同预期,而它即便不是全局高效,也往往是局部高效的。 III: Law, Justice, and Efficiency 第三部分:法律,正义和效率 In thinking about issues of rights, I find myself playing two quite different roles. As a human being and (like all human beings) an amateur philosopher, I have moral intuitions; from that standpoint, the question is "why ought one not to steal" and the answer is "because it is wicked." 在思考权利问题的时候,我发现自己经常扮演两种迥异角色。作为人类一员和业余哲学家(就像所有人一样),我有道德直觉;从这个角度出发,问题是“为什么人不应该盗窃”,而答案是“因为这是邪恶的”。 As an economist I ask and answer different questions. One is "what are the consequences of people being free to steal." Much of the economic analysis of law is devoted to answering questions of that sort. Another is "why do people (often) not steal?" 而作为经济学家,我提出和回答的是不同的问题。其中一个就是“如果允许自由偷窃,结果会怎样”。大部分关于法律的经济分析都致力于回答此类问题。另一个问题则是“为什么人们(一般)不偷窃?” This essay is an attempt to answer that final sort of question. I have tried to answer the economist's question about rights rather than the philosopher's not because economics is more important than moral philosophy but because I am more confident in my ability to use economics to produce answers. I have been encouraged in this policy by a curious and convenient coincidence: in most cases, the rules I conclude to be efficient are also the rules I believe to be just. 这篇文章试图回答最后这种问题。我尝试回答关于权利的经济问题而不是哲学问题,不是因为经济学比道德哲学更重要,而是因为我对自己运用经济学回答问题的能力更有信心。鼓励我采用这一策略的是一种奇特而便利的巧合:在大多数场合中,我推演得出的高效规则,同样也被我认为是正义的。 It is not a double but a triple coincidence. The rules I believe to be efficient and just are also, to a significant degree, the rules enforced by the laws and norms of the society I live in. In this essay I have sketched some ideas about the nature of those rules and how they have evolved. This raises the question of why, if my account is correct, the rules produced in this way resemble those that I deduce to be efficient and intuit to be just. 这不是一个双重巧合,而是一个三重巧合。我认为是高效而且正义的规则,在很大程度上也是我所生活的那个社会的法律和规范所施行的规则。在这篇文章中我简单描述了这些规则的性质和它们是如何演化的。于是问题来了:如果我的解释是正确的,那么为什么这样产生的规则,和我推导为高效的规则,以及我在直觉上认为是正义的规则,是如此的相似呢? In trying to answer that question, I find it useful to start by considering a class of property which underlies all other property and exists even in a Hobbesian state of nature. 试图回答这个问题的时候,我发现最好先从考虑作为所有其他财产基础的一类财产开始,这类财产甚至存在于霍布斯自然状态之中。 I can control the motions of my body by a simple act of will. You can control its motions by imposing overwhelming force, by making believable threats to which I will yield, or in various other ways. Controlling it may be possible for both of us, but it is much cheaper and easier for me. In this sense, we may describe my body as my natural property. 我凭借简单的意愿活动就可以控制我身体的动作。你想控制我身体的动作,必须通过做出可信的能屈服我的威胁,或者别的方法来施之强力。控制我的身体这件事,你我都可能做到,但是对我来说简单且便宜得多。在此意义上,我们可以把我的身体称作我的自然财产。 The same description applies to my gun—because I know where I hid it and you do not. Even land may be natural property to some extent if my detailed knowledge of the terrain makes it easier for me to use or defend it. Such property is natural inasmuch as my possession of it exists in the state of nature and is independent of social convention. The fact that I can control certain things more cheaply than you can is technology, not law or morals. 同样的描述也适用于我的枪——因为我知道我把它藏在哪里而你不知道。如果我对地形的详细了解使我更方便使用或者防卫一片土地,那么甚至土地在一定程度上也是自然财产。这样的财产之所以是自然的,是因为我对它的掌控发生于自然状态之中,并且独立于社会习俗。我能对特定的事物实施更低成本的控制这一事实,是种技术,而非法律或道德。 Natural property is a useful starting point for explaining the similarities among what is, what should be, and what would be efficient because it is relevant to all three. 解释“实然”、“应然”和“效率”这三者之间的相似之处,自然财产是一个有用的起点,因为它和三者都有关。 If the account I have offered is correct, our actual civil order is the result of extended bargaining, based ultimately on natural property. It was my control over my body that made the initial steps out of the state of nature possible. So natural property is relevant to what is—to the existing pattern of laws and norms. 如果我提出的解释是正确的,那么现实的政治秩序就是最终基于自然财产的长期议价的结果。正是我对于我身体的控制,使得脱离自然状态的最初几步变为可能。所以自然财产和“实然”这问题相关——即和现存的法律和社会规范模式相关。 In a world of no transaction costs, any initial allocation of property rights is efficient. In a world with positive transaction costs, the basis for choosing among alternative allocations is the cost of enforcing and changing them. A set of rules in which I own my body and you own yours is superior to one in which each owns the other's body, or each has a half interest in each body, in part because it is so much easier to enforce. So we have a Coasian argument for the relevance of natural property to what is efficient. 在没有交易成本的世界,财产权的任何初始分配都是高效的。在交易成本为正的世界,选择不同分配形式的基础就是执行和改变它们的成本高低。我拥有我的身体而你拥有你身体这样一套规则,就比相互拥有对方身体的另一套规则优越,也比两人分别拥有两个身体的一半的规则优越。这在某种程度上是因为前者更好执行的多。所以,关于自然财产与效率问题的相关性,现在我们有了一个科斯式(Coasian)论证。 This argument also provides a second connection between natural property and what is. My earlier arguments suggest that the evolution of rules tends to move in a direction that is at least locally efficient. If so, and if rules that allocate natural property to its natural owner are efficient, we would expect to observe such rules. Put differently, the argument for local efficiency of evolved norms provides a reason for some similarity between the rules we observe and the rules that are efficient. 此论证也提供了关于自然财产和“实然”问题的第二个联系。我早先的论证表明,规则演化趋向于至少是局部高效的方向。如果情况是这样的,并且如果依照自然所有者分配自然财产的规则是高效的,那么我们就可以期望会观察到这样的规则。换种方法说,对于社会规范在演进过程中的局部高效性的论证,为现实中所见规则和高效规则之间的相似性,提供了一种说明。 What, if anything, does natural property have to do with what ought to be? That depends on what normative account one accepts. For those of us who accept a libertarian account, in which the underlying right is my right to own myself and whatever I have obtained by voluntary agreement with others who own it, the connection is immediate. 自然财产和“应然”问题又有什么关系呢?这就取决于我们接受哪一类规范性论述了。对于我们这些接受自由意志主义论述的人,根本性的权利就是,拥有自身的权利,和对经由自愿协定从其他拥有者处获取的任何事物的权利;对于我们来说这联系是直接的。 Self ownership is both a moral axiom and a technological fact. Voluntary exchange is both a morally legitimate way of altering the pattern of ownership and, if my account of bargaining from the state of nature is correct, a technologically possible way (although not necessarily the only such) of altering a Schelling point and thus an equilibrium. 自我所有权既是一个道德公理,又是一个技术事实。自愿交换既是道德上合法地改变所有权模式的方法,又是一种技术上可行(尽管不一定是唯一)的改变谢林点继而改变均衡的方法——如果我关于自然状态下议价的解释是正确的话。 We now have the beginning of an explanation of the similarity among actual rules, efficient rules, and just rules. The status of this explanation, and of the fact being explained, is not, however, the same for the relation between the first two as it is for the relation of either to the third. 我们现在有了一个关于现实规则、高效规则和正义规则之间相似性的初步解释。然而,对于前两者之间的关系,以及前两者中任一个之于第三者的关系来说,这一解释本身的地位,不同于被解释的事实的地位。 What rules exist can be observed and what rules are efficient can be deduced, at least in principle, from observed technologies and economic theory. Thus the claim that there is some correspondence between what exists and what is efficient is a positive rather than a normative claim. 什么规则实际存在,这能被观察到,而什么规则是高效的,则能(至少在原则上)从所观察到的技术和经济理论中推导得出。所以“实然”和“高效”两者有某种关系,这一断言是实证的而不是规范的。 What ought to be, on the other hand, is, at least in this essay, simply a description of my moral intuitions. If I conclude that the rules that would be just are similar to both the rules that exist and the rules that would be efficient, that may simply be evidence that my moral judgments are ex post rationalizations of the world I live in or the conclusions of my economic analysis. 另一方面,“应然”(至少在此文中)仅仅是对于我道德直觉的描述。如果我得出,正义规则和现实规则及高效规则这三者是相似的,这也许只说明我的道德判断不过是我对所生活世界的事后(ex post)合理化,或者只是我的经济分析的结论。 One further similarity between the ethics and the social order that I have been discussing is worth mentioning. Both are essentially decentralized. The ethical position makes no attempt to evaluate individuals from above—in terms of their worth in the eyes of God. It consists rather of a description of what obligations each individual has to each other individual. The social order, to the extent that it is evolved rather than legislated, is a set of rules that exist because it was in the interest of pairs of individuals to abide by them, not because they promote the general good of society. 我正讨论的伦理和社会秩序之间的另一个相似点也值得提及。二者本质上都是去中心化的。伦理立场并不试图去从上至下考量个体——以他们在上帝眼中的价值作为考量。不如说,它是一个对于每个人对他人所负义务的描述。而社会秩序,就其是演化来的而不是通过立法实现的而言,就是一套规则,其存在是因为遵循它们对一对对个体有利,而不是因为它们会提高社会总体福利。 IV: Conclusions 第四部分:结论 The central project of this essay has been to give an account of rights, especially property rights, that is both amoral and alegal—an account that would explain the sort of behavior we associate with rights even in a world lacking law, law enforcement, and feelings of moral obligation. 此文的中心目标,是提供一种关于权利,特别是关于财产权的非道德、非法律的解释——此种解释将能够说明我们那种与权利相伴随的行为,这种行为甚至存在于缺乏法律、执法机构和道德义务感的世界中。 I have tried first to explain how, with no legal system to enforce contracts, it might still be possible to contract out of a Hobbesian state of nature, and then to show how the same analysis can be used to understand in what sense a civil order, such as our own society, is different from a Hobbesian state of nature. 我首先试图解释,在没有法律系统强制执行契约的情况下,如何能够通过建立契约脱离霍布斯自然状态;其次说明了同一种分析如何能够用于理解(像我们社会这种)文明秩序和霍布斯自然状态有什么不同。 Having offered answers to those questions, I then tried to show how we might get from the state of nature to something like the present society, and to use the analysis to partially explain the puzzling similarity between actual rules, just rules, and efficient rules. 回答了这些问题之后,我接下来试图说明我们如何从自然状态到达类似现今社会的状态;继而用这种分析部分地解释了现实规则,正义规则和高效规则之间令人困惑的相似性。 If my analysis is correct, civil order is an elaborate Schelling point, maintained by the same forces that maintain simpler Schelling points in a state of nature. Property ownership is alterable by contract because Schelling points are altered by the making of contracts. Legal rules are in large part a superstructure erected upon an underlying structure of self-enforcing rights. 如果我的分析正确,文明秩序就是一个精巧的谢林点,被在自然状态中维持更为简单谢林点的同一种力量所维持。财产所有权能够通过契约改变,是因为建立契约的行为改变了谢林点。法律规则在很大程度上是一个上层结构(superstructure),建立在底层自我执行的权利结构之上。 (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——

[译文]科学万岁!

All Hail Science!
科学万岁!

作者:Jonah Goldberg @ 2015-2-14
译者:普罗米修斯(@普箩米修思),校对:Marcel ZHANG(@马赫塞勒张)
来源:National Review,http://www.nationalreview.com/article/398591/all-hail-science-jonah-goldberg

Memo to progressives: Unlike God, science doesn’t care if you believe in it.
进步主义者请记住:与上帝不同,科学并不在乎你是否信仰它。

Dear Reader (Unless you’re at the screening of Al-Qaeda Sniper),

亲爱的读者(除非你恰好在看《基地组织的狙击手》(Al-Qaeda Sniper)这部电影),
译注:实际上不存在这部电影,那是一个叫“非裔美国人保守派”的博客虚构的,其副标题是“一个变性圣战者为使用‘无性别卫生间’的权利而抗争的故事”,显然是用来嘲讽目前在美国风起云涌的左翼平权运动的。

All of us are equal in the eyes of God and the law — or at least that’s how it’s supposed to work. (Though the fact that Jon Corzine has neither been hit by lightning nor carted off to jail sometimes causes me moments of doubt on both fronts.)

无论在法律还是上帝面前,我们都是平等的——至少本该是这样。(尽管Jon Corzine既没遭雷劈也没被扔进监狱这一事实,让我时常对此感到疑惑)。

I try pay lip-service to the same principle about readers of this “news”letter, but let’s face it. That’s not true. Nearly all G-File readers are cherished, but not all are cherished equal.

我本想以此搪塞这封“新闻信”的读者:人人平等这项原则也适用于你们。不过我们还是直面现实吧,那并不是真的。我对几乎所有G-File的读者都很重视,但并非同等的重视。

(And, in a year or two when my next book comes out, the great schism in my heart will be between those of you who eagerly purchase my book, and you shameful free riders who, for years, were perfectly happy for me to throw you the gold Aztec idol week after week, but now refuse to throw me the whip as promised, saying “Adios, Señor.” This is the quid people, my next book will be the pro quo. If you assume each Goldberg File I’ve written is worth a quarter, you should probably convert it into zombie-apocalypse currency and assume it’s equal in value to a can of dog food, six dead D batteries, or a fully operational calk gun. But the price is what the market will bear, and even at that valuation, it would more than cover the price of my forthcoming magnum opus for any longtime reader. You have been put on notice.)

(并且,等一两年后我的新书出版时,我内心会在两类人之间撕扯:一类是那些迫不及待想要买书的读者,另一类则是那些可耻的搭便车者,多年来,他们满心欢喜地盼着我一周周地把阿兹特克金像(the gold Aztec idol)扔给他们,却不愿如之前说好的那样把鞭子给我扔过来,临走时只留下一句“再见,先生。”(“Adios, Señor.”西班牙语)。我的下一本书需要你用东西来交换的。如果你觉得我写的每一本G-File值得上一毛钱,或许你应该按僵尸界的汇率把它兑换成一罐狗粮、六个D号废旧电池或者一把铆钉枪。当然,书的价格应当是市场可以承受的,并且,对于我的长期读者,我即将出版的煌煌巨著应该是对得起它的标价的。我可是通知你们了哦。)【译注:这里有关阿兹特克金像和鞭子的哏出自电影《夺宝奇兵》。

I bring this up because Charles Krauthammer is a reader of this “news”letter which, like seeing a spider monkey in your brand new kitchen making crème brûlée with a blowtorch, is both cool and scary. Why it’s cool should be obvious. He’s the Hammer. It’s scary because . . . he’s the Hammer.

我提这茬,是因为得知查尔斯·克劳萨默(Charles Krauthammer)也是这封“新闻信”的读者,这就像看见一只蜘蛛猴在你的崭新厨房里用喷灯做焦糖布丁,让人不知道该觉得有趣还是害怕。说他有趣的原因很明显,他是“锤子”,说他让人害怕是因为……他可是铁锤查理啊。【译注:注意Krauthammer中的hammer,意为锤子,铁锤查理(Charles Martel)则为查理大帝的祖父,法兰克王国实际掌权者,加洛林王朝奠基者,以武功著称的军事天才。

I try very hard not to put a face to my readers because, frankly, this thing is sometimes so stupid and self-indulgent if I imagined a real person reading it, I’d push the keyboard away. It’s best if I write this thing like a message in a bottle going to no one.

我竭力在读者面前展示真实自我,因为装模作样会让我会显得任性而愚蠢,每当想到有人读到虚伪的自己,我就忍不住想要摔键盘。我最好是把这些话塞进漂流瓶,随浪漂走。最可能让我怯场的,就是想象查尔斯·克劳萨默是打开漂流瓶的那个人。

And the last thing I need for my performance anxiety is to imagine Charles Krauthammer is the guy unspooling my missive from that bottle. The only thing worse would be to imagine George Will standing behind Charles looking over his shoulder and tsk-tsking all of my split infinitives. And yet, to my dismay, Will, too, has told me he on occasio(more...)

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All Hail Science! 科学万岁! 作者:Jonah Goldberg @ 2015-2-14 译者:普罗米修斯(@普箩米修思),校对:Marcel ZHANG(@马赫塞勒张) 来源:National Review,http://www.nationalreview.com/article/398591/all-hail-science-jonah-goldberg Memo to progressives: Unlike God, science doesn’t care if you believe in it. 进步主义者请记住:与上帝不同,科学并不在乎你是否信仰它。 Dear Reader (Unless you’re at the screening of Al-Qaeda Sniper), 亲爱的读者(除非你恰好在看《基地组织的狙击手》(Al-Qaeda Sniper)这部电影), 【译注:实际上不存在这部电影,那是一个叫“非裔美国人保守派”的博客虚构的,其副标题是“一个变性圣战者为使用‘无性别卫生间’的权利而抗争的故事”,显然是用来嘲讽目前在美国风起云涌的左翼平权运动的。】 All of us are equal in the eyes of God and the law — or at least that’s how it’s supposed to work. (Though the fact that Jon Corzine has neither been hit by lightning nor carted off to jail sometimes causes me moments of doubt on both fronts.) 无论在法律还是上帝面前,我们都是平等的——至少本该是这样。(尽管Jon Corzine既没遭雷劈也没被扔进监狱这一事实,让我时常对此感到疑惑)。 I try pay lip-service to the same principle about readers of this “news”letter, but let’s face it. That’s not true. Nearly all G-File readers are cherished, but not all are cherished equal. 我本想以此搪塞这封“新闻信”的读者:人人平等这项原则也适用于你们。不过我们还是直面现实吧,那并不是真的。我对几乎所有G-File的读者都很重视,但并非同等的重视。 (And, in a year or two when my next book comes out, the great schism in my heart will be between those of you who eagerly purchase my book, and you shameful free riders who, for years, were perfectly happy for me to throw you the gold Aztec idol week after week, but now refuse to throw me the whip as promised, saying “Adios, Señor.” This is the quid people, my next book will be the pro quo. If you assume each Goldberg File I’ve written is worth a quarter, you should probably convert it into zombie-apocalypse currency and assume it’s equal in value to a can of dog food, six dead D batteries, or a fully operational calk gun. But the price is what the market will bear, and even at that valuation, it would more than cover the price of my forthcoming magnum opus for any longtime reader. You have been put on notice.) (并且,等一两年后我的新书出版时,我内心会在两类人之间撕扯:一类是那些迫不及待想要买书的读者,另一类则是那些可耻的搭便车者,多年来,他们满心欢喜地盼着我一周周地把阿兹特克金像(the gold Aztec idol)扔给他们,却不愿如之前说好的那样把鞭子给我扔过来,临走时只留下一句“再见,先生。”(“Adios, Señor.”西班牙语)。我的下一本书需要你用东西来交换的。如果你觉得我写的每一本G-File值得上一毛钱,或许你应该按僵尸界的汇率把它兑换成一罐狗粮、六个D号废旧电池或者一把铆钉枪。当然,书的价格应当是市场可以承受的,并且,对于我的长期读者,我即将出版的煌煌巨著应该是对得起它的标价的。我可是通知你们了哦。)【译注:这里有关阿兹特克金像和鞭子的哏出自电影《夺宝奇兵》。】 I bring this up because Charles Krauthammer is a reader of this “news”letter which, like seeing a spider monkey in your brand new kitchen making crème brûlée with a blowtorch, is both cool and scary. Why it’s cool should be obvious. He’s the Hammer. It’s scary because . . . he’s the Hammer. 我提这茬,是因为得知查尔斯·克劳萨默(Charles Krauthammer)也是这封“新闻信”的读者,这就像看见一只蜘蛛猴在你的崭新厨房里用喷灯做焦糖布丁,让人不知道该觉得有趣还是害怕。说他有趣的原因很明显,他是“锤子”,说他让人害怕是因为......他可是铁锤查理啊。【译注:注意Krauthammer中的hammer,意为锤子,铁锤查理(Charles Martel)则为查理大帝的祖父,法兰克王国实际掌权者,加洛林王朝奠基者,以武功著称的军事天才。】 I try very hard not to put a face to my readers because, frankly, this thing is sometimes so stupid and self-indulgent if I imagined a real person reading it, I’d push the keyboard away. It’s best if I write this thing like a message in a bottle going to no one. 我竭力在读者面前展示真实自我,因为装模作样会让我会显得任性而愚蠢,每当想到有人读到虚伪的自己,我就忍不住想要摔键盘。我最好是把这些话塞进漂流瓶,随浪漂走。最可能让我怯场的,就是想象查尔斯·克劳萨默是打开漂流瓶的那个人。 And the last thing I need for my performance anxiety is to imagine Charles Krauthammer is the guy unspooling my missive from that bottle. The only thing worse would be to imagine George Will standing behind Charles looking over his shoulder and tsk-tsking all of my split infinitives. And yet, to my dismay, Will, too, has told me he on occasion comes by here. I feel like Martin Short in a synchronized-swimming routine. 唯一比这更糟的事,就是想象乔治·威尔(George Will)也站在查尔斯身后,目光越过他肩膀落在信上,看到文中的分裂不定式,不住地摇头。并且,同样令我沮丧的是威尔告诉我,他只是恰巧经过这里而已。我的感觉就像是马丁·肖特(Martin Short)在花样游泳。【译注:指马丁·肖特在周六夜现场节目中拍的一个搞怪视频短片。FERNAL LINGUISTICS 良魔语言学 Anyway, Charles is a big fan of “unpaired words.” I don’t mean words with the Bluetooth turned off. I mean . . . hmmm . . . how do I explain? 总之,查尔斯是个“不成对单词(unpaired words)”爱好者,“不成对单词”并不是指你的设备在蓝牙没有配对时发出的提示,它指的是……额……我该怎么解释呢?【译注:在英语中,有些词汇是它的否定形式曾经同时存在,比如“innocent”和“nocent”。随着人们词汇使用习惯的改变,这些单词只有其否定形式被保留下来,肯定形式则很少再被使用,下文中作者大玩文字游戏,将出现很多由这种“不成对单词”拼凑的句子。】 Well, many times, during the commercial break on Special Report, we’ve gone back and forth — brandy snifters in hand — talking about how we need a president with more feck running an ept and gormful foreign policy. 好吧,在“特别报道”(Special Report)的广告时间,我们常常举着白兰地酒杯来回踱着步,谈论着我们需要一位“强势”(feck : feckless)总统来执行“精妙”(ept : inept)、“高明”(gormful : gormless)的外交政策。 These conversations usually take place after the make-up lady comes into the studio to make sure that we look kempt and shevelled. Well, last Wednesday, the topic came up again, and we kept bandying them about. Which made me think, “This is pretty cool.” It also made me think, “This would be a good riff for the G-File.” 此时,化妆助理通常会来到直播间确保我们看起来“干净”(kempt : unkempt)、“整洁”(shevelled : dishevelled)。就在上周三,我们又一次聊到了这个话题,并为此争吵不休。这让我感觉很有趣,同时也想,或许可以成为我写G-File的好题材。 Still, I’m hoping that he isn’t gruntled by this somewhat nocuous and entirely effable effort to rip off one of his favorite parlor games. Indeed, I could have dropped this choate schtick without name-dropping Charles, which might have made it seem less petuous, but why leave my motivation unbeknownst when it can be beknownst? 尽管如此,我希望他不要因为我们尝试对他最喜爱的室内游戏之一进行有点“恶意”(nocuous : innocuous)且“直白”(effable : ineffable)的剽窃而“高兴”(gruntled : disgruntled)。事实上,当我展示这些“低级”(choate : inchoate)把戏时,提起查尔斯的大名不过是为了借此抬高自己。这么说或许不够“谨慎”(petuous : impetuous),但是如果可以“公开”(beknownst : unbeknownst)我的意图时,又何必要“隐瞒”(unbeknownst)呢? Better to go communicado and cognito, I say. Particularly when I’m still throat clearing as I try to scrounge up a real topic to discuss. Still, I fear I seem quite chalant as I search for sipid things to say. If I don’t work harder, this “news”letter will never be combobulated. (“I don’t want to disrupt your flow here, so I’ll rupt it. But you should know this all comes across as soucient and below even your pareil writing style. I would have thrown this whole thing out the window, but you opted to fenestrate it.” — The Couch) 我想,“开诚布公”(communicado and cognito : incommunicado and incognito)总是好的。特别是在我找到一个真正的话题之前,需要用这个来拖延下时间。并且,在我急于寻找“有趣的”(sipid : insipid)话题时,会担心自己显得“紧张不安”(chalant : nonchalant)。如果我不更加努力工作,读者是不会对这封“新闻信”感到“满意”(combobulated : discombobulated)的。(沙发发话了:我不想在这里“打断”(disrupt)你们,所以我就“继续”(rupt : disrupt)了。但是你应当清楚,所有这一切都是被“精心”(soucient : insouciant)组合起来的而且甚至比不上你们“匹配”(pareil : nonpareil)写作的水平。我本该把所有写的这些都扔到窗外去的,但是这可是你们选择看下去的。) All Hail Science 科学万岁 So my column from yesterday was about the quizzing of Scott Walker and other Republicans about evolution. This is an incessant question every four years. And while it deserves to be cessant, it will never will be. (Okay, I’m done now.) 我昨天的专栏探讨了对Scott Walker和其他共和党人如何看待有关进化论的盘问,这个问题每隔四年就会被提出来,从未中断。这个问题本该“停止”(cessant : incessant)了,却永远停不下来。(好了,文字游戏到此为止。【译按:我的噩梦也终于结束了】) As many have noted, liberals in and out of the media are very selective in their celebration of science. Guy Benson reminded me of this nicely splenetic post I wrote three years ago in the Corner: 很多人也注意到了,在与媒体打交道时,自由派对科学的赞颂是有选择性的。Guy Benson让我想起自己三年前在专栏里写下的这段怒气冲冲的文字:
Why does the Left get to pick which issues are the benchmarks for “science”? Why can’t the measure of being pro-science be the question of heritability of intelligence? Or the existence of fetal pain? Or the distribution of cognitive abilities among the sexes at the extreme right tail of the bell curve? 凭什么自由派有权来决定哪个问题是“科学”的测试基准?用智力可遗传性问题作为是否支持科学的标准不行吗?或者是否存在胎儿疼痛?或者两性认知能力在正态曲线远右端的分布情况? Or if that’s too upsetting, how about dividing the line between those who are pro- and anti-science along the lines of support for geoengineering? Or — coming soon — the role cosmic rays play in cloud formation? Why not make it about support for nuclear power? Or YuccaMountain? Why not deride the idiots who oppose genetically modified crops, even when they might prevent blindness in children? 或者,如果这些问题过于让人心烦,那么把是否支持地质工程作为支持科学与否的分界线如何?或者,宇宙射线在云的形成中的作用?是否支持核电可以吗?或者雅卡山(Yucca Mountain)?【译注:雅卡山位于内华达州,用来堆放核废料。】为什么不嘲讽下反对转基因作物的白痴呢,即使转基因作物(黄金大米)可以防止儿童失明? Some of these examples are controversial, others tendentious, but all are just as fair as the way the Left framed embryonic stem-cell research and all are more relevant than questions about evolution. (Quick: If Obama changed his mind about evolution tomorrow and became a creationist, what policies would change? I’ll wait.) 上述这些例子都是有争议或者倾向性的,左派支持的干细胞研究也是如此,而且跟进化论比起来,这些问题与实际生活关系密切。(打断下:如果明天奥巴马改变对进化论的态度而变成一个神创论者,哪些政策会变化呢?我得等等看才知道。) The point is that the Left considers itself the undisputed champion of “science,” but there are scads of issues where they take un-scientific points of view. 问题在于,左派一直自诩为“科学”斗士,但是在很多问题上,他们的持有的观点并不科学。 Sure they can cite dissident scientists — just as conservatives can — on this or that issue. But everyone knows that when the science directly threatens the Left’s pieties, it’s the science that must bend — or break. During the Larry Summers fiasco at Harvard, comments delivered in the classic spirit of open inquiry and debate cost Summers his job. Actual scientists got the vapors because he violated the principles not of science but of liberalism. 他们当然可以引用非主流科学家的意见为某个议题辩护,保守派也可以这么做。但是大家都懂的,每当科学直接威胁到左派的信条时,让步的却总是科学。劳伦斯·萨默斯(Larry Summers)在哈佛时,曾因敢于大胆地公开质询和辩论而丢了工作。真正的科学家因为违反了自由派的信条而非科学原则而被驱逐。 During the Gulf oil spill, the Obama administration dishonestly claimed that its independent experts supported a drilling moratorium. They emphatically did not. The president who campaigned on basing his policies on “sound science” ignored his own hand-picked experts. 在墨西哥湾漏油事件(the Gulf oil spill)中,奥巴马当局谎称其独立专家支持钻探禁令,但确凿无疑,这些专家并未这么说。虽然总统先生一直宣称自己的政策有坚实的科学基础,但他对身边的专家却置若罔闻。 According to the GAO, he did something very similar when he shut down Yucca Mountain. His support for wind and solar energy, as you suggest, isn’t based on science but on faith. And that faith has failed him dramatically. 根据美国政府问责局(GAO)的消息,类似的情况还有奥巴马关停了雅卡山一事。可以看出,他对风能和太阳能的大力扶植同样基于政治信条而非科学而这一信条让他一败涂地。 The idea that conservatives are anti-science is self-evident and self-pleasing liberal hogwash. I see no reason why conservatives should even argue the issue on their terms when it’s so clearly offered in bad faith in the first place. 认为保守主义者反科学的观点,毫无疑问是自由派们自我陶醉的一派胡言。我不明白保守派为什么非要在任期内就此问题与其争论,很明显这压根就是血口喷人嘛。
Recently, others have made this point better than I have, but as the Marines say of their rifles, this “news”letter is mine. 最近也有其他人提出了类似的观点,而且表达得比我更好,但是——就像海军陆战队对自己的步枪敝帚自珍一样——这封“新闻信”毕竟是我自己的嘛。 Anyway, what I find really intriguing is the way people talk about “science” as if it is so much more — and occasionally less — than it is. Critics on Twitter and in my e-mail box say we need to know if Scott Walker “believes in science,” as if his answer on evolution will tell us if he’s a witch burner or not. 总之,我发现人们对科学的看法很有意思,他们似乎总是给科学赋予比事实上更多(有时候是更少)的含义,推特上和我邮箱中的一些批评意见,认为我们需要搞清楚斯科特·沃克是否真的“信仰科学”,似乎他的答案可以告诉我们他是否支持烧死女巫。 Well, I regularly get e-mail from creationists. E-mail. In other words, thanks to scientists, the words of creationists are transported through the sky into my phone or computer. And, while I haven’t checked, I’m pretty sure they don’t believe that their e-mail was carried to me on the backs of pixies. 我经常收到一些神创论者发来的电邮。是电子邮件哦。换句话说,幸亏有了科学家,这些神创论者的信息才得以穿越天空传到我的手机或者电脑中。尽管并未验证,但我很确定他们应当不会认为电邮是通过小精灵传给我的。 I’m also pretty sure that the vast majority of creationists drive cars, take antibiotics, watch TV, and eat foods with preservatives in them. For liberals, perhaps this is proof of some kind of hypocrisy or cognitive dissonance. And maybe it is, though I don’t see it. But it’s also a demonstration that having your faith — or your superstitions — bump into one of the farther borders of scientific knowledge doesn’t require one to reject all of science. 我也非常确信绝大多数神创论者开车、吃抗生素、看电视、食用含防腐剂的食品。自由派或许可以从中看出虚伪和认知失调的意味。也许是吧,但我没看出来。但对我来说,这一现象表明,你的信仰或迷信越出了科学知识的边界,并这不意味着你要摒弃科学这个整体。 It’s not a binary thing. Belief in something unconfirmed or even disproved by science is not a rejection of all science. Just as a refusal to believe unicorns are real doesn’t mean I have to reject the existence of the Loch Ness Monster, Bigfoot, Kate Upton, or other allegedly mythical creatures. 这并不是非此即彼的。对未经科学验证、甚至被科学所证伪的事物的信仰,并非是对科学整体的拒绝。仅仅不承认独角兽存在,并不意味着一个人会否认尼斯湖水怪、大脚怪、凯特·阿普顿(Kate Upton),或者其他传说中的神秘造物存在。 That’s part of the irony. The way the science-lovers talk about science, you’d think science was a kind of magic that requires total faith and conviction. If you don’t believe with all of your heart in “science,” it will stop working. It’s like the scientific enterprise is akin to Santa’s sleigh in the movie Elf (a great film, and not just because it inspired my daughter to answer the phone “Buddy the Elf, what’s your favorite color?”). 这真是讽刺啊,一些科学狂热分子眼中的科学让人感觉像是某种魔法,需要完全的信仰和信念。如果你不是全身心地信仰“科学”,它就不再起作用。这样的话,科技企业倒是跟电影《圣诞精灵》中圣诞老人的雪橇有些类似。(《圣诞精灵》是一部不错的电影,我这么认为,不仅仅是因为我女儿受到电影的影响,在接电话的时候会说“我是精灵巴迪,你最喜欢什么颜色?”)。 In Elf, Santa’s sleigh no longer relies on flying reindeer. Instead it converts“Christmas cheer” into jet power. That’s how some of these people talk about believing in science. If we don’t project our positive emotions towards it, it won’t take off. 在《圣诞精灵》中,圣诞老人的雪橇不是由会飞的驯鹿来牵引的,而是把“圣诞欢呼”转化成飞行动力。这和某些人口中的科学是一样的,如果我们不把正能量投射到圣诞雪橇上,它就不会起飞。 I am typing this on a plane from Detroit, Michigan — on Friday the 13th, no less. What happens if I suddenly stop saying in a hopeful whisper “I believe in you, science!” or if I take a deist bent and hold out the possibility that there’s something more than the material world out there? Will my plane suddenly plummet? Will gremlins slowly emerge from behind the seat in front of me, like Miley Cyrus climbing over a toilet-stall door? 今天是黑色星期五,我正在一架从密歇根州底特律市起飞的一架飞机上写这篇文章。现在,如果我不再满怀希望的嘀咕着“我信仰你,科学!”,或者开始相信自然神论的观点,认为很有可能在已知物质世界之外,还有其他存在,那么我的飞机会不会突然一头栽下去呢?会不会有一只小魔怪(gremlins,喜欢恶作剧)在我前面的椅背上浮现呢,就跟麦莉·赛勒斯从厕所隔间的门上爬过似的? Look, science, unlike God, really doesn’t care if you believe in it. And casting doubt on one part of it doesn’t break the spell. That’s the whole point of science; it’s not magic. 所以你看,科学跟上帝不同,根本不在乎你是否信仰它,对它某一个方面有质疑,并不会打破魔咒,这才是科学的真相,它不是魔法。【译注:《打破魔咒》也是哲学家丹尼尔·丹内特2006年的一部作品,副标题是“作为一种自然现象的宗教”,认为宗教信仰是一种曾经有用的虚假信念,可以帮助人们做到一些不然就做不到的事情,但在科学高度发展的今天,已经成为理性进步的障碍,是该打破它们的时候了。丹内特也是长期活跃在论战前线的无神论四骑士之一。】 Democrats are more likely to believe in paranormal activity. They’re also more likely to believe in reincarnation and astrology. I have personally known liberals who think crystals have healing powers who nonetheless believe that the internal combustion engine doesn’t actually rely on magical horse power. 民主党人更有可能相信超自然现象,他们也更有可能相信轮回和占星术。我私下认识一些自由派,他们相信水晶有治愈的功能,尽管如此,他们从不认为内燃机是依靠魔法的马力来运转的。 HELP ME, SCIENCE, YOU’RE MY ONLY HOPE 帮帮我吧,科学,你是我唯一的希望 But you wouldn’t necessarily know that from listening to these people freak out about it. (Sorry, this “news”letter will be light in links because there’s no internet on this plane. Fun fact: If you shout “There’s no Internet on this plane!” in a really loud, terror-filled, voice — as if the plane runs on Internet — your fellow passengers freak out. Try it some time. If it doesn’t work the first time, say it over and over. Eventually you’ll get a lot of attention.) 但是,你从受到惊吓的人口中未必能听到这句话。(实在抱歉,这封“新闻信”链接很少,这是因为飞机上没有因特网。说件趣事:假如你在飞机上用一种惊恐的语气大声喊:“这架飞机上居然没有互联网!”——就好像这架飞机是靠互联网飞行的——这会吓坏你周围的旅客。如果第一次不成功也没关系,再大声点多喊几次,最终大家都会注意到你的。) When I hear people talk about science as if it’s something to “believe in,” particularly people who reject all sorts of science-y things (vaccines, nuclear power, etc. as discussed above), I immediately think of one of my favorite lines from Eric Voegelin: “When God is invisible behind the world, the contents of the world will become new gods; when the symbols of transcendent religiosity are banned, new symbols develop from the inner-worldly language of science to take their place.” This will be true, he added, even when “the new apocalyptics insist that the symbols they create are scientific.” 很多人一谈起“科学”,就好像它应该是某种“信仰”,特别是那些拒绝所有听起来像科学的事物(维生素、核能等等)的人。每当听到这些,我就会想起埃里克·沃格林说过的,也是我最喜欢的一句名言:“当上帝从世界逐渐隐去,新的神灵又将崛起,当超验的宗教符号遭到禁止,科学的世俗语言将会取而代之”。这是事实,他补充道,“届时,新的先知把他们新创造的符号称作“科学”。 In other words, the “Don’t you believe in evolution!?!” people don’t really believe in science qua science, what they’re really after is dethroning God in favor of their own gods of the material world (though I suspect many don’t even realize why they’re so obsessed with this one facet of the disco ball called “science”). “Criticism of religion is the prerequisite of all criticisms,” quoth Karl Marx, who then proceeded to create his own secular religion. 换句话说,说“你居然不相信进化论?!”的人们,其实并不相信所谓的科学,他们的真实目的,是把原来的上帝赶下神坛,让位于他们在物质世界的新神(然而我怀疑他们并不清楚,为什么迪斯科球上让他们如此着迷的一个小侧面,会被称作“科学”)。“对宗教的批判是一切批判的前提”,卡尔·马克思如是说,但他转身创建了自己的世俗宗教。 This is nothing new of course. This tendency is one of the reasons why every time Moses turned his back on the Hebrews they started worshipping golden calves and whatnot. 当然,这种现象并不新奇。同时也解释了为何每次摩西一离开希伯来人,他们就开始崇拜诸如金牛犊之类的东西。 At least Auguste Comte, the French philosopher who coined the phrase “sociology,” was open about what he was really up to when he created his “Religion of Humanity,” in which scientists, statesmen, and engineers were elevated to Saints. As I say in my column, the fight over evolution is really a fight over the moral status of man. 与他们相比,奥古斯特·孔德至少是个敢想敢做的人,这位法国哲学家,“社会学”的创始人,创立了他的“人道教”,在那里,科学家、政治家和工程师是被当作圣人而崇拜的。正如我曾在我专栏中说过的,围绕进化论的论战其实是对人类当前道德状态的争论。 And, if we are nothing but a few bucks worth of chemicals connected by water and electricity, than there’s really nothing holding us back from elevating “science” to divine status and in turn anointing those who claim to be its champions as our priests. It’s no coincidence that Herbert Croly was literally — not figuratively, the way Joe Biden means literally — baptized into Comte’s Religion of Humanity 如果我们不过是一些通过水和电连接在一起的化学物质,那还有什么可以阻止我们把“科学”供上神坛,并为那些所谓科学斗士行涂油礼令、让他们做我们的神父呢。难怪赫伯特·克劳利会(货真价实地,不是象征性地,此处“货真价实”一词不是按乔·拜登那种用法)皈依孔德的人道教。【译注:乔·拜登曾在演讲中多次错误地使用“literally”一词,一度成为笑柄 】 Personally, I think the effort to overthrow Darwin along with Marx and Freud is misguided. I have friends invested in that project and I agree that all sorts of terrible Malthusian and materialist crap is bound up in Darwinism. But that’s an argument for ranking out the manure, not burning down the stable. 我个人认为,试图将达尔文和马克思与弗洛伊德绑在一起打倒是不对的。我有朋友正在这么做,并且我也同意,马尔萨斯主义者和唯物主义者的废话确实和达尔文主义的颇有渊源。但是,如果只是想清理掉马粪,何必把整个马厩也烧了呢? IN MEMORIAM 悼念 My brother Josh passed away four years ago this month. If I couldn’t get a G-File done this morning, I was going to recycle the one I wrote not long after his funeral. An excerpt: 我哥哥乔什是在四年前的这个月去世的。如果今早没写完G-File的话,本来打算把我在他葬礼后不久写的悼词重复利用的,以下是摘要: My brother died last week. He had an accident. He fell down some stairs. He surely had too much to drink when it happened. It’s all such an awful waste. You can read how I felt — how I feel — about my brother here. 家兄在上周辞世,那是场意外,他从楼梯上摔了下来,当时肯定喝了不少酒。这实在是有点浪费。点击这里的链接,你可以看到我曾经和现在对他去世的感受。 But, you know, this is uncharted territory for me. And while I have little to no morbid desire to wallow indefinitely in a public display of grieving, the G-File has always been a dispatch from the frontlines of my mind, a quasi-personal letter to the collective You. Some might even call it the mad scribbling in the virtual ink of diluted fecal matter on my imaginary jail-cell wall. 但是,你们也知道,这种情景对我非常陌生。而且我也实在不想在公开场合表现出一副沉浸在悲痛中无法自拔的样子。G-File一直占据着我的思维,它就像写给你们的一封私人信。也有人甚至说,这是我在自己想象的监牢中,把稀释粪便当作墨水进行的疯狂涂鸦。 And, as you can imagine, there are few things more on my mind than this choking fog of awfulness. 但是,如你们所想,现在占据我思维的,除了这难堪呛人的烟雾之外,又多了一些事情。 I’m told by a friend that there’s a new book out, The Truth about Grief by Ruth Davis Konigsberg, that apparently demonstrates how Elisabeth Kubler-Ross made up all that stuff about the “five stages of grief.” 一位朋友曾经对我说,最近出了本新书,是鲁思·戴维斯·柯尼斯堡写的《悲伤的真相》。这本书显然在试图说明伊丽莎白·库伯勒-罗斯是如何编造出“悲伤的五个阶段”这种破玩意儿的。 I have no plans to read it. But I’m fully prepared to believe that any hard-and-fast five-point definition of grief is bogus. Admittedly, my data sample set is pretty small but hugely significant; in the last six years I’ve lost my father and my brother out of a family of four people. And, already, it’s clear to me that the geography of grief cannot be so easily mapped. 我没想去读这本书,但是我认为所有对悲伤的严格的五点定义都是扯淡。说实话,我的统计样本相当小,但是结果非常显著:我们原本的四口之家,在过去的六年里,先后失去了父亲和兄弟。并且,我非常清楚悲伤的地图是很难被轻易描绘出来的。 Obviously there are going to be similarities to the terrain. But just as there are different kinds of happiness — say, winning the lottery versus having a kid, or beating cancer versus seeing Keith Olbermann booted off of MSNBC — there are different kinds of sadness, too. And how they play out depends on the context. 显然,不同人的悲伤“地形”或许有些许相似,但是正如幸福有许多种一样(比如,彩票中奖与喜得贵子、战胜癌症或基思·奥伯曼被MSNBC辞退一事),悲伤也有好多种。他们最终怎样消散取决于当时的具体情境。 In terms of my own internal response, the most glaring continuity between my dad’s death and my brother’s is loneliness. Don’t get me wrong. I’ve got lots of company. I have lots of people who care for me more than I realized. I’m richer in friends and family than I could ever possibly expect or deserve. 至于我个人的感受,父亲和兄弟的相继去世留给我的是无尽的孤独。请不要误会,我有很多人陪伴,我自己都没有意识到会有这么多人关心着自己。我所得到的友情和亲情已经远超自己的预期。 But there’s a kind of loneliness that comes with death that cannot be compensated for. Tolstoy’s famous line in Anna Karenina was half right. All unhappy families are unhappy in their own way, but so are all happy ones. At least insofar as all families are ultimately unique. 但是有一种孤独与死亡相伴而来,无法慰藉。托尔斯泰在《安娜·卡列妮娜》中的一句名言说对了一半,不幸的家庭各有各的不幸,幸福的家庭也是如此。至少每个家庭都是独特的。 Unique is a misunderstood word. Pedants like to say there’s no such thing as “very unique.” I don’t think that’s true. For instance, we say that each snowflake is unique. That’s true. No two snowflakes are alike. But that doesn’t mean that pretty much all snowflakes aren’t very similar. But, imagine if you found a snowflake that was ten feet in diameter and hot to the touch, I think it’d be fair to say it was very unique. Meanwhile, each normal snowflake has its own contours, its own one-in-a-billion-trillion characteristics, that will never be found again. 独特这个词被误解了,学究们经常说:没有真正“独一无二”的事物。我并不这么认为。比如,我们常说每一片雪花都是独特的,这是真的,没有两片完全一样的雪花。但是这并不意味着所有的雪花都不相似。假设你找到一片直径十英尺、摸起来烫手的雪花,我想说它很独特应该没问题吧。同时,每一片普通的雪花都有只属于它自己的轮廓,只属于它自己的万中无一的特征,在其它雪花上永远找不到的特征。 Families are similarly unique. Each has its own cultural contours and configurations. The uniqueness might be hard to discern from the outside and it certainly might seem trivial to the casual observer. Just as one platoon of Marines might look like another to a civilian or one business might seem indistinguishable from the one next door. But, we all know the reality is different. Every meaningful institution has a culture all its own. Every family has its inside jokes, its peculiar way of doing things, its habits and mores developed around a specific shared experience. 家庭和雪花一样有类似的独特性,每个家庭有它自己的文化形态和内涵。其独特性从外部难得一窥,况且外人也不会真正在意。正如对平民来说,一队海军陆战队员看起来都差不多,一间商铺和隔壁的也很难区分。但是我们都清楚,事实上是不同的。每一个实体机构都有其独特的文化。每个家庭都有它自己的内部笑话,它做事的原则,它基于自己某种共同经历的习惯和习俗。 One of the things that keeps slugging me in the face is the fact that the cultural memory of our little family has been dealt a terrible blow. Sure, my mom’s around, but sons have a different memory of family life than parents. And Josh’s recall for such things was always not only better than mine, but different than mine as well. I remembered things he’d forgotten and vice versa. In what seems like the blink of an eye, whole volumes of institutional memory have simply vanished. And that is a terribly lonely thought, that no amount of company and condolence can ease or erase. 我们这个小家庭的文化正在经历严重的打击,这让我心如刀割。当然了,母亲还在身边,但是子女跟父母对于家庭的记忆并不完全相同。而乔什对这些事情的回忆比我更清晰,并与我有所不同。我记得一些他已忘记的事情,反之亦然。仿佛眨眼之间,一些独有的记忆就这么消失了。每念及此,心中倍感孤独,即使再多陪伴也难以慰藉。 The pain is duller now, but the feelings are the same. 现在伤痛减轻了些,但感受没变。 (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——

[译文]巴尔的摩单月谋杀案数量创43年最高

Baltimore killings soar to a level unseen in 43 years
巴尔的摩的谋杀案数量跃升至一个43年未见的水平

作者:Associated Press(美联社) @ 2015-8-1
译者:陆嘉宾(@晚上不买白天买不到)
校对:陈小乖(@lion_kittyyyyy),小册子(@昵称被抢的小册子)
来源:FOX NEWS,http://www.foxnews.com/us/2015/08/01/baltimore-killings-soar-to-level-unseen-in-43-years/

BALTIMORE – Baltimore reached a grim milestone on Friday, three months after riots erupted in response to the death of Freddie Gray in police custody: With 45 homicides in July, the city has seen more bloodshed in a single month than it has in 43 years.

本周五,由Freddie Grey在警方拘留期间死亡而引发的暴乱发生三个月之后,巴尔的摩树立了一座严峻的里程碑:7月份共发生了45起凶杀案,是这座城市过去43年来单月流血事件之最。

Police reported three deaths — two men shot Thursday a(more...)

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Baltimore killings soar to a level unseen in 43 years 巴尔的摩的谋杀案数量跃升至一个43年未见的水平 作者:Associated Press(美联社) @ 2015-8-1 译者:陆嘉宾(@晚上不买白天买不到) 校对:陈小乖(@lion_kittyyyyy),小册子(@昵称被抢的小册子) 来源:FOX NEWS,http://www.foxnews.com/us/2015/08/01/baltimore-killings-soar-to-level-unseen-in-43-years/ BALTIMORE – Baltimore reached a grim milestone on Friday, three months after riots erupted in response to the death of Freddie Gray in police custody: With 45 homicides in July, the city has seen more bloodshed in a single month than it has in 43 years. 本周五,由Freddie Grey在警方拘留期间死亡而引发的暴乱发生三个月之后,巴尔的摩树立了一座严峻的里程碑:7月份共发生了45起凶杀案,是这座城市过去43年来单月流血事件之最。 Police reported three deaths — two men shot Thursday and one on Friday. The men died at local hospitals. 警方公布了三起死亡事件——周四有两名男性遭遇枪击,周五再添一位。三人都死在当地医院。 With their deaths, this year's homicides reached 189, far outpacing the 119 killings by July's end in 2014. Nonfatal shootings have soared to 366, compared to 200 by the same date last year. July's total was the worst since the city recorded 45 killings in August 1972, according to The Baltimore Sun. 在经历了这三起死亡事件之后,今年的谋杀案数量达到了189起,远远超过2014年截至七月底的119起。非致命枪击案相比去年同期的累计200起跃升至366起。据《巴尔的摩太阳报》报道,七月谋杀案的总数是这座城市自1972年八月发生45起以来最多的。 The seemingly Sisyphean task of containing the city's violence prompted Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake to fire her police commissioner, Anthony Batts, on July 8. 遏制这座城市的暴力事件仿佛是一个无穷无尽却又徒劳无功的任务,这也促使了市长斯蒂芬妮·罗林斯-布莱克在7月8日开除了她的警察局长,安东尼巴茨。 "Too many continue to die on our streets," Rawlings-Blake said then. "Families are tired of dealing with this pain, and so am I. Recent events have placed an intense focus on our police leadership, distracting many from what needs to be our main focus: the fight against crime." “太多的人接连死在街道上,”罗林斯-布莱克说,“人们厌倦了这种痛苦,我也是。最近的事件使得我们警察部门领导层受到强烈关注,同时,也令很多人从我们本该集中关注的地方——打击犯罪——,分散了许多注意力。 But the killings have not abated under Interim Commissioner Kevin Davis since then. 但是自那以后,在临时局长凯文·戴维斯的治理下,谋杀案并未有所减少。 Baltimore is not unique in its suffering; crimes are spiking in big cities around the country. 巴尔的摩的问题不是个例,全国大城市的罪案率都在剧增。 But while the city's police are closing cases— Davis announced arrests in three recent murders several days ago — the violence is outpacing their efforts. Davis said Tuesday the "clearance rate" is at 36.6 percent, far lower than the department's mid-40s average. 戴维斯在几天前刚刚宣布逮捕了近期三起谋杀案的凶手。这座城市的警察确实在处理案件,但他们的努力赶不上暴力的蔓延速度。戴维斯在周二给出的“结案率”为36.6%,这个数字远远低于该部门平时45%上下的平均水平。 Crime experts and residents of Baltimore's most dangerous neighborhoods cite a confluence of factors: mistrust of the police; generalized anger and hopelessness over a lack of opportunities for young black men; and competition among dealers of illegal drugs, bolstered by the looting of prescription pills from pharmacies during the riot. 对此,犯罪专家和巴尔的摩最危险街区的居民指出了共同起作用的诸多因素:对警方的不信任;年轻黑人缺乏机会导致的普遍愤怒和绝望;非法药贩子们为暴乱中药店里被抢掠的处方药销赃,冲突更为激化。 Federal drug enforcement agents said gangs targeted 32 pharmacies in the city, taking roughly 300,000 doses of opiates, as the riots caused $9 million in property damage in the city. 联邦缉毒署的探员表示,各帮派盯上了城里的32家药房,抢走了大约30万剂鸦片类药物,暴乱总共给这座城市带来九百万美元财产损失。 Perched on a friend's stoop, Sherry Moore, 55, said she knew "mostly all" of the young men killed recently in West Baltimore, including an 18-year-old fatally shot a half-block away. Moore said many more pills are on the street since the riot, making people wilder than usual. 雪莉·穆尔今年55岁,她坐在朋友家的门廊上说,最近在西巴尔的摩被杀的年轻人她“几乎都认识”,其中包括一名在半个街区之外遭遇致命枪击的18岁少年。穆尔说,暴乱之后有更多的药物出现在了街头,这也使得人们比平时更加疯狂。 "The ones doing the violence, the shootings, they're eating Percocet like candy and they're not thinking about consequences. They have no discipline, they have no respect — they think this is a game. How many can I put down on the East side? How many can I put down on the West side?" “那些实施暴力、枪击的人吃Percocet【译注:一种鸦片类麻醉止痛药,被称为“白领的海洛因”】就像吃糖一样,且不计后果。他们没有纪律、缺乏尊重,他们觉得这是场游戏。在东边我能干掉多少人呢?西面呢?” The tally of 42 homicides in May included Gray, who died in April after his neck was broken in police custody. The July tally likewise includes a previous death — a baby whose death in June was ruled a homicide in July. 五月记录的42起凶杀案中还包括了格雷,四月份的时候他在警局羁押期间由于颈部折断死亡。七月份的记录也同样包括了一个之前的死亡案件——一个于六月死亡的婴儿在七月被判定为谋杀。 Shawn Ellerman, Assistant Special Agent in Charge of the Baltimore division of the Drug Enforcement Administration, said May's homicide spike was probably related to the stolen prescription drugs, a supply that is likely exhausted by now. But the drug trade is inherently violent, and turf wars tend to prompt retaliatory killings. 肖恩·埃勒曼是毒品管制局巴尔的摩分局的助理特别探员。他说五月份凶杀案的激增应该和那些被盗处方药物有非常大的关系,这批货现在应该已经消耗得差不多了。但是毒品交易有着固有的暴力倾向,而地盘争夺战也往往会引发报复性谋杀。 "You can't attribute every murder to narcotics, but I would think a good number" of them are, he said. "You could say it's retaliation from drug trafficking, it's retaliation from gangs moving in from other territories. But there have been drug markets in Baltimore for years." “你不能将每一桩谋杀案都归因于毒品,但是我相信其中很大的一部分确是如此”,他说,“你可以说这是由于贩毒导致的报复,这是由于其他地区转移过来的帮派抢占地盘导致的报复。但是巴尔的摩的毒品市场已经存在很多年了。” Across West Baltimore, residents complain that drug addiction and crime are part of a cycle that begins with despair among children who lack educational and recreational opportunities, and extends when people can't find work. 整个西巴尔的摩的居民们都在抱怨说,吸毒和犯罪只是循环的一部分。这个循环始于孩子们由于缺乏教育和消遣机会所导致的绝望,而在人们找不到工作时得到了蔓延。 "We need jobs! We need jobs!" a man riding around on a bicycle shouted to anyone who'd listen after four people were shot, three of them fatally, on a street corner in July. “我们需要工作!我们需要工作!”一名男性在自行车上四处骑行并向所有可能听他说话的人呼喊着口号。这发生在七月份有四人在一个街角遭遇枪击,其中三人死亡之后。 More community engagement, progressive policing policies and opportunities for young people in poverty could help, community activist MunirBahar said. 更多的社区参与、进步的治安政策和为穷困年轻人提供机会,对事情会有很大帮助,社区活动家穆尼尔·巴哈尔说。 "People are focusing on enforcement, not preventing violence. Police enforce a code, a law. Our job as the community is to prevent the violence, and we've failed," said Bahar, who leads the annual 300 Men March against violence in West Baltimore. “人们专注于执法而不是预防暴力。警方在执行法律。而我们社区的工作则是预防暴力,我们失败了。”巴哈尔说。他每年都在西巴尔的摩领导一场叫“300人游行”的反暴力游行示威。 "We need anti-violence organizations, we need mentorship programs, we need a long-term solution. But we also need immediate relief," Bahar added. "When we're in something so deep, we have to stop it before you can analyze what the root is." “我们需要反暴力组织,我们需要辅导计划,我们需要一个长期的解决方案。但我们也需要紧急救助,”巴哈尔补充道,“当问题变得这么严重时,我们必须在弄清根源之前先阻止问题继续蔓延。” Strained relationships between police and the public also play a role, according to Eugene O'Donnell, a professor at John Jay College of Criminal Justice. 约翰·杰伊刑事司法学院的尤金·奥唐奈教授表示,警察与公众之间的紧张关系也是问题的原因之一。 Arrests plummeted and violence soared after six officers were indicted in Gray's death. Residents accused police of abandoning their posts for fear of facing criminal charges for making arrests, and said emboldened criminals were settling scores with little risk of being caught. 在六名警官因为格雷死亡案遭到起诉之后,罪犯逮捕数量暴跌,暴力犯罪猛增。居民们指责警方由于担心逮捕行动导致刑事指控而正在怠弃职责,他们还说鉴于被捕的风险很小,放大了胆子的罪犯还在继续实施犯罪。 The department denied these claims, and police cars have been evident patrolling West Baltimore's central thoroughfares recently. 警方否认了这些说法,并且最近已经可以看见警车在西巴尔的摩市中心要道执行巡逻。 But O'Donnell said the perception of lawlessness is just as powerful than the reality. 但是O'Donnell表示无法无天的感觉就是比现实更强大。 "We have a national issue where the police feel they are the Public Enemy No. 1," he said, making some officers stand down and criminals become more brazen. “警方感觉,现在他们自己才是头号公敌,这是个全国性的问题,”他说,这使得一些警官低声下气而犯罪分子则更加肆无忌惮。 "There's a rhythm to the streets," he added. "And when people get away with gun violence, it has a long-term emboldening effect. And the good people in the neighborhood think, 'Who has the upper hand?'" “街头有一种风气,”他补充道,“当人们持枪行凶却逃脱惩罚,这就产生了一种长期的鼓励效果。而附近的好人们也会想‘谁占了上风?’” (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——

计件工资与工资刚性

【2015-08-26】

@研二公知苗 请教个问题,张五常认为失业是因为禁止计件工资的合同安排导致的,是不是可以说他的失业理论实际上就是黏性工资理论的另一个版本?

@Stimmung:我觉得差不多,只不过一个是说价格,一个说合约结构。一个宏观一个微观

@whigzhou: 区别还是蛮大的,张五常说的是,因为禁止计件工资,即便劳动价格在边际上有利可图,生产者也不敢雇佣,因为固定工资带来较高上头成本

@whi(more...)

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【2015-08-26】 @研二公知苗 请教个问题,张五常认为失业是因为禁止计件工资的合同安排导致的,是不是可以说他的失业理论实际上就是黏性工资理论的另一个版本? @Stimmung:我觉得差不多,只不过一个是说价格,一个说合约结构。一个宏观一个微观 @whigzhou: 区别还是蛮大的,张五常说的是,因为禁止计件工资,即便劳动价格在边际上有利可图,生产者也不敢雇佣,因为固定工资带来较高上头成本 @whigzhou: 而工资粘性说的是,由于工资议价很难将价格往下压,所以当供求水平向下变化时,均衡只能通过减少雇佣来恢复;在微观上,这也是两种完全不同的机制
细软跑和配套优势

【2015-08-26】

@whigzhou: 现在做个细软基金正是时候。

@小野猪君:可人民币都跌了呀

@whigzhou: 跌这点算什么,而且美股跌的更多啊,足偿有余

@whigzhou: 宏观经济学是很不靠谱,各种预测也是胡扯居多,但有一条还是非常确定的:每次炸坑的时候大家都往美国逃,这个不会错

@鬼Dora:美中现在强捆绑,一条船上的蚂蚱,不存在谁崩盘谁独善其身。

@whigzhou: 没那么强,今天的产业生态和过去很不同了(more...)

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【2015-08-26】 @whigzhou: 现在做个细软基金正是时候。 @小野猪君:可人民币都跌了呀 @whigzhou: 跌这点算什么,而且美股跌的更多啊,足偿有余 @whigzhou: 宏观经济学是很不靠谱,各种预测也是胡扯居多,但有一条还是非常确定的:每次炸坑的时候大家都往美国逃,这个不会错 @鬼Dora:美中现在强捆绑,一条船上的蚂蚱,不存在谁崩盘谁独善其身。 @whigzhou: 没那么强,今天的产业生态和过去很不同了,有了像富士康这么强大的供应链组织者,产业搬家已变得很容易,全球市场会受点冲击,但很快会缓过来 @whigzhou: 在经历集装箱革命和供应链革命之后,跨国公司在全球重新配置产业链的能力已大幅提升,转移起来很快,比多数人想象都要快  
同性恋:遗传基础与制度宽容

【2015-08-26】

@调皮的王登科 看到 @李银河 的文章里写到,同性恋是基因遗传的,我就开了个脑洞,所有支持同性恋婚姻合法的国家,岂不是会让该国的同性恋灭绝么?所有反对同性恋的,反而会让同性恋延续,而支持同性恋的,则加速了同性恋的消失。不知道是不是这个道理。

@Ent_evo:1″同性恋是遗传的”其实是一个宣传口号,现实中性取向和所有其他属性一样都是先后天共同作用的结果;2自然界并没有任何立法禁止同性恋,但自然界中同性性行为一点都不罕见;3对于如此复杂的性状,区区一项政策十代之内都未必能看得见效果。

@whigzhou: A1)这说法确有遗传决定论之嫌,但原帖结论不依赖遗传决定论,恰恰相反,原帖结论的前提必须是性向表现由“先后天(more...)

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【2015-08-26】 @调皮的王登科 看到 @李银河 的文章里写到,同性恋是基因遗传的,我就开了个脑洞,所有支持同性恋婚姻合法的国家,岂不是会让该国的同性恋灭绝么?所有反对同性恋的,反而会让同性恋延续,而支持同性恋的,则加速了同性恋的消失。不知道是不是这个道理。 @Ent_evo:1"同性恋是遗传的"其实是一个宣传口号,现实中性取向和所有其他属性一样都是先后天共同作用的结果;2自然界并没有任何立法禁止同性恋,但自然界中同性性行为一点都不罕见;3对于如此复杂的性状,区区一项政策十代之内都未必能看得见效果。 @whigzhou: A1)这说法确有遗传决定论之嫌,但原帖结论不依赖遗传决定论,恰恰相反,原帖结论的前提必须是性向表现由“先后天共同作用”,否则制度/文化怎么起作用? //@Ent_evo: 1"同性恋是遗传的"其实是一个宣传口号,现实中性取向和所有其他属性一样都是先后天共同作用的结果; @whigzhou: A2.1)偶发的、错误认知所导致的异常行为,不同于偏好或固有倾向,偶尔把尸体错当成活体异性,不等于恋尸癖;A2.2)没禁止也不罕见不等于立法禁止不能造成改变,1%和0.1%都不算罕见,但差了一个数量级 //@Ent_evo: 2自然界并没有任何立法禁止同性恋,但自然界中同性性行为一点都不罕见; @whigzhou: A3)这倒有可能,但也未必,如果文化/制度改变造成的同性恋生育率差异达到两位数百分点,并且遗传基础对此性状的贡献率很高,几代之内即可看到变化,当然,究竟能否看到,还要等经验数据 //@Ent_evo: 3对于如此复杂的性状,区区一项政策十代之内都未必能看得见效果。 @whigzhou: 生物学家会倾向于认为这样一个文化因素不足以在几代人中产生明显效果,这我能理解,因为对于一般生物,有着太多远更重要的其他因素影响遗传成就,而且在强大选择压力的持续作用下,这些因素的种内个体间差异不会很大,选择效果很难在短期表现出来 //@Ent_evo: 3对于如此复杂的性状,区区一项政策十代之内都未必能看得见效果。 @whigzhou: 可是现代人类(特别是发达国家居民)的条件很特别了,妨碍生育的其他压力都很松弛,偏好和意愿成为成为压倒性因素,而且事实表明,在不同文化的影响下,生育意愿的个体差异极大 @whigzhou: 说句题外话,考虑当前男性所面临的选择压力之结构,以及在此压力结构下的相对遗传优势,并据此推测未来变化时,高大上精英女性尤其是知识分子女性的偏好基本上可以忽略,因为她们基本上不生孩子,起了绝大部分作用的,是中低收入的、读书不多的、不大会在媒体上写文章的那些女性的偏好。 @暴走的羊驼君:还有一个道德评价让我感到困惑,如果命题,同性恋是由于基因遗传导致的,所以同性恋不是一种疾病。那其他的遗传病为什么又能算作病呢? @whigzhou: 呵呵,我也纳闷,其实我可以教他们一种更合理的说法:凡是当事人自己了解情况之后不觉得是个问题的事情,咱都别把它叫病 @孤胆鹰雄芯:这有个问题,就是比如精神分裂症这种精神疾病,患者的自知力是受到损害的,他们觉得自己没病,但是又缺乏自由意志,得被监护起来,那这算病吗? @whigzhou: 这样你就认为他没有“了解情况”并表达他“不觉得是个问题”的意志能力嘛 【参考】宽容是同性恋的坟墓?  
旧石器食谱·问与答

最近不少朋友跟我打听有关旧石器食谱(Paleo Diet)的事情,有些因为没有持续关注我的言论,所以不太了解来龙去脉,甚至有些误解,我在这里从头说明一下。

Q: 什么是旧石器食谱?

A:简单说,是对农业时代特有的食物总体上持怀疑态度,具体点说就是:

  • 不吃:谷物、奶类、豆类、精制糖和植物油。
  • 主要吃:肉(特别是脂肪比例较高的肉)、蛋、低糖高纤蔬菜、坚果、水果。

更多细节可参考维基Paleo Diet词条:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paleolithic_diet

Q:那你现在吃些什么?

A:我实践的版本和标准定义有所不同,我喝少量酸奶,但排除了薯类,而按标准做法,旧石器食谱是可以包括薯类的;我也不完全排除豆类,特别是嫩豆和外皮比例较高的豆类,前者是因为我特别爱吃,后者是因为纤维量高;另外,和标准做法不同,我也不控制盐。

目前我的食谱大概是这样:

  • 主食:牛羊猪肉、鸡鸭肉、鸡蛋、鱼;豇豆、菠菜、白菜、卷心菜、胡萝卜;
  • 零食:常吃的有花生和瓜子;水果不多,折合每天不到一个梨;
  • 饮料:每天三到四杯咖啡,两壶绿茶,约合三升水;红酒半杯;少量酸奶,每周不到一升;

一顿典型的正餐:

  • 一块半牛排(225克)+一斤豇豆,或,
  • 半只烤鸭+一斤菠菜,或,
  • 五个鸡蛋+一两熏肉+一颗西兰花,或,
  • 半斤红烧肉+两颗娃娃菜;

这是平时,上馆子或者周末改善时,会多吃不少。

Q:高脂低碳水的吃法不就是Atkins吗,旧石器食谱有何不同?

A:高脂低碳水这点上,两者确实很像,但Atkins主要关注食物的主营养成分(more...)

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最近不少朋友跟我打听有关旧石器食谱(Paleo Diet)的事情,有些因为没有持续关注我的言论,所以不太了解来龙去脉,甚至有些误解,我在这里从头说明一下。 Q: 什么是旧石器食谱? A:简单说,是对农业时代特有的食物总体上持怀疑态度,具体点说就是:
  • 不吃:谷物、奶类、豆类、精制糖和植物油。
  • 主要吃:肉(特别是脂肪比例较高的肉)、蛋、低糖高纤蔬菜、坚果、水果。
更多细节可参考维基Paleo Diet词条: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paleolithic_diet Q:那你现在吃些什么? A:我实践的版本和标准定义有所不同,我喝少量酸奶,但排除了薯类,而按标准做法,旧石器食谱是可以包括薯类的;我也不完全排除豆类,特别是嫩豆和外皮比例较高的豆类,前者是因为我特别爱吃,后者是因为纤维量高;另外,和标准做法不同,我也不控制盐。 目前我的食谱大概是这样:
  • 主食:牛羊猪肉、鸡鸭肉、鸡蛋、鱼;豇豆、菠菜、白菜、卷心菜、胡萝卜;
  • 零食:常吃的有花生和瓜子;水果不多,折合每天不到一个梨;
  • 饮料:每天三到四杯咖啡,两壶绿茶,约合三升水;红酒半杯;少量酸奶,每周不到一升;
一顿典型的正餐:
  • 一块半牛排(225克)+一斤豇豆,或,
  • 半只烤鸭+一斤菠菜,或,
  • 五个鸡蛋+一两熏肉+一颗西兰花,或,
  • 半斤红烧肉+两颗娃娃菜;
这是平时,上馆子或者周末改善时,会多吃不少。 Q:高脂低碳水的吃法不就是Atkins吗,旧石器食谱有何不同? A:高脂低碳水这点上,两者确实很像,但Atkins主要关注食物的主营养成分(营养学上叫宏量营养素),不管这些成分是哪儿来的,而旧石器食谱则主要关注食材,所以两者在一些次要成分或微量元素上可能有较大差异。 而且,在主成分上,也有重要差异,Atkins对碳水的排除更彻底,所以不吃薯类,而旧石器排除奶类和豆类。 从上一条可以看出,我的食谱其实是在旧石器的基础上朝Atkins方向修正了一点。 Q:旧石器时代的人真是这么吃的吗? A:不是。前农业时代,人类已到达所有大陆,所占据生态位千差万别,食谱当然很不一样,所谓旧石器食谱,充其量只可能与其中某些比较接近。 所以这个食谱里的所谓“旧石器”,恰当的理解是,它排除了一些农业时代特有的成分,而不是指它逼真模仿了前农业时代某个狩猎采集群体实际采用的特定食谱。所以我们不必过分细究这个名称,反正已经定义的够清楚了,叫什么名字无所谓。 Q:从小习惯了吃米面,突然戒掉不难受吗? A:嗯,会有点难受,所以我不是一开始就完全杜绝米面的,经历了三个月的过渡期,在此期间逐渐减少米面,过渡期后半段用饼干代替米饭,因为饼干的量容易调节。 Q:容易做到吗?需要很大毅力才能坚持吗? A:如果“坚持”是指控制食欲、忍着不吃的话,我觉得根本不需要坚持,很容易做到,相反,有时候要特意使劲吃才行,幸好我原本就爱吃肉而且不怕肥肉,不然的话倒是可能有点困难。 不过,我也并不是遵守的特别严格,和朋友聚餐或者过年回家这种场合就会失控,而且我原先喜欢吃点甜品,现在偶尔还吃一点,不过难得偏离一下关系不大。 Q:吃肉太多会不会蛋白质过量? A:嗯,我也考虑过这问题,所以要吃肥一点,实际上,这个食谱的重点不是一味增加蛋白质,而是用脂肪代替碳水化合物作为主要能量来源,而蛋白质只须充足即可。 不过这一点对不爱吃肥肉的人确实可能构成障碍。 Q:效果怎么样? A:感觉很好,容易观察到的效果是体重减掉了12公斤,身体状态也有所改善,不过这不太好描述,也可能只是错觉。 Q:失控的时候体重会反弹吗? A:会,但也很容易再减回去,可以说非常容易,只要接下去几顿稍微少吃一点就行。 我的体会是,转换食谱之后,身体的代谢模式好像完全不同了,我猜可能是这样:以前吃高碳水饮食时,当血糖水平下降,身体就立即产生饥饿感,促使你去寻找食物,而现在,血糖水平下降时,身体优先消耗体内脂肪,同时也可能有饥饿感,但不如以前强烈。 当然这只是我的猜测,没什么依据。 Q:有负面效果吗? A:有过,主要是大便量不足,有段时间比以前少了大概一半,所以后来我大幅增加了高纤维蔬菜的量,一开始稍有点困难,比如把一斤多豇豆当饭吃,你可能也会不太习惯,不过大便量的问题倒好像是解决了。 当然,可能还会有其他我没察觉的负面效果。 Q:旧石器食谱的健康价值有科学依据吗? A:假如“科学依据”是指系统性的经验证据、统计相关性和足够完整的因果链条,那就没有,至少我不认为现在已经有了。 但假如“科学依据”是指有点道理,而且这个道理和科学有点关系,那我认为确实有一点,那就是出于对进化原理的认识,对自然选择作用的信任,即,考虑到农业急剧改变了我们的食谱,我们怀疑,几千年的自然选择还来不及让人类充分适应农业食谱,而即便在某些方面有所适应,也可能是以牺牲另一些方面的健康为代价的。 但这只是对一般原理的信赖,没有统计和生理机制上的证据,至少还没有系统性的证据。所以我总是将这一食谱称为“我们这套迷信”,不过依我看,这是有点道理的迷信。 Q:这点道理听上去很空泛啊,你这么容易就被说服了? A:嗯,如果只是这点道理的话,不足以让我做出这么大改变,我做出决定,是因为看到有人这么做了,听他说效果很好,而且我对他的见识和判断力相当信任,于是就想,不妨尝试一下吧。 Q:搜了下有关这食谱的文章,好浓一股有机教味道啊,您老不是整天反有机教吗? A:如果你相信一样东西是好东西,总不能因为有机教徒也很热衷,就不要了吧?那好像有点不划算。 Q:你会向别人推荐这个食谱吗? A:不会主动推荐,但假如你问我是否值得试试,我会说,值得,但需要满足一些条件: 1)你目前确实有健康问题(比如肥胖)需要对付, 2)你喜欢吃肉,而且不怕吃肥肉, 3)你能方便的凑齐所需食物,据我了解,这对上班族可能不太容易,我现在多半自己做,或者去熟食店买,还算方便。 Q:黄章晋说你两个月瘦了12公斤,有这么神奇? A:黄章晋老师记性不好,实际上我上次和上上次见他时,已经瘦了很多,我是2014年7月开始转变食谱的,三个月后体重开始稳定下降,高峰期大约每周降0.5公斤,到现在一共降了12公斤,其中只有1.5公斤是最近两个月减掉的。  
旧石器与肉食

【2015-08-25】

@whigzhou: 一个基本历史背景:旧石器时代晚期(也叫中石器时代),人类经历了一次认知革命(也叫文化大爆炸),除其他进步之外,狩猎能力大幅提升,很可能与弓箭的发明有关,导致人类种群及地理分布的又一次大扩张,不像第一波走出非洲时紧贴海岸线,这次扩张横扫欧亚大陆腹地,后来又竖刷美洲大陆……

@whigzhou: 这一过程伴随着大批大型哺乳动物灭绝,而此时人类尚无力破坏动物栖息地,这些动物只能是被吃掉的,所以至少在那几万年里,我们祖先(more...)

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6387
【2015-08-25】 @whigzhou: 一个基本历史背景:旧石器时代晚期(也叫中石器时代),人类经历了一次认知革命(也叫文化大爆炸),除其他进步之外,狩猎能力大幅提升,很可能与弓箭的发明有关,导致人类种群及地理分布的又一次大扩张,不像第一波走出非洲时紧贴海岸线,这次扩张横扫欧亚大陆腹地,后来又竖刷美洲大陆…… @whigzhou: 这一过程伴随着大批大型哺乳动物灭绝,而此时人类尚无力破坏动物栖息地,这些动物只能是被吃掉的,所以至少在那几万年里,我们祖先着实吃了很多肉,直到新仙女木到来,吃肉条件恶化,然后一部分族群转向农业,但从农业起源到谷物变成绝对主食,还要过好几千年,而有些族群从未转向谷物…… @从不造谣自干五:美洲的马为啥会被吃掉 @whigzhou: 马最早都是捉来吃的,欧亚也是,马被驯化后的最初几千年里,也是宰了吃的,后来才用来驮物、拉车,再后来才用于骑乘,较普遍的骑乘历史只有三千多年 @whigzhou: 据说早期的马过于矮小,不适合骑乘,而且方便的骑乘还要很多马具,都有待一样样发明出来  
[译文]一位气候温和派的悲惨遭遇

My Life as a Climate Lukewarmer
作为一名气候问题温和派的遭遇

作者:Matt Ridley @ 2015-1-20
译者:陈小乖(@lion_kittyyyyy)
校对:Kyo(@Kyo先生和他的胡子),小册子(@昵称被抢的小册子)
来源:Matt Ridley Online,http://www.rationaloptimist.com/blog/my-life-as-a-climate-lukewarmer.aspx

The polarisation of the climate debate has gone too far
气候争议的两极化已经太过分了

This article appeared in the Times on January 19, 2015:
该文载于2015年1月19日《泰晤士报》(The Times)
http://www.thetimes.co.uk/tto/life/article4325798.ece

I am a climate lukewarmer. That means I think recent global warming is real, mostly man-made and will continue but I no longer think it is likely to be dangerous and I think its slow and erratic progress so far is what we should expect in the future.

我在气候问题上是个温和派。意思是,我认为当前的全球变暖问题确实存在,并且主要是人为因素造成的,同时,地球会持续变暖。但我不再认为变暖会造成危险,而且,我预期未来的气候变化将和现在一样,变暖的趋势是缓慢且飘忽不定的。

That last year was the warmest yet, in some data sets, but only by a smidgen more than 2005, is precisely in line with such lukewarm thinking.

虽然一些数据表明去年是最温暖的一年,但气温也仅比2005年高了一点点,这完全符合我对于气候问题的温和看法。

This view annoys some sceptics who think all climate change is natural or imaginary, but it is even more infuriating to most publicly funded scientists and politicians, who insist climate change is a big risk.

这一观点惹恼了一些怀疑论者,他们认为所有气候变化都是自然变化或是人们想象出来的;而大多数政府资助的科学家和政客则对此观点更为恼火,他们坚称气候变化是一个巨大的风险。

My middle-of-the-road position is considered not just wrong, but disgraceful, shameful, verging on scandalous. I am subjected to torrents of online abuse for holding it, very little of it from sceptics.

我的中间道路立场不仅被认为是错误的,还是可耻的、罪恶的、将被钉在历史耻辱柱上的。为此,我遭受了大量的网络攻击,其中仅有很小一部分攻击来自怀疑论者。

I was even kept off the shortlist for a part-time, unpaid public-sector appointment in a field unrelated to climate because of having this view, or so the headhunter thought.

因为持有这一观点——或者猎头认为我持有这样的观点,我甚至在一份无薪的公共部门兼职工作候选人名单中遭到封杀,该职位所在领域与气候问题毫不相干。

In the climate debate, paying obeisance to climate scaremongering is about as mandatory for a public appointment, or public funding, as being a Protestant was in 18th-century England.

为了获得公职任命或者公共基金资助,就必须在气候争议中遵从耸人听闻的气候变化言论,这就像在18世纪的英格兰必须当一名新教徒一样。【译注:1672年的考验法案(Test Act)要求出任国会议员和担任公职者向国王宣誓效忠,并履行相应宗教仪式,1678年版的考验法案则将天主教徒排除在这一宣誓程序之外,从而剥夺了他们担任公职的机会,法案同时还对天主教徒的民事权利施加了限制,该法案直到1828年才被废除。

Kind friends send me news almost weekly of whole blog posts devoted to nothing but analysing my intellectual and personal inadequacies, always in relation to my views on climate.

善意的朋友们几乎每周都要给我发送批评我的博客帖子的消息,这些批评文章通篇都在分析我的知识和个人品行的不足之处,通常都和我对气候变化的看法有关。

Writing about climate change is a small part of my life but, to judge by some of the stuff that gets written about me, writing about me is a large part of the life of some of the more obsessive climate commentators. It’s all a bit strange. Why is this debate so fractious?

写文章谈论气候变化是我生活的一小部分,但从一些写我的文章来看,对我品头评足,倒成了一些更关注气候问题的评论家们的生活的一大部分。奇怪了,为什么这一辩论让人如此气急败坏?

Rather than attack my arguments, my critics like to attack my motives. I stand accused of “wanting” climate change to be mild because I support free markets or because I receive income indirectly from the mining of coal in Northumberland.

批评我的人更喜欢攻击我的动机而不是论点。我被指责为“希望”气候变化是温和的,而那是因为我支持自由市场,或是因为我从诺森伯兰郡的煤炭开采中间接获取了收入。

Two surface coal mines (which I do not own), operating without subsidies, do indeed dig coal partly from land that I own. They pay me a fee, as I have repeatedly declared in speeches, books and articles.

那两个地表煤矿(并非我所拥有)没有收过补贴,他们的部分煤矿确实是从我所拥有的土地上开采出来的。我在演讲、书籍和文章中已经不断声明,他们有向我支付费用。

I do think that coal, oil and gas have been a good thing so far, by giving us an alternative to cutting down forests and killing whales, by supplying fertiliser to feed the world, by giving the global poor affordable energy, and so on.

我确实认为,迄今为止煤炭、石油和天然气一直是个宝。它们让我们不用再砍伐森林、捕杀鲸鱼,它们提供肥料养活这个世界,它们为全球的贫困地区提供廉价能源,等等。

But instead of defending the modern coal industry I write and speak extensively in favour of gas, the biggest competitive threat to coal’s share of the electricity market. If we can phase out coal without causing too much suffering, then I would not object.

但我在文章与演讲中大力支持天然气——煤炭在发电能源市场上最大的威胁,而不是为现代煤炭业辩护。我并不反对淘汰煤炭,如果那么做不会让我们吃太多苦头的话。

Besides, I could probably earn even more from renewable energy. As a landowner, I am astonished by the generosity of the offers I keep receiving for green-energy subsidies.

此外,我甚至可能从可再生能源中赚得更多。作为一个地主,我不断收到背后有绿色能源补贴的报价,其慷慨程度让我震惊。

Wind farm developers in smart suits dangle the prospect of tens of thousands of pounds per turbine on my land — and tens of turbines.< (more...)

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My Life as a Climate Lukewarmer 作为一名气候问题温和派的遭遇 作者:Matt Ridley @ 2015-1-20 译者:陈小乖(@lion_kittyyyyy) 校对:Kyo(@Kyo先生和他的胡子),小册子(@昵称被抢的小册子) 来源:Matt Ridley Online,http://www.rationaloptimist.com/blog/my-life-as-a-climate-lukewarmer.aspx The polarisation of the climate debate has gone too far 气候争议的两极化已经太过分了 This article appeared in the Times on January 19, 2015: 该文载于2015年1月19日《泰晤士报》(The Times) (http://www.thetimes.co.uk/tto/life/article4325798.ece) I am a climate lukewarmer. That means I think recent global warming is real, mostly man-made and will continue but I no longer think it is likely to be dangerous and I think its slow and erratic progress so far is what we should expect in the future. 我在气候问题上是个温和派。意思是,我认为当前的全球变暖问题确实存在,并且主要是人为因素造成的,同时,地球会持续变暖。但我不再认为变暖会造成危险,而且,我预期未来的气候变化将和现在一样,变暖的趋势是缓慢且飘忽不定的。 That last year was the warmest yet, in some data sets, but only by a smidgen more than 2005, is precisely in line with such lukewarm thinking. 虽然一些数据表明去年是最温暖的一年,但气温也仅比2005年高了一点点,这完全符合我对于气候问题的温和看法。 This view annoys some sceptics who think all climate change is natural or imaginary, but it is even more infuriating to most publicly funded scientists and politicians, who insist climate change is a big risk. 这一观点惹恼了一些怀疑论者,他们认为所有气候变化都是自然变化或是人们想象出来的;而大多数政府资助的科学家和政客则对此观点更为恼火,他们坚称气候变化是一个巨大的风险。 My middle-of-the-road position is considered not just wrong, but disgraceful, shameful, verging on scandalous. I am subjected to torrents of online abuse for holding it, very little of it from sceptics. 我的中间道路立场不仅被认为是错误的,还是可耻的、罪恶的、将被钉在历史耻辱柱上的。为此,我遭受了大量的网络攻击,其中仅有很小一部分攻击来自怀疑论者。 I was even kept off the shortlist for a part-time, unpaid public-sector appointment in a field unrelated to climate because of having this view, or so the headhunter thought. 因为持有这一观点——或者猎头认为我持有这样的观点,我甚至在一份无薪的公共部门兼职工作候选人名单中遭到封杀,该职位所在领域与气候问题毫不相干。 In the climate debate, paying obeisance to climate scaremongering is about as mandatory for a public appointment, or public funding, as being a Protestant was in 18th-century England. 为了获得公职任命或者公共基金资助,就必须在气候争议中遵从耸人听闻的气候变化言论,这就像在18世纪的英格兰必须当一名新教徒一样。【译注:1672年的考验法案(Test Act)要求出任国会议员和担任公职者向国王宣誓效忠,并履行相应宗教仪式,1678年版的考验法案则将天主教徒排除在这一宣誓程序之外,从而剥夺了他们担任公职的机会,法案同时还对天主教徒的民事权利施加了限制,该法案直到1828年才被废除。】 Kind friends send me news almost weekly of whole blog posts devoted to nothing but analysing my intellectual and personal inadequacies, always in relation to my views on climate. 善意的朋友们几乎每周都要给我发送批评我的博客帖子的消息,这些批评文章通篇都在分析我的知识和个人品行的不足之处,通常都和我对气候变化的看法有关。 Writing about climate change is a small part of my life but, to judge by some of the stuff that gets written about me, writing about me is a large part of the life of some of the more obsessive climate commentators. It’s all a bit strange. Why is this debate so fractious? 写文章谈论气候变化是我生活的一小部分,但从一些写我的文章来看,对我品头评足,倒成了一些更关注气候问题的评论家们的生活的一大部分。奇怪了,为什么这一辩论让人如此气急败坏? Rather than attack my arguments, my critics like to attack my motives. I stand accused of “wanting” climate change to be mild because I support free markets or because I receive income indirectly from the mining of coal in Northumberland. 批评我的人更喜欢攻击我的动机而不是论点。我被指责为“希望”气候变化是温和的,而那是因为我支持自由市场,或是因为我从诺森伯兰郡的煤炭开采中间接获取了收入。 Two surface coal mines (which I do not own), operating without subsidies, do indeed dig coal partly from land that I own. They pay me a fee, as I have repeatedly declared in speeches, books and articles. 那两个地表煤矿(并非我所拥有)没有收过补贴,他们的部分煤矿确实是从我所拥有的土地上开采出来的。我在演讲、书籍和文章中已经不断声明,他们有向我支付费用。 I do think that coal, oil and gas have been a good thing so far, by giving us an alternative to cutting down forests and killing whales, by supplying fertiliser to feed the world, by giving the global poor affordable energy, and so on. 我确实认为,迄今为止煤炭、石油和天然气一直是个宝。它们让我们不用再砍伐森林、捕杀鲸鱼,它们提供肥料养活这个世界,它们为全球的贫困地区提供廉价能源,等等。 But instead of defending the modern coal industry I write and speak extensively in favour of gas, the biggest competitive threat to coal’s share of the electricity market. If we can phase out coal without causing too much suffering, then I would not object. 但我在文章与演讲中大力支持天然气——煤炭在发电能源市场上最大的威胁,而不是为现代煤炭业辩护。我并不反对淘汰煤炭,如果那么做不会让我们吃太多苦头的话。 Besides, I could probably earn even more from renewable energy. As a landowner, I am astonished by the generosity of the offers I keep receiving for green-energy subsidies. 此外,我甚至可能从可再生能源中赚得更多。作为一个地主,我不断收到背后有绿色能源补贴的报价,其慷慨程度让我震惊。 Wind farm developers in smart suits dangle the prospect of tens of thousands of pounds per turbine on my land — and tens of turbines. 风力发电厂的开发商们穿着笔挺的西装,想用安装风力发电机的前景收买我——每个风力发电机能带来数万英镑的收益,而我的土地上能装几十个。 A solar developer wrote to me recently saying he could offer more than a million pounds of income over 25 years if I were to cover some particular fields with solar panels. 一个太阳能开发商最近给我写信说,如果我在一些指定区域内安装太阳能板,他能在25年内给我超过一百万英镑的收入。 Many big country houses have installed subsidised wood-fired heating to the point where you can hear their Canalettos cracking. I argue against such subsidies, so I don’t take them. 许多乡村大宅装上了有补贴的烧木头暖气,你能从中听到他们收藏的名画的断裂声【译注:Canaletto为意大利画家,画作为英国皇家所收藏,此处作者讽刺政府补贴的是一种并不可持续的能源,并且补贴对象是有钱人】。我反对这类补贴,所以我不接受这些报价。 I was not always a lukewarmer. When I first started writing about the threat of global warming more than 26 years ago, as science editor of The Economist, I thought it was a genuinely dangerous threat. 我并非一直是个气候变暖温和派。当我在26年多前作为《经济学人》科学栏目编辑,刚开始写关于全球变暖威胁的文章时,我认为它是个真正危险的威胁。 Like, for instance, Margaret Thatcher, I accepted the predictions being made at the time that we would see warming of a third or a half a degree (Centigrade) a decade, perhaps more, and that this would have devastating consequences. 比如,像撒切尔夫人一样,我认同当时的预测——未来每10年气温就会升高1/3到1/2摄氏度甚至更多,这将会带来灾难性后果。 Gradually, however, I changed my mind. The failure of the atmosphere to warm anywhere near as rapidly as predicted was a big reason: there has been less than half a degree of global warming in four decades — and it has slowed down, not speeded up. 然而,我逐渐改变了我的想法。一大原因是,气候完全没有像预测的那样快速变暖:在40年中气温升高了不到半度,而且气温升高的趋势有所减慢,而非加快。 Increases in malaria, refugees, heatwaves, storms, droughts and floods have not materialised to anything like the predicted extent, if at all. Sea level has risen but at a very slow rate — about a foot per century. 疟疾、难民、热浪、风暴、干旱和洪水就算有所增多,其幅度也完全没有达到所预测的程度。海平面有所上升,但上升速率非常缓慢——大约每世纪1英尺。 Also, I soon realised that all the mathematical models predicting rapid warming assume big amplifying feedbacks in the atmosphere, mainly from water vapour; carbon dioxide is merely the primer, responsible for about a third of the predicted warming. When this penny dropped, so did my confidence in predictions of future alarm: the amplifiers are highly uncertain. 我还很快意识到:所有预测气候快速变暖的数学模型都假设了大气有巨大的反馈放大效应,主要来自于水蒸气;二氧化碳仅仅起到诱导作用,大约三分之一的气温升高由二氧化碳引起。当这点确定后,我对预测未来气候危机的信心也发生了动摇:大气的反馈放大效应是非常不确定的。 Another thing that gave me pause was that I went back and looked at the history of past predictions of ecological apocalypse from my youth – population explosion, oil exhaustion, elephant extinction, rainforest loss, acid rain, the ozone layer, desertification, nuclear winter, the running out of resources, pandemics, falling sperm counts, cancerous pesticide pollution and so forth. 另一个让我(对之前的看法)感到迟疑的原因是,我回顾了从我年轻时到现在,人们对生态灾难的预测——人口爆炸、石油枯竭、大象灭绝、雨林减少、酸雨、臭氧层、荒漠化、核冬天、资源耗尽、流行病、精子数量减少、致癌农药污染等等。 There was a consistent pattern of exaggeration, followed by damp squibs: in not a single case was the problem as bad as had been widely predicted by leading scientists. That does not make every new prediction of apocalypse necessarily wrong, of course, but it should encourage scepticism. 它们表现出一种固有模式:先是夸大后果严重性,随后发现不过是一场虚惊:问题从来都没有像著名科学家们所广泛预测的那么严重,一次都没有。当然,这并不是说每个对灾难的新预测都必然是错的,但理应鼓励我们对类似预测持怀疑态度。 What sealed my apostasy from climate alarm was the extraordinary history of the famous “hockey stick” graph, which purported to show that today’s temperatures were higher and changing faster than at any time in the past thousand years. 让我彻底改变对气候危机论的看法的,是那副著名的“曲棍球棒”曲线图的奇特历史,该曲线旨在表明,如今的气温不仅高于过去一千年中的任何时刻,而且变化速度也更快。 That graph genuinely shocked me when I first saw it and, briefly in the early 2000s, it persuaded me to abandon my growing doubts about dangerous climate change and return to the “alarmed” camp. 当我在21世纪初初次看到该曲线时,曾被它深深震撼,并一度让放弃了对气候变化危险论的日益加深的怀疑,把我带回了“惊耸”阵营。 Then I began to read the work of two Canadian researchers, Steve McIntyre and Ross McKitrick. They and others have shown, as confirmed by the National Academy of Sciences in the United States, that the hockey stick graph, and others like it, are heavily reliant on dubious sets of tree rings and use inappropriate statistical filters that exaggerate any 20th-century upturns. 然后我开始阅读Steve McIntyre和Ross McKitrick这两名加拿大学者的论文。他们以及其他一些学者的研究得到了美国国家科学院(National Academy of Sciences)的肯定,这些研究表明,曲棍球棒曲线以及其他类似的曲线都严重依赖于不可靠的年轮数据,并使用了不恰当的统计筛选方法,从而夸大了20世纪气温上升的趋势。 What shocked me more was the scientific establishment’s reaction to this: it tried to pretend that nothing was wrong. And then a flood of emails was leaked in 2009 showing some climate scientists apparently scheming to withhold data, prevent papers being published, get journal editors sacked and evade freedom-of-information requests, much as sceptics had been alleging. That was when I began to re-examine everything I had been told about climate change and, the more I looked, the flakier the prediction of rapid warming seemed. 更让我震惊的是科研机构对此的反应:他们试图假装这没什么问题。后来,大量邮件于2009年遭外泄,这些邮件显示,一些气候学家显然在费尽心机隐瞒数据、阻止论文发表、让期刊编辑被解雇,还逃避信息自由获取的请求,就像怀疑论者所指控的一样。这时,我开始重新审视所有我了解到的关于气候变化的信息。我看得越多,就越觉得气候快速变暖的预测有蹊跷。 I am especially unimpressed by the claim that a prediction of rapid and dangerous warming is “settled science”, as firm as evolution or gravity. 有些人宣称,“气候变暖迅速,并且十分危险”这一预测就像进化论和万有引力一样确凿,是“公认的科学”, 我对这一论调尤其不以为然。 How could it be? It is a prediction! No prediction, let alone in a multi-causal, chaotic and poorly understood system like the global climate, should ever be treated as gospel. 这怎么可能?它是一个预测!没有一个预测应该被看做是真理,更不用说是在一个像全球气候这样多成因、无序的、人们对其缺乏了解的系统里。 With the exception of eclipses, there is virtually nothing scientists can say with certainty about the future. It is absurd to argue that one cannot disagree with a forecast. Is the Bank of England’s inflation forecast infallible? 除了日食,基本上科学家不能对未来的预测有任何保证。认为一个人不能否定预测是荒谬的。英格兰银行对通胀的预测不会出错吗? Incidentally, my current view is still consistent with the “consensus” among scientists, as represented by the reports of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. The consensus is that climate change is happening, not that it is going to be dangerous. 顺便说一句,目前我对气候变化的看法仍与政府间气候变化专门委员会(IPCC)报告中所提到的科学界“共识”保持一致。这一共识是气候变化正在发生,而不是气候变化将带来危险。 The latest IPCC report gives a range of estimates of future warming, from harmless to terrifying. My best guess would be about one degree of warming during this century, which is well within the IPCC’s range of possible outcomes. IPCC的最新报告给出了对未来气温升高的范围估计,这一范围低至无伤大雅,高至骨寒毛竖。我认为最有可能发生的情况是,在本世纪内气温将升高一度,这完全在IPCC给出的范围内。 Yet most politicians go straight to the top of the IPCC’s range and call climate change things like “perhaps the world’s most fearsome weapon of mass destruction” (John Kerry), requiring the expenditure of trillions of dollars. 然而,大多数政客只关注IPCC所给出范围的上限,把气候变化说成类似“可能是世界上最可怕的大规模杀伤性武器”(John Kerry语),要求政府支出数万亿美元来解决这一问题。 I think that is verging on grotesque in a world full of war, hunger, disease and poverty. It also means that environmental efforts get diverted from more urgent priorities, like habitat loss and invasive species. 我认为,在一个充满了战争、饥饿、疾病和贫困的世界里,这一要求近乎怪诞。这也意味着放在更至关重要的环保问题上的精力,比如栖息地减少和物种入侵,将被转移到气候变化上。 The policies being proposed to combat climate change, far from being a modest insurance policy, are proving ineffective, expensive, harmful to poor people and actually bad for the environment: we are tearing down rainforests to grow biofuels and ripping up peat bogs to install windmills that still need fossil-fuel back-up. 那些应对气候变化的政策提议,并不是一份防患于未然的适度保险,这些提议被证明是无效的、昂贵的、损害穷人利益的,并且事实上有害环境:我们通过破坏雨林来开发生物能源,我们毁坏泥炭沼来安装仍然需要化石能源做后备支持的风车。 These policies are failing to buy any comfort for our wealthy grandchildren and are doing so on the backs of today’s poor. Some insurance policy. 这些政策不仅无法为我们富足的子孙后代带来帮助,而且还让今天的穷人们为此付出代价。还是来点能带来保障的政策吧。 To begin with, after I came out as a lukewarmer, I would get genuine critiques from scientists who disagreed with me and wanted to exchange views. I had long and time-consuming email exchanges or conversations with several such scientists. 首先,在我成为一名气候温和派之后,我愿意接受不同意我的观点以及想和我交换想法的科学家们的诚恳建议。我同数名这样的科学家进行了长篇电邮交流或者长时间交谈。 Yet I grew steadily more sceptical as, one by one, they failed to answer my doubts. They often resorted to meta-arguments, especially the argument from authority: if the Royal Society says it is alarmed, then you should be alarmed. 然而,随着他们一个个都未能回答我的疑问,我对他们的说法越来越充满怀疑。他们总是采取后设论证,尤其是来自于权威的论证:如果皇家学会(Royal Society)说气候变化问题是令人恐慌的,那你就应该感到恐慌。 If I want argument from authority, I replied, I will join the Catholic Church. “These are just standard denialist talking points” scoffed another prominent scientist, unpersuasively, when I raised objections — as if that answered them. 我回答道,如果我想要得到基于权威的论证,那我就加入天主教了。当我提出反对意见时,另一位杰出的科学家嘲笑道“这是典型的拒绝主义者的观点,什么都不接受”,如同这就是问题的答案——但这毫无说服力。 My experience with sceptical scientists, many of them distinguished climatologists at leading universities, was different. The more I probed, the better their data seemed. They did not resort to the argument from authority. 我与对气候问题持怀疑态度的科学家们的交流经历就大不相同了,他们中的许多人都是一流大学的杰出气候学家。我与他们探讨得越多,就越觉得他们的数据可靠。他们没有诉诸权威的论证。 Sometimes I disagreed with them or thought they went too far. I have yet to be convinced, for example, that changes in the output of the sun caused the warming of the 1980s and 1990s — an idea that some espouse. 有时我不同意他们的意见,或者认为他们太极端。比如,有些人相信太阳热量释放的变化导致了1980年代和1990年代的气候变暖,但他们还没能说服我。 So for the most part, I found myself persuaded by the middle-of-the-road, “lukewarm” argument – that CO2-induced warming is likely but it won’t be large, fast or damaging. 所以在大多数情况下,我认同中间道路、“温和派”的观点,这观点就是,二氧化碳很可能导致了气候变暖,但气候变暖的幅度不大,速度不快,产生的破坏也不严重。 Then a funny thing happened a few years ago. Those who disagreed with me stopped pointing out politely where or why they disagreed and started calling me names. 于是在几年前,一件有趣的事情发生了。那些与我持不同观点的人不再礼貌地指出哪里不同意或者为什么不同意,他们开始辱骂我了。 One by one, many of the most prominent people in the climate debate began to throw vitriolic playground abuse at me. I was “paranoid”, “specious”, “risible”, “self-defaming”, “daft”, “lying”, “irrational”, an “idiot”. 许多在气候辩论中最为著名的人物开始一个接一个地刻薄而幼稚地骂我,说我是“偏执的”、“假内行”、“荒唐可笑的”、“自取其辱的”、“愚蠢的”、“不诚实的”、“不理性的”,总之“白痴”一个。 Their letters to the editor or their blog responses asserted that I was “error-riddled” or had seriously misrepresented something, but then they not only failed to substantiate the charge but often roughly confirmed what I had written. 他们给编辑的邮件或者博客回帖声称我“错得千疮百孔”,或者严重歪曲了什么,但随后他们不仅没能证实这些指控,反而常常大致肯定了我的观点。 I have seen bad-tempered polarisation of scientific debates before, for example during the nature-nurture debates of the 1970s and 1980s between those who thought genes affected behaviour and those who thought upbringing was overwhelmingly important. That debate grew vicious. 在以前的科学辩论中,我也看见过脾气暴躁走极端的人。例如20世纪70和80年代关于先天-后天的辩论,一些科学家认为基因影响行为,另一些认为后天的训练至关重要。那场辩论最后变得相当粗暴。 What caused the polarisation, I realised then, was not just that people on one side read the articles they agreed with, reinforcing their prejudices, but something more. They relied on extreme distortions of their enemies’ arguments, written by self-appointed guardians of the flame on their own side, so they were constantly attacking straw men. 那时我意识到,引起两极分化的,不仅仅是一方的人读了他们认同的文章,加深了他们的偏见,还有其他原因。他们依赖于同自己站在一边、自命为星火护卫者【译注:guardians of the flame是一部著名英国漫画,讲述了一群大学生保卫地球的故事,此处作者暗讽那些气候危机论者自命为地球拯救者。】的人所写的文章来极度扭曲对手的见解,所以他们只是在不断攻击稻草人。 It’s the same here. Most of the people who attack me seem to think I am a “denier” of climate change because that’s what a few hyperventilating bloggers keep saying about me. It’s not, of course, true. It’s these flame guardians who polarise such debates. 在气候问题上也是如此。大多数攻击我的人似乎认为我是一个气候变化的“否认者”,因为这是许多上气不接下气拼命攻击我的博客作者一直以来对我的描述。当然,这不是真的。就是这些星火护卫者致使这种辩论两极分化。 The most prolific of them is a man named Bob Ward. Although employed at the London School of Economics, he is not a researcher or lecturer, but policy and communications director, somebody whose day job is to defend the climate orthodoxy in the media. Some might call him a spin doctor. 他们中最多产的是一个叫Bob Ward的人。虽然他供职于伦敦政治经济学院,但他既不是研究员也不是讲师,而是政策与传播总监,他每天的工作就是在媒体上捍卫气候问题的正统观点。一些人可能会把他叫做政治化妆师【译注:政治化妆师(spin doctor)是指政治公关顾问,其典型工作是,在危机公关中,通过以投合公众喜好的方式表述事实,而影响媒体报道和公众舆论】。 It appears to me that he feels compelled to write something rude about me every time I publish on this topic and although his letters to editors are often published, he throws an online tantrum if they are not. 在我看来,每次我一发表有关此话题的文章,他就一定要写一些针对我的无礼文章。尽管他写给编辑的信通常都会被发表,但如果它们没被发表的话他就会在网上大发雷霆。 He is hilariously obsessed with my peerage, lovingly reciting my title every time he attacks me, like a Bertie Woosterish snob. 他欢乐地痴迷于我的贵族地位【译注:作者是第七代Ridley子爵,并据此身份当选为上院议员】,每次攻击我时他都要满怀深情地提及我的头衔,好像我是个Bertie Wooster式的势利小人【译注:Bertie Wooster是在英国作家P.G.Wodehouse的小说Jeeves中反复出现的一个虚构人物,是位懒散无聊的富裕绅士】。 As an example of playing the man and not the ball, Ward and Lord Deben, chairman of the government’s official committee on climate change, are both wont to mock the fact that my Oxford DPhil thesis in 1983 was on the behaviour of birds. 作为一个对人不对事的例子,Bob Ward和气候变化官方委员会主席Deben上议员都常常嘲笑我于1983在牛津大学完成的博士论文是关于鸟类行为的。 Good luck to them but I notice they don’t mock the fact that the DPhil thesis of Lord Krebs was also on birds, earned in the very same research group as me: the Edward Grey Institute of Field Ornithology. 祝他们好运吧!我发现他们并不嘲笑John Krebs议员的博士论文,那同样是关于鸟类的,而且和我的论文在同一研究机构完成:爱德华·格雷野生鸟类研究所(Edward Grey Institute of Field Ornithology)。 Lord Krebs is the chairman of the adaptation subcommittee of the committee on climate change.John Krebs, a fine scientist and superb lecturer, was the internal examiner of my thesis, which he praised at the time, after telling me to correct a couple of silly mistakes he had spotted in the calculation of a probability result. I did so. Krebs是气候变化委员会适应性分委会主席,是位优秀科学家,还是位杰出的讲师。他是我那篇论文的内部审阅者,他当时称赞了我的论文,只是要我修正他所发现的我计算概率时犯的一些低级错误。我照做了。 Imagine my surprise when he recently told several separate people (who reported it to me) that I should not be listened to on climate change because my DPhil thesis, all those years ago, contained mathematical errors. 最近他分别告诉一些人(他们转告了我)别听信我在气候变化上的见解,因为我多年前的博士论文中存在数学错误,你可以想象一下我对此有多惊讶。 Lord May even used this argument against me in a debate in the House of Lords: that because I got a number wrong in a calculation 31 years ago, I cannot ever be right again. This is the kind of hilarious thing that happens to you if you come out as a lukewarmer. May议员甚至在上院辩论中拿这点来攻击我:因为我在31年前犯了一个计算错误,我就永远没有正确的时候了。这就是当你以温和派的姿态出现时会发生在你身上的搞笑事。 Talking of the committee on climate change, last year Lord Deben commissioned an entire reportto criticise something I had said. Among other howlers, it included a quotation from the IPCC but the quote had a large chunk cut from the middle. When this cut was restored the line supported me, not Lord Deben. 说到气候变化委员会,去年Deben议员写了一整份报告来批评我所说过的一些话。在各种愚蠢的错误中包括了一个对IPCC的引用,但这段引文中间被截去了一大部分。当被截去部分补上后,其立场是支持我而非Deben议员的。 When I pointed this out politely to Lord Deben, he refused to restore the excision and left the document unchanged on the committee’s website. Presenting quotations so they appear to mean something different from what they do is quite a sin in journalism. Apparently not in Whitehall committees. 当我礼貌地向Deben议员指出这点后,他拒绝补上被截去的部分,在委员会的网站上保留了删节后的文件。以展示与作者原意不符的方式进行引用在新闻工作中是相当不道德的。显然,在白厅(Whitehall)【译注:泛指英国政府】委员会并不这么认为。 I suppose all this fury means my arguments are hitting home. If they were easily demolished they would demolish them rather than try to demolish me. Many of the things that I was abused for saying have since proved to be right. 我想,所有这些愤怒意味着我的论点正中要害。如果这些论点能够被轻易击破,那么他们就会攻击论点而不是试图攻击我。许多使我遭到辱骂的观点随后被证明是正确的。 I was one of the first to write an article in the mainstream media (in The Wall Street Journal in 2012) arguing that the latest data supported much lower estimates of climate sensitivity (the amount of warming induced by a doubling of carbon dioxide levels) than those being assumed by the models used by the IPCC. 我是最先在主流媒体上(2012年《华尔街日报》)提出,最新数据所显示的气候敏感性(二氧化碳浓度翻倍导致的升温幅度)比IPCC所用模型的估计值要低得多的人之一。 This produced the usual vituperation online from about a dozen high-profile science commentators with nothing better to do. Since then four papers (the latest being this one) have appeared in the scientific literature, authored by very prominent climate scientists, giving low estimates of climate sensitivity, some even lower than I had said. I am waiting for my critics to acknowledge that my story was sound. 这一如既往地在网上招来了大约十多个无所事事的知名科学评论家的谩骂。此后,四篇论文(最新一篇在此)出现在了科学期刊上,作者都是非常杰出的气候学家。他们都提出了低气候敏感性的估计,有些甚至比我说的还要低。我正在等着批评我的那些人承认我文章所说的是正确的。 I have never met a climate sceptic, let alone a lukewarmer, who wants his opponents silenced. I wish I could say the same of those who think climate change is an alarming prospect. 我从来没有遇到过一个气候问题怀疑论者会希望他的对手闭嘴,温和派更加不会。可惜的是,那些认为气候变化对未来是个危机的人做不到这一点。 Update: 更新: Marlo Lewis has provided a handy list of the range of opinions that come under the "lukewarmer" label. I subscribe to each of these in some form or to some degree: Marlo Lewis提供了一份“温和派”观点的速览表。我或多或少同意这些观点: "In general, I would describe a ‘lukewarmer’ as someone who: “通常而言,我所认为的“温和派”:
  • Thinks anthropogenic climate change is real but very far from being a planetary emergency.
  • 认为人为因素引起的气候变化真实存在,但远不至于造成全球性危机
  • Takes due notice of the increasing divergencebetween climate model predictions and observations and the growing body of scientific literature challenging IPCC climate sensitivity estimates.
  • 注意到气候模型的预测与实际观测值之间越来越大的差异以及越来越多的科学论文挑战IPCC关于气候敏感性的估计。
  • Regards the usual pastiche of remedies — carbon taxes, cap-and-trade, renewable energy quota, CO2 performance standards – as either an expensive exercise in futilityor a ‘cure’ worse than the alleged disease (depending how aggressively those policies are implemented).
  • 把常用的补救措施——碳税、限额和交易、可再生能源配额、二氧化碳排放标准——看做是昂贵的徒劳之举。或是比所谓的疾病更糟糕的“疗法”(糟糕程度取决于这些政策执行得有多激进)。
  • Is impressed by — and thankful for — the immense albeit usually unsung benefits of the CO2 fertilization effect on global agricultureand green things
  • 谨记并感激二氧化碳对全球农业及所有绿色植物的巨大生长促进作用,虽然这一好处通常得不到称颂。
  • Recognizes that poverty remains the world’s leading cause of preventable illnessand premature death.
  • 认识到贫困仍然是世界上造成可预防疾病和过早死亡的主要原因。
  • Understands that plentiful, affordable, scalable energy (most of which comes from CO2-emitting fossil fuels) is essential to poverty eradication and progress towards a healthier, safer, more prosperous world."
  • 理解到丰富的、廉价的、可量产的能源(大多数来自于释放二氧化碳的化石能源)对消除贫困和逐步走向一个更健康、更安全、更繁荣的世界至关重要。
Update 2: 更新2: The main point of my article was to draw attention to how ad-hominem, vicious and personal the attacks on lukewarmers now are from the guardians of the flame of climate alarm. Though I had a huge and overwhelmingly positive response, I could not have wished for a better example of my point than some of the negative reactions to this article. 我的文章的主要目的,是让人们注意到目前气候危机论的星火护卫队对温和派的攻击有多么对人不对事和卑鄙,而且是人身攻击。虽然我得到了大量热情和正面的回应,然而就证明我的观点而言,没有比对本文的一些负面回应更有说服力的了。 An egregious example was the death threats I received from a Guardian contributor and Greenpeace "translator", Gary Evans. 一个极端的例子是我从《卫报》作者兼绿色和平组织翻译Gary Evans那里收到的死亡威胁。 On 21 January The Guardian published an article by Dana Nuccitelli, specifically criticizing me. The article was illustrated with a picture of the severed head of a zombie. Beneath the article appeared the following comment from “Bluecloud”: 1月21日,《卫报》发表了Dana Nuccitelli的文章,特别对我提出批评。文章的配图是被砍下的僵尸头颅。文章下方有来自于网名为Bluecloud的网友的如下评论: “Should that not be Ridley's severed head in the photo?” “照片里难道不是Ridley被砍下的头颅吗?” Bluecloud was challenged by another commenter with: “Do you recommend that for all people that have a different world view than you?” Bluecloud被另一名评论者质问道: “你是建议对所有世界观与你不同的人都这样吗?” Bluecloud replied: Bluecloud回复说: “We would actually solve a great deal of the world's problems by chopping off everyone's heads. Why are you deniers so touchy? Mere calls for a beheading evolve such a strong response in you people. Ask yourself a simple question: Would the world be a better place without Matt Ridley? Need I answer that question?” “事实上,把每个人的头都砍下来能解决世界上的很多问题。你们这些“否认派”怎么那么敏感?只是呼吁一下斩首就让你们这群人有那么大的反应。 问你自己一个简单的问题:没有了Matt Ridley的世界会变得更好吗?还用我回答这个问题吗?” This showed that Bluecloud had not been misunderstood in his death threat. It occurred a few days before the beheading of a Japanese hostage in Syria. 这表明人们读懂了Bluecloud的死亡威胁。这发生在日本人质在叙利亚被斩首前几天。 At this stage a number of comments below the article had already been censored or deleted, including one from Professor Richard Tol of Sussex University, which read as follows: 如今该文章下的不少评论已被屏蔽或删除,包括一条来自萨塞克斯大学教授Richard Tol的评论,内容如下: “Dr Ridley claimed that his writings inspire others to write about what he wrote. To illustrate his point, Ken Rice, Greg Laden and Dana Nuccitelli write about Ridley’s writings. “Ridley博士声称他的作品能激发其他人围绕他的观点继续讨论。为了阐释他的观点,Ken Rice、Greg Laden和Dana Nuccitelli就写了关于Ridley作品的文章。 Dr Ridley claimed that there have been more attempts on his character than on his arguments. To underline this point, Pitchfork Anonymous smears his name. Ridley博士说针对他人品的攻击多过针对他论点的攻击。为了强调这一点,Pitchfork Anonymous隐去了他的姓名。 Anyone who points out the irony of all this receives the same treatment.” 任何指出其中讽刺之处的人会受到同样的待遇。” This was “removed by a moderator because it didn’t abide by our community standards”, though how it caused offence is hard to imagine. This shows that Bluecloud’s comment could have been removed by moderators had they wished. 该帖“已被版主删除,因为它没有遵守我们的社区准则”,虽然很难想象它是怎么引起冒犯的。这说明如果版主愿意的话,Bluecloud的评论可能已经被删除了。 Another commenter, “Adamke", then pointed out that Bluecloud is Gary Evans, an environmental activist who works with Greenpeace and writes occasionally for the Guardian (where his profile states clearly that he posts as Bluecloud). 另一位评论者“Adamke”随后指出Bluecloud就是Gary Evans,他是一名环保行动主义者,与绿色和平组织有合作关系,偶尔向《卫报》供稿(其简介清楚地表明他用Bluecloud这一网名发文)。 Incredibly, this comment, outing Mr Evans, was then removed by the moderators, because apparently it was more offensive to the Guardian community than the recommendation that I be beheaded. 难以置信的是,这条揭露Evans先生身份的评论随后被版主删除了,显然是因为这条评论对《卫报》集团的打击大于将我斩首的建议。 Astonished by this turn of events, I wrote to Alan Rusbridger, the editor of The Guardian, complaining of the extraordinary double standard. He replied that the zombie picture had now been changed and the beheading comments removed. He said that he was “of course” sorry if I had been distressed. 震惊于这一变故,我写信给《卫报》主编Alan Rusbridger,投诉他们严重的双重标准。他回复我说那张僵尸的图片已经改掉了,斩首的评论也已被删除。他说如果我感到被冒犯了的话,他“当然”感到抱歉。 He refused to answer my question as to whether he had contacted Mr Evans with a view to finding out how serious his threat was, and refused to say whether the Guardian would in future use Mr Evans as a contributor. He said I should now appeal to the “readers’ editor” if I was unhappy with his reply. 他拒绝回答我关于他是否已经同Evans先生取得联系,让他知道他的威胁有多么严重的问题,同样,他也拒绝回答未来《卫报》是否仍会使用Evans先生的供稿。他说如果我对他的回复表示不满,现在我应该向“读者编辑”申诉。 I did so. I also drew Greenpeace’s attention to the actions of their associate and they issued a statement that read as follows: “The content and tone of the comments are completely at odds with the principle of non-violence written into our organisation's DNA, and we would never condone that kind of language from someone working for Greenpeace or indeed from anyone else." 我这么做了。我还提请绿色和平组织留意他们合作伙伴的所作所为,他们发表了如下声明:“评论中的内容与语气与写入我们组织DNA的非暴力原则完全相悖,我们绝不会容忍绿色和平组织的工作者或其他人说出此类言语。” No such statement emerged from the Guardian. Chris Elliott, the readers’ editor, took eleven days to reply to my email. He referred to the death threat as a “joke” and defended some of the actions of the Guardian, though said they should not have used that picture or allowed the death threats to go undeleted. 《卫报》没有发出此类声明。读者编辑Chris Elliott用了11天时间来回复我的邮件。他把死亡威胁说成是一个“玩笑”,还为《卫报》所采取的行动辩护,尽管他说他们不应该使用那张图片或者允许死亡威胁留在网页上。 Eventually, he published an article in which the Guardian apologised to me for not deleting the beheading tweet sooner, and quoting Mr Evans as apologising "for any trouble this may have caused to anyone involved". This was approximately three weeks after the original comments had appeared. 最终,他发表了一篇文章,文中《卫报》对没有及时删除斩首言论对我表示歉意,同时引用了Evans先生“为这一评论给任何受到影响的人所引起的任何麻烦”道歉。这大概是在原评论出现后三周。 This episode began with me noting that anybody who refuses to subscribe to the view that climate change is a very dangerous threat is treated as some kind of heretic to be persecuted, rather than a sceptic to be debated. The reaction has confirmed my point precisely. 这整个事件始于我注意到任何拒绝赞同“气候变化是十分危险的威胁”这一说法的人都会被认为是某种异端而受到迫害,而不是被视为质疑者而与之辩论。这些反应完全证实了我的看法。 (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——

[译文]最低工资这趟浑水

The Minimum-Wage Muddle
最低工资之惑

作者:David Brooks @ 2015-7-24
译者:乘风(@你在何地-sxy)
校对:迈爸(@麦田的字留地),小册子(@昵称被抢的小册子)
来源:The New York Times,http://www.nytimes.com/2015/07/24/opinion/david-brooks-the-minimum-wage-muddle.html

Once upon a time there was a near consensus among economists that raising the minimum wage was a bad idea. The market is really good at setting prices on things, whether it is apples or labor. If you raise the price on a worker, employers will hire fewer and you’ll end up hurting the people you meant to help.

从前,经济学家们几乎普遍一致地认为提高最低工资是个馊主意。市场着实善于为各种东西定价,无论是苹果还是劳动力。假如你提高工人的价格,雇主就会减少招聘,最终你会伤害你本想要帮助的人。

Then in 1993 the economists David Card and Alan Krueger looked at fast-food restaurants in New Jersey and Pennsylvania and found that raising the minimum wage gave people more income without hurting employment. A series of studies in Britain buttressed these findings.

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The Minimum-Wage Muddle 最低工资之惑 作者:David Brooks @ 2015-7-24 译者:乘风(@你在何地-sxy) 校对:迈爸(@麦田的字留地),小册子(@昵称被抢的小册子) 来源:The New York Times,http://www.nytimes.com/2015/07/24/opinion/david-brooks-the-minimum-wage-muddle.html Once upon a time there was a near consensus among economists that raising the minimum wage was a bad idea. The market is really good at setting prices on things, whether it is apples or labor. If you raise the price on a worker, employers will hire fewer and you’ll end up hurting the people you meant to help. 从前,经济学家们几乎普遍一致地认为提高最低工资是个馊主意。市场着实善于为各种东西定价,无论是苹果还是劳动力。假如你提高工人的价格,雇主就会减少招聘,最终你会伤害你本想要帮助的人。 Then in 1993 the economists David Card and Alan Krueger looked at fast-food restaurants in New Jersey and Pennsylvania and found that raising the minimum wage gave people more income without hurting employment. A series of studies in Britain buttressed these findings. 然后经济学家David Card和Alan Krueger在1993年考察了新泽西州和宾夕法尼亚州的快餐店之后,发现最低工资的提高增加了人们的收入,同时并未减少就业职位。英国的一系列研究也支持这一发现。 Today, raising the minimum wage is the central piece of the progressive economic agenda. President Obama and Hillary Clinton champion it. Cities and states across the country have been moving to raise minimum wages to as high as $15 an hour —including New York State just this week. 当前,提高最低工资是进步派经济议程的核心内容。奥巴马总统和希拉里·克林顿都拥护它。全国各地的许多州和城市纷纷把最低工资提到高达每小时15美元——纽约州本周就这么干了。 Some of my Democratic friends are arguing that forcing businesses to raise their minimum wage will not only help low-wage workers; it will actually boost profits, because companies will better retain workers. Some economists have reported that there is no longer any evidence that raising wages will cost jobs. 我的一些民主党朋友争辩说,强迫企业提高最低工资不仅能帮助低薪工人,而且实际上还会增加企业利润,因为公司将能够更好地留住工人。一些经济学家还提出,现在已经没有证据表明提高工资会造成职位减少。 Unfortunately, that last claim is inaccurate. There are in fact many studies on each side of the issue. David Neumark of the University of California, Irvine and William Wascher of the Federal Reserve have done their own studies and point to dozens of others showing significant job losses. 遗憾地是,最后这一断言并不准确。实际上,这个问题的研究结果正反两方都有很多。加州大学尔湾分校的David Neumark和美联储的William Wascher也对此做了研究,并举出了其他数十项研究,表明(提高最低工资会带来)严重的岗位流失。 Recently, Michael Wither and Jeffrey Clemens of the University of California, San Diego looked at data from the 2007 federal minimum-wage hike and found that it reduced the national employment-to-population ratio by 0.7 percentage points (which is actually a lot), and led to a six percentage point decrease in the likelihood that a low-wage worker would have a job. 最近,加州大学圣迭戈分校的Michael Wither 和Jeffrey Clemens检视了2007年联邦最低工资上涨的数据,发现这一上涨使得全国适龄劳动人口就业率下降了0.7个百分点(这一下降幅度其实已经很大了),并使得低薪工人找到工作的可能性下降了6个百分点。 Because low-wage workers get less work experience under a higher minimum-wage regime, they are less likely to transition to higher-wage jobs down the road. Wither and Clemens found that two years later, workers’chances of making $1,500 a month was reduced by five percentage points. 在一个最低工资较高的体制下,低薪工人得到的工作经验较少,于是他们未来就更加难以转型以求得薪资较高的职位。Wither 和Clemens发现,两年以后,工人们月薪达到1500美元的机会下降了5个百分点。 Many economists have pointed out that as a poverty-fighting measure the minimum wage is horribly targeted. A 2010 study by Joseph Sabia and Richard Burkhauser found that only 11.3 percent of workers who would benefit from raising the wage to $9.50 an hour would come from poor households. An earlier study by Sabia found that single mothers’employment dropped 6 percent for every 10 percent increase in the minimum wage. 很多经济学家已经指出,作为一项扶贫措施,最低工资简直是南辕北辙。Joseph Sabia和Richard Burkhauser于2010年所做的一项研究发现,最低工资提升至时薪9.5美元时,受益者中只有11.3%来自贫困家庭。Sabia更早的一项研究则发现,最低工资每提升10%,单身母亲的就业率就下降6%。 A study by Thomas MaCurdy of Stanford built on the fact that there are as many individuals in high-income families making the minimum wage (teenagers) as in low-income families. 斯坦福大学Thomas MaCurdy的一项研究基于这样一个事实:就赚取最低工资而言,来自高收入家庭的个体(青少年)和来自低收入家庭的一样多。 MaCurdy found that the costs of raising the wage are passed on to consumers in the form of higher prices. Minimum-wage workers often work at places that disproportionately serve people down the income scale. So raising the minimum wage is like a regressive consumption tax paid for by the poor to subsidize the wages of workers who are often middle class. MaCurdy还发现,提高工资带来的成本,会以加价的形式转嫁到消费者头上。由于拿最低工资的工人其服务对象大都处于收入底层,所以提高最低工资就像是征收了一种按收入递减的消费税,由穷人来补贴那些时常来自中产阶级的工人的工资。 What we have, in sum, is a very complicated situation. If we do raise the minimum wage a lot of people will clearly benefit and a lot of people will clearly be hurt. The most objective and broadest bits of evidence provoke ambivalence. 总之,我们面对的是一个非常复杂的情况。如果我们提高最低工资,很多人明显会受益,也有很多人明显会受损。最广泛且客观的证据引致了相互矛盾的观点。 One survey of economists by the University of Chicago found that 59 percent believed that a rise to $9 an hour would make it “noticeably harder”for poor people to find work. But a slight majority also thought the hike would be worthwhile for those in jobs. 芝加哥大学所做的一份针对经济学家的调查显示,59%的经济学家相信最低工资提高到时薪9美元会使穷人找工作“显著变难”。不过,也有微弱多数认为最低工资上涨对那些已经有工作的人是有利的。 A study by the Congressional Budget Office found that a hike to $10.10 might lift 900,000 out of poverty but cost roughly 500,000 jobs. 国会预算办公室的一项研究发现,时薪上涨到10.10美元可能会使90万人脱贫,但代价是牺牲大约50万个工作岗位。 My own guess is the economists will never be able to give us a dispositive answer about who is hurt or helped. Economists have their biases and reality is too granular. It depends on what region a worker is in, whether a particular job can be easily done by a machine, what the mind-set of his or her employer is. 我自己的猜测是,经济学家永远不可能给我们一个最终定论,告诉我们谁受损谁受益。经济学家有其偏见,而现实则纷繁复杂。结果取决于工人的工作所在地,其工作是否容易被机器取代,其雇主的思想观念如何。 The best reasonable guess is that a gradual hike in high-cost cities like Seattle or New York will probably not produce massive dislocation. But raising the wage to $15 in rural New York will cause large disruptions and job losses. 最合理的猜测是,在西雅图或纽约等物价高昂的城市,最低工资的逐步提高不太可能会造成严重混乱。但在纽约的乡下地区将时薪提高至15美元,则会导致巨大的破坏和岗位流失。 The key intellectual upshot is that, despite what some people want you to believe, the laws of economic gravity have not been suspended. You can’t impose costs on some without trade-offs for others. You can’t intervene in the market without unintended consequences. 关键的知识要点是,不管别人想要你相信什么,经济学的牛顿定律并没有失效。你在这边厢强加成本,就得在那边厢做出交换,你不能指望干涉市场而不产生意料之外的后果。 And here’s a haunting fact that seems to make sense: Raising the minimum wage will produce winners among job holders from all backgrounds, but it will disproportionately punish those with the lowest skills, who are least likely to be able to justify higher employment costs. 一个挥之不去的事实看来很说明问题:提高最低工资的赢家会包括来自所有不同背景的受雇劳动力,但它所损害的,更多的是劳动技能最低的人群,他们最缺乏能力去证明,自己值得拿更高的工资。 (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。

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