The new normal 新常态

The era of predictable unpredictability is not going away

第一段：

Is it nearly over? In 2021 people have been yearning for something like stability. Even those who accepted that they would never get their old lives back hoped for a new normal. Yet as 2022 draws near, it is time to face the world’s predictable unpredictability. The pattern for the rest of the 2020s is not the familiar routine of the pre-covid years, but the turmoil and bewilderment of the pandemic era. The new normal is already here.

快结束了吗？2021 年人们一直向往稳定之类的东西。即使是那些已经接受自己过去的生活再也回不来了的人们，也希望能有一个新常态。然而，随着 2022 年的到来，是时候面对世界的真相了：唯一可预测的就是不可预测。21 世纪 20 年代剩下的日子不会是新冠之前人们熟悉的模样，而是疫情时代的混乱和困惑。新常态已经来临了。

第二段：

Remember how the terrorist attacks of September 11th 2001 began to transform air travel in waves. In the years that followed each fresh plot exposed an unforeseen weakness that required a new rule. First came locked cockpit doors, more armed air marshals and bans on sharp objects. Later, suspicion fell on bottles of liquid, shoes and laptops. Flying did not return to normal, nor did it establish a new routine. Instead, everything was permanently up for revision.

还记得 2001 年 9 月 11 日的恐怖袭击是如何一次又一次地改变航空旅行的吗？在随后的几年里，每一次新的阴谋都暴露出一个不曾预见的弱点，然后就需要一个全新的规则。首先是锁上的驾驶舱门，更多的武装空警和禁止尖锐物品。后来，嫌疑就落到了瓶装液体、鞋子和笔记本电脑上。飞行没有恢复正常，也没有建立新的常态。相反，一切永远都处在随时可能被修改的状态。

第三段：

The world is similarly unpredictable today and the pandemic is part of the reason. For almost two years people have lived with shifting regimes of mask-wearing, tests, lockdowns, travel bans, vaccination certificates and other paperwork. As outbreaks of new cases and variants ebb and flow, so these regimes can also be expected to come and go. That is the price of living with a disease that has not yet settled into its endemic state.

今天的世界同样不可预测，部分就是由疫情导致的。近两年来，人们生活在不断变化的制度中：戴口罩、核酸检测、旅行限制、疫苗接种证明和其他的文书工作。随着新病例和新变种爆发的起起落落，这些政策也变化不定。这就是与一种尚未成为流行病的疾病共存的代价。

第四段：

And covid-19 may not be the only such infection. Although a century elapsed between the ravages of Spanish flu and the coronavirus, the next planet-conquering pathogen could strike much sooner. Germs thrive in an age of global travel and crowded cities. The proximity of people and animals will lead to the incubation of new human diseases. Such zoonoses, which tend to emerge every few years, used to be a minority interest. For the next decade, at least, you can expect each new outbreak to trigger paroxysms of precaution.

而且新冠可能不是唯一一个这样的传染病。尽管西班牙流感和新冠的肆虐相隔了一个世纪，但下一个征服地球的病原体可能会来得更快。细菌在一个全球旅行和拥挤城市成为常态的时代里繁殖。人与动物的亲近会导致新的人类疾病出现。这种每隔几年就会出现一次的动物源性疾病，过去只和少数人有关。（然而）至少在接下来的十年里，可以预见每次新的（病毒）爆发都会迅速引发相应的预防措施。

第五段：

Covid has also helped bring about today’s unpredictable world indirectly, by accelerating change that was incipient. The pandemic has shown how industries can be suddenly upended by technological shifts. Remote shopping, working from home and the Zoom boom were once the future. In the time of covid they rapidly became as much of a chore as picking up the groceries or the daily commute.

新冠还通过加速刚刚萌芽的某些变化，间接地促成了今天不可预测的世界。疫情让我们看到工厂是如何一下子被科技颠覆的。远程购物、居家工作和 Zoom 的兴起曾经只是对未来的想象。在疫情期间它们迅速变成了一种像买食物及日用品或每天通勤一样的例行工作。

第六段：

Big technological shifts are nothing new. But instead of taking centuries or decades to spread around the world, as did the printing press and telegraph, new technologies become routine in a matter of years. Just 15 years ago, modern smartphones did not exist. Today more than half of the people on the planet carry one. Any boss who thinks their industry is immune to such wild dynamism is unlikely to last long.

重大的技术变革并不是什么新鲜事。但是，新技术并不像印刷机或电报那样需要几个世纪或几十年的时间才能在全世界传播开来，而是在短短几年内就成为常规。就在 15 年前，现代智能手机还不存在。今天，地球上超过一半的人都带着一个。任何认为自己的行业不受这种疯狂活力影响的老板都不太可能做的长久。

第七段：

The pandemic may also have ended the era of low global inflation that began in the 1990s and was ingrained by economic weakness after the financial crisis of 2007-09. Having failed to achieve a quick recovery then, governments spent nearly $11trn trying to ensure that the harm caused by the virus was transient.

疫情还可能结束了始于 1990 年代、在 2007-09 年金融危机后因经济疲软而根深蒂固的全球低通胀时代。由于未能实现快速恢复，各国政府花费了近 11 万亿美元试图确保新冠病毒造成的伤害只是暂时的。

第八段：

They broadly succeeded, but fiscal stimulus and bunged-up supply chains have raised global inflation above 5%. The apparent potency of deficit spending will change how recessions are fought. As they raise interest rates to deal with inflation, central banks may find themselves in conflict with indebted governments. Amid a burst of innovation around cryptocoins, central-bank digital currencies and fintech, many outcomes are possible. A return to the comfortable macroeconomic orthodoxies of the 1990s is one of the least likely.

各国政府大体上取得了成功，但财政刺激和堵塞的供应链已经使全球通胀超过了 5%。赤字开支的显著威力将改变对抗经济衰退的方式。在提高利率应对通胀之际，央行可能发现自己与负债累累的政府发生了冲突。在围绕加密货币、央行数字货币和金融科技的一系列创新中，许多结果都是可能的。回到上世纪 90 年代那种舒适的宏观经济正统观念是最不可能的。

第九段：

The pandemic has also soured relations between the world’s two great powers. America blames China’s secretive Communist Party for failing to contain the virus that emerged from Wuhan at the end of 2019. Some claim that it came from a Chinese laboratory there—an idea China has allowed to fester through its self-defeating resistance to open investigations. For its part, China, which has recorded fewer than 6,000 deaths, no longer bothers to hide its disdain for America, with its huge death toll. In mid-December this officially passed 800,000 (The Economist estimates the full total to be almost 1m). The contempt China and America feel for each other will heighten tensions over Taiwan, the South China Sea, human rights in Xinjiang and the control of strategic technologies.

疫情也使世界两大强国之间的关系恶化了。......。就中国而言，因为死亡人数不到 6000 人，故而不再愿意掩饰对美国（庞大死亡人数）的鄙视。12 月中旬，这一数字正式超过了 80 万（据《经济学人》估计，总数将接近 100 万）。中美对彼此的鄙视将加剧在台湾、中国南海、新疆人权和战略科技控制等问题上的紧张局势。

第十段：

In the case of climate change, the pandemic has served as an emblem of interdependence. Despite the best efforts to contain them, virus particles cross frontiers almost as easily as molecules of methane and carbon dioxide. Scientists from around the world showed how vaccines and medicines can save hundreds of millions of lives. However, hesitancy and the failure to share doses frustrated their plans. Likewise, in a world that is grappling with global warming, countries that have everything to gain from working together continually fall short. Even under the most optimistic scenarios, the accumulation of long-lasting greenhouse gases in the atmosphere means that extreme and unprecedented weather of the kind seen during 2021 is here to stay.

在气候变化方面，疫情又是（国家间）相互依存的象征。尽管尽了最大的努力来控制它们，病毒颗粒跨越边界几乎和甲烷和二氧化碳分子一样容易。来自世界各地的科学家展示了疫苗和药物如何拯救数亿人的生命。然而，犹豫不决和未能分享针剂挫败了他们的计划。同样，在一个正在努力应对全球变暖的世界上，如果各个国家共同努力则一切都不是问题，但它们却总是掉链子。即使在最乐观的情况下，大气中长期积累的温室气体也意味着， 2021 年出现的那种前所未见的极端天气将持续下去。

第十一段：

The desire to return to a more stable, predictable world may help explain a 1990s revival. You can understand the appeal of going back to a decade in which superpower competition had abruptly ended, liberal democracy was triumphant, suits were oversized, work ended when people left the office, and the internet was not yet disrupting cosy, established industries or stoking the outrage machine that has supplanted public discourse.

回到一个更稳定、更可预测之世界的愿望也许可以解释一场 90 年代复古潮流。你可以理解回到那十年的吸引力有多大：超级大国间的竞争突然结束，自由民主取得了胜利，西装宽松，离开办公室后就没有工作，而且互联网还没有颠覆舒适成熟的各行各业、也没有发动取代了公共讨论的愤怒机器。

第十二段：

That desire is too nostalgic. It is worth notching up some of the benefits that come with today’s predictable unpredictability. Many people like to work from home. Remote services can be cheaper and more accessible. The rapid dissemination of technology could bring unimagined advances in medicine and the mitigation of global warming.

这种愿望过于怀旧。现在，可预测的不可预测性带来的一些好处（其实是）值得的。许多人喜欢在家工作。远程服务可以更便宜、更方便。技术的迅速传播可能带来医学和解决全球变暖方面难以想象的进步。

第十三段：

Even so, beneath it lies the unsettling idea that once a system has crossed some threshold, every nudge tends to shift it further from the old equilibrium. Many of the institutions and attitudes that brought stability in the old world look ill-suited to the new. The pandemic is like a doorway. Once you pass through, there is no going back.

即便如此，在它的背后隐藏着一种令人不安的想法，即一旦一个系统跨过了某个门槛，每一次推动都会使它进一步远离旧的平衡。许多为旧世界带来稳定的制度和态度看起来都不适合新世界。疫情就像一扇大门，一旦跨过了，就再也回不去了。