【TED演讲稿】亚马逊雨林里螳螂的色彩斑斓与形态各异之美
TED演讲者：Katherine Mangu-Ward / 利奥·兰纳 勒维卡斯·菲亚特
演讲标题：What capitalism gets right -- and governments get wrong / 亚马逊雨林里螳螂的色彩斑斓与形态各异之美
内容概要：Is capitalism a good thing? Journalist Katherine Mangu-Ward makes the case that "weirdos" left alone to innovate and explore far-out ideas in a free market system are our best hope for the future. She asks us to reconsider our qualms about capitalism, failure and corporate death, analyzing the recent history of General Motors and Facebook to illustrate why we're better off with a lot less government intervention.
在这场引人入胜的讲座中，我们将进入亚马逊雨林较人想象的更富有色彩的夜晚——艺术昆虫学家利奥·兰纳（Leo Lanna）和设计师勒维卡斯·菲亚特（Lvcas Fiat）将向我们介绍他们为之着迷的螳螂这种生物的姿态变幻之美。兰纳和菲亚特用一种融合了科学、艺术和保护的创新方式，揭示了这个自然王国中出乎意料的生物多样性，也证明了地球上的探险时代远未结束。
*******************************************
【1】Hi, I'm Katherine, and I like capitalism, a lot.
大家好,我是凯瑟琳 （Katherine）, 我喜欢资本主义, 非常喜欢。
【2】But in my 20 years as a libertarian journalist, I have started to pick up that some people aren't as fond of capitalism as I am.
但是在我 20 年的 自由意志主义记者的职业生涯中, 我逐渐发现 有些人没有我这么喜欢资本主义。
【3】That's fine, but here's the thing.
没关系,但是有一点。
【4】I think a lot of the stuff that you think you hate about capitalism is actually stuff to hate about government.
我认为,有些你讨厌资本主义的方面 其实是讨厌政府的方面。
【5】Before we get started kvetching, though, I want to sing you a little song, and you've probably heard it before, so feel free to sing along, if you like.
但是在我开始发牢骚之前, 我想唱一首歌,你可能以前也听过, 如果你愿意的话可以一起唱。
【6】Don’t worry, I’m not actually going to sing. It’s fine.
别担心,我没有真要唱,没事。
【7】200 years ago, in 1820, the global rate of absolute poverty -- which is defined, imperfectly, as living on less than one dollar and 90 cents a day -- was 84 percent.
200 年以前,1820 年, 全球绝对贫困率—— 不完全准确的定义为 每日生活支出低于 1.90 美元, 数值为 84%。
【8】That's enormous.
这可是个不小的数目。
【9】Today, the World Bank puts that number at nine percent.
如今,世界银行公布 低于贫困线人口数据为 9%。
【10】Over the same period, life expectancy went from less than 30 years to 72, and there were similarly remarkable gains in access to food, water, housing, education during that period.
在这 200 年的时间里, 人口预期寿命 从低于 30 岁升至 72 岁, 同样的改善情况也出现在 同时期的食物、水资源、 住房、教育资源供应上。
【11】That period coincides so neatly with the rise of global capitalism that I flatly refuse to believe it's a coincidence.
这个时期恰逢 全球资本主义的崛起时期, 吻合得让我不敢相信这只是个巧合。
【12】I think sometimes, we get so caught up in talking about what capitalism could or should be that we forget what it has been and what it is.
我觉得有时候,我们忙于讨论 资本主义到底会变成什么样, 或者应该变成什么样, 以致于我们忘记了 资本主义的历史和本质。
【13】So I wanted to just take a minute to do some, like, greatest hits of capitalism.
我想花一两分钟谈谈 资本主义的一些重大突破。
【14】They include electric light, personal mobile phones, cheap fertilizer, commercial aviation.
包括电灯、个人手机、 低价肥料、民用航空。
【15】And current capitalists are working on cool stuff like cryptocurrencies and geoengineering and plant-based meat.
当今的资本主义者 在研究一些酷炫的东西, 比如加密货币、地球工程、 植物肉。
【16】I also recently learned that there is a zero-sugar, alcoholic version of Taco Bell's Baja Blast Mountain Dew.
我最近听说塔可贝尔（Taco Bell）的 激浪 Baja Blast 系列饮料 竟然还有无糖有酒精版本。
【17】(Laughter) And I don't actually know if that's a point for or against my argument, but I did feel like you should know.
（笑声） 其实我也不知道 这该不该是我观点的论据, 但是我觉得你该知道这个消息。
【18】(Laughter) So, amongst all of this miraculous market activity, we also have government, and that means we have two problems.
（笑声） 在这些市场活动的奇迹中, 我们还有政府, 这意味着我们有两个问题。
【19】The first problem is that governments don't love it when weird new stuff gets born.
第一个问题,政府不喜欢 这种奇怪新事物的到来。
【20】Second problem is that governments also don't love it when familiar old stuff dies.
第二个问题,政府也不喜欢 熟悉旧事物的消逝。
【21】So let's talk about the new stuff first.
我们先来说说新事物吧。
【22】The thing about capitalism is that it is an emergent system.
资本主义重要的一点就是 它是一个逐渐成长的系统。
【23】It's, like all evolutionary mechanisms, powered by mutations.
这些逐渐发展的机制 都建立在新变化上。
【24】And in this case, what the mutations are are very weird people trying new stuff.
新变化就是 奇奇怪怪的人尝试新事物。
【25】And when we need really big progress, big new stuff, that means we need really, really weird people.
如果我们想要显着进步、 伟大创新的话, 就意味着我们需要相当奇怪的人。
【26】Elon, looking at you, buddy. I don't know where you are today.
埃隆（Elon Musk）,说的就是你。 虽然我也不知道你在哪儿。
【27】(Laughter) Prior to the rise of modern capitalism, it absolutely sucked to be weird.
（笑声） 在现代资本主义崛起之前, 奇怪的行为会让你处境比较艰难。
【28】Best-case scenario -- a new idea ended up kind of dying on the vine for lack of opportunities or resources to go forward.
最好的情况是一个新点子 由于缺乏推进的机会或者资源 不了了之。
【29】Worst-case scenario, trying something heroic and new could put you at odds with the powers that be in times and places when those powers were absolute.
最差的情况是 尝试一些伟大创新 会让你和当朝的极权权贵 发生龃龉。
【30】So imagine you have a great plan to open up a new trade route between Europe and Asia during the Anglo-Dutch Wars.
假设在英荷战争时期, 你试图在欧亚之间 开通一条新的贸易航线。
【31】That is a brilliant way to get a face full of cannonballs.
那你就可以充分体验挨枪子的滋味。
【32】I'm not saying that every weirdo has a brilliant apocalypse-averting idea that also happens to be a viable commercial enterprise.
我的意思不是 每个怪人开天辟地的新点子 都正好是个可行的商业企划。
【33】Most new ideas are bad.
大多数的新点子都不是好点子。
【34】There’s a reason people haven’t done it before.
前无古人不是没有道理的。
【35】Just like most mutations are evolutionary dead ends.
就像大多数的转变 都是逐渐走向灭亡的过程。
【36】But that's OK, because high-functioning capitalism is characterized by a tremendous amount of corporate failure.
但是没关系,高功能的资本主义 本来就有大量的企业失败。
【37】Governments don't actually like it when familiar old corporations fail.
但是政府可不喜欢传统企业垮台。
【38】They prefer to do business with the taxable, already regulated devils that they know.
政府喜欢 和已经驯服的纳税恶魔做交易。
【39】But that's too bad, because my personal favorite thing about companies is that they can die.
这也太不好了, 因为我最喜欢企业的一点就是 它们会倒闭。
【40】When companies die, of course, that imposes a hardship on customers, on employees, on communities, on your 401(k).
当然企业倒闭了 会让顾客、员工、社会、 你的 401(k) 计划 （养老保险）不太好过。
【41】My family wasn't allowed to set foot in a Walmart for a generation, after Walmart put my granddaddy's general store out of business, so I get it.
沃尔玛让我祖父的店倒闭了, 所以我家一整代人 都不允许踏足沃尔玛, 所以我懂的。
【42】At the same time, failure is the fate of nearly every company, and that is why capitalism works.
与此同时,几乎每个公司 都命中注定会失败, 也就是为什么 资本主义可以运转起来。
【43】Imagine, if you will, when a company fails, it releases into the market labor and resources, talent that can be better used elsewhere.
想像一下,一家公司倒闭了, 把劳动力和资源释放进市场, 人才可以在别处得到更好的利用。
【44】Imagine a tree falling in the forest and rotting and fueling new growth.
类似于一棵树在森林里倒下了, 腐烂但滋养了新生。
【45】Good news, though, for fans of corporate death like myself: the original Fortune 500 list, in 1955 -- of the companies on that list, only 52 are still on the list.
但是有个好消息要带给 我这样的企业倒闭爱好者们: 位列 1955 年的首次 《财富》世界 500 强公司 如今只有 52 家还在排行榜上。
【46】That means 90 percent of those companies either went under, or merged, or fell off the list altogether.
意味着有 90% 的公司要么倒闭了, 要么被合并了, 要么彻底跌出榜单了。
【47】And corporate death does seem to be accelerating.
企业倒闭的进程确实在加速。
【48】The life span of a company on the S and P 500 was 61 years in the late '50s; today, it's less than 18.
标准普尔 500 指数（S&P 500） 显示在 50 年代后期, 一家公司的寿命为 61 年, 而现在寿命低于 18 年。
【49】To better understand this corporate birth-and-death dynamic, I’m going to tell you two wildly oversimplified stories.
为了更好地理解企业的生死规律, 我要给大家讲两个大量删减版故事。
【50】The first is about General Motors, and the second is about Facebook.
第一个是通用汽车公司, 第二个是 Facebook。
【51】Now, I didn't pick these companies because I think they are particularly evil or even terribly unusual.
我选这两个公司不是因为 我觉得它们太坏了, 或者太不一般了。
【52】They're doing stuff that makes sense in a system that's a little bit broken.
它们只是在一个有点崩坏的系统里 做一些正常的事。
【53】So let's start by talking about General Motors.
我们先来看通用汽车。
【54】General Motors is actually one of the tiny number of companies from that original Fortune 500 list in 1955 that's still hanging out near the top.
通用汽车其实是 1955 年的 500 强公司里 屈指可数现在依旧名列前茅的 公司之一。
【55】And starting a car company is moderately nuts.
开家车企是件大胆的事。
【56】Really, at any time.
真的,一直是这样。
【57】It's a pretty impressive thing that they took what was once a ridiculous luxury and turned it into an everyday necessity.
太厉害了, 他们就这样把曾经的奢侈品 变成了日常必需品。
【58】But then, government got used to GM, GM got used to governments.
然后,政府就适应了通用汽车, 通用汽车也适应了政府。
【59】And by 1981, government is using the power of eminent domain to wipe out an entire working-class neighborhood in Detroit just because GM wants to build a factory there.
到了 1981 年, 政府利用土地征用权 征用了底特律整个工薪阶层社区, 只是因为通用汽车 想在那里建一座工厂。
【60】That coddling continues through the 2008 financial crisis, when GM received really quite a massive bailout from the government.
这种纵容特权行为 持续到了 2008 年金融危机, 政府给了通用汽车一大笔纾困金。
【61】That's not market failure, that's government failure.
这不是市场的失败, 而是政府的失败。
【62】Market would have stripped GM for parts a long time ago.
市场早就要肢解通用汽车了。
【63】Now let's talk about Facebook.
我们来看看 Facebook。
【64】Same deal, right?
同样的情况,对吧？
【65】Sort of, wacky people trying something new just to see if it'll work.
怪人尝试新事物, 只是想看看搞不搞得成。
【66】And at first, Facebook was fun, remember?
还记得 Facebook 刚开始的时候 是很好玩的吗？
【67】We got hot dates and we found lost dogs, and college reunions became totally obsolete, which was awesome.
我们可以约会、找到走丢的狗狗、 再也没有大学同学会了,太棒了。
【68】(Laughter) A few people made a lot of money, and the rest of us were a little bit better off.
（笑声） 有些人赚了很多钱, 然后其他人的条件都好了点。
【69】But, flash forward 14 or 15 years, and Facebook is being called repeatedly to the congressional carpet to answer for, actually, all the sins of big tech.
但是,往后推 14、15 年, Facebook 成为了 议会质询的常客, 为大型科技公司的一切罪行辩解。
【70】Mark Zuckerberg, though, takes a conciliatory stance.
但是马克·扎克伯格（Mark Zuckerberg） 采取了缓和立场。
【71】He asks only to be allowed to help write the regulations that will govern his firm, and, coincidentally, those of his competitors.
他只要求被允许参与制订 管理他自己公司的条例, 但是正好它的竞争对手公司 也在条例管理范围之内。
【72】Here's where it gets a little complicated, though, because even as some legislators are working with Facebook lobbyists to write rules for the industry, others have introduced a bill to break up Facebook and punish it for its sheer size.
这就是复杂的地方, 因为就算有些立法者 和 Facebook 的说客一起 制订了行业的规定, 有其他的立法者 制订了一个拆解 Facebook 的法案, 制裁 Facebook 的大体量。
【73】Meanwhile, an informal poll of the Gen Zers in my life informs me that Facebook is "cringe."
与此同时,我调查了一些身边的 Z 世代（95 - 05 年生人）, 他们说 Facebook 让他们 “尴尬癌犯了”。
【74】(Laughter) TikTok is eating Facebook’s lunch, and the first-quarter earnings report of Meta came with a surprise.
（笑声） TikTok（抖音海外）占据了 Facebook 的地盘, Meta（原 Facebook）的 第一季度财报让人大吃一惊。
【75】The market cap of the firm had actually dropped below the level written into that bill to punish firms for being too big.
Meta 的市值已经 跌至低于法案 制裁 Facebook 过大的市值水平。
【76】So the joke's on Congress.
这时候要看议会的笑话了。
【77】Facebook is going to end up avoiding regulation by shrinking, but unfortunately, it's going to take its competitors with it.
Facebook 为了不被制裁 而缩小体量, 但是不幸的是, 它要拉着竞争对手陪葬。
【78】This is a classic example of politicians being lagging, not leading, indicators.
这是一个政客引起拖累 而不是引导作用的典型例子。
【79】We are rich thanks to two centuries of global capitalism, but we do still have problems.
这 200 年的全球资本主义 让我们变得富有, 但是依旧问题重重。
【80】As a great sage once observed, “mo money” may in fact correlate with “mo problems.”
有一个智者发现 钱越多,问题越多。
【81】(Laughter) The way forward is to figure out what the public and private sector can each do best and help them figure out how to stay in their lane.
（笑声） 未来的方向是要搞清楚 公共部门和私营机构 分别擅长做什么, 并且如何帮助它们各行其是。
【82】When it comes to government, I am open to the possibility that the answer to what it can do best is ...
谈到政府, 我认为很有可能 它到底擅长做什么的答案就是——
【83】nothing.
无。
【84】(Laughter) But we don't all have to become anarchists today.
（笑声） 但是我们不用每个人都是 无政府主义者。
【85】It's clear that liberal institutions, rule of law, functioning courts, private-property rights have been very powerful in this project of fostering innovation.
自由主义制度、法治、 正常运作的法庭、私有财产权 很明显都是促进创新的有力工具。
【86】You already know what markets do best.
你们都知道市场擅长做些什么。
【87】They let people try stuff, they send strong signals when that stuff isn't working, and they have fueled an incredible arc of growth and poverty eradication.
它让人们尝试新事物, 如果新事物不对劲, 会发出明显的信号, 还助力了蓬勃增长 和消除贫困。
【88】If we are to have optimism for a radically better world to continue this path that capitalism has put us on, we cannot let governments collaborate with business to wreck the engine of the market.
如果我们还对在这条资本主义 引领的道路上走向美好未来 抱有希望的话, 我们就不该让政府与企业合作 抹除市场的作用。
【89】Weirdos trying stuff and sometimes being allowed to fail at it are our best hope as a species.
怪人尝试新事物, 失败也没有关系, 这就是我们作为人类最大的希望。
【90】Thank you.
谢谢。
【91】(Cheers and applause)
