2020年经济学人 悲观情绪VS科技发展(2)

 

Today’s gloomy mood is centred on smartphones and social media, which took off a decade ago. Yet concerns that humanity has taken a technological¹ wrong turn, or that particular technologies might be doing more harm than good, have arisen before. In the 1970s the despondency was prompted by concerns about overpopulation, environmental damage and the prospect² of nuclear immolation³. The 1920s witnessed a backlash against cars, which had earlier been seen as a miraculous⁴ answer to the affliction of horse-drawn vehicles— which filled the streets with noise and dung, and caused congestion⁵ and accidents. And the blight⁶ of industrialisation was decried⁷ in the 19th century by Luddites, Romantics and socialists⁸, who worried (with good reason) about the displacement⁹ of skilled artisans, the despoiling¹⁰ of the countryside and the suffering of factory hands toiling¹¹ in smoke-belching mills.

如今，人们的悲观情绪主要集中在智能手机和社交媒体上。然而，关于人类在技术上走错了方向，或者某些技术可能弊大于利的担忧，在此之前就已经出现了。20世纪70年代，人口过剩、环境破坏和核毁灭的前景引发了人们的担忧，从而导致了这种沮丧情绪。20世纪20年代见证了一场反对汽车的运动，在此之前，汽车曾被视为解决马车问题的灵丹妙药，马车让街上充满了噪音和粪便，造成了交通堵塞和事故。19世纪，工业化的衰落遭到了反对技术进步者、浪漫主义者和社会主义者的谴责，他们有充分的理由对熟练技工的流失、对农村的掠夺以及在浓烟滚滚的工厂里辛勤劳作的工人的痛苦感到担忧。

Stand back, and in each of these historical cases disappointment arose from a mix of unrealised hopes and unforeseen consequences. Technology unleashes¹² the forces of creative destruction, so it is only natural that it leads to anxiety; for any given technology its drawbacks sometimes seem to outweigh¹³ its benefits. When this happens with several technologies at once, as today, the result is a wider sense of techno-pessimism¹⁴.

退一步来看，在每一个历史案例中，失望都是由未实现的希望和未预见的后果交织而成的。技术释放了创造性破坏的力量，因此自然而然导致焦虑；对于任何给定的技术，它的缺点有时似乎超过了它的好处。当这种情况同时发生在几项技术上时，就像今天，结果是一种更广泛的技术悲观主义。

However, that pessimism can be overdone¹⁵. Too often people focus on the drawbacks of a new technology while taking its benefits for granted. Worries about screen time should be weighed against the much more substantial benefits of ubiquitous communication and the instant access to information and entertainment that smartphones make possible. A further danger is that Luddite efforts to avoid the short-term costs associated with a new technology will end up denying access to its longterm benefits—something Carl Benedikt Frey, an Oxford¹⁶ academic, calls a “technology trap”. Fears that robots will steal people’s jobs may prompt politicians to tax them, for example, to discourage their use. Yet in the long run countries that wish to maintain their standard of living as their workforce¹⁷ ages and shrinks will need more robots, not fewer.

然而，这种悲观情绪可能过头了。人们太过频繁地关注一项新技术的缺点，却认为好处是理所当然的。对盯屏幕时长的担忧应该与无处不在的通信以及智能手机带来的即时信息和娱乐带来的更实质性的好处进行权衡。将来，另一个危险是，反对技术进步者试图避免一项新技术带来的短期成本的努力，最终将剥夺其长期利益，牛津大学学者卡尔?本尼迪克特?弗雷称之为“技术陷阱”。人们担心机器人会抢走人们的工作，这可能会促使政客们对机器人征税，以阻止它们的使用。然而，从长远来看，随着劳动力的老龄化和萎缩，希望维持生活水平的国家将需要更多的机器人。

1 technological   

adj.技术的；工艺的

参考例句：

• A successful company must keep up with the pace of technological change.一家成功的公司必须得跟上技术变革的步伐。
• Today,the pace of life is increasing with technological advancements.当今， 随着科技进步，生活节奏不断增快。

2 prospect   

n.前景，前途；景色，视野

参考例句：

• This state of things holds out a cheerful prospect.事态呈现出可喜的前景。
• The prospect became more evident.前景变得更加明朗了。

3 immolation   

n.牺牲品

参考例句：

• We still do;living in a world in which underclared aggression, war,hypocrisy,chicanery,anarchy and impending immolation are part of our daily lives, we all want a code to live by. 我们仍然有这种感觉；生活在一个不宣而战的侵略、战争、虚伪、诈骗、混乱以及迫在眉睫的杀戮充斥着我们日常生活的世界里，我们都想有一种能赖以生存的准则。
• The Emperor had these clay figures made instead of burying slave-workers alive as immolation. 秦始皇用泥塑造了这批俑，没有活埋奴隶作为殉葬。

4 miraculous   

adj.像奇迹一样的，不可思议的

参考例句：

• The wounded man made a miraculous recovery.伤员奇迹般地痊愈了。
• They won a miraculous victory over much stronger enemy.他们战胜了远比自己强大的敌人，赢得了非凡的胜利。

5 congestion   

n.阻塞，消化不良

参考例句：

• The congestion in the city gets even worse during the summer.夏天城市交通阻塞尤为严重。
• Parking near the school causes severe traffic congestion.在学校附近泊车会引起严重的交通堵塞。

6 blight   

n.枯萎病；造成破坏的因素；vt.破坏，摧残

参考例句：

• The apple crop was wiped out by blight.枯萎病使苹果全无收成。
• There is a blight on all his efforts.他的一切努力都遭到挫折。

7 decried   

v.公开反对，谴责( decry的过去式和过去分词 )

参考例句：

• The measures were decried as useless. 这些措施受到指责，说是不起作用。
• The old poet decried the mediocrity of today's writing. 老诗人抨击了现代文体的平庸无奇。 来自《现代英汉综合大词典》

8 socialists   

社会主义者( socialist的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• The socialists saw themselves as true heirs of the Enlightenment. 社会主义者认为自己是启蒙运动的真正继承者。
• The Socialists junked dogma when they came to office in 1982. 社会党人1982年上台执政后，就把其政治信条弃之不顾。

9 displacement   

n.移置，取代，位移，排水量

参考例句：

• They said that time is the feeling of spatial displacement.他们说时间是空间位移的感觉。
• The displacement of all my energy into caring for the baby.我所有精力都放在了照顾宝宝上。

10 despoiling   

v.掠夺，抢劫( despoil的现在分词 )

参考例句：

11 toiling   

长时间或辛苦地工作( toil的现在分词 )； 艰难缓慢地移动，跋涉

参考例句：

• The fiery orator contrasted the idle rich with the toiling working classes. 这位激昂的演说家把无所事事的富人同终日辛劳的工人阶级进行了对比。
• She felt like a beetle toiling in the dust. She was filled with repulsion. 她觉得自己像只甲虫在地里挣扎，心中涌满愤恨。

12 unleashes   

v.把（感情、力量等）释放出来，发泄( unleash的第三人称单数 )

参考例句：

• These findings qualify the common view that economic growth unleashes myriad discontents. 这些发现，纠正了一个普遍观点，即经济发展使人们尽情宣泄不满。 来自互联网
• This caster unleashes a storm of electric discharge on the enemy. 法师向敌人释放出一片电火花的风暴。 来自互联网

13 outweigh   

vt.比...更重，...更重要

参考例句：

• The merits of your plan outweigh the defects.你制定的计划其优点胜过缺点。
• One's merits outweigh one's short-comings.功大于过。

14 pessimism   

n.悲观者，悲观主义者，厌世者

参考例句：

• He displayed his usual pessimism.他流露出惯有的悲观。
• There is the note of pessimism in his writings.他的著作带有悲观色彩。

15 overdone   

v.做得过分( overdo的过去分词 )；太夸张；把…煮得太久；（工作等）过度

参考例句：

• The lust of men must not be overdone. 人们的欲望不该过分。 来自《现代汉英综合大词典》
• The joke is overdone. 玩笑开得过火。 来自《现代英汉综合大词典》

16 Oxford   

n.牛津（英国城市）

参考例句：

• At present he has become a Professor of Chemistry at Oxford.他现在已是牛津大学的化学教授了。
• This is where the road to Oxford joins the road to London.这是去牛津的路与去伦敦的路的汇合处。

17 workforce   

n.劳动大军，劳动力

参考例句：

• A large part of the workforce is employed in agriculture.劳动人口中一大部分受雇于农业。
• A quarter of the local workforce is unemployed.本地劳动力中有四分之一失业。