TED演讲:曝光政府腐败的战斗(4)

 　　So we are moving to this democratization of information, and I've been in this field for quite a while. 我们已经进入了信息的民主化，我已经研究这方面很久了。

　　Slightly embarrassing admission: Even when I was a kid, I used to have these little spy books, 实话说挺不好意思的，我小时候，曾经有小小的“间谍”本子，

　　and I would, like, see what everybody was doing in my neighborhood and log it down. 我会悄悄观察邻居们在做什么，然后把它记录下来。

　　I think that was a pretty good indication about my future career as an investigative journalist, 或许，那时我的行为就为我未来职业埋下了伏笔---调查记者，

　　and what I've seen from being in this access to information field for so long 接触这些信息这么久，

　　is that it used to be quite a niche¹ interest, and it's gone mainstream². 我发现这曾只是个小众的兴趣，而现在已经成为主流了。

　　Everybody, increasingly, around the world, wants to know about what people in power are doing. 越来越多的人想知道那些掌权的人们在干什么。

　　They want a say in decisions that are made in their name and with their money. 他们想要在以他们的名义，用他们的金钱所作的决定中有发言权。

　　It's this democratization of information that I think is an information enlightenment, 我觉得正是信息民主化促成这这种信息启蒙，

　　and it has many of the same principles of the first Enlightenment. 而且它和最初的启蒙运动在原则上有很多相似之处。

　　It's about searching for the truth, not because somebody says it's true, "because I say so." 都在寻找真理，不因为有人说这是真理，“因为我这样说”，

　　No, it's about trying to find the truth based on what you can see and what can be tested. 不，这是在寻找看得见的，能被证实的真理在启蒙运动里。

　　That, in the first Enlightenment, led to questions about the right of kings, the divine right of kings to rule over people, 这样的探寻引出了一些疑问，比如国王的权利，国王统治子民的神圣权利，

　　or that women should be subordinate to men, or that the Church was the official word of God. 比如女人应该服从男人，再比如教堂就是代表上帝的地方。

　　Obviously the Church weren't very happy about this, 显然教会不乐意了，

　　and they tried to suppress it, but what they hadn't counted on was technology, 他们想要抑制这样的探索，但他们没预料到科技的能力，

　　and then they had the printing press, which suddenly enabled these ideas to spread cheaply, far and fast, 有了出版社让这些想法廉价并迅速地传播到各地，

　　and people would come together in coffee houses, discuss the ideas, plot revolution. 人们聚集到咖啡屋讨论这些想法，密谋一场信息革命。

1 niche   

n.壁龛；合适的职务(环境、位置等)

参考例句：

• Madeleine placed it carefully in the rocky niche. 玛德琳小心翼翼地把它放在岩石壁龛里。
• The really talented among women would always make their own niche.妇女中真正有才能的人总是各得其所。

2 mainstream   

n.（思想或行为的）主流；adj.主流的

参考例句：

• Their views lie outside the mainstream of current medical opinion.他们的观点不属于当今医学界观点的主流。
• Polls are still largely reflects the mainstream sentiment.民调还在很大程度上反映了社会主流情绪。