TED演讲:解读灰犀牛:如何应对大概率危机(2)

As you know, in 2008 it all came tumbling down. Banks collapsed¹, global stock markets lost nearly half their value,

如各位所知，2008年一切都轰然倒塌。银行倒闭，全世界的股票市场丢失了接近一半的价值，

millions and millions of people lost their homes to foreclosure. And at the bottom, nearly one in 10 Americans was out of work.

数百万人失去他们作为抵押的家园。而在社会基层，将近十分之一的美国人失业了。

So after things calmed down a little bit, Greenspan and many others came out with a postmortem and said,

所以在事情缓和了一些以后，格林斯潘和许多人从这个低谷中走出来说：

"Nobody could have predicted that crisis." They called it "a black swan."

“没有人会有可能提前预知这场危机。”他们叫它“黑天鹅”。

Something that was unimaginable, unforeseeable and completely improbable. A total surprise. Except it wasn't always such a surprise.

一个很难想象的，不可预知并且完全难以置信的事情。一场彻头彻尾的惊喜。只是它不总是一个惊喜。

For example, my Manhattan apartment nearly doubled in value in less than four years. I saw the writing on the wall and I sold it.

比如说，我在曼哈顿的公寓在不到四年的时间里价值几乎翻了一倍。我获得了一些信息，于是我将它出售了。

So, a lot of other people also saw the warning, spoke² out publicly and they were ignored.

总之，很多其他人也看到了同样的警示，公开地说了出来，但是这些信息都被忽视了。

So we didn't know exactly what the crisis was going to look like, not the exact parameters³,

所以我们并不准确地知道这场危机到底会是什么模样，不知道确切的参数，

but we could all tell that the thing coming at us was as dangerous, visible and predictable as a giant gray rhino⁴ charging right at us.

但是我们可以说这个即将到来的事情和一只向我们急速冲来的巨型灰犀牛一样的危险可见，可预判。

1 collapsed   

adj.倒塌的

参考例句：

• Jack collapsed in agony on the floor. 杰克十分痛苦地瘫倒在地板上。
• The roof collapsed under the weight of snow. 房顶在雪的重压下突然坍塌下来。

2 spoke   

n.（车轮的）辐条；轮辐；破坏某人的计划；阻挠某人的行动 v.讲，谈（speak的过去式）；说；演说；从某种观点来说

参考例句：

• They sourced the spoke nuts from our company.他们的轮辐螺帽是从我们公司获得的。
• The spokes of a wheel are the bars that connect the outer ring to the centre.辐条是轮子上连接外圈与中心的条棒。

3 parameters   

因素，特征； 界限； （限定性的）因素( parameter的名词复数 )； 参量； 参项； 决定因素

参考例句：

• We have to work within the parameters of time. 我们的工作受时间所限。
• See parameters.cpp for a compilable example. This is part of the Spirit distribution. 可编译例子见parameters.cpp.这是Spirit分发包的组成部分。

4 rhino   

n.犀牛，钱, 现金

参考例句：

• The rhino charged headlong towards us.犀牛急速地向我们冲来。
• They have driven the rhino to the edge of extinction.他们已经令犀牛濒临灭绝。