Dec 13 2021

对洞穴人来说，很少有东西是资源

曾经有一段时间，煤炭不是一种资源

布雷特：英国独立电视台（ITV）上有一个故事，谈到亚马逊产生了多少所谓的废物，亚马逊经常销毁一大堆产品。

Brett: There was a story on ITV in the U.K. talking about how much supposed waste Amazon produces, that Amazon was routinely destroying a whole bunch of products.

我想，“为什么这些人要将他们的观点插入到他们完全不了解的业务中？换句话说，在认知上，他们是否希望亚马逊能够完全了解需要生产多少产品？或者他们宁愿亚马逊生产的产品不足，这样想要购买它们的人实际上就无法买到它们？

I thought, “Why are these people inserting their opinion into a business that they know absolutely nothing about?” Would they prefer Amazon to have the perfect knowledge of precisely how many products need to be made? In other words, an epistemologically impossible situation to be in. Or would they prefer that Amazon made insufficient products, so the people who wanted to purchase them weren’t actually able to get ahold of them?

当然，亚马逊所做的是赚得比他们需要的多些。这是任何企业都会发生的事情。他们时不时地赚得略高于他们需要的钱。

What Amazon does, of course, is make slightly more than what they need. That’s what happens in any business. They make slightly more than what they need now and again.

纳瓦尔：曾经有一位风险投资家对我争辩说：鞋子的种类太多了，这是资本投资为何失败的一个例子--没有人需要这么多种运动鞋。

I once had a venture capitalist argue to me that there were too many kinds of shoes and it was an example of how capitalism had failed because nobody needs this many kinds of sneakers.

我问他的问题是：“你从什么时候知道鞋子太多了？在历史上，我们认为鞋子太多的意义是什么？以前我们需要更多的鞋子，因为我们需要更有弹性的鞋子，我们需要更耐用的鞋子，我们需要更厚底的鞋子，我们需要更轻便的鞋子，我们需要各种令人惊叹的鞋子创新创意。

My question to him was, “When did you know that there were too many shoes?” What’s the point in history where we decide there are too many shoes? Before we needed more shoes because we needed more stretchy shoes, we needed more durable shoes, we needed thicker soled shoes, we needed lighter shoes, we needed all kinds of amazing shoe innovations.

然后在某个时候，有人决定，“实际上我们有足够的鞋子，现在我们需要停止所有其他鞋类产品线。你是从哪里想到这个观点？你只是碰巧出生在正确的时间和正确的地点，以确定是的，我们有足够的鞋子？

And then at some point, somebody decides, “Actually we have enough shoes. Now we need to kill all the other shoe lines.” Where did you come up with this idea that you just happened to be born at the right time and the right place to identify that yes we have enough shoes?

这是每个人都会陷入的某种狭隘主义。

This is a certain parochialism that everyone falls into.

还有一个更宏观的版本，那就是“我们的资源快用完了”的说法。它始于这样一种想法：即地球是有限的，在这组有限的资源里，我们正在消耗它们。所以，如果我们不减少消费，我们都会因资源匮乏而死去。

There’s a more macro version of it, which is this “we’re running out of resources” philosophy. It starts with this idea that the Earth is finite, that there’s this finite set of resources and we’re consuming them all. And therefore we’re all going to die if we don’t tamp back our consumption. 

首先，你是怎么确定这个是地球（这些资源是地球的，这些资源是有限的？地球只有这些资源可用？）您是怎么知道您的城镇没有资源耗尽的？为什么这个小镇不是你想要拯救的实际区域，你怎么知道小镇之外的一切都是外界、都无法到达呢？哈哈哈

First of all, how did you decide that it was the Earth? How did you decide that your town wasn’t running out of resources? Why wasn’t the town the actual area that you wanted to save and then everything outside of that was foreign and unreachable?

为什么要在地球周围划定边界？我们可以去太阳系、我们可以去银河系、我们可以去宇宙、我们可以进入多元宇宙。如果您知道如何利用它们，那里有很多资源。

Why draw the boundary around the Earth? We could go to the solar system. We could go to the galaxy, we could go to the universe. We could go to the multiverse. There are a lot of resources out there if you know how to harness them.

那么，你如何定义什么是资源呢？资源只是通过知识从一件事转换为另一件事的东西。

Then, how do you define what a resource is? A resource is just something that through knowledge you can convert from one thing to another.

曾经有一段时间，煤炭不是一种资源;铁不是一种资源。对于穴居人来说，很少有东西是资源——只有一些可食用的植物和动物，仅此而已。

There was a time when coal wasn’t a resource; iron wasn’t a resource. To a caveman very few things are resources—just a few edible plants and a few edible animals and that’s it.

驯化、收获农作物、冶金、化学、物理学、开发发动机和火箭——所有这些都是将我们认为毫无价值的东西转化为资源的东西。铀已经从完全一文不值变成了一种令人难以置信的资源。

Domestication, harvesting crops, metallurgy, chemistry, physics, developing engines and rockets—all of these are things that are taking things that we thought were worthless and turning them into resources. Uranium has gone from being completely worthless to being an incredible resource.

这种世界的有限资源模型暗示了知识也是有限的，它说知识创造已经结束。我们停留在目前的这一点上，因此，根据我们目前所拥有的知识，可用的资源是有限的，我们必须开始节约资源。

This finite resource model of the world implicitly assumes finite knowledge. It says knowledge creation has come to an end. We are stuck at this current point, and, therefore, based on the knowledge that we have currently, these are all the resources available to us. Now we must start conserving.

但我们总是可以创造更多的知识。

But knowledge is a thing that we can always create more of.

玛丽与读者共勉：不要给任何人、事、物贴标签、下定义、出结论；不要陷入教条主义 。升级迭代自己的思辨力、学习力、创造力，保持一颗无限、开放、包容、接纳未知、学习、创造的好奇心去拥抱、发现、开拓、享受、驾驭更广的世界（宇宙）。不被世间万物定义、也不定义世间万物；万物皆不为我所有，万物皆可为我所用。创造无限想象与现实链接的空间universe~