Our New Historical Divide: B.C. and A.C. — the World Before Corona and the
World After
世界正面臨新紀年法：新冠元年前和新冠元年後
原文：New York Times
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/17/opinion/coronavirus-trends.html
譯文：觀察者
https://www.guancha.cn/TuoMaSi-FuLiDeMan/2020_03_21_542841_s.shtml
作者：Thomas L. Friedman
譯者：凱莉
Before the coronavirus crisis hit, I was toying with writing a book about
21st-century political parties, but in light of this global epidemic it’s
obvious that whatever nonfiction book you’re working on now, put it down.
There is the world B.C. — Before Corona — and the world A.C. — After
Corona. We have not even begun to fully grasp what the A.C. world will look
like, but here are some trends I’m watching.
在新冠病毒危機爆發之前，我正在醞釀一本關於21世紀政治黨派的書。但隨著新冠肺炎疫
情演變為全球性的大流行病，無論你在寫什麼非小說類的書，很明顯都得放下了。當今世
界將面臨新的紀年方法——新元前（新冠肺炎元年之前）和新元後。新元後的世界將會是
怎樣，我們還不太清楚，但以下是我正在關注的一些趨勢。
Unknown unknowns
未知的未知因素
I wrote my book “The World Is Flat” about growing global interconnectedness
in 2004. The world has gotten so much flatter and interconnected since. Heck,
when I started writing that book, Facebook was just being launched; Twitter
was only a sound; the cloud was still in the sky; 4G was a parking place;
LinkedIn was a prison; for most people, applications were what you sent to
colleges, Skype was a typo and Big Data was a rap star. And the iPhone was
still Steve Jobs’s secret pet project.
2004年我寫了一本有關全球互聯性日益增強的書，書名叫《世界是平的》。從那以後，世
界變得更為平坦，聯繫更為緊密。見鬼，當我剛開始寫那本書的時候，“臉書”才剛剛推
出；“推特”還只是鳥兒的叫聲；“雲”還是天上的雲；4G是指你家樓下的停車位；“領
英”是一家監獄；提到Applications，大多數人會認為是向大學提交的申請材料（而不是
軟件應用）；看到Skype，還以為是哪個單詞拼錯了；“大數據”聽起來像是饒舌明星的
名字；蘋果手機還只是喬布斯秘密孵化的愛寵項目。
All of those connectivity tools, not to mention global trade and tourism,
exploded after 2004 and really wired the world. Which is why our planet today
is not just interconnected, it’s interdependent — and in many ways even
fused.
2004年之後，所有這些互聯的溝通工具真正連接了世界，更不用說全球貿易和旅遊了。這
就是為什麼我們今天的世界不僅相互聯結，而且相互依存——在許多方面甚至相互融合。
This has driven a lot of economic growth. But it’s also meant that when
things go bad in one place, that trouble can be transmitted farther, faster,
deeper and cheaper than ever. So, a virus-laden bat bites another mammal in
China, that mammal is sold in a Wuhan wildlife market, it infects a Chinese
diner with a new coronavirus and in a few weeks all my public schools are
closed and I’m edging six feet away from everyone in Bethesda.
這極大推動了經濟增長，但這也意味著當一個地方遭遇麻煩時，這個麻煩會以更快的速度
和更低的成本傳播到更遠的距離、更深的層次。比如，一隻攜帶病毒的蝙蝠在中國咬了另
一種哺乳動物，這種哺乳動物在武漢野生動物市場上出售，然後把一種新冠病毒傳染給了
一家小餐館。幾週後，我附近所有的公立學校都停課了。我會和貝塞斯達居民區的每個人
都保持至少六英呎的距離。
But that’s why this virus crisis is so not over. Bill Joy, the computer
scientist who co-founded Sun Microsystems, put it to me like this: “The last
few weeks were actually pretty unsurprising and predictable in how the
pandemic spread. But we’ve now reached a point where all of our interlocking
systems, each with their own feedback loops, are all shutting down in
unpredictable ways. This will inevitably lead to some random and chaotic
consequences — like health care workers not having child care.”
尤其可見，這場病毒危機遠未結束。昇陽公司（譯註：一家軟件公司，已被甲骨文收購）
的聯合創始人、計算機科學家比爾‧喬伊對我說：“前幾週，這場大流行的蔓延其實看起
來相當正常，也在意料之中。但如今我們已經到了這樣一個階段，我們聯鎖系統中各個系
統都有自己的反饋回路，在以不可預知的方式關閉。”這將不可避免地製造一些難以預測
的混亂情況，比如醫務工作者無法照顧孩子。
The power of exponentials:
指數的力量
One of the hardest things for the human mind to grasp is the power of an
exponential — something that just keeps relentlessly doubling and doubling,
like a pandemic. The brain just can’t appreciate how quickly 5,000 cases of
confirmed coronavirus infection in America can explode into one million if we
don’t lock down now.
對人類來說，最難掌控的事情之一就是指數的力量——一種持續不斷地成倍增長的力量，
就像大流行病一樣。隨著新冠疫情在美國不斷蔓延，如果我們現在不封城，確診病例數可
能由5000例爆炸式增長到100萬例的速度不是我們大腦能夠運算的。
Here’s a simple way to explain the exponential threat we face — in a way an
oft-bankrupt real estate developer like Donald Trump might understand. It was
also offered by Bill Joy: “The virus is like a loan shark who charges 25
percent a day interest. We borrowed $1 (the first coronavirus to appear
here). We then fiddled for 40 days. Now we owe $7,500. If we wait three more
weeks to pay, we’ll owe almost $1 million.”
可以用一個簡單的辦法來解釋我們面臨的指數級威脅——像川普這種經常破產的房地產開
發商應該可以理解。比爾‧喬伊也提出了這種辦法：“這種病毒就像高利貸，每天收取
25%的利息。起初我們借了1美元（相當於此時出現第一例新冠感染者），然後連著40天我
們虛報開支，到了現在欠了7500美元。要是再等三個星期才還款，我們就要欠將近100萬
美元了。”
That’s why working every single day to slow the rate of infection and
testing everyone possible is everything. Lose that battle, lose the war.
這就是為什麼，爭取現在每天的寶貴時間盡力減緩傳播速率、儘可能給每個人做測試才是
唯一決勝之道。輸了這場戰役，就輸了整個戰爭。
That’s also why the only number I am watching now is not the Federal Reserve
’s interest rates, it’s the number of critical-care coronavirus patients
versus the number of general hospital and I.C.U. beds in the country needed
to care for them. If the second number can accommodate the first number when
the virus peaks, we’ll be O.K. If it can’t, we’re going to have
pandemonium on top of a pandemic.
這也是為什麼，我現在唯一關注的數字不是美聯儲的利率，而是美國新冠肺炎病例數與須
用於治療這些患者的綜合醫院和重症監護病房的床位數之比。在疫情高峰時期，如果床位
數足夠容納所有病例，我們就會沒事；如果無法容納，我們除了迎來了大流行病，還將迎
來一片混亂。
The upside of exponentials
指數的優勢
There is, though, another exponential that may end up saving us: Moore’s
Law, which was coined by Intel co-founder Gordon Moore in 1965 and posited
that the speed and processing power of computers would double every two
years, as more transistors could be steadily packed on a microchip.
不過，還有另一個最終可能拯救我們的指數定律：摩爾定律。該定律由英特爾聯合創始人
戈登‧摩爾在1965年提出，他假設：隨著集成電路上可容納的晶體管數量穩步增多，電腦
的速度和性能每兩年就會提升一倍。
Intel, to explain the power of Moore’s Law to make all kinds of things
better, smarter, faster, had its engineers take a 1971 Volkswagen Beetle and
try to calculate what that car would be like today if it had improved at the
same exponential rate that microchips had improved since 1971. Intel’s
engineers’ best guess was that that Volkswagen Beetle today would go about
300,000 miles per hour, it would get two million miles per gallon and it
would cost 4 cents.
為瞭解釋摩爾定律的力量是如何能讓方方面面的事物更好、更快、更智能地發展，英特爾
讓工程師對1971年的大眾汽車甲殼蟲進行測算，如果從1971年開始就以微型芯片同樣的指
數級速度增長，到今天將發展到什麼程度。據英特爾工程師估計，最樂觀的情況是，今天
的福斯金龜車每小時能跑30萬英里，每加侖能跑200萬英里，且只要花4美分。
That is the power of an exponential in engineering on the upside — and it
may be just the kind of exponential that can also help bring us a coronavirus
treatment and vaccine quickly.
這是指數定律能在工程領域發揮的積極作用，或許這種指數的力量也能很快為我們帶來新
冠肺炎治療方法和疫苗。
As Nitin Pai, director of the Takshashila Institution, an independent
research center in Bangalore, India, wrote on livemint.com on Sunday: “
Advances in computer technology and synthetic biology have revolutionized
both detection and diagnosis of pathogens, as well as the processes of design
and development of vaccines, subjecting them to Moore’s Law-type cycles.
Recent epidemics, starting with SARS, and including H1N1, Ebola, Zika and now
Covid-19, will drive more talent and brainpower to the biological and
epidemiological sciences.”
正如位於印度班加羅爾的獨立研究中心塔克希拉研究所長尼廷‧派3月15日在
livemint.com網站上所寫：“計算機技術和合成生物學的進步徹底改變了病原體的檢測和
診斷以及疫苗的研發流程，使它們按摩爾定律式的週期發展。從非典到H1N1流感，從埃博
拉到寨卡（Zika），直到今天的新冠肺炎，近幾十年的流行病將為生物學和流行病學領域
帶來更多人才、創造更多智慧。”
But will it be fast enough? Even in the age of supercomputers, noted Gautam
Mukunda, a research fellow at the Harvard Kennedy School’s Center for Public
Leadership, “we still have no vaccine for H.I.V. or malaria — two
widespread critical diseases that we have been fighting for years. It is
definitely true that the science will reach the point where we can develop
new vaccines on the fly; the problem is, it’s still really, really hard.”
但這會足夠快嗎？哈佛大學肯尼迪學院公共領導力中心研究員高塔姆‧穆昆達指出，即使
在超級計算機時代，“我們仍然沒有疫苗可以預防艾滋病或瘧疾——這是人們多年來與之
抗爭的兩種廣泛傳播的重大疾病。毫無疑問，科學將會達到能夠快速開發新疫苗的發展階
段；但問題是，目前來說這仍然非常、非常難。”
Will American culture or politics be fundamentally changed by this pandemic?
這場大流行會徹底改變美國的文化或政治嗎?
I know for sure one joke Republican politicians will not be telling on the
campaign trail this year. It’s the one where they impugn the deep state,
government bureaucrats and get the audience to laugh by saying, “Hi, I’m
from the government and I’m here to help.”
我很肯定在今年的競選活動中，共和黨政客肯定不會講一個梗。他們為了讓觀眾發笑，會
說： “嗨，我來自政府，我是來幫忙的” ，以此來抨擊深層政府的官僚。
We’ll get through this crisis because of the depth of talent, and selfless
commitment, in our deep state, our Big Government: the scientists, the
medical professionals, the disaster professionals, the environmental experts
— all the people whom Trump tried to prune. Right now I am rooting for both
Big Government and Big Pharma to rescue us.
但是，將幫助我們度過這場危機的是我們深層政府、大政府裡專業的人才，以及他們無私
的奉獻。這些人是科學家、醫療專業人員、救災專家、環境專家——都是川普想試圖“剔
除”的人。現在，我支持大政府和大醫藥來拯救我們。
Our political culture may also change before this is over. My friend Prof.
Michele Gelfand from the University of Maryland is the author of “Rule
Makers, Rule Breakers: How Tight and Loose Cultures Wire the World.”
在這場危機結束之前，我們的政治文化可能就會改變。馬里蘭大學教授、我的好朋友米歇
爾‧蓋爾芬德著有《規則制定者，打破規則：嚴厲和鬆散的文化如何連接世界》一書。
In an essay in The Boston Globe last week, Gelfand recalled that in a paper
she and her colleagues published in Science several years ago, they
classified countries in terms of how much they prioritized rules over freedom
as either “tight” or “loose,” writing: “Tight societies, like China,
Singapore and Austria have many rules and punishments governing social
behavior. Citizens in those places are used to a high degree of monitoring
aimed at reinforcing good behavior. Loose cultures, in countries such as the
United States, Italy and Brazil, have weaker rules and are much more
permissive.”
在上週《波士頓環球報》的一篇文章中，蓋爾芬德回憶說，幾年前自己和同事發表在《科
學》雜誌的一篇論文中，他們根據“規則”高出“自由”的程度對不同國家進行分類：“
嚴厲”或“鬆散”，其中寫道：“像中國、新加坡和奧地利這些“嚴厲社會”有很多規定
和懲罰措施來約束社會行為。這些國家的公民習慣了政府旨在規範良好行為的高度管控。
像美國、意大利和巴西這些鬆散文化比較寬容，規則也更寬鬆。”
These differences in tightness and looseness, she argued, were not random: “
Countries with the strongest laws and strictest punishments are those with
histories of famine, warfare, natural disasters, and, yes, pathogen
outbreaks. These disaster-prone nations have learned the hard way over
centuries: Tight rules and order save lives. Meanwhile, cultures that have
faced few threats — such as the United States — have the luxury of
remaining loose.”
蓋爾芬德認為，這些嚴厲性和鬆散性的差異並不是隨機產生的：那些法律最為嚴格、懲罰
最為嚴厲的國家往往經歷過饑荒、戰亂、自然災害，還爆發過流行病。”幾個世紀以來，
這些災難頻發的國家吸取了慘痛的教訓：只有嚴格的規則和秩序才能拯救生命。與此同時
，那些幾乎沒受到過威脅的文化——比如美國——有幸能保持社會寬鬆。”
It’s been pretty obvious, said Gelfand, that “famously ‘tight’ societies
like Singapore and Hong Kong … have demonstrated the most effective response
to Covid-19.”
蓋爾芬德說，在這次新冠疫情中顯而易見，“應對最有效的就是那些眾所周知的‘嚴厲社
會'，比如新加坡和香港。”
At the same time, our deficiencies in White House coordination and reckless
public figures — like Larry Kudlow, Sean Hannity, Laura In- graham, Rush
Limbaugh, Kellyanne Conway, Devin Nunes and Trump himself —– who initially
minimized the virus’s potential impact or imputed political motives to those
pounding the table for action, helped compound the risks to us all.
與此同時，我們白宮在協調方面的缺陷和行事魯莽的公眾人物——比如拉里‧庫德洛（白
宮經濟顧問）、肖恩‧漢尼提（福克斯新聞主播）、勞拉‧英格拉姆(保守派廣播脫口秀
主播）、拉什‧林堡（保守派廣播脫口秀主播）、凱莉安‧康威（川普發言人）、德文‧
努內斯（美國眾議院情報委員會主席）和川普本人——他們有的把新冠病毒的潛在影響說
得很低，有的還質疑那些拍桌子叫板要採取抗疫行動的人政治動機不純——結果反而讓我
們所有人面臨的疫情風險增倍。
So, Gelfand concluded: “In all of the uncertainty, we need to remember that
the trajectory of the virus has as much to do with the nature of the
coronavirus as it does with culture. Our loose cultural programming needs to
do a big switch in the days to come.”
所以蓋爾芬德總結說：“儘管有許多不確定性，但我們要記住新冠疫情發展至今的路線既
受到病毒本身性質的影響，也受到所處文化環境的影響。接下來，我們的‘寬鬆’文化的
程序設定需要做出巨大修改。”
The Greatest Generation did it in World War II. But can we now?
這一點，美國“最偉大的一代”在二戰中做到了。我們現在也可以嗎?
Only generosity will save us
只有慷慨才能拯救我們
There are millions of business owners and employers out there who are
invested in long-term assets that they were assuming would go up in value —
a stock, a company, a home, a restaurant, a store — with borrowed money.
That’s money that they can’t now repay.
有數以百萬計的公司老闆和僱主用貸款投資了他們認為會增值的長期資產——股票、公司
、住宅、餐廳、商場。他們現在無力償還這些貸款。
Therefore, we not only need the Fed to backstop their banks to prevent a
total meltdown, we not only need the banks to restructure their debts, we
need to get fresh cash into the pockets of all their workers so they can eat
after their last paycheck is spent. It is encouraging to see the
administration and Congress moving rapidly to do just that.
因此，我們不僅需要美聯儲為銀行提供支持，防止全面崩潰；不僅需要銀行重組債務；還
需要給所有工人的口袋注入現金，讓他們在用完最後一筆工資時還有錢吃飯。令人鼓舞的
是我們看到政府和國會正在迅速採取行動。
The more we simultaneously tighten our culture and loosen our purses, the
stronger and kinder society we’ll be A.C. — After Corona.
越是讓我們的文化變嚴厲，越是讓人們的錢袋子變寬鬆，我們的社會在“新元後”才會變
得越強大、越友好。

奧地利被作者歸為”嚴厲社會”，解釋了它雖和義大利相鄰，但目前為止死亡率非常低。3/30新聞：奧地利成首個強制民眾戴口罩的西方國家，也是最早實施宵禁的歐洲國家之一。