We have all these history of innovation rationalizes what's happening in all these very, very strange ways.
我们一直以一种奇怪的方式来解释发生了什么
But I think it's more than just an intellectual blind spot,
我想这不仅仅是理智上的盲点
I think it's also a psychological blind spot where we find ourselves, you know,
更是心理上的盲点,我们在其中
very attracted to competition in one form or another.
被各种各样形式的竞争所吸引
We find it reassuring if other people do things.
如果其他人也在做同样的事,我们感到安心
The word ape, already in the time of Shakespeare, meant both primate and imitate.
“猿”这个词在莎士比亚时期就有了,既指灵长类动物,也是模仿的意思
And there is something about human nature that's deeply mimetic.
模仿是人类的本性,像猿一样,像羊一样
Imitative. Apelike, sheeplike, lemminglike, herdlike.
像旅鼠一样,像兽群一样,从这些词就能看出来
And it's this very problematic thing that we need to always think through and try to overcome.
这是很有问题的,我们需要思考并克服它
And there is always this question about competition as a form of validation.
用竞争来检验有效性是长久以来的一个问题
Where we go for things that lots of other people are going for,
我们去做很多人正在做的事情
and it's not that there is wisdom in crowds,
并不是因为群体智慧
it's not when lots of people are trying to do something that, that's proof of it being valuable.
也不是因为这些人证明了这类事情是有价值的
I think it's when lots of people are trying to do something that is often proof of insanity.
我认为这种跟风的行为是不正常的
There are twenty thousand people a year who move to Los Angeles to become movie stars, about 20 of them make it.
每年差不多有2000人跑到洛杉矶想成为电影明星,只有差不多20个能成功
I think the Olympics are a little bit better,
当运动员能好一点
because you can figure out pretty quickly whether you're good or not,
因此你很快就能发现自己到底行不行
so there's a little bit less of a dead weight loss to society.
因此对社会来说,损失能少点。