評論
打印
This internal sense of rightness that we all experience so often
我們心中時常感覺到的理直氣壯的感覺，
is not a reliable guide to what is actually going on in the external world.
在真實世界中并不是個可靠的向導。
And when we act like it is, and we stop entertaining the possibility that we could be wrong,
當我們依此行事，不再思考我們是否犯錯，
well that's when we end up doing things like dumping 200 million gallons of oil into the Gulf of Mexico, or torpedoing the global economy.
我們就有可能把兩百萬加侖的石油倒進墨西哥灣，或是顛覆世界經濟。
So this is a huge practical problem. But it's also a huge social problem.
這是個很實際的問題，這也是個很大的社會問題。
Think for a moment about what it means to feel right.
想想“感覺對”究竟是什么意思。
It means that you think that your beliefs just perfectly reflect reality.
這代表著你認為你的信念和真實是一致的。
And when you feel that way, you've got a problem to solve,
當你有這種感覺的時候，你的問題就大了，
which is, how are you going to explain all of those people who disagree with you?
因為如果你是對的，為什么還有人和你持不同意見？
It turns out, most of us explain those people the same way, by resorting to a series of unfortunate assumptions.
于是我們往往用同一種思考方式去解釋這些異議。
The first thing we usually do when someone disagrees with us is we just assume they're ignorant.
第一是當他人不同意我們的說法，我們便覺得他們無知。
They don't have access to the same information that we do,
他們不像我們懂得這么多，
and when we generously share that information with them, they're going to see the light and come on over to our team.
當我們慷慨地和他們分享我們的知識，他們便會理解，并加入我們的行列。
When that doesn't work, when it turns out those people have all the same facts that we do and they still disagree with us,
如果不是這樣，如果這些人和我們獲得的信息一樣多卻仍然不認同我們，
then we move on to a second assumption, which is that they're idiots.
我們便有了下一個定論，那就是他們是白癡。
They have all the right pieces of the puzzle, and they are too moronic to put them together correctly.
他們已經有了所有的信息，卻笨到無法拼湊出正確的圖像。
And when that doesn't work, when it turns out that people who disagree with us have all the same facts we do and are actually pretty smart,
一旦第二個定論也不成立，當這些反對我們的人和我們有一樣的信息又聰明，
then we move on to a third assumption: they know the truth,
我們便有了第三個結論：他們知道事實是什么，
and they are deliberately distorting it for their own malevolent purposes. So this is a catastrophe.
但卻為了自己的好處故意曲解真實。這真是個大災難。
