CNN 的诞生与“随机狂热”概念
主持人: Marc，感谢你加入我们的“局势观察”（Monitoring the Situation）节目。
Original English
Host: Mark, thank you for joining monitoring the situation.
Marc Andreessen: 早上好。我感到无比兴奋，让我们开始观察局势吧。
Original English
Marc Andreessen: Good morning. I could not be more excited. Let's monitor some situation.
主持人: 太棒了。首先我们要聊一点“元媒体”（meta media）的话题。关于“观察局势”这个想法，我们已经讨论并准备投资快一年了。当我们最初讨论这个概念时，你提到了那本关于 CNN 历史的书，你谈到了他们曾有一个叫做“随机狂热”（Randemonium）的概念。关于 CNN 的创立或历史，你觉得有哪些有趣的地方？它如何应用到我们现在所做的，或者更广泛的媒体时刻？
Original English
Host: Excellent. Well, first we'll we'll get a bit meta here and uh we'll talk about media. We've been uh talking about this idea monitoring situation. We've been talking about investing in it for almost a year now. Um, and when we were first talking about the idea, uh, you had brought up the the book about the history of CNN, and you actually, uh, you talked about this concept that they had called Randemonium. Uh, what did you find so interesting about the the founding or the history of of CNN and how how it could apply to what we're doing here or this broader media moment?
Marc Andreessen: 是的，我年纪够大，还记得 CNN 刚创办的时候。虽然我当时家里还没装有线电视，没亲眼看到，但我记得它的影响。后来，作为一个执着的研究者，我读了一本几乎没人读过的书，叫《我与泰德对抗世界》（Me and Ted Against the World），这名字起得真好。CNN 的创始人是 Reese Schonfeld。他其实就是那个说服 Ted Turner 进军卫星业务的人，这基本上开创了现代的有线电视和卫星电视，随后又引申出了现在的流媒体。
Ted Turner 是一个非常典型的创业者范例，拥有惊人的意志力，也是个极具争议的人物。他嘴里说出的每一句话几乎都会让报纸打出“真不敢相信泰德居然说了这种话”的头条。而 Schonfeld 原本是帮 Ted 处理卫星交易的律师，他们在 1981 年左右提出了一个疯狂的想法：做一个 24 小时新闻频道。
在当时，这被看作是完全不切实际的想法。泰德最初只想做 15 小时，因为他觉得凌晨没人看。但 Schonfeld 坚持要 24 小时。他提出了一个叫“随机狂热”（Randemonium）的概念，意思是：在任何时间点，世界上总有某件事是正在发生的，它是最神奇、最有趣、最具争议、最引人入胜的事。
Original English
Marc Andreessen: Yeah. So, uh, someone is I'm old enough to remember when CNN started... And then I because I'm an obsessive I there's this book at one point that nobody's read but it's it's the book is called Me and Ted Against the World... The founder of CNN is this guy Reese Ree Shonfeld... And they said, "How about having a 24-hour news channel, right?" And and and this at the time was like just like completely loopy idea... The idea was was was this concept that Reese Chronfel came up with called randemonium which basically says at any point in time there is like whatever there there is something happening in the world that is like the most amazing interesting controversial bonkers compelling transfixing thing that you can imagine.
“当前事物”与实时报道的魔力
主持人: 也就是“当前事物”（The Current Thing）。
Original English
Host: the current thing.
Marc Andreessen: 没错，就是“当前事物”。在任何时刻，都有一个“当前事物”。Schonfeld 认为，一个 24 小时新闻频道应该是什么样？显然，它应该锁定在这个事物上，进行全天候的连续报道，直到它不再是焦点。他称之为“随机”，因为他主张在那个阶段，不管你得到什么碎片化的信息，甚至是路人的随机采访，都要直接扔上屏幕。如果错了，以后再道歉，但重点是实时和直播。
这是 CNN 最初的商业计划。真正的突破点是 1991 年的海湾战争。那是一次质的飞跃。那一周里，人们几乎 24 小时盯着 CNN，因为他们有巴格达现场的实时轰炸报道，那就像是世界上最不可思议的真人秀。
随后的 20 年里，CNN 一直在尝试复制那种体验。他们偶尔能成功，比如克林顿的莫妮卡·莱温斯基丑闻，或者是辛普森案审判，但很难持续。而过去 20 年里，互联网重新发明了“随机狂热”。现在，人们在社交媒体上，特别是在 X（原 Twitter）上“观察局势”的体验，就是这种概念的重生。
Original English
Marc Andreessen: the current thing. The current thing exactly the current thing... He's like, "What should a 24-hour news channel be?" Obviously, it should be the thing, right? Obviously, what it should do is it should lock onto the current thing... He called it random because he basically said for that period, you just put whatever you get, you put on screen... the real breakthrough point was the 1991 Gulf War... then basically what's happened is the internet reinvented randemonium and so right the experience of monitoring the situation on especially you know on social media and especially of course on X.
地球村与脑融化的社交体验
主持人: 为什么这种“随机狂热”或“当前事物”的爆发似乎在不断加速？这种速度感的增加我们该如何理解？
Original English
Host: and and why do we think the amount of current things or randommonium or situations just is continuously accelerating... how do we make sense of that?
Marc Andreessen: 我觉得发生了两件根本性的变化。第一是互联网将你插到了全球。我们可以引用 20 世纪伟大的媒体理论家 Marshall McLuhan。他有两个核心概念：一个是“地球村”。
McLuhan 说的“村庄”并不是一个正面的词，而是一种观察：在一个小村庄里，每个人都认识其他人，因此没有隐私，每个人都盯着别人的家务事。互联网确实实现了这一点，你时刻与所有人连接。McLuhan 会觉得这非常有趣，因为他预言过这会“融化你的大脑”。人类在进化过程中，适应的是 Dunbar's number（邓巴数），即只能维持约 150 人的直接社交关系。但“地球村”要求你的邓巴数是 80 亿人。所有人都在你面前，对你指手画脚、咒骂。这是一种让大脑极其疲惫的体验。
你可以想象一下，如果二战时期就有社交媒体会怎样？如果珍珠港事件爆发时有 Twitter，那我们的国家体验将完全不同。
Original English
Marc Andreessen: Yeah. So I think there's really two two things that have happened that are really different... one is just like the internet for better or for worse like the internet plugs you into the world... Let's site Marshall McLuhan actually for both of these... one is the global village... basically what he meant by that is you need to conceive of what he meant by village... basically everybody's up in each other's business all the time... modern media is going to turn the entire world into a village... human animal was evolved to have like, you know, there's a Dunar's number... but the global village expects you to have a Dunar number of like 8 billion people.
媒介即信息：互联网就是病毒式迷因
Marc Andreessen: McLuhan 的第二个观察是“媒介即信息”。他针对电视曾说过：如果它在电视上播放，它就是一出电视剧。这意味着任何事物进入电视，都会被转化成半小时喜剧或一小时正剧的格式。它会变成一种极其情绪化、磨光过的、具有生产感的“故事”。每部电视剧都是一出“道德剧”，讲述坏人表现不佳、反思错误、最后大团圆拥抱。
互联网版的法则是：如果它在互联网上，它就是一个病毒式社交媒体迷因。不管是什么，即使下午发生了外星人入侵，它也会被转化成迷因并疯狂传播。人类天生会将其演变成一场道德恐慌。人们会分成不同的阵营、形成部落，在社交媒体上开战，夹杂着幽默与愤怒。
现在，每个病毒式迷因的爆发期大概只有 2.5 天。这是一个两天半的恐慌周期。旧的问题未必得到了解决，但新的事物出现了，夺走了所有的注意力。一周后，你甚至记不起七天前最重要的事情是什么。
Original English
Marc Andreessen: specifically he said this thing he said if it's on television it's a television show... basically telling a moral story of basically people behaving badly and then and then learning the error of their ways... The internet version is if it's on the internet it's a viral social media meme... if an alien invasion happens later this afternoon, it will be turned into a social media meme... each viral social media meme explosion, it basically is this huge spike up and then it's like this half-life decay and it lasts about two and a half days.
道德辩护：虚拟战斗降低了现实暴力
主持人: 你认为这种现状更好，是因为虽然噪音多了，但信号也多了，我们作为集体大脑更接近真理了吗？
Original English
Host: Is the reason why you think it's better is because even though there's more noise there's more signal and as kind of a collective global brain we get closer to the truth or
Marc Andreessen: 我会说，真相和谎言都变多了。旧媒体也有很多谎言。但在社交媒体上，真相的传播更直接，因为“看门人”消失了。
我稍微不同的论点是：以前的媒体形式非常擅长引发实体暴力。历史上有很多例子，比如西班牙内战。当时的媒体技术是彩色印刷宣传海报。而纳粹政权是收音机的产物。电视在越南战争和 60-70 年代的暴力骚乱中扮演了重要角色。
一个人们很少谈论的事实是，西方社会的政治暴力实际上处于历史新低。虽然大家在网上看起来都很愤怒，但衡量的政治暴力水平却很低。我的理论是：直接参与在线的虚拟战斗，分流了过去会转化为街头暴力的能量。如果虚拟世界可以变得极其言语暴力，而没有人真正受伤，这给人们提供了一个发泄愤怒的出口。你在家刷手机发火，总比在街上伤人要好。这就是我对这一切的道德辩护。
Original English
Marc Andreessen: so I would say this um we get so a couple things... there are more truth and more lies right... the collapse of the gatekeepers... previous forms of media were really good at generating physical violence... measured political violence is is at like an all-time low... my theory is the the ability to directly participate in online virtual combat uh is shunting away a lot of the energy that in the past would have would have translated to street violence... at least you're not out on the street like hurting people. So that's my that's my moral defense of the whole thing.
回望历史：过去并非田园诗
主持人: 这很有趣，因为现在人们甚至没法和家人说话，因为他们在网上找到了志同道合的“部落”。以前这种极化似乎没那么严重。你觉得这是被高估了吗？
Original English
Host: Well, it's fascinating because there's kind of a different kind of ideological sorting happening because people you say things like hey you know now they can't even talk to their own families... what might you say more broadly? Is is it just overstated in general?
Marc Andreessen: 我觉得人们对过去戴着厚厚的滤镜。过去被磨平了，因为我们没亲历。如果你去 YouTube 看看老剧《全家福》（All in the Family），那是 60 年代末到 70 年代文化战争的缩影。里面的 Archie Bunker 代表了落后的、性别歧视的保守派，而他的女婿 Meathead 是极致的进步派。那出戏原本是想给观众上道德课，结果演 Archie 的演员太有趣，他反而成了明星。
再往前看，越南战争、民权运动、冷战、大萧条、两次世界大战……西方文明史充斥着不断的冲突。不久前，美国的权势人物如果互相生气，真的会去决斗。早晨 6 点在公园里拔枪互射，那是正常生活的一部分。
过去并不是什么母系社会或者人人和平相处的田园诗。历史的常态就是冲突。政治本身曾经暴力得多，100 年前的罢工，资方真的会用机枪扫射罢工工人。现在的冲突水平并没有什么特别之处。
Original English
Marc Andreessen: Right. Yeah. So I think people just have a really rosecolored glasses view of the past... All in the Family... Archie Bunker who sort of represented, you know, as this white guy... The conceit of the show was supposed to be a moral lesson... go back before that and you have the Vietnam war... grown men like in serious positions of power and authority in the US, if they got mad at each other, they would literally have a physical duel... conflict and anyway not to not to beat a dead horse but the um you know the there was plenty of conflict in the past.
被压抑的波动性：中立媒体的终结
主持人: 有人说 2008 年智能手机普及后导致了抑郁症上升。你如何看待这个话题？
Original English
Host: And and just to that end too when people say oh ever since 20 2008 or you know your smartphone sort of uh you know propagating that um it's led to increased depression... how how do you enga engage in that that topic?
Marc Andreessen: 不同国家的数据显示，抑郁症的所谓“上升”其实与社会福利计划相关。如果你因为心理问题能得到特殊的学校优待或补贴，数据就会飙升。我觉得这在很大程度上是政府福利统计的产物。
但我承认，2014 年以来，事情确实变得更疯狂了。我的观点是，从冷战结束到 2014 年，我们经历了一段“被压抑的波动性”时期。那时西方似乎赢了一切，而且那是中心化媒体的巅峰。
1970 年左右，媒体集中度达到顶峰，每个城市只有一家报纸，电视只有三个频道，广播也被收购。这导致了表面上的非党派和稳健。但如果你回溯到美国建国初期，一个中等城市可能有 15 家报纸，每家都代表不同的观点，互相疯狂攻击。本·富兰克林当年为了填满报纸版面，会开一堆马甲（sock puppets）用假名在报纸上自己跟自己吵架。1800 年杰斐逊和亚当斯的选举，那种诽谤程度远超现在的社交媒体。我们只是回到了自然状态。
Original English
Marc Andreessen: Well so the funny thing is different western countries have different that show different data on the quote unquote rise in in depression... it correlates to social benefits programs... I think we might have lived through an era of what you might call suppressed volatility... call that maybe from like the end of the cold war through 2014... peak heyday of centralized media... if you go all the way back like 200 250 years ago it was like extremely fragmented... Ben Franklin ran one of the newspapers... he creates basically sock puppets... he had like 15 different alts uh going at it. And he he he wrote them all but under different names.
当前事物的属性：道德部落与“残暴”
主持人: 让我们回到“当前事物”。你曾有个理论，说它不能太可信，必须近乎超现实。什么样的话题会让人停不下来地转推和分享？
Original English
Host: I want to return back to uh we were talking about the current thing... I remember you had this one theory that it can't be something too believable. It has to be almost surreal.
Marc Andreessen: 它必须能激发愤怒，产生强烈的情绪反应。新闻（News）之所以叫新闻，是因为它是“新”的，而不是因为它“重要”（Importance）。如果报纸叫《重要报》，没人会买。
社交媒体版的“当前事物”需要激发部落化效应。人们形成道德部落，开始一场“虚拟大乱斗”。大家不仅攻击观点，还攻击价值观，甚至人肉搜索（doxxing）。这种“道德恐慌”必须让人觉得社会要完蛋了。
不管事实真相如何，重要的是它能让道德部落对阵。就像 George Orwell 在评论宣传时说的：真相与否并不重要，重要的是“暴行”（atrocity）的政治价值。最有效的暴行往往只涉及少数人，因为这样更容易将其人格化。一旦“暴行周期”启动，它就成了道德正义化和妖魔化对手的宣传武器。我并不是说这很好，而是说理解这种机制至关重要，这样当你被情绪左右时，大脑中至少有一小块区域是清醒的。
Original English
Marc Andreessen: it has to be something that activates outrage... the news is called the news, not the importance... They want the outrageous thing... there has to be sparks... it has to lend itself to that kind of basically tribal formation... moral tribes and then there's this concept right of moral panic... George Orwell... talks about the role of the atrocity... the truth or falsehood of the atrocity it doesn't matter at all... the point of it is to have the have the atrocity be a propaganda win uh for for for moral for moral justification and then then for moral demonization of the other side.
关于“行动”与影响操作
主持人: 关于“行动”（ops）和阴谋论，你有什么思维模型？
Original English
Host: I want to go back to this conspiracy... what sort of mental model you you might have for for uh for the idea of ops and how that might help uh one understand the the the social platforms today.
Marc Andreessen: 这很复杂。真相往往介于两者之间：有些事是自发的，有些是蓄意的“行动”。而且一个“行动”可以演变成真实的运动。马基雅维利式的操纵者会雇佣影响力人物、动用机器人大军，但其最终目标是让人们真正相信它。
正如 Rosa Parks 的例子。她在学校里学到的故事是一个随机的人在公车上反抗，但实际上她是一位训练有素的活动家。这是一个由“可用性企业家”（availability entrepreneur）策划的行动，最终引发了改变美国社会的真实运动。所以，仅仅因为某事始于“行动”，并不意味着它不是真实的。
在现在的政治影响力世界，法律存在灰色地带。如果你收钱卖洗发水，必须披露；如果你给候选人捐款，也必须披露。但如果你付钱给影响力人物，让他们在某个道德或政治话题上表态，这目前不需要任何披露。
Original English
Marc Andreessen: it's messy... something could start as an op and then become real... the point of it is to get people to actually believe it, right?... Rosa Parks was a classic example of this... started as an op like she started as she started as an but the point of the OP was not to be the OP the point of it was to be what happened... if you pay an influencer to take a position on a moral topic... it's fully legal to do that in the dark.
未来趋势：杠铃式媒体与纯互联网候选人
主持人: 2024 年被称为“播客大选”。你如何看待传统媒体与新媒体的博弈？
Original English
Host: and you know 2024 was the podcast election... how do you see legacy players and new media players um sort of uh you know playing out.
Marc Andreessen: 数据显示，对中心化机构的信任正在崩塌。这种下降从 1970 年就开始了。传统媒体的收视率、发行量都在全线崩溃。而播客、直播、社交媒体正在崛起。
但媒体呈现出一种“杠铃式”结构：一头是 TikTok 这种极短视频，另一头是三小时、甚至十小时的长篇播客（比如 Lex Fridman 或 Joe Rogan）。人们对深度的渴望并没有消失。
关于总统竞选，特朗普其实是一个混合体。他非常精通社交媒体，但也极度关注电视，甚至会根据电视下方的滚动条文字（Chiron）实时发推来改变话题。他本质上还是个电视人。但我预测，未来会出现真正的“纯互联网候选人”。他们完全不在乎电视和报纸， 100% 生长于互联网。也许是在 2032 年。无论好坏，这都是我们要迎接的世界。
Original English
Marc Andreessen: trust in centralized institutions of all kinds is is collapsing... ratings for all the centralized media properties are in full scale collapse... it's like a barbell. You also have this you you have this massive rise in substance. Um and on the substance side I would point to the long form podcast... Trump's kind of underlying theory is the things that are on TV are the things that the people running the TV network know that their viewers want to see... there will be an internet candidate there will be an internet president who gets elected I I believe entirely based on the internet... probably my guess is 32.
主持人: 非常棒。这是一场精彩的媒体讨论。Marc，谢谢你。
Original English
Host: Well, I think that's a great note to to wrap on... Mark, thank you for coming on.