什么是黄金时代？

Hi everyone, I'm Nicola Tangan, the CEO of the Norwegian Sovereign Wealth Fund and today we are exploring one of history's most pressing questions, the rise and fall of great civilizations. Because there are so many things that we can learn from the past and today I'm here with Yuan Norberg, author of the newly released book which I just loved called Peak Human, what we can learn from the rise and of all of Golden Ages. Now Yuan, you have studied golden ages throughout history from ancient Athens to the modern Anglosphere and that's what we're going to zoom in on today. So Yuan, warm welcome. Thank you very much. Let's start with the beginning. What is a golden age? 大家好，我是挪威主权财富基金的首席执行官尼古拉·唐甘，今天我们将探讨历史上一个紧迫的问题：伟大文明的兴衰。因为我们可以从过去学到很多东西，今天我将与尤安·诺伯格一起探讨，他是最近出版的、我非常喜欢的《人类巅峰》一书的作者，书中探讨了我们可以从黄金时代的兴衰中学到什么。尤安，你研究过从古雅典到现代英语圈的历史上的黄金时代，今天我们就来深入探讨这个话题。尤安，热烈欢迎。非常感谢。让我们从头开始。什么是黄金时代？

Yeah, I'm glad you asked. Golden age is something that's often defined in retrospect afterwards, which is a little bit sad. So, it's often subsequent generations who look back at the past and say, "Wow, they really had something impressive going." And you never see it when you're in it. Sometimes you do. Um, but it's easier afterwards because it's about a combination of cultural creativity, scientific discovery, technological innovation, and economic growth. And so it's really a large number of innovations and new discoveries in many different fields of human experience at the same time. 我很乐意回答。黄金时代，往往是在事后回顾时才能定义，这有点令人伤感。通常是后代回顾过去，然后说：“哇，他们当时真的很了不起。”而身处其中时，你却看不到。有时也能看到，但事后更容易理解，因为它关乎文化创造力、科学发现、技术创新和经济增长的结合。所以，它实际上是在同一时间，人类经验的许多不同领域产生了大量的创新和新发现。

That's so um the plan today is to really focus in on the anglosphere which is basically we are kind of in the middle of it or potentially towards the end of it and then we're going to compare some of the signs we're seeing here with what's been going on earlier in history. So Angloair, what is that? Sounds great. What is Anglo Fair? 那么，今天的计划是重点关注“英语圈”。我们基本上正处于它的中间，或者可能正走向其末尾，然后我们将比较我们在这里看到的迹象与历史上其他时期的情况。那么，英语圈，那是什么？听起来很棒。什么是英语圈？

Well, I I'm what I'm thinking of here is um a starting point in Great Britain and the industrial revolution after the enlightenment and the scientific enlightenment, the unleashing of wealth on a dramatic scale and simultaneously the creation of liberal democracy and of checks and balances on on governments and how that was later transplanted into the um into North America and how America has not just become a sort of a limited regionally golden age, but also after the Second World War, how it's been the protector and the guardian of a global world order, a more rules-based world order than we're used to in history. Uh more of open seas and free trade rather than gunboat diplomacy. That's what I'm thinking. And in terms of previous golden ages that we are looking at uh Greece, Rome, the caliphat stone dynasty. 嗯，我所想的，是以英国为起点，经历了启蒙运动和科学启蒙后的工业革命，财富以前所未有的规模得到释放，同时创造了自由民主以及对政府的制衡。后来，这又被移植到北美，美国不仅成为了一个区域性的黄金时代，更在二战后，成为了全球世界秩序的保护者和守护者，一个比历史上我们习惯的更具规则性的世界秩序。它意味着更多的开放海域和自由贸易，而非炮舰外交。这就是我的想法。至于我们正在研究的之前的黄金时代，有古希腊、罗马，以及后来的哈里发王朝。

区域性与全球性黄金时代

Yeah. So, so they they were impressive uh but they were regionally based. uh which meant that when they fell when Rome collapsed at least in 476 when the last western Roman emperor fell that was in a way the end of civilization because all that knowledge was lost and had to be rediscovered again 1,000 years later in order to to get it the Baghdad caliphate was all when that was over it was all gone the difference this time around it's is that this is a global civilization for the first time we're spreading ideas, knowledge, technology across borders and that makes a great difference. The Dutch also had a good period. They were quite impressive. It's a very unlikely golden age in the se 16th and 17th century when they were up against the mightiest empire on the planet, the Spanish Habsburgs, who basically owned Europe and they were just some eccentric um entrepreneurs and merchants in in the north western periphery. and they had nothing, not even land on which to stand. But that forced them to become innovative. So they became incredibly innovative when it came to the economy, but also when it came to art, the philosophical enlightenment and so on. So the really cool thing here is that we're going to compare what we're seeing today with what we've seen in the past. 是的。它们都很辉煌，但都是区域性的。这意味着当它们衰落时，当罗马至少在公元476年崩溃，最后一位西罗马皇帝倒台时，文明就某种程度上终结了，因为所有知识都丢失了，不得不在千年后重新发掘。当巴格达哈里发王朝结束时，一切都消失了。这次的不同之处在于，这是一个全球性的文明，我们第一次跨越国界传播思想、知识和技术，这带来了巨大的改变。荷兰也曾有过一段辉煌时期，他们相当了不起。在16、17世纪，这是一个极不寻常的黄金时代，当时他们面对的是地球上最强大的帝国——西班牙哈布斯堡王朝，他们几乎统治了整个欧洲，而荷兰只是西北边缘一些古怪的企业家和商人。他们一无所有，甚至连立足之地都没有。但这迫使他们变得创新。因此，他们在经济上变得极其创新，在艺术、哲学启蒙等方面也是如此。所以，这里真正有趣的是，我们将今天的景象与过去的景象进行比较。

黄金时代的终结

Generally speaking, how do golden ages end? They end when we shift mentality. Obviously, you can see lots of dangerous horsemen of the apocalypse here and there of famine, uh, climate change, the plague, war, and so on. But that happens a lot throughout history, and it doesn't really mean the end of civilizations because you can rebuild cities. Uh, you don't lose knowledge like that. But often times those disasters led to a change of mentality. So instead of this um what the Athe Greek historian Tidus talked about as an Athenian mindset of going out into the world and explore and learn something new and acquire new things, you shift to a more Spartan mentality where you stay at home to try to protect what you've got. This is often how golden ages end. You lose that cultural self-confidence. You try to protect yourself and what you've got and then you lose that because you have to regenerate it with new innovations and new knowledge. 总的来说，黄金时代是如何结束的？当我们的心态转变时，它们就会结束。显而易见，你会看到饥荒、气候变化、瘟疫、战争等末日骑士的踪影。但这种情况在历史上屡见不鲜，这并不意味着文明的终结，因为你可以重建城市，知识也不会像那样轻易丢失。然而，这些灾难常常导致心态的转变。所以，不再是像古希腊历史学家修昔底德所说的“雅典精神”，即走出去探索、学习新事物、获取新东西，而是转变为一种更“斯巴达”的心态，即待在家里，试图保护自己所拥有的。这通常是黄金时代结束的方式。你失去那种文化上的自信，试图保护自己和所拥有的一切，然后你又因此失去它，因为你必须通过新的创新和新知识来重新激发它。

当代的挑战与隐忧

Are we at the end of our golden age now or are we seeing signs? Well, I'm worried. That's one of the reasons why I wrote this book. I can see many troubling signs ahead. I think we've shifted to that spot and mentality in the past two decades or so partly as a result of many global worrying things we've experienced such such as so briefly mentioned some of them and we'll we'll unpick them. Well, you know the the global financial crisis of 2007 and 8 I think uh shifted minds. I think the pandemic made us worried about the world. Endless wars in the Middle East and then Putin's invasion of Ukraine, terrorist attacks, migration crisis. All these things combined with a sense, especially in the west, that other parts of the world are now more innovative and empowered than we are. All of this combines to make us a little bit more worried and then we stay at home more often than we should. 我们是否正处于黄金时代的末期，或者我们是否看到了一些迹象？我感到担忧。这也是我写这本书的原因之一。我看到了许多令人不安的迹象。我认为在过去的二十年里，我们已经转向了那种心态，部分原因是经历了许多令人担忧的全球性事件，比如我们简要提及的其中一些，我们将一一剖析。2007年和2008年的全球金融危机，我认为它改变了人们的心态。大流行病让我们对世界感到担忧。中东无休止的战争，以及普京入侵乌克兰，恐怖袭击，移民危机。所有这些因素，尤其是西方，都认为世界其他地区现在比我们更具创新性和力量。所有这些都加在一起，让我们更加担忧，于是我们比应该做的更倾向于“待在家里”。

外部威胁与内部反应

You say that um external threats often trigger internal responses that then actually cause the decline. What do you mean by that? Yeah, external threats is is a given. We always face external threats from plagues to geopolitical tensions and and natural disasters. Um but we can often handle them if we acquire knowledge, technological capacity and wealth. But what often happens is that we react instinctively as individuals but also as societies to threats. In a way, it's kind of a societal collective fightor-flight instinct rather than grappling with the problems. We try to flee from problems and build walls and tariff barriers or fight against them, find scapegoats um and um and to arm ourselves against the the problems. and and that sometimes means that we we lose that innovative spirit that could have given us the tools to deal with the problems. 你说外部威胁常常引发内部反应，而这些反应实际上导致了衰落。这是什么意思？外部威胁是必然的。我们总是面临来自瘟疫、地缘政治紧张以及自然灾害的外部威胁。但如果我们获得知识、技术能力和财富，我们常常可以应对它们。但往往发生的是，我们作为个体，也作为社会，本能地对威胁做出反应。在某种程度上，这是一种社会性的集体“战或逃”的本能，而不是去解决问题。我们试图逃避问题，筑起高墙、设置贸易壁垒，或者与之对抗，寻找替罪羊，武装自己以应对问题。而这有时意味着我们失去了那种本可以提供解决问题工具的创新精神。

全球化的逆转与自我伤害

Now we're seeing some um reversals of globalization uh happening in the world now. What what does that mean? What could that lead to? Yeah, this is the thing that worries me the most. If there's one thing that golden ages have in common is that they they imitate quite a lot. It it's very difficult to come up with something brand new in the world, but it's much easier if you're open to the ideas of others. If you learn from their experiences, from merchants, migrants, missionaries from other places, that's how we keep on going and constantly rejuvenate our societies. But this fear of the world uh fear of um international supply chains and other things have meant that we we want to stay at home. We want to repatriate supply chains. We want someone to avoid free trade completely. And in that case what happens is that we hurt ourselves because we we lose access we deny ourselves access to the brains of other people uh to the hard work and goods and services and the intermediary goods of others and that will make us less innovative and uh less competitive. 现在我们看到全球化出现了一些逆转。这意味着什么？可能导致什么结果？这是我最担心的事情。如果说黄金时代有什么共同点的话，那就是它们相当程度地模仿。在世界上很难创造出全新的事物，但如果你对别人的想法持开放态度，那就容易得多。如果你从商人的经验、移民的经验、来自其他地方的传教士的经验中学习，我们就能不断前进，不断振兴我们的社会。但是，这种对世界的恐惧、对国际供应链的担忧等等，导致我们想要“待在家里”。我们想要将供应链迁回国内。我们希望有人完全避免自由贸易。在这种情况下，我们伤害了自己，因为我们失去了接触他人智慧的机会，失去了他们辛勤劳动、商品和服务以及中间产品的来源。这将使我们失去创新能力和竞争力。

强权衰落与权力真空

Now you say in your book that if a strong power steps down that the countries it has protected can turn against it. Subsequently, what does that mean? Yes, this is the historical rel geopolitical relationship. If there's a strong power, it's often a bully and people want to protect themselves against it. They might subject to it, but they use any opportunity to get back at it if that power is threatened. That's what we've seen historically from China to the Abisid Caliphate to different Greek hedgeimons. Uh the difference this time around with the Americanled world order is that that has been more a rules-based liberal world order where America obviously it's been a bully at times that happens when you're the hgeimon but more often it's tried to protect a set of rules that makes it possible for others to also grow and to trade and to become prosperous. countries like Sweden, countries like uh all European countries, East Asia, many Latin American countries and that has meant a decisive shift in geopolitical relationships so far at least that they realize that it's in their interest to protect this world order because they're afraid that uh if America is not there to protect this um this rules-based order, there might be another bully and in in the top in the lead and uh and that will be much worse. 你在书中说，如果一个强权垮台，它所保护的国家可能会反戈一击。这之后意味着什么？这是历史上的地缘政治关系。如果存在一个强权，它往往是一个霸凌者，人们会想要保护自己免受其害。他们可能会屈服于它，但如果这个强权受到威胁，他们会抓住一切机会报复它。纵观历史，我们从中国到阿拔斯哈里发王朝，再到不同的希腊城邦，都看到了这种情况。这次不同之处在于，以美国为首的世界秩序，更多的是一个基于规则的自由世界秩序，虽然美国有时确实是霸凌者，就像统治者一样，但更多时候，它试图保护一套规则，使其他国家也能增长、贸易并变得繁荣。像瑞典、所有欧洲国家、东亚、许多拉丁美洲国家。这在很大程度上改变了地缘政治关系，至少到目前为止，它们意识到保护这个世界秩序符合它们的利益，因为它们害怕如果美国不在那里保护这个基于规则的秩序，可能会有另一个霸凌者取而代之，那将糟糕得多。

移民与创新

Now um just uh unpacking a bit what you said about globalization. So why has immigration been so important for golden ages to arise? I think one important reason is that innovation is hard. It's difficult to think outside the box. We don't want to do that because it's hard work. It's uncomfortable and it's risky. We never know if it'll work. So most societies try to stick to the script if they find a way to to survive and and get on. So we need a constant input from others. We often get it from trade and from our business trips just finding something else uh new elsewhere. But migrants have been incredibly important because it increases the chance of serendipity, surprises because you suddenly rub up against strangers who have a completely different way of looking at things, different experiences, different knowhow. And when they suddenly look at your business models, your technologies, the consumer demand, they come up with new ideas. And that's why there's a pattern that strangers um immigrants are often much more innovative and they get more Nobel prizes than than locals do. 现在，我们来稍微解读一下你关于全球化的说法。为什么移民对于黄金时代的兴起如此重要？我认为一个重要原因是创新很难。跳出框框思考很困难。我们不想这样做，因为它费力、不舒服且有风险。我们永远不知道它是否会成功。所以大多数社会都试图墨守成规，只要能生存下去就行。因此，我们需要来自他人的持续输入。我们常常通过贸易和商务旅行来获取，只是在别处寻找新的东西。但移民极其重要，因为它增加了意外发现和惊喜的机会，因为你突然会遇到拥有完全不同视角、不同经验、不同技能的陌生人。当他们审视你的商业模式、技术、消费者需求时，他们会提出新的想法。这就是为什么有这样一个规律：陌生人，也就是移民，通常更具创新性，获得的诺贝尔奖也比本地人多。

历史上的移民与开放

They do. Uh now what parallels can you draw? I mean, to which other empires can you draw comparisons when it comes to this? Oh, basically all of them. But if you want a very a perfect example is ancient Rome which was in a way built according to mythology by Romulus by inviting everyone to Rome because they had to inhabit their their hills. Uh so they invited um uh immigrants and even smugglers and and criminals and refugees from everywhere and uh on their asylum on top of the um the ancient Roman hill over there and that's where we get our word for uh asylum. So Rome became famous in their own mythology in their own set of ideas as the place where we constantly acquire absorb new peoples and new ideas from elsewhere. Sometimes they do did that in a very brutal way by conquering other people. But they also said that it is incredibly important unlike many other powers to be able to defeat people and integrate them during the same day basically because we have so much to power to get from what what happened when they started to restrict this. Well, one thing that happens is that uh you suddenly shop off uh that access to new ideas to that input that you need to to constantly grow richer. This is one lesson that they so early on from many Greek city states how they were much more hesitant to um accept new entrance, new immigrants into their power. So slowly they declined and lost people. They lost manpower but they also lost that sense of doing something new. So Sparta for example became a smaller and smaller city state and in the end they couldn't even put up men on the on the war fields because they they didn't integrate more people. 是的。那么，你能从中得出哪些类比？我的意思是，在这一点上，你可以与其他哪些帝国进行比较？嗯，基本上所有帝国都可以。但如果你想要一个完美的例子，那就是古罗马。根据神话，罗穆卢斯邀请所有人来到罗马，因为他们需要有人居住他们的山丘。所以他们邀请了来自各地的移民，甚至走私犯、罪犯和难民，并将他们安置在古罗马的山丘上，我们的“庇护”（asylum）一词就由此而来。因此，在他们自己的神话和思想体系中，罗马成为了一个不断吸收来自外界的新人民和新思想的地方。有时他们以非常残酷的方式，通过征服其他民族来实现这一点。但他们也认为，与许多其他强权不同的是，能够战胜人民并能在同一天内将他们融合是极其重要的，因为我们可以从中获得巨大的力量。当他们开始限制这一点时，会发生什么？其中一件事是，你突然切断了获取新思想的渠道，切断了持续致富所需的投入。这是他们从许多希腊城邦那里早早吸取的教训，那些城邦更不愿意接受新的居民、新的移民。因此，它们逐渐衰落，失去了人口，失去了劳动力，但也失去了创新进取的精神。例如，斯巴达变成了一个越来越小的城邦，最后甚至无法在战场上派出足够多的士兵，因为他们没有接纳更多的人。

贸易壁垒的危害：宋朝与威尼斯

Tariffs is uh is kind of fashionable in parts of the world just now. Now you write about Song China and you say that part of the reason for the downfall was increased freight barriers. Now how would you could you explain that? Yes. Um, China is u one of the most powerful examples of the benefits of free trade and one of the um strongest lessons in failure when you when you block that because the Song dynasty around roughly a thousand years ago became prosperous by being open eternally but also outwardly. So they learned new technologies and they um built incredible wealth. Some economic historians talk about how they were almost about to start an industrial revolution 500 years before the Brit British did. However, after a period of turbulence and civil strife, there was a new dynasty, the Ming dynasty, who took power and they promised stability instead. And they thought that stability, one way of building getting back to a better go good old days was to restrict international trade. And they were they were um much more hardcore than our uh present day protectionists. So they basically burnt their entire worldleading Armada. They burnt the map to make sure maps to make sure that no one repeated the example and they put the death penalty on international trade and they got stability and stagnation for 500 years. So the richest country on the planet became a desperately poor country after that anti-globalization revolution. What about Venice? an incredible example of how trade creates um wealth and even the Renaissance by trading with with everyone. Um uh trading even with the infidels, trading even with the Muslims, something that the pope didn't like, but the Venetians said that trade should be free even to the gates of hell. Uh which is a very powerful free trade slogan. and they became an incredibly wealthy um city state and so did the other trading uh Italian city states. But also then again, you could see how it began to break down when they lost those trade routes in times of warfare, in times of religious war and uh and more barriers to prosperity and what used to be the most open cities became involved in um more repressive and protectionist strife. 关税在当今世界部分地区颇为流行。你写到宋朝，并说其衰落的部分原因是贸易壁垒的增加。你能解释一下吗？是的。中国是自由贸易益处的有力例证之一，也是当阻碍自由贸易时，失败的惨痛教训之一。大约在一千年前，宋朝通过对外开放和保持开放而变得繁荣。他们学习新技术，积累了惊人的财富。一些经济史学家认为，他们几乎在英国人之前500年就启动了工业革命。然而，在一系列动荡和内乱之后，明朝新王朝上台，他们承诺稳定。他们认为，回到过去的辉煌，稳定的一种方式就是限制国际贸易。他们的做法比我们今天的保护主义者更为极端。他们基本上烧毁了自己领先世界的舰队，烧毁了地图，以确保没有人会重蹈覆辙，并对国际贸易处以死刑。结果，他们获得了稳定，但也迎来了长达500年的停滞。因此，这个曾经世界上最富有的国家，在那场反全球化革命后，变成了一个极其贫穷的国家。威尼斯呢？它是贸易创造财富，甚至通过与所有人贸易而实现文艺复兴的一个绝佳范例。他们甚至与“异教徒”、与穆斯林进行贸易，尽管教皇对此不满，但威尼斯人说，贸易应该是自由的，即使是通往地狱的大门。这是一个非常有力的自由贸易口号。他们成为了一个极其富有的城邦，其他意大利贸易城邦也是如此。但同样，当他们在战争时期、宗教战争时期失去贸易路线，面临更多阻碍繁荣的壁垒时，曾经最开放的城市也开始陷入更具压迫性和保护主义的斗争。

战略容忍：开放的智慧

What is strategic tolerance? Strategic tolerance doesn't mean being nice and kind and open to other people's because you're a decent uh humanitarian dog good liberal. It means you do it like the ancient Romans did in order to um become more powerful in a way in order to beat people up and take their stuff. They understood and they had learned this from many others from Alexander the Great and sometimes from the Persians who understood that the best way to acquire new knowledge, technological capacity, better tools of warfare. You have to be open to it. When you go to new places, don't try to ruin it all. Try to acquire what they have. Try to learn if they have something better. So Montescu the great enlightenment philosopher said that the reason why the Romans became the the masters of the world was that they quickly abandoned their own ideas, methods and traditions when they acquired something new and better elsewhere. And in a way that's what we do in a global civilization. We constantly learn is is there a better way of uh of producing steel or uh create a large language model elsewhere. That's strategic tolerance. You're open to new ideas because you know it makes you powerful. 什么是战略容忍？战略容忍并非出于善良、仁慈或作为一名优秀的自由主义者而对他人开放。它的意思是，就像古罗马人那样，为了变得更强大，为了击败他人并夺取他们的东西。他们明白，并且从亚历山大大帝和波斯人那里学到了这一点：获取新知识、技术能力、更好的战争工具的最佳方式是对此保持开放。当你去新的地方，不要试图毁掉一切，而是去获取他们拥有的东西，去学习他们是否有更好的东西。启蒙哲学家孟德斯鸠说，罗马人之所以成为世界的主宰，是因为他们能够迅速放弃自己的思想、方法和传统，转而吸收他处新且更好的东西。在某种程度上，这就是我们在全球化文明中所做的。我们不断学习，是否存在更好的生产钢铁的方式，或者在别处创建大型语言模型？这就是战略容忍。你对新思想持开放态度，因为你知道这会让你更强大。

政治不稳定与两极分化

Political instability. Now um you write about uh how increased polarization contribute to a collapse of a golden age. What for first of all why do we why do we get polarization and why does it contribute to the collapse? Well you know we can be polarized in different ways. uh some polarization might not be that bad if it means that we look at things from different vantage points. In a way, our confrontational systems in the in the legal sphere and in the media and in politics means that we we see more things because um we all have confirmation biases and the best way of uh acquiring more knowledge is to actually listen to your opponent a little bit more ideas on the table. However, polarization can become so radical that you don't listen. You're just confrontational and you and we seeing that many places in the world, right? I think we do. I think we've uh we've stopped listening because we think we have the one true way and in that and why is that so bad for our society? Because it might mean that we just stick to the script without being um open to to others. And again, this is not something we do to be kind and nice. It's some it's strategic tolerance. It's something we do in order to be better and to improve ourselves. If your ideas are based on reality, and they should be, if you want to build everything from a a better intellectual understanding of the world to better business models, to greater technology, it has to be reality based. And in that case, you have to listen to your opponents because if what they say is a little bit painful because it seems like they've got a point. They help you out. They teach you how to become a a better smarter person, a better smarter business. So, if we stop listening to our opponents, we'll we shoot ourselves in the foot. What about if you um have questions and problems with the academic institutions or the legal system? Have we seen examples of that of that in history? 政治不稳定。你写到，日益加剧的两极分化是如何导致黄金时代崩溃的。首先，为什么会出现两极分化？它又为何会导致崩溃？你知道，我们可以从不同的角度来看待两极分化。一些两极分化可能并非坏事，如果它意味着我们从不同的视角看待事物。在某种程度上，我们法律、媒体和政治领域中的对抗性体系，使我们能看到更多方面，因为我们都有确认偏差，而获取更多知识的最佳方式是多听听你的对手。然而，两极分化可能变得如此极端，以至于你不再倾听，只是对抗。我们看到世界上许多地方都存在这种情况，对吗？我认为是。我认为我们已经停止倾听，因为我们认为自己掌握着唯一的真理。这对我们的社会有什么坏处？因为它可能意味着我们只是墨守成规，而不对他人敞开心扉。同样，这并不是我们为了表现得善良而做的事情。这是战略容忍，是为了让我们变得更好、自我改进。如果你的想法是基于现实的，并且它们应该是，如果你想建立一个更好的世界，更好的商业模式，更高的技术，它必须是基于现实的。在这种情况下，你必须倾听你的对手，因为如果他们所说的有些令人痛苦，似乎他们说得有道理。他们会帮助你，教会你如何成为一个更好、更聪明的人，一个更好的、更成功的企业。所以，如果我们停止倾听对手，我们将搬起石头砸自己的脚。那么，如果你对学术机构或法律体系有疑问和问题呢？历史上是否出现过这种情况的例子？

苏格拉底时刻与思想的僵化

Yeah. I you know I I often talk about how um to define the end of a golden age is when you have the when you really know that you're about to lose it all. That's the death to Socrates moment. When you What What is a Socrates moment? It it is it's named after the greatest Athenian philosopher Socrates who constantly pested people with questions and forcing them to think more and harder about difficult questions and obviously that was a little bit painful because it's difficult to think outside the box. Um but he did Athens a great favor. But during the pelpeneisian wars when there were times of strife and and problems, Socrates became the scapegoat and the Athenian democracy sentenced him to death uh for his teachings. And so if even the intellectually open Athenians can do that it tells you that we can all end up in such a situation becoming fed up with our openness, we try to find scapegoats. try to instill some sort of intellectual orthodoxy and this happens at the end of many golden ages when we we don't want to listen to the outsiders. We want to have some a more pure system. We want more in intellectual orthodoxy. I think we've seen this at um at many universities how speakers, teachers who've tried to provoke students have been shouted down and even thrown out of of campus in a in a problematic um kind of a leftist woke uh mentality. Now we see it from the other side where the sort of the nationalist right is trying to push back but instill their own orthodoxy and force all the scholars to think in the same way and remove all the words that seem uh problematic from their perspective and uh and this is a sign that we um should be worried because this might mean that we're losing that pluralism that helps us to think further. 是的。我经常谈论如何定义一个黄金时代的终结，那就是当你真正意识到你即将失去一切的时候。那就是“苏格拉底时刻”。当 What What is a Socrates moment? 它是以最伟大的雅典哲学家苏格拉底命名的，他不断地用问题折磨人们，迫使他们更深入地思考困难的问题，这显然有些痛苦，因为跳出框框思考是困难的。但他对雅典做出了巨大贡献。但在伯罗奔尼撒战争期间，当出现冲突和问题时，苏格拉底成为了替罪羊，雅典民主判处他死刑，罪名是他的教导。因此，即使是思想开放的雅典人也会这样做，这表明我们都可能陷入这样的境地，厌倦了我们的开放性，试图寻找替罪羊，试图灌输某种思想上的正统观念。这发生在许多黄金时代的末期，当我们不想听取外界的声音时。我们想要一个更纯粹的体系，我们想要更多的思想正统。我认为我们在许多大学都看到了这种情况，一些试图激发学生思考的演讲者、老师被喝倒彩，甚至被赶出校园，这是一种左翼“觉醒”心态下的问题。现在我们看到了另一方面的表现，民族主义右翼试图反击，灌输他们自己的正统观念，强迫所有学者以同样的方式思考，并从他们的角度删除所有似乎有问题词语。这是一个令人担忧的信号，因为这可能意味着我们正在失去那种有助于我们进一步思考的多元化。

对法律与信息质量的攻击

In which cases have you seen attacks on the legal system and quality of information these kind of things? Well, when it comes to um we can see that many uh democracies have we've seen more of a majoritarian struggle. someone gets power and wants to name the media as the enemy of the people but also the legal system and to try to undermine the checks and balances the division of power that we've got. If you look at international ratings, countries like Turkey and Hungary have declined dramatically in terms of the independence of legal institutions and of media freedom. 在哪些情况下，你看到过对法律体系和信息质量的攻击？嗯，在民主国家，我们看到多数派的斗争更加激烈。有人上台后，就称媒体为“人民的敌人”，也攻击法律体系，试图破坏我们所拥有的制衡和权力分立。如果看看国际排名，像土耳其和匈牙利这样的国家，在司法机构的独立性和媒体自由方面已大幅下滑。

强人政治的崛起

Have we seen it historically in other places? Oh, for sure. This is uh I mean the golden ages that I look at are not any perfect democracies in any way uh because it's a fairly new concept with liberal democracy but they've all had some sort of a restraint on the arbitrary rule of the uh of the powerful and that has been incredibly important. Sometimes it's come from the uh system of law. Sometimes it's come from different guilds that have had power and restrain then the ruler. And that's important because then you um expand the possibilities of having more voices. It's more difficult for one emperor to set all the standards, all the rules and to uh uh to force him to have a set of rules that makes it more predictable. you know that you can invest long-term in the future in new exotic eccentric ideas or business models and you it might pay off in the long term and he might not be able to undermine it all or to steal expropriate everything from you. But at the end of golden ages what happens is that they they are the rulers they don't like that they don't want any anybody else to have a say in those systems and they want it all for themselves. Is that what you call a strongman? Yes, that's right. Tell tell us about it. What is it? You know, in times of trouble, we all want someone to protect us. We have this sense that someone should guide us and help us out. And and at that time, some people someone powerful often presents himself saying that I've got a solution to all your problems. I can fix this. And um the late Roman emperors, they presented themselves more like uh royalty and undermining all the checks and balances. We see that even in tolerant places like uh the Dutch Republic in the 17th century in when they were more geopolitically um exposed French and English um invasions. At the same time, people wanted the startolder, the de facto prime minister to acquire more power. So, William of Orange, he he didn't object. So, he began to undermine the independent universities, the independent um local rulers and independent institutions and acquire all power for himself. The problem then of course is that you then you get yourself surrounded with yesmen. you're surrounded by people who only say what you want to hear and that makes you more vulnerable to um your own um prejudice and rather than listening to contrary information. 历史上在其他地方也出现过吗？当然。我研究的黄金时代并非完美无缺的民主。因为自由民主是一个相当新的概念。但它们都曾有过某种形式的对权力者任意统治的制约，而这一点至关重要。有时这种制约来自法律体系，有时来自拥有权力的不同行会，从而约束统治者。这很重要，因为它扩大了更多声音参与的可能性。一位皇帝要制定所有标准、所有规则，并迫使他遵循一套更具可预测性的规则，这是非常困难的。你知道你可以对未来进行长期投资，投资于新奇、古怪的想法或商业模式，这可能在长期内获得回报，他可能无法完全破坏这一切，也无法从你那里窃取一切。但在黄金时代的末期，统治者不再喜欢有人在这些体系中有发言权，他们想要独揽大权。这就是你所说的“强人”吗？是的，没错。讲讲吧。你知道，在困难时期，我们都希望有人保护我们。我们觉得应该有人指导和帮助我们。这时，一些有权势的人常常会站出来说：“我有一个解决你们所有问题的办法。我能搞定。”晚期的罗马皇帝，他们更多地将自己定位为皇室，并破坏了所有的制衡。我们甚至在17世纪的荷兰共和国等相对宽容的地方也看到了这一点，当时它们在外交上面临法国和英国的威胁。与此同时，人们希望执政官（事实上的首相）拥有更大的权力。因此，奥兰治的威廉欣然接受，开始破坏独立的大学、独立的地方统治者和独立的机构，将所有权力集中于自己手中。当然，问题是，你会被一群“是”先生包围，被那些只会说你想听的话的人包围，这让你更容易受到自身偏见的影响，而不是倾听相反的信息。

腐败的合法化与权力集中

In which periods have you seen legitimization of corruption in the past? There's a little bit of corruption in every society, but but the best societies have worked hard to try to create more transparency so that um the corrupt are more exposed and that others uh look into it and that there's a system of law that makes it possible to to punish wrongdoers. And this is something that uh has been incredibly important in opening up economies to uh others than the incumbents, others than the politically um uh connected. But there's always this tension, always this struggle where those in power try to help their own friends out a little bit. And um that's what you get in the decline phase of many golden ages when this becomes more the rule than the exception. So for example, you see this um in the um the end of the Chinese golden era, the um Chinese emperors begin to think that a cheaper, quicker, better way of um funding of the whole military is to just give them power over the economy and hand them um some powers of taxation, giving them specific monopolies, giving um uh control over bits and parcels of of land. And again, this means a centralization where you limit new ideas to a specific set of incumbents. And that makes it difficult to be innovative because most new ideas come from the outside. It comes from the eccentrics, from the rebels who try and test something new. And that's difficult when corruption becomes um legitimized. 历史上，你何时见过腐败被合法化？每个社会都存在一些腐败，但最好的社会努力创造更大的透明度，以便腐败者更容易暴露，他人能够深入调查，并建立法律体系来惩罚不法分子。这一点对于向非在位者、非与政治有关联的人开放经济至关重要。但总存在这种张力，权力者总是试图帮助自己的朋友。这在许多黄金时代的衰落阶段就会出现，腐败成为常态而非例外。例如，在中国黄金时代的末期，中国皇帝开始认为，为整个军队提供资金的更便宜、更快、更好的方式是赋予他们经济权力，并授予他们税收权力，给予他们特定的垄断权，控制部分土地。这又导致了权力集中，将新思想限制在特定的在位者群体中。这使得创新变得困难，因为大多数新思想都来自外部，来自那些尝试和测试新事物的怪才、叛逆者。当腐败被合法化时，情况就变得复杂了。

开放的重要性：个人、企业与国家

Yuan, you have also written another book called Open, which I also happen to think is really really great. Thank you. Um um and um um you talk about the importance of being open as a as a human being, as a kind of a company, corporation, and then as a country. And I was just wondering whether you could perhaps just uh unpick it a bit. Um why is it important for people to be open? I these are kind of naive questions, but I just love to hear what you how you phrase it. No, it's a great question because it's hard work to be open because we're all very we're all very comfortable where we are and with the places we're going to um the problem is that we restrict ourselves then to to those things. Uh you might be the smartest people in the room but the room is always very small and and most of the new ideas most of the new technologies are being developed elsewhere. So if you want to continue to thrive as a business or as a society or even as an individual, you have to go outside of your comfort zone. 尤安，你也写了另一本书，叫做《开放》，我个人觉得也很棒。谢谢。你谈到了作为一个人、一家公司、一个企业，以及作为一个国家，保持开放的重要性。我只是想知道你是否能稍微展开讲讲。为什么对人来说保持开放很重要？这些可能是很基础的问题，但我很想听听你是如何阐述的。不，这是一个很好的问题，因为保持开放是件很困难的事。我们都对自己所处的位置和前进的方向感到舒适。问题在于，我们因此将自己限制在那些事物中。你可能是房间里最聪明的人，但房间总是很小，而大多数新思想、新技术都在别处开发。所以，如果你想作为一家企业、一个社会，甚至作为个人继续蓬勃发展，你必须走出你的舒适区。

改变观念的价值

Let's start with the individual. So um I heard you say some somewhere that uh you you love every time you change your mind because it means that you have been open to new ideas. That's how I I try to uh tell myself that it's and I thought and I thought about it myself and actually it's kind of uh it's pretty it's pretty nice to change your mind if the facts are backing up and out of you. Right. It's right. How how often do you change your mind? Um too too seldom. I'm I'm sure because we we're also loyal to our ideas and our conclusions and and that's a good thing not to give it up, but we should always realize that we suffer from confirmation bias. We're so comfortable when we find new bits and pieces of information that fits with what we already thought. But that tells us that we should be worried. That's why we have to teach our ourselves this intellectually that it's a good thing when we find things that don't fit in because it means that we've seen more parts of the world than what we saw already. So I'm telling myself intellectually it's a good thing to change my mind. And that's one reason why I I listen to my opponents. I read books that I don't agree with and I write it down every time I learn something that I don't like because I think that's strategic tolerance. I'm being an ancient Roman. I I make myself stronger when I do that. 让我们从个人开始。我曾听你说过，你喜欢每次改变主意，因为它意味着你对新思想持开放态度。我就是这样告诉自己的，而且我也认真思考过，如果你能根据事实改变主意，其实是一件相当不错的事情。你多久改变一次主意？我想我太少了。我们也很忠于自己的想法和结论，不放弃是好事。但我们应该意识到自己存在确认偏差。当我们找到符合我们已有想法的新信息时，会感到很舒服。但这恰恰说明我们应该警惕。这就是为什么我们必须从理智上告诉自己：当我们发现不符合已知事物的东西时，这是一件好事，因为它意味着我们看到了比以往更多的世界。所以我从理智上告诉自己，改变主意是好事。这也是我为什么会听取对手意见的原因。我阅读我不同意的书籍，每次学到不喜欢的东西时我都会记下来，因为我认为这就是战略容忍。我正在做一个古罗马人，这样做能让我变得更强大。

企业开放的动力

What about at the kind of uh company level or corporation level? Why is it important for our company to be open? Well, we're all very loyal to our business models. we we should be we should fight for them and and make sure that they they work out. But the problem then of course is that um if you look at technology history and if you look at business history, nothing was in the blueprint. Almost no great idea started out in that particular version. They all started out differently. Um, I mean, YouTube was originally supposed to be an online dating video uh app and 10 cent was supposed to be a chat program. If you're open to new ideas, you learn from the feedback. You learn from the innovation that goes on in other sectors and in other businesses. You learn what works and what doesn't work. That's how you thrive through trial and error, constant feedback, and constant adaptation. And that's how you improve your business model as well. Uh because otherwise there's this risk that your confirmation bias and your loyalty to what you originally came up with is um is your way to ruin. We have to learn to quit as well when we learn something new and better. Interesting. We had um the founder of Pixar on um on the podcast and he said that uh in the beginning they were just open with all their ideas. They shared them freely and somebody said, "Hey, why do you want to share your your secrets? Makes no sense." But it basically led to them getting so many people applying to work in the company that it was like a huge positive and we see that as a firm I think uh or as a fund you know we are the most transparent fund in the world and I always thought that hey that's a great idea because now the outside world can see what we do and it's good for trust and so on but I think I increasingly realized that it's also very very good for us because it makes us you know it makes us more um open to ideas coming from the old side. I think the technology absorption that we are doing now uh and applying new technologies and new ways of doing AI and so on, we would not have done it if we had been a closed up uh shop, you know. Yeah. So I can um I can really see it. 那么，在公司或企业层面呢？为什么我们的公司保持开放很重要？我们都非常忠于我们的商业模式，我们应该这样做，应该为它们奋斗，确保它们成功。但问题是，如果你看看技术史和商业史，你会发现很少有什么东西完全按照最初的蓝图实现。几乎没有伟大的想法一开始就是那个最终的样子。它们都始于不同的形式。比如，YouTube最初是一个在线约会视频应用程序，腾讯最初是一个聊天程序。如果你对新思想持开放态度，你就能从反馈中学习。你就能从其他行业和其他企业的创新中学习。你就能知道什么有效，什么无效。这就是通过反复试验、持续反馈和不断适应来获得成功。这也是改进你的商业模式的方式。否则，存在一种风险，那就是你的确认偏差和对最初想法的忠诚，将成为你走向毁灭的原因。我们必须学会适时放弃，当我们学到新的、更好的东西时。有趣的是，我们曾邀请皮克斯的创始人做客播客，他说，起初他们毫不保留地分享所有想法。有人问：“嘿，你们为什么要分享你们的秘密？这毫无意义。”但这让他们吸引了大量申请加入公司的人才，这是一个巨大的积极效应。我认为，作为一家公司，或者像我们这样的基金，我们是世界上最透明的基金，我一直认为这是一个好主意，因为现在外部世界可以看到我们在做什么，这对建立信任很有好处。但我越来越意识到，这对我们自己也非常好，因为它让我们……嗯，让我们更加……对来自外部的想法持开放态度。我认为我们现在正在进行的科技吸收，应用新技术，采用新的人工智能等方式，如果我们是一家封闭的公司，我们是做不到的。是的。所以我真的能体会到。

作者的开放心得

I I think that's an incredibly important point and I've realized that as an author as well. Once upon a time, I thought I should keep my best ideas secret because, you know, and then develop them and then I'll write a book and everybody will love it. Well, the problem is that they might not care for your book that much and I haven't developed my ideas to the extent that I should. So, I began to share some ideas uh openly on social media and elsewhere. And then I learned two things. Uh first of all I learned uh and I think this is very similar to your fund. First of all people are interested. They get engaged with what is going on. They find that this they want to follow my work and they uh they might even read my book eventually. But also they give me feedback. They tell me when I'm wrong. They tell me if they have an example that fits with my perspective and that helps me to develop my own idea. So openness is a constant dialogue I think with the rest of the world and that's something that if you give away your best ideas people will ex give their best ideas in exchange and that will help you tremendously. 我认为这是一个极其重要的观点，作为一名作者，我也有同样的体会。曾经，我认为应该保守我最好的想法，然后加以发展，再写成书，这样大家都会喜欢。但问题是，他们可能并不那么喜欢你的书，而且我也没有充分发展我的想法。于是，我开始在社交媒体等地方公开分享一些想法。然后我学到了两件事。首先，我认为这与你们基金的情况非常相似。人们对此很感兴趣，他们会关注正在发生的事情，他们想关注我的工作，甚至最终可能会读我的书。但他们也会给我反馈，告诉我我哪里错了，或者他们是否有符合我观点的例子，这有助于我进一步发展自己的想法。所以，我认为开放就是与世界的持续对话。如果你分享你最好的想法，人们也会回报以他们最好的想法，这将极大地帮助你。

国家开放的益处

Absolutely. The give and take concept of for instance Adam Grant and so on. Now so that's uh that's people as individuals. it's uh companies, corporations, countries. Why is it important for countries to be open? I think that every country um no matter regardless of size, regardless of where we are and what resources we've got um needs to constantly develop its own resources, its human capital and uh its economy. How do you do that? Innovation. Coming up with something that didn't exist in the world is the most difficult thing there is. So what I've learned is that nations prosper from imitation and innovation. You need lots of ingredients to start creating new dishes. And you get most of these ingredients by looking elsewhere, looking at other places. This is one reason why most great civilizations have been maritime cultures. They've been trading nations. They've constantly gone out to other places. They don't just pick up goods and services. They also see other experiences, other ways of life, which means that they realize that there are other ways of doing things than what we have been doing back home. And that sets minds racing. So you get those ingredients and then you can start cooking. uh that's the innovation part of it. If you have more ingredients on in the kitchen, you can then combine them in new and unexpected ways and you do that by being open both to outsiders and open internally so that you let more people have a go in exploring and testing all those ideas. So why so why why does it go in cycles? Why do uh countries go through these open and closed apart from perhaps the last one we'll talk about but why do most of them go through these cycles? 绝对是。就像亚当·格兰特等人所说的“给予和索取”的概念。所以，这是关于个人、公司、企业和国家。为什么国家保持开放很重要？我认为，每个国家，无论大小，无论身处何地，拥有何种资源，都需要不断发展自身的资源、人力资本和经济。该如何做到？创新。创造出世界上不存在的事物是最困难的。因此，我学到的是，国家通过模仿和创新来繁荣。你需要很多食材才能开始烹饪新菜肴。而这些食材大部分来自于向外看，看向其他地方。这也是为什么大多数伟大文明都是海洋文化，都是贸易国家。它们不断地走向他处。它们不仅仅是获取商品和服务，还看到了其他的经验、其他的生活方式，这意味着它们意识到，有别于我们在家中所做的方式，还有其他做事的方法。这会激发人们的思考。于是，你获得了这些食材，然后就可以开始烹饪了。这是创新的一部分。如果你的厨房里有更多食材，你就可以将它们以新的、意想不到的方式组合起来，而这需要你对外来者保持开放，对内也保持开放，让更多人有机会探索和测试所有这些想法。那么，为什么会产生周期性？为什么国家会经历开放和封闭的时期？除了我们最后要谈的那个，为什么大多数国家都会经历这些周期？

人类天性中的开放与封闭

I think that's because we have that cycle within ourselves. I think it's there in human nature. Um and how how does that work? Because we need both of them. We need to be open to have a reason to I mean get out of the cave and explore, find something new. So why do we then close down again? Because we also have to be a little bit sensitive that the outside world might be dangerous. It might be that you end up in a strange place where there are people who don't want your have your best interest at heart. So I think the reason why human beings have come so far for 300,000 years is that we were open. We explored and we exchanged. We found new partners and new resources. But we were also very sensitive when we realized that there's a raiding band or there are predators out there. And then we immediately had to retreat. So we needed both those things. Both the Athenian going outwards and the Spartan going home. 我认为这是因为这种周期存在于我们自身之中。我认为这就在人性之中。那它是如何运作的呢？因为我们需要两者。我们需要开放，去探索，去发现新事物。那么，为什么我们又会封闭起来呢？因为我们也必须稍微警惕，外部世界可能很危险。你可能会身处一个陌生的地方，那里的人并不关心你的最佳利益。所以，我认为人类之所以在30万年里取得了如此大的进步，是因为我们是开放的。我们探索，我们交流。我们找到了新的伙伴和新的资源。但当我们意识到有掠夺者或危险存在时，我们也非常警惕，并立即撤退。所以，我们需要这两者：既有雅典人向外探索的精神，也有斯巴达人退守的本能。

英语圈的持久开放

But the Anglophere the Anglosphere openers has lasted for a long time. It has? How long? And I think I think it's lasted since 1688 since the glorious revolution in when the um which was really not just a an English revolution but a Dutch invasion of And do you think it would last? Well, you know, um the the thing is we societies also have this thing where they want to retreat and isolate themselves. Unfortunately, it doesn't help us as much as it might have done evolutionary speaking because nowadays if we retreat we lose access to those technologies, ideas, the wealth that helps us to go there. What has made the Anglosphere which sort of the broader Anglosphere and I would count all liberal democracies as sort of honorary members of this Anglosphere. What has kept it open for so long is that it has been more global, more competition between different places. So we realize we have more people to learn from, more countries to learn from and we also have to learn from them in order to thrive in this competition. So it doesn't benefit ourselves to go home. Now, this time might be different because because this time around it seems like America is fed up with this American world led world order partly for good reasons. They think that they've been exploited in a way by Europeans and others who've uh outsourced their military defense and much of this world order to them. And um but there is a risk that we have this overcorrection where Americans go home and hurt themselves because they prosper in this world order as well from um having this huge world economy of lots of smaller powers that want to help them to keep this world order going. So my question right now is will Europe uh will East Asian democracies, Latin American trading nations do their bit and step up and step in uh to keep things like the World Trade System and the World Trade Organization going, the rules-based order, the open seas going in that if that happens, we might have a chance otherwise I'm worried. 但英语圈，或者说更广泛的英语文化圈，它为何能长久地保持开放？自从1688年的光荣革命以来，这不仅仅是一场英国革命，更是一次荷兰的入侵。你认为它会持续下去吗？你知道，我们社会也有想要退缩和孤立自己的倾向。不幸的是，这不像进化论所说的那样有益，因为如今如果我们退缩，我们就失去了获取那些帮助我们前进的技术、思想和财富的途径。是什么使得英语圈，或者说更广泛的英语文化圈——我会把所有自由民主国家都算作这个英语圈的荣誉成员——保持了如此长时间的开放？那是因为它更加全球化，不同地方之间的竞争更加激烈。所以我们意识到，我们有更多的人可以学习，更多的国家可以学习，并且为了在这种竞争中生存下来，我们也必须向它们学习。所以“待在家里”对我们自己并没有好处。当然，这一次可能有所不同，因为这次美国似乎厌倦了由美国主导的世界秩序，部分原因也很好。他们认为自己被欧洲和其他将军事防御和大部分世界秩序外包给他们的国家所剥削。但存在一种风险，即这种矫枉过正，美国人“回家”并伤害自己，因为他们也从这个世界秩序中获益，一个由许多较小的力量组成、希望帮助他们维持这个世界秩序的庞大世界经济。所以，我现在的问题是：欧洲、东亚民主国家、拉丁美洲贸易国家是否会尽自己的一份力量，站出来，发挥作用，维持世界贸易体系、世界贸易组织、基于规则的秩序以及开放的海洋？如果发生这种情况，我们或许还有机会，否则我感到担忧。

和平的重要性

How important is peace? It's incredibly important because um nothing undermines u long-term thinking like not knowing what happens tomorrow if um if your country if your life your security your economy your crops will be ruined tomorrow. So um all these golden ages that I've looked at obviously there's been some war involved but they've been able to create relatively peaceful systems where people have been able to think long term. The olive branch is the symbol of peace and that's because olive trees take a long time. In ancient Greece, the uh cultivators of olives, the and the olive merchants, they always wanted negotiations and peace talks instead of war because they knew that it would take them some 20 years for these trees to bear fruits. So peace is important not just for life but for prosperity as well. 和平有多重要？它极其重要，因为没有什么比不知道明天会发生什么——你的国家、你的生活、你的安全、你的经济、你的庄稼明天就会毁于一旦——更能破坏长远思考的了。因此，我研究过的所有这些黄金时代，虽然都经历了战争，但它们都能够建立相对和平的体系，让人们能够进行长远思考。橄榄枝是和平的象征，因为橄榄树需要很长时间才能生长。古希腊的橄榄种植者和橄榄商人，他们总是倾向于谈判和和平会谈，而不是战争，因为他们知道这些橄榄树需要大约20年才能结果。所以，和平不仅对生命重要，对繁荣也至关重要。

重复出现的人类行为

Human psychology um you say that history doesn't repeat itself but human behavior does. So what is it with human behavior that repeats itself? Yeah, I think that what repeats itself is both our curiosity and uh the innovative parts of our our human nature. We want to accomplish things. We are excited when we learn new things and that keeps us going. But the other thing that repeats itself is the um the fear uh of um things that are worrying, a world that seems worrying and uh then the sometimes um dangerous conclusion that we should retreat and that we should isolate ourselves and that the best way to prosper is to stay at home. That repeats itself for societies as well. Uh that's one reason why we often have these open eras when we prosper. But in times of trouble, we we we become a protectionist. We want a strong man to protect us. And often that's a self-fulfilling fear because that then limits uh our acquisition of new ideas and of innovations. And that's something we see again and again. 人类心理学。你说历史不会重演，但人类行为会。那么，人类行为中不断重复的是什么呢？我认为，不断重复的是我们的好奇心和我们人性中创新的一面。我们渴望成就，当我们学到新东西时会感到兴奋，这驱使我们前进。但另一件重复出现的事情是，对令人担忧的事物的恐惧，对一个看似令人担忧的世界的恐惧，以及有时得出的危险结论——我们应该退缩，应该孤立自己，而最好的繁荣之道是待在家里。这对社会也是重复出现的。这就是为什么我们常常在繁荣时期经历开放的时代。但在困难时期，我们则会变得保护主义，想要一个强人来保护我们。而这常常是一种自我实现的恐惧，因为它限制了我们获取新思想和创新的能力。这是我们一次又一次看到的现象。

恐惧与信息过载

Has this been particularly pronounced in periods of um fear for the unknown or do we do you split between the two? I think fear of the unknown is a given. Um we have some sort of human uh in our human nature we have some sort of fire detector. I think when something seems strange and risky, we alarm bells are ringing and we run away. Um, it has to be oversensitive historically. The more and the more known it is, the faster we run. That's right. That's right. And historically that has benefited us because everything that seems worrying and strange might have been a threat to our survival. But today we live in a very different age because now we have access to information about the whole world instantly and we live in a social media world where everything that goes wrong somewhere in the world is broadcasted to us instantly. And I think that our reptilian brains um they act on this information in in a faulty way thinking that there are alarm fire alarms going off everywhere and it makes us more anxious and worried about the world and we think that just running and hiding is the solution and that is dangerous. 这种情况在人们对未知感到恐惧的时期尤为突出吗？还是你对此有区分？我认为对未知的恐惧是必然的。在我们的人性中，我们有一种“火警探测器”。我认为当某些事情看起来奇怪且有风险时，警钟就会响起，我们会逃跑。从历史上看，这似乎是过度敏感的。越是令人担忧和奇怪，我们就跑得越快。没错，没错。历史上这对我们有益，因为任何看起来令人担忧和奇怪的事物都可能威胁到我们的生存。但今天我们生活在一个非常不同的时代，因为现在我们可以瞬间获取全世界的信息，我们生活在一个社交媒体时代，世界上发生的任何错误都会立即广播给我们。我认为我们的爬行脑会以一种错误的方式对这些信息做出反应，认为到处都是警报声，这让我们对世界感到更加焦虑和担忧，并认为逃避和躲藏是解决办法，而这是危险的。

信心的重要性

Why is confidence important? Because the confident uh person and the confident society goes places. They go out and try to find new things. They if you don't fear instant loss uh instant defeat, you don't worry about finding something new that is unexpected. You don't worry about finding bits and pieces of information that might even go against your conclusions because you think that this can benefit yourselves. And this is how we grow stronger all the time when we lose that confidence. I mean as an individual we we stay at home but societies do too and business. Yeah. But I mean a person can lose confidence pretty pretty quickly. But what about a nation? Uh what does it take for a nation to lose confidence? What kind of process is that? 为什么信心很重要？因为自信的人和自信的社会能够成就一番事业。他们会走出去，寻找新事物。如果你不怕瞬间的损失或失败，你就不会担心寻找一些意想不到的新事物。你也不会担心找到一些可能与你的结论相悖的信息，因为你认为这些信息可以使你受益。这就是我们不断成长的过程。当我们失去信心时，作为个体，我们会待在家里；作为社会，也会如此；企业也是如此。是的。但一个人可能会很快失去信心。但一个国家呢？一个国家失去信心需要付出什么代价？这是个什么样的过程？

失去信心的原因

It takes a longer time but I think that there are some meta trends that can undermine our confidence. Um economic decline uh might undermine our confidence because suddenly the economy doesn't seem like a positive sum game where we can all thrive simultaneously but a zero sum game and it gets worrying and we have to protect what we've got and that's self-fulfilling obviously because then we don't invest we don't innovate but not just these instant shocks I also think that longer term trends affects our confidence. One of them being losing relative power has a very powerful effect on our psyche. I think that is happening right now in the western world. We used to we are losing to China. Yes. We used to think that for 500 years we run run the show in a way. Suddenly we realized that um new businesses and new cultural expressions come from businesses and cities that we can't even pronounce. Uh not just China, from South Korea, might come from in Indonesia and Latin American countries and the biggest musician in the world is from Puerto Rico right now. 这需要更长的时间，但我认为有一些元趋势会削弱我们的信心。经济衰退可能会削弱我们的信心，因为经济突然不再是我们可以同时繁荣的“正和博弈”，而变成了一种“零和博弈”，这令人担忧，我们不得不保护我们所拥有的，这显然是一种自我实现的预言，因为我们不再投资，不再创新。但不仅仅是这些即时冲击，我还认为长期趋势会影响我们的信心。其中之一就是相对力量的丧失，这对我们的心理有强大的影响。我认为这现在正在西方世界发生。我们曾经……我们正在输给中国。是的。我们曾经认为，在长达500年的时间里，我们某种程度上是主导者。突然之间，我们意识到新的商业和新的文化表达来自于我们甚至无法发音的城市和企业。不仅仅是中国，还有韩国、印度尼西亚和拉丁美洲国家。现在世界上最受欢迎的音乐家来自波多黎各。

信心下降的开端

When when would you say that that loss of confidence started? How long time has this decline in confidence in the western world been going on for? I think it it in a way it started happening when Japan got uh its economy going for real until the 1990s. Then we saw those worrying that worry in the United States. The Japanese are taking over the world basically. But then they're kind of flatlining. That's right. Quite right. So it seems like all those fears might not uh become reality. But then China took that position and especially I think the financial crisis in 2008 really hurt our our self-confidence and American self-confidence. Now we think that China is doing this. Um in a way this is great. innovation, investment is hard, but once you've achieved it, we can all use it. Once upon a time, um only a few western countries invested in all that research to come up with new uh drugs and new communications technologies and better ways of extending the lifespan. Now, other countries do the same thing and uh add to our pool of uh cultural entertainment and so on. So if we're open to it and if we use it in our businesses as well and and and build upon it, it's a great thing. But it might undermine our confidence to the extent that we shut our minds and our markets to it and then the only beneficiaries will be them of course and not us. We will lose out. 你认为这种信心丧失是从什么时候开始的？这种西方世界的信心下降持续了多久？我认为，从某种意义上来说，始于日本经济真正起飞的20世纪90年代。然后我们看到美国出现了担忧，认为日本人正在接管世界。但随后日本经济停滞了。没错。非常正确。所以，似乎所有那些担忧可能都不会成为现实。但随后中国占据了这一位置，尤其是2008年的金融危机，我认为它严重打击了我们的自信和美国的自信。现在我们认为中国正在这样做。从某种意义上来说，这是件好事。创新和投资很难，但一旦实现，我们都可以从中受益。曾经，只有少数西方国家投入巨资进行研究，以开发新药物、新技术和更长的寿命。现在，其他国家也在做同样的事情，并丰富了我们文化娱乐的资源。所以，如果我们对此持开放态度，并在我们的业务中加以利用和发展，那将是一件好事。但它也可能削弱我们的信心，导致我们关闭思想和市场，而那样的受益者当然只有他们，而不是我们。我们将失去优势。

衰落的时期与经济影响

Let's say now you see a lot of these science stacking up, right? Um how long time does it take before it has like real impact on the on the economy on the society on the way we live? I how how long is this sunset period? It might unravel very rapidly for great cultures uh historically once it doesn't have to because often those signs troubling signs are there for a very long time and you might be able to muddle through and and carry on. But sometimes if the world loses confidence in you um loses confidence in the investment climate in a leading place in the reserve currency in the say the independence of institutions like the legal system or the central bank things might unravel very quickly. In that case, capital abandons you quickly and people, businesses, investors start to look for alternatives and even nations start to look for alternatives. When you look at it historically, I have nations in decline. Did they have a lot of fun? Why it declined? I mean, I mean, what I mean is that, you know, that there is some great parties in in Venice after it started to go down, right? Huge hedonistic lifestyles and so on. That's a good point. if you've acquired a lot of wealth and and great culture, uh you might uh enjoy it for a long time. And I think you know Edward Gibbon when he wrote about the decline and fall of the the Roman Empire, he wrote about the Bantin Empire, how they declined basically for 1,000 years, but they still managed to uh to have some some fun. Um, the problem is that it has to rely then on you being able to use some of the new ideas and innovations that others come up with. One reason why the Bisantian Empire could prosper was that they at least learned from the Abisid Caliphate, their neighbor and often um enemy in war, from their science, from their technology, from their books, and they could pick it up. So this this might make this era different because we might decline relatively for a long time. But if we're open to new goods, services, technologies, and uh great TV series from other places, we might be able to build a nice uh nice museum of in declining places, but it's not as fun as being at the forefront and constantly discovering and creating something new. 假设现在你看到了很多科学上的进展，对吧？那么，这些进展需要多长时间才能对经济、社会以及我们的生活方式产生真正的影响？这个“日落时期”有多长？历史上，对于伟大的文化来说，衰落可能来得非常迅速，但也不一定如此，因为那些令人担忧的迹象往往存在了很长时间，你可能能够勉强度日。但有时，如果世界对你失去信心，对一个领先地区的投资环境、储备货币、司法体系或中央银行等机构的独立性失去信心，事情可能会迅速崩溃。在这种情况下，资本会迅速逃离，人们、企业、投资者会寻找替代方案，甚至国家也会寻找替代方案。从历史上看，那些衰落的国家，他们是否过得很开心？他们为何衰落？我的意思是，你知道，威尼斯在开始衰落后，仍然举办了很多盛大的派对，过着奢靡的生活。这是一个很好的观点。如果你积累了巨大的财富和灿烂的文化，你可能会享受很长一段时间。爱德华·吉本在写《罗马帝国衰亡史》时，也谈到了拜占庭帝国，他们衰落了千年，但仍然享受着一些乐趣。问题在于，这必须依赖于你能够利用他人提出的新思想和创新。拜占庭帝国之所以能够繁荣，是因为他们至少从邻国，常常是战时的敌人——阿拔斯哈里发王朝那里学习，学习他们的科学、技术和书籍，并加以吸收。因此，这可能会使这个时代与众不同，因为我们可能会相对衰落很长一段时间。但如果我们对来自其他地方的新商品、服务、技术以及精彩的电视连续剧持开放态度，我们或许能在衰落之地建造一个不错的……嗯，不错的博物馆，但这远不如走在时代前沿，不断发现和创造新事物那么有趣。

对年轻人的建议

talking of which and uh finishing off on advice to young people. Now, you had an interesting personal journey, right? You founded your own anarchist party. You ran an underground nightclub uh uh and so on. Uh and so given given your experiences, what is your advice to young people? Well, um, building on those experience, I would say don't be afraid of, uh, doing eccentric weird things that people might think are, uh, completely um, hopeless because even if you fail, you have some interesting experiences on which to build. Failing is a great thing. Failing at things is wonderful as at least if you admit those failures, admit the mistakes because then it's a wonderful way to begin again in a more intelligent way because the the future is always unknown and uncharted and the only way in finding your way is to go out onto the minefield. 说到这个，以及……最后，给年轻人的建议。你有着一段有趣的个人经历，对吧？你创建了自己的无政府主义政党，经营过地下夜总会等等。那么，根据你的经验，你给年轻人的建议是什么？嗯，基于这些经历，我想说，不要害怕做那些别人可能认为完全“没希望”的古怪、奇怪的事情，因为即使你失败了，你也会获得一些有趣的经验作为基础。失败是件好事。做事情的失败是件美妙的事情，至少如果你承认这些失败，承认错误，那么你就可以以一种更明智的方式重新开始，因为未来总是未知且充满挑战的，而找到出路的唯一方法就是踏入“雷区”。

总结与感谢

Absolutely. Absolutely. Yan, this has not been a failure. It's been a huge success. It's been tremendously good. Thank you so much. I think so, too. Thank you very much. 绝对是。绝对是。尤安，这次谈话并非失败，而是一次巨大的成功。它非常棒。非常感谢你。我也这么认为。非常感谢。