听力课堂TED音频栏目主要包括TED演讲的音频MP3及中英双语文稿，供各位英语爱好者学习使用。本文主要内容为演讲MP3+双语文稿:什么是“灰犀牛”：如何应对大概率危机，希望你会喜欢！

【演讲者及介绍】Michele Wucker

米歇尔•库克(Michele Wucker)——作家、政策分析家，创造了“灰犀牛”(gray rhino)一词，用来比喻那些被忽视的明显风险。

【演讲主题】解读“灰犀牛”：如何应对大概率危机

【中英文字幕】

Translation by Rachel Zhu. Reviewed by Yuhan Wu.

00:13

So what if there were a highly obviousproblem right in front of you? One that everyone was talking about, one thataffected you directly. Would you do everything within your power to fix thingsbefore they got worse? Don't be so sure. We are all much more likely than anyof us would like to admit to miss what's right in front of our eyes. And infact, we're sometimes most likely to turn away from things precisely because ofthe threat that they represent to us, in business, life and the world.

假如有一个非常明显的问题摆在你面前，一个所有人都在讨论的，直接影响你的问题。请问你会在事情变得更糟糕之前，尽你所能去解决它吗？不要太确定你的答案。我们比那些肯承认自己会错过的人更有可能错过那些在眼前发生的事情。而且就事实上来说，有时我们更有可能逃避事情的原因正是来自这些事情给我们的，在事业方面，生活方面，乃至世界方面的风险。

00:55

So I want to give you an example from myworld, economic policy. So when Alan Greenspan was head of the Federal Reserve,his entire job was to watch out for problems in the US economy and to make surethat they didn't spin out of control. So, after 2006, when real estate pricespeaked, more and more and more respected leaders and institutions started tosound the alarm bells about risky lending and dangerous market bubbles. As youknow, in 2008 it all came tumbling down. Banks collapsed, global stock marketslost nearly half their value, millions and millions of people lost their homes toforeclosure. And at the bottom, nearly one in 10 Americans was out of work.

我想举一个我身边的例子——经济政策。当阿兰·格林斯潘还是联邦储备局局长的时候他的整个工作就是小心地监督美国经济的潜在问题，并确保它们没有失去控制。所以，2006年以后，当房地产价格达到顶峰的时候，越来越多有名望的领导人和机构开始敲响 风险贷款和危险市场泡沫的警钟。如各位所知，200年一切都轰然倒塌。银行倒闭，全世界的股票市场丢失了接近一半的价值，数百万人失去他们作为抵押的家园。而在社会基层，将近十分之一的美国人失业了。

01:48

So after things calmed down a little bit,Greenspan and many others came out with a postmortem and said, "Nobodycould have predicted that crisis." They called it "a blackswan." Something that was unimaginable, unforeseeable and completelyimprobable. A total surprise. Except it wasn't always such a surprise. Forexample, my Manhattan apartment nearly doubled in value in less than fouryears. I saw the writing on the wall and I sold it.

所以在事情缓和了一些以后，格林斯潘和许多人从这个低谷中走出来说：“没有人会有可能提前预知这场危机。”他们叫它“黑天鹅”。一个很难想象的，不可预知并且完全难以置信的事情。一场彻头彻尾的惊喜。只是它不总是一个惊喜。比如说，我在曼哈顿的公寓在不到四年的时间里价值几乎翻了一倍。我获得了一些信息，于是我将它出售了。

02:25

(Laughter)

（笑声）

02:27

(Applause)

（掌声）

02:31

So, a lot of other people also saw thewarning, spoke out publicly and they were ignored. So we didn't know exactlywhat the crisis was going to look like, not the exact parameters, but we couldall tell that the thing coming at us was as dangerous, visible and predictableas a giant gray rhino charging right at us.

总之，很多其他人也看到了同样的警示，公开地说了出来，但是这些信息都被忽视了。所以我们并不准确地知道这场危机到底会是什么模样，不知道确切的参数，但是我们可以说这个即将到来的事情和一只向我们急速冲来的巨型灰犀牛一样的危险，可见，可预判。

02:57

The black swan lends itself to the ideathat we don't have power over our futures. And unfortunately, the less controlthat we think we have, the more likely we are to downplay it or ignore itentirely. And this dangerous dynamic masks another problem: that most of theproblems that we're facing are so probable and obvious, they're things that wecan see, but we still don't do anything about.

这只黑天鹅助长了我们的观点，那就是我们无法掌控我们的未来。不幸的是，我们越是这样想，我们就越有可能对之不予重视，甚至完全忽视它。这个危险的情况还掩盖了另一个问题：那就是我们所面对的困难都极有可能发生且极度明显，它们是我们所能看见的，但是我们依然不采取任何措施。

03:29

So I created the gray rhino metaphor tomeet what I felt was an urgent need. To help us to take a fresh look, with thesame passion that people had for the black swan, but this time, for the thingsthat were highly obvious, highly probable, but still neglected. Those are thegray rhinos.

所以我引用了巨型灰犀牛的比喻，来描绘我所认为的“急需”。为了帮助我们焕然一新，用我们曾经对待“黑天鹅”那样的热情，但这次为了非常明显的事件，很可能发生，但是依然被忽视的事件。那些事件就是灰犀牛。

03:53

Once you start looking for gray rhinos, yousee them in the headlines every day. And so what I see in the headlines isanother big gray rhino, a new highly probable financial crisis. And I wonder ifwe've learned anything in the last 10 years.

一旦你开始寻找这种动物，你就会每天都在头条看到它的名字。然而我在头条所看到的是另外一头灰犀牛。一个全新的，极有可能发生的金融危机。于是我在想我们是否真的从过去的十年里学到了什么。

04:12

So if you listen to Washington or WallStreet, you could almost be forgiven for thinking that only smooth sailing laidahead. But in China, where I spend a lot of time, the conversation is totallydifferent. The entire economic team, all the way up to president Xi Jinpinghimself, talk very specifically and clearly about financial risks as grayrhinos, and how they can tame them. Now, to be sure, China and the US havevery, very different systems of government, which affects what they're able todo or not. And many of the root causes for their economic problems are totallydifferent. But it's no secret that both countries have problems with debt, withinequality and with economic productivity.

如果你是从华盛顿或者华尔街听到的消息，你认为一切顺利就情有可原。但是在中国，一个我投入了许多时间研究的国家，对话内容完全不一样。所有的经济小组，一直到习近平总书记本人，都会很清晰具体地讲述经济风险，并用上灰犀牛的比喻，并且讨论他们会怎样制服它。很明显，中国和美国有着差异很大的政府系统，这影响着他们的能力范围，并且两个国家的经济问题根源也完全不同。虽说如此，两国都存在问题已不是秘密。例如债务，不平等和经济生产力。

05:03

So how come the conversations are sodifferent? You could actually ask this question, not just about countries, butabout just about everyone. The auto companies that put safety first and theones that don't bother to recall their shoddy cars until after people die. Thegrandparents who, in preparing for the inevitable -- the ones who have theeulogy written, the menu for the funeral lunch.

到底为何这些对话如此不同？其实这个问题不仅适用于国家，也适用于每个人。那些把安全放在第一位的汽车公司，和一些从不考虑召回他们的劣质汽车的公司，直到有人丧命。那些为不可避免的离世而做准备的祖父母——那些已经将写好悼词和葬礼午餐菜单的，

05:35

(Laughter)

（笑声）

05:36

My grandparents did.

我的祖父母就这样做了，

05:37

(Laughter)

（笑声）

05:39

And everything but the final date chiseledinto the gravestone. But then you have the grandparents on the other side, whodon't put their final affairs in order, who don't get rid of all the junkthey've been hoarding for decades and decades and leave their kids to deal withit.

包括所有其他的事情，除了刻到坟墓上的最后日期。但当你又有与我相反的祖父母，他们不规划自己临终时的事情，他们不轻易摆脱掉那些他们已经囤积了数十载的废旧物品，并且留给他们的子女去解决。

05:56

So what makes the difference between oneside and the other? Why do some people see things and deal with them, and theother ones just look away? So the first one has to do with culture, society,the people around you. If you think that someone around you is going to help pickyou up when you fall, you're much more likely to see a danger as being smaller.And that allows us to take good chances, not just the bad ones. For example,like risking criticism when you talk about the danger that nobody wants you totalk about. Or taking the opportunities that are kind of scary, so in their ownway are gray rhinos. So the US has a very individualist culture -- go it alone.And paradoxically, this makes many Americans much less open to change andtaking good risks. In China, by contrast, people believe that the government isgoing to keep problems from happening, which might not always be what happens,but people believe it. They believe they can rely on their families, so thatmakes them more likely to take certain risks. Like buying Beijing real estate,or like being more open about the fact that they need to change direction, andin fact, the pace of change in China is absolutely amazing.

那么两种方式的差别在哪里？为什么有的人会注意到问题并解决，而其他人仅会无视？首先是与文化和社会因素有关。那些你身边的人如果你认为在你遇到困难的时候，你身边的人会帮助你，那么你极有可能会忽视一些危险。那么这就使我们能够把握好机会，而不是坏的。比如对风险的评判，当你谈到没有人愿意跟你聊的风险或者把握住有一点吓人的机会。那么对于他们而言，这是经常被提示却未被重视的大概率风险，即“灰犀牛”。在美国就有一种个人主义的文化——独自完成。矛盾的是，这使得很多美国人更不敢去改变，并且承担有回报的风险。在中国，与之相反，人民相信政府会把问题在根源解决，其实事实上并不总如此，但是人民选择相信。他们相信他们可以依靠他们的家庭，这样让他们更有能力承担相应的风险，像是在北京买房，或者在面对需要改变目标或方向时更加从容，并且事实上，中国改变的速度是惊人的。

07:15

Second of all, how much do you know about asituation, how much are you willing to learn? And are you willing to see thingseven when it's not what you want? So many of us are so unlikely to pay attentionto the things that we just want to black out, we don't like them. We payattention to what we want to see, what we like, what we agree with. But we havethe opportunity and the ability to correct those blind spots. I spend a lot oftime talking with people of all walks of life about the gray rhinos in theirlife and their attitudes. And you might think that the people who are moreafraid of risk, who are more sensitive to them, would be the ones who would beless open to change. But the opposite is actually true. I've found that thepeople who are wiling to recognize the problems around them and make plans arethe ones who are able to tolerate more risk, good risk, and deal with the badrisk. And it's because as we seek information, we increase our power to dosomething about the things that we're afraid of.

其次，你对当下的情况了解多少，你是否意愿去学习？以及你是否愿意看到你其实并不想看到的事情，我们很多人不太可能愿意去关注我们想要屏蔽的事情，我们不喜欢它们。我们会注意想看到的，喜欢以及认同的事情。但是我们有能力和机会去矫正那些盲点。我花了很多时间和各行各业的人交流关于他们人生中的“灰犀牛”和他们对此的态度。你可能会认为那些更加害怕去冒险的人，那些对事情更敏感的人，会更难接受变动。但是事实恰恰相反。我发现那些更愿意认识到他们身边的问题，并且做出计划的人，才是更能够承受风险，好的风险，并解决坏风险的人。这是因为我们在寻找信息时，我们会提高自己解决那些自己害怕的事情的能力。

08:21

And that brings me to my third point. Howmuch control do you feel that you have over the gray rhinos in your life? Oneof the reasons we don't act is that we often feel too helpless. Think ofclimate change, it can feel so big, that not a single one of us could make adifference. So some people go about life denying it. Other people blameeveryone except themselves. Like my friend who says he's not ever going to giveup his SUV until they stop building coal plants in China. But we have anopportunity to change. No two of us are the same. Every single one of us hasthe opportunity to change our attitudes, our own and those of people around us.

这就引出了我的第三个观点。你对你人生中“灰犀牛”的把控有到少？一个我们很少表现出来的原因，就是我们经常感到无助。考虑到气候变化的时候，它是一件如此大的事情，并不是我们中的任何一人可以独自解决的。因此，有些人开始怀疑人生。其他人开始责怪除他们自己以外的所有人。就像我朋友曾经说的，他永远不会放弃他的SUV，除非他们停止在中国挖油田。但是我们有机会去改变。没有任何两个人是一样的。我们每一个人都有机会去改变我们的态度，我们自己和身边人的态度。

09:06

So today, I want to invite all of you tojoin me in helping to spark an open and honest conversation with the peoplearound you, about the gray rhinos in our world, and be brutally honest abouthow well we're dealing with them. I hear so many times in the States,"Well, of course we should deal with obvious problems, but if you don'tsee what's in front of you, you're either dumb or ignorant." That's whatthey say, and I could not disagree more. If you don't see what's in front ofyou, you're not dumb, you're not ignorant, you're human. And once we allrecognize that shared vulnerability, that gives us the power to open our eyes,to see what's in front of us and to act before we get trampled.

所以今天，我想要邀请你们所有人同我一起开展一个开诚布公的对话，和你们身边的人讨论那些我们生活中的“灰犀牛”们，并且绝对坦诚地聊一下我们会如何完美地解决它们。我在美国听过太多次“我们当然需要解决那些问题，但是如果你看不见你面前的东西，那你要么是愚昧，要么是无知。”这就是他们的说辞，而我非常不赞同。如果你看不见迫在眉睫的事务，你并不是愚昧，也不是无知，你只是个普通的人类。只要我们发现共有的脆弱，会给我们勇气去睁开眼睛去看见眼前的事物，并在被践踏前及时做出反应。

10:01

(Applause)

（掌声）