双语资讯过于玄乎的人类技术焦虑症.docxVIP

I’m writing these words in York, the city in which, two centuries ago, the British justice system meted out harsh punishments — including execution — to men found guilty of participating in Luddite attacks on spinning and weaving machines. By a curious coincidence, I’ve just read Walter Isaacson’s article in the FT explaining how wrong-headed the Luddites were. I’m not so sure. 这篇文章是我在约克写下的。两个世纪以前，在这座城市，英国司法系统对捣毁纺纱机和编织机的卢德分子（卢德(Luddite)是19世纪初捣毁机器的英国手工业者——译者注）处以严厉惩罚——包括极刑。因为一个奇怪的巧合，我刚刚阅读了沃尔特?艾萨克森(Walter Isaacson)在英国《金融时报》上发表的文章，他在文中解释了卢德分子的观念如何错误。我对此不是很肯定。“Back then, some believed technology would create unemployment,” writes Isaacson. “They were wrong.”“当时，一些人认为技术会造成失业，”艾萨克森写道，“他们错了。” No doubt such befuddled people did exist, and they still do today. But this is a straw man: we can all see, as Isaacson does, that technology has made us richer while employment is as high as ever. (The least appreciated job-creating invention may well have been the washing machine, which helped turn housewives into women with salaries.) 毫无疑问，当时确实存在这样的糊涂人，今天也一样。但这是显而易见的：就像艾萨克森那样，我们都能看到，技术让我们更富有，同时就业也保持在高水平。（在创造就业的发明中，洗衣机大概是最未受赏识的一项，它使家庭主妇能够成为领薪水的职业女性。）The Luddites themselves had a more subtle view than Isaacson suggests, and one which is as relevant as ever. They believed that the machines were altering economic power in the textile industry, favouring factory owners and low-skilled labourers at the expense of skilled craftsmen. They wanted to defend their interests and they did so violently. As the historian Eric Hobsbawm put it, their frame-breaking activity was “collective bargaining by riot” and “simply a technique of trade unionism” in the days before formal unions existed. 卢德分子的观点比艾萨克森描述的更加细腻，也一如既往地相关。他们相信，机器改变了纺织业的经济实力格局，让工厂主和低技能劳动者受益，牺牲了技术熟练的手工艺人。他们想要捍卫自己的利益，并为此采取了暴力的方式。就如历史学家埃里克?霍布斯鲍姆(Eric Hobsbawm)所说的，他们打破既定模式的行动相当于“通过暴乱形式进行的集体谈判”，相当于正式公会出现之前的“工会主义手法”。To put it another way, the Luddites weren’t idiots who thought that machines would destroy jobs in general; they were skilled