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re:The barrier to cha...
The barrier to change is not too little caring; it is too much complexity.
需要我们去消除的屏障,并非人类的冷漠无情,而是世界的纷繁复杂。
To turn caring into action, we need to see a problem, see a solution, and see the impact. But complexity blocks all three steps.
要把关心转为行动,我们需要发现问题,找到方法,评估后果。但是纷繁复杂的世界阻挡了我们的脚步,以上的三个步骤不能得以实施。
Even with the advent of the Internet and 24-hour news, it is still a complex enterprise to get people to truly see the problems. When an airplane crashes, officials immediately call a press conference. They promise to investigate, determine the cause, and prevent similar crashes in the future.
即使有了互联网的出现和全天候的新闻播报,要让人们发现问题的真实面貌,仍然是相当艰巨。如果有一架飞机坠毁,政府官员就会立刻召开新闻发布会,他们承诺进行调查,找到原因,防止将来再次发生类似的事故。
But if the officials were brutally honest, they would say: "Of all the people in the world who died today from preventable causes, one half of one percent of them were on this plane. We’re determined to do everything possible to solve the problem that took the lives of the one half of one percent."
但是如果那些官员敢于说真话,他们就会说:“在今天,全世界死于可避免事故中的所有人,只有0.5%的人在这次飞机事故中罹难。我们决心尽一切努力,彻底调查这0.5%的死亡原因。”
The bigger problem is not the plane crash, but the millions of preventable deaths.
显然,更重要的问题不是这次空难,而是其他几百万可避免的死亡事件。
We don’t read much about these deaths. The media covers what’s new – and millions of people dying is nothing new. So it stays in the background, where it’s easier to ignore. But even when we do see it or read about it, it’s difficult to keep our eyes on the problem. It’s hard to look at suffering if the situation is so complex that we don’t know how to help. And so we look away.
对这些死亡事件,我们知之甚少。媒体总是报告新闻,但是几百万人将要死去并非新闻。新闻是在事件的幕后,这很容易被忽视。即使我们确实目睹了事件的真相或者看到了相关报道,我们也很难持续去关注这些事件。问题是如此之复杂,我们也束手无策,要直面这样的灾难就显得相当困难,所以我们就对此视而不见,置若罔闻。
If we can really see a problem, which is the first step, we come to the second step: cutting through the complexity to find a solution.
就算我们真正能发现问题,也不过是迈出了第一步,接着还有第二步:那就是,从这个复杂的世界中走出一条捷径,找到解决问题的办法。
Finding solutions is essential if we want to make the most of our caring. If we have clear and proven answers anytime an organization or individual asks "How can I help?," then we can get action – and we can make sure that none of the caring in the world is wasted. But complexity makes it hard to mark a path of action for everyone who cares — and that makes it hard for their caring to matter.
如果我们要让关心落到实处,我们就必须找到解决问题的方法。一旦我们有一个明确可行的方案,那么无论何时,当任何组织和个人来询问“我该怎么提供帮助”的时候,我们就能采取行动。这样,我们就充分发挥全世界人类对他人的关爱之情。但是,纷繁的世界使得我们很难找出一条适合每一位善者的行动方针,这样一来,人类对他人的关爱往往很难奏效。
Cutting through complexity to find a solution runs through four predictable stages: determine a goal, find the highest-leverage approach, discover the ideal technology for that approach, and in the meantime, make the smartest application of the technology that you already have — whether it’s something sophisticated, like a drug, or something simpler, like a bednet.
要从这个复杂的世界中走出一条捷径,找到解决问题的办法,可以分为以下四个步骤:确定目标,找到最高效的方法,发现适用于这个方法的最理想的技术,同时最聪明地利用现有的技术——不管这项技术是复杂如药物,还是简单如蚊帐。
The AIDS epidemic offers an example. The broad goal, of course, is to end the disease. The highest-leverage approach is prevention. The ideal technology would be a vaccine that gives lifetime immunity with a single dose. So governments, drug companies, and foundations fund vaccine research. But their work is likely to take more than a decade, so in the meantime, we have to work with what we have in hand – and the best prevention approach we have now is getting people to avoid risky behavior.
艾滋病就是一个例子。其总目标,毫无疑问是消灭这种疾病。最高效的方法是预防。最理想的技术是发明一种疫苗,只要注射一次,就可终生免疫。所以,政府、制药公司和基金会应该资助疫苗研究。但是,这样的研究工作很可能需要十几年,因此,与此同时,我们必须利用现有的技术——目前最有效的预防方法,就是设法让人们避免那些危险的行为。
Pursuing that goal starts the four-step cycle again. This is the pattern. The crucial thing is to never stop thinking and working – and never do what we did with malaria and tuberculosis in the 20th century – which is to surrender to complexity and quit.
要实现让人们避免危险行为这一目标,上述四步依然适用,可以再次循环。这是一种模式。关键问题是,我们永远不要停止思考,永远不能停止行动,永远不能重蹈覆辙,犯下20世纪在应对疟疾和肺结核时的同样错误,那时我们臣服于这个复杂的社会,从而放弃了采取行动。
The final step – after seeing the problem and finding an approach – is to measure the impact of your work and share your successes and failures so that others learn from your efforts.
在发现问题并且找到解决方法之后,就剩下最后一步——评估工作结果,分享成败经验,这样就可以让你的努力去惠及他人。
You have to have the statistics, of course. You have to be able to show that a program is vaccinating millions more children. You have to be able to show a decline in the number of children dying from these diseases. This is essential not just to improve the program, but also to help draw more investment from business and government.
当然,你必须有一些统计数字。你必须让他人知道,你的项目正为几百万儿童接种疫苗。你也必须让他人知道,这种患病儿童的死亡人数下降了多少。这些都关键,不仅有利于改善项目效果,而且也有利于从商界和政府得到更多的资助。
But if you want to inspire people to participate, you have to show more than numbers; you have to convey the human impact of the work – so people can feel what saving a life means to the families affected.
但是,如果你还想激励其他人参加你的项目,你就必须拿出更多的统计数字;你必须展示你项目的人性因素,这样就会让其他人感受到,拯救一个生命,对那些身处困境中的家庭到底意味着什么。
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