[1010G]决战2010Economist 阅读帖--by hebill

hebillUID：2532108

     第一次发阅读贴，为了不掉色，纠结了两个多小时，呵呵 总算能凑合着看一下子了，小有成就感 哈哈  fighting~~~

          Protection racket

                         Eating lots of fruit and vegetables may not help stave off cancer, after all

FOR snivelling children and recalcitrant carnivores, requests that they should eat five portionsof fruit and vegetables every day have mostly fallen on deaf ears没有被听取；未被理睬. But those who did comply with official advice from charities, governments and even the mighty World Health Organisation (WHO), could remind themselves, rather smugly, that the extra greens they forced down at lunchtime would greatly reduce their chances of getting cancer. Until now, that is直到现在，情况依旧. Because a group of researchers led by Paolo Boffetta, of the Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New York, have conducted a new study into the link between cancer and the consumption of fruit and vegetables, and found it to be far weaker than anyone had thought.


In the past,veggie-associated reductions of cancer-risk rates ashigh as 50% had been reported. But it appears that some of these early investigations may have been biased by the use of “case-control”studies. Such studies try to identify the factors contributing to cancer by comparing people who have the disease with those who do not, but are otherwise similar. The problem is that they can easily be biased if researchers do not adequately establish that the two groups being compared are, indeed, otherwise similar.Walter Willet, at the Harvard School of Public Health, says it appears thatearlier investigations were more likely to use health-conscious people as their controls. These types of people are, unsurprisingly, more likely to agree to be interviewed about their health than slobby couch potatoes.


Dr Boffetta and his colleagues have therefore carried out a different kind of study, known as prospective cohort study, which theyreport in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute. Their work follows a group of individuals over time and looks at how different factors contribute to different outcomes—in this case, the development of cancer.Analysis of dietary data from almost 500,000 people in Europe found only a weak association between high fruit and vegetable intake and reduced overall cancerrisk.

Green with envy
According to Susan Jebb, of the British MedicalResearch Council’s Collaborative Centre for Human Nutrition Research inCambridge, the new study suggests that if Europeans increased their consumption of fruit and vegetables by 150g a day (about two servings（和proportion同义） , or 40% of the WHO’s recommended daily allowance), it would result in a decrease of just 2.6% in the rate of cancers in men and 2.3% in women. Even those who eat virtually no fruit andvegetables, the paper suggests, are only 9% more likely to develop cancer than those who stick to the WHO recommendations.

On the face of it 基于以上事实, that is quite a blow to thesmug salad eaters, and the health lobby’s spin-doctors were out in force（采取行动） in the wake of
（在…之后）the paper’s publication, to play down（贬低，降低，减少）its conclusions. Before racing to（与…竞赛） the food-recycling bin with thecontents of an ageing fruit bowl, they pointed out, there are a number of otherfactors that nutritionists would urge（在这里是坚持的意思） that you consider.

One is that this kind of study has attempted to adjust for every possible factor that might contribute to the relationship, andisolate only the contribution that fruit and vegetables make. This means thatif people who turn away from fruit and vegetables end up eating more processed meats or foods high in fat instead, they probably will increase their cancer risk, even though the direct cause is not the consumption of less fruit and veg.

More importantly, there is still good evidence that fruit and vegetables protect against heart disease and strokes by reducing blood pressure. Aseparate investigation of the people involved in Dr Boffetta’s study suggests that those who eat five servings a day of fruit and vegetables have a 30% lower incidence of heartdisease and strokes than those who eat less than one and a half servings. It is also possible that some specific foods, such as tomatoes, broccoli and other cruciferous vegetables, do offer protective effects against particular kinds of cancer.

As a consequence, the best advice is probably still to eat your five a day. But for snivelling children and recalcitrant carnivoresthe fleeting thought that you might not have to was nice while it lasted.

racket: n.球拍；吵闹；非法勾当v.喧哗

protection racket: wiki上的解释为“勒索保护费的组织或行为”？
stave:stave off 避开，延缓
snivel：v.啜泣；流鼻涕

sniveling adj.爱哭鼻子的，哭哭啼啼的

recalcitrant: adj 顽强的，执拗的

carnivore:食肉动物

mighty: adj.强有力的

smugly: adv.沾沾自喜地，自鸣得意地

veggie:n.素食者，素食，蔬菜
otherwise: adj.其他方面的
health-conscious: adj.重视健康的
slobby: adj. 粗糙的，粗制的
cohort study: n.世代研究；定群研究；断代研究
intake: n.摄入，摄入量
virtually：adv.几乎
strokes：中风
incidence：发生率
broccoli 花椰菜
cruciferous: adj.十字花科的
fleeting：adj.飞逝的

hebillUID：2532108

4.26 Eco debate
  http://www.economist.com/debate/overview/125

Information overload

This house believes that if the promise of technology is to simplify our lives, it is failing.

About this debate

Technology users are discovering that the proliferation n.激增of information tools, services, and channels makes managing their own personal and professional information increasingly 越来越而不是more and more difficult. A growing chorus n. 齐声of voices is sounding the alarm拉警报，敲警钟that information overload is diminishing people’s ability be effective. Are there better ways to manage the vast amounts of 大量的不是plenty of information assaulting 攻击，袭击users on a daily basis 每天?What is the right balance between new tools and information streams, on the one hand, and minimizing the impact of information overload on the other? Are people losing their ability to reflect rather than just react押韵了用得好?

hebillUID：2532108

Backgroundreading
Make it simple
The nextthing in technology, says Andreas Kluth, is not just big but truly huge: the conquest n.征服，胜利 of complexity.


“THE computer knows me as its enemy,” saysJohn Maeda. “Everything I touch doesn't work.” Take those “plug-and-play”即插即用devices, such as printers and digital cameras, that any personal computer (PC) allegedly据称allege 断言，宣称recognizesautomatically as soon as they are plugged n.塞子，插头v.插入，塞住into an orifice孔口calleda USB port at the back of the PC. Whenever Mr Maeda plugs something in, hesays, his PC sends a long and incomprehensible error message from Windows,Microsoft's ubiquitous 无处不在的，普遍存在的 operating system. But he knows from bitterexperience that the gist 要点，要旨
of it is no.
//由一个例子引出问题
At first glance乍一看, Mr Maeda's troubles might notseem very noteworthy值得注意的.Who has not watched Windows crash碰撞，撞车，崩溃 and reboot 重启 without provocation 激发；激怒，挑衅, downloaded endless anti-virus programs to reclaim 矫正，开垦，收回（插一句：claim是要求；索赔。proclaim是声明、宣称。三个注意区别）
a moribund 垂死的 hard disc, fiddled with 用手胡乱拨弄cables and settings to hook up aprinter, and sometimes simply given up? Yet Mr Maeda is not just any old technophobic 恐技术者user. He has a master's degree in computer science and a PhD in interfacedesign, and is currently a professor in computer design at the MassachusettsInstitute of Technology (MIT). He is, in short, one of the world's foremostcomputer geeks牛人. Mr Maeda concluded 下结论说 that if he, of all people, cannot master the technologyneeded to use computers effectively, it is time to declare a crisis. So,earlier this year, he launched 开始，启动；发射a new research initiative called “Simplicity” at the MIT Media Lab.Its mission is to look for ways out of today's mess.
//对例子的进一步解释
Mr Maedahas plenty of sympathizers 同情者. “It is time for us to rise up with a profound demand,” declared the late Michael Dertouzos in his 2001book, “The Unfinished Revolution”: “Make our computers simpler to use!” Donald Norman, a long-standing 长期的advocate of design simplicity, concurs 同意. “Today's technology is intrusive侵入的 and overbearing 蛮横的，傲慢的. It leaves us with no moments ofsilence, with less time to ourselves, with a sense of diminished control over our lives,” he writes in his book, “TheInvisible Computer”. “People are analogue, not digital; biological, not mechanical. It is time for human-centredtechnology, a humane technology.”
//同一观点不同的人支持
Theinformation-technology (IT) industry itself is long past denial.Greg Papadopoulos, chief technologist at Sun Microsystems, a maker of powerfulcorporate computers, says that IT today is “in a state that we should beashamed of; it's embarrassing.” Ray Lane, a venture 风险 capitalist 资本家at Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, oneof the most prominent 卓越的 technology financiers in Silicon Valley, explains: “Complexity is holding our industry back right now. A lot of what isbought and paid for doesn't getimplemented becauseof complexity. Maybe this is the industry's biggest challenge.” Even Microsoft,which people like Mr Lane identify as a prime culprit 罪人, is apologetic表示歉意的. “So far, most people would saythat technology has made life more complex,” concedes 承认 Chris Capossela, the boss ofMicrosoft's desktop 台式机applications应用程序.
//具体展开
The economic costs of IT complexity are hard to quantify but probably exorbitant过高的. TheStandish Group, a research outfit 机构 that tracks corporate IT purchases, has found that 66% of all IT projectseither fail outright 直接地or take much longer to install than expected because of their complexity.Among very big IT projects—those costing over $10m apiece （每个，每人，每次。。。）—98% fall short 达不到，不符合 fail to meet.

hebillUID：2532108

Themoderator's 仲裁人 opening remarks


Ourfirst debate in this series involved a vital area of public policy. For thissecond debate the focus is firmly on the individual, and the impact oftechnology on our lives. The question at hand shouldmake us all examine our own use of technology, and perhaps produce surprisinganswers.

We all use technology. Everyone reading or taking part in this debate is of courseconnected to the internet. For that, at least, let us be thankful.

But evenas it opens up 开启extraordinary new possibilities, is technology making our lives too complicated? I am able towrite this opening statement far away from my desk, courtesy of 经由。。。提供wireless connectivity, on a hotel veranda 阳台overlookingthe English Channel on a Sunday morning: miraculous simplicity! Yet 表转折my wife, whose birthday we arecelebrating here, may view it differently: an unfortunate complication of herspecial day. This debate is about a question many of us grapple with尽力解决，努力克服 on a daily basis.

Two dimensions ofthe issue emerge from the thoughtful opening statements. First, Richard Szafranski, apartner at Toffler Associates, raises 提出（通常是问题） the broad impact of technology on our environment: its contribution to global warming, thecreation of new chemical compounds with uncertain impact on life and health,the invention of weapons of mass destruction 大杀器. Surely, he argues, such things complicateour lives.

Second,and more palpably易察觉的, there is the matter of the breakneck 非常危险的developmentof personal technology. Mr Szafranski argues that the abundance of this stuff is such that we suffer from"over-choice" as well as "surplus complexity": all thosering tones to choose from and personal devices to be baffled 使迷惑by. Far from simplifying our lives, choosingbetween so many options is hard and increasingly complicated work.

JohnMaeda, president elect 当选校长（尚未就职）of the Rhode Island School of Design, accepts that technology can addcomplexity to our lives, and we can all empathize感同身受 with tales of maddening computer crashes andinfuriating 令人大怒的 printer glitches 小毛病，小故障（复数）. But, he claims 和argue一样, it also has the capacity to remove even greater complexity that existed beforehand: who wouldn'tgrapple with a fidgety不安的，烦躁的 hearing-aid if in the end it overcomes deafness?聋人不会嫌弃助听器麻烦. Furthermore, he believes, weare tech "explorers", experimenting and adapting technologies to our needs over time: he raises the prospect that we are entering a time of simplification, a "Renaissance of design-led development." In short,"the bad rap given to technologies today will be only temporary."

Where does thebalance lie? 平衡在哪里That is what I hope this debatewill clarify. Mr Maeda reckons 计算，估计there is 90% upside and 10% downside; Mr Szafranski, without putting a numberon it, thinks it's the otherway around恰恰相反. What do you think?

One lastword before the debate begins. You have, rightly, on previous occasions looked closely and critically at the wording of the propositions 复数：提案，议题. In this case, as Mr Szafranskinotes, it might be objected 反对that technology didn't "promise"anything, though I think it's probably fair to say that many people assumed(and tech companies routinely claim) that its purpose is to simplify notcomplicate. "It didn't work," asserts Mr Szafranski. Or did it?



assert raise argue claim think affirm allege
所有的“说”

hebillUID：2532108

The proposer's opening remarks
Standing back, we now can be fairly certain that the science and engineering that enabled humans to create today's engines of industrialisation, electrification, physics, medicine, genetics and the appliances of the information age also added significant complexity to our lives. Technology warmed the planet, added pollutants to the atmosphere and oceans, affected life forms by changing the background magnetic field (including adding increased extremely low-frequency radiation), enabled nuclear weapons and created thousands of chemical compounds that can help or hurt life. One cannot conclude（否定提出观点） that the convergent（汇聚的） effects—social, environmental, political, economic, legal, psychological—of these technological developments simplified living or our lives. Technology has failed to simplify our lives.

Coping with the challenges caused by a warming planet will not be simple. Knowing the health effects—the effects on humans and other living organisms（生物，有机体）—of various pollutants（污染物） and combinations of pollutants and appropriately dealing with them will not be simple. Understanding the biological consequences of changed magnetic fields and increased point and area sources of radiation is not uncomplicated（双重否定）. The problems associated with nuclear weapons' proliferation are only less complex than the problems that would arise from the use of such weapons. And it becomes increasingly difficult to assay the interactions, the lag times and the health consequences of the chemicals we ingest, even those we consume intentionally. Simpler lives? No.

Dealing with any one of these challenges is not simple; they are multi-dimensional and have converged and co-exist. "Technology"—shorthand for the fruits of science and engineering—and its convergent unintended and intended consequences have complicated our lives.

Take some familiar but trivial examples. The technologies that enable mass customisation, the internet and wireless devices and their applications, but a small sample, cause humans two problems that complicate our lives immensely. First, over-choice. Second, surplus complexity. Over-choice describes the human response to alternatives and variations so numerous, so potentially satisfying and so complex that humans can no longer decide easily. "Surplus complexity" is unnecessary and unwanted complexity.

We—hundreds of millions of us and growing—embrace the very technologies that make our lives and our relationships more difficult and fill many of our waking moments with activity. We love—to the point of gluttony—to communicate, play, invent, learn, imagine and acquire. Information technology has given us tools to do all of those anywhere and round the clock. We are awash in the benefits that high-bandwidth fixed and mobile wireless communications, email, text messages, pictures, games, data and information give us, including instant access to thousands of products. The seductive ease with which we can engage in any and all of those activities, or quests or endeavours makes it difficult and stressful to not be overwhelmed by choices. Choosing takes time and our time is not unlimited. Devices and applications that save us labour in one area may merely allow us, and sometimes seem to compel us, to invest labour in other areas.

We say or hear, "I must do my email tonight, or by tomorrow I'll have over 600 to read." We want to buy a pot. Search on "pottery" and get 254,000,000 results. We want to find the John Li we met at a conference. Search on "John Li" and get 8,600,000 results. Do I do email, narrow the searches, eat dinner, pick up my laundry or call a friend? Because technology has spawned numerous complex variations I must repeatedly go through the act of evaluating and choosing — a labour of deciding. Technology has imposed the encumbrance of over-choice on us.

Over-choice is made more likely and burdensome by the complexity resident in each of the choices that are presented to us. There are hundreds of choices within the seemingly simple one of getting a cellular telephone and choosing a provider and a plan. Some phones also are Pocket PCs with CDMA and GSM, video-players, music-players, web browsers, calculators and so forth. One must decide where and when the complexity becomes surplus. Choosing ring tones from among the surplus complexity evident in the thousands of tones available is almost unfathomable over-choice.

Businesses know that solutions to over-choice, on the one hand, and engineered surplus complexity, on the other, can produce revenue. Their solutions may complicate the problems. It may be that few consumers have or take the time to read a website's terms of services, privacy policy or licensing agreement before hitting "I agree." The willing or inadvertent disclosure of information about behaviour and the data bases that record past searches create the potential for precise marketing. Behavioural marketing, for example, uses data from multiple sources, including data in the public domain and data acquired by a target's past web searches, to push tailored products and services. More choices. When surplus complexity is engineered into a product—of a product's, say, 41 features, the consumer only wanted two—consumers pay for unnecessary and unused features. Unbundling is seen by some businesses or some industries as such radical customisation that it is priced prohibitively. We live in the multifaceted bundles that technology has enabled.

The system as a whole, the system we create and sustain and live in, now has so many and so complex separate parts that understanding consequential interactions, potential outcomes—intended and unintended—and long-term effects is more difficult than ever in human history. One might argue that the genesis of problems like over-choice and surplus complexity is in human frailty or human wants satisfied by technology, but, without technology, more simplicity would endure. Technology is the beneficial culprit that allowed us to do this.

One cannot conclude that humans making bad choices are the real culprit unless one ascribes to the unborn—past and future—the ability to choose. Technology, personified as defendant, could probably prove "I made no promises." Just so, but the issue under consideration is less any specific promise asserted than it was the promising possibilities of making our lives simpler that lured us, as we humans employed technology to solve problems and create opportunities.

It did not work.

dakbumjalUID：2778044

great works~

hebillUID：2532108

About this debateWhat is the right role for government in spurring innovation? The outlines of this age-old debate will be familiar to many. One side argues that governments inevitably get it wrong when they get too involved in innovation: picking the wrong technology winners, say, or ploughing subsidies into politically popular projects rather than the most deserving ones. The other rebuts that given the grave global challenges we face today—in the 1960s America thought it was the Soviet race into space, today many countries worry about climate change and pandemic threats（目前的各国需要关注的主要问题）—governments need to do much more to support innovation.

plough v.耕作
rebut v.反驳
given prep. 考虑到
grave adj. 重大的
pandemic adj. （疾病）流行性的

The proposer's opening remarks


[size=1.2em]Innovation now attracts innumerable worshippers but their prayers are often quite narrow and sectarian. Silicon Valley or possibly the Israeli high-tech industry is the promised land: a wondrous combination of private high-tech enterprise underpinned by government-financed universities and research labs.
[size=1.2em]This is, alas, a dubious conception of paradise. For all the high-tech prowess of Silicon Valley, the economy of California is on the edge of disaster. Unemployment in eight counties now tops 20% and the government pays its bills in IOUs. And in spite of its extraordinary concentration of scientific and engineering talent and entrepreneurship, Israel's GDP per head in 2009 was lower than of Cyprus, Greece and Slovenia.
[size=1.2em]sectarian a. 偏狭的
[size=1.2em]