比尔盖茨在哈佛毕业典礼上的演讲中英对照.docx

1、比尔盖茨在哈佛毕业典礼上的演讲中英对照比尔盖茨在2007年哈佛毕业典礼上的演讲(中英对照)比尔盖茨在2007年哈佛毕业典礼上的演讲President Bok, former President Rudenstine, incoming President Faust, members of the Harvard Corporation and the Board of Overseers, members of the faculty, parents, and especially, the graduates:尊敬的Bok校长，Rudenstine前校长，即将上任的Faust校长，哈佛集

2、团的各位成员，监管理事会的各位理事，各位老师，各位家长，各位同学：Ive been waiting more than 30 years to say this: Dad, I always told you Id come back and get my degree.有一句话我等了三十年，现在终于可以说了：“老爸，我总是跟你说，我会回来拿到我的学位的！”I want to thank Harvard for this timely honor. Ill be changing my job next year and it will be nice to finally have a co

3、llege degree on my resume.我要感谢哈佛大学在这个时候给我这个荣誉。明年，我就要换工作了（注：指从微软公司退休）我终于可以在简历上写我有一个本科学位，这真是不错啊。I applaud the graduates today for taking a much more direct route to your degrees. For my part, Im just happy that the Crimson has called me Harvards most successful dropout. I guess that makes me valedicto

4、rian of my own special class I did the best of everyone who failed.我为今天在座的各位同学感到高兴，你们拿到学位可比我简单多了。哈佛的校报称我是“哈佛大学历史上最成功的辍学生”。我想这大概使我有资格代表我这一类学生发言在所有的失败者里，我做得最好。But I also want to be recognized as the guy who got Steve Ballmer to drop out of business school. Im a bad influence. Thats why I was invited t

5、o speak at your特殊待遇虽然我离开得比较早，但是我在这里的经历、在这里结识的朋友、在这里发展起来的一些想法，永远地改变了我。But taking a serious look back I do have one big regret.但是，如果现在严肃地回忆起来，我确实有一个真正的遗憾。I left Harvard with no real awareness of the awful inequities in the world the appalling disparities of health, and wealth, and opportunity that con

6、demn millions of people to lives of despair.我离开哈佛的时候，根本没有意识到这个世界是多么的不平等。人类在健康、财富和机遇上的不平等大得可怕，它们使得无数的人们被迫生活在绝望之中。I learned a lot here at Harvard about new ideas in economics and politics. I got great exposure to the advances being made in the sciences.我在哈佛学到了很多经济学和政治学的新思想。我也了解了很多科学上的新进展。But humanitys

7、 greatest advances are not in its discoveries but in how those discoveries are applied to reduce inequity. Whether through democracy, strong public education, quality health care, or broad economic opportunity reducing inequity is the highest human achievement.但是，人类最大的进步并不来自于这些发现，而是来自于那些有助于减少人类不平等的发

8、现。不管通过何种手段民主制度、健全的公共教育体系、高质量的医疗保健、还是广泛的经济机会减少不平等始终是人类最大的成就。I left campus knowing little about the millions of young people cheated out of educational opportunities here in this country. And I knew nothing about the millions of people living in unspeakable poverty and disease in developing countries.

9、我离开校园的时候，根本不知道在这个国家里，有几百万的年轻人无法获得接受教育的机会。我也不知道，发展中国家里有无数的人们生活在无法形容的贫穷和疾病之中。It took me decades to find out.我花了几十年才明白了这些事情。You graduates came to Harvard at a different time. You know more about the worlds inequities than the classes that came before. In your years here, I hope youve had a chance to th

10、ink about how in this age of accelerating technology we can finally take on these inequities, and we can solve them.在座的各位同学，你们是在与我不同的时代来到哈佛的。你们比以前的学生，更多地了解世界是怎样的不平等。在你们的哈佛求学过程中，我希望你们已经思考过一个问题，那就是在这个新技术加速发展的时代，我们怎样最终应对这种不平等，以及我们怎样来解决这个问题。Imagine, just for the sake of discussion, that you had a few ho

11、urs a week and a few dollars a month to donate to a cause and you wanted to spend that time and money where it would have the greatest impact in saving and improving lives. Where would you spend it?为了讨论的方便，请想象一下，假如你每个星期可以捐献一些时间、每个月可以捐献一些钱你希望这些时间和金钱，可以用到对拯救生命和改善人类生活有最大作用的地方。你会选择什么地方？For Melinda and f

12、or me, the challenge is the same: how can we do the most good for the greatest number with the resources we have.对Melinda（注：盖茨的妻子）和我来说，这也是我们面临的问题：我们如何能将我们拥有的资源发挥出最大的作用。During our discussions on this question, Melinda and I read an article about the millions of children who were dying every year in p

13、oor countries from diseases that we had long ago made harmless in this country. Measles, malaria, pneumonia, hepatitis B, yellow fever. One disease I had never even heard of, rotavirus, was killing half a million kids each year none of them in the United States.在讨论过程中，Melinda和我读到了一篇文章，里面说在那些贫穷的国家，每年

14、有数百万的儿童死于那些在美国早已不成问题的疾病。麻疹、疟疾、肺炎、乙型肝炎、黄热病、还有一种以前我从未听说过的轮状病毒，这些疾病每年导致50万儿童死亡，但是在美国一例死亡病例也没有。We were shocked. We had just assumed that if millions of children were dying and they could be saved, the world would make it a priority to discover and deliver the medicines to save them. But it did not. For

15、under a dollar, there were interventions that could save lives that just werent being delivered.我们被震惊了。我们想，如果几百万儿童正在死亡线上挣扎，而且他们是可以被挽救的，那么世界理应将用药物拯救他们作为头等大事。但是事实并非如此。那些价格还不到一美元的救命的药剂，并没有送到他们的手中。If you believe that every life has equal value, its revolting to learn that some lives are seen as worth sa

16、ving and others are not. We said to ourselves: This cant be true. But if it is true, it deserves to be the priority of our giving.如果你相信每个生命都是平等的，那么当你发现某些生命被挽救了，而另一些生命被放弃了，你会感到无法接受。我们对自己说：“事情不可能如此。如果这是真的，那么它理应是我们努力的头等大事。”So we began our work in the same way anyone here would begin it. We asked: How c

17、ould the world let these children die?所以，我们用任何人都会想到的方式开始工作。我们问：“这个世界怎么可以眼睁睁看着这些孩子死去？”The answer is simple, and harsh. The market did not reward saving the lives of these children, and governments did not subsidize it. So the children died because their mothers and their fathers had no power in the m

18、arket and no voice in the system.答案很简单，也很令人难堪。在市场经济中，拯救儿童是一项没有利润的工作，政府也不会提供补助。这些儿童之所以会死亡，是因为他们的父母在经济上没有实力，在政治上没有能力发出声音。But you and I have both.但是，你们和我在经济上有实力，在政治上能够发出声音。We can make market forces work better for the poor if we can develop a more creative capitalism if we can stretch the reach of mark

19、et forces so that more people can make a profit, or at least make a living, serving people who are suffering from the worst inequities. We also can press governments around the world to spend taxpayer money in ways that better reflect the values of the people who pay the taxes.我们可以让市场更好地为穷人服务，如果我们能够

20、设计出一种更有创新性的资本主义制度如果我们可以改变市场，让更多的人可以获得利润，或者至少可以维持生活那么，这就可以帮到那些正在极端不平等的状况中受苦的人们。我们还可以向全世界的政府施压，要求他们将纳税人的钱，花到更符合纳税人价值观的地方。If we can find approaches that meet the needs of the poor in ways that generate profits for business and votes for politicians, we will have found a sustainable way to reduce inequi

21、ty in the world. This task is open-ended. It can never be finished. But a conscious effort to answer this challenge will change the world.如果我们能够找到这样一种方法，既可以帮到穷人，又可以为商人带来利润，为政治家带来选票，那么我们就找到了一种减少世界性不平等的可持续的发展道路。这个任务是无限的。它不可能被完全完成，但是任何自觉地解决这个问题的尝试，都将会改变这个世界。I am optimistic that we can do this, but I ta

22、lk to skeptics who claim there is no hope. They say: Inequity has been with us since the beginning, and will be with us till the end because people just dont care. I completely disagree.在这个问题上，我是乐观的。但是，我也遇到过那些感到绝望的怀疑主义者。他们说：“不平等从人类诞生的第一天就存在，到人类灭亡的最后一天也将存在。因为人类对这个问题根本不在乎。”我完全不能同意这种观点。I believe we hav

23、e more caring than we know what to do with.我相信，问题不是我们不在乎，而是我们不知道怎么做。All of us here in this Yard, at one time or another, have seen human tragedies that broke our hearts, and yet we did nothing not because we didnt care, but because we didnt know what to do. If we had known how to help, we would have

24、 acted.此刻在这个院子里的所有人，生命中总有这样或那样的时刻，目睹人类的悲剧，感到万分伤心。但是我们什么也没做，并非我们无动于衷，而是因为我们不知道做什么和怎么做。如果我们知道如何做是有效的，那么我们就会采取行动。The barrier to change is not too little caring; it is too much complexity.改变世界的阻碍，并非人类的冷漠，而是世界实在太复杂。To turn caring into action, we need to see a problem, see a solution, and see the impact.

25、But complexity blocks all three steps.为了将关心转变为行动，我们需要找到问题，发现解决办法的方法，评估后果。但是世界的复杂性使得所有这些步骤都难于做到。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. The

26、y promise to investigate, determine the cause, and prevent similar crashes in the future.即使有了互联网和24小时直播的新闻台，让人们真正发现问题所在，仍然十分困难。当一架飞机坠毁了，官员们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事故。But if the officials were brutally honest, they would say: Of all the people in the world who died today from preventable c

27、auses, one half of one percent of them were on this plane. Were 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说真话，他们就会说：“在今天这一天，全世界所有可以避免的死亡之中，只有0.5%的死者来自于这次空难。我们决心尽一切努力，调查这个0.5%的死亡原因。”The bigger problem is not the plane crash,

28、but the millions of preventable deaths.显然，更重要的问题不是这次空难，而是其他几百万可以预防的死亡事件。We dont read much about these deaths. The media covers whats new and millions of people dying is nothing new. So it stays in the background, where its easier to ignore. But even when we do see it or read about it, its difficult

29、to keep our eyes on the problem. Its hard to look at suffering if the situation is so complex that we dont know how to help. And so we look away.我们并没有很多机会了解那些死亡事件。媒体总是报告新闻，几百万人将要死去并非新闻。如果没有人报道，那么这些事件就很容易被忽视。另一方面，即使我们确实目睹了事件本身或者看到了相关报道，我们也很难持续关注这些事件。看着他人受苦是令人痛苦的，何况问题又如此复杂，我们根本不知道如何去帮助他人。所以我们会将脸转过去。If

30、 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.就算我们真正发现了问题所在，也不过是迈出了第一步，接着还有第二步：那就是从复杂的事件中找到解决办法。Finding solutions is essential if we want to make the most of our caring. If we have clear and proven answers anytime

31、 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办法。如果我

32、们有一个清晰的和可靠的答案，那么当任何组织和个人发出疑问“如何我能提供帮助”的时候，我们就能采取行动。我们就能够保证不浪费一丁点全世界人类对他人的关心。但是，世界的复杂性使得很难找到对全世界每一个有爱心的人都有效的行动方法，因此人类对他人的关心往往很难产生实际效果。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 its something sophisticated, like a drug, or