我們為什麼要工作？如果是想要賺錢，那就是最世俗的回答了。因為我們忽略了我們作為人類最大的特質，就是創造力和有思想。
為什麼工業革命之父亞當斯密曾說：在流水線工作的人會變得很笨，笨到人類的極點？因為他相信人類需要制度，通過薪酬的方式把人們變成要滿足制度需要的人，剝奪了人們的創造機會。所以人們不應該被設計活在別人的概念裡而忽略自己本身的人性。
中英文翻譯
Today I'm going to talk about work. And the question I want to ask and answer is this: "Why do we work?" Why do we drag ourselves out of bed every morning instead of living our lives just filled with bouncing from one TED-like adventure to another? 今天我要談一談工作。我想跟大家一起討論的問題是：「我們為什麼要工作？」為什麼我們每天早上要掙扎著起床（去上班）而不是享受生活，讓我們的人生充滿一個個像TED大會這樣美妙的經歷呢？
You may be asking yourselves that very question. Now, I know of course, we have to make a living, but nobody in this room thinks that that's the answer to the question, "Why do we work?" For folks in this room, the work we do is challenging, it's engaging, it's stimulating, it's meaningful. And if we're lucky, it might even be important.你們也許也有同樣的疑問吧。當然，我理解，我們要維持生計，但我相信，在座的各位不會認為「維持生計」是問題的答案，「我們為什麼要工作？」對於在座的各位，工作是充滿挑戰的，它是迷人，刺激，富有意義的。如果我們幸運的話，它甚至可能不可或缺。
So, we wouldn't work if we didn't get paid, but that's not why we do what we do. And in general, I think we think that material rewards are a pretty bad reason for doing the work that we do. When we say of somebody that he's "in it for the money," we are not just being descriptive.因此，如果沒有薪水，我們就不會工作，但這還不是主要原因。通常情況下，我們認為物質獎勵並不是我們工作的好理由。當我們說某人「做這個只是為了錢」的時候背後的含義大家懂的。
Now, I think this is totally obvious, but the very obviousness of it raises what is for me an incredibly profound question. Why, if this is so obvious, why is it that for the overwhelming majority of people on the planet, the work they do has none of the characteristics that get us up and out of bed and off to the office every morning? How is it that we allow the majority of people on the planet to do work that is monotonous, meaningless and soul-deadening? Why is it that as capitalism developed, it created a mode of production, of goods and services, in which all the nonmaterial satisfactions that might come from work were eliminated? Workers who do this kind of work, whether they do it in factories, in call centers, or in fulfillment warehouses, do it for pay. There is certainly no other earthly reason to do what they do except for pay.我想這很顯而易見吧，但正因為顯而易見，反而帶來一個極其深刻的問題。為什麼，儘管這很明顯，為什麼地球上絕大多數的人都在做一些極其無聊的工作，無聊到讓我們甚至沒有動力從床上爬起來去上班呢？而我們又為什麼會允許大多數人去做乏味、無意義且讓人麻木的工作呢？為什麼資本主義一直在發展，它創造出來的生產、商品和服務模式，反倒將工作帶來的精神滿足感損失殆盡呢？從事這種工作的工人，不管是在工廠，客服中心，還是在倉庫，工作就是為了賺錢。除此之外再無其他理由。
So the question is, "Why?" And here's the answer: the answer is technology. Now, I know, I know -- yeah, yeah, yeah, technology, automation screws people, blah blah -- that's not what I mean. I'm not talking about the kind of technology that has enveloped our lives, and that people come to TED to hear about. I'm not talking about the technology of things, profound though that is. I'm talking about another technology. I'm talking about the technology of ideas. I call it, "idea technology" -- how clever of me.那麼問題來了，「為什麼呢？」我認為答案是這樣：是技術。哦，我知道了，我明白了——是的，沒錯，技術、自動化毀了人類，諸如此類陳詞濫調——我想說的並不是這個。我所指的技術，並不是那些已經進入我們生活的，我們在TED演講中能聽到的技術。我說的並不是實物科技，儘管實物科技也很深奧。我指的是另一種技術。是關於思想的技術。我稱之為「思維技術」——機智如我。
In addition to creating things, science creates ideas. Science creates ways of understanding. And in the social sciences, the ways of understanding that get created are ways of understanding ourselves. And they have an enormous influence on how we think, what we aspire to, and how we act.除了創造事物，科學也創造思想。科學創造理解方式。在社會科學中，被創造出來的理解方式成為了我們了解自身的途徑。它們極大的影響了我們的思維方式、我們的追求和我們的行為方式。
If you think your poverty is God's will, you pray. If you think your poverty is the result of your own inadequacy, you shrink into despair. And if you think your poverty is the result of oppression and domination, then you rise up in revolt. Whether your response to poverty is resignation or revolution, depends on how you understand the sources of your poverty. This is the role that ideas play in shaping us as human beings, and this is why idea technology may be the most profoundly important technology that science gives us.如果你覺得貧窮是上帝的旨意，那你便會祈禱。如果你覺得貧窮是因為自己不夠好，你便會陷入絕望。如果你覺得貧窮是壓迫和統治造成的，那你就會造反。你對貧窮的反應是認命還是革命，取決於你如何理解貧窮的原因。這就是思想在將我們塑造成人類過程中所起的作用，這就是為什麼思維技術也許是科學賦予我們的最重要的技術。
And there's something special about idea technology, that makes it different from the technology of things. With things, if the technology sucks, it just vanishes, right? Bad technology disappears. With ideas -- false ideas about human beings will not go away if people believe that they're true. Because if people believe that they're true, they create ways of living and institutions that are consistent with these very false ideas.
思維技術有它的特別之處，這也使其同實物技術有所區別。如果實物技術很爛，就會遭到淘汰，對吧？糟糕的技術會消失。而在思想方面——關於人類的錯誤思想並不會消失，只要人們覺得對，就不會消失。因為只要有人覺得這些思想是正確的，那他們就會創造出相應的生活方式和制度，來與這些錯誤思想保持一致。
And that's how the industrial revolution created a factory system in which there was really nothing you could possibly get out of your day's work, except for the pay at the end of the day. Because the father -- one of the fathers of the Industrial Revolution, Adam Smith -- was convinced that human beings were by their very natures lazy, and wouldn't do anything unless you made it worth their while, and the way you made it worth their while was by incentivizing, by giving them rewards. That was the only reason anyone ever did anything. So we created a factory system consistent with that false view of human nature. But once that system of production was in place, there was really no other way for people to operate, except in a way that was consistent with Adam Smith's vision. So the work example is merely an example of how false ideas can create a circumstance that ends up making them true.
工業革命就是這麼創造出工廠體制的，在這體制下，你工作一整天后除了錢什麼也得不到。因為工業革命之父——工業革命之父之一，亞當·史密斯，他相信人天生就是懶惰的，如果你不讓他們覺得值，他們寧願閒著什麼也不做，怎麼讓他們覺得值呢？就是激勵他們，給他們報酬。這是任何人做任何事的唯一原因。於是我們基於對人性的錯誤認識建立了工廠體系。但這種生產制度一旦建立，人們就別無選擇了，只能選擇與亞當·史密斯的觀點相符的（工作）方式。錯誤的理論能創造出（與之相適應的）狀況，最終自圓其說，工作只是其中一個例子。
It is not true that you "just can't get good help anymore." It is true that you "can't get good help anymore" when you give people work to do that is demeaning and soulless. And interestingly enough, Adam Smith -- the same guy who gave us this incredible invention of mass production, and division of labor -- understood this. He said, of people who worked in assembly lines, of men who worked in assembly lines, he says: "He generally becomes as stupid as it is possible for a human being to become." Now, notice the word here is "become." "He generally becomes as stupid as it is possible for a human being to become." Whether he intended it or not, what Adam Smith was telling us there, is that the very shape of the institution within which people work creates people who are fitted to the demands of that institution and deprives people of the opportunity to derive the kinds of satisfactions from their work that we take for granted.
但我不認為我們「已經走投無路了」。我認為，只有當人們被迫從事缺乏尊嚴又單調乏味的工作時，才真是「已經走投無路了」。有趣的是，亞當·史密斯——正是這個為我們發明了大規模生產和勞動分工的人——理解這一點。他形容那些在生產線上工作的，進行流水作業的人，他說：「他能變得要多愚蠢有多愚蠢。」大家注意他用的詞是「變」。「他能變得要多愚蠢有多愚蠢。」不管是否是有意的，亞當·史密斯告訴我們的就是，正是這種工作體制創造出適合這一體制需求的人們，並且讓人們沒有辦法從工作中獲得滿足感，而獲得滿足感本應是理所當然的。
The thing about science -- natural science -- is that we can spin fantastic theories about the cosmos, and have complete confidence that the cosmos is completely indifferent to our theories. It's going to work the same damn way no matter what theories we have about the cosmos. But we do have to worry about the theories we have of human nature, because human nature will be changed by the theories we have that are designed to explain and help us understand human beings.
科學的好處——我是指自然科學——在於我們能創造關於宇宙的奇妙理論，而且還完全不必擔心宇宙會因我們的理論產生變化。不管我們如何解釋宇宙，它還是會照常運轉下去。但關於人類本性的理論，我們就要十分謹慎了，因為那些原本用來揭示人性，幫助我們理解人性的理論，是會反過來改變人性的。
The distinguished anthropologist, Clifford Geertz, said, years ago, that human beings are the "unfinished animals." And what he meant by that was that it is only human nature to have a human nature that is very much the product of the society in which people live. That human nature, that is to say our human nature, is much more created than it is discovered. We design human nature by designing the institutions within which people live and work.著名的人類學家克利福德·格爾茨多年前說過，人類是「未塑造好的動物。」他的意思是，只有人性只有人類的人性正是人類所生活的社會的產物。這種人性，也就是說我們的人性，與其說是被發現的，不如說是被創造的。人性是由我們設計的，我們通過設計人類生活和工作的機制來設計人性。
And so you people -- pretty much the closest I ever get to being with masters of the universe -- you people should be asking yourself a question, as you go back home to run your organizations. Just what kind of human nature do you want to help design?
所以在座的各位——你們差不多是宇宙中我能遇見的最聰明的一群人——當你們回去繼續當老闆時，你們應該問自己一個問題。那就是，你們想要設計出什麼樣的人性？
Thank you.謝謝。
你說你喜歡雨，但是你在下雨的時候打開了傘