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This article does not reflect the views of the Transportation Security Administration. 

It is most living Americans’ “Where Were You When” moment, the day we all watched looped film of airliners crashing into the Twin Towers, watched victims trapped by raging flames forced to choose between being burned alive and jumping to their deaths. Readers not old enough to remember the horror of that day can get a sense from audio of 9/11 released by the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) in 2018. The TSA is an agency of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security that was created as a response to the 9/11 attacks to make sure nothing like that ever happens again.

As that collective trauma fades into history, the TSA, where I work, enjoys about the same level of public support as a measles outbreak.

The Threat and Why We Do What We Do

If you worked for the federal government on 9/11 in any sort of national security capacity, you knew fear of further attacks were pervasive, particularly after the anthrax mailings sharpened the impression of being under attack by unknown assailants on multiple fronts. (I worked in a building that got one of the letters.) Fear is hardly conducive to good policymaking, yet it was in this environment that the Department of Homeland Security, and its red-headed stepchild, the Transportation Security Agency, was born. It’s mission: to avoid a repeat of the airport security failure that allowed 19 Al Qaeda terrorists to hijack four jetliners using smuggled box-cutters.

For whatever reason, militant Islamists have long been fixated on attacking commercial aircraft.  9/11 carried the highest body count, but other equally ambitious attacks have been foiled by bad terrorist planning, good intelligence work, the intervention of brave passengers, and sheer luck.

Most Americans’ first acquaintance with Al Qaeda was 9/11, but that was not their first attempted attack on commercial aviation. In 1995, 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheik Mohammed put together the “Bojinka Plot,” which was to start with the assassination of Pope John Paul II when he visited the Philippines, and conclude by placing bombs on 11 US bound planes. Luckily, members of the terrorist cell accidentally started a fire at their safehouse apartment and were subsequently arrested.

Few now remember that just three months after 9/11 would-be suicide bomber Richard Reid was stopped from igniting the explosive packed into his shoes by observant passengers on an American Airlines flight from Paris to Miami. You can thank Reid for having to take your shoes off and get them x-rayed when you fly.

In 2006, another massive Al Qaeda bombing plot was disrupted. Seven US-bound airliners were to be taken down with bomb’s assembled mid-flight from the liquid explosive TATP smuggled in sports-drink bottles. You can thank the perpetrators of that plot for why you are limited in the amount of liquid you can carry on board. (As an aside, if you want to carry a liquid on board, freeze it solid. No quantity restrictions.)

Then came the attempt by the “Underwear Bomber,” Omar Farouk Abdulmutallab, to detonate PETN explosive powder sewn into his underwear to take down a Northwest Airlines flight over Detroit. Again, an observant passenger intervened. In response, the TSA rapidly deployed full body scanners to all major US airports.

In 2010, intelligence was passed to the US warning that three US-bound cargo planes had bombs on board. They were stopped and searched before reaching the US.

Outside the U.S., Islamist terrorists have been more successful.

In 2015, a chartered jet bound for Russia, Metrojet Flight 9268, was blown from the sky by a bomb planted by ISIS, killing 224.

In 2016, the Somali Affiliate of Al-Qaeda, al-Shabaab, smuggled a bomb on board Daallo Airlines Flight 159, which detonated and blew a hole in the aircraft, sucking out the suicide bomber. The bomb was likely concealed in a laptop, which is one reason passengers are now required to get their laptops and other large electronics out of bags.

The onerous but performative aspect of the TSA’s job is designed to show bad guys watching us that everyone, even grandmothers and war vets, are subject to thorough screening. Of course we know it is extremely unlikely that a grandmother managed to pack plastic explosives in her oversize tube of toothpaste. But until some security genius comes up with a reliable way to read hostile intent, we have to react as if she might have. Which gives bad guys less motivation to enlist grannies—through bribery, trickery, or compulsion—as smugglers.

We cannot know how many, if any, terror plots aimed at commercial aviation the TSA has disrupted or deterred. By definition, deterred plots didn’t happen. But we do know we are being “probed” by would-be terrorists and smugglers to see what our screening catches, and how the TSA reacts.

“Probes” can be as simple as submitting a bag containing a giant block of cheese with a cell phone taped to it to see if we will catch large organic masses connected to electronics. But it can also involve classic “casing” behavior. At my airport, a small regional airport in the southwest, TSA officers noted and reported a foreign student doing suspicious things, including abandoning a moving truck in front of the terminal, and abandoning a large bag outside the screening checkpoint. Shortly after reporting this, the FBI arrested the student hundreds of miles away, outside Fort Huachuca, the training ground for the US military’s intelligence officers, with guns in his possession. That’s what a stillborn terrorist plot looks like.

While we have no figures for plots deterred, we do have numbers for gun seizures. In 2008, the TSA seized 926 guns from passengers attempting to bring them into an airliner’s cabin. Every year since, gun seizures have climbed substantially, with 4,239 guns, 86 percent of which were loaded, seized in 2018, up 457 percent since 2008. (To be clear, its fine to bring firearms on board-but only in checked baggage. The weapons cannot be loaded, or accessible to passengers in flight.)

 The Challenges

Considering that the TSA screened 813,000,000 passengers in 2018, and well over a billion checked bags, 4,239 gun seizures means roughly one in 200,000 passengers is carrying a serious threat item (not counting knives, which are legion: every large airport confiscates dozens a day). You don’t have to be an organizational psychologist to understand that when serious threats appear in one out of every 200,000 screenings, you have a problem. Humans are novelty-seeking creatures. Maintaining vigilance in the face of a steady stream of false positives, of possible threats that turn out to not be threats, is a situation humans are poorly wired to cope with. That’s one of the reasons the TSA sends covert testing teams around with a wide variety of simulated threat items. It helps keep us alert in face of routine and boredom. Some of the equipment we use also generates automated tests to help maintain vigilance.

TSA security is far from perfect, but also far better than you’d think from the skewed press coverage claiming that the TSA misses 95 percent of threats. Those numbers are vastly inflated—based on covert testing failures that do not include some key facts. The TSA’s covert testing teams are already “inside our perimeter.” A real bad-guy has to pass through several layers of unseen security that can flag them as a threat and our covert testing teams automatically bypass those, creating the impression of more weakness in the system than there really is. In addition, the testing teams know from the inside every weak point in the TSA’s Standard Operating Procedures (SOP) and equipment, knowledge that the vast majority of terrorists wouldn’t possess. Their testing is designed to exploit those weaknesses in ways that working level Transport Security Officers (TSOs) are often ill-equipped to prevent. Our “failed” tests, therefore, are carried out by the equivalent of terrorists who happen to be expert in every piece of equipment the TSA has, every procedure it uses, while skipping layers of security both before and after the checkpoint screening process. These tests “steel-man” terrorist capability by assuming the TSA has been penetrated at every level by hostile aviation security experts, and then trying to see if those experts can still pull something off. And the answer is, with all those cards in their hands, they often can. But real terrorists don’t hold all of those cards, so the success rate of the testing teams is misleadingly high.

When passengers without “insider” advantages try to fool screeners they have a harder time. As when seven members of a reality TV film crew were arrested on multiple charges in 2018 in Newark airport trying to smuggle in a simulated bomb. The fines they faced for that shenanigan aren’t known, but considering the fines for attempting to carry a loaded gun onto a plane can exceed $13,000, and Uncle Sam is not above “making an example,” trying to trick the TSA with a fake bomb probably won’t be repeated soon by other TV production companies.

Looked at broadly, any security protocol should be reduced to the absolute bare minimum of complexity that can still do the job. It is too easy to screw up otherwise. The TSA’s basic screening SOP (there are others) is already 130 pages of individual decision trees that can easily confuse people who have been doing the job for years. The wise thing to do, then, is to avoid increasing complexity wherever possible, because as complexity increases, so do mistakes that create holes in security.

The TSA has to act as if the techniques used to smuggle drugs can also be used to smuggle weapons, for the obvious reason that they can be. Smugglers’ “mules” are paid to move a product, but the mules have no way to know whether white powder hidden in a bra is the instantly-lethal-to-touch drug Carfentanil, or the explosive oxidizer ammonium perchlorate. We don’t know either, unless everybody gets screened.

And a failure to screen everybody, to create exceptions, because it is, say, a pregnant woman, introduces points of failure. Any time you create a protected category, and subject people to lesser level of scrutiny, you can count on that protected status immediately being exploited.  There is literally no category of people who haven’t tried to use a perceived protected status to smuggle. Women with sick infants smuggle. Old men smuggle. Old women smuggle. Women faking pregnancy smuggle. People with deliberately disgusting feet smuggle (one can only imagine the smell from the Underwear Bomber, who was rumored to have worn his explosive-laden undies for two weeks straight ahead of his flight to “get used to it.”) In all cases, smuggling techniques can be adapted to smuggle bomb components. And it has been done many times by female suicide bombers.

All of which explains that while TSOs have to respect all passengers, we cannot give deference to any identity groups, however vulnerable. You are not special, because nobody is. It is as egalitarian as any process gets. We’re not there to hold your hand. We’re there to make sure you are not a threat to aviation security. Period.

Your In-Flight Security Courtesy of Low-Paid “Racists”

There is a recent trend in press coverage of the TSA that either implies, or outright states, that the TSA is a racist organization out to humiliate black people. Cosmopolitan, for example, asserts that if black women (allegedly) get more hair pat downs after going through the body scanner, it must be a result of racism. At no point is it acknowledged that the physical structure of black hair is, on average, different to Caucasian or Asian hair, notably curlier and kinkier. Or that black passengers’ choices to wear more elaborate and dense hairstyles can come with the cost of more hair pat downs. Fashion choices do have costs when it comes to screening: clothes with sparkle or bling trigger body scanner alarms, and elaborate hairstyles can too.

The scanners aren’t perfect. They react idiosyncratically to a whole host of factors, including hair and hairstyles with different physical properties. Also, to any physical objects in a person’s hair, including barrettes, beads, extensions, wigs, alligator clips, hairpins, hats, all sorts of headbands and head-wraps. That fact that the scanner highlights those objects means it is working as designed. These facts are ignored in place of a narrative of institutional racism, and racism so diabolical that it has somehow been foisted on one of the most racially diverse workforces in the federal government—TSA employees are 25 percent African American and 23 percent Latino (roughly 12.5 percent of the US population is black and 17 percent is Latino).

Oddly enough, nowhere in the press coverage is the view that TSOs, if it were up to us, would rather see passengers move through the screening process as quickly as possible, because it’s less of a headache. Or that when a body scanner alarms on a passenger’s hair, we have no choice to pat the area down, or lose our jobs. Instead, we’re portrayed as mustache-twirling racists who hate black women so much we take every opportunity to humiliate them, even though every screening delay makes TSOs’ lives harder.

Perhaps Cosmo is nobody’s idea of a hard-hitting news outlet, but even generally respected outlets like ProPublica imply scanner issues are proof of careless design on the part of the scanner manufacturer, and enable discrimination by the TSA.

Why not consider that maybe body scanner algorithms struggle with complex or dense hair styles? And maybe TSOs are just doing their best to cope with the limitations of imperfect scanner technology? I suspect articles saying that the TSA is racist get more clicks. Nuance is boring.

Passengers may say, not without cause, that TSOs are rude. Its definitely a complaint you will hear more at big airports where TSOs are under pressure by management to maximize passenger throughput. I try and avoid those airports myself as a passenger. Also, as in any job, there are some employees who are rude by disposition.

There are also TSOs who become rude over time, a defensive reaction to the endless stream of passengers who come through the screening process insisting they deserve special treatment and accuse TSOs of acting in bad faith when they don’t get it.

The Bulldozer Mom

Here is what a bad faith accusation looks like from a TSO’s point of view. One of my male colleagues was called to do a pat down on a 17-year-old boy after the body scanner showed a groin alarm. Any groin alarm means a pat down, front and back, from hips to knees. Again, thank the underwear bomber for that. Ninety percent of the time passengers get a groin patdown, it’s a self-inflicted wound. Before directing them to the body scanner, a TSO has asked the passenger (usually men, as men’s’ clothes have more pockets) to check their pockets and make sure there is nothing in them. Nothing means nothing—not coins, gum, a wallet, your phone, or Chapstick. The whole point of the body scanner is to find small objects so anything left in your pocket will set it off.

The 17-year-old boy left something in his back pocket. That alarmed the scanner. My colleague advised him that because the body scanner indicated an anomaly in that area, the passenger had to get a groin pat down to resolve it, and explained the steps he would be taking. This is standard, and the passenger had no problem with it. My colleague performed the pat-down in the exact same way he’s done hundreds of times before, per the TSA’s SOP. In full view of several passengers, including the boy’s father, and several TSOs.

And his “bulldozer” mom. What she saw was something everyone else has somehow missed. In her mind, my colleague was molesting her dear young boy. She complains loudly to my colleague. Then to his supervisor. Then to the police officer at the checkpoint. (And, of course, later in writing.) And while this complaining is happening, the boy and her husband, mortified at the unnecessary fracas, literally move to the other side of the seating area to be as far away from her as possible.

And then it gets even more delightful. When a passenger creates a big stink, and then leaves the TSA checkpoint to get on their flight, that’s not the end of it for us, it is just the beginning. The first thing every TSO who witnessed the pat-down has to do is write an official statement ahead of the inevitable investigation. In this case, three TSOs had to write statements about the event, in which nothing happened that doesn’t happen literally hundreds of times a day at every busy checkpoint in the country.

Underlying the mother’s claim was the assumption that the TSO that gave her son the pat-down wasn’t simply doing his job, but was a pervert in a TSA uniform and she was the lone crusader who sniffed him out. Another implication was that his colleagues saw what was going on, and in doing nothing to stop it, conspired to ignore his transgressions.

When passengers look at a TSA checkpoints and see cameras everywhere they might presume it is to spot potential security breaches. That is their official function. But what they are far more routinely used for is to protect TSOs from exactly the kind of baseless complaint described above. Practically speaking, those cameras are not for the passenger’s protection, but the protection of TSOs from time-wasting complaints.

When you have to perform mildly unpleasant procedures on a daily basis, and get accused of sexual assault, or racism, or any of 100 other kinds of bad faith, think of how that might make you feel.

In 2018, the TSA was ranked by employees as the 395^th least desirable federal entity to work in out of 415. (395th was actually a slight improvement on 2017.) And dead last when it came to pay. Small wonder that the TSA has an awful employee retention rate. Turns out people don’t like being poorly paid to do a thankless job while being treated with contempt.

Or not paid to do it, as was the case when tens of thousands of TSOs, myself included, showed up and continued doing our jobs without being paid for over a month during the government shutdown of early 2019. Our pay checks were held up, while much of the rest of the executive branch, the courts, and of course, Congress, got paid.

We know all this, but also that, in addition to the meager paycheck, we’re standing between U.S. airline passengers and a repeat of 9/11. So we do the job anyway.

 

The author is a Transportation Security Officer who has served in the U.S. Army, the U.S. intelligence community, and now works for the TSA. He has been writing about national security topics for over a decade. A Kelleher is a pseudonym. Comments can be sent to TSAarticle@mail.com. 

The post The Real Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. appeared first on Quillette.

Google 母公司 Alphabet 终止了它的互联网高空气球项目 Loon。Project Loon 的高空气球工作在同温层， 每个气球安装了一个太阳能驱动的泵，通过释放或增加气体来移动。它在 2018 年肯尼亚签署了首个商业协议，但未能降低成本使项目能可维持。Loon CEO Alastair Westgarth 在一份声明中称，虽然他们找到了很多有意愿的合作伙伴，但没有找到方法将成本降低到足以打造一个长期的可维持的业务。

 

 

Are immigrants more likely to claim benefits, or is this a stereotype?

A stereotype is a preliminary insight. A stereotype can be true, the first step in noticing differences. For conceptual economy, stereotypes encapsulate the characteristics most people have noticed. Not all heuristics are false.

Here is a relevant paper from Denmark.

Emil O. W. Kirkegaard and Julius Daugbjerg Bjerrekær. Country of origin and use of social benefits: A large, preregistered study of stereotype accuracy in Denmark. Open Differential Psychology.

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/309913792_Country_of_origin_and_use_of_social_benefits_A_large_preregistered_study_of_stereotype_accuracy_in_Denmark

 

This study is interesting, in that it was pre-registered, so its absence would have been noticed.  It compares stereotypes against actual data to get a test of accuracy. I was particularly struck by how the authors studied the answers at each wave of data collection, and tracked down those who gave perplexing answers, then refining their survey questions to reduce misunderstandings.

The paper also points out an unremarked aspect of stereotypes: they may be too weak. Stereotypes have to show a correlation with the facts, and be good predictors. You have to get the slope right, and also the intercept. It is not enough to have a vague notion that immigrants are on benefits, you ought to be able to estimate how many are on benefits.  A stronger stereotype would be a more accurate perception of reality.

A nationally representative Danish sample was asked to estimate the percentage of persons aged 30-39 living in Denmark receiving social benefits for 70 countries of origin (N = 766). After extensive quality control procedures, a sample of 484 persons were available for analysis. Stereotypes were scored by accuracy by comparing the estimates values to values obtained from an official source. Individual stereotypes were found to be fairly accurate (median/mean correlation with criterion values = .48/.43), while the aggregate stereotype was found to be very accurate (r = .70). Both individual and aggregate-level stereotypes tended to underestimate the percentages of persons receiving social benefits and underestimate real group differences.
In bivariate analysis, stereotype correlational accuracy was found to be predicted by a variety of predictors at above chance levels, including conservatism (r = .13), nationalism (r = .11), some immigration critical beliefs/preferences, agreement with a few political parties, educational attainment (r = .20), being male (d = .19) and cognitive ability (r = .22). Agreement with most political parties, experience with ghettos, age, and policy positions on immigrant questions had little or no predictive validity.
In multivariate predictive analysis using LASSO regression, correlational accuracy was found to be predicted only by cognitive ability and educational attainment with even moderate level of reliability. In general, stereotype accuracy was not easy to predict, even using 24 predictors (k-fold cross-validated R2 = 4%).
We examined whether stereotype accuracy was related to the proportion of Muslims in the groups. Stereotypes were found to be less accurate for the groups with higher proportions of Muslims in that participants underestimated the percentages of persons receiving social benefits (mean estimation error for Muslim groups relative to overall elevation error = -8.09 %points).
The study was preregistered with most analyses being specified before data collection began

 

The observed correlation of .7 is big, and useful. A majority of immigrants from Syria, Somalia and Kuwait are on benefits, as are those from Iraq and Lebanon. Even more to the point, if the benchmark is 25% for Danish citizens, then there are 19 countries with higher benefit rates. More positively, there are countries with lower rates, presumably because they are younger and employed. The data plot does not give us any guide to numbers from each country. However, later in the paper it is shown that immigrant population size is not relevant in judging benefit rates accurately.

The best predictor of having accurate stereotypes was cognitive ability (81% of simulations), followed by educational attainment (74% of simulations). Respondents underestimate the number of Muslims on benefits.

This is a very good paper. Data handling is exceptional, and well explained. There are lots of Figures and Tables. The sample is large and representative. The results have been looked at carefully, to identify those who participated without paying much attention to the questions. The data are available for re-analysis.

The high accuracy of aggregate stereotypes is confirmed. If anything, the stereotypes held by Danish people about immigrants underestimates those immigrants’ reliance on Danish benefits.

 

 

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/309913792_Country_of_origin_and_use_of_social_benefits_A_large_preregistered_study_of_stereotype_accuracy_in_Denmark

by Judith Curry

The Left has done far more than the Right to set back progress. – John Tierney

John Tierney has written a stunningly insightful piece in the City Journal Magazine:  The Real War on Science.  Read the whole thing.  Here are some excerpts of particular relevance to climate science:

Conservatives just don’t have that much impact on science. I know that sounds strange to Democrats who decry Republican creationists and call themselves the “party of science.” But I’ve done my homework. I’ve read the Left’s indictments, including Chris Mooney’s bestseller, The Republican War on Science. I finished it with the same question about this war that I had at the outset: Where are the casualties?

Where are the scientists who lost their jobs or their funding? What vital research has been corrupted or suppressed? What scientific debate has been silenced? Yes, the book reveals that Republican creationists exist, but they don’t affect the biologists or anthropologists studying evolution. Yes, George W. Bush refused federal funding for embryonic stem-cell research, but that hardly put a stop to it (and not much changed after Barack Obama reversed the policy). 

The danger from the Left does not arise from stupidity or dishonesty; those failings are bipartisan. Some surveys show that Republicans, particularly libertarians, are more scientifically literate than Democrats, but there’s plenty of ignorance all around. Both sides cherry-pick research and misrepresent evidence to support their agendas. Whoever’s in power, the White House plays politics in appointing advisory commissions and editing the executive summaries of their reports. Scientists of all ideologies exaggerate the importance of their own research and seek results that will bring them more attention and funding.
But two huge threats to science are peculiar to the Left—and they’re getting worse.

The first threat is confirmation bias, the well-documented tendency of people to seek out and accept information that confirms their beliefs and prejudices.

Scientists try to avoid confirmation bias by exposing their work to peer review by critics with different views, but it’s increasingly difficult for liberals to find such critics. Academics have traditionally leaned left politically, and many fields have essentially become monocultures, especially in the social sciences, where Democrats now outnumber Republicans by at least 8 to 1. The lopsided ratio has led to another well-documented phenomenon: people’s beliefs become more extreme when they’re surrounded by like-minded colleagues. They come to assume that their opinions are not only the norm but also the truth, . . creating what Jonathan Haidt calls a “tribal-moral community” with its own “sacred values” about what’s worth studying and what’s taboo.

Conservatives have been variously pathologized as unethical, antisocial, and irrational simply because they don’t share beliefs that seem self-evident to liberals.

The combination of all these pressures from the Left has repeatedly skewed science over the past half-century.

And that brings us to the second great threat from the Left: its long tradition of mixing science and politics. To conservatives, the fundamental problem with the Left is what Friedrich Hayek called the fatal conceit: the delusion that experts are wise enough to redesign society. Conservatives distrust central planners, preferring to rely on traditional institutions that protect individuals’ “natural rights” against the power of the state. Leftists have much more confidence in experts and the state.

For his part, Holdren has served for the past eight years as the science advisor to President Obama, a position from which he laments that Americans don’t take his warnings on climate change seriously. He doesn’t seem to realize that public skepticism has a lot to do with the dismal track record of himself and his fellow environmentalists. There’s always an apocalypse requiring the expansion of state power.

President Obama promotes his green agenda by announcing that “the debate is settled,” and he denounces “climate deniers” by claiming that 97 percent of scientists believe that global warming is dangerous. His statements are false. While the greenhouse effect is undeniably real, and while most scientists agree that there has been a rise in global temperatures caused in some part by human emissions of carbon dioxide, no one knows how much more warming will occur this century or whether it will be dangerous.

The long-term risks are certainly worth studying, but no matter whose predictions you trust, climate science provides no justification for Obama’s green agenda—or anyone else’s agenda. Even if it were somehow proved that high-end estimates for future global warming are accurate, that wouldn’t imply that Greens have the right practical solution for reducing carbon emissions—or that we even need to reduce those emissions. Policies for dealing with global warming vary according to political beliefs, economic assumptions, social priorities, and moral principles. Would regulating carbon dioxide stifle economic growth and give too much power to the state? Is it moral to impose sacrifices on poor people to keep temperatures a little cooler for their descendants, who will presumably be many times richer? Are there more important problems to address first? These aren’t questions with scientifically correct answers.

Yet many climate researchers are passing off their political opinions as science, just as Obama does, and they’re even using that absurdly unscientific term “denier” as if they were priests guarding some eternal truth. Science advances by continually challenging and testing hypotheses, but the modern Left has become obsessed with silencing heretics. In a letter to Attorney General Loretta Lynch last year, 20 climate scientists urged her to use federal racketeering laws to prosecute corporations and think tanks that have “deceived the American people about the risks of climate change.” Similar assaults on free speech are endorsed in the Democratic Party’s 2016 platform, which calls for prosecution of companies that make “misleading” statements about “the scientific reality of climate change.”

The most vocal critics of climate dogma are a half-dozen think tanks that together spend less than $15 million annually on environmental issues. The half-dozen major green groups spend more than $500 million, and the federal government spends $10 billion on climate research and technology to reduce emissions. Add it up, and it’s clear that scientists face tremendous pressure to support the “consensus” on reducing carbon emissions, as Judith Curry, a climatologist at Georgia Tech, testified last year at a Senate hearing.

“This pressure comes not only from politicians but also from federal funding agencies, universities and professional societies, and scientists themselves who are green activists,” Curry said. “This advocacy extends to the professional societies that publish journals and organize conferences. Policy advocacy, combined with understating the uncertainties, risks destroying science’s reputation for honesty and objectivity—without which scientists become regarded as merely another lobbyist group.”

To preserve their integrity, scientists should avoid politics and embrace the skeptical rigor that their profession requires. They need to start welcoming conservatives and others who will spot their biases and violate their taboos. Making these changes won’t be easy, but the first step is simple: stop pretending that the threats to science are coming from the Right. Look in the other direction—or in the mirror.

Science in the Age of Trump

So, what can we expect for science in the Age of Trump?  There is much angst in the scientific community, as per these articles that I linked to in the most recent Week in Review.

Lets take a look at Trump’s response to the ScienceDebate questions on the topic of ‘Research‘.

The premise of this question is exactly correct—scientific advances do require long term investment. This is why we must have programs such as a viable space program and institutional research that serve as incubators to innovation and the advancement of science and engineering in a number of fields. We should also bring together stakeholders and examine what the priorities ought to be for the nation. Conservation of resources and finding ways to feed the world beg our strong commitment as do dedicated investment in making the world a healthier place. The nation is best served by a President and administration that have a vision for a greater, better America.

On ‘Scientific Integrity‘:

Science is science and facts are facts. My administration will ensure that there will be total transparency and accountability without political bias. The American people deserve this and I will make sure this is the culture of my administration.

Its difficult to argue against these statements.

JC reflections

I find Tierney’s article to be very insightful.  I read Chris Mooney’s book Republican War on Science just after Xmas 2005 (it was an Xmas gift).  It really resonated with me at this time, when I was in the midst of the ‘hurricanes and global warming war’. Although the book has ‘Republican’ in the title, much of the content was really about a bipartisan war on science.   I met Chris Mooney in January 2006 at the American Meteorological Society Meeting, where we had extensive discussions.  Mooney then wrote another excellent book Storm World, about the hurricane and global warming debate.  Mooney and I were pretty close for a few years, but parted ways over The Republican Brain; Mooney didn’t take well to my criticism.

The ‘war on science’ has definitely evolved under the Obama administration, as President Obama (who seems to genuinely pay attention to science) has scientized many political debates, notably global climate change.  Also in the past decade, the internet has become more prominent, giving voice to a much wider range of perspectives than can be found in academia with its federal funding and ever growing liberal bias.

What can we expect from the Trump administration?  Well the (sort of) good news is that science doesn’t seem to be a priority in his administration (so far, anyways).  This could imply two things:

• science can proceed unfettered, without politicization of science and scintillation of polices
• science funding will not be a priority, or funding priorities will change.

The golden age for U.S. science over the span of my career was under the administration of Bush 41, with abundant funding and an emphasis on studying the problems rather than on acting on  them.

Lets see how this plays out.  But I will have to conclude that Obama’s administration didn’t do U.S. science any favors.  A more laissez-faire approach to science in the Trump administration would be very welcome.

Filed under: Politics, Sociology of science

嗯，这是我去年读到的最佳文章，没有之一 //@海德沙龙: 本文是略著名博客Melting Asphalt的作者Kevin Simler去年写的一篇对Jordania理论的介绍，Jordania的理论已经够精彩了，而Simler能把它介绍的那么清楚透彻，实在难得。 RT @海德沙龙:【雄文巨献】音乐人类学家兼进化音乐学家（好奇怪的职业）Joseph Jordania在2011年发表了《为什么人们会唱歌？——人类进化历程中的音乐》一书，就音乐的起源以及它在人类进化史上所扮演的角色，提出了一套看似离奇，细想之后却相当合理的理论…… http://t.cn/RbuVFYG

The V.C.s of B.C.
公元前的风险投资

作者：Adam Davidson @ 2015-8-27
译者：淡蓝
校对：沈沉（@你在何地-sxy）
来源：The New York Times Magazine，http://www.nytimes.com/2015/08/30/magazine/the-vcs-of-bc.html

One morning, just before dawn, an old man named Assur-idi loaded up two black donkeys. Their burden was 147 pounds of tin, along with 30 textiles, known as kutanum, that were of such rare value that a single garment cost as much as a slave. Assur-idi had spent his life’s savings on the items, because he knew that if he could convey them over the Taurus Mountains to Kanesh, 600 miles away, he could sell them for twice what he paid.

清晨，天刚蒙蒙亮，老汉Assur-idi给两头黑驴装上了货。货物有147磅锡，另有30件叫作kutanum的纺织品，kutanum异常稀有，一件衣物就相当于一个奴隶的价钱。这些货花光了Assur-idi 一生的积蓄，因为他知道，只要越过托罗斯山脉运到600英里外的卡内什，这些东西能卖出双倍的价钱。

At the city gate, Assur-idi ran into a younger acquaintance, Sharrum-Adad, who said he was heading on the same journey. He offered to take the older man’s donkeys with him and ship the profits back. The two struck a hurried agreement and wrote it up, though they forgot to record some details. Later, Sharrum-­Adad claimed he never knew how many textiles he had been given. Assur-idi spent the subsequent weeks sending increasingly panicked letters to his sons in Kanesh, demanding they track down Sharrum-Adad and claim his profits.

在城门口，Assur-idi遇到了个年轻的熟人Sharrum-Adad，说正好他也要去同样的地方。Sharrum-Adad主动提出可以带着老人的驴子们同行并把赚的钱带回来。于是俩人匆匆拟定了协议并写了下来，但他们忘记了记录一些细节。后来，Sharrum-­Adad声称，他当时并不清楚到底有多少件纺织品。在随后的几周里，日益恐慌的Assur-idi不断给他远在卡内什的儿子们写信，要求他们追踪Sharrum-Adad并收回应当属于他的利润。

These letters survive as part of a stunning, nearly miraculous window into ancient economics. In general, we know few details about economic life before roughly 1000 A.D. But during one 30-year period — between 1890 and 1860 B.C. — for one community in the town of Kanesh, we know a great deal.

这些保存下来的信件，为我们打开了深入了解古代经济的一扇窗，它令人惊叹、近乎奇迹一般。总体而言，我们对大约公元1000年之前的经济生活知之甚少。但是对这个近30年的时间段——公元前1890 到1860 之间——在卡内什镇的社会经济情形，我们却知之甚多。

Through a series of incredibly unlikely events, archaeologists have uncovered the comprehensive written archive of a few hundred traders who left their hometown Assur, in what is now Iraq, to set up importing businesses in Kanesh, which sat roughly at the center of present-day Turkey and functioned as the hub of a massive global trading system that stretched from Central Asia to Europe.

在一系列令人难以置信的考古发现中，考古学家们找到了周详的文书档案，里面记录了数百个离开家乡亚述（在今日伊拉克）的商人，在异乡卡内什做起了进口生意。当时的卡内什大致位于今日土耳其的中心，是从中亚延伸到欧洲的巨大全球贸易体系的中枢。

Kanesh’s traders sent letters back and forth with their business partners, carefully written on clay tablets and stored at home in special vaults. Tens of thousands of these records remain. One economist recently told me that he would love to have as much candid information about businesses today as we have about the dealings — and in particular, about the trading practices — of this 4,000-year-old community.

这些卡内什商人与贸易伙伴之间的来往信件，被小心仔细地写在泥板上，并储存在家里的地窖中。数以千记的这种记录因此得以保存。一位经济学家最近跟我说，要是他对当今的真实商业信息、特别是有关贸易的信息的了解，能有我们对这个距今4000年的社会的交易的了解一样多，那就好了。

Trade is central to every key economic issue we face. Whether the subject is inequality, financial instability or the future of work, it all comes down to a discussion of trade: trade of manufactured goods with China, trade of bonds with Europe, trade over the Internet or enabled by mobile apps. For decades, economists have sought to understand how trade works. Can we shape trade to achieve different outcomes, like a resurgence of manufacturing or a lessening of inequality? Or does trade operate according to fairly fixed rules, making it resistant to conscious planning?

贸易是我们所面临的所有重要经济问题的中心点。无论是不平等、金融不稳定、或是工作前景等问题，一切都可以归结到对贸易的讨论上：与中国的制造品贸易，与欧洲的债券交易，以及通过互联网或移动应用的交易。几十年来，经济学家尝试弄清贸易是如何运转的。能否通过塑造贸易来实现不同的结果，比如复苏制造业，或是减少不平等？还是说，贸易运转遵循着固定的规则，根本就抵制有意的计划？

Economists, creating models of trade, have faced a challenge, because their data have derived exclusively from the modern world. Are their models universal or merely reflections of our time? It’s a crucial question, because many in our country would like to change our trading system to protect American jobs and to improve working conditions here and abroad. The archives of Kanesh have proved to be the greatest single source of information about trade from an entirely premodern milieu.

创建贸易模型的经济学家们因仅能从现代世界里获得数据而面临着挑战。他们的模型是普适的抑或仅是我们这个时代的反映？这个问题很关键，因为我国的很多人想改变我们的贸易体制，以保护美国的就业或是改善国内国外的工作环境。卡内什档案被证实是有关发生于彻底的前现代环境中的贸易的最大单一信息来源。

In a beautifully detailed new book — ‘‘Ancient Kanesh,’’ written by a scholar of the archive, Mogens Trolle Larsen, to be published by Cambridge University Press later this year — we meet dozens of the traders of Kanesh and their relatives back home in Assur. Larsen has been able to construct family trees, detailing how siblings and cousins, parents and spouses, traded with one another and often worked against one another. We meet struggling businessmen, like Assur-idi, and brilliant entrepreneurs, like Shalim-Assur, who built a wealthy dynasty that lasted generations.

在一本精美详细的新书《古代卡内什》中，我们将遇到数十个返回亚述的卡内什商人和他们的亲戚。此书由研究该档案的学者 Mogens Trolle Larsen著述，今年晚些时候将由剑桥大学出版社出版。 从Larsen描绘出的家族中，可以看到兄弟姊妹和他们的表亲之间，父母和夫妻之间相互交易的细节，以及时常针锋相对的细节。我们遇到了奋争的商人，比如Assur-idi，和杰出的企业家，比如建立了延续数代的富裕世家的Shalim-Assur。

In 2003, while covering the war in Iraq, I traveled to many ancient archaeological sites; the huge burial mounds, the carvings celebrating kings as relatives to the gods, all gave the impression of a despotic land in which a tiny handful of aristocrats and priests enjoyed dictatorial control. But the Kanesh documents show that at least some citizens had enormous power over their own livelihoods, achieving wealth and power through their own entrepreneurial endeavors.

2003年，在报道伊拉克战争时，我走访了很多古代考古遗址；其中有巨大的坟岗，为礼赞作为神灵亲属的国王而做的雕刻，所有这些给人一种很深的印象：在这片专制的土地上，只有极少数贵族和祭司享受着独裁统治。但是卡内什的文件显示，至少有一些市民对他们自己的生计拥有巨大的支配力，并通过他们自己创业的努力获得了财富和实力。

The details of daily life are amazing, but another scholar, Gojko Barjamovic, of Harvard, realized that the archive also offered insight into something potentially more compelling. Many of the texts enumerate specific business details: the price of goods purchased and sold, the interest rate on debt, the costs of transporting goods and the various taxes in the many city-states that the donkey caravans passed on the long journey from Assur to Kanesh. Like most people who have studied Kanesh, Barjamovic is an Assyriologist, an expert in ancient languages and culture. Earlier this year, he joined some economists, as well as some other Assyriologists and archaeologists, on a team that analyzed Kanesh’s financial statistics.

日常生活的细节是令人惊叹的，不过另一位来自哈佛的学者，Gojko Barjamovic，意识到这些档案还提供了一些有可能更引人注目的东西。其中许多文本列举了具体的贸易细节：某一货物买进和卖出的价格，借债的利息，货物运输费用，以及驴队在亚述与卡内什之间长途跋涉中所经过的众多城邦的不同税费。像许多研究卡内什的人一样，Barjamovic是一个亚述学家，是古代语言和文化专家。今年早些时候，他加入了一支由经济学家、其他亚述学家和考古学家的组成的团队，对卡内什的金融统计数据进行分析。

The picture that emerged of economic life is staggeringly advanced. The traders of Kanesh used financial tools that were remarkably similar to checks, bonds and joint-stock companies. They had something like venture-capital firms that created diversified portfolios of risky trades. And they even had structured financial products: People would buy outstanding debt, sell it to others and use it as collateral to finance new businesses. The 30 years for which we have records appear to have been a time of remarkable financial innovation.

团队分析描绘出的经济生活画面先进得令人惊奇。卡内什的商人们使用的金融工具，与当今的支票、债券和股份公司十分相似。他们有些东西就像风险投资公司，创建了针对有风险贸易的多元化投资组合。他们甚至有结构性理财产品：人们会购买未偿债务，将其卖给他人或用于抵押以便为新业务融资。我们手里有记录的这30年表现为一个有着卓越的金融创新的时期。

It’s impossible not to see parallels with our own recent past. Over the 30 years covered by the archive, we see an economy built on trade in actual goods — silver, tin, textiles — transform into an economy built on financial speculation, fueling a bubble that then pops. After the financial collapse, there is a period of incessant lawsuits, as a central government in Assur desperately tries to come up with new regulations and ways of holding wrongdoers accountable (though there never seems to be agreement on who the wrongdoers are, exactly). The entire trading system enters a deep recession lasting more than a decade. The traders eventually adopt simpler, more stringent rules, and trade grows again.

与我们自己最近的过去相比，我们不可能看不到其中的相似之处。在档案记录的30年里，我们看到一个建立在实体货物上的经济——银、锡、纺织品——转变为一个建立在金融投机上的经济，这样的转变助长了泡沫，随后又突然破灭。金融崩溃后，一度曾充满了诉讼。亚述的中央政府不顾一切地试图拿出新的法规和办法，来迫使那些肇事者承担责任（虽然关于谁是真正的肇事者似乎从未有过一致意见）。整个贸易体系陷入了一个10年以上的严重衰退。商人们最终采取了更简单、更严格的规则，由此贸易再次增长。

In 1962 A.D., as our modern era of globalization was just beginning, the economist Jan Tinbergen — who would later share the first Nobel in economic science — noted something curious: Trade within and between countries followed a mathematical formula. He called it the Gravity Model, sort of an E=mc2 for global business. It comes with an imposing formula: Fij = G(Mi x Mj)/Dij. Which, simplified, means that trade between two markets will equal the size of the two markets multiplied together and then divided by their distance. (The model gets its name from its mathematical similarity to the equation in physics that describes gravitational pull.)

公元1962年，正当我们这个现代的全球化时代开始之际，经济学家Jan Tinbergen——后来的第一届诺贝尔经济学科学奖获得者之一——注意到一些令人好奇的事：国内贸易和国际贸易遵循一个数学公式。他称之为引力模型，有点像全球贸易的E=mc2。这是个气势宏伟的公式：Fij = G(Mi x Mj)/Dij。简单的说，就是两个市场之间的贸易等于两个市场规模相乘然后除以两个市场之间的距离。（该模型因与物理学中描述引力的公式数学上相似而得名）

Since Tinbergen first published his finding, others have tested it on thousands of trade routes around the modern world, as well as on trade records going back a couple of centuries. In extreme cases (for example, trade between warring countries or during periods of sanction), the formula can fail to predict the volume of trade, but over all the model works extremely well. It’s a striking finding, suggesting that, for all the debate about trade agreements and currency rates, import duties and World Trade Organization disputes, trade tends to follow its own rules.

自Tinbergen 首次公布他的发现以来，很多人已在数以千计的环绕现代世界的贸易路径、以及几个世纪以来的贸易记录上对之进行了验证测试。在极端情况下（例如交战国之间或是制裁期间的贸易），这个公式在预测贸易量时可能失败。但总的来说，该模型运作十分出色。这是个令人震惊的发现，这表明，不管人们在有关贸易协定和货币汇率、进口关税和世贸组织争端等方面如何争论不休，贸易仍趋于遵循其自身的法则。

Economists were drawn to the Kanesh archive because it offered an unprecedented chance to see how well the Gravity Model applied in an economy entirely unlike our own. This was trade conducted via donkey, through a land of independent city-states whose legal and cultural systems were totally dissimilar to any we know. But still, the model held up: Ali Hortacsu, a University of Chicago economist on the Kanesh team, says that the trade figures between Assur and Kanesh matched the formula almost perfectly. ‘‘It was a very nice surprise,’’ he told me.

卡内什档案之所以吸引经济学家们，是因为它提供了一个前所未有的机会，来验证当引力模型应用到一种完全不同于现有情形的经济体时的契合程度。这种贸易借助驴进行，经过一片由独立城邦组成的地区，这些城邦的法律和文化体系与我们所知的一切均完全不同。只是，这样的贸易情况下该模型仍然屹立：Ali Hortacsu，卡内什团队的芝加哥大学经济学家，说亚述和卡内什之间的贸易数据，与上述公式匹配得近乎完美。“是个十分不错的惊喜。”他跟我说。

The Gravity Model may seem like bad news for people who want the economy to be fairer. I have spoken to countless activists and concerned friends who see global trade as a choice, something a specific set of politicians and businesses decided to impose on the rest of us, through all those confusing acronymic trade deals: GATT, Nafta and (probably, soon) the T.P.P. To me, though, the model suggests that these deals have less impact than either their boosters or their detractors imagine.

对那些想要更多经济公平的人们来说，引力模型可不像是啥好消息。我曾跟无数将全球贸易视为一种选择的活动家和关心公共事务的朋友们交谈过，他们认为全球贸易只是特定政治家或者企业决定通过一堆令人迷糊的首字母缩写贸易协定：GATT、Nafta 和（可能很快就签订的）T.P.P.而强加给其余人的。然而对我来说，这个模型表明：此类协定对于贸易的影响，比支持者或是批评者想象的都要少。

There is a natural tendency for different regions to trade at fairly predictable volumes. However much politicians might want to change those outcomes, they have only crude tools at their disposal: They can stop trade through blockades, slow it through tariffs or try to jump-start it with trade agreements. What they can’t do, at least not reliably, is shape it with precision to achieve their preferred outcomes.

不同地区之间以基本可以预测的总量发生贸易，这是一种自然趋势。无论政治家多么想要改变其结果，他们都只有一些很原始的工具可用：通过封锁停止贸易，通过海关放缓贸易，或是通过贸易协议助推贸易。他们无法做到的，或者至少无法确切做到的，是有目的的精确塑造贸易以达到他们期望的结果。

But despite trade’s intractability, we still have a lot of room to address the impact of trade on our economy. Trade with China and other nations may be all but inevitable, but growing wealth inequality and disproportionate pain (blue-collar workers losing their jobs, investors reaping a fortune) are not. There is much we can do within our borders to address the unequal impact of global trade. We can educate children for more competitive careers, train displaced workers for new industries or even directly compensate those who fail to benefit from global trade.

尽管贸易难以驾驭，我们仍然有巨大的空间来处理贸易对我们经济的影响。与中国或者其他国家的贸易可能不可避免，但可避免的是日益增加的财富不均和不成比例的痛苦（蓝领工人失业，投资者获得利益）。在国界以内解决全球贸易导致的不平等，我们可做的事太多了。我们可以教育自己的孩子，以利于其从事更具有竞争力的职业，培训下岗工人进入新产业，甚至可以直接赔偿那些在全球贸易中丧失利益的人们。

That, in fact, is what the people of Assur did, 4,000 years ago, as Barjamovic pointed out to me. Trade brought enormous wealth to a dozen or so families. But rather than hold all of it for themselves, the wealthy were made to redistribute a high percentage of their earnings through taxes and religious foundations that used the money for the public good. This way, the wealth created by trading with Kanesh made nearly everybody — at least every free citizen — better off.

就像Barjamovic向我指出的那样，这些其实就是亚述人在4000年前所做的。贸易给数十个家庭带来了巨大的财富。但富人们并未将所有的财富据为己有，通过交税和交纳用于公益的宗教基金，他们将自己所获财富中的很大比例进行了再分配。以这种方式，通过与卡内什进行贸易而创造的财富，几乎使每一个人——至少是每一个自由城民——都过得更好了。

（编辑：辉格@whigzhou）

*注：本译文未经原作者授权，本站对原文不持有也不主张任何权利，如果你恰好对原文拥有权益并希望我们移除相关内容，请私信联系，我们会立即作出响应。

——海德沙龙·翻译组，致力于将英文世界的好文章搬进中文世界——

The Myth of Free-Trade Britain
自由贸易英国的神话

作者：John V.C. Nye @ 2003-3-03
译者：尼克基得慢（@尼克基得慢）
校对：沈沉（@你在何地-sxy），慕白（@李凤阳他说）
来源：Library of Economics and Liberty，http://www.econlib.org/library/Columns/y2003/Nyefreetrade.html

In the two and a half centuries since Adam Smith first articulated the basic case for free trade, no event has been more significant than the British conversion to open markets in the nineteenth century. In the fable that is now conventional wisdom, nineteenth century Britain turned its back on protection and chose to open its markets to the world.

在亚当·斯密首次清晰阐述了自由贸易基本原理后的两个半世纪里，没有比十九世纪英国转为开放市场更为重要的事件了。在如今已成传统智慧的寓言里，十九世纪的英国放弃了市场保护政策，转而选择向世界开放其市场。

A reform-minded British leadership, preaching the new gospel of free trade pushed their European confreres to open up their own markets, eventually ushering in an age of expansive commerce the likes of which the world had never seen—a precursor of late twentieth century globalization that was in many ways more open than anything before or since.

富有改革思想的英国领导人鼓吹自由贸易的新福音，推动了欧洲同仁们开放市场，最终开启了全世界前所未见的商业扩张时代——这是二十世纪晚期全球化的发端，许多方面比此前此后任何时期都要更加开放。

Yet this story has one big flaw: it’s inconsistent with the facts.

然而这个故事有个巨大的缺陷：与事实不符。

As the story is usually told, British free trade came in the 1840s after a bitter political struggle to repeal the Corn Laws—a name given to a series of agricultural tariffs and quotas designed to keep farm prices high. This was quickly followed by rapid and dramatic reductions in duties on hundreds of imports. By the 1850s, all but a handful of commodities were admitted to Britain free of all duties.

这故事常说，在寻求废除《谷物法》——一系列旨在维持农产品高价的农业关税和配额政策的总称——的艰苦政治斗争后，英国的自由贸易在1840年代来临了。紧接着便是几百种进口物关税的迅速急剧减少。到1850年代，除少数例外，几乎所有商品都获准完全免税进入英国。

Sounds good, until you look closely at what products remained subject to high duties: those handful of items were the most contentious and some of the most highly taxed items that historically had been at the core of the mercantile debate in British history. In previous centuries they formed a large and significant fraction of British trade.

这听起来很好，但待你看清关税仍然高启的产品到底是什么之后，就不会这么想了：那少数商品是英国历史上最具争议的，而且属于赋税负担最高的商品之列，它们一直都处于商业争论的核心。在那之前的几个世纪里，这些商品构成了英国贸易的重要部分。

Free trade should mean just that: free trade, with all goods admitted without duties, quotas, or restrictions. That was not British policy. They removed most tariffs but mostly on items in which they had a comparative advantage. In other words, they mostly removed tariffs on items for which Britain had little to fear in terms of competition or which were of trivial importance in overall trade.

自由贸易的内涵应该是：所有商品无关税、无限额、无限制的自由贸易。这可不是英国的政策。他们取消了大部分关税，但大部分都在他们有比较优势的产品上。换句话说，英国人主要取消了他们不惧任何竞争的产品的关税，或者在整体贸易中无足轻重的产品的关税。

Britain in the early 1800s had just passed through the Industrial Revolution and was the world’s leading producer of cotton textiles and other industrial products. It took little courage to lower tariffs on British manufactures. It would be like Japan promoting free trade in the 1980s by arguing for lower tariffs on compact cars imported from America. Since Japan already made some of the world’s best and most economical small cars, such a policy would have had very limited economic impact. Japan’s lowering trade barriers in agriculture would have been substantially more important and would have run up against enormous political resistance.

十九世纪早期的英国刚经历工业革命，是棉纺织品和其他工业产品的世界领先生产者。降低英国制造品的关税并不需要多大勇气。这就像1980年代的日本，通过主张降低从美国进口的紧凑型汽车的关税来促进自由贸易。因为日本已经制造出世界上最好、最经济的小型汽车，这样的政策对经济的冲击非常有限。如果日本降低农业方面的贸易壁垒，其重要性会大大加强，也会遇到极大的政治阻力。

Nineteenth-century Britain had no comparative advantage in agricultural and foodstuffs. That is why the Corn Laws were initially so controversial. Consumers had a lot to gain from the state’s permitting the import of grain, because the British were not the cheapest producers of grain, while British farmers had much to lose. Unfortunately, the British did little to modify the tariffs on other contentious items, goods which had made for the commercial equivalent of war. Of these goods, the most important and the most troublesome was wine.

十九世纪的英国在农业和食品上没有比较优势。这就是为何《谷物法》从一开始就备受争议。英国的消费者能从国家允许进口粮食中受益良多，因为英国人生产的粮食并不是最便宜的，而同时，英国农民则损失惨重。遗憾的是，英国人对其他有争议商品的关税少有改动，这些商品曾导致商战。在这些商品中，最重要且最棘手的就是葡萄酒。

But how important is wine? To answer that we need to go back to the 1600s. Britain in the mid-seventeenth century was a prodigious importer of wine, mostly French.

但是葡萄酒有多重要呢？回答这个问题我们要追溯到十七世纪。十七世纪中期的英国是葡萄酒的重要进口国，主要是法国葡萄酒。

So much so, in fact, that her trade balance was in the red, mostly because of trade with France and mostly because of French wine, spirits and a number of luxury goods. Attempts to limit these imports by restricting trade had mostly failed. Tariffs were levied but never so high as to reduce the imports drastically. But then came the wars.

如此这般，事实上，英国的贸易收支是呈赤字的，主要是源于跟法国的贸易，也就是法国葡萄酒、烈酒和诸多奢侈品导致的。通过限制贸易来减少这些商品进口的企图都失败了。关税一直在征收，但是从未高到能明显减少进口的程度。但是接着战争开始了。

Two major conflicts spanning a quarter century kept French wine—indeed, all French imports—out of the British market from 1689 to 1713. The Nine Years’ War and the War of Spanish Succession led to hostilities between Britain and France and a complete breakdown in trade for this quarter century.

绵延1/4世纪的两场大型冲突让法国葡萄酒——实际上，所有的法国进口产品——在1689年到1713年间退出了英国市场。九年战争和西班牙王位继承战争导致了英法之间的敌对和长达1/4世纪的彻底贸易中断。

During this grape-challenged period, three interest groups derived enormous benefit from the embargo on France—the British brewing industry, British distillers (gin, etc.) and British interests in foreign producers of alcohol—most notably the shippers of Portuguese wine. Prior to the late 1600s, the British drank plenty of wine, mostly French, a little Spanish, but virtually nothing from Portugal. The wars of 1689-1713 gave the Portuguese allies the opportunity of ten lifetimes.

在这葡萄酒缺乏的时期，三个利益集团从对法禁运中获得巨额利益——英国发酵酒工业、英国蒸馏酒商（杜松子酒等）、外国酒商中的英国利益集团——最明显的就是葡萄牙葡萄酒的运货商。在十七世纪晚期之前，英国人饮葡萄酒颇多，大部分是法国进口的，加上一点西班牙进口的，但是几乎没有葡萄牙进口的。1689-1713年的战争让葡萄牙盟友获得了千载难逢的良机。

Beginning in 1703 a treaty was signed granting Portugal access to British markets for their wines—generally of a much lower quality than those of France, and often needing to be fortified with brandy or spirits in order to keep from going bad. The Methuen Treaty (as it was known) promised that Portuguese tariffs would always be at least a third lower than those of other nations, most especially France.

从1703年开始，一个允许葡萄牙人的葡萄酒进入英国市场的条约就签订了——这些葡萄酒质量普遍不及法国葡萄酒，并且经常需要添加白兰地或者烈酒来防止其变质。这个被称为《梅图恩条约》的协定，承诺葡萄牙人的关税会一直比其他国家低至少1/3，尤其是法国。

Of course, most of the Portuguese wine trade was dominated by British ships, merchants, and even vintners working in Iberia. The end of hostilities between Britain and France was seen as a grave threat to all these British interests, and vigorous lobbying by brewers, distillers, and the Anglo-Portuguese merchants stopped attempts to return to the period of open trade with the French. A bill to revive trade on prewar conditions between Britain and France was defeated in Parliament.

当然，大多数葡萄牙葡萄酒贸易都被英国船只、英国商人乃至在伊比利亚半岛的英国酿酒商所控制。英法之间敌对状态的结束被视为是对所有这些英国利益集团的巨大威胁，啤酒商、蒸馏酒商和英葡商人的大力游说阻止了重回英法开放贸易时代的企图。一项旨在恢复英法战前贸易状态的提案在议会被否决。

Even worse, tariffs were raised even higher throughout the eighteenth century. The result was that French exports of wine to Britain in the 1700s fell to less than 5% of the levels (measured by volume) that had prevailed in the 1600s. A twenty-fold decrease! The high taxes kept out all but the finest French products.

更糟的是，整个十八世纪的关税甚至更高了。结果就是十八世纪法国出口到英国的葡萄酒降到不足之前十七世纪水平的5%（以体积计）。减少了二十倍！高关税驱逐了所有法国产品，除了最好的那些。

Indeed, the French were kept out of the British market for most of the period of the Industrial Revolution, when the middle classes emerged and middle class tastes developed. Only the rich had access to the very finest clarets of Bordeaux. Cheap wine was simply not worth importing. And the British brewers, distillers, and merchant shippers never had it better. One historian has remarked that absent war and protection, the Gin Age1 might never have come into existence.

事实上，在工业革命的大多数时期，当中产阶级出现并且中产品味得到发展时，法国产品都是被挡在英国市场之外的。只有富人才能找到最好的波尔多红葡萄酒。便宜的葡萄酒根本不值得进口。英国啤酒商、蒸馏酒商和运货商从未提高这些劣质葡萄酒的品质。一位历史学家曾说，若没有战争和保护政策，杜松子酒时代（脚注1）可能根本就不会出现。

These assorted tariffs on wine and other consumables—which Adam Smith had condemned for their inefficiency in the eighteenth century—remained at the core of British protection in the nineteenth, when trade was supposedly made free. Though claiming to have moved to open markets, the British hung on to tariffs that were of long standing, and that moreover, prevented much progress from being made in bilateral treaty negotiations. France was not about to sign a bilateral commercial treaty if Britain was unwilling to compromise on wine and spirits.

十九世纪，在这个人们认为贸易已变得自由的时期，这一系列对葡萄酒和其他消费品的关税——亚当·斯密在十八世纪就谴责过其低效——仍然是英国保护政策的核心。虽然声称已转变为开放市场，英国人还是坚持长期存在的关税，而且此举还阻止了双边条约谈判的进展。如果英国在葡萄酒和烈酒上不愿意妥协，法国就不会签署双边商务协定。

Figure 1. Average Tariffs in the U.K. and France, 1820–1913
图1.英国和法国的平均关税，1820-1913

[From: A. Imlah, 1958 Economic Elements of the PaxBritannica, New York; and M. Levy-Leboyerand F. Bourguignon, 1985L’Economie Francaise au XIXesiecle,Paris.]
[来源：A. Imlah，1958，“不列颠治世”中的经济元素，纽约；M. Levy-Leboyer和F. Bourguignon，1985，十九世纪的法国经济，巴黎]

Britain preached the gospel of free trade and France was cast in the role of the sinner, but there was little truth in this stereotype. France did have more protected products than England did but the average level of French tariffs (measured as total value of duties divided by total value of imports, cf. Figure 1) was actuallylower than in Britain for three-quarters of the nineteenth century.2 In other words, tariffs had a smaller impact on French trade than British duties had on Britain’s trade.

英国是自由贸易新福音的布道者，而法国则被铸为罪人的角色，但是这种刻板偏见里并没有多少事实。法国确实比英格兰有更多的受保护产品，但是法国关税的平均水平（以关税总值除以进口总值衡量，如图1）在十九世纪3/4的时间里实际上比英国要低（脚注2）。换句话说，关税对法国贸易的影响要比英国关税对于英国贸易的影响小。【编注：这一比较方法存在严重问题：它体现不出那些因税率过高乃至无利可图的贸易，或者被非关税壁垒禁止了的贸易，因而无法准确反映贸易自由度，比如在极端情况下，某国以零关税开放一项小规模贸易，同时禁止其他所有贸易，此时该指标为零，但贸易显然极度不自由，所以它必须结合其他指标才有意义。不过，它确实揭示了当时英国的关税率是非常高的。】

The French, while eschewing free trade, and openly rejecting the Anglo doctrine of open markets, actually succeeded in making their trade more liberal and more open than that of the more vocal British. The master of this was Napoleon III—Bonaparte’s nephew—who throughout the 1850s promoted the most radical liberalizing reforms of the French economy, all the while insisting that France was only interested in moderate reform.

法国人虽然避开自由贸易并且公开拒绝英国人的开放市场学说，但是它实际上却成功使其贸易比鼓噪发声的英国人更加自由和开放。这过程的主导是拿破仑三世——波拿巴的侄子——他在整个1850年代都在推动对法国经济最激进的自由化改革，却一直坚称法国只对温和改革有兴趣。

Indeed, it was not British unilateral tariff reduction that moved the world to freer trade. Despite the belief that is still common today that British exhortation opened the doors to European free trade in the late 19th century, it was the 1860 Treaty of Commerce, promoted by the Napoleon III and concluded between Britain and France, that really ushered in the age of nineteenth century “globalization”. British demands for unilateral tariff reduction usually fell on deaf ears.

事实上，并不是英国的单方面关税削减使得世界贸易更加自由。尽管认为十九世纪末英国的呼吁打开了欧洲自由贸易之门的观点现在仍很普遍，但其实是1860年《商贸条约》才真正开启了十九世纪的“全球化”时代，该条约由拿破仑三世推动，在英法之间缔结。英国提出的单方面降低关税要求通常无人理睬。

Doctrinaire free traders and economic theorists opposed the use of commercial treaties since they felt that unilateral reductions were the most efficient policies for all countries. While correct in the abstract, such claims did little to overcome political resistance to trade liberalization in most countries. On the other hand, unwillingness on the part of the British to lower wine tariffs killed early trade negotiations with both France and Spain.

教条主义的自由贸易者和经济理论家反对使用商业条约，因为他们认为单方面降低关税对所有国家来说都是最有效的政策。尽管理论上是正确的，但这种主张在大多数国家却很少能克服政治阻力，实现贸易自由。另一方面，部分英国人不情愿降低葡萄酒关税的态度已经早早地扼杀了该国与法国及西班牙的贸易协商。

When the British finally decided to moderate their wine tariffs, Britain and France successfully concluded a treaty in 1860 which dramatically changed the landscape of European commerce. Politicians throughout Europe—who had till then resisted all pressure to liberalize trade—suddenly became fearful of being left out of a trade pact that united the two great European powers. The result was that the other major European powers quickly signed bilateral treaties with Britain and France as well.

当英国最终决定将葡萄酒关税调整到适度水平时，英法才在1860年成功缔结了条约，这极大地改变了欧洲商业的形势。全欧洲的政治人物——不久前还抗拒贸易自由化的压力——突然开始担心被遗落在连接欧洲两大势力的贸易协定之外。结果就是，其他欧洲大国也迅速地与英法签署了双边条约。

Since these treaties were all Most Favored Nation treaties—whereby concessions to one party meant extending such concessions to all the others—not just France and Britain, but by 1870 nearly all of Europe including the German states, Spain, Russia, the Netherlands, Denmark, Sweden, and so on were integrated into a highly open trading market.

由于这些条约都是最惠国待遇条约——给予一方特权就意味着要给所有相关方特权——所以不仅法国和英国，到1870年几乎全欧洲，包括日耳曼各邦、西班牙、俄罗斯、荷兰、丹麦和瑞典等，都被整合进了一个高度开放的贸易市场里。

In many ways, Europe was freer than today, partly because the gold standard made capital extremely mobile, and because limitations in border control made immigration and the free movement of labor easy in practice despite differing rules across the continent.

在很多方面，那时欧洲都比现在更加自由，部分原因是金本位让资本极具流动性，还有边境控制有限使得移民和劳工的自由活动实际上比较容易，尽管欧洲大陆有各种不同的规定。

What politicians do and say are often quite different. That hasn’t changed. Indeed, though there is much talk about globalization and unfettered trade, there is no country in existence today whose policies come anywhere near the ideal of free trade.

政治人物的言行往往不相一致。这一点从未改变。确实，虽然现在有很多关于全球化和自由贸易的讨论，今天还没有哪个国家的政策在任何方面能接近自由贸易的理想状态。

Goods and services do flow vigorously throughout the globe, but most countries suffer from a mix of import duties and non-tariff barriers such as quotas, unnecessary inspection rules and a bewildering variety of regulations that make it impossible for any of us to benefit fully from the specialization possible in a truly open world economy.

虽然产品和服务在全球频繁流通，但是大多数国家都承受一系列的进口关税和非关税壁垒，比如配额、不必要的检查规则和诸多令人困惑的条例，这些让我们所有人都不可能从真正开放的世界经济可能带来的专业化中充分受益。

But more importantly, the example of Britain and France in the 1800s challenges us to rethink and reanalyze the relationship between trade policy and growth. The story of Britain and France shows how easy it is to be misled by the fables of conventional wisdom. The fact that Britain was not as free trade as it claimed doesn’t make the case for protectionism. The British did lower their tariffs, and in the last third of the nineteenth century, Britain did fully liberalize trade and benefited from the change.

但更重要是，十九世纪英国和法国的例子能让我们重新思考和重新分析贸易政策和增长之间的关系。英法的故事说明了我们是多么容易被传统智慧的寓言所误导。英国并不像它所声称的那样贸易自由，但这一事实并不证明贸易保护主义有足够的理由。英国人确实降低了本国的关税，而且在十九世纪最后1/3的时间里完全实现了贸易自由化，并从中受益。

But the interesting and unexamined story is France. Nineteenth-century France doesn’t fit our preconceptions. France was in fact, closer to the free trade ideal than the British for much of the century, and did in fact do well, raising the standard of living of the average worker from the 1850s onward.

但有关法国的有趣故事却经不起检验。十九世纪的法国并不符合我们的偏见。事实上，法国在十九世纪大部分时间都比英国更接近自由贸易的理想境界，而且确实做的不错，从1850年代起提高了普通工人的生活水平。

Footnotes
脚注

1.The Gin Age is often used to describe the early to middle years of the eighteenth century, when the consumption of hard liquor grew substantially, and the consumption of gin, especially among the poor, was seen to be a national problem.
1.“杜松子酒时代”经常被用来描述十八世纪早期到中期的时间，这段时期烈酒的消费量大增，而杜松子酒的消费，尤其是在穷人之中，被认为是全国性的问题。

2.Readers interested in a more technical discussion of the problem of tariff levels in the nineteenth century may consult Nye, 1991, “The Myth of Free Trade Britain and Fortress France,” Journal of Economic History and S. Dakhlia and J.V.C. Nye, “Tax Britannica: Nineteenth Century Tariffs and British National Income,” working paper available at http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=282114.
2.对十九世纪关税水平问题的更多技术细节感兴趣的读者可以查阅Nye于1991年在《经济史杂志》上发表的论文“自由贸易英国和堡垒法国的神话”和S. Dakhlia与 J.V.C. Nye的论文“‘不列颠治税’：十九世纪关税和英国国家收入”，获取论文的网址为http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=282114。

* John Nye is Associate Professor of Economics and History at Washington University in St. Louis. This piece is adapted from a book in progress to be released under the title, War, Wine, and Taxes.
John Nye是华盛顿大学圣路易斯分校的经济学和历史学副教授。这篇文章摘编自《战争，葡萄酒和税收》，该书即将要出版。

（编辑：辉格@whigzhou）

*注：本译文未经原作者授权，本站对原文不持有也不主张任何权利，如果你恰好对原文拥有权益并希望我们移除相关内容，请私信联系，我们会立即作出响应。

——海德沙龙·翻译组，致力于将英文世界的好文章搬进中文世界——

私以为，最好吃的肉还是羊肉，但羊肉太容易做了，随便一做就是美味，而牛肉要好吃，饲养屠宰熟成调制器具手艺一大套一样不能差，所以专业厨师都偏爱牛肉，显手艺～//@熊也餐厅: 牛排好不好吃也都是神决定的我等只要祈祷就行。//@爱任纽: 烤制很关键//@马上的仟毛:牛排攻略来了。#脱支的口腹通道# RT @爱以及美食:跟仟毛桑学做牛排 http://t.cn/RUkPsvQ 公粽号：爱以及美食

周其仁
北京大学国家发展研究院教授
经济观察报 2015年11月9日

杜老要是还在，当不会赞成我们为他而哭。十二年前他生日，当着战友、同事、部下和学生，老寿星开口第一句，抑扬顿挫讲出了他的人生感慨：“我不知道自己为什么能活九十岁！”言下之意，他的长寿超出预期。又过一个生肖轮回，2015年10月9日杜老辞世时，是102岁的老人。即便当下举国议论老龄化，百岁也算为数稀少之高寿，毕生乐观通达的老人家，应该不喜欢后生悲悲切切。

那就不哭了吧。可是，止不住还是要为杜老难过。不是痛悼之情，在杜老辞世消息冲击下，刹那间的泪流满面；就是难过，一种隐隐的、挥之不去的心头之痛。眼见一个精彩绝伦的生命永远逝去、想到此生再也见不到这等人杰的时候，要不要难过？当造物主再也无从带给世界同一件稀世珍宝的时候，要不要难过？要难过——就是那种难过。

杜老喜听也善听

现在说说也无妨，晚辈早就为杜老感到难过了。远的不提，大约2005年前后，大家探望杜老，发觉他听力越来越不济。开始时，要靠近他、大声说，这让人不习惯，因为老人家自己通常总是慢声细语的。后来大声说也不成了，而那神乎其技的助听器，就是世界上最好的也还不够好。接下来改成笔谈：倘若来探望他的人想告诉他什么，就写在字条上，结果字越写越大，字数越来越少。杜老自己也动笔，颤颤巍巍的，写下字来煞是好看。可笔谈哪里比得上口谈？老人家还是不停思考，无奈人脑本是一座加工厂，“进口”信息量日减，再杰出的大脑，生产力也无可挽回被平减不少。

在场听杜老90岁和95岁两次生日致辞的人，一定感受到了那两次讲话有不小差别。前一篇，思想精湛，理路清晰，情感饱满，加之大家熟知的杜氏语言的生动与幽默，与老人家平生多少次精彩讲话一样，足令听者久久回味无穷。后一篇呢，寥寥数语富含深意，却未能舒展，仿佛是用契刀刻划于龟甲之上的古文字。何以如此？我猜，是他听力下降使然。其实，就是101岁的时候，医院检查还说杜老周身健康，心脑器官状态良好。晚年杜老身体上唯独欠亏的，就是他的听力。听力下降在先，视力减弱在后，输入大脑的信息流减量，生理规律就要发生作用了。

老天爷不公，为什么偏对杜老最令世人弥足珍贵的能力下手？人们拜服杜润生多方面的杰出才能——举凡思想、综合、协调、判断、说服、文字以及他的讲话能力，杜老的本事公认一流。不过，在下以为，他最为擅长的、也构成杜老风范最鲜明特点的，还数他善于倾听的偏好与能力。

是的，杜老喜好倾听。听情况、听判断、听建议、听议论，他总是那么兴致盎然。1980年代九号院里大大小小开过多少会？大多数时间杜老就是坐在那里听。实话实说，农口总比较“土”，讲起话来什么模式都有。那年头还没有发言限时这一说，更没人知道把讲话要点投影到墙上。有时我等毛头小子以编外人员列席，碰巧遇上车轱辘话来回说的场合，不免嘀咕怎么此地开会与生产队里差不多。可杜老总是安安稳稳地听，不时问上几句、点评一二，让汇报人越讲越来劲。遇到自我感觉实在太好的，杜老一边批文件、写回信、翻材料，一边还听人家讲。

到地方调查，途中他照例听地方陪同人员介绍情况；到现场，不论开座谈会还是访问农家，他总有办法几句话引得东道主讲个滔滔不绝。去更高级机关开会，即便由他汇报，杜老也有办法让大领导插话、提问、议论，他自己仔细听。这么说好了，倘若问工作中的杜老最常见的状态是什么？我从自己所见有限的印象里检索出来的答案，竟然只一个“听”字了得。

杜老善听，尤其善听不同意见。对他来说，“在任何问题上总有不同意见”，再也正常不过。这也是他迷人的精彩所在。杜老帐下农口团队，总是老中青、左中右，一个也不少。

开始我们这些“小年轻”挺纳闷：改革要大刀阔斧推进，为什么老要听那些“保守”意见？记得准备1号文件的班子里，有位农业部老副部长几乎每场不落，不断对拟议中的改革提保留意见。杜老总听他讲，还几次三番打趣“老九不能走”（那位老部长叫李友九）。同时，在改革问题上向来旗帜鲜明的杜瑞芝——人称“小杜主任”是也——也常常出现在杜老文件班子里，一样也不让走。至于我们这批后辈，过了很多年才明白，当年自以为正确得不得了的意见，听在别人耳里有多么的不可被接受。要不是看了杜老的面，人家做农村工作几十年的老前辈，才不屑于坐下来和你理论呐。

对杜老来说，意见有片面性，不是什么了不得的事。毕竟，有哪种认识完全没有片面性呢？杜老的功夫，在于把不同意见里的合理成分一一“萃取”出来，“合成”能为方方面面接受、至少也无从激烈反对的改革共识。他似乎熟知各类言者的心理：对以为真理在手、咄咄逼人的论者，他会沿着你的逻辑推几步，让你觉察到自己的真理里或许也藏有谬误；对好胜的辩者，杜老有意激将一番，让你把没想清楚的想清楚，明明白白说出来；对深思熟虑却讷于言表者，杜老鼓励再鼓励，直到把真知灼见掏出来才算完。杜老自己的经验相当丰富，遇上囿于一时一地经验的，或推理天马行空的“理论家”，他会敏捷地拿出反例构造问题，好教人注意归纳与推理皆有合理限度。

回想自己第一次见杜老，还是上山下乡后恢复高考读上大学不久，经人大经济系资料室白如冰引荐，到杜老那里谈天。看到老人家鼓励年轻人放开讲看法，就凭下乡所知“大锅饭”的体制毛病，来了一番迎头通批。杜老就是听，不时还在小本上写写划划。看我们讲得激动，他停下来嘿嘿一笑：“所以毛主席他老人家教育农民不要斤斤计较。”那明知后辈幼稚，但还是鼓励你放言直说的神态，到今天还清清楚楚印在我的记忆里。从此懂得一点，相比于能说的本领，善听要高明很多。是的，民间智慧说得准——“能说的，不如会听的”。

在思想矛盾的纠结中辨析不同意见，是杜润生的拿手好戏。上世纪80年代中有一次跟班陪他到温州，途中传来邓小平对科技体制改革的指示，其中一句讲到我们的改革不能出百万富翁。到了温州，此话何解，一时引起当地各界人士思想波涛汹涌。杜老怎么应对？他还是听字当头，安顿下来就找几方面人来座谈，照常鼓励大家各讲各的想法，包括顾虑、担心、误解与质疑。听够之后，杜老说他的理解，小平的意思是一定要避免两极分化，不能富的越来越富、穷得越来越穷。积多年经验教训，非发展生产、鼓励投资不可。所以他赞同一位发言者，要把先富起来人群用于自家消费的财富，与用于扩大生产的资产，有个恰当的区分。杜老这么一说，温州人放心了。那是1985年，哪家民企老板自家吃喝消费，一般也不过百万。不知道回北京之后，杜老有没有向中央报告他的解读。后来读《邓小平文选》正式收入的那篇讲话，那句话修订为：“如果我们的政策导致两极分化，我们就失败了”（见《邓小平文选》第三卷，第111页）。

善听有善报。那就是方方面面人士，都对杜老畅所欲言。没人担心自己意见的片面、幼稚或“不成熟”，也没人顾忌自己意见偏左还是偏右。大家相信，任何片面性与可能的错失，杜老都会妥当处理。大家也相信，对杜老说话不会说了白说，哪怕有一丁点合理成分，也会被杜老注意，有机会被他吸收。杜老听意见，从来不在乎言者的地位和来头，不在乎言说的态度与表达技巧，更不去深究言者的动机与意图。对他来说，意见就是意见，可以、也只可以被是否经得起逻辑与经验检验来给予考量。

也许上世纪30年代的北师大教育有过人之处，也许50年代中期之后他与自然科学家们常年泡在一起受到影响，杜老的思维在本质上是科学的思维。他相信现象背后总有规律，倾向于按照规律来定政策。他亲历的教训，不容许以意图之正确或抱负之伟大，就作为不听意见的理由。杜老深知认知规律的困难，唯有反复试错，在不断检验、修正假说的过程中才有机会逼近真理。其中，善听他人之言，是不可或缺的重要一环。联系当下，能说者众而善听者寡，杜老的善听风范，是不是依然值得发扬光大呢？

解决问题导向

杜老喜欢听也善于听，与他另一项偏好有关。但凡可能，他老人家研判形势、分析问题、琢磨政策，有一个非常明确的取向，那就是要尽力解决问题。现在提倡问题导向，比愿望导向、甚至空想导向高明很多。问题导向，最后导到哪里？杜老的倾向，是导到问题的解决。

我们是从反差中感悟到这一点的。1980年代，号称中青年知识分子的，多少总是受了些理论训练。凡理论，皆重因果。所谓规律，讲破了就是世界上的现象有因有果，人们一旦从结果发现成因，就能以原因预判结果。所以称得上科学定理的，基本形式永远是“若怎么样（因），必怎么样（果）”。这套思维下，见到结果追溯成因，然后有能力提出预判，就是科学功夫了。举个例，知道何谓大锅饭、何谓饿肚子，不算啥。重点是在不堪回首的过往探得两者的因果联系，掷地有声说一句，“倘若再搞大锅饭，必将继续饿肚子”！

杜老当然重视因果。他花那么多时间和精力听方方面面的见解，还不就是听各家各派对重大现象的因果分析。不过他高明的地方，是知道某些现象的成因相当复杂，横看竖看有不同的因果链，多听听、也换角度看看，对因果关系的理解会更加透彻一些。

杜老更高人一筹之处，是他明白仅仅掌握因果联系，还不一定解决问题。为什么？因为一旦由因生果，构成新的存在，即便人们有能力把原因去除，也不一定能消除由那个原因已经生出来的结果。例如，臭水沟繁衍蚊蝇，因果关系明了；可是立马填掉臭水沟，蚊蝇并不会立马无影无踪；何况，臭水沟也不是说填就填得了的。以解决问题为导向，不光要懂问题由来，更要探查实际解决问题需要满足的条件。

生性愚顿如我，过了很久才发现与杜老的思想差距。开始以为，那些板上钉钉的事，下个决心不就结了。公社大锅饭让农民干活没有积极性，还不是早就看明白啦。出工不出力的社员回到自留地干活毫不惜力，不也早就看明白啦。国家不就是要农业增产、农民吃饱吗，把公社大田分给农户当自留地，大功便可告成，为什么还要费那么大劲，来来回回顾及那些反对的声音、质疑与顾虑呢？

杜老怎么不知道“农民没积极性”的成因！他从上世纪50年代就明白，土改之后中国农民有两个积极性，一靠个体劳动致富，二靠合作互助发展。当年他和邓子恢坚持的，就是要同时保护农民的两个积极性。不过后来急风暴雨推进的合作化、公社化，让上述农民的两个积极性都受挫伤。农民穷、农业弱以及农村不得发展的根子，就此埋下。形成这么一套因果关联，杜老是当事人，也是见证者，比我们这批不过下乡几年的后生远为知之深刻。

但是杜老还知道，完成公社化已经二十年，即便当下人们不满意其果，也不等于易除其因。譬如“把大田分给农户”，说说容易，真要分起来问题一大堆。以结果追成因，公社土地无非是土改后农民私产“入社”而成，现在要改，“土地回老家”是不是顺理成章呢——当年张三李四的土地，该谁家的就让谁家拿回去种，外戴一顶承包帽子，不就改革了吗？

以我所知，这等痛快淋漓的主张，在不少地方确实提出来过。杜老听到了，想了又想，然后轻轻问：公社化以后新生多少农民，组成多少个家庭？我们查了报告他，引出让我永志难忘的一个杜润生式问题——土地回老家，这么些个新家怎么办？那叫一语惊醒梦中人：好几亿公社体制下出生的新农民，一律回他们爸爸或爷爷的老家去分土地，上层建筑能不能通过另说，“下层建筑”里怕就要打起来。倘若出现此等局面，能算解决问题吗？

杜润生兵分两路。他在上层建筑里一步步为包产到户争取合法空间，又在村庄一级仔细搜寻能为大多数农民可接受的实际经验。结果当然是老家新家一起包产，全体农民家庭都获得集体土地承包权。“孩子”顺利产下，取名字、上户口就容易了：中国集体农民的家庭联产承包责任制。好家伙，那老长。没关系，农民自己简称分田分地。可惜不明就里的，还以为这不过都是些弯弯绕的文字游戏，哪里会明白，对杜老而言，能实际解决时代留下的问题，是他那代人的使命。

在问题里找办法

杜老要解决的问题，首推“八亿农民搞饭吃，饭还不够吃”。今人恐怕不容易相信，和平建设几十年，怎么还出现如此尴尬的局面？成因能够找出一堆，可以说上几天几夜。关键是怎么解决，怎么凑齐解决问题所必不可少的那一组条件。要知道，那时工业、城市、财政都帮不上忙。不是不想帮，是想帮也没那份能耐。

逼到墙角上，1979年重回制定农村政策岗位的杜老，转过来在问题里寻找解决问题的办法。饭不够吃，饿饭最多的还是农民自己。农民不想吃饱饭吗？没有那回事。农民不但要吃饱，还屡屡希望、要求为吃饱肚子、过好日子而让他们多下力气搞生产。别“三农问题”说得朗朗上口，就以为农民是一个问题。农民不是问题，不但从来不是，还是解决问题靠得住的力量。真正的问题，是在我们生产关系和上层建筑里，充斥太多捆绑农民手脚、妨碍生产力发挥、又自以为正确无比的安邦治国妙计。

杜润生眼睛朝下的工作习惯，应该就是这么来的。余生见识也少，不过印象之中，像他这般位高权重的领导干部，对底层自发行为如此兴致勃勃，如此渴望从中学点什么的，实在少见。说来奇怪，列宁文章几十卷，但到了我们这个地方，最广为人知的居然只有一句，“小生产是经常地、每日每时地、自发地和大批地产生着资本主义和资产阶级的”。思维定式之下，“自发”总是坏的、危险的。不少人的为官之道，似乎天生下来就要与一切自发倾向作斗争。

多年批判包产到户，以至于十一届三中全会启动中国改革之际，在附加通过的农业文件里还留有“不准包产到户”的戒条。此时，若换其他够级别的人物主持农村政策制定，能有什么作为？何况杜老还犯过“历史错误”。他当年所犯错误，恰恰就是对过快、过急推进集体化持保留态度。好不容易重回岗位，再犯“右”的错误，知道不知道后果严重？

杜老顾不上明哲保身，解决问题要紧。1979年初，他重回国家农委工作，职务是排名靠后的副主任。是年三月，杜润生受命主持七省三县农村工作座谈会，专门研究责任制。背景是底层发生又一波包产到户，但各地以及中央机关意见分歧，有反对，有支持，有观望。时任国家农委主任以及排位在前的副主任——今天讲起来那可都是杜润生的“老板”——对包产到户皆持反对意见。会议开到中途，当时中央主席莅临讲话，强调发挥集体优越性。也在会议中间，人民日报发表著名的张浩来信，批评安徽、四川已出现的责任制，要求“引导”重回集体。

底层要突破、上层不赞成，杜润生夹在中间。磨来磨去，杜老只有妥协。不过“杜式妥协”很特别，他硬是把下面这句话写进了会议纪要：“深山、偏僻地区的孤门独户，实行包产到户，也应当许可”。真是一手绝活：都孤门独户了，人家要包产到户，总不好反对吧？杜老看勉强可被接受，又加一句，对（非孤门独户情况下）群众搞了包产到户的，“如果一时说不服，也不要勉强去纠正，更不能搞批判斗争。”

三十多年过去了，把这段神来之笔翻出来细读再三，让我领悟，如果改革免不了妥协，那妥协也可以分两种。一种纯粹和稀泥，除了“正确的废话”，什么实质的改革推进也没有。另一种为推改革而妥协，开不了大门开中门，要是连中门也开不了，那就先开一个小口子。底线是，保护自发实践的改革实验，让结果来说服人、教育人。杜老是达成后一类妥协的高手。他最为出彩之处，是重视、欣赏、爱护来自底层的自发实践。且不论他那一辈共产党人“不唯书、不唯上、唯实”的非凡勇气，若不是对农村底层故事了如指掌，哪里能够信手拈来，波澜不惊就写出孤门独户那寥寥25个字？

自发倾向里当然什么都有。还以底层冒出来的包产到户为例——土地刚刚包到户，但耕牛还属集体经营，结果家家抢着用牛，又都不好好喂，造成一批耕牛死亡。承包年限多长不明确，老乡担心政策变，用化肥多、施农家肥少，“掠夺式种地”。包山林的担心政策回收，干脆先砍树卖钱再说。家庭为本，多劳多得，有利生产；但对病弱之户，想多劳也无能力，出现新的贫困户。还有超越一家一户范围的水利公共设施，如何协调利用、如何组织维护。诸如此类，问题一个接一个。以解决问题为导向，要直面在解决问题中出现的新问题。改革路上到处有“问题串串”，常常是引出来的问题比解决了的还要多。

杜老的应对，还是在新问题里发现解决新问题的办法。他相信一条哲理：“问题”给人带来损伤，也逼人奋起寻找减轻损伤的办法。中国如此之大，能干的人哪里都有，只要眼睛向下，问题之处常常就有解决问题的努力与办法。杜老自己带头下去调查，也要求农口团队把调查研究作为制定政策的基本功。不但调查问题，更调查底层冒出来的能解决问题的点子和措施，衡量、选取可为全局所用的管用办法。

不过几年时间，中国靠责任制突破多年粮食严重短缺之瓶颈，靠多种经营、开放务工经商为数亿农村劳力打开增加收入之门。今日回首，说农村变革为后来中国经济腾飞奠定了一个基础，当不为过。其间，杜老主持制定的农村政策，没有哪一条哪一款是坐在机关里拍脑袋想出来的。杜润生出品的农村政策，不是发明，只是对底层经验的发现、集中和提炼。他领导的九号院，其实不过是农村改革实践经验的一个加工场，所做工作无非是去伪存真、去粗取精、由表及里、由此及彼。如果非说也有发明，那至多是几个新词汇——家庭联产承包责任制、疏通流通、土地转包、“允许自带口粮进城镇务工经商”，等等。每个词汇的内核，都是经过提炼的、浓缩的、精致的以便在上层建筑被接受和认可的底层经验。

不以物喜，不以己悲

杜润生绝不接受对他自己所做贡献的赞誉。那本值得后人读之再三的《杜润生自述》，据说封底清样原来印有“中国农村改革之父”字样，被杜老看到，一笔勾掉。不知谁是这段广为传播佳话的现场见证人，不过读来令人觉得千真万确，杜老风范不允许他做出别样反应。

杜老平生当然是位难得一见的谦谦君子。几年前《经济研究》要笔者为他自述提供书评，我想不出恰当词语，只好从苏格兰伟大学者休姆的传记里，引出一句“人贵述己而不自诩”来予以概括。不是吗？那么一位毕生关注农村和农民、又被历史证明其所谓“错误”不过是先见之明的老人，回忆认知中国农村的来龙去脉，却没有一句自诩之词。反之，他诚诚恳恳地说，“我的思想从来是在农民的自发行为、地方的选择和历史经验的教育下逐步形成和变化的，绝非先知先觉的‘一贯正确’”（见马国川，“杜润生：要给农民自由权”，刊《财经》2011年1月4日）。

不过，把“中国农村改革之父”一笔勾掉，却不是因为杜老的谦虚。凡了解上世纪80年代中国改革开放决策体系的，都知道在事实层面，杜润生就不是、也不可能是农村改革之父。离开党中央，离开邓小平陈云，离开胡赵万，“一号文件”就算写的出来也发不出去，何况中央文件从来就是在中央领导下准备、审议、通过、生效的。杜老当时的正式职务，是中央书记处农村政策研究室主任，在建制上对中央书记处负责，上面还有政治局和常委会。到杜老逝世，吊唁通知里标有他一生的最高职级，不过是写入括号的“正部级”——怎么说离改革之父的地位还远着呐。

我的理解，倘若杜老真是一言九鼎的农村改革之父，要东就东、要西就西，他对农村改革的贡献，反倒没有像后来实际呈现的那么大，他的思想和生命，也没有像后来实际展开的那么精彩。听来觉得比较妥贴的称誉，或是吴象所说“农村改革总参谋长”（见吴象：“杜润生：农村改革的‘总参谋长’”，刊《炎黄春秋》2012年第7期，第37－41页）——他参与决策，却并不是最后拍板人，其主要职责是为决策拍板做好一切准备。

杜老深谙决策之道。情况要明，又做不到全明，所以要尽可能掌握全部相关的实际情况。判断或偏，要仔细反复推敲，把最接近正确的判断，扼要表达清楚。拍板时分，难免有一些担心与顾虑，要备下针对性强的说明，避免问到答不出，白白错过决策的窗口期。建议方案不可只有一套，最优次优次次优，反正多多益善。还要认准即便“科学决策”，非理性元素还是免不了飞来飞去，有备为上。更要对政策出台后可能的各方反应，预作估计、预想化解办法。难度最大的，是明白农村事项与全局的关联——1980年长期计划会议，杜老说动国务院领导人允许贫困地区包产到户的，正是减轻国家返销粮负担，不让农村落后地区拖腿翻两番。机缘巧合，1980年代让我等后生一窥中央农村政策形成过程，才知道那一盘大戏，“总参谋长”不是好当的。

国家权力在杜老眼里，从来不过是一件公器。过去的教训让他明白，底层农民自发动作再精彩、地方选择再对路，若不被中央政策吸纳，不能获得全局范围的合法地位，那就无从制度化解决问题。杜老对照亲历事件问：“为什么60年代有20％~30％的生产队已实行包产到户，却未获成功，而80年代的改革就能风行全国，从而振兴了农业”？他的回答，“一种关系大局的制度形成，需要有群众创新加上政治组织支持这两方面的因素一起发生作用”（见《杜润生自述》，第127页）。这样看，国家权力诸种必要职能当中，很重要一项是提供合法化服务——把底层自发解决问题的办法，加工、完善成全局政策与法律，避免饿得不行搞“权宜之计”，吃饱了饭再折腾。

从制度演化的角度，要根本解决问题，国家权力不可或缺。不过，权力有副产品，带有极强的腐蚀性。杜老对他帐下的年轻人，别的都不怕，就怕受权力侵蚀。比之今天，上层建筑特别是中央机关，上世纪80年代多少还笼罩着较多神秘性。官本位悠久的传统里，神秘也是特权来源。小本本上记几个大领导的电话，能唬一大片人哩。杜老对此事防得紧，发展所自成立起，他就规定不走行政级别、不走官道，行科研体制。他还特别不喜欢年轻人接触高层就跑到外面吹牛摆谱。他花很多时间与年轻人在一起谈天谈地，不过谈来谈去都是农民、农村和国民经济，从来不扯级别、升职、待遇、房子，仿佛根本就没有那些个“实际问题”。他关心年轻人，着眼点是思想、情操、认知能力。真有妨碍工作的实际困难，他会派得力干部一锤子解决。反正那时杜老领导的九号院，风正气清，有口皆碑，从来没有“诱以官禄德”那一套。也是种豆得豆吧：杜老90大寿讲得最开心自豪的一句，是九号院“没出一个贪官”！

古人所云“不以物喜，不以己悲”，杜老是做到了的。上世纪50年代中期他与邓子恢一起被批评为“小脚女人”，革职改行到科学院。当时杜老的精神状态，后辈无缘亲见。不过读吴明瑜的回忆，杜老为保护科学家不受冲击，提出知识分子已经实现“初步红”。他还与张劲夫一起，当面向毛主席提出在科学院自然科学家范围里不打右派的“大胆”建议（见南方周末记者钱吴平的采访稿，“杜润生：不仅是农民的朋友”，2015年10月19日）。杜老应该没时间为己而悲，否则连自家是不是红都说不好，怎么还管人家红不红呢？

到了80年代改革开放，杜老之红当无问题。上上下下的信任、欣赏、赞扬与推崇，久久围着杜润生。他逝世之后，网上传来多少发自肺腑的溢美之词，不少在当年就有耳闻。不过杜老属于“越受赞、越谨慎”那种特殊材料制成的大写之人，从没一点志满意得，更不见丝毫盛气凌人。遇到赞扬实在躲不开的场合，他会自我调侃一番，切换题目而言他。“个人还能做多少事？”“我不过是农口的一个符号”——是这位老人家不以物喜的证言。

孰料杜老究竟红还是不红，后来又成为问题。据他秘书刘伯庸记录，1989年7月14日下午5：25，杜老在九号院他自己办公室里，信笔写下“洛阳亲友若相问，一片冰心在玉壶”。写时老人家神色异样，“他的眼眶湿润了，泪水开始聚集并在眼眶里打转”，“他哽咽着，用两只大手不停在自己的脸上擦着，抹着”。伯庸跟杜老多年，从没见过老人家有这等神态，于是那一刻就永远印在他脑海之中（见刘伯庸：“一片冰心在玉壶”，刊财新网，2012年9月2日）。10月23日在八宝山，我和伯庸排在一起等着向杜老最后鞠躬告别，我问他那件事是怎么个由来，伯庸说在上苍也为之动容那一幕之前两天，1989年7月12日，杜老接到解散农研室的正式通知。

杜老不会哭自己。他哭的是失去农研室这个平台，还怎么继续工作？历史好吝啬，满打满算只给杜润生不到十年时间，可要解决积重难返的农村问题，还有多少工作要做！别的不提，就是广受老乡欢迎的家庭联产承包责任制，“长久不变”也还没完全落实。1988年夏天在贵州遵义，杜老最后一次组织全国性农村政策研讨会，细听湄潭试验区汇报，对农村内生的“人口变动重分承包土地”机制有深刻理解，也支持把“增人不增地、减人不减地”的湄潭经验，相机推向全局。可惜转到来年，形势已容不下那些改革的细活，甚至连九号院也被列入解散之列。

我自己见过杜老神情异常，是1993年。那时还在UCLA读书，受毅夫之邀，回国参加北大中国经济研究中心的筹办研讨。到杜老家探望，谈着谈着，老人家谈到曾有人不同意给他办重新登记——那意味要开除杜润生的党籍！后来陈云同志出面讲话，才制止了这出如果办了“将来还会平反”的荒诞剧。杜老讲到这段时，神情痛苦、几近落泪，为我多年接触老人家所仅见。他难道是为自己伤心吗？我想不是的。黄钟毁弃，瓦釜雷鸣，我们这个伟大文明还怎么吸引优秀分子为之努力奋斗？

《杜润生自述》的下篇，以约占全书一半的篇幅，收入杜老离开农研室领导岗位之后的文稿。远离权位，他关注的问题还是一以贯之。如果说有变化，那就是视野更广阔、言说更直白。阅读这些文字，让我们知道，晚年杜老不以物喜，不以己悲，惟常怀其忧。忧些什么呢？他忧农村改革裹足不前，忧农民无从持续提高收入。他也忧进城留乡的农民权利无保障，农民难以解决农民自己的问题。杜老更忧中国过不好市场关、民主关，在现代化的路上走歪。

文字之外，晚年杜老还留下不少闲闻逸事，展示他的胸襟。印象至深有三件：一是多年住院的他，时不时一觉醒来，以为还在九号院，嚷着要护士赶快招呼锡文们来开会。二是有次杜鹰贴着他耳朵报告粮食增产，杜老听得笑出声来，竖起大拇指喃喃自语“粮食增产、粮食增产”，一副当年听汇报时的“杜主任神态”。三是2007年春，高文斌在病房拿出一张字条让前来探视的后生传看，但见杜老手书，“你们要协助岐山同志管好金融”。读罢忍不住摇头：老人家不知道他的弟子早就东西南北、干甚的都有吗？像区区在下在学校教书，哪里会懂金融，有心协助也帮不上忙。不过大家理解杜老，他是在位正能量、离岗还正能量，永远是国家人民事业的正能量。于是几个后生一起对静卧病榻的杜老连连点头，协助不了也要协助。

杜老95岁前后，健康状况下了一个台阶。大家嘴上不说，心里很担心老人家随时离我们而去。但过了那道坎，杜老身体稳定下来，过了一个生日又一个生日，让大家觉得他似乎从此再也不会离开。没想到，102岁的杜老在人们各忙各的时候，突然平平静静走了。更没有想到，那么多从来没见过杜老的年轻人，一样为老人家离去由衷伤心难过。我任教的北大国家发展研究院，也就是杜老生前一直支持、鼓舞的北大中国经济研究中心，一群同学一定要送花圈、一定要到吊唁现场与杜老作最后的告别。他们都是80后，有位农村来的孩子讲的真切：没有杜老的奋斗，我们会是另一种命运。这让我相信，在有机会直接受教于杜润生以及更多没赶上那个机会的人们的心目中，杜老风范长存。

在计算机时代的早期，一名极客的满足感很大程度上来源于能DIY一台机器。到了深度学习的时代，前面那句话仍然是对的。

缘起
在2013年，MIT科技评论将深度学习列为当年十大科技突破之首。其原因在于，模型有其为庞大的网络结构，参数够多，学习能力够强，能配合大数据达到惊人的效果。而且，能自动学习特征，避免了“特征工程”这种繁琐的手工劳动。对于图像、音频和文字处理领域有极大的意义。因为最近在尝试用深度学习做文本挖掘，所以需要一台深度学习服务器（相信我，如果用CPU来跑，你的人生显得好短）。

那么就有三个选择项：
A、购买组装好的服务器，例如NVIDIA DIGITS DEVBOX
B、购买云服务，例如Amazon的GPU服务
C、自己攒一台深度学习服务器。
A项从性价比上不合算，而且不一定买的到。B项的云服务对于研究探索性质工作而言也比较贵，机器配置也不一定合适，所以我们就C项了。

硬件选择：基本思路是单显卡机器，保留升级空间

显卡选择：
先解释一点，深度学习为什么需要显卡计算？
GPU 是为大规模的并行运算而优化；
GPU 上则更多的是运算单元（整数、浮点的乘加单元，特殊运算单元等等）；
GPU 往往拥有更大带宽的显存，因此在大吞吐量的应用中也会有很好的性能。
这里有一个很有趣的解释视频，解释了GPU和CPU的计算区别。

所以显卡选择最重要，因为准备基于CUDA计算（CUDA (Compute Unified Device Architecture) 是NVIDIA开发的GPU并行计算环境。），所以只能选择Nvida系列的。在英伟达产品系列中，有消费领域的GeForce系列，有专业绘图领域的Quadro系列，有高性能计算领域的Tesla系列，如何选择？

有论文研究，太高的精度对于深度学习的错误率是没有提升的，而且大部分的环境框架都只支持单精度，所以双精度浮点计算是不必要，Tesla系列都去掉了。从显卡效能的指标看，CUDA核心数要多，GPU频率要快，显存要大，带宽要高。这样，最新Titan X算是价格便宜量又足的选择。

CPU选择：
在深度学习任务中，CPU并不负责主要任务，单显卡计算时只有一个核心达到100%负荷，所以CPU的核心数量和显卡数量一致即可，太多没有必要，但是处理PCIE的带宽要到40。

主板选择：
需要支持X99架构，支持PCIe3.0，还要支持4通道DDR4内存架构。如果要搞四显卡并行，PCIE带宽支持要达到40，并且支持4-Way NVIDA SLI技术。

内存：
达到显存的二倍即可，当然有钱的话越大越好。

电源问题：一个显卡的功率接近300W，四显卡建议电源在1500W以上，为了以后扩展，选择了1600W的电源。

机箱散热：
因为各种部件相当庞大，需要有良好散热功能的大机箱，选择了Tt Thermaltake Core V51机箱，标配3个12cm风扇。未来如果需要还可以加装水冷设备。

以上就是主要硬件环境的选择和安装。

软件环境安装：

主要安装了Ubuntu系统，CUDA环境，以及theano、keras环境

1、安装ubuntu 14.04（不要安装麒麟版本）
通过官网下载iso文件刻录U盘安装，在SSD硬盘上自动安装完成。
2、安装cuda 7.5 deb文件（自带显卡驱动）
2.1 获取CUDA安装包，在NVidia官网下载local deb文件。
2.2执行如下命令安装：
    $ sudo dpkg -i cuda-repo-ubuntu1410-7-0-local_7.0-28_amd64.deb
    $ sudo apt-get update
    $ sudo apt-get install cuda
2.3设置环境变量：sudo gedit /etc/profile
    $ export PATH=/usr/local/cuda-7.5/bin:$PATH
    $ export LD_LIBRARY_PATH=/usr/local/cuda-7.5/lib64:$LD_LIBRARY_PATH
2.4重启机器：用其中一个样例进行验证测试
    $ cuda-install-samples-7.5.sh ~
    $ cd ~/NVIDIA_CUDA-Samples_7.5/5_Simulations/nbody
    $ make
    $ ./nbody
    或者在sample目录中make测试项目1_utility，再运行./deviceQuery

3、安装python以及theano工具
3.1 直接下载安装anaconda套件64位版本。
    下载后用conda升级到最新。anaconda自带openblas，使numpy和theano计算能达到最大效能
3.2 修改了theano配置文件，使之缺省由gpu运算
在主目录下新建.theanorc文件
.theanorc中输入下面的内容
[cuda]
root=/usr/local/cuda/bin/
[global]
floatX = float32
device = gpu0
[nvcc]
fastmath = True
3.3 安装完成后参考如下地址进行测试
THEANO_FLAGS=floatX=float32,device=gpu python `python -c "import os, theano; print os.path.dirname(theano.__file__)"`/misc/check_blas.py
3.4 安装keras
    通过anaconda安装pip install keras
    注意keras依赖的theano是dev版本的，需要从github下源码来安装。注意本系统此时有两个python，所以要写路径
    sudo /home/user/anaconda/bin/python setup.py develop

4、设置远程服务器调用
4.1 安装ssh，启动服务
4.2 设置notebook server
在ipython中如下命令设置密码：
from IPython.lib import passwd
passwd()
记下生成的字符串。
创建一个ipython配置文件，比如起名叫myserver
ipython profile create myserver
vim ~/.ipython/profile_myserver/ipython_notebook_config.py
编辑文件，加入下面几项：
c = get_config()
c.IPKernelApp.pylab = 'inline' #启动inline模式
c.NotebookApp.ip = '*'
c.NotebookApp.open_browser = False
c.NotebookApp.password = u'sha1:yourhashedpassword'  #把第二步的密码考进来
c.NotebookApp.port = 6868   #自己设一个端口号
启动服务
ipython notebook --profile=myserver

4.3 远程浏览器调用
远程中浏览器登陆http://192.168.3.31:6868/，输入密码，即可进入ipython notebook。
如果需要保持连接，则
nohup ipython notebook --profile=myserver
杀掉连接
lsof nohup.out
kill -9 "PID"

完工！

最后的硬件配置：
CPU: Intel X99平台 i7 5960K
内存: DDR4 2800 32G(8G*4)
主板: GIGABYTE X99-UD4
显卡: GTX Titan X
硬盘: SSD+普通硬盘

系统和软件
操作系统: Ubuntu 14.04.3 x64
CUDA: 7.5
Anaconda 2.3
Theano 7.0
Keras 2.0

参考资料：
http://timdettmers.com/2014/08/14/which-gpu-for-deep-learning/
http://timdettmers.com/2015/03/09/deep-learning-hardware-guide/
http://graphific.github.io/posts/running-a-deep-learning-dream-machine/
http://docs.nvidia.com/cuda/cuda-quick-start-guide/index.html#ubuntu-x86_64-deb
http://deeplearning.net/software/theano/tutorial/using_gpu.html#cuda

之前网上找到另一种安装theano方式是自行安装组件。但尝试未成功，有可能是因为CPU等硬件不同，可能需要自行编译安装openblas，numpy, scipy, theano等环境，极为繁琐。最后还是直接用Anaconda方便。

据说Monroe PX-1421曾经是最复杂的机械计算器，这东西算力强大，却难以长时间运行，可以说是与第一批电子计算器抗衡而制造出来的最巅峰的一台机械计算器了。

Mark Glusker也听说过这个传闻，从爱荷华大学一位退休教授手中接过这台重达40磅的巨大怪物后，他发现眼前这台巨大的机器和之前他所想象的一样复杂。

看着计算器，Glusker 感慨地说：“对于我，这台机器就是圣杯啊。”

拍摄这台计算器的Kevin Twomey也惊异于计算器的复杂程度。他说里面的零件简直太多了，链条、杠杆、齿轮……让他想起了人体内的韧带和关节的复杂配合。

Monroe PC-1421发布于1964年，当时的售价为1175美元，是机械计算器中的顶级货。1964年也正是电子计算器开始代替机械计算器的一年，可以说Monroe PC-1421的出现是机械计算器最后的辉煌。虽然早期的机械计算器还需要使用者操纵手拉杆来进行加、减、乘、除等运算，然而像PC-1421 这种晚期型号已经装备了电机可以自行驱动。

机械计算器的更新相当麻烦，只要制造商研究出了升级版零件——毕竟计算器中藏了几千个零件，故障也是常有的——服务经理就必须将其拆散、替换零件、重新组装、再对整台设备进行校验，看看新零件是否运行正常。这种复杂的程序每隔几周就会来那么一两次。

Glusker找到了一位前任Monroe公司的服务经理，这位经理回忆起机械计算器的维护，说自己每次都是小心翼翼，生怕出什么错。

收藏计算器的Glusker有100件左右的藏品，他说每台机械计算器都与众不同，因为在开始制造这些复杂机器的上世纪30年代，当时的制造商根本没有任何标准可言。所以每台机器的进化过程都是完全不同的，运行机制也不尽相同。

Glusker先生将计算器的外壳拆开后，这台计算器复杂的内部构造才呈现在人们眼前。

各种型号的复杂机械计算器：

[王大发财 via PRI]

Mayank Singh Shishodia

以下大部分是我从IFLS(I Fxxking Love Science)的脸书页面上看到的。

皱鳃鲨[link]

只生活在大西洋和太平洋的深海里，因其相似于古生代的鲨鱼而被称为活化石。十分罕见，2007年在日本附近的海面捕获过一只濒死的皱鳃鲨。

Promachoteuthis sulcus (注：据说刚刚发现，通俗名称还没有)

像是梦魇中的奇怪生物。可以看到类似人类牙齿的东西，但其实只是部分皮肤。这是唯一的一个被发现的标本。于2007年发现与南大西洋2000米的深海里。

南极冰鱼[link]

其血液中没有血红蛋白，所以呈白色。有着几近透明的身体，可以通过皮肤直接从周围水中吸收氧气。

透翅蝶/透明蛇目蝶

翅膀呈透明或半透明，主要分布在圭亚那，巴西，厄瓜多尔，秘鲁，玻利维亚等南美地区。

手枪虾/鼓虾[link]

据说在所有海洋生物中可以发出最响的声音，足以盖过鲸鱼的声音。事实上，它们钳子发出的声音有时候甚至能够干扰军队和科研用的声纳(以前潜艇常用它们的栖息地来隐藏自己)。

狮鬃水母[link]

世界上最大的水母。6500万年前的恐龙时代之前它们就存在于北冰洋海域，是世界上最老的物种。它们的帽直径可达到8英尺，数百条触手可达120英尺长。不过，水母里只有6%的固体，其他都是水。

蓝脚鲣鸟[link]

主要生活在中美洲和南美洲的西海岸。亮蓝色的脚是繁殖选择的结果。雄性的脚越蓝就越吸引雌性。在求偶时，它们会用独特的舞蹈来展示自己的蓝色脚趾。

雌雄嵌体北美红雀

这种照片可不是PS的。这是一只雌雄嵌体的北美红雀。它的一半是雌性(淡色)，一半是雄性(红色)。

墨西哥鈍口螈[link]

它不是鱼，而是两栖动物，俗名“六角恐龙”。

亚马逊牛奶树蛙

玻璃蛙[link]

有着半透明的皮肤，主要栖息地在中美洲和南美洲。它们的整个内脏，包括心肝和消化系统都可透过皮肤直接看到。

雪人蟹[link]

2005年被发现。生活在南太平洋海域，可长至15cm长。多生活在2200米的深海热泉附近。因发现后无法分入当时存在的任何科或属中，因此暂独自构成同名的科和属，直到后来2011年才发现第二个同种。多毛的钳子包含很多丝状细菌，雪人蟹可能就是通过它们将热泉附近的含碳物质转化为养分。这个叫做化能合成作用。也可能它以这些细菌为食。

笑脸蜘蛛

警报水母

警报水母的防御机制很独特。受到攻击时，它们会通过生物荧光作用放出耀眼的光线并逃走。发光的目的是造成捕食者的迷惑和互相攻击。

雞冠多角海蛞蝓

西印度洋发现的海蛞蝓。体长50mm左右，黑色的身体上点缀着绿色的荧光斑点。它们可以蛰人，但自己没有刺细胞，主要通过捕食水母将其毒素据为己用。

橡皮龟[link]

世界上最大的海龟，体重可达900公斤。虽然是海龟，但它其实没有龟壳。类似龟壳的部分其实是骨头支撑起的皮肤。

粉色宽吻海豚

紫蛙

撒旦叶尾壁虎

Mohamed Riyaz

白化动物是很罕见的。

白化鳄鱼

白化海龟

一半白化的孔雀

完全版

一半白化的蛇

白化鲸鱼

白化狮子

白化老虎

白化哈士奇

白化刺猬

白化乌鸦

白化斑马

白化长颈鹿

白化企鹅(2002年出生于布里斯托动物园)

白化松鼠

白化袋鼠

白化黑猩猩

白化梅花鹿

白化喜鹊

白化几维鸟

白化狼獾

虽然很漂亮，但白化动物在自然界是很危险的，它们没有与生俱来的保护色来保护自己。
另外，有些动物本来有纯白色的物种，比如小白兔。

Xu Beixi

吸血鬼鹿

兔豚鼠

星鼻鼹

鼠鹿

长颈龟

大王具足虫

蝎蛉

鹦嘴鱼

Kavya Guddehithulu Nagesh

豹猫

Dhruv Kela

长颈象鼻虫

海猪

生活在大西洋，太平洋和印度洋的深海海底，以海底泥土里的食物残渣为食。

㺢㹢狓

仅存于中非刚果民主共和国，是长颈鹿的近亲。

澳洲魔蜥

迷彩色，颈部有个肉瘤，低头时肉瘤抬起可以作为“假头”来迷惑捕食者。

高鼻羚羊

成名于它那大号的鼻子。

大西洋海神海蛞蝓

人齿鱼

又称帕库食人鱼，喜欢袭击男人的裆部。

棘角蝉

熊猫蚂蚁

是黄蜂的一种，形似蚂蚁，其实是无翅的雌性黄蜂。发现于智利，其毒刺可杀死一头母牛。

欧氏尖吻鲛/哥布林鲨

栖息于深海，对人类无害。

红唇蝙蝠鱼

发现于加拉帕戈斯群岛，可在海底漫步。

伊氏真蚓

没有眼睛，身形巨大，形状像人体的一部分，所以又叫鸡鸡蛇。

Mayank Baliyan

水熊虫

缓步动物门，除了外形炫酷，还是出名的多重嗜极生物。嗜极生物就是可以在极端物理地理条件下生存的生物有机体。

[Skywalker via Quora]

马里巴马科——三个手提箱里装满了500万欧元。

负责送钱的德国官员乘坐空荡荡的军机抵达巴马科，然后匆匆奔赴与马里总统的秘密会议。在这个棘手问题上，马里总统为欧洲提供了一个保全颜面的解决方法。

表面上，德国打算将这笔钱划归为人道主义援助，帮助内陆国家马里的穷人。

事实上，据六名直接参与交换人质的高级外交官透露，各方都知道这些钱是给一个鲜为人知的伊斯兰极端组织的。他们控制着32名欧洲人质。

小货车运载着三个手提箱，向北行驶数百英里到撒哈拉沙漠。一群蓄着胡须的武装分子将毯子扔到沙地上，并在上面数钱。不久之后，他们就成了基地组织(Al Qaeda)的正式分支。2003年的事件对于双方来说都是一次学习的经历。11年后，巴马科的这种交换活动已经成了一种轻车熟路的仪式，是世界范围内上演的几十桩类似交易中的一个。

为了获得赎金绑架欧洲人已经成为基地组织的一项全球业务，为其在世界各地的行动提供资金。

虽然欧洲国家的政府否认支付赎金，但《纽约时报》的调查发现，自2008年起，基地组织及其直属分支机构通过绑架至少获得了1.25亿美元（约合7.7亿元人民币）的收入，其中单是去年就有6600万美元进账。

将各种新闻稿和声明中美国财政部援引的数据合起来，这一时期的赎金总额约为1.65亿美元。

我们采访了来自欧洲、非洲和中东地区10个国家的前人质、谈判者、外交官及政府官员。据他们透露，这些赎金几乎都是由欧洲国家的政府通过代理人网络支付的，有时会以发展援助款项的名义进行掩饰。去年在马里北部为美联社(The Associated Press)工作时，记者找到了基地组织的内部相关文件。数千页的资料披露了绑架活动的内部运作情况。

基地组织早期接收的大部分资金来自慷慨的捐助者，但是反恐官员现在认为，该组织招募、培训成员及购买武器所需的大部分费用，如今源自释放欧洲人质获得的赎金。

说白了，欧洲无意中成为了基地组织的资助方。

法国、瑞士、奥地利、意大利及德国的外交部均在邮件或电话采访中否认曾付钱给恐怖分子。法国外交部负责通讯联络的副主管樊尚·弗洛雷亚尼 (Vincent Floreani)表示，“法国政府一再重申没有缴付赎金。”

几名曾参与谈判的高级外交官称，以赎金来拯救公民的决定是一个极其痛苦的考量：向恐怖分子屈服，或者任由他们杀害无辜民众，而且往往是以恐怖而公开的方式。

然而，欧洲及其中间人持续缴纳赎金的做法引发了恶性循环。

“通过绑架赚取赎金已经成为恐怖分子时下最主要的经费来源，”美国财政部负责反恐与金融情报的副部长戴维·S·科恩(David S. Cohen)在2012年发表讲话时说。“每一桩交易都催生了另一桩交易。”

这项业务正在迅速发展：2003年，绑匪从每名人质身上赚取约20万美元，现在的要价则可高达1000万美元。基地组织核心领导层的二把手最近表示，赎金收入占了运营进项的一半。

“绑架人质很容易得到奖赏，”阿拉伯半岛基地组织(Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula)的头目纳赛尔·乌海什(Nasser al-Wuhayshi)写道。“我得说这是笔利润可观的生意，也是珍贵的宝藏。”

收入源源不断，规模惊人，内部文件显示，早在五年前，基地组织设在巴基斯坦的中央指挥部就在人质的谈判工作上发号施令，涉及的人质最远在非洲遭到绑架。此外，根据关押地相隔数千英里的不同幸存者的描述，该恐怖组织的三大分支——位于北非的伊斯兰马格里布基地组织(Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb)、位于也门的阿拉伯半岛基地组织以及位于索马里的青年党(Shabab)——共同合作，遵守通用的绑架协议。

为了将武装分子面临的风险降至最低，这几家恐怖主义分支机构把绑票的任务外包给犯罪集团，后者抽取佣金。曾被绑架的人士和高级反恐官员透露，谈判者据称会抽取10%的赎金。这样，地中海两边均有动力来增加整体金额。

他们的绑架计划包括循序渐进的谈判过程，首先要长时间保持沉默，以便在相关国家引发恐慌，然后公布人质恳求本国政府谈判的录像。

虽然绑匪威胁要杀死人质，但本报查看已知案例后发现，在过去五年中，只有少数被基地组织分支机构挟持的人质遭处决。比起10年前的情况，这是一种明显的转变。那时候，基地组织在伊拉克的分支机构对外国人质实施斩首的录像会经常出现在网上。如今，该组织意识到，他们可以留住人质的活口，用他们交换囚犯和赎金，以此推动圣战事业的发展。

只有以美国和英国为首的少数国家拒绝缴付赎金。虽然这两个国家都曾与极端组织谈判——美国最近用多名塔利班囚犯交换鲍·贝里达尔中士(Bowe Bergdahl)的做法证实了这一点——但在赎金这一点上，他们划清了底线。

这个决定带来了严重后果。数十名欧洲人安然无恙地获释，却很少有美国人或英国人能活着回来。少数人幸运地逃脱，或被特种部队拯救。剩下的不是被处决，就是遭到无限期关押。

薇姬·赫德尔斯顿(Vicki Huddleston)曾担任副助理国防部长，负责非洲事务。2003年德国缴付第一笔赎金的时候，她是美国驻马里大使。“欧洲人需要解释的事情有很多，”她说。“这完全是一种两面派的政策。他们缴付赎金，但又不承认。这样做不单助长了恐怖活动，也让我们的所有民众都处于危险境况。”

“绝非普通罪犯”

撒哈拉沙漠中那群武装分子的所作所为并未消逝在风中。

一年后，也就是在2004年，一个名为阿卜杜勒阿齐兹·穆格林(Abdelaziz al-Muqrin)的基地组织行动人员发布了一份绑架指南，其中突出强调了“我们在阿尔及利亚的兄弟”成功完成的这笔赎金谈判交易。不过与此同时，他还对处决《华尔街日报》(Wall Street Journal)记者丹尼尔‧珀尔(Daniel Pearl)一事表示称赞。珀尔于2002年在巴基斯坦被捉拿，九天后遭基地组织高层哈立德·谢赫·穆罕默德(Khalid Shaikh Mohammed)斩首。据信，穆罕默德是9·11恐怖袭击的主谋之一。

几年之内，基地组织内部发生路线分歧，位于伊拉克的分支机构专门抓外国人并加以杀害。

在阿尔及利亚，绑架欧洲游客的人选择了一条不同的道路。

他们将500万欧元作为自身开展运动的本钱，招募并训练武装分子，让他们实施了一系列致命袭击。他们发展成为一股地区势力，并获得认可，成为基地组织的正式分支机构，自称“伊斯兰马格里布基地组织”。随着绑架收入成为他们的经济命脉，他们调整并完善了流程。

2011年2月2日，该组织在阿尔及利亚南部的眼线盯上了53岁的意大利游客马里亚桑德拉‧马里亚尼(Mariasandra Mariani)。她当时正举着双筒望远镜欣赏起伏的沙丘。他们干净利落地开展了行动。

马里亚尼的导游首先发现了他们，并对她大喊，让她快跑。当他们的车快速驶向马里亚尼时，她冲到附近的沙漠小屋中并把自己反锁在内。当绑匪破门而入时，她无能为力，只是呆坐在床垫上。绑匪将她塞入正在门外等候的汽车里，把她铐在仪表台上。在一溜烟开走之前，他们特意在她身旁放了一个卷着的毯子，避免坐在旁边的圣战分子不小心碰到她。

“你们是谁？” 马里亚尼问他们。

“我们是基地组织，”他们回答。

尽管之前的绑架任务貌似没有周详的计划，但绑架马里亚尼的持枪歹徒沿着显然是经过策划的路线行驶了几天。每当燃油不足的时候，绑匪都能到达一个特定地点，但在马里亚尼看来，那里的周边环境无异于月球。

他们会在荆棘丛下找到一桶满满的汽油，或是一堆轮胎来替换被扎破的那个，从来不缺吃的东西。

马里亚尼后来得知，他们将各种物资埋在沙里，并用GPS坐标作标记。

一天下午，他们在一座山丘边停了下来。武装分子下了车，并卸下了铲子。然后，她听到了车子引擎发出的声音。突然之间，一辆小货车呼啸而出，原来他们把整辆货车都埋在沙丘之下。

“就在那一瞬间，我意识到他们绝不是一般的罪犯，”马里亚尼说。

基地组织发号施令

非洲发生了一连串以赎金为目的的绑架事件，全都以基地组织的名义进行。最近，也门和叙利亚也出现绑架事件。这些地区距离恐怖组织位于巴基斯坦的指挥中心有数千英里之遥。但组织发布的音频讯息，以及指挥官之间的秘密通函，说明该组织的高级头目直接参与了谈判。

早在2008年，一名挟持了两名加拿大外交官的指挥官，因擅自洽议赎金而激怒上级。记者去年为美联社在马里工作时发现的信件显示，伊斯兰马格里布基地组织指责这名指挥官——穆赫塔尔·贝尔穆赫塔尔(Mokhtar Belmokhtar)——只拿到“区区”70万欧元（约合550万元人民币），并称拿得少是因为他不愿听从巴基斯坦领导层的指示。

2011年，奥萨玛·本·拉登(Osama bin Laden)在死前的最后一次广播之中，大谈基地组织在马里挟持四名法国公民的事件，明确表示他在密切关注绑架个案。

去年在也门被劫持的人质表示，谈判很明显都是由远方的头目操控的。

2013年，芬兰夫妇阿特和蕾拉‧卡莱瓦(Atte and Leila Kaleva)被阿拉伯半岛基地组织挟持了五个月。他们看到绑匪进行了大量通讯，由此得出上述结论。

“当时有很多书信来往，”卡莱瓦先生说。“很明显，他们是有一个等级制度的，绑匪在请示领导如何处置我们。”

有价值的商品

在由基地组织实施的数十起绑架案里，每一个人质都曾面临被处决的危险。视频显示受害者身旁都会有一些携带武器的气势汹汹的圣战人员，愈发加剧了这种危险。事实上，根据时报的分析，自2008以来，只有少数人质（约15%）遭处决或死亡，其中几人死于失败的拯救行动。

人质所代表的潜在收入使他们在活动中变得很有价值。2012年，一名曾经担任本·拉登私人秘书的男子给非洲的圣战分子写信称，他们在也门活动的预算中至少有一半来自赎金。该男子现在是基地组织的二号头目。“感谢真主，即使并非全部，但大部分战斗的成本都是通过战利品支付的，”阿拉伯半岛基地组织头目纳赛尔·乌海什写道。“几乎一半的战利品是通过人质获得的赎金。”

卡莱瓦先生是在生病后意识到绑匪没有杀害他的意图的。当时他担心自己感染了贾第虫病，忧心忡忡的绑匪立即拿了药给他。

当卡莱瓦女士在马里沙漠炙热的沙地中患上严重痢疾时，圣战组织的一名医生为她进行静脉注射，并将她医治好了。

在撒哈拉的另一处地方，圣战分子为一名62岁身患乳腺癌的法国女性运来了专用药物。

“我们都很清楚，”卡莱瓦先生说，“对他们来说，我们活着比死了更有价值。”

欧洲的巨大作用

谈判者认为，基地组织各大分支已经认准了哪些政府会缴付赎金。

在过去五年中，确定有53人被基地组织的官方分支绑架，其中三分之一是法国人。有超过两成的受害人来自奥地利、瑞士和西班牙等小国。在常有绑架案发生的国家里，这些小国的外派人员较少。

相比之下，目前已知的被基地组织或其直属分支绑架的美国公民只有三人，在总体中占5%。

“我觉得，基地组织明显是按国籍来锁定目标的，”日内瓦恐怖主义训练分析中心(Geneva Center for Training and Analysis of Terrorism)主管让-保罗·鲁耶(Jean-Paul Rouiller)说。“人质是种投资，如果你不确定会有回报，你不会进行投资。”鲁耶帮助创建了瑞士反恐项目。

美国财政部负责反恐与金融情报的副部长科恩表示，财政部搜集的信息显示，基地组织或许不再想绑架美国人。与10年前相比，这是一个巨大的改变。

“我们知道，想要获得赎金的绑匪将缴付赎金与不缴付赎金的政府区分开来，并强调不要绑架那些来自不缴付赎金的国家的人质，” 科恩2012年在智库伦敦皇家国际事务研究所(Chatham House)发表演讲时说。“最近这股绑架索财的趋势似乎说明，绑匪不愿绑架美国人或英国人。这几乎是可以肯定的，因为他们知道他们不会拿到赎金。”

西方国家签署了数份协议，呼吁停止交付赎金，当中包括最近一次于去年举行的八国峰会。一些支付最高赎金的欧洲国家在此次峰会期间签署声明，同意杜绝此等行为。但据今年获释的人质及经验丰富的谈判专家透露，欧洲国家的政府——尤其是法国、西班牙和瑞士——还是支付了高额赎金，比如法国在去年秋天支付3000万欧元的赎金，解救四名被关押在马里的法国人。

这笔钱被这些欧洲国家的政府以援助金的名义勾销，要不然就是通过中间人来转送，比如法国核能巨头阿海珐(Areva)。一名高级谈判人员表示，这家国有企业在2011年和2013年分别付了1250万欧元和3000万欧元，解救五名法国人质。（阿海珐的发言人在电邮中否认该公司曾缴付赎金。）

据欧洲和也门官员透露，在也门，卡塔尔和阿曼担任中间人，替欧洲国家的政府支付赎金。为了解救两组人质，这些政府去年支付了逾2000万美元的赎金。

2012年，也就是被关押将近一年的时候，马里亚桑德拉‧马里亚尼觉得自己再也无法忍受了。绑匪将她关在马里北部布满黑花岗石的地方，这更加剧了酷暑难耐的感觉。风吹过的时候，感觉就像是有人拿着吹风机对着她的皮肤吹。她整天都待在水桶旁，用湿布擦拭自己，以保持凉爽。

马里亚尼告诉看守，她家是在佛罗伦萨的山上种植橄榄树的，他们没钱，政府拒绝缴付赎金。绑架她的人打消了她在这方面的担忧。

“你们的政府总是说不交赎金，”他对马里亚尼说。“你回国之后，我要你告诉你们的人民，你们的政府会付钱的，他们每次都会付赎金。”

Robert F. Worth、Eric Schmitt自华盛顿对本文有报道贡献。Sheelagh McNeill自纽约对本文有研究贡献。

本文最初发表于2014年7月30日。

翻译：许欣

纽约时报中文网

海拔超过三千米的西藏高原不是一块适宜定居的地方。人类在西藏短暂定居的时间可追溯到至少2万年前，但长期定居的历史只有大约5300年。为了了解人类何时和如何在西藏生活，研究人员收集了53个地点的动植物残余进行比较分析。研究结果发表在《科学》期刊上，他们发现人类是在大麦发明之后开始移民到西藏高原。来自西方的大麦耐寒，能生长在更高的海拔高度上。研究人员发现，最早定居在高原的人类主食为谷物，如小米和黍，而这些植物生长在海拔2500米之下，之后是随着时间的推移，大约在3600年前，定居者们的食物变成了大麦，才开始再次向上迁移，达到海拔4700米的高度。研究人员认为这些早期定居者可能是为了狩猎才来到青藏高原，但主食的变换，抗冻植物的出现帮助他们在此定居了下来。

人均喝啤酒最多的国家是哪个？不是德国，也不是英国，而是东欧的捷克共和国。

中国比其它任何国家消耗的啤酒都要多得多，不过那是因为人口量大，如果平均下来，中国人均喝的啤酒为40升，还不及比利时人的一半。

捷克共和国可能喝的啤酒最多，但是整个东欧地区的啤酒销售量从2013年起就有所下降，一定程度上是因为该地区的动荡，以及俄罗斯的税收提高。

英国人均喝啤酒67升，甚至没有进前10名，而东欧国家的啤酒(还有各种酒类)的销售量正处于持续下降中，很大一部分原因是持续的经济困难。美国的啤酒销量在2013年也出现了下滑，但报告表示手工酿造的啤酒可能会拯救这一产业。

中东和北非地区的啤酒消耗量持续升高，10个啤酒销售增长最快国家中，有7个都是穆斯林占多数的国家，包括沙特阿拉伯、阿联酋、印尼和伊朗。值得注意的是，该报告包括了不含酒精的啤酒，这类啤酒在中东大部分地区比较流行，特别是在禁酒的国家。在中东居住的外国人数的增多，也是啤酒销量增加的原因之一。

[Ivy喵 via Quartz]

 

写的不错啊 //@段宇宏:有意思。有朋友把这俩长微博从微信发给我，才追索到这来。不过，可能适合小圈子阅读 //@坂本龙马: 第一篇在这里 《自由主义已死，自由主义万岁》http://t.cn/R7ASE25 RT @坂本龙马:《真自由主义的崩溃》 1944年12月16日清晨，借助恶劣天候的掩护，在90分钟的猛烈炮轰后，以装备重型坦克的装甲部队为先导，德军在130公里长的战线上，向阿登地区发起出乎意料的大规模进攻——西线德军的最后一次战略进攻，阿登战役就此展开。如果德军能成功夺取安特卫普，同盟国将面临第二次敦刻尔克。
http://ww2.sinaimg.cn/bmiddle/c12ead1egw1el7qh5rvdwj20c87ujhdt.jpg

妙！看了好一会儿才明白 //@tertio:设计大赞！有人以实用性提出质疑，真要讲实用的话，所有的桌子椅子就只有一种样子了。//@Sir阿怪: //@-逻辑引擎-:这个结构设计得很赞。这是验证用的原型，别鸡蛋里挑骨头。 RT @BICP银泰建构-许曙东:我一个朋友设计的全预应力家具 ，所有的索都是受拉，中间一根主索，周边6根稳定索，充分展示了预应力的魅力，这是第一个原理验证用的。各位，整个桌面是悬浮空中的，是不是很神奇啊?[赞][赞][赞]

意大利佛罗伦萨——我们把自己的感官想成是通往世界的既定大门。很多年前，社会心理学家达里尔·J·贝姆(Daryl J. Bem)把我们通过感官获取的认知描述成“零级信念”。它们被如此强烈地视为理所当然，以至于根本没有被我们留意到，这其实是一种信念。天空是蓝色的，风扇会发出嗡嗡声，冰是冷的。这是现实世界的本质，而感官完好的不同族群会对此有主观体验的想法，似乎有些奇怪。

然而，人类确实就是这样。近年来，人类学家已经开始指出，感官知觉和文化有关。《深层感知：触摸的文化史》(The Deepest Sense: A Cultural History of Touch)的作者康斯坦斯·克拉森(Constance Classen)说，“感官知觉既是一种生理行为，也是一种文化。”有一个存在争议的说法因马歇尔·麦克卢汉(Marshall McLuhan)的坚持而出了名。他坚称，没有文字的社会是由口语和声音主导的，而有文字的社会会用视觉来体验词语，因此是由视觉统领的。如今的人类学家，基本不会简单地接受这个说法。但他们当中越来越多的人愿意提出，感官知觉和注意力的文化训练的关系，不亚于与生物学能力的联系。

现在，他们获得了一些支持这个观点的量化证据。近日，一个由人类学家和心理学家构成的小组开始研究语言和文化对感官意识的影响。这些学者来自荷兰奈梅亨的两所院校：马克斯·普兰克心理语言学研究所(Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics)和奈梅亨大学(Radboud University)。在阿西法·马吉德(Asifa Majid)和史蒂芬·C·莱文森(Stephen C. Levinson)的带领下，他们配置了一个工具包，用来系统化地刺激传统的五感：对视力，使用色卡和几何形状；对听力，使用音调、振幅和节奏变化；对嗅觉，使用气味刮刮卡，诸如此类。他们把这种工具包带到世界各地的20多个文化群体中进行实验。研究结果颠覆了我们的一些基本假设。

举例来说，科学文献中有一个相当普遍的结论，借用一篇回顾30年实验研究的综述文章中的话来说，那就是“人类极不善于识别和指认气味”。当普通人嗅闻到常见物品（咖啡、花生酱、巧克力）的气味，他们可以正确识别其中大约一半。这就是为什么我们把气味当作个人记忆触发器的原因——它能勾起一些具体、特别且个人独有的回忆。

其实在30年来的这些实验中，受试者大多都讲英语。确实，讲英语的人容易识别牛奶和茉莉花均会呈现的颜色（“白色”），但却很难识别同样的气味，比如蝙蝠粪便和姜叶的共有气味。当研究小组使用美国人本应熟悉的一些气味时，比如肉桂、松脂、柠檬和玫瑰等等，却发现他们在指认这些气味时表现糟糕。研究者写道，闻到肉桂味的刮刮卡时，美国人会说：“我不知道怎么讲，这个很香甜，恩；我以前吃过这种味道的口香糖，比如大红牌(Big Red)，或者有这个味道的什么东西，我想说什么来着？我想不起那个词了。天啊，就好像口香糖，有点像大红牌的。我能那么说吗？好吧，就是大红牌，大红牌口香糖。”

嘉海人生活在马来半岛的热带雨林，以觅食为生。研究小组在他们那里发现，嘉海人对于气味刮刮卡的回答很简洁，而且更加准确。事实上，他们指认气味的能力，不亚于他们指认看到的东西的本领。他们还有一个抽象的术语，用来描述蝙蝠粪便和姜叶同样的味道。在马来半岛上的族群中，描述气味的抽象词语很常见。

该研究小组还发现，有几个社会——使用波斯语、土耳其语和萨波特克语的人——用来描述音调或声音频率的形容词是粗和细，而不是英语和荷兰语使用者说的高和低。在后来的实验中，研究者证明了这些隐喻效力强大，足以影响人们的知觉。当荷兰语使用者听到一个音，同时看到高度与之不匹配的条块（例如，听到一个高音，看到的却是较低的条块），然后被要求唱出这个音的时候，从他们口中发的音调会比较低。但当他们看到粗细不同的条块时，知觉不会受到影响。当波斯语使用者听到声音，并看到粗细与之不匹配的条块时，他们就会记错音调——但看到高度与之不匹配的条块时，则不受影响。

该小组还发现，其中一些差异可以随时间改变。他们教荷兰语使用者把音调想成粗或细，很快他们就发现，这些受试者对音调的记忆，也受到了显示条块过粗或过细的影响。他们还发现，在讲粤语的人群中，由于社会经济的快速发展和西式教育的盛行，与年长者相比，年轻人对描述口味和气味的词汇量掌握较少。

撰写本文时，我正好在意大利佛罗伦萨。这是一座出了名地提供感官盛宴的城市。有人说，佛罗伦萨教你用不同的眼光看待事物——柔和的光线在赭石建筑物上移动，让你看到以前从未注意过的颜色。

它教会了Instagram的联合创始人凯文·斯特罗姆(Kevin Systrom)用别样的眼光看东西。斯特罗姆说，自己的灵感来自大约10年前通过斯坦福大学的海外交流计划在佛罗伦萨参加的一门摄影课程。老师拿走了他的高精尖相机，坚持让他用一台老旧的塑料相机，来改变他的观看方式。他很喜欢这样拍出来的照片和那种复古感，以及建筑物在光线中的模样。他设法在自己创建的应用中重现了那种模样。于是，这款应用也同样改变了我们很多人的观看方式。

T. M. Luhrmann是斯坦福大学的人类学教授，也是《纽约时报》观点撰稿人。

翻译：土土

纽约时报中文网

牛顿溪污水处理厂坐落在纽约布鲁克林区的绿点社区，这座污水处理厂毗邻牛顿溪，北面就是著名的长岛市。污水处理厂从1967年开始运营至今，已经经过数次翻修和扩建——包括那几个银光闪闪的蛋形消化腔——这一切都是为了能够承担不断发展进化的纽约市的污水处理任务。

对了，我是不是说的不够清楚，其实这座设施里装的全是屎。

牛顿溪是纽约城最大的一座污水处理厂，日处理能力约2.5亿加仑。大多数污水来自绿点社区、威廉堡和曼哈顿中心城区，所有这些地方的污水通过一个独特的联合下水系统被送到这里。

垃圾统统不要

联合下水系统的意思是无论是街道上的水，还是公寓中排出的污水都汇聚在同一个下水道里。听起来好像不是个好主意，没错，因为这的确不是什么好办法，但是，比起能够将两者分开处理的分离式下水系统，这种更容易建造。正因为如此，纽约城的污水处理比其他城市更加复杂。因为相对干净一些的街道水会和其他垃圾一起在这根屎管中流淌，而过多的垃圾和杂物又会损坏污水处理厂的处理设备。所以处理厂需要分拣设备。

为了确保不会有大块的不是屎坨坨的垃圾进入工厂，系统会用数道不同的们进行筛选，确保只有废水才能进入工厂。下水道中的溢流阀会将漂浮的垃圾阻挡在外面，同时不会减缓水流速度。

通过第一道屏障的垃圾，不管是什么都会被机械格栅一一拦下，就是上图这东西。为了防止垃圾太多堵塞，会有一个刮刀定期将卡在格栅上的垃圾扫掉。同时，屎和废水继续向前流到下面这些装置中。

在处理掉所有的垃圾后，废水处理程序就可以开始了。首先，牛顿溪设施会用砂砾分级设备和沉砂池将废水中的固体物质(也就是屎)收集起来挤压在一起，这样水中固体物的所占空间就会变小。

现在这一步是为了模仿废水在自然环境下的分解过程，不过相比自然环境，这里的规模要大得多，并严格控制各个指标。固体废物被合并以后，废水进入二级处理区，在这里好氧细菌会吃掉屎，将其转化为泥浆。

泥浆化工序完成后，废水到达沉淀池，这个工序是用来出去所有的底部泥浆和上层浮渣。废水经过一个斜坡，人类不需要的屎留在底部并被吸走。泥浆又会回到通风罐进行二次过滤，滤下的水则会流向消毒池。在消毒池，工厂向水中倒入浓缩漂白剂，经过这一道工序的处理，水里再也没有屎，干净清香的水就被排放到牛顿溪里去。

不屈不挠的屎

牛顿溪工厂的通风罐负责将屎分解成泥浆，但是当泥浆无法再次分解，工厂的设施会将这些无法分解的物质缠绕在一起，形成更加粘稠的固体物后送到工厂的八个巨蛋中。

这八个巨蛋的作用相当于胃，屎浆会在里面消化15天。巨蛋中有更多的好氧菌在36.7摄氏度的环境中将屎浆进一步分解掉。和人类身体的消化过程一样，这里的分解过程也会产生甲烷气体，不过工厂会将甲烷收集起来作为锅炉燃料。

在巨蛋上有供人行走的地方，在这里可以观赏布鲁克林北区、长岛市和曼哈顿的城市风光，而且是站在几个巨大的屎罐子之上，多么令人激动。

不过就算这几个巨蛋也不是什么东西都能消化掉。15个小时的消化过程之后难免有一些物质无法被分解，这些不屈不挠的屎会被送到分离车间。这些脱水的海绵状粘稠固体最终的命运是送进垃圾填埋场埋掉。

游览整个污水处理厂的时候并没有问道什么怪味，因为罐内气体几乎都被收集了起来，站在这里的地上闻到的空气和布鲁克林一样新鲜。虽然我不确定那些暴露在空气中的屎浆池是怎么做到完全不发臭的，不过事实是这些池子一点也不臭。在这里完全没有任何味道，简直神奇。

[王大发财 via Gizmodo]