演讲文本

We have no idea why it works, no idea at all.

我们不知道，为什么它那么高效，根本不知道。

And the moment you step back from the God complex -- let's just try to have a bunch of stuff;

当你不再认为自己有万能神力——而是开始尝试一些东西；

let's have a systematic way of determining what's working and what's not -- you can solve your problem.

用一个系统的办法来决定什么办法行什么办法不行，你就能解决你的问题。

Now this process of trial and error is actually far more common in successful institutions than we care to recognize.

这个过程就是试验和排除错误的过程，事实上这是成功机构的一个很大的共性，只是我们认识得很不够。

And we've heard a lot about how economies function.

我们听过很多经济是如何运作的言论。

The U.S. economy is still the world's greatest economy.

美国的经济仍然是世界上最好的经济体。

How did it become the world's greatest economy?

它怎么变成世界上最好的经济体的呢？

I could give you all kinds of facts and figures about the U.S. economy,

我可以给你很多事实和数字，关于美国经济的。

but I think the most salient one is this: ten percent of American businesses disappear every year.

但是我想最突出的是这点：每年10%的美国企业会消失。

That is a huge failure rate. It's far higher than the failure rate of, say, Americans.

这是很高的失败率。这个失败率比美国人的失败率要高。

Ten percent of Americans don't disappear every year.

美国人并没有以10%的比率每年消失。

Which leads us to conclude American businesses fail faster than Americans, and therefore American businesses are evolving faster than Americans.

所以我们可以总结说，美国企业比美国人消失得更快。因此，美国企业比美国人进化得要快。

And eventually, they'll have evolved to such a high peak of perfection that they will make us all their pets --

而最终，他们进化到了完美的顶端，他们会把我们都变成他们的宠物——

if, of course, they haven't already done so. I sometimes wonder.

如果，他们还没有这么做的话，我有时会想。

But it's this process of trial and error that explains this great divergence, this incredible performance of Western economies.

但是试验和排除错误的过程，解释了这巨大的差异，西方经济的出色的表现。

It didn't come because you put some incredibly smart person in charge. It's come through trial and error.

它的发生不是因为你让一些特别聪明的人掌管了一切。它是从试试验和排除错误中得来的。

视频及简介

演讲简介：

经济作家提姆·哈福德研究复杂的系统，他在成功的事例中发现了意想不到的链接：它们都经历了试验和不断排除错误的过程。 在这个精彩的TEDGlobal 2011 演讲中，他呼吁我们接纳随机性并开始学会犯些有益的错误。