So, we used to solve big problems. On July 21st, 1969, Buzz Aldrin climbed out of Apollo 11's lunar module and descended onto the Sea of Tranquility. Armstrong and Aldrin were alone, but their presence on the moon's gray surface was the culmination of a convulsive, collective effort.
Torej, nekoč smo reševali velike probleme. 21. julija 1969 je Buzz Aldrin splezal iz lunarnega modula Apolla 11 in se spustil na Morje spokojnosti. Armstrong in Aldrin sta bila sama, ampak njuna prisotnost na luninem sivem površju je bila višek zahtevnega in skupnega truda.
The Apollo program was the greatest peacetime mobilization in the history of the United States. To get to the moon, NASA spent around 180 billion dollars in today's money, or four percent of the federal budget. Apollo employed around 400,000 people and demanded the collaboration of 20,000 companies, universities and government agencies. People died, including the crew of Apollo 1. But before the Apollo program ended, 24 men flew to the moon. Twelve walked on its surface, of whom Aldrin, following the death of Armstrong last year, is now the most senior.
Apollo program je bila najpomembnejša mirna mobilizacija v zgodovini Združenih držav. Da bi prišla na luno, je NASA porabila okoli 180 milijard današnjih dolarjev oz. štiri odstotke državnega proračuna. Apollo je zaposlil okoli 400.000 ljudi in zahteval sodelovanje 20.000 podjetij, univerz in državnih agencij. Ljudje so umirali, vključno z ekipo Apolla 1. Ampak preden se je Apollo program končal, je 24 ljudi poletelo do lune. 12 jih je hodilo po njenem površju, izmed katerih je Aldrin, po Armstrongovi smrti lansko leto, sedaj najstarejši.
So why did they go? They didn't bring much back: 841 pounds of old rocks, and something all 24 later emphasized -- a new sense of the smallness and the fragility of our common home. Why did they go? The cynical answer is they went because President Kennedy wanted to show the Soviets that his nation had the better rockets. But Kennedy's own words at Rice University in 1962 provide a better clue.
Torej, zakaj so sploh šli? Nazaj niso prinesli veliko stvari: 381 kg starih kamnin in nekaj, kar so vsi kasneje poudarjali -- nov občutek majhnosti in krhkost našega doma. Zakaj so šli? Posmehljiv odgovor je, da so šli, ker je predsednik Kennedy hotel pokazati Sovjetom, da je njegova država imela boljše rakete. Vendar Kennedyjev govor na Riceovi Univerzi leta 1962 podaja boljši namig.
(Video) John F. Kennedy: But why, some say, the moon? Why choose this as our goal? And they may well ask, why climb the highest mountain? Why, 35 years ago, fly the Atlantic? Why does Rice play Texas? We choose to go to the moon. We choose to go to the moon. (Applause) We choose to go to the moon in this decade, and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard.
"Zakaj luna", se marsikdo sprašuje. Zakaj naj bo to naš cilj? Potemtakem se lahko vprašajo, zakaj splezati na najvišjo goro? Zakaj, pred 35 leti, preleteti Atlantik? Zakaj Rice igra za Texas? Odločimo se, da gremo na luno. Odločimo se, da gremo na luno. (Aplavz) Odločimo se, da gremo na luno v tem desetletju in da storimo druge stvari, ne ker so lahke, ampak ker so težke.
Jason Pontin: To contemporaries, Apollo wasn't only a victory of West over East in the Cold War. At the time, the strongest emotion was of wonder at the transcendent powers of technology. They went because it was a big thing to do. Landing on the moon occurred in the context of a long series of technological triumphs. The first half of the 20th century produced the assembly line and the airplane, penicillin and a vaccine for tuberculosis. In the middle years of the century, polio was eradicated and smallpox eliminated. Technology itself seemed to possess what Alvin Toffler in 1970 called "accelerative thrust." For most of human history, we could go no faster than a horse or a boat with a sail, but in 1969, the crew of Apollo 10 flew at 25,000 miles an hour.
Za sodobnike Apollo ni bil le zmaga zahoda nad vzhodom v Hladni vojni. Takrat je bilo najmočnejše čustvo začudenje nad izjemnimi močmi tehnologije. Šli so, ker bi bil to velik dosežek. Pristanek na luni se je zgodil v okviru dolgega niza tehnoloških zmagoslavij. Prva polovica 20. stoletja je proizvedla tekoči trak in letalo, penicilin ter cepivo proti tuberkulozi. V srednjih letih stoletja sta bili izkoreninjeni otroška paraliza in črne koze. Zdelo se je, da tehnologija poseduje, kar je Alvin Toffler leta 1970 imenoval pospešen sunek. Večino človeške zgodovine nismo mogli potovati hitreje od konja ali ladje z jadrom, ampak leta 1969 je posadka Apolla 10 letela s hitrostjo 40 tisoč km/h.
Since 1970, no human beings have been back to the moon. No one has traveled faster than the crew of Apollo 10, and blithe optimism about technology's powers has evaporated as big problems we had imagined technology would solve, such as going to Mars, creating clean energy, curing cancer, or feeding the world have come to seem intractably hard.
Od leta 1970 se nihče ni vrnil na luno. Nihče ni potoval hitreje od posadke Apolla 10. In velik optimizem o močeh tehnologije je izparel, saj so se problemi, ki smo si jih zastavili, kot so odprava na Mars, čista energija, ozdravljenje raka ali odprava lakote, začeli zdeti neobvladljivo težki.
I remember watching the liftoff of Apollo 17. I was five years old, and my mother told me not to stare at the fiery exhaust of a Saturn V rocket. I vaguely knew this was to be the last of the moon missions, but I was absolutely certain there would be Mars colonies in my lifetime.
Spomnim se gledanja vzleta Apolla 17. Imel sem pet let in mama mi je rekla, da ne smem strmeti v ognjen izpuh rakete. Čeprav sem vedel, da je bila to zadnja lunina misija, sem bil prepričan, da bodo kolonije na Marsu še v času mojega življenja.
So "Something happened to our capacity to solve big problems with technology" has become a commonplace. You hear it all the time. We've heard it over the last two days here at TED. It feels as if technologists have diverted us and enriched themselves with trivial toys, with things like iPhones and apps and social media, or algorithms that speed automated trading. There's nothing wrong with most of these things. They've expanded and enriched our lives. But they don't solve humanity's big problems.
Torej, nekaj se je zgodilo našim sposobnostim reševanja velikih problemov s tehnologijo. To slišimo ves čas. Tudi zadnja dva dni, tukaj pri TED-u. Zdi se kot, da so nas tehnologi zamotili z nepomembnimi igračami, kot so pametni telefoni in socialna omrežja ali algoritmi, ki pospešijo avtomatsko trgovanje. S tem ni nič narobe. Naša življenja so razširili in obogatili. Ampak ne rešujejo večjih človeških problemov.
What happened? So there is a parochial explanation in Silicon Valley, which admits that it has been funding less ambitious companies than it did in the years when it financed Intel, Microsoft, Apple and Genentech. Silicon Valley says the markets are to blame, in particular the incentives that venture capitalists offer to entrepreneurs. Silicon Valley says that venture investing shifted away from funding transformational ideas and towards funding incremental problems or even fake problems. But I don't think that explanation is good enough. It mostly explains what's wrong with Silicon Valley. Even when venture capitalists were at their most risk-happy, they preferred small investments, tiny investments that offered an exit within 10 years. V.C.s have always struggled to invest profitably in technologies such as energy whose capital requirements are huge and whose development is long and lengthy, and V.C.s have never, never funded the development of technologies meant to solve big problems that possess no immediate commercial value. No, the reasons we can't solve big problems are more complicated and more profound.
Kaj se je zgodilo? Obstaja ozkogleda razlaga Silicijeve doline, ki priznava, da financira manj ambiciozna podjetja kot v letih, ko je financirala Intel, Microsoft, Apple in Genentech. Trdi, da so krivi trgi, posebej ponudbe, ki jih naložbeni kapitalisti ponujajo podjetnikom. Pravi, da se je tvegano vlaganje preusmerilo stran od preobrazbenih idej in začelo nagibati k financiranju postopnih ali celo lažnih problemov. Menim, da ta razlaga ni dovolj dobra. Razloži le, kaj je narobe s Silicijevo dolino. Tudi ko tvegani kapital ni bil ogrožen, so kapitalisti raje vlagali v manjše naložbe, ki so ponujale rešitev v roku desetih let. Pri vlaganju v tehnologije, kot je energija, je bila ovira vedno dobiček, saj takšen kapital zahteva veliko, njegov razvoj pa je zelo dolg. Zato kapitalisti niso nikoli financirali razvoja tehnologij, namenjenih reševanju velikih problemov, ki nimajo takojšnega trgovskega pomena. Dejanski razlogi so veliko bolj zapleteni in temeljiti. Včasih se za te stvari odločimo sami.
Sometimes we choose not to solve big problems. We could go to Mars if we want. NASA even has the outline of a plan. But going to Mars would follow a political decision with popular appeal, and that will never happen. We won't go to Mars, because everyone thinks there are more important things to do here on Earth.
Lahko bi šli na Mars, če bi hoteli. NASA ima celo povzetek načrta. Ampak to bi morala biti priljubljena politična odločitev, kar se ne bo nikoli zgodilo. Ne bomo šli na Mars, ker vsi menijo, da so pomembnejše stvari tu na Zemlji. Včasih je razlog neuspeh
Sometimes, we can't solve big problems because our political systems fail. Today, less than two percent of the world's energy consumption derives from advanced, renewable sources such as solar, wind and biofuels, less than two percent, and the reason is purely economic. Coal and natural gas are cheaper than solar and wind, and petroleum is cheaper than biofuels. We want alternative energy sources that can compete on price. None exist. Now, technologists, business leaders and economists all basically agree on what national policies and international treaties would spur the development of alternative energy: mostly, a significant increase in energy research and development, and some kind of price on carbon. But there's no hope in the present political climate that we will see U.S. energy policy or international treaties that reflect that consensus.
naših političnih sistemov. Danes sta manj kot dva odstotka svetovne porabe energije pridobljena iz naprednih, obnovljivih virov, kot so sonce, veter in biogoriva. Manj kot dva odstotka -- razlog pa je povsem gospodarski. Premog in naravni plini so cenejši od sončne in vetrne energije, nafta pa je cenejša od biogoriv. Hočemo alternativne vire energije, ki lahko tekmujejo na ceni. -- Ne obstajajo. Tehnologi, podjetniki in ekonomisti se strinjajo o učinku, ki bi ga državni programi in mednarodni sporazumi imeli na razvoju alternativnih energij: predvsem na visok napredek energijskih raziskav in njihov razvoj ter na ceno ogljika. Vendar, glede na trenutne politične razmere ni upanja, da bomo videli energijski program v ZDA ali druge podobne mednarodne sporazume. Včasih se "tehnološki problemi"
Sometimes, big problems that had seemed technological turn out not to be so. Famines were long understood to be caused by failures in food supply. But 30 years of research have taught us that famines are political crises that catastrophically affect food distribution. Technology can improve things like crop yields or systems for storing and transporting food, but there will be famines so long as there are bad governments.
izkažejo za netehnološke. Včasih smo menili, da je lakota posledica nezadostne zaloge hrane. V zadnjih 30-ih letih pa so raziskave pokazale, da je lakota odraz političnih kriz, ki katastrofalno vplivajo na porazdelitev hrane. Tehnologija lahko izboljša poljske pridelke ali sisteme za shranjevanje in transport hrane, ampak dokler so slabe vlade, bo lakota obstajala. Končno, veliki problemi se včasih izmaknejo rešitvi,
Finally, big problems sometimes elude solution because we don't really understand the problem. President Nixon declared war on cancer in 1971, but we soon discovered there are many kinds of cancer, most of them fiendishly resistant to therapy, and it is only in the last 10 years that effective, viable therapies have come to seem real. Hard problems are hard.
ker jih ne razumemo dovolj dobro. Predsednik Nixon je leta 1971 napovedal vojno proti raku. Kmalu pa smo ugotovili, da obstaja več vrst raka, večina odpornih na terapijo. Le v zadnjih desetih letih so začele nastajati učinkovite in izvedljive terapije. Težki problemi so težki. Ni res, da jih ne moremo reševati s tehnologijo.
It's not true that we can't solve big problems through technology. We can, we must, but these four elements must all be present: Political leaders and the public must care to solve a problem; institutions must support its solution; It must really be a technological problem; and we must understand it.
Lahko in moramo jih, vendar morajo biti prisotni vsi štirje elementi: politični voditelji in javnost si morajo želeti rešitve, ustanove morajo to rešitev podpirati, res mora biti tehnološki problem in moramo ga razumeti. Misija Apollo,
The Apollo mission, which has become a kind of metaphor for technology's capacity to solve big problems, met these criteria. But it is an irreproducible model for the future. It is not 1961. There is no galvanizing contest like the Cold War, no politician like John Kennedy who can heroize the difficult and the dangerous, and no popular science fictional mythology such as exploring the solar system. Most of all, going to the moon turned out to be easy. It was just three days away. And arguably it wasn't even solving much of a problem.
ki je postala nekakšna metafora za tehnološko sposobnost, je zajemala ta merila. Ampak to je neponovljiv model za prihodnost. Ni leto 1961. Ni tekmovanja, kot je Hladna vojna, ni politika, kot je John Kennedy, ki lahko uresniči težke in nevarne stvari in ni priljubljene znanstvene mitologije, kot je raziskovanje sončnega sistema. Odprava na luno se je izkazala za lahko. Oddaljena je bila le tri dni in naj niti ne bi predstavljala velikega problema. Zapuščeni smo samemu sebi
We are left alone with our day, and the solutions of the future will be harder won. God knows, we don't lack for the challenges.
in rešitve bodo v prihodnosti težje pridobljene. Izzivov pa nam zagotovo ne primanjkuje. Hvala lepa.
Thank you very much.
(Aplavz)
(Applause)