I love my food. And I love information. My children usually tell me that one of those passions is a little more apparent than the other. (Laughter)
Volim hranu. Volim i informacije. Moja djeca obično mi kažu da je jedna od te dvije strasti malo očitija od druge. (Smijeh)
But what I want to do in the next eight minutes or so is to take you through how those passions developed, the point in my life when the two passions merged, the journey of learning that took place from that point. And one idea I want to leave you with today is what would would happen differently in your life if you saw information the way you saw food?
Ali ono što želim učiniti u sljedećih osam minuta jest provesti vas kroz načine na koje su se te strasti razvile, trenutak u mom životu kada su se te dvije strasti sjedinile, put učenja koji se odvijao od tog trena. A jedna ideja s kojom želim da odete danas jest što bi se drugačije odvijalo u vašem životu kada biste na informacije gledali kao što gledate na hranu?
I was born in Calcutta -- a family where my father and his father before him were journalists, and they wrote magazines in the English language. That was the family business. And as a result of that, I grew up with books everywhere around the house. And I mean books everywhere around the house. And that's actually a shop in Calcutta, but it's a place where we like our books. In fact, I've got 38,000 of them now and no Kindle in sight.
Rodio sam se u Calcutti -- u obitelji u kojoj su moj otac i njegov otac prije njega bili novinari, i pisali su časopise na engleskom jeziku. To je bio obiteljski posao. Kao posljedica toga, odrastao sam s knjigama svuda po kući. I stvarno mislim svuda po kući. To je zapravo trgovina u Calcutti, ali to je mjesto gdje volimo svoje knjige. U biti, imam ih 38.000 sada, a nigdje na vidiku Kindle-a.
But growing up as a child with the books around everywhere, with people to talk to about those books, this wasn't a sort of slightly learned thing.
Ali odrastajući kao dijete s knjigama posvuda okolo, s ljudima s kojima sam mogao razgovarati o tim knjigama, to baš i nije bila pomalo naučena stvar.
By the time I was 18, I had a deep passion for books. It wasn't the only passion I had. I was a South Indian brought up in Bengal. And two of the things about Bengal: they like their savory dishes and they like their sweets. So by the time I grew up, again, I had a well-established passion for food. Now I was growing up in the late '60s and early '70s, and there were a number of other passions I was also interested in, but these two were the ones that differentiated me. (Laughter)
Do svoje 18. godine, imao sam duboku strast prema knjigama. Nije to bila jedina strast koju sam imao. Bio sam južni Indijac odrastao u Bengalu. Postoje dvije stvari kod Bengala: oni vole svoja ukusna jela i vole svoje slatkiše. Do kada sam odrastao, ponavljam, imao sam dobro razvijenu strast prema hrani. Odrastao sam u kasnim 60-ima i ranim 70-ima, i postojao je niz strasti koje su me također zanimale, ali ove dvije su bile one koje su me razlikovale od drugih. (Smijeh)
And then life was fine, dandy. Everything was okay, until I got to about the age of 26, and I went to a movie called "Short Circuit." Oh, some of you have seen it. And apparently it's being remade right now and it's going to be coming out next year. It's the story of this experimental robot which got electrocuted and found a life. And as it ran, this thing was saying, "Give me input. Give me input."
A život je bio lijep, fin. Sve je bilo u redu, dok nisam navršio nekih 26 godina i pogledao film "Kratki spoj". O, neki od vas su ga gledali. I navodno da se upravo snima remake koji će izaći sljedeće godine. To je priča o pokusnom robotu kojeg je ubila struja i pronašao je život. I kako je trčala, ta stvar je govorila: "Dajte mi input. Dajte mi input."
And I suddenly realized that for a robot both information as well as food were the same thing. Energy came to it in some form or shape, data came to it in some form or shape. And I began to think, I wonder what it would be like to start imagining myself as if energy and information were the two things I had as input -- as if food and information were similar in some form or shape.
I odjednom sam shvatio da su za robota informacije i hrana bile ista stvar. Energija mu je dolazila u nekoj formi ili obliku, podaci su mu dolazili u nekoj formi ili obliku. I počeo sam razmišljati, pitao sam se kako bi bilo kada bih počeo zamišljati sebe kao da su mi energija i informacije dvije stvari koje su input -- kao da su hrana i informacija slične u nekoj formi ili obliku.
I started doing some research then, and this was the 25-year journey, and started finding out that actually human beings as primates have far smaller stomachs than should be the size for our body weight and far larger brains.
Tada sam počeo istraživati, a to je bilo 25-ogodišnje putovanje, i počeo otkrivati da ljudska bića kao primati imaju mnogo manje želuce nego što bi trebali biti za našu tjelesnu masu i mnogo veće mozgove.
And as I went to research that even further, I got to a point where I discovered something called the expensive tissue hypothesis. That actually for a given body mass of a primate the metabolic rate was static. What changed was the balance of the tissues available. And two of the most expensive tissues in our human body are nervous tissue and digestive tissue. And what transpired was that people had put forward a hypothesis that was apparently coming up with some fabulous results by about 1995. It's a lady named Leslie Aiello.
I kako sam to još više istraživao, došao sam do točke gdje sam otkrio nešto što se zove hipoteza skupog tkiva. Prema toj hipotezi, za određenu tjelesnu masu primata brzina metabolizma je statična. Ono što se mijenjalo je ravnoteža raspoloživih tkiva. A dva od najskupljih tkiva u našim ljudskim tijelima su živčana tkiva i tkiva probavnog sustava. Dogodilo se da su ljudi postavili hipotezu koja je naoko davala odlične rezultate do negdje 1995. To je gospođa koja se zove Leslie Aiello.
And the paper then suggested that you traded one for the other. If you wanted your brain for a particular body mass to be large, you had to live with a smaller gut.
A rad je predlagao da mijenjamo jedno za drugo. Ako ste željeli da vaš mozak za određenu tjelesnu masu bude velik, morali ste živjeti sa slabijim apetitom.
That then set me off completely to say, Okay, these two are connected. So I looked at the cultivation of information as if it were food and said, So we were hunter-gathers of information. We moved from that to becoming farmers and cultivators of information.
To me onda zbilja razljutilo i rekao sam: "Dobro, to dvoje je povezano." Pa sam razmotrio uzgoj informacija kao da su one hrana i rekao: Mi smo bili lovci-sakupljači informacija. Napredovali smo od toga i postali poljoprivrednici i uzgajivači informacija.
Does that really explain what we're seeing with the intellectual property battles nowadays? Because those people who were hunter-gatherers in origin wanted to be free and roam and pick up information as they wanted, and those that were in the business of farming information wanted to build fences around it, create ownership and wealth and structure and settlement. So there was always going to be a tension within that. And everything I saw in the cultivation said there were huge fights amongst the foodies between the cultivators and the hunter-gatherers. And this is happening here.
Objašnjava li to uistinu ono što vidimo kod borbi oko intelektualnog vlasništva danas? Zato što su ti ljudi koji su u početku bili lovci-sakupljači htjeli biti slobodni, tumarati i skupljati informacije kako su htjeli, a oni koji su se bavili uzgojem informacija htjeli su sagraditi ograde oko njih, stvoriti vlasništvo i bogatstvo i strukturu i naseobinu. Dakle, uvijek će postojati napetost unutar toga. I sve što sam vidio u uzgoju govorilo je da postoje ogromne borbe među foodie-ima između uzgajivača i lovaca-sakupljača. I to se događa ovdje.
When I moved to preparation, this same thing was true, expect that there were two schools. One group of people said you can distill your information, you can extract value, separate it and serve it up, while another group turned around and said no, no you can ferment it. You bring it all together and mash it up and the value emerges that way. The same is again true with information.
Kada sam došao do pripreme, ta ista stvar je bila točna, osim što su postojale dvije škole. Jedna grupa ljudi tvrdila je da se informacije mogu destilirati, da možemo izlučiti vrijednost, odvojiti je i servirati je, dok se druga grupa suprotstavila tome i rekla: "Ne, ne. Možete je obraditi vrenjem." Sve stavite skupa i izgnječite i vrijednost na taj način izbije na površinu. Isto je opet točno s informacijama.
But consumption was where it started getting really enjoyable. Because what I began to see then was there were so many different ways people would consume this. They'd buy it from the shop as raw ingredients. Do you cook it? Do you have it served to you? Do you go to a restaurant? The same is true every time as I started thinking about information.
Ali konzumiranje je dio kod kojeg se moglo uživati. Zato što sam onda počeo uviđati kako postoji mnogo različitih načina na koje bi ljudi to konzumirali. Kupili bi ih u trgovini kao sirove sastojke. Hoćete li ih skuhati? Hoćete li naručiti dostavu? Hoćete li otići u restoran? Svaki put kada bih razmislio, sve bi vrijedilo i za informacije.
The analogies were getting crazy -- that information had sell-by dates, that people had misused information that wasn't dated properly and could really make an effect on the stock market, on corporate values, etc. And by this time I was hooked. And this is about 23 years into this process.
Usporedbe su postajale lude -- informacije imaju rok trajanja, ljudi su zloupotrebljavali informacije koje nisu bilo ispravno datirane i zbilja su mogli utjecati na burzu, na korporacijske vrijednosti, itd. I tada sam se već navukao na sve to. I to je bilo 23 godine nakon što je taj proces započeo.
And I began to start thinking of myself as we start having mash-ups of fact and fiction, docu-dramas, mockumentaries, whatever you call it. Are we going to reach the stage where information has a percentage for fact associated with it? We start labeling information for the fact percentage? Are we going to start looking at what happens when your information source is turned off, as a famine?
I počeo sam razmišljati o sebi kao kada se počnu ispreplitati činjenice i fikcija, doku-drame, pseudodokumentarci, kako god ih zovete. Hoćemo li dostići stupanj gdje informacija ima postotak činjenice s kojom je povezana? Počet ćemo etiketirati informacije prema postotku činjenice? Zar ćemo početi gledati na ono što se događa kada se vaš izvor informacije ugasi, kao glad?
Which brings me to the final element of this. Clay Shirky once stated that there is no such animal as information overload, there is only filter failure. I put it to you that information, if viewed from the point of food, is never a production issue; you never speak of food overload. Fundamentally it's a consumption issue. And we have to start thinking about how we create diets within ourselves, exercise within ourselves, to have the faculties to be able to deal with information, to have the labeling to be able to do it responsibly. In fact, when I saw "Supersize Me," I starting thinking of saying, What would happen if an individual had 31 days nonstop Fox News? (Laughter) Would there be time to be able to work with it?
To me dovodi do posljednjeg dijela. Clay Shirky jednom je rekao da ne postoji preoterećenje informacijama, postoji samo neuspjeh u filtriranju. Kažem vam da informacije, ako se promatraju s gledišta hrane, nikada nisu problem proizvodnje; nikad ne govorimo o preopterećenju hranom. U osnovi je to problem konzumacije. I moramo početi razmišljati o načinu na koji stvaramo način prehrane za sebe, vježbamo unutar sebe, moramo imati sposobnosti da bismo se mogli nositi s informacijama, imati oznake da bismo to mogli učiniti odgovorno. U biti, kada sam odgledao "Supersize Me", počeo sam razmišljati o tome što bi se dogodilo kada bi pojedinac 31 dan neprekidno gledao Fox-ove Vijesti? (Smijeh) Bi li bilo vremena da se s time radi?
So you start really understanding that you can have diseases, toxins, a need to balance your diet, and once you start looking, and from that point on, everything I have done in terms of the consumption of information, the production of information, the preparation of information, I've looked at from the viewpoint of food. It has probably not helped my waistline any because I like practicing on both sides.
Pa tako počnete stvarno shvaćati da možete imati bolesti, toksine, potrebu da uravnotežite svoj način prehrane, i jednom kad počnete gledati, i od tog trena na dalje, sve što sam radio vezano uz konzumaciju informacija, proizvodnju informacija, pripremu informacija, sve sam to promatrao s gledišta hrane. To vjerojatno nije pomoglo mojoj liniji zato što volim prakticirati na obje strane.
But I'd like to leave you with just that question: If you began to think of all the information that you consume the way you think of food, what would you do differently?
Ali volio bih da odete upravo s ovim pitanjem: Kada biste počeli razmišljati o informacijama koje konzumirate na način na koji razmišljate o hrani, što biste učinili drugačije?
Thank you very much for your time.
Puno vam hvala na vašem vremenu.
(Applause)
(Pljesak)