比尔盖茨在哈佛大学的演讲(双语版)（3）

During our discussions on this question, Melinda and I read an article about the millions of children who were dying every year in poor countries from diseases that we had long ago made harmless in this country. Measles, malaria, pneumonia, hepatitis B, yellow fever. One disease I had never even heard of, rotavirus, was killing half a million kids each year – none of them in the United States.

在讨论过程中，Melinda和我读到了一篇文章，里面说在那些贫穷的国家，每年有数百万的儿童死于那些在美国早已不成问题的疾病。麻疹、疟疾、肺 炎、乙型肝炎、黄热病、还有一种以前我从未听说过的轮状病毒，这些疾病每年导致50万儿童死亡，但是在美国一例死亡病例也没有。

We were shocked. We had just assumed that if millions of children were dying and they could be saved, the world would make it a priority to discover and deliver the medicines to save them. But it did not. For under a dollar, there were interventions that could save lives that just weren’t being delivered.

我们被震惊了。我们想，如果几百万儿童正在死亡线上挣扎，而且他们是可以被挽救的，那么世界理应将用药物拯救他们作为头等大事。但是事实并非如此。那些价格还不到一美元的救命的药剂，并没有送到他们的手中。

If you believe that every life has equal value, it’s revolting to learn that some lives are seen as worth saving and others are not. We said to ourselves: "This can’t be true. But if it is true, it deserves to be the priority of our giving."

如果你相信每个生命都是平等的，那么当你发现某些生命被挽救了，而另一些生命被放弃了，你会感到无法接受。我们对自己说：“事情不可能如此。如果这是真的，那么它理应是我们努力的头等大事。”

So we began our work in the same way anyone here would begin it. We asked: "How could the world let these children die?"

所以，我们用任何人都会想到的方式开始工作。我们问：“这个世界怎么可以眼睁睁看着这些孩子死去？”

The answer is simple, and harsh. The market did not reward saving the lives of these children, and governments did not subsidize it. So the children died because their mothers and their fathers had no power in the market and no voice in the system.

答案很简单，也很令人难堪。在市场经济中，拯救儿童是一项没有利润的工作，政府也不会提供补助。这些儿童之所以会死亡，是因为他们的父母在经济上没有实力，在政治上没有能力发出声音。

But you and I have both.

但是，你们和我在经济上有实力，在政治上能够发出声音。

We can make market forces work better for the poor if we can develop a more creative capitalism – if we can stretch the reach of market forces so that more people can make a profit, or at least make a living, serving people who are suffering from the worst inequities. We also can press governments around the world to spend taxpayer money in ways that better reflect the values of the people who pay the taxes.

我们可以让市场更好地为穷人服务，如果我们能够设计出一种更有创新性的资本主义制度——如果我们可以改变市场，让更多的人可以获得利润，或者至少可 以维持生活——那么，这就可以帮到那些正在极端不平等的状况中受苦的人们。我们还可以向全世界的政府施压，要求他们将纳税人的钱，花到更符合纳税人价值观 的地方。

If we can find approaches that meet the needs of the poor in ways that generate profits for business and votes for politicians, we will have found a sustainable way to reduce inequity in the world. This task is open-ended. It can never be finished. But a conscious effort to answer this challenge will change the world.

如果我们能够找到这样一种方法，既可以帮到穷人，又可以为商人带来利润，为政治家带来选票，那么我们就找到了一种减少世界性不平等的可持续的发展道路。这个任务是无限的。它不可能被完全完成，但是任何自觉地解决这个问题的尝试，都将会改变这个世界。

I am optimistic that we can do this, but I talk to skeptics who claim there is no hope. They say: "Inequity has been with us since the beginning, and will be with us till the end – because people just … don’t … care." I completely disagree.

在这个问题上，我是乐观的。但是，我也遇到过那些感到绝望的怀疑主义者。他们说：“不平等从人类诞生的第一天就存在，到人类灭亡的最后一天也将存在。——因为人类对这个问题根本不在乎。”我完全不能同意这种观点。

I believe we have more caring than we know what to do with.

我相信，问题不是我们不在乎，而是我们不知道怎么做。

All of us here in this Yard, at one time or another, have seen human tragedies that broke our hearts, and yet we did nothing – not because we didn’t care, but because we didn’t know what to do. If we had known how to help, we would have acted.

此刻在这个院子里的所有人，生命中总有这样或那样的时刻，目睹人类的悲剧，感到万分伤心。但是我们什么也没做，并非我们无动于衷，而是因为我们不知道做什么和怎么做。如果我们知道如何做是有效的，那么我们就会采取行动。

The barrier to change is not too little caring; it is too much complexity.

改变世界的阻碍，并非人类的冷漠，而是世界实在太复杂。

To turn caring into action, we need to see a problem, see a solution, and see the impact. But complexity blocks all three steps.

为了将关心转变为行动，我们需要找到问题，发现解决办法的方法，评估后果。但是世界的复杂性使得所有这些步骤都难于做到。

Even with the advent of the Internet and 24-hour news, it is still a complex enterprise to get people to truly see the problems. When an airplane crashes, officials immediately call a press conference. They promise to investigate, determine the cause, and prevent similar crashes in the future.

即使有了互联网和24小时直播的新闻台，让人们真正发现问题所在，仍然十分困难。当一架飞机坠毁了，官员们会立刻召开新闻发布会，他们承诺进行调查、找到原因、防止将来再次发生类似事故。

But if the officials were brutally honest, they would say: "Of all the people in the world who died today from preventable causes, one half of one percent of them were on this plane. We’re determined to do everything possible to solve the problem that took the lives of the one half of one percent."

但是如果那些官员敢说真话，他们就会说：“在今天这一天，全世界所有可以避免的死亡之中，只有0.5%的死者来自于这次空难。我们决心尽一切努力，调查这个0.5%的死亡原因。”

The bigger problem is not the plane crash, but the millions of preventable deaths.

显然，更重要的问题不是这次空难，而是其他几百万可以预防的死亡事件。