What’s the best country to live in?

692,648 views ・ 2022-06-30

TED-Ed


请双击下面的英文字幕来播放视频。

翻译人员: Gia Hwang 校对人员: Yip Yan Yeung
00:07
What’s the best country in the world to live in?
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世界上哪个国家最宜居?
00:10
Is it the one with the best food? The longest life expectancy?
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是食物最好的国家吗?
还是寿命最长的国家?
00:14
The best weather?
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抑或是气候最好的国家?
00:15
For the past 70 years, most governments have relied heavily on a single number
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在过去的七十年里,
要回答这个问题,多数政府 主要依据一项数据,
00:20
to answer that question.
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00:21
This number influences elections, the stock market, and government policy.
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该数据会影响选举、 股市和政府政策,
00:25
But it was never intended for its current purpose;
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但其目的从来不是当下;
00:28
and some would argue that the world is addicted to making it grow... forever.
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有些人会争辩说世界沉迷于 让它增长,永远增长下去,
00:33
This number is called the Gross Domestic Product, or GDP,
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这个数字被称为 国内生产总值,即 GDP ,
00:37
and it was invented by the economist Simon Kuznets in the 1930s,
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二十世纪三十年代由经济学家 西蒙·库兹涅茨(Simon Kuznets)发明,
00:40
to try and gauge the size of an economy in a single, easy to understand number.
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试图用一个易理解的单一数字 来衡量经济体的规模。
00:45
GDP is the total monetary value of everything a country
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GDP 是一个国家在市场上生产 和销售的所有物品的货币总值,
00:48
produces and sells on the market.
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00:50
To this day, GDP per capita,
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时至今日,人均国内生产总值,
00:53
which is just the total GDP divided by the number of people living in that country,
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即 GDP 总额除以该国居民人口数,
00:57
is widely seen as a measure of well-being.
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被广泛视为衡量福祉的指标。
00:59
But GDP doesn’t actually say anything direct about well-being,
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但 GDP 其实未直接反映福祉,
01:02
because it doesn't take into account what a country produces
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因为它不包括一个国家生产了什么
01:05
or who has access to it.
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或谁可以获得它。
01:07
A million dollars of weapons contributes the exact same amount to a country’s GDP
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百万美元的武器 对一个国家 GDP 的贡献,
01:11
as a million dollars of vaccines or food.
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与百万美元的疫苗或食品完全相同。
01:14
The value society derives from things like public school or firefighters
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而公立学校或消防员的 社会价值并未计入 GDP,
01:18
isn’t counted in GDP at all, because those services aren’t sold on the market.
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因为这些服务不在市场上出售。
01:23
And if a country has a lot of wealth,
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如果一个国家拥有大量财富,
01:25
but most of it is controlled by relatively few people,
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但大部分财富由相对较少的人控制,
01:28
GDP per capita gives a distorted picture of how much money a typical person has.
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那么人均 GDP 就不能真实反映 一个普通人真正拥有多少钱。
01:33
Despite all that, for a long time,
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尽管如此,长期以来,
01:35
higher GDP did correlate closely to a higher quality of life
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较高的 GDP
确实与许多国家人民的 较高生活质量密切相关。
01:38
for people in many countries.
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从 1945 年到 1970 年,
01:40
From 1945 to 1970, as GDP doubled, tripled or even quadrupled
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一些西方经济体的 GDP 翻了一番、三倍、甚至四倍,
01:44
in some western economies,
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01:46
people’s wages often grew proportionally.
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人们的工资往往成比例地增长。
01:49
By the 1980s, this changed.
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到了二十世纪八十年代, 这种情况发生了变化,
01:51
Countries continued to grow richer,
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国家继续变得更加富裕,
01:53
but wages stopped keeping pace with GDP growth,
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但工资不再随 GDP 同步增长,
01:56
or in some cases, even declined,
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或者在某些情况下甚至下降,
01:58
and most of the benefits went to an ever-smaller percentage of the population.
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而且大部分福利流向 越来越小的人口比例。
02:02
Still, the idea of capturing a nation’s well-being in a single number
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尽管如此,用一个数字来衡量 一个国家福祉的想法
02:06
had powerful appeal.
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仍然具有强大的吸引力。
02:08
In 1972, King Jigme Singye Wangchuk of Bhutan
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1972 年,不丹国王吉格梅·辛格· 旺楚克(Jigme Singye Wangchuk)
02:12
came up with the idea of Gross National Happiness
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提出了以国民幸福总值
02:15
as an alternative to Gross Domestic Product.
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作为国内生产总值的替代方案。
02:17
Gross National Happiness is a metric that factors in matters
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国民幸福总值是一个衡量
02:20
like health, education, strong communities, and living standards,
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诸如健康、教育、强大社区 和生活水平等因素的指标,
02:23
having citizens answer questions like,
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通过公民回答诸如以下问题得出:
02:25
“How happy do you think your family members are at the moment?”
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“你认为你的家人现在有多幸福?”
02:29
“What is your knowledge of names of plants and wild animals in your area?”
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“您对所在地区的植物 和野生动物名称了解多少?”
02:32
and “What type of day was yesterday?”
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“昨天过得怎么样? ”
02:36
The United Nations’ Human Development Index is a more widely used metric;
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联合国的人类发展指数 是一个更广泛使用的指标,
02:39
it takes into account health and education,
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它通过健康和教育,
02:42
as well as income per capita to estimate overall well-being.
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以及人均收入来估计总体福祉。
02:45
Meanwhile, a metric called the Sustainable Development Index
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而一项称为可持续发展指数的指标
02:48
factors in both well-being and the environmental burdens of economic growth,
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则将福祉和经济增长对环境的影响 同时都考虑在内,
02:53
again, boiling all this down to a single number.
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同样,将所有这些归结为一个数字。
02:56
Though no country has been able to meet
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尽管没有一个国家
02:58
the basic needs of its people while
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能够在充分可持续地利用资源的同时
02:59
also using resources fully sustainably,
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满足其人民的基本需求,
03:02
Costa Rica currently comes the closest.
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但哥斯达黎加目前是最接近的。
03:04
Over the past few decades,
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在过去的几十年里,
03:05
it’s managed to grow its economy and improve living standards substantially
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它成功地发展了经济, 并大幅提高了生活水平,
03:09
without drastically increasing its emissions.
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而环保排放却没有大幅增加。
03:12
Other countries, like Colombia and Jordan,
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其他国家,如哥伦比亚和约旦,
03:14
have made notable progress.
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也取得了显著进展。
03:16
Costa Rica now has better well-being outcomes like life expectancy
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目前,哥斯达黎加 比世界上一些最富裕的国家
03:19
than some of the world’s richest countries.
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福祉更好,例如预期寿命。
03:21
Ultimately, there are limits to any approach that boils
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归根结底,将一个国家的生活质量
03:24
the quality of life in a country down to a single number.
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归结为一个数字的任何方法 都是有限度的。
03:27
Increasingly, experts favor a dashboard approach that lays out all the factors
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专家们越来越青睐仪表板方法,
该方法罗列了单一数字 无法概括的所有因素。
03:31
a single number obscures.
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03:32
This approach makes even more sense given that people have different priorities,
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考虑到人们的优先事项不同,
这种方法更有意义,
03:36
and the answer to which country is best to live in
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而“哪个国家最宜居”的答案 会取决于是谁提出的问题。
03:39
depends on who’s asking the question.
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03:41
So what if that were you designing your countries well-being metric?
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那么,若由你设计所在国家 或地区的福祉指标,你会怎么做?
03:44
What do you value, and what would you measure?
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你会看重什么,你会去衡量什么?
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