Sebastian Wernicke: 1000 TEDTalks, 6 words

譯者: Ching-Yuan Chen 審譯者: yuanyuan liang

There's currently over a thousand TED Talks on the TED website.

目前TED網頁上有超過一千場演說

And I guess many of you here think that this is quite fantastic,

我猜你們許多人

認為這很棒

except for me, I don't agree with this.

我則不然，我完全不認為

I think we have a situation here.

我認為我們有一個問題

Because if you think about it, 1,000 TED Talks,

若你細想，一千場演說

that's over 1,000 ideas worth spreading.

代表超過一千個值得分享的觀念

到底

How on earth are you going to spread a thousand ideas?

你要如何散播一千個觀念

Even if you just try to get all of those ideas into your head

就算你光要把這些觀念裝進你腦袋

用看TED影片的方式

by watching all those thousand TED videos,

目前要花你

it would actually currently take you over 250 hours to do so.

超過250個小時

And I did a little calculation of this.

我稍微算了一下

如果每個人都這麼做，對經濟的傷害

The damage to the economy for each one who does this is around $15,000.

約一萬五千美金

So having seen this danger to the economy,

知道這對經濟造成的危害後

我認為我們需要一個解決的方法

I thought, we need to find a solution to this problem.

以下是我一舉解決這問題的方法

Here's my approach to it all.

若你評估一下我們的現況

If you look at the current situation, you have a thousand TED Talks.

我們有一千場TED演說

Each of those TED Talks has an average length of about 2,300 words.

每場演說平均長度

約兩千三百字

將全部加在一起

Now take this together, and you end up with 2.3 million words of TED Talks,

你會得到兩百三十萬字的TED演說

這字數相當於三本聖經的內容

which is about three Bibles-worth of content.

(Laughter)

從這裡可以看出一個簡單的問題

The obvious question here is, does a TED Talk really need 2,300 words?

一場TED演說需要用到兩千三百字嗎?

字數不能少一點嗎?

Isn't there something shorter?

I mean, if you have an idea worth spreading,

若有值得散播的觀念

那麼一定可以不必用到

surely you can put it into something shorter than 2,300 words.

兩千三百字

The only question is, how short can you get?

而問題是，字數可以少到什麼程度呢?

到底可以用多少的字

What's the minimum amount of words you would need to do a TED Talk?

來能完成一場TED演說呢?

我在思索這個問題時

While I was pondering this question,

I came across this urban legend about Ernest Hemingway,

我碰巧聽到關於海明威的傳言

據說他說過這六個字

who allegedly said that these six words here:

「售：童鞋，全新的」

"For sale: baby shoes, never worn,"

是他寫過最好的小說了

were the best novel he had ever written.

And I also encountered a project called Six-Word Memoirs

我也發現一個叫「六字回憶錄」的企劃

參與的人被要求

where people were asked, take your whole life

用六個字 為他們的人生做總結

and please sum this up into six words, such as these here:

「真愛沒嫁我」

"Found true love, married someone else."

或是「生命超空洞，爛」

Or "Living in existential vacuum; it sucks."

I actually like that one.

我其實還蠻喜歡這一個

So if a novel can be put into six words

如果小說能被縮短成六個字

and a whole memoir can be put into six words,

而回憶錄也可以

you don't need more than six words for a TED Talk.

那麼TED演說不需要超過六個字

We could have been done by lunch here.

我們其實中午就可以結束了

我的意思是說

(Laughter)

And if you did this for all thousand TED Talks,

若你把一千場TED演說都縮短成六個字

you would get from 2.3 million words down to 6,000.

原本的兩百三十萬就只剩下六千字了

所以我覺得這很值得做

So I thought this was quite worthwhile.

於是我開始請朋友幫忙

So I started asking all my friends,

please take your favorite TED Talk and put that into six words.

我請他們把喜歡的TED演說用六個字道出

So here are some of the results that I received.

這裡一些我得到的結果。我覺得它們還不錯

舉例來說，丹‧平克關於激勵人心的演說

I think they're quite nice.

For example, Dan Pink's talk on motivation, which was pretty good,

那場還蠻棒的

「不獎懲，講重點」

if you haven't seen it: "Drop carrot. Drop stick. Bring meaning."

而這基本上就是那演說18分半的重點

It's what he's basically talking about in those 18,5 minutes.

有人甚至介紹了演講人參考的風格

Or some even included references to the speakers,

例如說：納森‧米洛的演說風格

或是提姆‧法洛的演說風格

such as Nathan Myhrvold's speaking style, or the one of Tim Ferriss,

若要這麼做，有時可能很費力

which might be considered a bit strenuous at times.

而困難就在於，若我有系統的這麼做

The challenge here is, if I try to systematically do this,

雖然最後我會有很多六字摘要

I would probably end up with a lot of summaries,

但朋友可能都跑光了

but not with many friends in the end.

於是我必須找別的方法

So I had to find a different method, preferably involving total strangers.

最好能讓能叫陌生人參與的

很幸運的是，有一個網站叫「機械工人」

And luckily, there's a website for that, called Mechanical Turk,

在這個網站，你可以發文請人幫忙

which is a website where you can post tasks

來完成你不想自己動手做的工作

that you don't want to do yourself,

例如說，請用六個字幫這份文章做摘要

such as "Please summarize this text for me in six words."

而且我不希望讓那些剝削勞工的國家參與

And I didn't allow any low-cost countries to work on this,

而我發現，一份六字摘要的費用僅僅十美分

but I found out I could get a six-word summary for just 10 cents,

我覺得這個價錢還蠻不錯的

which I think is a pretty good price.

但很不幸的，就算那樣

Even then, unfortunately,

要把每場TED演說做摘要還是一個不可能的任務

it's not possible to summarize each TED Talk individually.

Because if you do the math, you have a thousand TED Talks,

我們來算一下好了，我們手上有一千場TED演說

而每份摘要十美分

you pay 10 cents each;

you have to do more than one summary for each of those talks,

而有時，同一場演說會有超過一份摘要

because some of them will probably be, or are, really bad.

因為有些演說的內容可能，不然就是真的很糟

So I would end up paying hundreds of dollars.

而這樣下來費用將是數百元

So I thought of a different way,

於是我想了一個不同的方法

by thinking, well, the talks revolve around certain themes.

因為TED演說都有特定的主題

So what if I don't let people summarize individual TED Talks to six words,

要是我不是叫人

一次做一篇TED演說的摘要

而是一次給他們十場TED演說

but give them 10 TED Talks at the same time

並對他們說，「請用六個字為這十篇演說做一個摘要」

and say, "Please do a six-word summary for that one."

那麼我的費用會減少九成

I would cut my costs by 90 percent.

這麼一來，60元

So for $60,

I could summarize a thousand TED Talks into just 600 summaries,

就能買到一千場TED演說的摘要了

也就是六百篇摘要

which would actually be quite nice.

這樣還蠻不錯的

Some of you might actually right now be thinking,

我們當中可能有人覺得

用六個字來為十場TED演說做摘要是很瘋狂的想法

it's downright crazy to have 10 TED Talks summarized into just six words.

但其實不會

But it's actually not,

because there's an example by statistics professor Hans Rosling.

而統計教授漢斯·羅斯林就是一個很好的例子

我猜你們當中有許多人看過他的演說

I guess many of you have seen one or more of his talks.

線上有八場他的演說

He's got eight talks online,

而這八場演說其實可以用四個字做摘要

and those can basically be summed up into just four words,

because that's all he's basically showing us, our intuition is really bad.

因為基本上，他只是想告訴我們

我們的直覺不準

他總能證明我們錯了

He always proves us wrong.

So people on the Internet, some didn't do so well.

但其實網路上面幫忙的人，有些表現的不是很好

And when I asked them to summarize the 10 TED Talks at the same time,

當我叫他們幫我把十篇TED演說做六字摘要時

有些人偷懶

some took the easy route out.

就只給我一下很普通的評語

They just had some general comment.

There were others -- and I found this quite cheeky --

當然也有一些人很機車

They used their six words to talk back to me

他們用這六個字來消遣我

並問我最近是不是太沉迷網路了

and ask me if I'd been too much on Google lately.

(Laughter)

And finally also, I never understood this,

當然也有人說的我一直都不懂

some people really came up with their own version of the truth.

因為這些人自己掰了一些大道理出來

而TED演說中完全沒有這樣的內容

I don't know any TED Talk that contains this.

But, oh well.

那我就算了。但最後

In the end, however, and this is really amazing,

很神奇的事情發生了

for each of those 10 TED Talk clusters that I submitted,

我發文請人摘要的十場演說，每個

都有人給我有意義的摘要

I actually received meaningful summaries.

以下是我最愛的幾個

Here are some of my favorites.

例如關於食物主題的TED演說

For example, for the TED Talks about food,

有人的摘要是，「食物會塑造體態﹑頭腦和環境」

someone summed this up into: "Food shaping body, brains and environment,"

我覺得這個很棒

which I think is pretty good.

或是在幸福的主題中，「追求快樂

Or happiness: "Striving toward happiness = moving toward unhappiness."

結果就是自找不快樂」

結論就是

So here I was.

I had started out with a thousand TED Talks

我原本的一千場TED演說

and I had 600 six-word summaries for those.

現在成了六百篇六字摘要

原本感覺還不錯

Actually, it sounded nice in the beginning,

但我看了一下後，六百篇還蠻多的

but when you look at 600 summaries, it's quite a lot, it's a huge list.

超長的

(Laughter)

於是我想更進一步的將他們縮短

So I thought, I probably have to take this one step further here

and create summaries of the summaries, and this is exactly what I did.

並幫這些摘要做摘要，而我也真的付諸實現

我將手上的六百篇摘要

So I took the 600 summaries that I had, put them into nine groups

分成九組

according to the ratings that the talks had originally received on TED.com

依據他們在TED網站上原本得到的評分來分類

and asked people to do summaries of those.

並要求人們幫他們做摘要

過程中有人誤會了摘要的目的

Again, there were some misunderstandings.

例如其中一些精彩演說的摘要

For example, when I had a cluster of all the "Beautiful" talks,

被誤會成是搭訕用的終極開場白

someone thought I was just trying to find the ultimate pick-up line.

但最後，很神氣的是

But in the end, amazingly,

人們又達到我的要求了

again, people were able to do it.

例如關於勇氣的TED演說

For example, all the courageous TED Talks:

「人們被便利的方法害死了」或是

"People dying" or "People suffering" was also one,

「人們因為便利的方法而痛苦著」

"with easy solutions around."

或是最令人驚艷的TED演說

Or the recipe for the ultimate jaw-dropping TED Talk:

「跨銀河古典樂做曲家的網路相簿」

"Flickr photos of intergalactic classical composer."

而這其實就算這個演講的菁華了

I mean that's the essence of it all.

Now I had my nine groups, but, I mean, it's already quite a reduction.

現在我有九個類別的摘要

雖然數量已經大幅消減了

But of course, once you are that far, you're not really satisfied.

但都走到這一步了，你會覺得還意猶未盡

我想說，要做就做的徹底

I wanted to go all the way, all the way down the distillery,

原本手上的一千場TED演說

starting out with a thousand TED Talks.

我想將他們濃縮成一份六個字的摘要

I wanted to have a thousand TED Talks summarized into just six words --

也就是刪除99.9997%的內容

which would be a 99.9997 percent reduction in content.

而費用僅99.5美金

And I would only pay $99.50 --

甚至不用花到100美元

so stay even below $100 for it.

我先做五十份摘要

So I had 50 overall summaries done.

這次的費用是25分美金

This time I paid 25 cents

因為我覺得這次的工作比較困難

because I thought the task was a bit harder.

And unfortunately, when I first received the answers --

不幸的是，當我收到結果時

以下六個結果

and here, you'll see six of the answers -- I was a bit disappointed.

讓我有點失望

Because I think you'll agree, they all summarize some aspect of TED,

我覺得你們看了也回失望，他們僅摘要出TED的部份特質

但我覺得他們很乏味

but to me, they felt a bit bland,

不然就是他們僅僅為TED的一個特質做摘要

or they just had a certain aspect of TED in them.

而當我正要放棄時

So I was almost ready to give up

when one night, I played around with these sentences

有一個晚上我把玩著這些句子

我發現一個很漂亮的解決方法

and found out that there's actually a beautiful solution in here.

也就是

So here it is,

a crowd-sourced, six-word summary of a thousand TED Talks

利用網路分工合作為一千場TED演說來做一份六字摘要

at the value of $99.50:

而它價值99.5美金

"Why the worry? I'd rather wonder."

「何必擔憂?時候到了就知道了」

謝謝大家

Thank you very much.

(Applause)

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