37. 如何判断别人不喜欢你？

我从未想过自己是个适合给人提建议的人。我是安吉拉·达克沃斯。我是史蒂文·杜布纳。您正在收听的是《没有愚蠢的问题》。

I've never thought that I'm a person who should give advice of any sort. I'm Angela Duckworth. I'm Steven Dubner. And you're listening to no stupid questions.

今天节目中要探讨：你对自己的认知是否与他人对你的看法相矛盾？

Today on the show, is your perception of yourself at odds with others' perception of you?

这有点像你一辈子牙齿上都沾着菠菜却浑然不觉。

It's kinda the equivalent of having spinach in your teeth your whole life.

另外，自助类书籍真的有用吗？

Also, do self help books really work?

他们可能一时感到充满干劲，但很快就会被午饭吃什么分心。安吉拉，

They probably feel really energized for a moment and then get distracted by what's for lunch. Angela,

你今天好吗？

how are you today?

我很好，史蒂文。你呢？

I'm great, Steven. How are you?

还不错，谢谢。我想自从我们上次聊天后，你做了人生第一次结肠镜检查？还顺利吗？

I'm pretty well. Thanks. I think since we last spoke, you've had your first ever colonoscopy. Did that go well?

是的。我50岁了，做了结肠镜检查，过程相当愉快。

Yes. I'm 50, and I had a colonoscopy, and it was delightful.

恭喜。在我们上期关于第一印象与最后印象的节目中，我们讨论了一篇关于结肠镜检查的论文，研究如何通过改变结尾来影响整体感受。必须承认，当时我们有个概念区分得不够明确，现在应该澄清一下。

Congratulations. In our previous episode about first impressions versus last impressions, we discussed a paper about colonoscopies and how changing the ending of them can alter the overall perception. And I have to say, we made a lack of distinction there that I think we should set clear.

指的是什么？

Which is what?

我们之前讨论过这项结肠镜检查实验中疼痛是变量，当时你从未做过肠镜，而我本该更清楚——毕竟我做过几次。我们确实应该强调这是篇相当陈旧的论文，数据来自1990年代，那时超细超柔光纤技术尚未发明。此外，患者在整个过程中完全清醒，术前术中都没有深度麻醉。所以这与你刚做的肠镜完全不同。

Well, we talked about how the variable in this experiment with colonoscopies was pain, and this was before you'd had a colonoscopy ever, and I should have known better because I've had a couple. We really should have made the point that this was a fairly old paper, and indeed, the data from the colonoscopies were from the 1990s, and that was before the invention of super small, super flexible fiber optics. In addition, patients were fully awake throughout. Hence, no deep anesthesia before or during the procedure. So that does not describe the colonoscopy that you just had, surely.

对吧？

Correct?

没错。说实话Steven，进手术室时我很惊讶。我先问护士是否听过那个著名的肠镜研究，她说没有。当我描述研究内容后，她表示现在早就不那么做了。

That's correct. And honestly, Steven, I was surprised when I got into the Operating Theater. First, I asked my nurse, have you ever heard of this famous colonoscopy study? She had not. So I described the study, and she said, oh, that's not what we do today.

现在都用深度麻醉，你什么都不会感觉到。结果呢？她说得完全正确。

We use deep anesthesia. You're not gonna feel a thing. And guess what? She was right.

很高兴听你这么说。通常我们会及时澄清这类差异或纠正误解。之所以特别指出这点，是因为有听众反馈说'肠镜根本不痛，若让人误以为痛会阻碍检查意愿'。我特意补充说明：大家千万别因害怕疼痛而拒绝肠镜检查。

I'm glad to hear. Now usually, we either make distinctions like this or catch the mistakes. And the reason I think it's important to point this one out is that we did hear from a few people who said, hey. Colonoscopies aren't painful, and if people think they are, they will be discouraged from doing them. So I really wanted to add this note to say that people should not be discouraged from getting a colonoscopy because they think it will be painful.

确实不痛。除了无痛之外，这更是预防结肠癌的极有效手段，希望我们没有误导任何人。好了，Angela，现在进入今天的提问环节。我们收到澳大利亚听众David Ulbrick的邮件，我来读给你听。

It's not. And in addition to not being painful, it's an incredibly effective way at forestalling colon cancer, and I hope we didn't dissuade anyone. Alright. On to my question for you today, Angela. We received an email from a listener named David Ulbrick writing to us from Australia that I would like to read to you.

好的，我准备好了。

Okay. I'm ready.

David写道：我是律所合伙人，最近换了律所。受限于对原合伙人的承诺，我无法带走团队。但承诺期满后，我极力游说他们加入新律所，而老东家也在拼命挽留。

David writes, I'm a partner at a law firm and recently moved firms. I couldn't take my team with me. I had obligations to my former partners to not do that. However, once I became free of those obligations, I was very keen to recruit the team, and I fought hard to persuade them to join me. My old firm fought hard for them to stay.

不过我们新律所在加薪方面占据主动——我得查下这个短语，'making the running'是英式表达。

However, we, meaning the new firm, were making the running in terms of offering pay raises. I had to look up that phrase. Making the running is a Britishism.

这是个澳大利亚的术语。

It's an Australian term.

是的。意思是走在前面或处于领先地位。所以他们在提供加薪、晋升、提升品牌地位等方面走在了前面。好的，我们逐渐明白了。

Yeah. Meaning being out front or taking the lead. So they were making the running in terms of offering pay raises, promotions, increased brand status, etcetera. Okay. So we're getting the picture.

新公司的一切都比旧公司好。尽管如此，他写道，很少有团队成员加入我。这特别令人惊讶和沮丧，因为许多人曾在我离开前理论上说过，他们喜欢与我共事，我是他们共事过的最好的合伙人之一，如果我离开他们会跟随我，等等。所以他写道，似乎不是他们不喜欢与我共事，至少不是他们准备当面说的，而是时机不对。这让我开始思考，是否与‘软性’因素有关？

Everything is better at the new firm than the old firm. Despite all that, he writes, very few team members have joined me. This is particularly surprising and frustrating because many of them said, in theory, before I left that they liked working with me, I was one of the best partners they'd ever worked with, that they would follow me if I left, etcetera. So he writes, it seems that it's not that they don't like working with me, at least not that they are prepared to say to my face, but rather that the timing wasn't right. So it got me to wondering, was it to do with soft factors?

他在‘软性’上加了引号，比如一年中的时间或疫情的后果。我不一定称之为软性因素。但总之，他简短地写道，什么时候是招聘新工作的最佳时机？有相关研究吗？所以，安吉拉，我想问你的问题是，尽管我想剖析那些不想跟他走的人的事情，我们稍后会谈到。

He put soft in quotes, like the time of year or the consequences of the pandemic. I wouldn't necessarily call that a soft factor. But, anyway, put shortly, he writes, when is the best time to recruit people to new jobs? Is there research about that? So, Angela, my question for you is, even though I wanna unpack the stuff about the people who don't wanna come with him, we'll get to that later.

让我们从他最后提出的具体问题开始。是否有关于最佳招聘时机的研究，或者更广泛地说，最佳说服时机？

Let's start with the concrete question that he asked at the end there. Is there research on a best time to recruit or maybe more broadly even to persuade?

让人们改变。对吧？

People to change. Right?

是的。

Yeah.

换工作、换大学、换专业、换关系。我认为我们可以问这个问题，为什么正如他们所说，我们渴望改变却紧握熟悉的事物？这是一些治疗师中流行的说法。但这个想法对我来说很真实，即人们，包括我自己，渴望新奇冒险，但我们确实像孩子一样紧握我们已经知道和喜爱的东西。我认为部分原因是改变总是包含风险，这就是为什么存在所谓的现状偏见，我们更可能坚持一直吃的鸡肉沙拉三明治，而不是尝试你听说了很多的新奇鲁宾三明治。

Change jobs, change colleges, change majors, change relationships. I think we can ask the question, why is it that, as they say, we yearn for change but cling to the familiar? That's a popular expression among some therapists. But the idea rings true to me, which is that people, myself included, yearn for the novel new adventure, but we do cling childlike to what we already know and love. I think in part it's because change always includes risk, and that is why there is this thing called status quo bias that we're more likely to stick with the chicken salad sandwich that we always have for lunch than to try that newfangled Reuben that you've been hearing so much about.

然后如果你因为某种原因不得不尝试鲁宾三明治，比如鸡肉沙拉爆炸了，你可能会在余生每天都吃鲁宾三明治。

And then if you, for some reason, have to try the Reuben because somehow the chicken salad exploded, you'll probably eat the Reuben every day for the rest of your life.

是的。但我确实认为存在现状偏见。例如，在疫情前，如果你教一个班级，人们一开始会随意选个座位。

Yeah. But I do think there is status quo bias. For example, pre pandemic, if you teach a class, people, they kinda take an arbitrary seat at the beginning.

对。

Right.

然后你就会不由自主地回到那个位置，仿佛它是什么特别神圣的东西。我认为部分原因是你至少知道那个座位适合你。顺便说一句，厕所隔间也一样。我一直在常去的办公楼里使用右手边的那个隔间。

And then you just gravitate back to that as if it's something special and holy. And I think it's in part because you at least know that that seat works for you. Same with bathroom stalls, by the way. I've been using that right hand stall in the office building that I frequent.

信息量有点过大了，不过还是感谢你告诉我这些。我得说，我们男人通常会不惜一切代价避免使用隔间。

Slightly too much information, but I appreciate you telling me that. I will say this. Men, we tend to avoid stalls at all costs.

难道你们不需要用它来上大号吗？

Don't you have to use it for number two?

在我看来，一个人应该竭尽全力避免使用世界上任何男厕所的隔间。

One should go to great extremes to never use a stall in any men's room in the world is my view.

我觉得这是信息量过少——TLI（Too Little Information）。我完全不明白你在说什么。

I think this is t l I, too little information. I have no idea what you're talking about.

好吧，这又把我们带回到之前讨论的Limberhan先生。不过我能稍微跑个题吗？

Well, this gets us back to mister Limberhan from our previous conversation. But can I get tangential on you for one second?

我们明明已经在跑题了，不过请便，继续说吧。

Like, we're not already, but, yes, please. Go ahead.

你提到现状偏见，比如学期初选了把椅子后就再也不换——这是纯粹的现状偏见，还是某种禀赋效应的表现？或者说它们本质相同？或许你在回答时能顺便解释下什么是禀赋效应。

You mentioned status quo bias on something like selecting a chair that you sit in at the beginning of a semester and never leaving is that straight up status quo bias, or is that some version of the endowment effect, and or are they kind of the same? And maybe as you answer that question, if you could explain what the endowment effect is.

没错。禀赋效应是指仅仅因为拥有某物就对其赋予更高价值。比如我有个咖啡杯，如果已经是我的，我可能估价五块钱；如果还没属于我，同样的杯子可能只值三块。这对很多经典经济理论来说是个问题，因为咖啡杯就是咖啡杯，不应该因为单纯拥有它就产生非理性的效用增益。

Yeah. The endowment effect is the valuing more of something just by virtue of already being in possession of it. So if I have a coffee cup and it's already mine, I might value it at five. If it's not yet mine, but it's the same coffee cup, I might only value it at three. And that is problematic for a lot of classical economic theorizing because the coffee cup should be the coffee cup, and there shouldn't be any irrational utility gain from you simply being in possession of it.

所以当我最初开始阅读行为学——那时他们还称之为行为经济学时。

So when I first began reading about behavioral well, they called it behavioral economics back then.

现在不还是叫行为经济学吗？

Don't they call it behavioral economics now?

确实。不过我认识的许多心理学家会说——无意冒犯——我们研究这个已经很多很多年了，现在你们把它归为经济学并不太准确。

They do. But a lot of psychologists I know say, well, no offense, but we've been doing that for many, many years, and now you calling it economics is not quite accurate.

是啊，我们管这叫人性。

Yeah. We call it human nature.

没错。所以当我最初接触当时所谓的行为经济学时，包括禀赋效应和心理账户这类概念——这是理查德·塞勒等人论述过的，他们将其描述为认知偏差。比如你有两笔钱，本不该区别对待，因为钱就是钱，是可替代的。

Yeah. Exactly. So when I first began reading about what I then thought of as behavioral economics, including the endowment effect and including things like mental accounting, which is something that Dick Thaler and others have written about, which they describe as a bias. For instance, if you have two baskets of money, you shouldn't treat them as separate baskets because money is money. It's fungible.

但人们总是这样做，相关研究非常有趣。我记得多年前有个关于性工作者的研究，她们将工作收入和政府补助视为完全不同的钱，即便每一美元价值相同。尽管经济学家认为这是行为谬误，

And yet people do it all the time, and there's fascinating research about how people do it. I remember there was a study years ago about prostitutes who received money from their work, and they also received money from the state, and they treated those two baskets of money as though they were totally different. They went to different things even though a dollar is a dollar is a dollar. And even though the economists were saying that this is an error in behavior,

我一直觉得这其中

I always thought there was

存在合理性，禀赋效应也是如此。比如在婚姻关系中，我选择了这个伴侣，对方就成为我的一部分，因此我会比对待外貌相似的陌生人更珍视TA。

some sense to it, including in the endowment effect. I can see the value of the endowment effect in, let's say, a relationship. Like, I chose this spouse, and that spouse is now part of me, and therefore, I'm going to value that person more highly than the next stranger that comes along that looks similarly.

我认为行为经济学领域里那些所谓的'谬误'或'偏见'，首先如你所说，对非经济学家来说简直显而易见。我们之所以会挑眉质疑'就这也能写篇论文？'，是因为经济学理论模型假设决策者会做出理性选择——显然与我们讨论的现象不符。

I think some of the, quote, unquote, errors or biases that make for lots of news in the land of behavioral economics are, first of all, as you said, blindingly obvious to noneconomists. And I think the reason some of us are raising our eyebrows and saying, like, really? You wrote a whole paper about that? Is because economics is coming from a theoretical model where you have to assume that the individual decision maker is making these rational choices, which are not the kind of thing that we were just talking about.

是啊，刚才我把话题扯远了。

Yeah. So I dragged you down a deep tangent there.

是啊。我们在哪儿？

Yeah. Where are we?

让我把你拉回大卫的实际问题上来。你开始回答人们如何寻求改变却又固守熟悉的事物。但显然，在日历上的某些时间点或个人生活中的某些时刻，我们对改变更为开放。关于为什么这些人可能真心想跟他走却没走成，尤其是与疫情相关的原因，你有什么想对大卫说的吗？你认为在这样的动荡时期，人们是否更厌恶风险或至少更抗拒改变？

Let me drag you back to David's actual question. So you started to give an answer about how people seek change but cling to the familiar. But plainly, there are points in the calendar or points in our personal lives where we are more open to change. Do you have anything to say to David about why these people may have truly wanted to come with them and didn't and especially having to do with the pandemic? Do you think that people are more risk averse or at least change averse during an unsettling time like this?

我猜答案是肯定的。

I would assume the answer is yes.

在危机、威胁和不确定的时期，我们更倾向于固守熟悉的事物。这其实非常理性。就像，天啊，我不知道发生了什么，也许我会待在这小块干燥的陆地上，直到我弄清楚为止。

During times of crisis, times of threat, and times of uncertainty, we are more likely to cling to the familiar. That's actually very rational. Like, gosh. I don't know what's going on. Maybe I'll stay on this little bit of dry land here until I figure it out.

当然，动物行为学文献中提到，面对威胁时有战斗反应、逃跑反应，还有一种冻结反应。这很容易理解，因为许多动物在被捕食者盯上时，它们会用眼角余光注意到，然后就像猫一样冻结不动。因为世界上大多数捕食者对运动非常敏感。不动是件好事。而且，这样也不会犯错。

There is, of course, the fight response, the flight response, but there is also this freeze response in times of threat in the animal behavior literature that's very easy to see because many animals, when they are being stalked by a predator and they notice the corner of your eye, you're like, ah, cat. You freeze. Because most predators in the world are very acutely sensitive to motion. Not moving is a good thing. And then also, you're not gonna make a misstep.

所以，这些力量再次合谋让人们留在原来的工作中。我确实认为，在疫情期间，每次你点击新闻，都会看到失业数字更加糟糕，越来越多的专栏文章讨论未来19种可能发生的情况。这时你为什么会说，我想冒险去这家新公司、新工作、新的一切？

So, again, all of these forces conspire to keep people in their old job. And I do think that in a pandemic, every time you click on the news, it says the unemployment numbers are even worse, and there's more and more op eds about how nobody knows what's gonna happen in the following 19 ways. Why would you then say, I think I'm gonna take a risk and go with this new firm and this new job and this new everything?

有道理。这说得通。但大卫听起来似乎既沮丧又惊讶，因为更多人没有跟随他。他似乎认为自己提供了重大升级，更多的钱、更高的声望等等。所以让我们谈谈其他可能的原因。

Fair enough. That'll make sense. But David sounds as though he's, a, frustrated, and b, surprised that more people haven't followed. He seems to think that he's offering a serious upgrade, more money, more prestige, and so on. So let's talk about what other possibilities there might be.

也许他并不像自己认为的那样是个好律师。也许人们并不像他想象的那样喜欢他。

Maybe he's just not as good a lawyer as he thinks he is. Maybe people don't like him as much as he thinks.

当我听那个故事时，这是我首先想到的。我心想，大卫，你坐着吗？有时我们假设自己知道别人的想法和感受。对大卫来说，这有两部分。一是我假设你喜欢我。

When I was listening to that story, that was the first thing that came to mind. I was like, David, are you sitting down? Sometimes we assume that we know what people think and how they feel. For David, that has two parts. One is I assume that you like me.

听起来你喜欢我。你说过你喜欢我。但还有一部分是，对他来说，离开的决定绝对明确无误。所以对他来说，为什么选项B比A更好的逻辑很清楚。可能会有一些困惑，比如，等等。

It sounds like you like me. You said you like me. But there's also a part where, for him, the calculus made absolute unequivocal sense to leave. And so for him, the logic is clear about why option b is better than a. And there could be some head scratching like, wait.

你怎么会看不出来呢？这对我来说是一个深刻的心理学原理，能解释很多行为。李·罗斯称之为朴素现实主义。你相信为真的事物，你会认为它是客观真实的，因此其他人也应该承认其真实性。我认为普遍实用的建议是，不要假设你所想的就是他人所想，试着从他们的角度看问题。

How can you not see that? And this to me is one of these profound psychological principles that really explains so much behavior. Lee Ross calls it naive realism. Whatever you believe to be true, you think is objectively true, and therefore, everybody else should acknowledge is true. I do think that the general practical recommendation is don't assume that what you think everyone else thinks and try to see from their perspective.

要做到这一点，你必须真正抽离自己的信念。

You have to actually disengage yourself from your own beliefs in order to do that.

所以这里有几个可能的解释，包括或许从实证角度看，他的条件并不像他想的那么好。换句话说，他可以说我在提供加薪，但可能原公司也在加薪，而他不知道这一点。

So there are a number of possible explanations here, including the perhaps empirically, his offer is not as good as he thinks it is. In other words, he can say, I'm offering pay raises. Maybe the old firm is offering pay raises too. Maybe he doesn't know that.

这些都有可能。当你读到大卫的留言时，我脑海里闪过的另一个念头是——你知道我父亲一生都在杜邦公司做化学家，专攻汽车修补漆领域。

It could be all those things. The other thought that ran through my head when you read me David's note was my dad was a chemist, as you know, for his whole life at DuPont, squarely in the division of automotive refinishing.

我读过报道，说你父亲发明的化学技术让汽车保持光泽更久。

I've read that your father was responsible for the chemical invention that kept cars shiny longer.

没错，汽车产品的失光控制。我父亲是汽车漆领域的专家，但比较小众。他常对我说这拿不了诺贝尔化学奖。总之他经常谈论离开杜邦创业单干，但始终没迈出那一步。

Yeah. Loose sight for automotive products. My dad was this car paint guru, but a little bit of a niche. Not gonna win the Nobel Prize in chemistry as he would frequently point out to me. But, anyway, he talked a lot about leaving DuPont and about startups and doing something on his own, and he never did.

所以我父亲极度渴望新事物却又紧握熟悉的一切。按我的推测，大卫想招募的那些人可能也面临类似情况。对我父亲来说，我认为核心是恐惧——如果用数字表示'如果失败'的代价，对他来说会是个巨大的负值。

So my dad absolutely yearned for the new but clung to the familiar. And if I just play out what I think happened there, it might be operating for some of these people that David wants to recruit. For my dad, I think it was deeply fear. The equation, if it had a number for if this goes wrong, that was a very big negative number for him.

你觉得他具体在害怕什么？

And what do you think the fear was about specifically?

我不太确定，可能是某种地位丧失或害怕显得愚蠢。

I don't really know. It was probably some form of loss of status or not wanting to look stupid.

我很好奇你父亲对确定性的执着是否影响了家庭，包括你？你是否曾放弃过渴望甚至已做好准备去追求的事物？

I'm curious whether your father's reluctance to leave the sure thing, whether that played out at all in the family, including in you. Have you ever decided to not pursue something that you were eager or even prepared to pursue?

你知道，我觉得自己骨子里确实有点叛逆。甚至当我选择教育行业时，我爸爸的反应是，不行。绝对不行。赶紧换个方向。

You know, I think I do have a little bit of a rebellious streak. Even going into education, my dad was like, no. No. Run the other way.

为什么呢？

Because why?

他是拿这个和读医学博士作比较。

Well, he was comparing it to getting MD PhD.

所以这是个地位问题。

So it was a status.

对他来说关乎社会地位，而且这不是条光明坦途。这个选择风险大得多。我父亲是个厌恶风险的人，但不知为何，他的犹豫从没成为我的负担。我经常这样——做事时完全不在乎他人看法。

For him, it was status, and it was not a well lit certain path. The possibilities were much riskier. And my dad was a risk averse guy, but for whatever reason, I didn't feel burdened by his hesitations. That does happen to me a lot. I do things where I'm like, I don't care.

记得大学入学时，我们全年级在阶梯教室参加数学分班考试。我放了个超响的屁，还拖得特别长。当时居然没太尴尬。按理说我该羞得缩成毫米大小的球才对。

You know? When I got to college, we all had to sit in an amphitheater, and we had to take, like, math placement test. And I just let out the loudest fart, and it wasn't a short one. And I wasn't that embarrassed. Really, I should have just shriveled up into, like, a tiny millimeter diameter size circle.

但我就是没那么在意。我觉得自己这种「反正我就要搞教育」「无论如何都要试试」的性子，可能某种程度上是种不知羞耻的缺陷吧。我父亲可完全不是这样的人。

But I just didn't care that much. And I think my kind of like, well, I'm gonna go into education anyway. Like, well, I'm gonna try it anyway. It's a little bit of inability, maybe dysfunctionally, to be embarrassed. And my dad was not like that.

让我们回到大卫同事不追随他的可能解释——人们并不像口头说的那么喜欢他。我并非要贬低大卫本人，但很好奇如何判断别人对你的喜爱/尊重程度是否低于自我认知。作为写作者我常思考这个：对已呈现的事物，你可以评判其优劣对错；但对那些缺席的信息，当你缺乏认知时——不仅是大卫的案例，更多宏观层面也是如此。

So let me go back to a possible explanation for David's colleagues not following him, which is that people just don't like him as much as they tell him that they like him. And I don't mean to disparage David personally, but I am curious how one can tell if people don't like or respect you as much as you think. I think about this a lot as a writer. The things that are present, you can judge whether they're good, interesting, wrong, etcetera. But the things that are not present, when you have a lack of information, when you don't entertain an idea, I think about this not just in David's case, but on many, many bigger scales.

当你对某些情况浑然不觉时，这种无知本身就是关键信息。就像一辈子牙缝里卡着菠菜却没人提醒你。

When you are just not aware of something that's going on, that's an important piece of information. It's kinda the equivalent of having spinach in your teeth your whole life and no one tells you.

会提醒我们牙缝有菠菜的，往往是最亲近的人。真正喜欢你的人才会直言不讳。那些不喜欢你的人永远不会告诉你——他们何必呢？我就从不会告诉别人我不喜欢他们。

And the people who do tell us that we have spinach in our teeth are really our nearest and dearest. Your nearest and dearest probably do like you. It's the people who don't like you who will never tell you. Why would they? I don't tell people I don't like them.

首先，我大多时候是喜欢人的。但其次，确实有些我不喜欢的人，而我不会告诉他们。即使他们直接问我‘你不喜欢我吗？’，我想我也会撒谎。这让人很不自在。

I mean, first of all, I mostly like people. But second of all, there are people I don't like, and I don't tell them. And even if they asked me, do you not like me? I think I would lie. It's uncomfortable.

我完全赞同你。不过你是否在论证，坦诚相告会是更好的选择？

I am so with you here. Are you arguing, however, that it would be better to do so?

我认为对所有人都会更好，尤其对被不喜欢的那个人。对吧？因为你说得对，这种信息被刻意隐瞒，或者因为没人提及而不知情，对那个人来说，知道真相显然更好。只是我不确定这对必须开口的人是否同样有益。

I think it would be better for everybody, especially the person who's not liked. Right? Because you're right. There's this information of omission or there's what you don't know because nobody said, and it would certainly be better for that person. I don't know if it's so good for the person who has to say it.

比如，'顺便说一句，我该告诉你，我不太喜欢你'这种话。

Like, oh, by the way, I should tell you. I don't like you very much.

其实真正有价值的信息是原因。对吧？'我不喜欢你是因为那次情况下，你做了我认为很不诚实的事'之类的。这样的反馈才更有建设性不是吗？

Well, the really valuable information would be the why. Right? I don't like you because we were in this circumstance, and you did something that I thought was really dishonest or whatever. Wouldn't that be the fruitful thing?

完全正确。前提是对方能接受，能真正倾听。就像我们都希望有人提醒牙齿沾了菠菜——我们想知道才能处理。问题在于，如何让人愿意告诉我牙齿上有菠菜？

Absolutely. If you could take it, you if could really listen. We all wanna know if we have spinach in our teeth. We wanna know so we can get it out. The question would be, how do I get people to tell me I have spinach in my teeth?

我立刻想到两个策略：一是那些最亲近的人，你可以主动询问。他们可能知情且愿意告知，但通常需要被问及才会开口。

So there are two strategies that leap to mind. One is those people who would tell you the nearest and dearest, I think you could ask them. They might know things and be willing to tell you, but they might not work up the energy to tell you without being asked.

所以大卫可以去找伴侣或配偶说：'我很惊讶也很失望没什么人追随我。你觉得是不是我职场上的某些行为让人不愿与我共事？'

So David could go to his partner, spouse, whatever, and say, listen. I'm really surprised and disappointed that more people haven't followed me. Do you think there's something in the way that I behave as a professional that makes people not wanna spend time with me?

对，大卫的配偶。或者在那家旧律所里，是否有大卫特别亲近的人——甚至特别失望对方没跟来？直接说'我真心想知道，别顾及我的自尊，我怀疑不只是经济或疫情原因'，这样可能让对方放下包袱。还要有点锲而不舍——我每次演讲后征求批评意见时，半数情况都无人回应。

Yeah. David's spouse. Or in that old law firm, was there one person in particular that David felt especially close to, maybe even especially disappointed that they didn't come? And just to say, I really wanna know, and don't spare my ego because I have the suspicion that it's not just economics or just the pandemic, and that might liberate the person and being a little persistent. When I ask for negative feedback after I give a talk, 50% of the time, I get nothing.

人们就是很难说出负面评价。我必须持续追问：'不，说真的，还有什么？有哪些是我自己可能意识不到的问题？'

They just can't ever get themselves to say something negative. I have to keep going. I have to say, no. But, really, what else is there? What is there as something that I might not be able to know myself?

也许你是一个主动寻求并受益于批评反馈的人。但我认为很多人嘴上说想要批评反馈，实际上并非如此。你觉得像大卫这样的人，如果去询问他原来公司的同事，最终可能会后悔吗？换句话说，他们本来就不会来。对吧？

So you may be an individual who seeks out and benefits from critical feedback. I would argue many people say they want critical feedback and actually don't. Do you think that someone like David, if he were to ask someone his old firm, might, in the end, regret it? In other words, they're already not coming. Right?

所以要么是他本人，要么是当时的情况有问题，导致他们不会来。而现在，他还将额外获知具体原因。

So there's something about either him or the situation that they're not going to come. So now in addition, he would be armed with the knowledge of why.

但你不觉得总体而言——只有大卫自己能回答这个问题——听到真相时的那点不适感，远比不上能及时清除牙缝里的菠菜重要吗？

But don't you think that on balance, and only David could answer this, that bit of discomfort of hearing it is far outweighed by the ability to take the spinach out of your teeth?

我认为这是个非常棘手的问题。

I think that's a really hard question.

真的吗？

Really?

如果只是牙缝里的菠菜，那当然值得。但如果涉及人们不喜欢的、关乎我们本质人格的东西，我不确定这是否划算。

If it were spinach, yes. If it were our very essence in our personhood that people don't like, I'm not sure that's a win.

但是史蒂文，如果真涉及到你本质的问题，难道你不想知道吗？

But, Steven, if it really were something foundational about you, then wouldn't you really want to know?

要知道，我觉得很多人宁愿保持无知，或者能找个反事实理由——比如‘他们不来是因为疫情’——这样反而过得更好。实践中我看到多数人都会退回到不想知道的标准。不过我要说，我们刚才对大卫有点苛刻了。

You know, I think a lot of people would benefit and thrive in the ignorance or being able to tell a counterfactual like, hey. The reason they're not coming is because pandemic. I can see that in practice, many people would revert to the standard of not wanting to know. I will say this. I feel bad that we've beat up on David a little bit.

我很感谢他愿意和我们分享这个困境。

I appreciate his sharing his dilemma with us.

我懂你，大卫。

I know, David.

我希望一切顺利。这是大卫·乌尔布里希在邮件结尾的签名方式。他用了一句可能每封邮件都会附上的引言。那句话是：'并非因为事情困难我们才不去尝试，而是因为我们不去尝试，事情才变得困难。'

I hope it works out well. Here's how David Ulbrich signed off his email. It was with a quote that maybe goes at the end of every email he sends. The quote was, it is not because things are difficult that we don't try them. It is because we don't try them that they are difficult.

我非常喜欢这句话。我查了一下，之前从未见过。原来它出自塞内卡。

And I love this quote. I looked it up. I'd never seen it. It was from Seneca.

我正想说，这听起来像是塞内卡的话。

I was gonna say, it sounds like Seneca.

所以我必须说，我太喜欢这句话了，发现它让我无比感激。如果大卫·乌尔布里希邀请我去为他工作，尽管我没有法律学位，我也会答应。

And so I have to say, I like this quote so much, and I was so grateful to have discovered it that if David Ulbrich asks me to come work for him despite my lack of law degree, I'm in.

接下来在《没有愚蠢的问题》节目中，史蒂文和安吉拉将辩论自助书籍的价值。你

Still to come on No Stupid Questions, Steven and Angela debate the value of self help books. Do you

能解释一下为什么你和莱维特决定写一本连自尊心强的斯蒂芬·邓布纳都不会买的书吗？嘿，斯蒂芬，我有个问题。嗯。你读过自助书籍吗？然后，我不知道，真的帮到自己了吗？

have an explanation for why you and Levitt decided to write a book of the kind that no self respecting Stephen Dumbner would even buy? Hey. Stephen, I have a question. Yep. Have you ever read a self help book and, I don't know, helped yourself?

我之所以这么问，是因为我一直在想，像你写的、我写的这类书，它们有可能改变一个人的生活，使之变得更好吗？还是说我的看法是对的——其实并不能，它们只是在阅读时让你感觉良好。

And the reason I ask is that I've been wondering, do books like you write, like I wrote, do they have the possible effect of changing somebody's life for the better? Or am I right in saying that, like, not really. They just make you feel good when you're reading them.

首先，我不会把你的书或我的书归为自助类。

So first of all, I would not have put your books or mine in the self help category.

我觉得我的书就放在自助书架上。

I think mine is on the self help shelf.

真的吗？我刚说完这个，但某种程度上，所有的书不都是自助书吗？阅读任何东西的初衷不都是为了帮助自己变得更聪明、更好、更快乐，或者其他什么吗？

Is that right? I mean, having just said that, aren't all books self help books to some degree? Isn't the intention of reading anything to help yourself get smarter, better, happier, something or other?

好吧，也许不是在读谢尔·希尔弗斯坦那首关于人行道尽头在哪里的诗。

Well, maybe not reading a poem by Shel Silverstein about how the sidewalk ends.

嗯，我不确定。或许你最终是想从事人行道相关的工作。

Well, I don't know. Maybe you're looking to get into sidewalk work eventually.

可能

Could

吧。但当我想到标准的自助书籍时，比如如何致富、变瘦、长寿之类的。

be. But when I think of the standard self help book, like how to get rich, get skinny, live long, whatever.

《人性的弱点》。

How to make friends and influence people.

那是经典之作。我知道你很喜欢那本书。我对这类书籍不太感冒，但我想这是因为我对书籍有点挑剔。

There is the classic. I know you like that one a lot. I am not a big fan of the genre, but I think that's because I'm a little bit of a snob when it comes to books.

等等，等等，等等。我得打断你一下。

And Wait. Wait. Wait. Wait. I have to interrupt you.

你确实写过一本自助书，《像怪胎一样思考》。

You did write a self help book, Think Like a Freak.

是的。我们写的第三本《魔鬼经济学》就是尝试做自助书籍，叫《像怪胎一样思考》。那是一次非常不同的写作经历，因为我从不认为自己是个适合给任何建议的人。我从不觉得自己有资格说‘嘿，你知道你该怎么做吗？’实际上，你知道‘如果我是你’这种说法吧？我有时确实会这么说，但每次都会先声明‘我并不是真这么想’。

Yeah. The third Freakonomics book we wrote was our attempt at a self help book called Think Like a Freak. And that was a really different writing experience because I've never thought that I'm a person who should give advice of any sort. I've never felt empowered to say, hey, you know what you should do? In fact, you know the phrase, well, if I were you, I do find myself saying that sometimes, but when I do, I always preface it with, like, I don't really mean this.

你很勉强。

You're reluctant.

确实。我并不是那些《如何致富、变瘦、活到120岁》类书籍的忠实粉丝。不过公平地说，我觉得自己可能读过这类书比想象中要多，而且阅读时确实学到了不少。关键是要有敏锐的辨别力，从中筛选出真金和糟粕。我认为这类书之所以充斥大量垃圾内容，部分原因在于这个领域本身就带点投机性质。

Yeah. So I'm not a big fan of the How to Get Rich, Skinny, Live to a 120 books. Although, to be fair, I think I probably have read more of them than I think, and I think I do learn a lot when I read them. You just have to have your radar attuned really sharply to sort out the gold from the crap. And I think the reason there's so much crap is because it is a little bit of a hustly genre for one.

但更重要的是，我认为成功经验难以泛化。这在那些被我称为'成功学色情片'的书籍中尤为明显——那些关于胜利、领导力和创业的书。它们往往不断重复讲述成功者的故事，偶尔穿插失败案例，却隐含着一个假设：比如史蒂夫·乔布斯的成功之道你也可以复制。而我一直认为，许多做出非凡成就的人本身就是非凡之人，盲目追随他们的路径其实很荒谬。

But additionally, I think that help is hard to generalize, and I see this especially in the books that are what I think of as success porn, the books about winning and leadership and entrepreneurship. Often, you see is they will tell story after story after story of the winners and how they won and occasionally a loser and how they lost. But they make this assumption that what made Steve Jobs, for instance, a big winner, you can do too. And my thought has always been that a lot of people who do amazing noteworthy things are amazing and noteworthy people, and that to follow their path is kind of ridiculous.

你看到他们在沙滩留下的脚印，但那根本不是你能跟随的足迹。

You see their footsteps in the sand, but they're not footsteps that you could follow.

每个人的生命中都存在太多变量，包括运气和不同的能力禀赋。

And there are so many different variables that went into that life, including luck and including different abilities.

好吧。那你能解释下为什么你和列维特要写这种连自尊心强的斯蒂芬·邓布纳都不会买的书吗？

Okay. So do you have an explanation for why you and Levitt decided to write a book of the kind that no self respecting Stephen Dumbner would even buy?

可以。当时我们已经出版了《魔鬼经济学》和《超级魔鬼经济学》两本书，还创办了魔鬼经济学电台。我们收到过——现在也仍在接收——海量的邮件提问，人们总是描述某个情境后问：我想深入了解/解决这个问题。

I do. So by then, we had two books, Freakonomics and Super Freakonomics. And we'd started Freakonomics Radio, and we would get and still get lots and lots and lots and lots of questions, usually by email, of people saying, here's the situation. I wanna know more about it. I wanna fix it.

被这种信息洪流冲击既令人振奋又使人无力——解决其中任何一个问题都可能耗时数月。当每天收到上百封这类请求时，时间根本不够用。于是我们想：与其勉强解决少数问题，不如写本指南分享我们的思考方式、数据收集、分析和叙事方法？所以没错，我们确实写了本自助类书籍。

And it's an amazing thing to be on the receiving end of this fire hose, but it's also a debilitating thing because any one of these requests for solving a problem or figuring out something could take months and months and months. And if you're getting a 100 of them a day, well, the math doesn't work out very well. So we thought, what about rather than trying and failing to solve a handful of these problems, what if we could write a kind of guidebook to how we do our thinking and our data collection and our analysis and our storytelling? And so, yeah, we did sort of write a self help book.

我理解你的意思：即便在写作时你们也意识到，无论构思多么精巧，这本书注定无法精准契合每个人——毕竟个体处境、能力、机遇各不相同。你们知道不可能箭箭中靶，但觉得有总比没有强，是这样吗？

I get your point that even probably when you were writing it, you realized that however well crafted it was, that it was going to miss the mark because each person has a different circumstance. They have different capabilities. They have different opportunities. So you knew that you would be not a bull's eye for each and every reader, but you thought it would be still better than nothing. Is that right?

说'有胜于无'算是保守评价。倒不是要贬低它——我认为这是本好书，很多人从中受益。至今仍有读者告诉我们他们如何将书中的方法应用于工作、教育体系或政治实践。看来我不该全盘否定自助这个概念。

I think better than nothing is a safe assessment. No. I don't mean to disparage it. I mean, I thought it was a good book that people got a lot out of, and we still hear from people who read that book and tell us all the ways that they applied it to their job or their school system or their political situation or whatnot. So I guess I shouldn't disparage the notion of self help.

不过越是吐槽这类书籍，我越意识到自己从多少非典型自助书中获益。社会学家米基·麦吉曾提出：《圣经》可能是历史上最早且最重要的自助书。虽然我不完全认同这个观点，但好吧...确实如此。当然古希腊罗马时期也有大量类似的自助论述。

Although, the more I talk about how much I don't like it, the more I realize how much I've learned from different books that may not be considered classic self I mean, the sociologist Mickey McGee has written about the idea that the Bible is one of the first and perhaps the most significant self help book in history. Now I don't really think of it as that, but okay. Sure. And then, of course, there were plenty of what you might call self help treatises during Greek and Roman times.

是的，马可·奥勒留。对吧？这可以追溯到很久以前。也许你内心那股清高劲儿会觉得读《沉思录》或蒙田的随笔比读戴尔·卡耐基更体面。

Yeah. Marcus Aurelius. Right? This goes all the way back. And maybe the snob in you would feel better reading meditations or reading the essays of Michel de Montaigne than reading Dale Carnegie.

你知道吗，那些我都读过，但不得不承认，你当场就把我说服了。因为我确实会思考从实用自助书里学到的东西，包括《邻家的百万富翁》。

You know, I read all that, and I hate to say, I think you're just converting me on the spot here. Because I do think about some of the things that I've learned from actual self help books, including The Millionaire Next Door.

我没读过《邻家的百万富翁》。

I have not read The Millionaire Next Door.

我二十七八岁时，刚有了第一份正经工作开始赚钱，我哥哥送了这本书给我，那真是大开眼界。它教你如何实际地赚钱、存钱、少花钱多投资等等。还有那些改变我人生轨迹的传记，特别是作为作家的我——雷德·史密斯、林·拉德纳的传记，海明威则像是个警示故事。我还记得读到波德莱尔那首震撼我的散文诗，他把生活比作医院。

So one of my brothers gave that to me when I was in my mid, late twenties when I had my first real ish jobs and started to earn a little bit of money, and that was a huge eye opener for me. It's like, this is how you actually earn money, save money, spend less, invest more, all that stuff. And then I think about biographies I've read that really changed the shape of my life, especially my life as a writer, biographies of Red Smith and Ring Lardner and Hemingway as a kinda cautionary tale. There was a a prose poem by Baudelaire I remember reading and just being knocked over by. He wrote about how life is a hospital.

我来找找那句原话：'生活是一座医院，每个病人都想换床位。有人觉得靠近壁炉会减轻痛苦，有人坚信靠窗才能痊愈。我总幻想别处会更幸福，搬迁的念头终日与灵魂纠缠。'波德莱尔这个意象我每周都会想起，甚至更频繁。

Here, I'm gonna find the quote. Life is a hospital in which every patient is possessed by the desire of changing his bed. One would prefer to suffer near the fire, and another is certain that he would get well if he were by the window. It seems to me that I should always be happy if I were somewhere else, and this question of moving house is one that I'm continually talking over with my soul. I think of that idea from Baudelaire probably once a week, maybe more often.

所以我想我其实热爱自助书籍。

So I guess I love self help books.

我的态度反复摇摆。文明能发展到今天，正是因为我们通过书籍传承智慧，避免它像水从筛孔中流失。记得E·B·怀特说过：'不朽存在于书页之间。'保存智慧的发明，或许比任何其他发明都更推动人类进步。

I've gone back and forth. One of the reasons why civilization is where we are is that we have this ability to transmit wisdom to one another and to preserve it and to not have it go like water through a sieve because of books. And I think it was Eby White. He said immortality is to be found between the covers of a book. So there is something about preserving wisdom, and this invention has maybe done more to further humanity than any other.

这是清晨醒来的安吉拉会想：'或许该再读本书'。但另一面的现实是：没人真正读完书，大多数人翻不过前两章。就算读到封底，片刻振奋后也会被午餐吃什么分散注意。

Okay. That's one side of Angela when she wakes up and thinks, oh, maybe I'll read another book. But here's the other side, which is that nobody reads books. They certainly don't read past the first or second chapter or most people don't. Even if they got to the very back cover, they probably would feel really energized for a moment and then get distracted by what's for lunch.

所以我在这两个极端间徘徊。为此我查过相关研究——毕竟这是我的工作方式。

And so I waver between these two extremes. I looked up the research on this because it's what I do.

对了，心理学研究有没有探讨过自助书的效果？比如相比什么都不做或接受治疗之类的？

Yeah. Is there psychological research that talks about whether self help books are more effective than either nothing or therapy or whatnot?

是的。关于这方面的实证数据，很多来自心理健康领域。这项研究被称为阅读疗法。你能通过阅读书籍治愈自己吗？虽然存在一些争议，但总体而言，证据表明相比什么都不做，阅读书籍确实更有益处。

Yeah. So the empirical data on this, a lot of it comes from mental health. The research on this is called bibliotherapy. Can you cure yourself through reading books? And there's some descent, but on balance, the evidence is that compared to nothing, for sure, reading a book can be better.

但与一对一治疗相比，通常效果较差。如果你感到抑郁或焦虑，又没有可以面谈的认知行为治疗师，最畅销的书之一是大卫·伯恩斯的《感觉良好》。他提到写这本书的初衷是临床治疗时给患者布置作业——这是认知行为疗法的重要部分——然后通过复印笔记来维持每次诊疗间的连续性。

Compared to one on one therapy, generally worse. One of the best selling books if you're feeling depressed or anxious and you don't have a cognitive behavioral therapist that you can go to one on one, you could buy feeling good by David Burns. He says that the reason why he wrote it is that when he was seeing patients clinically, he was giving them homework. That's a big part of cognitive behavioral therapy. And then photocopying notes, trying to provide some continuity from visit to visit.

我想他后来意识到自己其实是在编写手册。接着他可能顿悟到：如果这本手册能帮助每周接诊的十几位患者，就能惠及更多人。我认为这本书广受欢迎的原因在于，相较于毫无指导，了解认知行为疗法的原则总是有益的。

I think he realized at one point that he was basically creating a manual. And then I think it must have dawned on him that if this manual could be helpful to the dozen patients that he was seeing in the course of a week, it could be helpful to many other people. And the reason I think it's on so many bookshelves is that, again, compared to nothing, it's good to know the principles of cognitive behavioral therapy.

你知道《自助论》这本书吗？我认为这是‘自助’这个短语的起源。你读过塞缪尔·斯迈尔斯的这部作品吗？

Do you know the book self help, which I believe was the origin of the phrase? Have you ever come across that book by Samuel Smiles?

书名就叫《自助》？没读过。

Like, literally called self help? No.

是的。我记得偶然发现并阅读了这本书。这要从托马斯·卡莱尔说起——那位我最终非常讨厌的暴躁苏格兰哲学家，不过这是题外话了。多年前我为了写作曾大量阅读卡莱尔的作品，偶然得知他写了本关于法国大革命的书，书名就叫《法国大革命》。

Yeah. So I remember coming across this book and reading it. This began with Thomas Carlyle. He's the kinda grumpy Scottish philosopher who I ended up really disliking a lot, but that's another story. Anyway, I was reading a lot of Carlisle and about him for something I was writing once long ago, and I came across a story of how Carlisle had written a book about the French Revolution called The French Revolution.

真是机智的书名。

Clever title.

那是十九世纪中叶，当时书稿只有纸质手写版。故事大概是：他把书稿交给朋友审阅，朋友家的清洁工（当时称为charwoman）误将唯一的手稿扔进壁炉烧毁了。卡莱尔不得不重写已完成的作品。要是我遇到这种情况——比如电脑崩溃丢失两段文字...

This was mid nineteenth century, and this is back in the day when you had a manuscript on paper, one copy of it. And the story went something like he'd given it to a friend to read for comment. The friend's charwoman, as they were called, had accidentally thrown it in the fireplace and burned his only manuscript. And so Thomas Carlyle had to set about rewriting the book that he'd already written. And I don't know about you, but whenever I lose even, like, two paragraphs in a computer crash

这种痛苦确实很特别，对吧？

It is a special kind of pain, isn't it?

当时有位苏格兰记者塞缪尔·斯迈尔斯听说了卡莱尔重写《法国大革命》的励志故事。他深受触动开始研究‘毅力’这个概念，最终在1859年出版了畅销书《自助论》。这本书鼓励所有人——尤其是社会底层人群——通过勤奋和毅力提升自我。这在当时相当激进，因为跨越阶级的个人命运仍属新鲜概念，社会流动性的思想极具颠覆性。

So there was a guy, a Scottish journalist, contemporary named Samuel Smiles, who had learned of the story of Carlyle experiencing this special kind of pain and rewriting the French Revolution, which was eventually published. And Samuel Smiles was so inspired by the perseverance of Carlisle that he set about to explore this idea of perseverance, and he, Smiles, ended up writing a book that he went on to call Self Help, which was published in 1859, and it became a bestseller. This was a book that essentially encouraged everyone to make more of themselves, but especially people who are at the bottom of the social and economic ladder. He was arguing that people should be able to improve themselves through hard work and perseverance like Carlisle, And this was a fairly spicy thought at that time in history because individual destiny, especially a destiny that crossed one or two class boundaries, was still a fairly novel concept. And so these thoughts about social mobility were a big deal.

到了二十世纪，英国保守党首相玛格丽特·撒切尔曾想将塞缪尔·斯迈尔斯的这本《自助论》作为礼物赠送给全英国的学童。不过我认为这事最终并未实现。

And then in the twentieth century, Margaret Thatcher, the conservative prime minister of The UK, wanted to give this book by Samuel Smiles, self help, as a gift to every schoolchild in Britain. I don't think that ever happened, though.

确实没有。我对撒切尔的了解仅限于《王冠》最后一季的演绎。但听起来这非常符合剧中塑造的撒切尔形象。

No. Probably not. You know, my knowledge of Thatcher is limited to what I could get from the crown in its last season. So but that sounds very much like the Thatcher I know from the crown.

确实如此。

It does indeed.

想想儿童读物里的那些小寓言，比如《小火车做到了》或我最爱的《青蛙与蟾蜍》系列。这些故事总蕴含着某种讯息，往往是智慧箴言。无非是一个人类试图向另一个人类提供建议——要么直白地用命令式说'做这个，别做那个'，要么迂回地表达。比如'青蛙心想，或许我该问问蟾蜍想要什么'。

Look. If you think about children's books, these little parables, right, like, little engine that could or my favorite books were frog and toad. And they are always something with a message and very often a message of wisdom. Just one human being trying to give advice to another human being either directly in the imperative, like, do this, don't do that, or obliquely. Like and then Frog thought, maybe I should ask Toad what he wants.

我认为不该对这类读物摆出高高在上的姿态。但同时也应对提供建议保持审慎态度，甚至质疑这些建议的实际效用。

I think we shouldn't be snobby about them. At the same time, I think that having some hesitation about giving advice and even just how helpful these things can be.

可你明明酷爱给人建议。你曾说过喜欢在超市里指点别人该买哪种布朗尼蛋糕。

But you love to give advice. You've told us how you like to go into the supermarket and tell people what kind of brownie to buy.

太对了。我确实很专横。若用0到10分衡量，在'乐于发表处世意见'这项上，我绝对更接近10分而非0分。但之所以持续自我辩论、并愿与任何人探讨这个话题，是因为我总在思考书籍之外的启示。

That's so true. Yes. I'm domineering. I probably am on a scale from zero to 10, a lot closer to 10 than I am to zero on comfort dispensing my opinions about the way things ought to be. But I'll tell you that the reason I keep debating this with myself and anybody else who wants to talk about it with me is that I have wondered what lies beyond the book.

假设100个买了《像怪才一样思考》或卡耐基著作的人里，确实有超过零人因此受益——那就算有效。但肯定远低于100人，恐怕更接近零。比如你觉得播客真能改变人们的生活吗？

If it's true that out of a 100 people who bought Think Like a Freak or bought a Dale Carnegie book, that more than zero actually helped themselves. So it worked. But definitely fewer than a 100 and probably closer to zero. I don't know if you think that podcasts help people change their lives, for example.

我认为每种传播形式都有其独特属性。书籍作为存在已久的载体，人们清楚该如何与之互动，明白自己'应该'从中获得什么。播客的成功在于其与生俱来的真实性——当然并非所有节目——但多数情况下你能直接听到对话。越接近值得倾听的源头，其影响力就越强大。这种特质其实贯穿于历史上所有文学与建议类作品之中。

I do think that look. Every form of communication is its own idiom to some degree, and I think that the book is a format that's been around long enough that people know how to engage in it, what they're, quote, supposed to get out of it. The reason I think that podcasting has become successful is because there is an inevitable authenticity about it, not every podcast, but much, in that you're hearing people talking directly. The closer that you can get to the source, if the source is someone worth listening to, then to me, the more powerful they can be. But I think that's existed in every form of literature and advice giving through history.

无论是斯多葛学派还是波德莱尔，直接聆听智者的声音总是震撼人心的。新闻业的缺陷有时就在于——它既未能足够有力地传递重要信息，也未能足够真实地呈现。

I mean, whether you wanna talk about the stoics or Baudelaire or whoever, hearing the voice of the wisdom giver directly is incredibly powerful. That's where I think journalism sometimes does fail is it doesn't get across powerful information, not only as powerfully as it should, but as authentically as it should.

即便在这个播客里，我也在思考我们是否能做些创新或改进，让它比单纯偷听两人对话更有价值。

Even within this podcast, I wonder whether we could invent or innovate a little bit such that it would be even more useful than eavesdropping on two people.

其中一人不愿给出建议，另一人则显得专横。

One of whom is reluctant to give advice, the other of whom is domineering.

另一位则不愿承认她已准备好且乐意提供建议。是的，我确实认为应该存在比我们目前所做之事更有帮助的方式。

The other who is reluctant to admit that she's ready and willing to give advice. Yeah. I do think that there must be something that could be yet more helpful than these current kinds of things that we do.

你知道，在《像怪才一样思考》中，我们写那本书的原因是因为收到了太多无法回应的求助请求。这档节目收到的邮件数量令我震惊——现在有多少人写信来提问或寻求解决困境？我感受到类似的挫败感：我们连其中百分之一的问题都无法在节目中解答。但如果能让节目更多关于如何自己寻找答案、如何自主探索正确路径，或许我们能提供些微小帮助。

You know, described with Think Like a Freak, the reason that we wrote that book was because we would just get so many requests for help that we couldn't give. I will say the volume of emails for this show is astounding to me. How many people are writing in now with questions that they want answered or situations they want addressed or solved? And I guess I feel there's a parallel frustration, which is there is no way we can get to even one one hundredth of them in the show. But if we could make the show a little bit more about how to answer questions yourself, how to pursue the right path of inquiry yourself, maybe we could perform some slight small service.

是的。我们应该尝试这么做。当你说'每本书不都是自助书吗'时，某种意义上，每次人际互动都是为了向他人学习。所以我们应该创新人类相互学习的方式——我们可以向他人学习。

Yeah. I think we should try to do that. And I think when you said that isn't every book a self help book, in a way, every human interaction is to try to learn something from the other human. So we should try to innovate ways that humans can learn from other humans. We can learn from other humans.

他人也能向我们学习。我们可以共同成长。我认为应该尝试新事物。

Other humans could learn from us. We could all be learning together. I think we should try new things.

广告回来后，我们将核实今天对话中的事实。现在开始今日对话的事实核查：斯蒂芬讲述了苏格兰哲学家托马斯·卡莱尔如何在其友人的管家意外烧毁手稿后，重写《法国大革命》一书的故事。但斯蒂芬未提及的是，这位友人正是政治经济学家约翰·斯图尔特·穆勒。穆勒最初受邀撰写此书，却推荐了卡莱尔执笔。

Coming up after the break, a fact check of today's conversation. And now here's a fact check of today's conversations. Stephen tells the story of how Scottish philosopher Thomas Carlyle had to rewrite his book on the French Revolution after his friend's housekeeper accidentally burned the manuscript. What Stephen failed to mention was that this friend was political economist John Stuart Mill. Mill was originally asked to write the book but recommended that Carlisle do it instead.

卡莱尔

Carlisle

曾说

said that

该书的第二版——即最终出版并启发塞缪尔·斯迈尔斯创作自助书籍的版本——是直接且炽热地从心底流淌而出的。随后，安吉拉提及戴尔·卡耐基1936年的著作《人性的弱点》，却误称为《如何交朋友并影响他人》。这本书是安吉拉的最爱，但奇怪的是她总记不清细节。老听众会记得这是安吉拉第二次误引该书——在NSQ第24期《为何我们遗忘读过的内容》中，颇具讽刺意味地，她将本书与另一本畅销自助书《高效能人士的七个习惯》（作者史蒂芬·柯维）混淆了。

the second version of the book, the one that he ultimately published and inspired Samuel Smiles' self help, came direct and flamingly from the heart. Later, Angelo refers to Dale Carnegie's 1936 book How to Win Friends and Influence People, but mistakenly refers to it as How to Make friends and influence people. The book is one of Angela's favorites, but for some reason, its details often evade her. Longtime listeners will know that this was the second time that Angela mis referenced the work. In NSQ episode 24, Why Do We Forget So Much of What We've Read, Angela, appropriately enough, confuses the work with another best selling self help book, The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, which was written by author and businessman Stephen Covey.

最后，安吉拉认为她记得作家E.B.怀特的一句话：'不朽存在于书籍的封面之间。'虽然她抓住了这句话的大意，但措辞有误。她所想到的段落出自怀特1971年为庆祝密歇根州特洛伊市新公共图书馆开馆而写的一封信。

Finally, Angela believes that she remembers a quote from author E. B. White, Immortality is to be found between the covers of a book. While she captures the general message of the quote, she gets the wording wrong. The passage that she's thinking of is from a letter that White wrote in 1971 to celebrate the opening of a new public library in Troy, Michigan.

图书管理员玛格丽特·哈特曾致信多位作家和名人，请他们为到访图书馆的孩子们写回信。怀特写道：'书籍承载着世界上大部分的奥秘，记录着人类曾有过的思想。无论悲伤还是快乐时光，书籍都是良伴。因为书籍就是人，是那些通过藏身书页间得以永生的人。'事实核查到此结束。

Librarian Marguerite Hart had written to a number of authors and celebrities and asked them to reply with a note to children visiting the library. White wrote, Books hold most of the secrets of the world, most of the thoughts that men and women have had. Books are good company in sad times and happy times. For books are people, people who have managed to stay alive by hiding between the covers of a book. That's it for the fact check.

《没有愚蠢的问题》由Freakonomics Radio和Stitcher联合制作。本期节目由我——丽贝卡·李·道格拉斯制作。本节目隶属于Freakonomics Radio Network，团队成员包括艾莉森·克雷格洛、格雷格·里彭、马克·麦克拉斯基、詹姆斯·福斯特和艾玛·特雷尔。主题曲《And She Was》来自Talking Heads乐队。

No Stupid Questions is produced by Freakonomics Radio and Stitcher. This episode was produced by me, Rebecca Lee Douglas. No stupid questions is part of the Freakonomics Radio Network. Our staff includes Alison Craiglow, Greg Ripon, Mark McCluskey, James Foster, and Emma Terrell. Our theme song is and she was by talking heads.

特别感谢大卫·伯恩和华纳查普尔音乐公司。如有问题想在未来节目中探讨，请发送邮件至nsq@Freakonomics.com。若您听到史蒂芬或安吉拉提及某项研究、专家或书籍并想深入了解，可访问freakonomics.com/nsq，我们整理了节目中所有重要参考资料链接。感谢收听。

Special thanks to David Byrne and Warner Chappell Music. If you have a question for a future episode, please email it to nsq@Freakonomics.com. And if you heard Steven or Angela reference a study, an expert, or a book that you'd like to learn more about, you can check out freakonomics.com/nsq, where we link to all of the major references that you heard about here today. Thanks for listening.

我在想戴着隐形牙套通话会不会有咬字不清。丽贝卡，你能听出我发音不清吗？

I wonder if I do this call with my Invisalign if you can hear a lisp. Can you hear a lisp, Rebecca?

Freakonomics Radio Network——万物隐藏面。Stitcher。

The Freakonomics Radio Network, the hidden side of everything. Stitcher.