×

We use cookies to help make LingQ better. By visiting the site, you agree to our cookie policy.

image

TEDTalks, Matt Ridley – When ideas have sex (2010)

Matt Ridley – When ideas have sex (2010)

When I was a student here in Oxford in the 1970s, the future of the world was bleak.

The population explosion was unstoppable. Global famine was inevitable. A cancer epidemic caused by chemicals in the environment was going to shorten our lives. The acid rain was falling on the forests. The desert was advancing by a mile or two a year. The oil was running out. And a nuclear winter would finish us off. None of those things happened. (Laughter) And astonishingly, if you look at what actually happened in my lifetime, the average per-capita income of the average person on the planet, in real terms, adjusted for inflation, has tripled. Lifespan is up by 30 percent in my lifetime. Child mortality is down by two-thirds. Per-capita food production is up by a third. And all this at a time when the population has doubled.

How did we achieve that -- whether you think it's a good thing or not -- How did we achieve that? How did we become the only species that becomes more prosperous as it becomes more populous? The size of the blob in this graph represents the size of the population. And the level of the graph represents GDP per capita. I think to answer that question you need to understand how human beings bring together their brains and enable their ideas to combine and recombine, to meet and, indeed, to mate. In other words, you need to understand how ideas have sex.

I want you to imagine how we got from making objects like this to making objects like this. These are both real objects. One is an Acheulean hand axe from half a million years ago of the kind made by Homo erectus. The other is obviously a computer mouse. They're both exactly the same size and shape to an uncanny degree. I've tried to work out which is bigger, and it's almost impossible. And that's because they're both designed to fit the human hand. They're both technologies. In the end, their similarity is not that interesting. It just tells you they were both designed to fit the human hand. The differences are what interest me. Because the one on the left was made to a pretty unvarying design for about a million years -- from one-and-a-half million years ago to half a million years ago. Homo erectus made the same tool for 30,000 generations. Of course there were a few changes, but tools changed slower than skeletons in those days. There was no progress, no innovation. It's an extraordinary phenomenon, but it's true. Whereas the object on the right is obsolete after five years. And there's another difference too, which is the object on the left is made from one substance. The object on the right is made from a confection of different substances, from silicon and metal and plastic and so on. And more than that, it's a confection of different ideas, the idea of plastic, the idea of a laser, the idea of transistors. They've all been combined together in this technology.

And it's this combination, this cumulative technology, that intrigues me. Because I think it's the secret to understanding what's happening in the world. My body's an accumulation of ideas too, the idea of skin cells, the idea of brain cells, the idea of liver cells. They've come together. How does evolution do cumulative, combinatorial things? Well, it uses sexual reproduction. In an asexual species, if you get two different mutations in different creatures, a green one and a red one, then one has to be better than the other. One goes extinct for the other to survive. But if you have a sexual species, then it's possible for an individual to inherit both mutations from different lineages. So what sex does is it enables the individual to draw upon the genetic innovations of the whole species. It's not confined to its own lineage.

What's the process that's having the same effect in cultural evolution as sex is having in biological evolution? And I think the answer is exchange, the habit of exchanging one thing for another. It's a unique human feature. No other animal does it. You can teach them in the laboratory to do a little bit of exchange. And indeed there's reciprocity in other animals. But the exchange of one object for another never happens. As Adam Smith said, "No made ever saw a dog make a fair exchange of a bone with another dog." (Laughter) You can have culture without exchange. You can have, as it were, asexual culture. Chimpanzees, killer whales, these kinds of creatures, they have culture. They teach each other traditions which are handed down from parent to offspring. In this case, chimpanzees teaching each other how to crack nuts with rocks. But the difference is that these cultures never expand, never grow, never accumulate, never become combinatorial. And the reason is because there is no sex, as it were, there is no exchange of ideas. Chimpanzee troops have different cultures in different troops. There's no exchange of ideas between them.

And why does exchange raise living standards? Well, the answer came from David Ricardo in 1817. And here is a Stone Age version of his story, although he told it in terms of trade between countries. Adam takes four hours to make a spear and three hours to make an axe. Oz takes one hour to make a spear and two hours to make an axe. So Oz is better at both spears and axes than Adam. He doesn't need Adam. He can make his own spears and axes. Well no, because if you think about it, if Oz makes two spears and Adam make two axes, and then they trade, then they will each have saved an hour of work. And the more they do this, the more true it's going to be. Because the more they do this, the better Adam is going to get at making axes, and the better Oz is going to get at making spears. So the gains from trade are only going to grow. And this is one of the beauties of exchange, is it actually creates the momentum for more specialization, which creates the momentum for more exchange and so on. Adam and Oz both saved an hour of time. That is prosperity, the saving of time in satisfying your needs.

Ask yourself how long you would have to work to provide for yourself an hour of reading light this evening to read a book by. If you had to start from scratch, let's say you go out into the countryside. You find a sheep. You kill it. You get the fat of of it. You render it down. You make a candle, etc. etc. How long is it going to take you? Quite a long time. How long do you actually have to work to earn an hour of reading light if you're on the average wage in Britain today? And the answer is about half a second. Back in 1950, you would have had to work for eight seconds on the average wage to acquire that much light. And that's seven and a half seconds of prosperity that you've gained. Since 1950, as it were. Because that's seven and a half seconds in which you can do something else. Or you can acquire another good or service. And back in 1880, it would have been 15 minutes to earn that amount of light from the average wage. Back in 1800, you'd have had to work six hours to earn a candle that could burn for an hour. In other words, the average person on the average wage could not afford a candle in 1800.

Go back to this image of the axe and the mouse, and ask yourself: "Who made them and for who?" The stone axe was made by someone for himself. It was self-sufficiency. We call that poverty these days. But the object on the right was made for me by other people. How many other people? Tens? Hundreds? Thousands? You know, I think it's probably millions. Because you've to include the man who grew the coffee, which was brewed for the man who was on the oil rig, who was drilling for oil, which was going to be made into the plastic, etc. They were all working for me, to make a mouse for me. And that's the way society works. That's what we've achieved as a species.

In the old days, if you were rich, you literally had people working for you. That's how you got to be rich; you employed them. Louis XIV had a lot of people working for him. They made his silly outfits, like this. (Laughter) And they did his silly hairstyles, or whatever. He had 498 people to prepare his dinner every night. But a modern tourist going around the palace of Versailles and looking at Louis XIV's pictures, he has 498 people doing his dinner tonight too. They're in bistros and cafes and restaurants and shops all over Paris. And they're all ready to serve you at an hour's notice with an excellent meal that's probably got higher quality than Louis XIV even had. And that's what we've done, because we're all working for each other. We're able to draw upon specialization and exchange to raise each other's living standards.

Now, you do get other animals working for each other too. Ants are a classic example; workers work for queens and queens work for workers. But there's a big difference, which is that it only happens within the colony. There's no working for each other across the colonies. And the reason for that is because there's a reproductive division of labor. That is to say, they specialize with respect to reproduction. The queen does it all. In our species, we don't like doing that. It's the one thing we insist on doing for ourselves, is reproduction. (Laughter) Even in England, we don't leave reproduction to the Queen.

(Applause)

So when did this habit start? And how long has it been going on? And what does it mean? Well, I think, probably, the oldest version of this is probably the sexual division of labor. But I've got no evidence for that. It just looks like the first thing we did was work male for female and female for male. In all hunter-gatherer societies today, there's a foraging division of labor between, on the whole, hunting males and gathering females. It isn't always quite that simple. But there's a distinction between specialized roles between males and females. And the beauty of this system is that it benefits both sides. The woman knows that, in the Hadzas' case here -- digging roots to share with men in exchange for meat -- she knows that all she has to do to get access to protein is to dig some extra roots and trade them for meat. And she doesn't have to go on an exhausting hunt and try and kill a warthog. And the man knows that he doesn't have to do any digging to get roots. All he has to do is make sure that when he kills a warthog it's big enough to share some. And so both sides raise each other's standards of living through the sexual division of labor.

When did this happen? We don't know, but it's possible that neanderthals didn't do this. They were a highly cooperative species. They were a highly intelligent species. Their brains on average, by the end, were bigger than yours and mine in this room today. They were imaginative. They buried their dead. They had language probably, because we know they had the FOXP2 gene of the same kind as us, which was discovered here in Oxford. And it looks like they probably had linguistic skills. They were brilliant people. I'm not dissing the neanderthals. But there's no evidence of a sexual division of labor. There's no evidence of gathering behavior by females. It looks like the females were cooperative hunters with the men. And the other thing there's no evidence for is exchange between groups. Because the objects that you find in neanderthal remains, the tools they made, are always made from local materials. For example, in the Caucasus there's a site where you find local neanderthal tools. They're always made from local chert. In the same valley there are modern human remains from about the same date, 30,000 years ago. And some of those are from local chert, but more -- but many of them are made from obsidian from a long way away. And when human beings began moving objects around like this, it was evidence that they were exchanging between groups.

Trade is 10 times as old as farming. People forget that. People think of trade as a modern thing. Exchange between groups has been going on for a hundred thousand years. And the early evidence for it crops up somewhere between 80 and 120,000 years ago in Africa, when you see obsidian and jasper and other things moving long distances in Ethiopia. You also see seashells -- as discovered by a team here in Oxford -- moving 125 miles inland from the Mediterranean in Algeria. And that's evidence that people have started exchanging between groups. And that will have led to specialization.

How do you know that long-distance movement means trade rather than migration? Well, you look at modern hunter gatherers like aboriginals, who quarried for stone axes at a place called Mt. Isa, which was a quarry owned by the Kalkadoon tribe. They traded them with their neighbors for things like stingray barbs. And the consequence was that stone axes ended up over a large part of Australia. So long-distance movement of tools is a sign of trade, not migration.

What happens when you cut people off from exchange, from the ability to exchange and specialize? And the answer is that, not only do you slow down technological progress, you can actually throw it into reverse. An example is Tasmania. When the sea level rose, and Tasmania became an island 10,000 years ago, the people on it, not only experienced slower progress than people on the mainland, they actually experienced regress. They gave up the ability to make [bone] tools and fishing equipment and clothing because the population of about 4,000 people was simply not large enough to maintain the specialized skills necessary to keep the technology they had. It's as if the people in this room were plonked on a desert island. How many of the things in our pockets could we continue to make after 10,000 years? It didn't happen in Tierra del Fuego -- similar island, similar people. The reason, because Tierra del Fuego is separated from South America by a much narrower straight. And there was trading contact across that straight throughout 10,000 years. The Tasmanians were isolated.

Go back to this image again and ask yourself, not only who made it and for who, but who knew how to make it. In the case of the stone axe, the man who made it knew how to make it. But who knows how to make a computer mouse? Nobody, literally nobody. There is nobody on the planet who knows how to make a computer mouse. I mean this quite seriously. The president of the computer mouse company doesn't know. He just knows how to run a company. The person on the assembly line doesn't know because he doesn't know how to drill an oil well to get oil out to make plastic, and so on. We all know little bits, but none of us knows the whole.

I am of course quoting from a famous essay by Leonard Read, the economist in the 1950s, called "I, Pencil" in which he wrote about how a pencil came to be made, and how nobody knows even how to make a pencil, because the people who assemble it don't know how to mine graphite. And they don't know how to fell trees and that kind of thing. And what we've done in human society, through exchange and specialization, is we've created the ability to do things that we don't even understand. It's not the same with language. With language we have to transfer ideas that we understand with each other. But with technology, we can actually do things that are beyond our capabilities.

We've gone beyond the capacity of the human mind to an extraordinary degree. And by the way, that's one of the reasons that I'm not interested in the debate about I.Q., about whether some groups have higher I.Q.s that other groups. It's completely irrelevant. What's relevant to a society is how well people are communicating their ideas, and how well they're cooperating, not how clever their individuals are. So we've created something called the collective brain. We're just the nodes in the network. We're the neurons in this brain. It's the interchange of ideas, the meeting and mating of ideas between them, that is causing technological progress, incrementally, bit by bit. However, bad things happen. And in the future, as we go forward, we will, of course experience terrible things. There will be wars; there will be depressions; there will be natural disasters. Awful things will happen in this century, I'm absolutely sure. But I'm also that, because of the connections people are making, and the ability of ideas to meet and to mate as never before. I'm also sure that technology will advance, and therefore living standards will advance. Because through the cloud, through crowd sourcing, through the bottom-up world that we've created, where not just the elites, but everybody is able to have their ideas and make them meet and mate, we are surely accelerating the rate of innovation.

Thank you.

(Applause)

Learn languages from TV shows, movies, news, articles and more! Try LingQ for FREE

Matt Ridley – When ideas have sex (2010) |Ridley||||sex Matt Ridley - Wenn Ideen Sex haben (2010) Matt Ridley - Cuando las ideas tienen sexo (2010) Matt Ridley - Quand les idées font l'amour (2010) Matt Ridley - Quando le idee fanno sesso (2010) マット・リドリー - アイデアがセックスするとき (2010) Matt Ridley - Als ideeën seks hebben (2010) Matt Ridley - Kiedy idee uprawiają seks (2010) Matt Ridley - Quando as ideias têm sexo (2010) Мэтт Ридли - Когда идеи занимаются сексом (2010) Matt Ridley - Fikirler Seks Yaptığında (2010) 马特·里德利——当想法发生性关系时 (2010) 馬特·雷德利——當思想發生性關係時 (2010)

When I was a student here in Oxford in the 1970s, the future of the world was bleak. |||||||Oxford||||||||||sombre ||||||||||||||the|||gloomy ne zaman||idi|bir|öğrenci|burada|- de||||||||||| |||||||||||||||||düster |||||||||||||||||암울했다 |||||||||||||||||desolador When I was a student here in Oxford in the 1970s, the future of the world was bleak. Quando ero uno studente qui a Oxford negli anni '70, il futuro del mondo era cupo.

The population explosion was unstoppable. ||||inarrêtable ||rapid increase||inevitable ||||막을 수 없는 Global famine was inevitable. la|famine|| |food scarcity||unavoidable |기근|| La carestia globale era inevitabile. A cancer epidemic caused by chemicals in the environment was going to shorten our lives. |||causé|||||||||raccourcir||vie |disease|increase in cases|||substances|||||||reduce|| ||||||||||||단축시키다|| The acid rain was falling on the forests. ||||tombait|||forêts |acidic precipitation||||||wooded areas The desert was advancing by a mile or two a year. |||moving forward||||||| De woestijn rukte op met een mijl of twee per jaar. The oil was running out. L'olio si stava esaurendo. And a nuclear winter would finish us off. E un inverno nucleare ci farebbe finire. None of those things happened. ||||occurred (Laughter) And astonishingly, if you look at what actually happened in my lifetime, the average per-capita income of the average person on the planet, in real terms, adjusted for inflation, has tripled. ||surprisingly|||||||||||the|||||||||||||||accounting for||||increased threefold ||놀랍게도||||||||||||평균적인|1인당|1인당||||||||||||||||세 배가 되었습니다 ||asombrosamente|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||| (Смех) Удивительно, но если вы посмотрите на то, что на самом деле произошло в моей жизни, средний доход на душу среднего человека на планете в реальном выражении с поправкой на инфляцию утроился. Lifespan is up by 30 percent in my lifetime. 수명 기간||||||| Child mortality is down by two-thirds. Per-capita food production is up by a third. And all this at a time when the population has doubled. E tutto questo in un momento in cui la popolazione è raddoppiata.

How did we achieve that -- whether you think it’s a good thing or not -- How did we achieve that? How did we become the only species that becomes more prosperous as it becomes more populous? ||||||||||wealthier||||| ||||||||||번영하는|||||인구가 많은 The size of the blob in this graph represents the size of the population. |||||||chart|||||| ||||덩어리||||||||| ||||bulto||||||||| La dimensione del blob in questo grafico rappresenta la dimensione della popolazione. And the level of the graph represents GDP per capita. |||||||Gross Domestic Product|| I think to answer that question you need to understand how human beings bring together their brains and enable their ideas to combine and recombine, to meet and, indeed, to mate. ||||||||||||||||||||||||reassemble||combine||||combine ||||||||||||||||||||||||재결합하다|||||| ||||||||||||||||||||||||recombinan|||||| Credo che per rispondere a questa domanda sia necessario capire come gli esseri umani mettano insieme i loro cervelli e permettano alle loro idee di combinarsi e ricombinarsi, di incontrarsi e, addirittura, di accoppiarsi. Я думаю, чтобы ответить на этот вопрос, нужно понять, как люди объединяют свои мозги и позволяют своим идеям сочетаться и рекомбинировать, встречаться и, более того, спариваться. In other words, you need to understand how ideas have sex. Por outras palavras, é preciso perceber como é que as ideias fazem sexo.

I want you to imagine how we got from making objects like this to making objects like this. ||||||||||items||||||| Quero que imaginem como passámos de fazer objectos como este para fazer objectos como este. These are both real objects. ||||items One is an Acheulean hand axe from half a million years ago of the kind made by Homo erectus. |||Acheuléen||||||||||||||| |||아슐리안 시대||||||||||||||호모|호모 에렉투스 |||acheulense||||||||||||||| |||stone tool culture||||||||||||||| Una è un'ascia acheuleana di mezzo milione di anni fa, del tipo realizzato dall'Homo erectus. Een daarvan is een Acheulean handbijl van een half miljoen jaar geleden van het soort gemaakt door Homo erectus. Um deles é um machado de mão acheulense de há meio milhão de anos, do género do Homo erectus. The other is obviously a computer mouse. O outro é obviamente um rato de computador. They’re both exactly the same size and shape to an uncanny degree. ||||||||||strange| ||정확히||||||||섬뜩할 정도로| ||||||||||extraña| São ambos exatamente do mesmo tamanho e forma, a um nível estranho. I’ve tried to work out which is bigger, and it’s almost impossible. Ho cercato di capire quale sia il più grande, ma è quasi impossibile. And that’s because they’re both designed to fit the human hand. They’re both technologies. São ambas tecnologias. In the end, their similarity is not that interesting. Alla fine, la loro somiglianza non è così interessante. No fim de contas, a sua semelhança não é assim tão interessante. It just tells you they were both designed to fit the human hand. Diz-nos apenas que ambos foram concebidos para se adaptarem à mão humana. The differences are what interest me. Because the one on the left was made to a pretty unvarying design for about a million years -- from one-and-a-half million years ago to half a million years ago. |||||||||||변함없는|||||||||||||||||||| Porque a da esquerda foi feita de acordo com um desenho praticamente invariável durante cerca de um milhão de anos - de há um milhão e meio de anos a meio milhão de anos. Homo erectus made the same tool for 30,000 generations. O Homo erectus fabricou a mesma ferramenta durante 30.000 gerações. Of course there were a few changes, but tools changed slower than skeletons in those days. Naturalmente ci sono stati alcuni cambiamenti, ma a quei tempi gli strumenti cambiavano più lentamente degli scheletri. É claro que houve algumas alterações, mas nessa altura as ferramentas mudavam mais lentamente do que os esqueletos. There was no progress, no innovation. It’s an extraordinary phenomenon, but it’s true. Whereas the object on the right is obsolete after five years. |||||||구식이 된||| Já o objeto da direita é obsoleto ao fim de cinco anos. And there’s another difference too, which is the object on the left is made from one substance. The object on the right is made from a confection of different substances, from silicon and metal and plastic and so on. |||||||||Mischung|||||||||||| |||||||||혼합물|||물질들||||||||| |||||||||confección|||||||||||| And more than that, it’s a confection of different ideas, the idea of plastic, the idea of a laser, the idea of transistors. ||||||||||||||||||레이저 아이디어||||트랜지스터의 아이디어 They’ve all been combined together in this technology.

And it’s this combination, this cumulative technology, that intrigues me. ||||||||interessiert| ||||||||흥미를 끈다| ||||||||intriga| E é esta combinação, esta tecnologia cumulativa, que me intriga. Because I think it’s the secret to understanding what’s happening in the world. Porque penso que é o segredo para compreender o que está a acontecer no mundo. My body’s an accumulation of ideas too, the idea of skin cells, the idea of brain cells, the idea of liver cells. |||Ansammlung|||||||||||||||||| O meu corpo é também uma acumulação de ideias, a ideia de células da pele, a ideia de células do cérebro, a ideia de células do fígado. They’ve come together. Si sono riuniti. Eles uniram-se. How does evolution do cumulative, combinatorial things? |||||kombinatorische| |||||조합적인| |||||combinatoria| Come fa l'evoluzione a fare cose cumulative e combinatorie? Como é que a evolução faz coisas cumulativas e combinatórias? Well, it uses sexual reproduction. ||||생식 In an asexual species, if you get two different mutations in different creatures, a green one and a red one, then one has to be better than the other. ||무성생식의|||||||돌연변이들||||||||||||||||||| In una specie asessuata, se si ottengono due mutazioni diverse in creature diverse, una verde e una rossa, una deve essere migliore dell'altra. Numa espécie assexuada, se obtivermos duas mutações diferentes em criaturas diferentes, uma verde e uma vermelha, então uma tem de ser melhor do que a outra. One goes extinct for the other to survive. Uno si estingue perché l'altro sopravviva. Um extingue-se para que o outro sobreviva. But if you have a sexual species, then it’s possible for an individual to inherit both mutations from different lineages. ||||||||||||||물려받다|||||계통들 ||||||||||||||heredar|||||linajes Mas se tivermos uma espécie sexual, é possível que um indivíduo herde ambas as mutações de linhagens diferentes. So what sex does is it enables the individual to draw upon the genetic innovations of the whole species. ||||||가능하게 한다||||이끌어내다|||||||| Quindi il sesso permette all'individuo di attingere alle innovazioni genetiche dell'intera specie. Portanto, o que o sexo faz é permitir que o indivíduo aproveite as inovações genéticas de toda a espécie. Что делает секс, так это то, что он позволяет индивидууму использовать генетические инновации всего вида. It’s not confined to its own lineage. ||국한되지 않은||||혈통 Non si limita al proprio lignaggio. Não se limita à sua própria linhagem. Это не ограничивается его собственной родословной.

What’s the process that’s having the same effect in cultural evolution as sex is having in biological evolution? Qual è il processo che nell'evoluzione culturale ha lo stesso effetto che il sesso ha nell'evoluzione biologica? Qual é o processo que está a ter o mesmo efeito na evolução cultural que o sexo está a ter na evolução biológica? And I think the answer is exchange, the habit of exchanging one thing for another. E credo che la risposta sia lo scambio, l'abitudine di scambiare una cosa con un'altra. E penso que a resposta é a troca, o hábito de trocar uma coisa por outra. It’s a unique human feature. É uma caraterística humana única. No other animal does it. You can teach them in the laboratory to do a little bit of exchange. No laboratório, é possível ensinar-lhes a fazer um pouco de intercâmbio. And indeed there’s reciprocity in other animals. |||Reziprozität||| E in effetti c'è reciprocità anche in altri animali. E, de facto, existe reciprocidade noutros animais. But the exchange of one object for another never happens. Mas a troca de um objeto por outro nunca acontece. As Adam Smith said, "No made ever saw a dog make a fair exchange of a bone with another dog." Come disse Adam Smith, "nessuno ha mai visto un cane fare uno scambio equo di un osso con un altro cane". Como disse Adam Smith: "Nunca ninguém viu um cão fazer uma troca justa de um osso com outro cão". (Laughter) You can have culture without exchange. (Risos) É possível ter cultura sem intercâmbio. You can have, as it were, asexual culture. É possível ter, por assim dizer, uma cultura assexuada. Chimpanzees, killer whales, these kinds of creatures, they have culture. 침팬지들||||||||| They teach each other traditions which are handed down from parent to offspring. Si insegnano reciprocamente le tradizioni che vengono tramandate dai genitori ai figli. Ensinam-se mutuamente tradições que são transmitidas de pais para filhos. In this case, chimpanzees teaching each other how to crack nuts with rocks. Neste caso, os chimpanzés ensinam-se uns aos outros a partir nozes com pedras. But the difference is that these cultures never expand, never grow, never accumulate, never become combinatorial. Ma la differenza è che queste culture non si espandono, non crescono, non si accumulano, non diventano mai combinatorie. And the reason is because there is no sex, as it were, there is no exchange of ideas. E il motivo è che non c'è sesso, per così dire, non c'è scambio di idee. E a razão é porque não há sexo, por assim dizer, não há troca de ideias. Chimpanzee troops have different cultures in different troops. Le truppe di scimpanzé hanno culture diverse in truppe diverse. As tropas de chimpanzés têm culturas diferentes em tropas diferentes. There’s no exchange of ideas between them.

And why does exchange raise living standards? E porque é que o intercâmbio aumenta o nível de vida? Well, the answer came from David Ricardo in 1817. And here is a Stone Age version of his story, although he told it in terms of trade between countries. Ed ecco una versione dell'età della pietra della sua storia, anche se raccontata in termini di commercio tra Paesi. E aqui está uma versão da Idade da Pedra da sua história, embora ele a tenha contado em termos de comércio entre países. Adam takes four hours to make a spear and three hours to make an axe. Adam impiega quattro ore per fare una lancia e tre ore per fare un'ascia. Adam demora quatro horas a fazer uma lança e três horas a fazer um machado. Oz takes one hour to make a spear and two hours to make an axe. So Oz is better at both spears and axes than Adam. ||||||lanzas|||| He doesn’t need Adam. He can make his own spears and axes. Well no, because if you think about it, if Oz makes two spears and Adam make two axes, and then they trade, then they will each have saved an hour of work. Bem, não, porque se pensarmos bem, se Oz fizer duas lanças e Adão fizer dois machados, e depois trocarem, cada um terá poupado uma hora de trabalho. And the more they do this, the more true it’s going to be. E quanto mais o fizerem, mais verdadeiro será. Because the more they do this, the better Adam is going to get at making axes, and the better Oz is going to get at making spears. Perché più lo fanno, più Adam diventerà bravo a costruire asce e Oz a costruire lance. Porque quanto mais fizerem isto, melhor o Adam vai ficar a fazer machados e melhor o Oz vai ficar a fazer lanças. So the gains from trade are only going to grow. Quindi i guadagni derivanti dal commercio sono destinati a crescere. Por isso, os ganhos do comércio só vão aumentar. And this is one of the beauties of exchange, is it actually creates the momentum for more specialization, which creates the momentum for more exchange and so on. E questa è una delle bellezze dello scambio, è che in realtà crea lo slancio per una maggiore specializzazione, che crea lo slancio per un maggiore scambio e così via. Adam and Oz both saved an hour of time. That is prosperity, the saving of time in satisfying your needs. É a prosperidade, a poupança de tempo na satisfação das suas necessidades.

Ask yourself how long you would have to work to provide for yourself an hour of reading light this evening to read a book by. Chiedetevi quanto tempo dovreste lavorare per procurarvi un'ora di luce per leggere un libro questa sera. Pergunte a si próprio quanto tempo teria de trabalhar para ter uma hora de luz para ler um livro esta noite. If you had to start from scratch, let’s say you go out into the countryside. Se si dovesse partire da zero, diciamo che si va in campagna. Als je helemaal opnieuw moet beginnen, laten we zeggen dat je de natuur in gaat. Se tivéssemos de começar do zero, digamos que íamos para o campo. You find a sheep. You kill it. You get the fat of of it. Si ottiene il grasso di esso. A gordura é o que se ganha com isso. You render it down. La renderizzazione è ridotta. A sua ação é reduzida. You make a candle, etc. etc. How long is it going to take you? Quanto tempo é que vai demorar? Quite a long time. Bastante tempo. How long do you actually have to work to earn an hour of reading light if you’re on the average wage in Britain today? Quanto tempo si deve lavorare per guadagnare un'ora di luce se si ha un salario medio in Gran Bretagna? Quanto tempo tem de trabalhar para ganhar uma hora de luz de leitura se tiver o salário médio atual na Grã-Bretanha? And the answer is about half a second. E a resposta é cerca de meio segundo. Back in 1950, you would have had to work for eight seconds on the average wage to acquire that much light. And that’s seven and a half seconds of prosperity that you’ve gained. Since 1950, as it were. Because that’s seven and a half seconds in which you can do something else. Or you can acquire another good or service. Ou pode adquirir outro bem ou serviço. And back in 1880, it would have been 15 minutes to earn that amount of light from the average wage. А еще в 1880 году, чтобы заработать такое количество света из средней заработной платы, нужно было бы 15 минут. Back in 1800, you’d have had to work six hours to earn a candle that could burn for an hour. In other words, the average person on the average wage could not afford a candle in 1800. Por outras palavras, uma pessoa com um salário médio não podia comprar uma vela em 1800. Другими словами, средний человек со средней зарплатой не мог позволить себе свечу в 1800 году.

Go back to this image of the axe and the mouse, and ask yourself: "Who made them and for who?" Tornate all'immagine dell'ascia e del topo e chiedetevi: "Chi li ha fatti e per chi?". The stone axe was made by someone for himself. O machado de pedra foi feito por alguém para si próprio. It was self-sufficiency. |||Selbstversorgung |||autosuficiencia |||samowystarczalność Era l'autosufficienza. Era a autossuficiência. We call that poverty these days. Oggi la chiamiamo povertà. But the object on the right was made for me by other people. How many other people? Tens? Hundreds? Thousands? You know, I think it’s probably millions. Because you’ve to include the man who grew the coffee, which was brewed for the man who was on the oil rig, who was drilling for oil, which was going to be made into the plastic, etc. ||||||||||||preparado|||||||||plataforma||||||||||||||| Perché bisogna includere l'uomo che ha coltivato il caffè, che è stato preparato per l'uomo che era sulla piattaforma petrolifera, che stava perforando il petrolio, che sarebbe stato trasformato in plastica, ecc. Porque é preciso incluir o homem que cultivou o café, que foi feito para o homem que estava na plataforma petrolífera, que estava a perfurar o petróleo, que ia ser transformado em plástico, etc. They were all working for me, to make a mouse for me. Estavam todos a trabalhar para mim, para fazer um rato para mim. And that’s the way society works. E é assim que a sociedade funciona. That’s what we’ve achieved as a species. Foi isso que conseguimos enquanto espécie.

In the old days, if you were rich, you literally had people working for you. Antigamente, quando se era rico, tinha-se literalmente pessoas a trabalhar para nós. That’s how you got to be rich; you employed them. È così che siete diventati ricchi: li avete assunti. Foi assim que se tornou rico: empregou-os. Louis XIV had a lot of people working for him. |XIV|||||||| |XIV|||||||| They made his silly outfits, like this. Gli hanno fatto dei vestiti stupidi, come questo. Ze maakten zijn gekke outfits, zoals deze. Eles faziam os seus fatos parvos, como este. (Laughter) And they did his silly hairstyles, or whatever. ||||||peinados|| ||||||fryzury|| (Risate) E facevano le sue stupide acconciature o altro. He had 498 people to prepare his dinner every night. But a modern tourist going around the palace of Versailles and looking at Louis XIV’s pictures, he has 498 people doing his dinner tonight too. ||||||||||||||XIV||||||||| |||||||||Versalles|||||||||||||| Mas um turista moderno que passeie pelo palácio de Versalhes e veja os quadros de Luís XIV, também tem 498 pessoas a fazer o seu jantar esta noite. They’re in bistros and cafes and restaurants and shops all over Paris. ||bistrach||||||||| Estão em bistrôs, cafés, restaurantes e lojas por toda a cidade de Paris. And they’re all ready to serve you at an hour’s notice with an excellent meal that’s probably got higher quality than Louis XIV even had. |||||||||godzinne||||||||||||||| E sono tutti pronti a servirvi con un'ora di preavviso un pasto eccellente che probabilmente ha una qualità superiore a quella di Luigi XIV. E estão todos prontos a servi-lo, de uma hora para a outra, com uma excelente refeição que, provavelmente, tem mais qualidade do que Luís XIV tinha. And that’s what we’ve done, because we’re all working for each other. E foi isso que fizemos, porque estamos todos a trabalhar uns para os outros. We’re able to draw upon specialization and exchange to raise each other’s living standards. Siamo in grado di attingere alla specializzazione e allo scambio per aumentare gli standard di vita degli altri. Podemos aproveitar a especialização e o intercâmbio para melhorar o nível de vida uns dos outros. Мы можем использовать специализацию и обмен для повышения уровня жизни друг друга.

Now, you do get other animals working for each other too. Ora, anche altri animali lavorano per gli altri. Agora, há outros animais que também trabalham uns para os outros. Ants are a classic example; workers work for queens and queens work for workers. Mrówki||||||||||||| Le formiche sono un esempio classico: le operaie lavorano per le regine e le regine per le operaie. As formigas são um exemplo clássico: as operárias trabalham para as rainhas e as rainhas trabalham para as operárias. But there’s a big difference, which is that it only happens within the colony. Mas há uma grande diferença, que é o facto de isso só acontecer dentro da colónia. There’s no working for each other across the colonies. Non si lavora per gli altri attraverso le colonie. Não há como trabalhar uns para os outros nas colónias. And the reason for that is because there’s a reproductive division of labor. ||||||||||||podział pracy E il motivo è che c'è una divisione riproduttiva del lavoro. E a razão para isso é que existe uma divisão reprodutiva do trabalho. That is to say, they specialize with respect to reproduction. Cioè, si specializzano rispetto alla riproduzione. Ou seja, especializam-se no que respeita à reprodução. The queen does it all. La regina fa tutto. A rainha faz tudo. In our species, we don’t like doing that. Nella nostra specie, non ci piace farlo. Na nossa espécie, não gostamos de o fazer. It’s the one thing we insist on doing for ourselves, is reproduction. L'unica cosa che ci ostiniamo a fare per noi stessi è la riproduzione. É a única coisa que insistimos em fazer por nós próprios, é a reprodução. (Laughter) Even in England, we don’t leave reproduction to the Queen. (Risos) Mesmo em Inglaterra, não deixamos a reprodução para a Rainha.

(Applause)

So when did this habit start? And how long has it been going on? E da quanto tempo va avanti? E há quanto tempo é que isso acontece? And what does it mean? Well, I think, probably, the oldest version of this is probably the sexual division of labor. Probabilmente la versione più antica di questo fenomeno è la divisione sessuale del lavoro. Bem, penso que, provavelmente, a versão mais antiga disto é, provavelmente, a divisão sexual do trabalho. But I’ve got no evidence for that. Mas não tenho provas disso. It just looks like the first thing we did was work male for female and female for male. Sembra che la prima cosa che abbiamo fatto sia stata lavorare maschio per femmina e femmina per maschio. Parece que a primeira coisa que fizemos foi trabalhar homem para mulher e mulher para homem. In all hunter-gatherer societies today, there’s a foraging division of labor between, on the whole, hunting males and gathering females. ||||||||Erwerb|||||||||||| ||||||||recolección|||||||||||| |||zbieraczka|||||poszukiwanie pożywienia|||||||||||| In tutte le società di cacciatori-raccoglitori di oggi, c'è una divisione del lavoro tra maschi cacciatori e femmine raccoglitrici. Atualmente, em todas as sociedades de caçadores-recolectores, existe uma divisão do trabalho de recolha de alimentos entre os machos caçadores e as fêmeas recolectoras. It isn’t always quite that simple. Non è sempre così semplice. Nem sempre é assim tão simples. But there’s a distinction between specialized roles between males and females. Ma c'è una distinzione tra ruoli specializzati tra maschi e femmine. Mas há uma distinção entre os papéis especializados dos homens e das mulheres. And the beauty of this system is that it benefits both sides. The woman knows that, in the Hadzas' case here -- digging roots to share with men in exchange for meat -- she knows that all she has to do to get access to protein is to dig some extra roots and trade them for meat. ||||||Hadza|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||| La donna sa che, nel caso dell'Hadzas - scavare radici da condividere con gli uomini in cambio di carne - sa che tutto ciò che deve fare per avere accesso alle proteine è scavare altre radici e scambiarle con la carne. De vrouw weet dat, in het geval van de Hadzas hier - wortels graven om met mannen te delen in ruil voor vlees - ze weet dat alles wat ze hoeft te doen om toegang te krijgen tot eiwitten is wat extra wortels te graven en die te ruilen voor vlees. A mulher sabe que, no caso dos Hadzas - cavar raízes para partilhar com os homens em troca de carne - sabe que tudo o que tem de fazer para ter acesso a proteínas é cavar algumas raízes extra e trocá-las por carne. And she doesn’t have to go on an exhausting hunt and try and kill a warthog. |||||||||||||||Warzenschwein |||||||||||||||jabalí ||||||||wyczerpujące|||||||guziec E não tem de ir numa caçada exaustiva e tentar matar um javali. And the man knows that he doesn’t have to do any digging to get roots. E o homem sabe que não precisa de cavar para obter raízes. All he has to do is make sure that when he kills a warthog it’s big enough to share some. Tudo o que ele tem de fazer é certificar-se de que, quando mata um javali, este é suficientemente grande para partilhar um pouco. And so both sides raise each other’s standards of living through the sexual division of labor. E così entrambe le parti aumentano il tenore di vita dell'altra attraverso la divisione sessuale del lavoro. Assim, ambos os lados aumentam o nível de vida um do outro através da divisão sexual do trabalho.

When did this happen? Quando é que isto aconteceu? We don’t know, but it’s possible that neanderthals didn’t do this. |||||||Neandertalczycy||| Não sabemos, mas é possível que os neandertais não o tenham feito. They were a highly cooperative species. ||||współpracujący| Eram uma espécie altamente cooperativa. They were a highly intelligent species. Their brains on average, by the end, were bigger than yours and mine in this room today. No final, os seus cérebros eram, em média, maiores do que os vossos e os meus, hoje, nesta sala. They were imaginative. Ze waren fantasierijk. Eram imaginativos. They buried their dead. Enterravam os seus mortos. They had language probably, because we know they had the FOXP2 gene of the same kind as us, which was discovered here in Oxford. ||||||||||FOXP(1)||||||||||||| Provavelmente tinham linguagem, porque sabemos que tinham o gene FOXP2 do mesmo tipo que nós, que foi descoberto aqui em Oxford. And it looks like they probably had linguistic skills. E parece que provavelmente tinham conhecimentos linguísticos. They were brilliant people. I’m not dissing the neanderthals. ||menospreciando|| Non sto dissimulando gli uomini di Neanderthal. Ik ga de neanderthalers niet af. Não estou a dizer mal dos neandertais. But there’s no evidence of a sexual division of labor. Mas não há provas de uma divisão sexual do trabalho. There’s no evidence of gathering behavior by females. Non ci sono prove di un comportamento di raccolta da parte delle femmine. Não há provas de comportamento de recolha por parte das fêmeas. It looks like the females were cooperative hunters with the men. Parece que as fêmeas eram caçadoras cooperantes com os homens. And the other thing there’s no evidence for is exchange between groups. E l'altra cosa di cui non c'è prova è lo scambio tra gruppi. Because the objects that you find in neanderthal remains, the tools they made, are always made from local materials. Porque os objectos que se encontram nos restos mortais dos neandertais, as ferramentas que fabricavam, são sempre feitos com materiais locais. For example, in the Caucasus there’s a site where you find local neanderthal tools. They’re always made from local chert. |||||Kieselschiefer |||||chert |||||krzemień Sono sempre realizzati con il chert locale. Ze zijn altijd gemaakt van lokale vuursteen. In the same valley there are modern human remains from about the same date, 30,000 years ago. No mesmo vale existem restos humanos modernos aproximadamente da mesma data, há 30.000 anos. And some of those are from local chert, but more -- but many of them are made from obsidian from a long way away. |||||||||||||||||obsidiana||||| |||||||||||||||||obsydianu||||| E alguns deles são de chert local, mas mais - mas muitos deles são feitos de obsidiana de muito longe. And when human beings began moving objects around like this, it was evidence that they were exchanging between groups.

Trade is 10 times as old as farming. O comércio é dez vezes mais antigo do que a agricultura. People forget that. People think of trade as a modern thing. Exchange between groups has been going on for a hundred thousand years. And the early evidence for it crops up somewhere between 80 and 120,000 years ago in Africa, when you see obsidian and jasper and other things moving long distances in Ethiopia. ||||||||||||||||||||Jaspis|||||||| ||||||||||||||||||||jaspis|||||||| Le prime prove di questo fenomeno compaiono tra gli 80 e i 120.000 anni fa in Africa, quando si vedono ossidiana e diaspro e altri oggetti che si spostano su lunghe distanze in Etiopia. En het vroege bewijs hiervoor duikt ergens tussen 80 en 120.000 jaar geleden op in Afrika, wanneer je obsidiaan en jaspis en andere dingen over lange afstanden ziet bewegen in Ethiopië. E os primeiros indícios desta prática surgem algures entre 80 e 120 000 anos atrás, em África, quando se vê obsidiana, jaspe e outras coisas a deslocarem-se a longas distâncias na Etiópia. You also see seashells -- as discovered by a team here in Oxford -- moving 125 miles inland from the Mediterranean in Algeria. |||muszle morskie|||||||||||||||| Si vedono anche conchiglie - come scoperto da un team qui a Oxford - che si spostano a 125 miglia nell'entroterra del Mediterraneo, in Algeria. Também se vêem conchas do mar - descobertas por uma equipa aqui em Oxford - a deslocarem-se 125 milhas para o interior do Mediterrâneo, na Argélia. And that’s evidence that people have started exchanging between groups. And that will have led to specialization. E questo avrà portato alla specializzazione.

How do you know that long-distance movement means trade rather than migration? Como é que se sabe que o movimento de longa distância significa comércio e não migração? Well, you look at modern hunter gatherers like aboriginals, who quarried for stone axes at a place called Mt. ||||||||||abbauten|||||||| ||||||||aborígenes||extrajeron|||||||| ||||||zbieracze łowcy||Aborygeni||wydobywali kamień|||||||| Beh, se si considerano i moderni cacciatori e raccoglitori come gli aborigeni, che estraevano asce di pietra in un luogo chiamato Mt. Bem, se olharmos para os caçadores-recolectores modernos, como os aborígenes, que extraíam machados de pedra num local chamado Mt. Isa, which was a quarry owned by the Kalkadoon tribe. Isa||||||||Kalkadoon| ||||cantera||||Kalkadoon| Isa, che era una cava di proprietà della tribù Kalkadoon. Isa, een steengroeve die eigendom was van de Kalkadoon-stam. Isa, que era uma pedreira pertencente à tribo Kalkadoon. They traded them with their neighbors for things like stingray barbs. |||||||||mantarraya|espinas |||||||||kolce płaszczek|kolce płaszczki Li scambiavano con i loro vicini in cambio di oggetti come i pungiglioni. Trocavam-nas com os seus vizinhos por coisas como farpas de arraia. Они обменивали их у соседей на такие вещи, как колючки ската. And the consequence was that stone axes ended up over a large part of Australia. E a consequência foi que os machados de pedra acabaram por se espalhar por uma grande parte da Austrália. So long-distance movement of tools is a sign of trade, not migration.

What happens when you cut people off from exchange, from the ability to exchange and specialize? O que é que acontece quando se impede as pessoas de trocarem, de poderem trocar e de se especializarem? And the answer is that, not only do you slow down technological progress, you can actually throw it into reverse. E a resposta é que não só se abranda o progresso tecnológico, como se pode mesmo fazê-lo retroceder. An example is Tasmania. |||Tasmania When the sea level rose, and Tasmania became an island 10,000 years ago, the people on it, not only experienced slower progress than people on the mainland, they actually experienced regress. |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||Rückschritt Quando il livello del mare si è alzato e la Tasmania è diventata un'isola 10.000 anni fa, le persone che vi abitavano non solo hanno sperimentato un progresso più lento rispetto alle persone sulla terraferma, ma hanno addirittura sperimentato un regresso. Quando o nível do mar subiu e a Tasmânia se tornou uma ilha, há 10 000 anos, as pessoas que lá viviam não só registaram um progresso mais lento do que as pessoas que viviam no continente, como também regrediram. They gave up the ability to make [bone] tools and fishing equipment and clothing because the population of about 4,000 people was simply not large enough to maintain the specialized skills necessary to keep the technology they had. Hanno rinunciato alla capacità di fabbricare utensili [in osso], attrezzature per la pesca e abbigliamento perché la popolazione di circa 4.000 persone non era abbastanza numerosa per mantenere le competenze specialistiche necessarie a conservare la tecnologia che avevano. Abandonaram a capacidade de fabricar ferramentas [de osso], equipamento de pesca e vestuário porque a população de cerca de 4.000 pessoas simplesmente não era suficientemente grande para manter as competências especializadas necessárias para manter a tecnologia que possuíam. It’s as if the people in this room were plonked on a desert island. |||||||||gesetzt|||| |||||||||dejados|||| |||||||||umieszczeni|||| È come se le persone in questa stanza fossero state messe su un'isola deserta. Het is alsof de mensen in deze kamer op een onbewoond eiland zijn neergestreken. É como se as pessoas nesta sala tivessem sido colocadas numa ilha deserta. How many of the things in our pockets could we continue to make after 10,000 years? Quante delle cose che abbiamo in tasca potremmo continuare a produrre dopo 10.000 anni? Quantas das coisas que temos nos nossos bolsos poderíamos continuar a fabricar ao fim de 10 000 anos? It didn’t happen in Tierra del Fuego -- similar island, similar people. ||||Tierra||Feuer|||| ||||Tierra||Fuego|||| Não aconteceu na Terra do Fogo - ilha semelhante, povo semelhante. The reason, because Tierra del Fuego is separated from South America by a much narrower straight. |||||||||||||znacznie|| Il motivo è che la Terra del Fuoco è separata dal Sud America da una retta molto più stretta. A razão é que a Terra do Fogo está separada da América do Sul por uma reta muito mais estreita. Причина в том, что Огненная Земля отделена от Южной Америки гораздо более узкой прямой. And there was trading contact across that straight throughout 10,000 years. E houve contacto comercial através dessa linha reta ao longo de 10.000 anos. The Tasmanians were isolated. |Tasmanier|| |los tasmanios|| Os tasmanianos estavam isolados.

Go back to this image again and ask yourself, not only who made it and for who, but who knew how to make it. Volte novamente a esta imagem e pergunte a si próprio, não só quem a fez e para quem, mas também quem a soube fazer. In the case of the stone axe, the man who made it knew how to make it. But who knows how to make a computer mouse? Mas quem sabe como fazer um rato de computador? Nobody, literally nobody. There is nobody on the planet who knows how to make a computer mouse. Não há ninguém no planeta que saiba como fazer um rato de computador. I mean this quite seriously. Estou a falar muito a sério. The president of the computer mouse company doesn’t know. O presidente da empresa de ratos de computador não sabe. He just knows how to run a company. The person on the assembly line doesn’t know because he doesn’t know how to drill an oil well to get oil out to make plastic, and so on. ||||||||||||||wiercić otwór||||||||||||| L'addetto alla catena di montaggio non lo sa perché non sa come trivellare un pozzo petrolifero per estrarre il petrolio per produrre plastica, e così via. A pessoa na linha de montagem não sabe porque não sabe como perfurar um poço de petróleo para extrair petróleo para fazer plástico, etc. We all know little bits, but none of us knows the whole.

I am of course quoting from a famous essay by Leonard Read, the economist in the 1950s, called "I, Pencil" in which he wrote about how a pencil came to be made, and how nobody knows even how to make a pencil, because the people who assemble it don’t know how to mine graphite. ||||zitiere||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||| ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||składają|||||||grafit ||||citando|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||grafito Sto ovviamente citando un famoso saggio di Leonard Read, l'economista degli anni Cinquanta, intitolato "Io, matita", in cui scriveva di come è nata una matita e di come nessuno sappia nemmeno come si fa una matita, perché le persone che la assemblano non sanno come si estrae la grafite. É claro que estou a citar um famoso ensaio de Leonard Read, o economista dos anos 50, intitulado "I, Pencil" (Eu, Lápis), no qual ele escreveu sobre como um lápis passou a ser feito e como ninguém sabe sequer como fazer um lápis, porque as pessoas que o montam não sabem como extrair grafite. And they don’t know how to fell trees and that kind of thing. E non sanno come abbattere gli alberi e questo genere di cose. E não sabem como cortar árvores e esse tipo de coisas. And what we’ve done in human society, through exchange and specialization, is we’ve created the ability to do things that we don’t even understand. E o que fizemos na sociedade humana, através do intercâmbio e da especialização, é que criámos a capacidade de fazer coisas que nem sequer compreendemos. It’s not the same with language. O mesmo não se passa com a língua. With language we have to transfer ideas that we understand with each other. Con il linguaggio dobbiamo trasferire le idee che comprendiamo l'uno con l'altro. Com a língua, temos de transmitir ideias que compreendemos uns aos outros. But with technology, we can actually do things that are beyond our capabilities. ||||||||||||możliwości

We’ve gone beyond the capacity of the human mind to an extraordinary degree. Siamo andati oltre le capacità della mente umana in misura straordinaria. Ultrapassámos a capacidade da mente humana a um nível extraordinário. And by the way, that’s one of the reasons that I’m not interested in the debate about I.Q., about whether some groups have higher I.Q.s that other groups. E comunque, questo è uno dei motivi per cui non mi interessa il dibattito sul Q.I., sul fatto che alcuni gruppi abbiano Q.I. più alti di altri gruppi. E, já agora, essa é uma das razões pelas quais não estou interessado no debate sobre o Q.I., sobre o facto de alguns grupos terem Q.I. mais elevados do que outros. It’s completely irrelevant. What’s relevant to a society is how well people are communicating their ideas, and how well they’re cooperating, not how clever their individuals are. Ciò che è rilevante per una società è la capacità delle persone di comunicare le proprie idee e di cooperare, non l'intelligenza dei singoli individui. O que é relevante para uma sociedade é a forma como as pessoas estão a comunicar as suas ideias e a forma como estão a cooperar, e não a inteligência dos seus indivíduos. So we’ve created something called the collective brain. Por isso, criámos uma coisa chamada cérebro coletivo. We’re just the nodes in the network. |||nodos||| |||węzły||| Siamo solo i nodi della rete. Nós somos apenas os nós da rede. We’re the neurons in this brain. It’s the interchange of ideas, the meeting and mating of ideas between them, that is causing technological progress, incrementally, bit by bit. É o intercâmbio de ideias, o encontro e o acasalamento de ideias entre eles, que está a causar o progresso tecnológico, gradualmente, pouco a pouco. However, bad things happen. And in the future, as we go forward, we will, of course experience terrible things. E in futuro, man mano che andremo avanti, sperimenteremo ovviamente cose terribili. There will be wars; there will be depressions; there will be natural disasters. Awful things will happen in this century, I’m absolutely sure. But I’m also that, because of the connections people are making, and the ability of ideas to meet and to mate as never before. ||||||||||||||||||||łączyć się||| Ma lo sono anche per le connessioni che le persone stanno creando e per la capacità delle idee di incontrarsi e di accoppiarsi come mai prima d'ora. Mas também o sou, devido às ligações que as pessoas estão a fazer e à capacidade de as ideias se encontrarem e acasalarem como nunca antes. I’m also sure that technology will advance, and therefore living standards will advance. Ik ben er ook zeker van dat de technologie zal vooruitgaan, en daarom zal de levensstandaard toenemen. Também estou certo de que a tecnologia avançará e, por conseguinte, o nível de vida melhorará. Because through the cloud, through crowd sourcing, through the bottom-up world that we’ve created, where not just the elites, but everybody is able to have their ideas and make them meet and mate, we are surely accelerating the rate of innovation. ||||||Sourcing||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||| ||||||sourcing de ideias|||||||||||||as elites|||||||||||||||||||||| Perché grazie al cloud, al crowd sourcing, al mondo bottom-up che abbiamo creato, in cui non solo le élite, ma tutti possono avere le loro idee e farle incontrare e accoppiare, stiamo sicuramente accelerando il tasso di innovazione. Porque através da nuvem, do crowd sourcing, do mundo ascendente que criámos, em que não só as elites, mas toda a gente pode ter as suas ideias e fazê-las encontrar-se e cruzar-se, estamos seguramente a acelerar o ritmo da inovação. Потому что благодаря облаку, краудсорсингу, созданному нами восходящему миру, в котором не только элита, но и каждый может высказывать свои идеи и объединять их, мы, безусловно, ускоряем темпы инноваций. .

Thank you.

(Applause)