這條溝有點(diǎn)深

　　1、A great deal of attention is being paid today to the so-called digital divide — the division of the world into the info(information) rich and the info poor. And that divide does exist today. My wife and I lectured about this looming danger twenty years ago. What was less visible then, however, were the new, positive forces that work against the digital divide. There are reasons to be optimistic.

　　今天，人們十分關(guān)注所謂的是信息差異問題——世界上信息資源豐富的地區(qū)和信息資源貧乏的地區(qū)之間的差異；這個(gè)差異確實(shí)存在，我和我妻子20年前就曾談及這個(gè)臨近的危險(xiǎn)。然而，那時(shí)還不太明顯的是一些抵制信息差異的、新的積極因素。實(shí)際上我們是完全有理由感到樂觀的。

　　2、There are technological reasons to hope the digital divide will narrow. As the Internet becomes more and more commercialized, it is in the interest of business to universalize access — after all, the more people online, the more potential customers there are. More and more governments, afraid their countries will be left behind, want to spread Internet access. Within the next decade or two, one to two billion people on the planet will be netted together. As a result, I now believe the digital divide will narrow rather than widen in the years ahead. And that is very good news because the Internet may well be the most powerful tool for combating world poverty that we've ever had.

　　一些技術(shù)上的因素使我們有理由期望差異會縮小。隨著互聯(lián)網(wǎng)的日趨商業(yè)化，上網(wǎng)普及對商家是有利的——畢竟，上網(wǎng)人數(shù)越多，潛在的客戶就越多。越來越多的政府，惟恐自己的國家落后，紛紛推廣互聯(lián)網(wǎng)的普及。一二十年之內(nèi)，全球?qū)⒂幸欢�十億人互聯(lián)。因此，我認(rèn)為在未來的數(shù)年中，信息差異將縮小而不會變大。那是好消息，因?yàn)榛ヂ?lián)網(wǎng)很可能成為我們消除所面臨的貧困的最強(qiáng)有效的工具。

　　3、Of course, the use of the Internet isn't the only way to defeat poverty. And the Internet is not the only tool we have. But it has enormous potential.

當(dāng)然，使用互聯(lián)網(wǎng)不是惟一消滅貧困的方法。互聯(lián)網(wǎng)也不是我們所擁有的惟一工具，但它卻有巨大的潛力。

　　4、To take advantage of this tool, some impoverished countries will have to get over their outdated anti-colonial prejudices with respect to foreign investment. Countries that still think foreign investment is an invasion of their sovereignty might well study the history of infrastructure (the basic structural foundations of a society) in the United States. When the United States built its industrial infrastructure, it didn't have the capital to do so. And that is why America's Second Wave infrastructure — including roads, harbors, highways, ports and so on — were built with foreign investment. The English, the Germans, the Dutch and the French were investing in Britain's former colony. They financed them. Immigrant Americans built them. Guess who owns them now? The Americans. I believe the same thing would be true in places like Brazil or anywhere else for that matter. The more foreign capital you have helping you build your Third Wave infrastructure, which today is an electronic infrastructure, the better off you're going to be. That doesn't mean lying down and becoming fooled, or letting foreign corporations run uncontrolled. But it does mean recognizing how important they can be in building the energy and telecom infrastructures needed to take full advantage of the Internet.

　　要想利用互聯(lián)網(wǎng)，某些貧困國家必須克服對國外投資所持的過時(shí)了的反殖民的種種偏見。那些認(rèn)為外國投資是對本國主權(quán)的侵犯的國家最好還是研究一下美國的基礎(chǔ)設(shè)施（社會的基本結(jié)構(gòu)基礎(chǔ)）建設(shè)歷史。當(dāng)初美國建設(shè)自己的工業(yè)基礎(chǔ)設(shè)施時(shí)，缺乏必要的資金，因此美國的第二次浪潮基礎(chǔ)設(shè)施——包括公路、港口，高速公路、港口城市等等——都是用國外資金建造的。英國人、德國人、荷蘭人和法國人都在前英國殖民地投資。他們提供資金，美洲移民建造。想想看，現(xiàn)在誰擁有這一切？美國人。我想，在這件事上，像巴西或其他任何地方同樣也該這樣。你擁有的去建造第三次浪潮基礎(chǔ)設(shè)施（今天主要指電子基礎(chǔ)設(shè)施）的外國資金越多，那么你的情況就越好。這并不是說卑躬屈膝，任人愚弄，也不是對外國公司不加控制。但這的確意味著你已認(rèn)識到外國公司對本國能源及通信基礎(chǔ)設(shè)施建設(shè)的重要性，這些基礎(chǔ)設(shè)施是充分利用互聯(lián)網(wǎng)所必要的。

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