海德沙龙

Hive Mind 蜂巢思维 作者：Robin Hanson @ 2015-11-13

译者：Veidt（@Veidt)

校对：龟海海

来源：overcomingbias.com， http://www.overcomingbias.com/2015/11/statestupidity.html Some people like murder mystery novels. I much prefer intellectual mysteries like that in Garett Jones’ new book Hive Mind: How Your Nation ’s IQ Matters So Much More Than Your Own :

有些人喜欢看谋杀悬疑小说，而我则更青睐那些智力悬疑类著作，例如Garett Jones的新书《蜂巢思维：为什么你们国家的整体智商水平甚至比你自己的智商还要重要》中所描述的： Over a decade ago I began my research into how IQ matters for nations. I soon found that the strong link between average IQ and national productivity couldn't be explained with just the conventional finding that IQ predicts higher wages. IQ apparently mattered far more for nations than for individuals.

在十年前我开始研究智商对国家意味着什么。我很快就发现，国民的平均智商与国家生产率之间的强相关性，并不能以高智商预示着高薪资这一传统发现来解释。智商对国家的作用显然比对个人重要得多。

In my early work, I estimated that IQ mattered about six times more for nations than for individuals: your nation’s IQ mattered so much more than your own. That puzzle, that paradox of IQ, is what set me on my intellectual journey. …

在我早期的研究中，我曾经做过一个估测，智商对国家所发挥的作用要比对于个人所发挥的作用高大约6倍，也就是说：你所在国家的平均智商水平比你自己的智商水平要重要的多。这个谜题，或者叫“智商悖论”，让我踏上了这条智力探索的漫漫长路...

I’ll lay out five major channels for how IQ can pay off more for nations than for you as an individual:

我将在下面列举五个方面的依据说明智商对国家的影响要远远超出对个人的影响：

1. High-scoring people tend to save more, and some of that savings stays in their home country. More savings mean more machines, more computers, more technology to work with, which helps make everyone in the nation more productive.

2. 高智商的人更会储蓄，而其中的部分储蓄将留在他们的母国。更多储蓄意味着更多的机器，更多电脑，更多可运用的技术，而这些都能帮助生活在这个国家的所有人变得更有效率。

3. High-scoring groups tend to be more cooperative. And cooperation is a key ingredient for building higher-quality governments and more productive businesses.

4. 高智商的群体倾向于更具合作性。而合作则是建设更高质量的政府和更高效企业的一个关键因素。

5. High-scoring groups are more likely to support market-oriented policies, a key to national prosperity. People who do well on standardized tests also tend to be better at remembering information, and informed voters are an important ingredient for good government.

6. 高智商的人群更倾向于支持亲市场政策，这是国家繁荣的关键。那些在标准智商测试中得分更高的人同样也在记忆信息方面拥有优势，而博闻多识的选民是构建良好政府的重要因素。

7. High-scoring groups will tend to be more successful at using highly productive team-based technology. With these “weakest link” technologies, one misstep can destroy the product’s value, so getting high-quality workers together is crucial. Think about computer chips, summer blockbuster films, cooperative mega-mergers.

8. 高智商的人群在使用那些高效的基于团队协作的技术上要做得更好。在这些“最弱一环”【 编注：Weakest Link是BBC二台的一档竞赛游戏节目，参赛者需一环扣一环的连续正确解答问题，以最终赢得奖金，每一回合过后，参赛者互相投票选出该回合的“最弱一环”，当选者出局离场。 】技术中，任何一步差错都可能会毁掉整个产品的价值，所以让高素质工人进行协作至关重要。想想那些电脑芯片，夏季震撼的电影大片，还有巨型公司的兼并，都是此类协作的产物。

9. The human tendency to conform, at least a little, creates a fifth channel that multiplies the effect of the other four: the imitation channel, the peer effect channel. Even a small tendency to conform, to act just a little bit like those around us, too try to fit in, tends to quietly shape our behavior. If you have cooperative, patient, well-informed neighbors, that probably makes you a bit more cooperative, patient, and well-informed.

10. 人类多少有一点顺从倾向，这创造出了能够放大上述四类作用的第五种效应：那就是模仿效应，或“伙伴效应”。即使是很小一点顺从倾向，也就是行动得更像我们身边的人一些，或者说试图适应身边的人，都很可能在潜移默化中塑造我们的行为。如果你拥有富于合作性，有耐心而且博闻多识的邻居，那么这可能也会让你也变得更有合作性，更耐心，也更博闻多识。

Of course, test scores don’t explain everything about the wealth of nations: I’m only claiming that IQ-type scores explain about half of everything across countries – and much less within a country. 当然，智力测试得分无法解释关于国家富裕程度的一切：我只是说智商类测试得分能够解释国家间大约一半的财富差异——而对一个国家内部的差异，它能解释的部分则要小得多。

The question of why IQ matters more for nations than individuals does indeed seem quite important, and quite puzzling, and Jones is to be praised for his readable and informative book calling it to our attention. And the five explanations Jones offers are indeed, as he claims, channels by which each of us benefits from the IQ of the people around us.

为什么智商对于国家的影响相比对个人的影响要大得多这个问题看来的确很重要，而且也着实是个谜，因此我认为本书作者Jones应该为他这部兼具可读性和信息量并让我们充分意识到这个问题的著作而获得称赞。如他所言，上面所提到的五种解释的确都是我们受益于自己身边人群智商的渠道。

However (you knew that was coming, right?), when we benefit from the IQ of people nearby who are within the scope of shared social institutions, then institution access prices can reflect these benefits. For example, employers can pay more for a smart employee who is not only more productive personally, but also raises the productivity of co-workers. Landlords can offer lower rents to people that other renters want to be near. Stores can offer discounts to customers that other customers like nearby when they are shopping. And clubs can offer discounts to entice memberships from those with which others like to associate.

然而（你知道我会这么说的，对吧？），当我们在共享社会机构的范围内从身边人群的智商中受益时，这些机构的准入价格便可体现这种益处的大小。例如，雇主可以为一名不仅自己生产率高，而且还能提升同事生产率的雇员发放更多的工资。土地主可以向其他租户都愿意靠近的那家租户收取更低的地租。商店可以向那些在购物时有很多人愿意接近的顾客提供折扣价格。而俱乐部也可以通过向那些其他人都愿意结交的人提供折扣来吸引他们成为自己的会员。

So simple economic theory leads us to expect that the benefits that smart people give to others nearby, within these shared priced-entry institutions, will be reflected in their incomes.

因此简单的经济理论便可让我们得出这样的预期，那些聪明人通过共享一个有偿准入的机构而带给身边人的好处，将最终反映在他们的收入上。

Specifically, people can plausibly pay more to live, club, shop, and work near and influenced by others who are more patient, cooperative, informed, and reliable. So these local benefits of smart associates do not plausibly explain the difference between how individual and national IQ correlate with income.

具体地说，人们完全可以花更多钱以换取生活在这些更有耐心，更富合作性，更博闻多识，也更可靠的人身边，在其附近购物，参与社团活动，并受其影响完全。所以这些聪明的被结交者们为身边人带来的局部收益，并不能合理地解释个人智商与收入的相关性为何不同于与国家平均智商与收入之间的相关性。【 编注：意思是，假如高智商个体能够以本节所述方式将其带给身边人的利益（一种正外部性）内化为私人收入，这一相关性差别就不会存在。 】

To explain this key difference (a factor of six!) we need big market or government failures. These could result if:

想要解释这一关键差异（第六个因素！），我们需要看看大市场或者政府的失败。下面几个原因可能导致这样的结果： Small social institutions such as firms, clubs, malls, and rental housing suffer some severe and as yet unidentified market failures which prevent them from favoring the smart. 诸如企业，俱乐部，超市和房屋租赁这类小型社会机构，可能会经历一些严重而又找不到原因的市场失灵，这阻止了它们对于聪明人的偏好。 Benefits from the smart span such long social distances that they are not encompassed by shared social institutions with low enough transaction costs to allow deals to favor the smart. Maybe, for example, large metropolitan areas just can’t make effective deals on policies to favor attracting the smart, and pushing away the stupid. 聪明人所带来的好处，所发挥作用的社会跨度太大，以至于它们无法以足够低的交易成本被囊括进一个共同的社会机构中，从而让该机构能够做出偏爱聪明人的安排。举例来说，也许大都市地区的确无法就吸引聪明人并赶走蠢人的政策达成有效的安排。 Governments with structures that fail to prevent the stupid and impatient from greatly influencing government policy. Such prevention might happen via restricting the franchise in democracies, by auctioning governance to a highest bidder, or via institutions like futarchy tied to long-term outcomes. 有组织构架的政府，可能也无法阻止那些愚蠢而缺乏耐心的人对其政策施加巨大影响【 编注：此句原文语法不完整，姑作此解 】。此类预防性措施的可能实现途径是，通过将治理权拍卖给出价最高者，来限制民主机制中的选举投票权，或者通过类似futarchy的制度【 译注：futarchy是由经济学家Robin Hanson设想的一种制度，在其中，候选人只提出价值主张供选民选择，而采用何种政策来追求这些价值的问题，则交给一个预测市场（比如赌博市场或其他金融衍生品市场）来回答。 】而将政策与长期后果捆绑在一起。

This third explanation seems by far the most plausible to me, especially via the government impatience channel. After all, while the stupid might be persuaded to see a benefit in adopting government institutions that give more influence to the smart, the impatient may just not see much benefit from their point of view in having a more patient government.

第三种解释在我看来是最合理的（且远比其他解释高明），特别是在政府治理缺乏耐心这方面。毕竟，即使那些愚蠢的人能被说服，看到让聪明人在政府机构中发挥更大影响力的好处，那些目光短浅的人却很可能无法看到拥有一个更加富有耐心的政府能为他们带来多少好处。

Adopting this as my tentative explanation, I must admit to now being more nervous about allowing more impatient and stupid immigrants, though as Bryan Caplan points out , that still allows for taking on billions of smart immigrants.

我必须承认，在把这作为我的一种尝试性解释的同时，我对于这个国家接纳更多没耐心且愚蠢的移民这一政策感到担忧，虽然如Bryan Caplan所指出，该政策让我们拥有了接纳数十亿聪明移民的机会。

But even if I’m now mildly more reluctant to take on certain kinds of immigrants, I’ll blame that mainly on our poor governance institutions, which give too much weight to the stupid and the impatient.

不过，尽管现在我对接纳某些特定类型的移民变得更不情愿了，我还是会将这主要归咎于我们糟糕的治理机构，是它们把过大的权重放给了那些愚蠢而不耐心的移民。

P.S. I’m aware that Jones has a formal model wherein a certain kind of nation-IQ correlation is larger than a certain kind of individual-IQ correlation.

补充：我知道Jones有一个正规模型，在这个模型中，某种特定的国家财富与智商之间的相关性要大于个人财富与智商之间的相关性。

The model has two industries, one where reliability matters greatly, and one where it matters much less, and two kinds of workers, a set of identical and very reliable workers and another set of less reliable workers who vary in their reliability.

该模型假设有两种产业，可靠性在其中的一种产业中非常重要，而在另一种产业中则不那么重要，同时还假设有两类工人，其中一类工人有着相同水平的高可靠性，而另一类工人的可靠性水平较低且参差不齐。

Only the identical very reliable workers work in the industry where reliability matters a lot, but some of these workers also work in the industry where reliability matters less, and within that second industry, there is only a weak correlation between reliability and wages. But if we compare nations that differ in the value of the high identical reliability among the workers in the industry where reliability matters, we’ll see that national income varies greatly with this reliability parameter.

在可靠性很重要的产业中工作的，都是那些拥有同等高度可靠的工人，而同样也有一些拥有相同水平的高可靠性工人在另一个对可靠性要求不那么高的产业里工作，在这第二个产业中，工人的可靠性和工资水平之间仅仅有很弱的相关性。但如果我们在国与国之间比较那些在对可靠性要求较高的产业中工作的拥有同等高可靠性工人的价值，那么可靠性这个参数会导致的差异就大得多了。

Yes this is a valid formal model, but it seems fragile and I doubt it robustly generalizes well to more complex situations; I just don’t think it works as a robust account of why national IQ matters more than individual IQ for wages.

的确，这是一个有效的正规模型，但它看起来很脆弱，而且我对该模型能否被稳健地推广到一些更加复杂的情境中去也表示怀疑；原因是我不认为它能够作为一个稳健的解释来说明为什么国家的智商水平对工资的影响要大于个人的智商水平。

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