TED@SXSWi
JP Rangaswami: Information is food
JP Rangaswami: 資訊就是食物
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我們如何消化數據？在TED@SXSWi(美國南方音樂節互動多媒體)講座中，科技人員JP Rangaswami沉思我們和資訊的關係，且提出一個令人驚訝且尖銳的見解：我們把資訊看作食物。
JP Rangaswami - Technologist
JP Rangaswami thinks deeply (and hilariously) about disruptive data. Full bio
JP Rangaswami thinks deeply (and hilariously) about disruptive data. Full bio
Double-click the English transcript below to play the video.
00:16
I love my food.
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我喜歡我的食物。
00:18
And I love information.
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我也喜歡資訊。
00:21
My children usually tell me
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我的小孩總跟我說
00:24
that one of those passions is a little more apparent than the other.
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我對其中一項的喜好明顯地大於另外一項。
00:27
(Laughter)
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(笑聲)
00:29
But what I want to do in the next eight minutes or so
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但是，接下來八分鐘我想要
00:32
is to take you through how those passions developed,
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帶領大家體驗這些喜好是如何發展而成，
00:34
the point in my life when the two passions merged,
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當這兩項喜好在我生命合而為一的時候，
00:37
the journey of learning that took place from that point.
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以及之後的學習旅程。
00:42
And one idea I want to leave you with today
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今天我要留給大家思考的是
00:45
is what would would happen differently in your life
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如果你將資訊看待成食物
00:48
if you saw information the way you saw food?
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你的人生會有什麼不同？
00:52
I was born in Calcutta --
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我在印度加爾各達市出生 --
00:54
a family where my father and his father before him
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生於一個父親與祖父
00:58
were journalists,
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都是記者的家庭，
01:00
and they wrote magazines in the English language.
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而且他們都在雜誌上發表英文文章。
01:03
That was the family business.
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這是家族事業。
01:05
And as a result of that,
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因為如此，
01:07
I grew up with books everywhere around the house.
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我在家內充滿書的環境中長大。
01:10
And I mean books everywhere around the house.
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我指的真的房子裡到處是書。
01:13
And that's actually a shop in Calcutta,
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事實上這是加爾各達的一間商店，
01:16
but it's a place where we like our books.
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但是個會讓人愛上書本的地方。
01:19
In fact, I've got 38,000 of them now
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事實上我現在擁有三萬八千本書，
01:23
and no Kindle in sight.
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沒有一本是Kindle(亞馬遜電子書閱讀器)。
01:25
But growing up as a child with the books around everywhere,
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但是成長於四周充滿書，
01:31
with people to talk to about those books,
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人們談論書的環境中，
01:33
this wasn't a sort of slightly learned thing.
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這不太是件需要學習的事。
01:36
By the time I was 18, I had a deep passion for books.
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當我18歲的時候，我熱愛書本。
01:40
It wasn't the only passion I had.
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不過這並不是我唯一的喜好。
01:42
I was a South Indian
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我來自印度南方，
01:44
brought up in Bengal.
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在孟加拉長大。
01:46
And two of the things about Bengal:
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孟加拉人的兩大特點就是：
01:49
they like their savory dishes
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喜愛當地香辣美食
01:51
and they like their sweets.
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還有甜點。
01:53
So by the time I grew up,
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於是，長大後，
01:55
again, I had a well-established passion for food.
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我也培養了對美食的熱愛。
01:59
Now I was growing up in the late '60s and early '70s,
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我成長於1960末和1970初，
02:02
and there were a number of other passions I was also interested in,
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我也還有很多其它的熱愛的事物，
02:05
but these two were the ones that differentiated me.
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但這兩個喜好讓我與眾不同。
02:09
(Laughter)
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（笑聲）
02:10
And then life was fine, dandy.
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當時生命是如此美好，
02:13
Everything was okay,
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一切都很順利，
02:14
until I got to about the age of 26,
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直到我26歲那年，
02:18
and I went to a movie called "Short Circuit."
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看了一部叫“霹靂五號"(SHORT CIRCUIT)的電影。
02:22
Oh, some of you have seen it.
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哦，你們有些人有看過。
02:24
And apparently it's being remade right now
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那部片現在正在重拍，
02:27
and it's going to be coming out next year.
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預計明年會上映。
02:29
It's the story of this experimental robot
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這是一部關於實驗性機器人
02:33
which got electrocuted and found a life.
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被雷擊後找到生命的故事。
02:36
And as it ran, this thing was saying, "Give me input. Give me input."
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當它奔跑時，不斷地說：「給我資料，給我資料。」
02:40
And I suddenly realized that for a robot
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我突然意識到對機器人來說
02:42
both information as well as food
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資訊跟食物
02:46
were the same thing.
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毫無分別。
02:48
Energy came to it in some form or shape,
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能量以某種形態或形狀進入它體內
02:51
data came to it in some form or shape.
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資料也以各種形態或形狀進入它體內。
02:53
And I began to think,
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我開始思考，
02:55
I wonder what it would be like
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我好奇如果是我，
02:57
to start imagining myself
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那會是什麼情況？
02:59
as if energy and information were the two things I had as input --
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彷彿能量與資訊是我要吸收的兩樣東西 --
03:04
as if food and information were similar in some form or shape.
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如同食物和資訊有類似的型態或者形狀。
03:08
I started doing some research then, and this was the 25-year journey,
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我從那時起開始從事相關的研究，到現在已經二十五年了
03:11
and started finding out
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我最早的發現是
03:13
that actually human beings as primates
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身為靈長類的人類，
03:16
have far smaller stomachs
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對照我們的體重，
03:19
than should be the size for our body weight
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我們的胃其實非常的小，
03:22
and far larger brains.
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腦卻很大。
03:25
And as I went to research that even further,
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我對此做了深入的研究，
03:29
I got to a point where I discovered something
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發現一種稱為
03:32
called the expensive tissue hypothesis.
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高耗能組織假說(expensive tissue hypothesis)。
03:36
That actually for a given body mass of a primate
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事實上靈長類身體質量
03:40
the metabolic rate was static.
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的新成代謝是固定的。
03:42
What changed was the balance of the tissues available.
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會變的是可用組織間的平衡。
03:46
And two of the most expensive tissues in our human body
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而人類身體內最高耗能的兩個組織
03:50
are nervous tissue and digestive tissue.
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就是神經組織及消化組織。
03:53
And what transpired was that people had put forward a hypothesis
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接著人們作出了一個假設
03:57
that was apparently coming up with some fabulous results by about 1995.
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而且在1995年時有了極佳結果。
04:02
It's a lady named Leslie Aiello.
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有位Leslie Aiello 女士
04:05
And the paper then suggested that you traded one for the other.
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在報告中提出人們將用一個器官交換另一個。
04:10
If you wanted your brain for a particular body mass to be large,
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如果你想要個相對於特定身體質量較大的大腦，
04:13
you had to live with a smaller gut.
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你就必須接受擁有較小的內臟。
04:17
That then set me off completely
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這完全開了我的話匣子，
04:19
to say, Okay, these two are connected.
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我可以說，好的，這兩者是相連的。
04:22
So I looked at the cultivation of information as if it were food
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所以我將資訊培養視為食物，
04:26
and said, So we were hunter-gathers of information.
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試想我們以前都是資訊的採獵者。
04:29
We moved from that to becoming farmers and cultivators of information.
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接著我們變成農夫和資訊培養者。
04:34
Does that really explain what we're seeing
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這是否真的可以解釋
04:35
with the intellectual property battles nowadays?
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今日常見的智慧財產權爭奪戰？
04:38
Because those people who were hunter-gatherers in origin
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因為這些原本的採獵者
04:41
wanted to be free and roam and pick up information as they wanted,
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想要隨心所欲地自由採集資訊，
04:45
and those that were in the business of farming information
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而原本從事生產資訊的人們
04:48
wanted to build fences around it,
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想要在資訊周圍築藩籬，
04:50
create ownership and wealth and structure and settlement.
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以宣稱所有權，製造財富，組織和法定財產。
04:54
So there was always going to be a tension within that.
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於是緊張情勢總是存在其中。
04:57
And everything I saw in the cultivation
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而我看到所有培養物中，
04:59
said there were huge fights amongst the foodies
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存在美食家的爭鬥，
05:01
between the cultivators and the hunter-gatherers.
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發自於培養者和採集者間。
05:04
And this is happening here.
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相同的情況也在這裡發生。
05:06
When I moved to preparation, this same thing was true,
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當我開始要準備的時候，面臨到一樣的狀況，
05:09
expect that there were two schools.
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只是這次是兩間學校。
05:11
One group of people said you can distill your information,
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其中一部分的人說你可以提煉你的資訊中的精華，
05:14
you can extract value, separate it and serve it up,
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你可以萃取有價值的部分，將它分開好再上桌。
05:17
while another group turned around
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而另一部分的人回過頭來
05:19
and said no, no you can ferment it.
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說不可以，但你可以使它發酵。
05:21
You bring it all together and mash it up
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你將全部聚集在一塊然後搗碎，
05:24
and the value emerges that way.
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於是能顯示它的價值。
05:26
The same is again true with information.
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這樣的準則套用到資訊也行得通。
05:28
But consumption was where it started getting really enjoyable.
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但消費是真正有趣的開始，
05:32
Because what I began to see then
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因為可以開始看到
05:34
was there were so many different ways people would consume this.
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人們可以用很多不同的方式消費。
05:38
They'd buy it from the shop as raw ingredients.
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可以從店裡購買生的食材。
05:40
Do you cook it? Do you have it served to you?
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你烹飪嗎？還是都是吃別人煮的？
05:43
Do you go to a restaurant?
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你去餐廳嗎？
05:44
The same is true every time as I started thinking about information.
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每當我開始想到資訊時，也是一樣的狀況。
05:48
The analogies were getting crazy --
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對比可是無止境的 --
05:51
that information had sell-by dates,
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資訊也有保存期限，
05:53
that people had misused information that wasn't dated properly
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人們誤用沒有妥善標示日期的資訊
05:57
and could really make an effect on the stock market,
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可能會影響股票市場，
05:59
on corporate values, etc.
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或者公司價值等。
06:02
And by this time I was hooked.
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研究到這個時候，我非常著迷。
06:04
And this is about 23 years into this process.
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而這已經是第23年了。
06:07
And I began to start thinking of myself
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於是我開始想到我自己，
06:10
as we start having mash-ups of fact and fiction,
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當我們開始混合現實和虛構，
06:13
docu-dramas, mockumentaries, whatever you call it.
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劇情式紀錄片、偽紀錄片，不管你怎麼稱呼它。
06:17
Are we going to reach the stage
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我們是否能達到
06:18
where information has a percentage for fact associated with it?
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有一部分事實和資訊相連的境界？
06:23
We start labeling information for the fact percentage?
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我們是否會開始在資訊上標示其中事實所佔的百分比？
06:26
Are we going to start looking at what happens
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當資訊來源消失，就像遇到饑荒一樣，
06:29
when your information source is turned off, as a famine?
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我們是否會開始觀察原因？
06:32
Which brings me to the final element of this.
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這引導我們到最後的元素。
06:35
Clay Shirky once stated that there is no such animal as information overload,
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Clay Shirky曾說過沒有動物會承載過多的資訊，
06:38
there is only filter failure.
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有的只是篩檢失敗而已。
06:41
I put it to you that information,
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我要展現的是，
06:44
if viewed from the point of food,
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從食物的觀點來看資訊，
06:46
is never a production issue; you never speak of food overload.
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這從來不是生產的問題；你不會說食物超載。
06:50
Fundamentally it's a consumption issue.
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基本上這是消費的問題。
06:52
And we have to start thinking
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於是我們必須開始思考
06:54
about how we create diets within ourselves, exercise within ourselves,
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我們要如何安排個人的節食，運動計畫，
07:00
to have the faculties to be able to deal with information,
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確保我們的身體機能能夠處理資訊，
07:02
to have the labeling to be able to do it responsibly.
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能發揮職責有效地分類標籤。
07:06
In fact, when I saw "Supersize Me," I starting thinking of saying,
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事實上，當我看電影「麥胖報告」時，
07:10
What would happen
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我想到
07:12
if an individual had 31 days nonstop Fox News?
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如果一個人連續31天不間斷地觀看福斯新聞會怎麼樣？
07:16
(Laughter)
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(笑聲)
07:17
Would there be time to be able to work with it?
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是否有時間能夠跟上腳步？
07:20
So you start really understanding
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於是你開始能真正了解
07:23
that you can have diseases, toxins, a need to balance your diet,
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你感染疾病，毒素，平衡你的飲食的必需品，
07:29
and once you start looking, and from that point on,
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一旦你開始正視這個問題，從那時候開始，
07:32
everything I have done in terms of the consumption of information,
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我剛剛講到的資訊消費，
07:36
the production of information, the preparation of information,
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資訊生產和資訊準備這些觀點，
07:39
I've looked at from the viewpoint of food.
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已經從食物的觀點檢視過。
07:43
It has probably not helped my waistline any
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這或許對縮小我的腰圍沒有任何助益，
07:45
because I like practicing on both sides.
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因為我喜歡食物和資訊。
07:48
But I'd like to leave you with just that question:
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但我想要讓你們思考這個問題：
07:52
If you began to think of all the information that you consume
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如果你開始用你看待食物的方式
07:55
the way you think of food,
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來思考你消化的資訊，
07:56
what would you do differently?
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你的行為會有什麼不同？
07:58
Thank you very much for your time.
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謝謝你們費時凝聽。
08:00
(Applause)
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(掌聲)
ABOUT THE SPEAKER
JP Rangaswami - TechnologistJP Rangaswami thinks deeply (and hilariously) about disruptive data.
Why you should listen
With a background in economics and journalism, JP Rangaswami has been a technology innovator and chief information officer for many leading financial firms. As an advocate for open source and disruptive technologies, Rangaswami has been a leading force in the success of multiple startups, including School of Everything, Salesforce.com and Ribbit. He blogs (unmissably) at Confused of Calcutta.
JP Rangaswami | Speaker | TED.com