The magic of diasporas1

The magic of diasporas

移民者的魔力

Immigrant networks are a rare bright spark in the world economy. Rich countries should welcome them

移民网成为世界经济罕有的闪光点，富国应当欢迎这些移民者

Nov 19th 2011 | from the print edition

THIS is not a good time to be foreign. Anti-immigrant parties are gaining ground in Europe. Britain has been fretting this week over lapses in its border controls (see article). In America Barack Obama has failed to deliver the immigration reform he promised (see article), and Republican presidential candidates would rather electrify the border fence with Mexico than educate the children of illegal aliens. America educates foreign scientists in its universities and then expels them, a policy the mayor of New Y ork calls “national suicide”.

现在不是移居国外的好时机。反移民者的队伍在欧洲正日渐壮大，本周，英国一直对其边境上的纰漏担心不已。在美国，巴拉克?奥巴马未能如他所允诺的进行移民改革，共和党总统候选人甚至宁愿在美墨边境设置电网也不愿教育这些非法移民的孩子。美国在自己的大学里培养外国科学家，然后再把他们驱逐出境，纽约市市长将这种做法称为“国家自杀”。

This illiberal turn in attitudes to migration is no surprise. It is the result of cyclical economic gloom combined with a secular rise in pressure on rich countries’ borders. But governments now weighing up whether or not to try to slam the door should consider a nother factor: the growing economic importance of diasporas, and the contribution they can make to a country’s economic growth.

各国在对待移民态度上变得这么气量狭小不足为奇，这是周期性经济萧条和长期增长的富国边境压力协同作用的结果。但各国政府现在开始考虑，试图关闭国门是否应该考虑另外一个因素：这些移民者在经济上越来越大重要性，以及他们对国家经济增长所能做的贡献。

Old networks, new communications

老交情，新沟通

Diaspora networks—of Huguenots, Scots, Jews and many others—have always been a potent economic force, but the cheapness and ease of modern travel has made them larger and more numerous than ever before. There are now 215m first-generation migrants around the world: that’s 3% of the world’s population. If they were a nation, it wo uld be a little larger than Brazil. There are more Chinese people living outside China than there are French people in France. Some 22m Indians are scattered all over the globe. Small concentrations of ethnic and linguistic groups have always been found in surprising places—Lebanese in west Africa, Japanese in Brazil and Welsh in Patagonia, for instance—but they have been joined by newer ones, such as west Africans in southern China.

移民者——有胡格诺派教徒，苏格兰人，犹太人，还有许多其他种族——都一直是一股强劲的经济力量，而现代交通的廉价和便捷更使他们的人数增加到前所未有的水平。全世界现在有2.15亿第一代移民者，占世界人口的3%。如果这些人组成一个国家，那会比巴西还大一点。住在海外的中国人数比在法国的法兰西人还多，散居在全球各个角落的印度人多达2200万。在许多意想不到的地方都有以种族和语言为单位聚居的小集体，比如西非的黎巴嫩人，巴西的日本人和巴塔哥尼亚的威尔士人，而且又有新的小集体形成，比如中国南部的西非人。

These networks of kinship and language make it easier to do business across borders (see article). They speed the flow of information: a Chinese trader in Indonesia who spots a gap in the market for cheap umbrellas will alert his cousin in Shenzhen who knows s omeone who runs an umbrella factory. Kinship ties foster trust, so they can seal the deal and get the umbrellas to Jakarta before the rainy season ends. Trust matters, especially in emerging markets where the rule of law is weak. So does a knowledge of the local culture.

That is why so much foreign direct investment in China still passes through the Chinese diaspora. And modern communications make these networks an even more powerful tool of business.

以血缘和语言关系建立起来的联系网络使跨国生意变得更加容易。这些人加速了信息的传播：一位在印尼的中国商人注意到市场上对廉价雨伞的需求，就会告知他在深圳的亲戚，而这位亲戚认识某位雨伞制造商，血缘关系使得他们相互信任，所以他们就可以立即签订合约，在雨季结束之前向雅加达运送雨伞。信任真的很重要，特别在法律管理薄弱的新兴市场中。对当地文化的了解也同样重要，所以那么多外国直接投资还是要通过中国国外移民的关系。现代沟通方法使得这些联系网成为商业上更加有力的工具。

Diasporas also help spread ideas. Many of the emerging world’s brightest minds are educated at Western universities. An incre asing number go home, taking with them both knowledge and contacts. Indian computer scientists in Bangalore bounce ideas constantly off their Indian friends in Silicon V alley. China’s technology industry is dominated by “sea turtles” (Chinese who have lived abr oad and returned).

移民者对于概念的传播也有很大作用。新兴国家里许多聪明能干的人士接受的都是西方大学的教育，他们当中越来越多人回到自己祖国，同时带着他们的知识和人际关系，在班加罗尔的印度计算机科学家可以从他们在美国硅谷的印度朋友那里不断地获得信息，在中国，科技产业被一群“海归”（曾经在国外生活现已回国的中国人）掌控着。

Diasporas spread money, too. Migrants into rich countries not only send cash to their families; they also help companies in their host country operate in their home country. A Harvard Business School study shows that American companies that employ lots of ethnic Chinese people find it much easier to set up in China without a joint venture with a local firm.

国外散居者还能促进资金流通。移民到富国的人不仅给他们的家人寄钱，他们还帮助移居国的公司在自己的祖国运作。哈佛商学院的一项研究表明，雇佣许多中国人的美国公司更容易在中国建厂，而不需要和当地的公司组建合资企业。

Such arguments are unlikely to make much headway against hostility towards immigrants in rich countries. Fury against foreigners is usually based on two (mutually incompatible) notions: that because so many migrants claim welfare they are a drain on the public purse; and that because they are prepared to work harder for less pay they will depress the wages of those at the bottom of the pile.

这些观点好像还不足以驳倒反对向富国移民的观点。对外国人的仇视通常来源于两点（互不相容的两点）：太多外国人获得社会福利，他们会用光公共资金；外国人有多干少赚的准备，所以他们会压低处于收入底层的民众的工资。

The first is usually not true (in Britain, for instance, immigrants claim benefits less than indigenous people do), and the second is hard to establish either way. Some studies do indeed suggest that competition from unskilled immigrants depresses the wages of unskilled locals. But others find this effect to be small or non-existent.

对于第一条，事实通常不是这样（比如在英国，移民申请社会福利的比英国本地人要少），第二条也很难站住脚。某些研究确实表明，没有特殊技能的移民会压低同样没有特殊技能的本地人的工资，但是另外的研究却发现，这种压低工资的影响非常小或者干脆不存在。

Nor is it possible to establish the impact of migration on overall growth. The sums are simply too difficult. Y et there are good reasons for believing that it is likely to be positive. Migrants tend to be hard-working and innovative. That spurs productivity and company formation. A recent study carried out by Duke University showed that, while immigrants make up an eighth of America’s populat ion, they founded a quarter of the country’s technology and engineering firms. And, by lin king the West with emerging markets, diasporas help rich countries to plug into fast-growing economies.

移民对整体经济发展所造成的影响是难以估计的。不过，有充分的理由相信这影响可能是积极的。移民者一般工作刻苦而且富有革新精神，这就刺激生产和公司形成。杜克大学最近的一项研究表明，尽管移民只占美国人口的八分之一，但美国四分之一的科技和工程公司都是由这些人建立的。并且，由于移民者将西方国家和新兴国家联系起来，他们可以帮助富国打入快速增长的经济体市场中。

Rich countries are thus likely to benefit from looser immigration policy; and fears that poor countries will suffer as a resu lt of a “brain drain” are overblown. The prospect of working abroad spurs more people to acquire valuable s kills, and not all subsequently emigrate. Skilled migrants send money home, and they often return to set up new businesses. One study found that unless they lose more than 20% of their university graduates, the brain drain makes poor countries richer.

因此，富国就有可能从其宽松的移民政策中获益，而穷国对“人才外流”会吃亏的恐惧有点夸大其词了。到国外工作的憧憬促使越来越多的人学习有用技能，但这些人并不是都能移民到外国。有一技之长的移民寄钱会祖国，也常常会回国建立新公司。一项研究表明，除非穷国有20%以上的大学毕业生流失，否则，人才外流会让穷国变富。

Indian takeaways

印度人吃完打包

Government as well as business gains from the spread of ideas through diasporas. Foreign-educated Indians, including the prime minister, Manmohan Singh (Oxford and Cambridge) and his sidekick Montek Ahluwalia (Oxford), played a big role in bringing economic reform to India in the early 1990s. Some 500,000 Chinese people have studied abroad and returned, mostly in the past decade; they dominate the think-tanks that advise the government, and are moving up the ranks of the Communist Party. Cheng Li of the Brookings Institution, an American think-tank, predicts that they will be 15-17% of its Central Committee next year, up from 6% in 2002. Few sea turtles call openly for democracy. But they have seen how it works in practice, and they know that many countries that practise it are richer, cleaner and more stable than China.

政府和商业都会从移民者的概念散播中获益。在国外接受教育的印度人，如总理曼莫汉?辛格（曾在牛津大学和剑桥大学学习）及其助手蒙特克?阿鲁瓦利亚（曾在牛津大学学习），在促成上世纪90年代初的印度经济改革中扮演重要角色。大约有50万中国人曾在国外学习然后回国，其中大多数都是在过去十年中回国的，他们控制着为政府出谋划策的智库，并且在共产党中的职位正一步步升高，据美国政府智囊团布鲁金斯学会的李成预测，这些人占中央委员会人数的比例将从2002年的6%上升到明年的15%-17%。很少有海归公开叫嚣民主，但他们曾见识过别国如何实践民主，并且他们知道很多实践民主的国家比中国更富强、更廉洁、更安定。

As for the old world, its desire to close its borders is understandable but dangerous. Migration brings youth to ageing countries, and allows ideas to circulate in millions of mobile minds. That is good both for those who arrive with suitcases and dreams and for those who should welcome them.

对于欧洲旧世界来说，它们想关闭国门的做法可以理解，但却非常危险。移民者给这些老龄化国家带去年轻人，也带去了数以百万计的有新鲜想法的头脑。无论是对于那些提着手提箱怀揣梦想的移民者来说，还是对于应该欢迎他们的人来说，这都是件好事。

A climate of conflict

气候之争

The world’s climate experts must work harder to av oid conflicts of interest

全球的气候专家们必须要竭尽全力以避免利益之争

Jun 23rd 2011 | from the print edition | International

PANELS of experts assessing scientific investigations tend to be messy affairs, particularly when their customers are governm ents. People with expertise in one field, such as renewable energy, may have a bias towards it. Summaries of their work are the result of political negotiations. And findings are further boiled down in an attempt to win media coverage.

那些评估科学考察的专家的有代表性的调查往往成了棘手的事务，尤其是当他们的客户是政府时更是如此。在某个领域，如可再生能源方面拥有专业知识的人或许对此有侧重。他们的工作总结就是政治谈判的结果。而且调查的结果被进一步归结为试图获得（赢得）媒体报道。

Much of this can be seen in a new “special report” on renewable energy by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), which was released last week. Possible conflicts of interest, revealed by Steve McIntyre, a blogger, have led to another controversy about the panel—only 18 months after its embarrassment over an incorrect claim about the imminent demise of the Himalayas’ glaciers.

从新的有关可再生能源的“特别报告”[1]中就可以看到以上的大部分情况，该报告是在上周由政府间气候变化专门委员会（IPCC，以下简称气候委员会）发布的。一个叫史帝夫．麦因特（Steve McIntyre）的博客透露，可能的利益冲突已经导致（引发）了对调查的又一场争议——这距离上次关于喜马拉雅山冰川即将消失的错误言论仅有18个月的时间[2]。

For a start, the press release about the report was misleading. “Close to 80% of the world’s energy supply could be met by r enewables by mid-century if backed by the right enabling public policies, a new report shows,” it claims. In fact, the report merely discusses the assumptions needed to produce this outcome, one of the more extreme scenarios the IPCC looked at.

首先，新闻机构发布的这个报道就有误导性。它声称“一个新的报告显示，如果在正确且有效的公共政策支持下，在本世纪中叶，可再生能源可以提供全球近80%的能源供应”。事实上，该报告仅仅讨论了能够出现这种结果的假设，气候委员会检查（或察看）的很极端的情况之一。

A poorly written press release might have caused less of a stir, were it not for the fact that Greenpeace had come up with the scenario. Its development was led by Sven Teske, director of the group’s renewable-energy campaign. He was also one of the 12 authors of the chapter in question. What is more, a Greenpeace publication based on this scenario was graced by a foreword written by Rajendra Pachauri, the IPCC’s chairman.

一个写得不好的新闻稿或许不会造成太大的轰动，假如不是因为绿色和平已经提供（出）了这样的设想（或方案）的事实。该设想是由思凡?泰斯科（Sven Teske）领导编写的，他是绿色和平组织可再生能源项目主管，也是相关有争议内容的12个作者之一。此外，气候委员会的主席金德拉?帕乔里（Rajendra Pachauri）还为绿色和平组织的一个出版物作序，为其添彩不少，该出版物是也是以有争议的章节为依据的。

As if to underline such problems, when the governments that make up the IPCC met in May to release the summary of the report, they also adopted, for the first time, a policy on conflicts of interest among expert authors. Such a policy had been strongly rec ommended by an outside panel asked to look into the IPCC last year.

气候委员会的政府成员在五月份会见时，发布了该报告的摘要，似乎就是为了强调这样的问题，他们也是第一次接受了在专家作者之间产生利益冲突的政策。去年，这样的政策受到一个要求调查气候委员会的外部专家小组强烈地支持。

Although Mr Teske’s case produced headlines, it is not necessarily the most worrying conflict of interest. Environmentalists are concerned about the number of “pro-dam” people on the team of authors reporting on hydropower. And it is not just the authors that may be conflicted. Each chapter of an IPCC report goes through a review process to ensure that all comments have been addressed satisfactorily. One of the two editors overseeing this process for the chapter on wind energy was Christian Kjaer, the boss of a lobbying group, the European Wind Energy Association. He points out that he did not seek the role of review editor, but was asked when someone else dropped out. Given the procedural nature of the task, he does not think that he had a conflict of interest.

虽然泰斯科的报告成了头条新闻，不过这不会成为最让人担忧的利益冲突。对于报告水利方面的作者，环保人士则关注其小

组中“支持水坝”的人数。并不仅是作者会陷入冲突。气候委员会报告的每一章节都要通过审查程序以确保所有的评论都被处理地非常满意。在监督有关风能那一章的两个编辑之一是克利斯蒂坦?凯嘉尔（Christian Kjaer），他是一个游说集团欧洲风能协会的老板。他指出，他并没有要求评论编辑的职责，而是当另外的人退出时被请来的。鉴于该任务的程序化特点，他并不认为有利益冲突。

Personal bias can be overcome with large, balanced author teams, but in the case of the report on renewables it is not obvious there was such a balance. The report discusses the downsides of various renewable energies, the challenge of incorporating them into existing infrastructure at scale and the vast if poorly bounded costs of deploying them: $1.5 trillion to $7.2 trillion in the 2020s, depending on the scenario. But the summary, in particular, is largely upbeat.

个人偏见可以在很大程度上被均衡的作者团队所解决，不过在报道可再生能源方面，却很少能够看到这样的均衡。该报告讨论了各种可再生能源的缺点，把这些可再生能源按比例整合到现存能源结构中面临的的挑战，还有如果部署不好这些能源,将面临巨大的成本：根据具报告，21世纪20年代需要投入1.5万亿到7.2万亿美元不等。不过该报告的摘要在很大程度上还是持乐观态度。

A case in point is the generating capacity of renewables. The report discusses the fact that this is smaller than for other f orms of power generation. But the summary glosses over the problem, for instance by not mentioning that, although renewables have accounted for almost half the world’s new generating capacity in the past two years, the other half has probably generated a lot more elect ricity.

一个恰当的例子就是可再生能源的发电量。该报告讨论了可再生能源比其他形式的能源发电规模小的事实。不过，这个报告总结掩饰了问题。比如，没有提及，在过去的两年间，虽然可再生能源占到了全球新增发电量的几乎一半，但是另一半其它能源可能产生了多的多的电量。

This is not all the boffins’ fault. Some countries, such as Germany, which nominated Mr Teske, are very keen on renewables—and wanted the summary to reflect this. Brazil has little interest in anything that can be seen as biofuel-bashing.

这也不全是科学家们的错。一些例如德国这样非常热衷于可再生能源的国家提名了泰斯科，并希望摘要上能体现这一点。巴西则对被看作是反对生物燃料的东西一点兴趣也没有。

The lesson of the latest IPCC row is that its authors and organisers must fight harder against groupthink—and speedily implement the new conflict-of-interest policy. It is wrong, as Mr Pachauri seems to think, that the policy should not immediately and fully apply to everyone involved in the panel’s current climate assessment. It would be churlish to see no progress on reforming the IPCC, b ut blindness to believe there had been enough.

从气候委员会最新一系列事件中所吸取的教训就是，它的作者和组织都必须更加尽力地对抗群体思维——并且迅速实施新的利益冲突政策。就像帕乔里似乎思考的那样，涉及专家小组目前气候评估的政策不能立即，全方位地适用于每个人，这一点是错误的。若不是盲目相信气候委员会做的足够好了，那么在改革气候委员会方面看不到有任何进展将令人感到非常不愉快。

注：[1]特别报告：这是指在阿联酋首都阿布扎比发布《可再生能源特别报告》，其中指出，全球可再生能源在未来能满足全球能源需求，在开发潜能、技术条件和成本控制等方面可再生能源均没有瓶颈，唯一的发展障碍就是缺乏政府的支持政策。根据IPCC的这份《特别报告》，在现行的科学技术条件下，到2050年时，可再生能源可开发总量的2.5%将能满足全球大约80%的能源需求；该报告同时特别强调，可再生能源在减缓气候变化、加大能源普及范围、能源使用的平等性和安全性等方面将能扮演更重要的角色。如能清除现存的政策瓶颈，可再生能源将会释放更多潜能。

[2]这个错误的宣言指的是：IPCC在2007年发布的第四次评估报告中写道，喜马拉雅冰川会在2035年前消失，随即有人指出，该报告数据存在错误，最终于2010年IPCC就此事进行了道歉，距现在约为18个月的时间。

A cyber-house divided

分化的数字之屋

Online as much as in the real world, people bunch together in mutually suspicious groups—and in both realms, peacemaking is an uphill struggle

无论是在网络世界，还是在现实世界，人们几乎都会聚集在各自的圈子里，互相怀疑——不仅如此，无论是在哪一个世界，调解矛盾都是十分困难的事情。

Sep 2nd 2010 | WASHINGTON, DC

IN 2007 Danah Boyd heard a white American teenager describe MySpace, the social network, as “like ghetto or whatever”. At the time, Facebook was stealing members from MySpace, but most peop le thought it was just a fad: teenagers tired of networks, the theory went, just as they tired of shoes.

2007年，一位美国白人少年这样对黛娜?波伊德描述聚友网（一家社交网站）：“就像是个贫民窟，或者类似的场所”。而脸谱网此时却不动声色地将聚友网的用户吸引到自己门下；但对于大多数人来说，这不过是年轻人一时兴起：这种看法认为，正如年轻人会对自己的鞋子感到厌倦，他们对社交网络也会产生厌倦的情绪。

But after hearing that youngster, Ms Boyd, a social-media researcher at Microsoft Research New England, felt that something more than whimsy might be at work. “Ghetto” in American speech suggests poor, unsophisticated and black. That led to her sad conclusion: in their online life, American teenagers were recreating what they knew from the physical world—separation by class and race.

然而，作为微软新英格兰研究中心的一名社会与媒体研究人员，波伊德女士在听完那位年轻人的描述之后，却感到事情背后或许大有蹊跷。在美国人的语境下，“贫民窟”带有“穷困潦倒”、“不谙世故”以及“黑人聚居”的含义。因而，波伊德女士得出以下负面结论：在网络生活中，美国青少年仍旧会再现自己在现实世界中的认识——阶级与种族的隔离。

A generation of digital activists had hoped that the web would connect groups separated in the real world. The internet was supposed to transcend colour, social identity and national borders. But research suggests that the internet is not so radical. People are online what they are offline: divided, and slow to build bridges.

有整整一代的网络活动家都希望，通过互联网络，那些在现实世界里分立的群体能够取得联系。互联网的存在本应超越肤色、社会身份以及国界，但有研究表明，互联网并没有带来这样的变革。人们在现实生活当中是什么状况，在网络生活当中也就是什么状况：彼此分立，且不愿建立沟通的桥梁。

This summer Ms Boyd heard from a scholar in Brazil who, after reading her research, saw a parallel. Almost 80% of internet users in Brazil use Orkut, a social network owned by Google. As internet use rises in Brazil and reaches new social groups, better-off Brazilians are leaving Orkut for Facebook. That is partly because they have more friends abroad (with whom they link via Facebook) and partly snobbishness. Posh Brazilians have a new word: orkutifica??o, or becoming “orkutised”. A place undergoing orkutifica??o is full of strangers, open to anyone. Brazilians are now the second biggest users of the micro-blogging site Twitter; but some wonder whether the dreaded o-word awaits that neighbourhood too.

今夏，波伊德女士收到了一位巴西学者的来信，这位学者读完波伊德女士的研究报告之后，也有类似的感触。近80%的巴西互联网用户都在使用谷歌旗下的一家社交网站——Orkut。随着巴西互联网用户日益增多，并扩展到新的社会群体，经济条件较好的互联网用户却开始放弃使用Orkut，转而使用脸谱网。这种现象的发生，部分原因是这些经济条件较好的用户拥有更多的外国朋友（通过脸谱网能与他们取得联系），还有部分原因则是出于势利心理。巴西上流社会发明了一个新词：orkutifica??o，意即“Orkut化”。发生“Orkut化”过程的地方通常都聚集着外地人，而且对任何人都开放。目前，在微型博客网站推特的用户中，巴西用户的总人数位居第二；但在推特社区是否会发生像“Orkut化”那样可怕的过程，这也未可知。

Facebook’s architecture makes it easy for groups to remain closed. For example, it suggests new friends using an algorithm that looks at existing ones. But simpler, more open networks also permit self-segregation. On Twitter, mem bers can choose to “follow” anyone they like, and can form groups by embedding words and shortened phrases known as “hashtags” in their messages. In May Martin Wattenberg and Fernanda Viégas, who research the display of social information, looked at the ten most popular hashtags on Twitter and discovered that most were used almost exclusively by either black or white authors. The hashtag “#cookout” was almost entirely black; the hashtag “#oilspill” almost entirely white.

脸谱网的构造决定了各个群体可以轻易地保持对外封闭。举例来说，脸谱网会执行一套算法对现有的好友进行检阅，然后向用户推荐新的好友。但是，即使是构造更简单、更开放的网站，也同样有可能出现自我隔离的情况。推特的用户可以选择“关注”他们喜欢的其他任何用户，还可以在他们的信息当中，嵌入被称为“井字标签”的词语以及缩略词组，进而形成各个群体。今年五月，马丁?瓦滕贝格和费尔南达?维耶加斯（两人研究的是社会信息方面的数据）对推特网站上最热门的十大井字标签进行了研究，他们发现，大部分井号标签的使用者，几乎要么是清一色的黑人用户，要么就是清一色的白人用户。“#露天烤肉餐会”这一井字标签，其使用者几乎全部为黑人，而“#原油泄漏”这一井字标签，其使用者则几乎全部为白人。

With ideology, the pair’s findings were a bit more hopeful; liberals and conservatives at least communicate—by trading taunts. They do so by appropriating hashtags so as to surface in each others’ searches. By now, o nly one keyword in American political discourse remains unaffected by such games of tag: #NPR, or National Public Radio, used only by liberals.

在意识形态方面，瓦滕贝格与维耶加斯两人的发现则略显乐观；在自由派和保守派之间起码还存在沟通交流——方式是相互之间进行冷嘲热讽。为达到此目的，双方互相占用井字标签，让对方在搜索过程中注意到自己的存在。截止到目前，在美国政治话语当中，只有一个关键词得以在这种井字标签拉锯战中幸免于难：“#NPR”，即“国家公共广播公司”，使用者只有自由派人士。

All this argues for a cautious response to claims that e-communications abate conflict by bringing mutually suspicious people together. Facebook has a site called “Peace on Facebook,” where it describes how it can “decrease world conflict” by letting people from different backgrounds connect. (The optimism is catching; this spring a founder of Twitter described his service as “a triumph of humanity”.)

有人认为，电子通信可以使相互怀疑的群体彼此取得联系，从而淡化冲突；对此，上述事例可以作为一个谨慎的回应。脸谱网上有一个公共主页，叫做“脸谱网上无战事”，根据页面上的描述，该主页通过让背景各异的人们相互间进行联系，达到了“减少世界冲突”的目的。（这种乐观心态具有传染性；今年春天，推特的一位创始人也形容其微博服务是“人类的一次胜利”。）

Peace on Facebook keeps a ticker of friend connections made each day between people from rival places. Israelis and Palestinians, the site claims, made about 15,000 connections on July 25th, the most recent available day. That is hard to put in context; Facebook does not make public the total number of friendships in any country. But Ethan Zuckerman, a blogger and activist, used independent data to estimate that these links represent roughly 1-2% of the combined total of friendships on Israeli and Palestinian accounts. Using the same method for Greece and Turkey, his estimate was 0.1%. That understates the role of Greek-Turkish friendship groups, or groups dedicated to music or films that both countries like. Among, say, people from either country who are studying outside their homeland (and have a better-than-average chance of becoming decision-makers), the share of trans-Aegean links would be far higher. And their mere existence sends an important moral signal.

“脸谱网上无战事”的页面上还有一个小控件，来自敌对两国的人若是加为好友，交友记录都会显示出来，每天均是如此。该主页称，7月25日（有记录可查、距今最近的一天）大约有15000对以色列人和巴勒斯坦人相互加为好友。但是若要联系整个大背景来考察这一数字，却是一件难事；因为脸谱网并没有公布任何一个国家的交友记录总数。但根据博客作者兼活动家埃坦?楚克曼使用独立数据估算出来的结果，这15000条左右

的交友记录在所有以色列和巴勒斯坦用户帐号的交友记录总数当中，所占比例约为1%-2%。而使用同样的方法对希腊和土耳其的情况进行分析，楚克曼估算出来的结果则为0.1%。但是，那些致力于两国友谊的群组，以及那些致力于两国人共同喜爱的音乐或电影的群组，其扮演的角色却未能在这一结果当中得到充分的反应。再如，无论是希腊人还是土耳其人，对于留学海外（成为决策层的机会也比一般人要来的多）的群体来说，与来自爱琴海彼岸的对方结下友谊的几率远大于留在各自国内的群体。而且，这些跨国友谊只要存在，就足以传递一个重要的道德信号。

But Mr Zuckerman frets that the internet really serves to boost ties within countries, not between them. Using data from Google, he looked at the top 50 news sites in 30 countries. Almost every country reads all but 5% of its news from domestic sources. Mr Zuckerman believes that goods and services still travel much farther than ideas, and that the internet allows us to be “imaginary cosmopolitans”.

但令楚克曼先生感到苦恼的是，互联网事实上促进的是各国国内居民的联系，而非跨越国界的交流。利用谷歌提供的数据，他在30个国家当中考察了各国最受欢迎的50个新闻网站。对于每个国家的人来说，差不多有百分之九十五的新闻都来自本国的信息来源。楚克曼先生认为，商品和服务仍旧比思想传播得更远，而互联网则能够让我们“在想象中实现世界大同”。

Peace on Facebook offers data for India and Pakistan, too. That is even harder to put in context. Pakistan has banned Facebook in the past, and offers too few users to qualify even for independent estimates. John Kelly, founder of Morningside Analytics, a firm that analyses social networks, examined links between blogs and twitter accounts in India and Pakistan and discovered two hubs that link the two countries. South Asian expats in London who self-identify as “Desis”—people from the sub-continent—link freely to each other and to their home countries. And cricket fans in both countries link up spontaneously.

在“脸谱网上无战事”这一公共主页上，同样还有印度和巴基斯坦用户的交友记录。但这组数据的大背景更难掌握。在过去，巴基斯坦一直禁止国民访问脸谱网，而即使有人要进行独立估算，网站上也没有足够多的巴基斯坦用户。Morningside Analytics（一家分析和研究社交网站的公司）的创始人约翰?凯利考察了印巴两国博客和推特帐户间的联系，发现两国间的联系活动有两大中心：移居伦敦的南亚侨民自称“Desis”（意即“来自南亚次大陆的人”），他们不但彼此之间交流自如，还可以自由地与自己的母国取得联系，是为中心之一；印巴两国的板球球迷也都能自发地取得联系，是为中心之二。

Mr Kelly believes that clusters of internet activity, when they do cross national borders, flow from pre-existing identities. Ethnic Baloch bloggers in three different countries link mainly to each other. Blogs in Afghanistan show some ties to NGOs and American service members, but a far greater number to Iranian news services and poetry blogs. That reflects old reality, not some new discovery. There is also some hope in Morningside’s data. Four websites most consistently account for links between countries: Y ouTube, Wikipedia, the BBC and, a dista nt fourth, Global V oices Online. The last of these, launched at Harvard University in 2005 and mainly funded by American foundations, works to create links between bloggers in different countries, and to find what it calls “bridge bloggers”: expats and cul tural translators, like London’s Desis, who help explain their countries to each other. (This newspaper has a loose editorial collaboration with the site.)

凯利先生认为，对于互联网活动集群来说，如果它们的活动范围确实出现了跨越国界的情形，其根源则是早已存在的身份认同感。来自三个不同国家的俾路支族博客作者，多半还是会在本族同胞之间相互交流。阿富汗的博客作者们或许会与非政府组织和来自美国的博客作者交流，但在这些博主中间，有更多的人会与伊朗新闻机构以及诗歌博客建立联系。这个现象反映出来的是既存的现实，而不是某项新的发现。Morningside公司的数据也带来了些许希望。对于国与国之间的联系，下列四个网站的记载最为连贯：Y ouTube、维基百科、英国广播公司（BBC）以及并不怎么出名的全球之声在线。全球之声在线于2005年在哈佛大学创办，由美国的基金会提供财力支持；该网站致力于在来自不同国家的博客作者之间建立联系，并借此机会发掘出“桥梁博主”（网站自己的说法）：这些人通常是旅居国外的侨民，但同时也是文化交流的中介者，就像旅居伦敦的Desis

那样，在向他人介绍自己母国的过程中发挥自己的作用。（本刊与全球之声在线网站的编辑人员之间有松散的合作。）

Onnik Krikorian, Global V oices’ editor in Central Asia, is a British citizen with an Armenian name. He couldn’t go to Azerbaijan and had difficulty establishing any online contact with the country until he went to a conference in Tbilisi in 2008 and met four Azeri bloggers. They gave him their cards, and he found them on Facebook. To his surprise, they agreed to be his friends. Mr Krikorian has since found Facebook to be an ideal platform to build ties. Those first four contacts made it easier for other Azeris to link up with him.

全球之声在线中亚地区主编欧恩尼克?柯里克里安是一位英国公民，但欧恩尼克?柯里克里安却是亚美尼亚人的名字。2008年，柯里克里安到第比利斯开会，遇见了四个阿塞拜疆的博客作者；但在此之前，他一直未能前往阿塞拜疆，也很难同这个国家建立任何的网络联系。那四位阿塞拜疆博主把各自的名片递给了柯里克里安，之后柯里克里安在脸谱网上找到了这四人。令他感到惊喜的是，四人都同意与他加为好友。打那以后，柯里克里安先生便觉得脸谱网是一个建立联系的理想平台了。有了一开始的四个阿塞拜疆联系人，往后其他的阿塞拜疆人要想和柯里克里安先生建立联系，也就容易多了。

But the internet is not magic; it is a tool. Anyone who wants to use it to bring nations closer together has to show initiative, and be ready to travel physically as well as virtually. As with the telegraph before it—also hailed as a tool of peace—the internet does nothing on its own.

但是，互联网可不是魔术，而是一种工具。一个人若是想要通过互联网来缩短国家之间距离，就必须显示出自己的主动性，在通过网络了解其他国家的同时，还必须准备好身体力行，亲自到那一国去拜访。而说到互联网之前的电报（同样也被人盛赞为和平的工具），要是没有它的话，互联网只怕会势单力薄。