43. 我们究竟从失败中学到了什么？

有趣又顽皮，嘿嘿嘿，呵呵呵。嘿，我是安吉拉·达克沃斯。

Fun and playful and he he he, ho ho ho. Hey. I'm Angela Duckworth.

我是史蒂文·杜布纳。您正在收听的是《没有愚蠢的问题》。

I'm Steven Dubner. And you're listening to no stupid questions.

今天节目的主题是：如何从失败中发现价值？

Today on the show, how do you find value in failure?

可能不会成功，可能不好玩，可能会损失一大笔钱，但让我们试试看吧。

Might not work, might not be fun, might lose a ton of money, but let's try it.

另外，取笑别人到底能达成什么目的？

Also, what does teasing really accomplish?

他会跑过来对我说，你是个绿色的真菌，然后跑开。史蒂文，我们最近收到一封邮件，让我瞬间回到了记忆的长廊。我能念给你听吗？

He would run over to me and say, you're a green fungus, and then he would run away. Steven, we got an email recently that just took me back down memory lane. Can I read it to you?

请念吧。

Please do.

嗨，Steven和Angela。我记得——但请核实一下——我第一次听到你们同台是在《告诉我一些我不知道的事》节目上。为什么节目停播了？Steven从这段经历中学到了什么？知道何时停止是否有益？非常感谢，来自南威尔士的Steve和Barry。

Hi, Steven and Angela. I believe, but please fact check, I first heard you together on tell me something I don't know. Why did the show end, and what did Steven learn from the experience? Is it useful to know when to stop? Many thanks, Steve and Barry South Wales.

哦，谢谢你的问题，Steve。不过你搞错了。

Oh, thanks for that question, Steve. So you're wrong.

Steve搞错了？

Steve's wrong?

是的。好吧，严格来说我不能说你错了，因为你只是说‘相信’第一次在《告诉我一些我不知道的事》听到我们合作。这可能是真的，但那不是我们最初合作的起点，Angela。实际上你上过两次我们的《魔鬼经济学》电台节目。

Yep. Well, okay. I can't say that you're wrong because you say that you believe you first heard us together on Tell Me Something I Don't Know. So that could be true, but that's not where we started working together, Angela. So you were on our show Freakonomics Radio, I should say, twice.

有一期关于无聊的节目你担任了次要角色，后来我们在关于毅力的专题中你成了非常重要的主角。正因如此我才邀请你参加《告诉我一些我不知道的事》，那是档荒诞复杂的现场游戏秀——因为是直播且环节繁多。首季设置了三名名人嘉宾评委，你是其中之一，而且每期评委都会更换。

There was an episode about boredom where you played a minor ish role, and then we did a piece on grit where you played a very, very major role. And that is why I wanted you to be on tell me something I don't know, which was this live game show we created that was absurdly complicated because, a, it was live, and it had a lot of moving parts. In the first iteration, there was a three person celebrity guest panel, and you were one of the three, and we changed it for every show.

每期不同的嘉宾评委。

A different guest panel.

没错。每场还有五六个参赛者，现场事实核查员，可能还有上百个我现在记不清的工作人员，总之非常复杂。你当时担任过评委，那也是我们初次见面。现在想来很有意思，如今我们处于虚拟互动取代面对面交流的时代——虽然之前电台合作时觉得你很出色，但我们其实素未谋面。

Right. And then there were five or six contestants every night as well, and then a live fact checker, and probably a 100 other people I don't remember, but it was a lot of moving parts. Anyway, you were on one of those panels. That's where I first met you, and it's interesting because it makes me think of the time we're in now of so many virtual interactions versus in person. Like, I thought you were pretty good when we'd had you on the radio, but we hadn't met.

你当时可能在费城。我在纽约。嗯哼。但后来亲自认识你后，你知道，这会改变你对一个人的看法。你能从不同角度接触到他们的思维和个性。

You were in Philadelphia probably. I was in New York. Mhmm. But then getting to know you in person, you know, it changes the way that you think about a person. You get exposed to their brain and their personality in different ways.

这让我更想与你合作，后来我们还在加州的几期节目中提拔你担任联合主持人。不知道你还记不记得那些日子，安吉拉。

So that made me wanna work with you more, and then we kinda promoted you to co host on the show for a couple shows in California. I don't know if you remember those, Angela.

记得。我记得飞去加州的情景，还有那些有趣的派对。

Yes. I remember flying to California and also the after parties, which were fun.

确实特别有趣。好吧。我能告诉你关于那几场演出中，我对你最鲜明的记忆吗？有一次在旧金山，还有洛杉矶。

They were really fun. Okay. Can I tell you my single most distinct memory concerning you at least of either of those shows? There was one San Francisco, LA.

噢，别。你该不会要...

Oh, no. Do you have

猜得到我现在想说什么吗？

any idea what I might say right now?

完全猜不到你要说什么。快讲

I have no idea what you're gonna say. Tell

我。我最鲜明的记忆是在旧金山，那应该是我们在加利福尼亚的第一场演出，我在剧院待了一整天。我们正在做音响检查。那是我们第一次与现场乐队合作，所以有很多事情要做。然后你出现了，我记得你刚和老朋友吃完饭，手里还拿着吃剩的食物。

me. My single most distinct memory was in San Francisco, which I think was our first California show, and I'd been at the theater all day. We're doing sound check. We're working with a live band for the first time, so there was a lot to do. And you showed up, and I remember that you had just come from dinner, I think, with an old friend, and you were carrying your leftovers.

我清楚地记得那些剩菜是什么。

I remember exactly what the leftovers were.

那东西又腥又油腻，像是某种鱼汤之类的。

It was stinky and greasy. It was like some kind of fish stew or something.

里面有鱼露。是从一家很棒的越南餐馆Cordon Bleu带回来的。

It had fish sauce. It was from a really great Vietnamese place called Cordon Bleu.

那是个被油脂浸透的纸袋，味道弥漫了整个后台。整个演出期间它都放在后台，之后我们一起去酒吧喝酒。如果我没记错的话，你还把它带去了酒吧。

And it was a paper bag that was soaked through with grease, and smelled up the whole backstage. It stayed backstage during the whole show, and then we all went to a bar for drinks. You brought it there with you, if I recall correctly.

不然我还能怎么处理它呢？

What else was I gonna do with it?

这让我想起了我妈妈，因为她很节俭，这件事让我对你产生了好感。最后我想，你知道吗？我觉得我很想和这个人一起做一档完整的播客。这就是《没有愚蠢的问题》诞生的由来。

It reminded me of my mom because she was frugal, and it totally endeared you to me. And I finally said, you know what? I think I would like to make a whole podcast with this person. So that's how no stupid questions was actually born.

你知道那个总带着半份吃剩的、散发着浓烈鱼腥味食物的人吗？我想和她共事。这就是你脑子里闪过的念头。

You know this person who carries around half eaten leftovers with some really strong smelling fish? I wanna work with her. That's what went through your head.

完全正确。

Exactly.

现在你让我感到焦虑了。希望我把那些剩菜吃完了。

Now you're making me feel anxious. I hope I finished those leftovers.

要是你没吃完那些剩菜，我会非常失望，因为你所做的就是污染了一两百人的环境。

If you didn't finish the leftovers, I would be so disappointed because all you did was pollute the environment of a 150, 200 people.

我很确定我吃完了。

I'm pretty sure I did.

关于我学到的东西和知道何时停止——这是史蒂夫提出的问题——我确实对自己和工作有了更深的了解。

In terms of things I learned and knowing when to stop, which is a question that Steve is asking, I did learn a great deal about myself and work.

是啊。告诉我，你为什么不再做那件事了？

Yeah. Tell me, why did you stop doing it?

我开始做这件事是因为觉得它有趣，而我职业生涯的大部分动力都源于那些我认为有趣的事情。有时我判断错误，有时正确；有时事情有趣但效果不佳，有时效果不错却缺乏乐趣。

I started it because I thought it would be fun, and most of my work career has been animated by things that I think will be fun. Sometimes I'm wrong. Sometimes I'm right. Sometimes things are fun, but they're not good. Sometimes they're good, but not fun.

这次经历大体算有趣，但始终未达到我期望的水准，因此乐趣也逐渐消退。我们当时试图同时实现两个目标：既要呈现一场现场演出时激动人心的实时效果，又要将其剪辑成后期录音中真正出色的作品。我意识到这虽非不可能，却异常困难——就像水试图同时以蒸汽和冰的形态存在，这需要极其特殊的水质。

This one was mostly fun, but it wasn't as good ever as I wanted it to be, and therefore, it became a lot less fun. We were trying to do two things at one time, which was have a live show that would be exciting and interesting in the moment and also turn it into something that was really good on tape later when edited. And I realized that what we were trying to do was not impossible, but really hard. It reminded me of trying to be in two different physical states at once. It'd be like water trying to be steam and ice at the same time, and that takes a very special kind of water.

我本想说我可能不太理解这个比喻，但我懂你的意思。

I was gonna say, I'm not sure I can relate to that metaphor, but I get it.

事实证明，某些让一种状态出彩的特质对另一种状态反而有害。比如人们互相打断、大量交叉对话、现场观众为录音后听起来并不好笑的事情发笑等等。我们始终无法将这档节目打磨成我理想中的广播/播客形式，我不停地延长录制时间，试图通过量变引发质变。

And as it turns out, some of the things that make something really good in one state are quite bad for the other. People interrupt each other. There's a lot of crosstalk. People laugh at things that aren't obviously funny on tape after the fact and so on. And so we could never really get the show to where I wanted it to be as a radio show slash podcast, and I kept pushing it and pushing it, making the tapings longer and longer.

后来我们甚至进行长达三个半小时的录制，只为剪出四十五分钟的优质播客内容。代价就是现场观众不得不忍受三个半小时的冗长录制，体验自然大打折扣。

So at one point, we were doing, like, a three and a half hour taping, hoping to get enough good tape for a forty five minute podcast. And the trade off there was that audiences were having to sit through a a three and a half hour taping, which was not so good.

没错，我参加过几场。当时我也在想：要同时为现场十英尺内的观众和未来听众提供完美体验，这实在太难了。

Yeah. I was at some of those. I also remember thinking, this is hard to deliver a great experience for the people who are sitting 10 feet away and at the same time make it a great experience for the people who will be listening later.

我曾试图冷酷自私地认为：现场或许只有一两千观众，但我更在乎未来可能的上百万听众。可转念一想，这些亲临现场的人才是真正付出努力购票支持的群体。这让我想起刚入行时的窘境——比如当某处编辑助理时，突然接到自由职业邀约的两难处境。

And I tried to be mercenary and selfish and say, look. There might be a thousand or 2,000 people in this auditorium, but what I care about are the million or two who might listen to it later. But then I'm thinking, you know, these thousand or two, these are the ones who made the effort and paid the money to be here, so I can't do that. It reminded me a little bit of when I was just starting out in my career. I got myself in a couple really uncomfortable situations where I would have a job, let's say, as an editorial assistant somewhere, but then I'd be offered some freelance gig.

而且我不喜欢那种侍奉二主的感觉，如果两者之间存在摩擦的话。在这种情况下，我觉得《魔鬼经济学》电台正在受损。我不希望这种情况发生，这让我想到了核心竞争力这个概念，我以前总把它当作商学院的行话套话，但我现在真心认同它。就像你擅长的事情，值得投入其中。而那些你想尝试的事情，尽管去试。

And I didn't like the feeling of serving two masters, if there's a friction there. And in this case, I felt that Freakonomics Radio was suffering. I didn't want that to happen, and it made me think of the notion of core competence, which I'd always discussed as just business school buzzword speak, but I really came to believe in it. It's like the thing that you're good at, it makes sense to invest in that. And the things that you wanna try, try.

如果行不通，就放弃它。

And if it doesn't work, get rid of it.

如果它不能成为核心竞争力，你就不应该在上面投入太多。

If it doesn't become a core competency, then you shouldn't be investing too much in it.

没错。现在有一门关于失败的重要学问，失败其实很有价值。了解事情在哪些维度上出了问题很有用，这样你下次就能消除或解决这些问题。艾米·埃德蒙森是哈佛商学院教授，她提出了所谓的‘失败原因光谱’。

Exactly. There's a big science of failure now, and failure can be really valuable. It's useful to know the dimensions on which something didn't work so that you can eliminate or address them the next time around. Amy Edmondson is a Harvard Business School professor. She's created this it's called the spectrum of reasons for failure.

所以如果有人真想深入分析某项失败的原因并好好复盘，她列出了可能导致失败的多种因素。其一是能力不足——这听起来像是根本没法开始。如果你没有能力，那确实会导致失败，但我不认为这是我们的问题。团队每个人都能力出众、才华横溢、诚实可靠、勤奋努力等等。

So if anybody's in the mood to really dive in and do a good postmortem on something that didn't work out, she has a variety of factors that may have contributed to your failure. One is called lack of ability. So so that sounds like kind of a nonstarter. Like, if you don't have the ability, well, that will lead to failure, and I don't think that was really our problem. Everybody on the team was able and talented and honest and hardworking and so on.

但接下来这些因素，我原以为与其他类型的企业更相关，结果发现对我们同样至关重要。有个叫‘流程缺陷’的原因：能力胜任的个人遵循了规定但存在缺陷或不完善的流程。我们遇到过这种情况。还有个失败原因叫‘任务挑战’——

But then we get into these issues that I would have thought were much more relevant to different kinds of business than ours, but they turned out to be incredibly relevant. There's one called process inadequacy. A competent individual adheres to a prescribed but faulty or incomplete process. We had that. There's another reason for failure called task challenge.

个人面临的任务难度过高，无法每次都可靠完成。

An individual faces a task too difficult to be executed reliably every time.

哦，他也有过这种情况。

Oh, he had that too.

所以当你制作现场节目时，可靠性至关重要。录制节目时，你可以多花些时间，可以重录、剪辑甚至重写。

So when you're making a live show, reliability is so important. When you're recording a show, you can just take more time. You can record it again. You can edit it. You can rewrite.

还有一种叫流程复杂性。由多个环节组成的流程遇到突发状况就会崩溃，比如有人最后一刻缺席、观众起哄，或者有人紧张到在台上呕吐。

There's another called process complexity. A process composed of many elements breaks down when it encounters novel interactions, like someone who doesn't show up at the last minute or a heckler or someone gets nervous and vomits on stage.

没错。或是暴风雪等现场活动可能遇到的各种意外。

Right. Or a snowstorm or all the things that happen for live events.

是的。所以我认为这个挑战最终是利大于弊的，结束它我完全不觉得遗憾。事实上我们正讨论重启，只是我会大幅减少参与。我们创造了这个我很喜欢的节目，但让我每年在10到12个城市主持30到40场，这实在超出了我的能力范围。

Yeah. So I think it was a challenge that in the end was mostly positive, and I felt not bad at all about shutting it down. In fact, we're talking about rebooting it with my involvement just much less. So we created this show that I really like, but for me to host it 30 or 40 times a year in 10 or 12 different cities, that's a whole enterprise that I'm not able to do.

有意思。所以你会找别人来当主持人。

Interesting. So you would get somebody else to be the host.

对。我心目中的梦幻轮值主持阵容包括杰瑞·宋飞、艾伦·德杰尼勒斯、达克斯·谢泼德，还有《No Such Thing As A Fish》的主持人之一丹·施赖伯。如果你们正在听，请联系我们：nsq@Freakonomics.com。

Yes. So I will just say Jerry Seinfeld, Ellen DeGeneres, Dax Shepard, and Dan Schreiber, who's one of the hosts of No Such Thing As A Fish, those are among my dream team of potential rotating hosts. So if you guys are listening, be in touch, n s q@Freakonomics.com.

所以你认为这是核心竞争力，对吧？因为我之前在想，也许对Freakonomics团队来说，做现场演出并非核心竞争力。

So you do think it's a core competency. Right? Because I was thinking to myself, maybe this is not the core competency for the Freakonomics team doing a live show.

两方面都对。某种程度上这确实是核心竞争力，我们很擅长发现有趣的事物并向公众解释。但现场表演需要一套不同的能力和结构，与我们原有的模式不同。不过我要说，总体而言，我真心建议人们反思那些看似失败的项目。

Both are true. I think that it is a core competence to some degree and that we're pretty good at knowing what are interesting things and explaining interesting things to the public. But doing it in a live setting requires a different set of abilities and a different structure, really, than we had. I will say this, though. On balance and I would really encourage anyone to think about projects that may look like failures in retrospect.

从整体来看，大部分结果非常积极。我们没能永远做出惊艳的演出，但确实维持了相当不错的水准。可以说95%的参与制作和观看演出的人都获得了美好体验，这很令人欣慰。而当我制作Freakonomics电台时，只是独自坐在录音室里。

On balance, most of the outcomes were really positive. We didn't do an amazing show forever, but we did a pretty good show for a while. I'd say that probably 95% of the people who participated in the making of the show and who attended really had a great time. And so that's kind of nice to know. And then when I make Freeconomics Radio, I sit in my radio studio in my own office alone.

我没有面对面与人互动。但通过这次现场演出，我结识了许多让我渴望成为朋友或继续合作的人，包括你，这是巨大的收获。尽管项目本身没有延续，但它滋养了我的后续工作，让我在思维、阅读、写作和即兴表达——尤其是临场反应方面都有所提升，这些都是宝贵的成长。

I don't interact with people in person. And for this live show, I got to know a lot of people in such a way that made me really wanna either be friends or continue to work with them, including you, and that was a huge plus. The other thing is even though this project itself didn't continue, it definitely fed what I continue to do, and I think it helped me get a little bit better at the thinking and the reading and the writing and talking, and especially thinking on your feet, which you really have to do when you're live. And those are all good things.

我想艾米·埃德蒙森会称赞'告诉我些新鲜事'这个项目——虽然失败却让你收获颇丰。你们就像进行了一场没有对照组的实验，尝试新事物后学到了原本无法获得的经验，并因此变得更好。这正是她鼓励我们勇于尝试、不惧失败的原因，因为失败不代表没有价值。

So I think Amy Edmondson would praise, tell me something I don't know, as a failure that you learn a ton from. You ran an experiment as it were, no control group, but still you did something new. And you learned all these things that you would not have learned otherwise, and you're better for it. So I think that's the reason why she wants us to try these things and to not be fearful of things not working out because it doesn't mean that it wasn't worthwhile.

关键在于多数人没有尝试这种创新的条件，尤其在职业环境中。我能做到是因为我某种程度上掌控着自己的发展轨迹。

I think the tricky part is that most people are not in a position to try things out like that, especially in a professional setting. So the reason I was able to is because I sort of control my own destiny.

因为你在

Because you're in

掌控权。要达到这个目标需要经历一系列步骤。比如，我曾经有一份正经工作，辞职的原因之一就是想自己当家作主。这固然有很多弊端，但也有好处。问题在于，我们常常鼓励人们去实验、去冒险、去尝试新事物。

charge. And there were a series of steps to get there. Like, I had a real job once upon a time, and one reason I quit is because I wanted to be in charge. And there are a lot of downsides to that, but then there are upsides. The problem is we often encourage people to be experimental, to be bold, to try new things.

但当你在职场或机构中这么做时，风险其实非常大。你不想公开失败，不想职业声誉受损。所以我真希望有更简单的方式能让更多人有机会说：'我有个想法，可能行不通，可能不好玩，可能会亏大钱，但让我们试试看能做到什么程度'。

But when you're doing that in the context of a job or an institution, the risks there are really large. You don't wanna fail publicly. You don't wanna decline in your professional standing. So I do wish there was an easier way for more people to have the opportunity to just say, you know, I've got this idea. It might not work, might not be fun, might lose a ton of money, but let's try it and see how well we can do.

遗憾的是，大多数职业都无法提供这种灵活的可选择性——尽管我们总说要鼓励每个人都发挥创造力尝试新事物。

Unfortunately, that's a kind of flexible optionality that most vocations do not afford. As much as we say we want everyone to try to be creative and to try new things.

我认同这个观点，但也认为这个通用原则其实可以在任何组织或团队中尽可能实施。关键是要认识到，默认状态永远会让人重复过去的行为，这样你实际上就确保了自己学不到多少新东西。

I think that's true, but I also think that the general principle could be enacted as best it can be, really, in any organization or team. And just to recognize that the default will just be always to do the same thing that you always did, and then you really guarantee yourself that you're not gonna learn very much.

好吧。那我问你：假设你某年指导五个研究生，其中四个提出的想法完全主流稳妥，能保证发表论文和找到好工作；而第五个——可能你觉得这人比其他人都优秀——却提出个离经叛道的疯狂点子，你觉得或许创意绝佳甚至能颠覆领域，但作为毕业论文风险极高。

Alright. Let me ask you this. What do you say if you're advising a handful of grad students one year? Let's say there are five, and four of them come to you with ideas that you know are just perfectly mainstream and acceptable and that will lead to publication and good jobs. And the fifth one, who maybe you think this person is even better than the rest, and they come to you with a wild ass off kilter idea that you think is maybe creatively brilliant and maybe would really change the field, but it's very risky to do as your thesis, let's say.

你会怎么建议这个人？

What do you tell that person?

我会告诉ta用投资组合的思维看待研究或任何事业。你可以孤注一掷地说'我全部筹码都押在这一个项目上，相信它能成功'，但组合投资更稳妥。我们应该说：'好吧...'

I would tell that person to think about research or really anything that you're doing as a portfolio as if it were investments. You might have the stomach to say, I'm only gonna have one thing in the portfolio. All my chips are over here, and, hopefully, it'll work out, and I believe in myself. I think portfolio investing is better. We just say, okay.

投资组合里持有一只高风险股票固然可以，但为何不搭配几只稳健股呢？毕竟你还有家要养。所以即便面对最具创意的学生，我也会说，太棒了。我们能否也加入一些稳赚不赔的项目？因为如果这个全垒打没成功，我们总还得毕业等等。

Have a risky stock in your portfolio, but why not have a few other safe stocks too? Because you do have mouths to feed. And so even with the most creative of students, I would say, terrific. Can we also put a few surefire things? Because if this one big home run doesn't come to pass, we still have to graduate, etcetera.

希望这不会过多扼杀创造力。

And I hope it doesn't put too much damper on creativity.

这建议听起来充满智慧，但也略显怯懦。无意冒犯。特别是论文这种，毕竟只有一次机会。

So that sounds like such wise advice. It also sounds a little bit cowardly. No offense. Because I mean, especially with a thesis, there's one.

不。我认为如今的研究生即便主攻某个最终成为论文的项目，也总在同时进行多个课题。

No. I think graduate students these days are always working on multiple projects even if they are working on something that eventually becomes one thesis.

好吧。那么你是一直如此平衡睿智，还是年轻时更爱冒险些呢？

Okay. Well, were you always so balanced and wise, or were you a little bit more of a risk taker when you were younger?

说来有点虚伪——我记得刚拿到博士学位时，正值终身教职评审倒计时开始。时钟滴答作响，决定着你能否保住教授职位。就在那时，两位教育家戴夫·莱文和多米尼克·伦道夫提议：你应该在学校开展长期实地干预研究。

Well, I'm a little bit of a hypocrite here because I do remember it was actually right after I got my PhD, and I was just on the first days of my tenure clock. So the clock starts ticking, and the question is, are you gonna keep your job as a professor or not? And it was right around that time that these two educators, Dave Levin and Dominic Randolph, and they said, you should do research in schools that are long term field interventions.

补充说明：戴夫·莱文运营着KIPP（知识就是力量计划），负责管理这些特许学校。

Now we should say Dave Levin runs KIPP, Knowledge is Power Program. So he's running these charter schools.

是的。他们有自己的利益考量。他们就像在说，你应该把这些项目引入我们的学校。而我回应道，听着，有种东西叫终身教职制度，它是非此即彼的。

Yes. They had their own interest. They're like, and you should run those in our schools. And I said, look. There's this thing called tenure, and it's zero or one.

你要么获得要么失去。年轻教授能收到的最糟糕建议莫过于把全部希望押在这个极其脆弱的篮子里。比如去做那些长期田野研究、随机分组实验。很可能干预措施会失败，实施难度极大。

You either get it or not. And the worst advice any young professor could take is, like, put all your eggs in this one very, very fragile basket. Like, go and do these long term field studies, random assignment. Probably the interventions won't work. Very hard to do.

当时没有人告诉我应该用投资组合的思维来分散风险。即便有人提醒，我可能还是会固执己见——事实上我就是这么做的。我当时心想：听起来不错啊。最终我们做的很多研究完全印证了他们的预言。

And I did not have anyone tell me that I should really be thinking of things as a portfolio and hedging my bets. Even if I had, I probably would have done what I did, which is I was very headstrong. And I was like, sure. That sounds good. And we ended up, doing a lot of research that was exactly as they had described.

但非常幸运的是，至少其中部分成果得以发表，让我保住了教职。

And very luckily, actually, at least enough of those things got published that I got to keep my job.

所以你有点言行不一。

So you're a little bit of a hypocrite.

我是有点自相矛盾。

I'm a little bit hypocrite.

但这反而体现了一致性。

But there's a consistency there.

我希望在指导我的学生时能比对待自己更谨慎一些。

I wanna be a little bit safer with the students that I'm mentoring than I was willing to be with myself.

所以如果史蒂夫最初的问题是‘人们能从这段经历中学到什么，知道何时停止是否有用’，他说？我会回答，是的。这非常有用，因为我认为对大多数人来说，最好不要去做那些你只有70%把握的事情。

So if the original question from Steve is what can one learn from the experience, is it useful to know when to stop, he says? I would say, yes. It is very useful because I think for most people, it's better to not do something that you feel, you know, 70% about.

我认为是这样的。史蒂文，我觉得你和我都愿意以70%的把握去做一件事，只要我们相信下次会达到80%，然后是90%。直到某个时刻我们会说，嘿，这太棒了。但对于这个叫‘告诉我一些我不知道的事’的游戏节目，也许你最终会意识到它永远无法达到100%的满意，至少在不牺牲你正在做的其他重要事情的前提下。

I think it's this. I think you and I both, Steven, we're okay doing something at 70% as long as we think that the next time is gonna be 80 and then 90. And at some point, we're gonna be like, hey. This is excellent. I think maybe for this game show, tell me something I don't know, at some point, you realize it was never really gonna be a 100% satisfactory, at least without sacrificing everything else that you were doing that you cared about.

然后你就会说，好吧，现在是时候不再继续了。

And then you said, okay. Now it's time not to do this anymore.

另外，每个领域都不同。这是我强加给公众的东西。如果我不认为这是我最好的作品，我就不会发布它。有很多事情我只做到C+水平，也许B-。

It's also look. Every domain is different. This is something that I was inflicting on the public. And if I didn't feel like this was my best work, I wasn't going to inflict it. There are plenty of things I do at no greater than a c plus level, maybe b minus.

比如，我喜欢烹饪。我不是个好厨师，但我热爱它。我会给我妻子端上只有B-水平的菜吗？当然。我会去打高尔夫即使我只是个B-水平的球手吗？

Like, I love to cook. I'm not a great cook, but I love it. Am I gonna serve my wife something that's only b minus? Sure. Am I gonna go play golf even though I'm a b minus golfer?

绝对会。反正没人付费观看或关注。所以私下里做个平庸者我很开心。但在公开场合表现平庸，我不建议那样做。

Absolutely. Nobody's paying to watch it or watching it at all. So I'm perfectly happy being mediocre in private. Being mediocre in public, I wouldn't advise that.

在《无愚蠢问题》接下来的节目中，史蒂文和安吉拉将探讨戏弄与社会等级之间的关系。

Still to come on no stupid questions, Steven and Angela discussed the relationship between teasing and social hierarchy.

爸爸们是头号被戏弄对象。

Dads are teasing target number one.

确实如此。爸爸身材、爸爸笑话。

They really are. Dad bods, dad jokes.

那么安吉，一位叫安德鲁·索瓦的听众来信说：最近我一直在思考戏弄这个话题，因为现在我们都在隔离中，我日常生活中缺失了这种互动。我感觉我最深厚的关系中都充满了某种程度的戏弄，包括与伴侣和工作之外最亲密的朋友。根据我的经验，要有效进行戏弄并能读懂对方反应以避免越界成欺凌，真的需要当面互动。我想知道除了表面现象外，戏弄在我们的日常生活中还扮演着什么角色。

So, Angie, a listener named Andrew Sova writes in to say this. I've been mulling over the subject of teasing lately because it's something I've been missing from my everyday life now that we're all in quarantine. I feel like many of my greatest relationships are flush with teasing in some capacity, including with my significant other and closest friends outside of work. In my experience, doing it effectively and being able to read reactions as to avoid crossing the line into bullying is something you really need to be present for. I was wondering if there's anything more to it than just the surface level and what roles teasing may play in our everyday lives.

所以安吉，我刚才就是在戏弄你整晚在旧金山带着那种腥臭油腻的鱼制品。

So, Angie, I was just teasing you about carrying around that smelly greasy fish stuff in San Francisco all night.

你很喜欢戏弄我。你经常拿很多事情来戏弄我。

You like to tease me. You tease me about a lot of things.

我确实喜欢戏弄你，但现在我有点担心。如果你不喜欢这样怎么办？你对被戏弄有什么感受？

I do like to tease you, and now I'm worried. What if you don't like it? How do you feel about being teased?

我的第一反应是我不太擅长被开玩笑。但随后我的第二反应是我对鱼露或任何你可能开的玩笑完全没有感到冒犯。所以当我想到开玩笑时，我想到的是我生活中少数几次真的不喜欢它的情况。但实际上，我可能忽略了很多次它只是有趣和嬉戏的，嘿嘿嘿，呵呵呵。

My first reaction is I'm not very good at being teased. But then my second reaction is I took no offense at all at the fish sauce or any other teasing that you might do. So maybe when I think about teasing, I think of the few times in my life where I really didn't like it. But, actually, what I'm probably ignoring are plenty of times where it's just fun and playful and he he he, ho ho ho

所以你是说，可能有一些伤害性的事件特别突出，你可能认为它们某种程度上是常态，而实际上，你的常态是没问题的，只是有一些不好的事件。

So you're saying that there were some hurtful incidents perhaps that stand out, and you may think that they are kind of the norm, whereas in fact, your norm is okay, but there have been some bad incidents.

嗯，是的，让我带你回到我的童年。我有一个哥哥和一个姐姐。我姐姐比我大约五岁，我哥哥比我大约八岁。所以他们比我大很多。

Well, yeah, let me take you back to my childhood. So I had an older brother and sister. My sister is about five years older than me, and my brother is about eight years older than me. So they were a lot bigger.

不用多说了。我经历过。我懂。

Say no more. Been there. Done that.

对吧？我有一个工作的妈妈和一个工作的爸爸。所以那些夏天和放学后的下午是谁在家？嗯，就是我和我的哥哥姐姐。

Right? And I had a mom who was working and a dad who was working. So who was home all those summers and those after school afternoons? Well, it was me and my brother and my sister.

至少有一只狗提供精神支持吗？

Was there at least a dog for moral support?

没有。只有一只猫。

No. There was only a cat.

猫可不会提供精神支持。

Cats don't do moral support.

确实不会。所以我毫无防备，或者说至少是孤立无援的，当我哥哥姐姐骂我是爱哭鬼、嘲笑我，或是把我绑起来逼我吃下他们在厨房里鼓捣出的可怕食物时。我不确定这是否和安德鲁所说的'嘲笑'是同一性质。但正因如此，我认为自己是个不喜欢被戏弄的人，这些童年记忆挥之不去——或许那根本算不上戏弄。

They really don't. So I was defenseless, or I was at least on my own when my brother and sister would call me a baby and tease me or tie me up and make me eat terrible things that they concocted in the kitchen. I don't know if that's quite teasing in the same way as Andrew means it. But that's why I think of myself as somebody who doesn't like to be teased because I have these childhood memories. Maybe that's not teasing.

或许该叫欺凌。

Maybe that's taunting.

甚至可以说是霸凌了。

Could even be bullying.

但话说回来，问题的核心在于我们如何定义'戏弄'。实际上，如果安德鲁怀念的是那种轻松玩笑和友善调侃，我想他怀念的绝不是我童年遭遇的那种恶意欺辱。

But, again, I think the question is, what do we really mean by teasing? Because, actually, if Andrew is missing that casual banter and the friendly teasing, I don't think he's missing the taunting that I'm recalling from my early childhood.

没错。我注意到他在提问中提出了个有趣的界限——他写道：'根据我的经验，要把握好戏弄的尺度，通过观察对方反应避免越界成霸凌，必须当面进行。'可见安德鲁对此很有自知之明。不过安吉，我完全理解你的遭遇，那些在'叫你宝贝'和'绑着你喂黑暗料理'之间反复横跳的兄姐...

Right. I would like to acknowledge that in his question, I thought he brought up an interesting boundary. He writes, in my experience, doing it, teasing, effectively, and being able to read reactions as to avoid crossing the line into bullying is something you really need to be present for. So it sounds like Andrew is very self aware in that regard. But, Angie, I really hear you, and I really empathize with you with older siblings who were toggling between calling you baby and tying you up and forcing you to eat whatever they're

天下兄姐大抵如此吧。

As every older brother and sister probably has.

也许吧。但当我听你这么说时，确实感到很难受，因为我经常调侃你，显然我并不想伤害你。但我觉得你就像我从未有过的姐妹。实际上我有四个姐妹，但你更有姐妹的感觉。

Yeah. Maybe. But when I hear you say that, I do feel terrible because I do tease you a lot, and I don't want it to be hurtful, obviously. But I feel like you're sort of the sister I never had. Well, I actually have four sisters, but you're kind of more sisterly.

你是我从未有过的第五个姐妹。

You're the fifth sister I never had.

但我其实不太调侃我的兄弟姐妹，部分原因是他们都比我年长。某种程度上，我认为调侃能否奏效的关键因素与地位有关。年龄在家庭和学校里都赋予人地位，对吧？

But I don't really tease my siblings much in part because they were all older than me, and somehow I think that one major component of teasing and what makes it work or not work has to do with status. And age confers status within a family and within school too. Right?

你是说这让你更倾向于还是更不倾向于调侃，因为你的地位较高。

You're saying that makes you more likely or less likely to tease that you are of a high status.

我觉得调侃就像重力，通常是从上往下的。

I think teasing is like gravity. It usually flows downward.

地位高的人调侃地位低的人。

The higher status teases the lower status.

我认为年长的孩子调侃年幼的孩子、哥哥姐姐调侃弟弟妹妹更为常见。奇怪的是在工作场合——大多数人会同意，作为上级，向下属调侃可能不妥；而向上级调侃则可能令人忐忑，因为担心冒犯掌控你的人。无论是朋友、家人还是职场，我认为地位对理解调侃意图至关重要。

I think it's much more common for the older kid to tease the younger kid, the older sibling to tease the younger sibling. I think where it gets weird is, let's say, in a work environment. Because I think most of us would agree that if you're someone's superior, teasing down the chain is probably not acceptable. But teasing up the chain is probably a little scary because you're worried about offending someone who's got control over you. Whether it's friends, whether it's family, whether it's work, I think status really matters a lot when it comes to how we think about what teasing is meant to accomplish.

我认为大多数人这样做是因为他们希望这是一种有趣的增进感情的方式。但根据领域不同，地位差异可能会使其变成与增进感情相反的效果，即使开玩笑的人可能没有意识到。

I think most people do it because they want it to be a fun bonding thing. But depending on the domain, the status difference can make it the opposite of a fun bonding thing even if the teaser may not recognize.

在这方面最出色的研究，或者说最具原创性和深思熟虑的，是由伯克利大学非常杰出的心理学家达切尔·凯尔特纳完成的。我想达切尔会说，开玩笑的目的是为了建立联系和增进感情。但特别是，它是一种以轻松的方式引发某个主题或话题的方式，当你无法直接谈论它时。如果某件事可能令人尴尬或难堪，那么你可以通过这种轻松、挑衅性的玩笑间接地触及它，这样我们仍然可以进行这种互动和交流。但我不会像我们认真严肃地谈论某事时那样直接面对你。

The best work on this or some of the most original and thoughtful was by Dacher Keltner, a really brilliant psychologist at Berkeley. And the purpose, I think, Dacher would say, of teasing is about affiliation and bonding. But in particular, it's a playful way of provoking a certain subject or topic where you don't have the ability to just address it directly. If it's something that could be embarrassing or awkward, then you can go at it obliquely through this playful, provocative teasing, and then we can still have this interaction and engagement. But I'm not addressing you head on in the way that we would when we talk about something literally and earnestly.

所以如果这是开玩笑的功能，或者至少是其中一个主要功能，那么我想你可以问一个问题，谁会这样做？下属吗？他提到了动物的例子，年幼的猴子会拉扯年长猴子的尾巴。因此，在某些情况下，开玩笑可能是那些处于权力不对等位置的人更适合做的事情。比如，我女儿会取笑我丈夫。

So if that's the function of teasing or at least one of the big functions, then I guess you could ask the question, who would do that? A subordinate? He brings up animal examples where younger monkeys pull the tails of older monkeys. And so there are occasions in which teasing may be something that is, in fact, better for somebody who is in a position where they don't have all the power. You know, my daughter teases my husband.

我猜在核心家庭结构中，17岁的女儿比48岁的父亲权力更小。但她喜欢在各种事情上取笑她的父亲杰森。特别是，他真的很古板。我丈夫就像是《反斗小宝贝》里走出来的人物。所以这是她表达这一点并引发这个话题的方式，而不必直接说，嘿。

I And guess in a nuclear family structure, the 17 year old daughter has less power than the, in this case, 48 year old father. But she loves to tease her dad, Jason, about all kinds of things. In particular, he's really square. My husband is just, like, from leave it to beaver. And so it's a way of her saying this and provoking the subject without saying like, hey.

你真的很老土。所以开玩笑有一个功能，即有时需要沟通。但当我们不想直接表达时，我们就会进行这种轻松的挑衅。

You're really old fashioned. So teasing has a function, which is a need sometimes to communicate. But it's when you don't wanna do it directly that we engage in this playful provocation.

没错。所以首先，爸爸们是开玩笑的头号目标。

Right. So first of all, dads are teasing target number one.

确实如此。爸爸身材，爸爸笑话。

They really are. Dad bods, dad jokes.

如今我们在任何家庭中的地位都是最低的。但过去并非总是如此。

We have the lowest status in any family now. It wasn't always so.

嗯，也许正因为你们地位高，我们才都爱调侃你们，对吧？因为有些事我们只能旁敲侧击地提。

Well, maybe it's because you have high status that we are all teasing you guys. Right? Because we have to address these things obliquely.

就像我常对孩子们说的，大多数矫正行为都会矫枉过正。要知道，现在轮到我们了，这没关系。但你所说的调侃功能——识别那些你想讨论的事情——实在太有趣了。这让我想起莎士比亚戏剧、许多古典文学乃至宫廷中弄臣或小丑的角色。

Like I like to tell my children, most corrections are overcorrections. And, you know, it's our time. It's okay. But it's so interesting what you're saying about the role and the functions of teasing, of identifying the thing that, yeah, you wanna discuss. It makes me think of the role of the fool or the jester jester in Shakespeare and a lot of older literature and indeed in royal courts.

弄臣总能说出众人心知肚明却不敢直言的事。我们曾做过一期《魔鬼经济学》电台节目，嘉宾是通用电气CEO杰夫·伊梅尔特——他在被誉为'世纪经理人'的杰克·韦尔奇之后执掌GE多年，将公司发展为美国最大企业。但事实证明伊梅尔特任内业绩惨淡，最终黯然离职。

The jester could always say the thing that everyone's thinking, but no one will say aloud. You know, we did a Freakonomics Radio episode with Jeff Immelt, who was the CEO of General Electric for many years after Jack Welch, was the manager of the century, the guy who turned GE into the biggest corporation in America. And Immelt came next. He was there for sixteen years, and it turns out the company did not do well at all under him. And so he left in really kind of disgrace.

当时我采访的正是这位声誉扫地的CEO，而非昔日叱咤风云的商界巨擘。伊梅尔特在书中写道：当他准备接替韦尔奇时，有次在伦敦与一位传奇英国高管共进晚餐。那位高管当面问韦尔奇：'杰克，你是怎么让通用电气这种烂摊子（指GE）维持50倍市盈率的？'在场的伊梅尔特震惊于竟有人敢对韦尔奇如此直言——因为GE内部从没人会这么做。

So I was interviewing him, the ignominious CEO, not the master of the universe CEO. And Jeff Immelt has written a book about this moment where he was getting ready to take over the CEO job from Jack Welch, and they're in London where there's this legendary British executive they're having dinner with. And he says to Jack Welch, Jack, how do you do it? How do you get a 50 PE, a 50 price to earnings ratio for the GE stock with that bag of blank that you've got, meaning General Electric? And Emel was sitting there, and he was shocked that someone would say this to Jack Welch's face because no one from within GE would do it.

但这位外部人士说了，伊梅尔特回忆道，当时全场哄堂大笑。那一刻他意识到，即将接任CEO的自己才是笑话的真正主角。所以说，身处圈外或扮演弄臣角色，我认为就获得了这种直言的特权。但正如我们常讨论的，具体领域和激励机制至关重要。

But this guy from outside did, and Imelt said, everybody roars with laughter when the guy said this. And at that moment, I realized the joke was on me, the next CEO who was coming in to inherit it. So being outside the circle or having a role as the jester or fool, I think, gives permission to do it. But as often is the case in our conversations, the domain matters, the incentives matter.

没错。安德鲁说过，视频通话时很难进行调侃——毕竟缺少那些表明你在开玩笑的非语言暗示。我猜那位外部人士一定用了特别的语调，很可能面带笑容，才不会让这句玩笑破坏整个晚宴的气氛。达切尔指出，我们调侃时常常变换声调，用那种抑扬顿挫的腔调。

Right. Andrew said that when you're on a video call, it's really hard to tease at all and certainly to tease because it's all these nonverbal cues that make it clear that you're being playful. So one of the things that I am guessing that that outsider did was they used tone of voice, and they're probably smiling so that it wasn't said with the kind of sobriety and seriousness that would probably cast a pall over the entire dinner party. And Dacher points out that when we're teasing, we often assume a different voice. We use a sing song voice.

有些方式可以表明这并非字面意思。实际上这是一种比喻的、 playful的语言，这样我才能开始触及那些无法直接言说的事情。记得我上小学时有个男生，他暗恋我。课间休息时他会跑过来对我说：你是真菌。

There are ways to signal that this is not literally what I mean. It's actually this figurative, playful language, again, so that I can start to broach something that I couldn't say directly. I remember when I was in elementary school, there was this boy. He had a crush on me. And during recess, he would run over to me and say, you're a fungus.

我记得他说的是，你是绿色真菌。可能当时我们在科学课上刚学到这个，说完他就跑开了。

I think he was like, you're a green fungus. Maybe we're, like, learning about it in science class or something, and then he would run away.

不得不说这是个绝妙的搭讪方式。

It's a great pickup line, I have to say.

确实。但我记得当时我和他应该都心知肚明，这其实就是调情。他想表达什么却不愿直说。所有这些信号都在暗示：嘿，别当真。

It's yeah. But I remember it was also kind of obvious to me and probably to him that he was basically flirting. He was trying to say something but didn't wanna say it directly. There are all these signals to suggest, like, hey. Don't take this literally.

我认为视频通话中这种微妙就消失了。我们或许不该在视频里开玩笑，因为很容易弄巧成拙。

And I do think that's lost on video calls. We probably shouldn't tease on video calls because it could go very badly.

容我说句实话，也许你觉得小男孩的暗恋和这种逗弄很显而易见？但作为曾经的男孩，我敢打赌他觉得自己表达得极其、极其、极其隐晦，根本不可能有人把他叫你绿色真菌的行为解读成爱慕——男孩们就是这样。要是能直接表白，谁会用真菌当暗号呢。

Can I just say, it may have been obvious to you that this little boy had a crush on you and that teasing was the way he expressed it? I'm sure as a former little boy myself that he thought he was being very, very, very indirect, and that there was no way that his teasing could possibly be interpreted as a manifestation of his crush because that's what boys do. If they could come out and say, they wouldn't have to call you a green fungus.

或许吧。

That may be.

那么，让我们展望一下你和这个小男孩之间关系的发展，比如十年、十五年、二十年、三十年后。你认为戏谑在家庭或恋爱关系中扮演什么角色？你和杰森会互相调侃吗？这种方式效果如何？

Well, let's advance that relationship between you and this little boy, let's say, ten, fifteen, twenty, thirty years. What do you see as the role of teasing in a domestic or romantic relationship? Do you and Jason tease each other? How does it work?

我们确实会互相调侃。不过我得说，尽管我很爱我的丈夫，也确信他对我的感情，有时这种玩笑很愉快，但有时我也会感到被冒犯。

We tease each other a little bit. Although, I have to say, even though I love my husband, even though I'm very secure in his affection for me, sometimes the teasing goes great, and sometimes I take offense.

能举个例子吗？

Can you give an example?

我花很多精力平衡冰箱里的食材，确保所有东西在变质前都能用完。

I spend a lot of my energy balancing the ingredients in our refrigerator to make sure that all of the ingredients will get used up before they go bad.

你是说你做了很多内部调配工作？

You do a lot of internal rotation, you're saying?

是的。我称之为‘家政管理’，因为我觉得这是家务艺术的术语表达。

Yes. I call it my husbandry because I think that's the technical term for the domestic arts.

动物饲养学，冰箱管理学。没错。

Animal husbandry, refrigerator husbandry. Yes.

是啊是啊。我丈夫杰森总爱说些话，比如前几天他还说，想象一下如果你能把10%的心理能量用在正事上，能完成多少事情。那次倒没什么。

Yeah. Yeah. And my husband Jason likes to say things like the other day. He was like, imagine how much you would get done if you could just spend 10% of that mental energy. And in that case, it was fine.

但要是碰上我心情不好，有时就会搞砸。我不是那种总能坦然接受调侃的人。

But if I'm in a bad mood, it can sometimes go badly. I'm not somebody who's always good about being teased.

听你这么说，我完全能理解这种矛盾。在家里我也因为总爱整理东西被狠狠嘲笑——我都不会说是调侃，根本就是嘲笑。

As you tell that story, I can so see both sides of that equation. I too am a serial organizer for which I am deeply ridiculed in our house. I wouldn't call it teasing. I would call it ridiculed.

好吧，算霸凌。

Okay. Bullied.

我觉得难点在于调侃需要恰到好处。适度有益，过度有害，但完全没有可能也不好。关键在于每对伴侣、每个群体的相处模式都不同。如果要给建议——比如专门给安德鲁——你会怎么说才能找到那个最佳分寸，或者如何读懂伴侣的信号，既能享受乐趣又不至于变成冰箱式丈夫的嘲讽？

I think the tricky thing is there is a sweet spot of teasing. Some is good, too much is bad, but probably none is bad also. The tricky part is every dyad, every couple, every group especially is different, and the dynamic is different. So if you were to try to give advice to someone, let's say to Andrew specifically, what would you say is the best way to arrive at that sweet spot or to read your partner's cues so that you can engage in the fun without crossing over into refrigerator husbandry ridicule?

首先我会说，拿不准时就别做。或者当被调侃对象看起来可能心情不好时，立刻收手。

First, I would say, when in doubt, don't. Or when the other person, the object of your teasing seems like they might possibly be in a bad mood, don't.

或者如果他们手里有枪，我猜这条也该列入你的清单。

Or if they've got a gun in their hand, I guess, is probably on your list as well.

是啊，没错。另外，我认为你应该向上调侃而非向下。换句话说，你一开始提到地位较高的人可能更爱开玩笑，我觉得这或许有道理，但实际上，地位高的人不调侃反而更安全，因为这很可能被完全误解。

Yeah. Right. Also, I think you should tease up and not down. In other words, you started off by saying like, oh, well, maybe people in a higher status are more likely to tease. I think that might be true, but I think, actually, it's much safer for the higher status person not to tease because that could really be understood as something totally different.

而且你可能发现对方不是在笑，而是在哭或畏缩等等。我确实认为我们必须意识到当前通讯媒介的局限性——Zoom视频、短信等等，那些传递'顺便说下，开个玩笑'或'我在玩闹'、'我在讽刺'、'我不是认真的'的非语言线索都消失了。

And you might not find that the person is laughing. They might be crying or cowering, etcetera. And then I really do think making sure that we are aware of the limitations of our current communication media, Zoom calls, text message, and so forth, all those nonverbal cues that say, by the way, JK, this is a joke or I'm playful. I'm being sarcastic. I don't mean it.

当我们发邮件、快速发短信甚至视频通话时，许多这样的微妙之处都丢失了。我真心认为，或许我们应该等到面对面且接种疫苗后，再在特定场合下以那种方式与人开玩笑。那会非常有趣。

A lot of those nuances are lost when we're emailing people, sending them a quick text message, or even on a video call. And I really do think that we might wanna wait until we're back in person and vaccinated to joke around with people the way it can be under certain circumstances. Very fun.

让我最后问你一个问题。你对'吐槽大会'怎么看？因为这是最极致的调侃形式，而且是公开的。当你看到某人被吐槽时，你会感到愉悦还是不适？

Let me ask you one last question. How do you feel about roasts? Because they are the most pronounced form of teasing, and they're public. When you watch someone get roasted, do you take delight, or does it make you uncomfortable?

这对我来说可能像罗夏墨迹测试。我不喜欢看别人被吐槽可能反映了我的某些特质。我知道有像总统吐槽晚宴这样的全国性活动，也有各种吐槽传统，但我总会感到尴尬。你呢？你怎么看？

It's probably like a Rorschach test for me. It probably says something about me that I don't like seeing other people roasted. And I know there's the national press, like, for the president, and there's all kinds of roast traditions, but, like, I am always cringing. How about you? How do you feel?

我想说我享受这个过程，但我觉得自己更偏向安吉拉·达克沃斯那种态度。不过我最喜欢的吐槽台词是史努比狗狗吐槽唐纳德·特朗普，那是在奥巴马执政期间。我不确定特朗普是否已经开始竞选总统，但史努比说：'干嘛不竞选总统呢？这又不是他第一次把黑人家庭赶出他们的房子。'

I want to say that I enjoy it, but I think I'm a little bit more on the Angela Duckworth side of the scale. But my favorite roast line ever was Snoop Dogg was roasting Donald Trump, and this was during the Obama administration. I'm not sure if Trump was even running yet for president, but Snoop said, quote, why not run for president? It wouldn't be the first time he pushed a black family out of their home.

广告休息后，我们将对今日对话内容进行事实核查。

Coming up after the break, a fact check of today's conversation.

而且

And

现在来核对一下今天对话中的事实。史蒂文提到，如果要重启《告诉我一些我不知道的事》，他希望由杰瑞·宋飞、艾伦·德杰尼勒斯、达克斯·谢泼德或丹·施赖伯来主持节目。我对前三位喜剧演员比较熟悉，但对施赖伯了解不多。好奇的听众可以了解一下，丹·施赖伯是英国的一位作家和单口喜剧演员。他曾联合主持过一档《魔鬼经济学》电台现场节目，我们会在节目注释中附上链接。

now here's a fact check of today's conversations. Steven mentions that if he were to bring back Tell Me Something I Don't Know, he would want Jerry Seinfeld, Ellen DeGeneres, Dax Shepard, or Dan Schreiber to host the show. I was familiar with the first three comedians but didn't know much about Schreiber. For those who are curious, Dan Schreiber is a writer and stand up comedian based in The United Kingdom. He cohosted a live Freakonomics radio show that we'll link to in the show notes.

正如史蒂文所说，他还联合主持每周播客《没有鱼这回事》，主持人们会在节目中讨论各种奇异有趣的事实。最近的节目内容包括豹子牙科、白蚁披萨和未爆炸的炸弹等话题。听起来他非常适合参与重启版的《告诉我一些我不知道的事》，这档节目历来以讨论类似古怪话题著称，比如机器鱼、医疗离婚以及为什么要舔石头等。稍后，安吉拉提到了总统吐槽大会的传统及其与国家媒体的关联。她可能指的是白宫记者协会晚宴，这是由报道白宫和美国总统的记者组织每年举办的活动。

And as Steven mentioned, he also cohosts No Such Thing As A Fish, a weekly podcast where presenters discuss strange and interesting facts. Recent episodes have included conversations about leopard dentistry, termite pizza, and unexploded bombs. It sounds like he would fit in perfectly with a rebooted Tell Me Something I Don't Know, which historically featured discussions about similarly bizarre subjects, including robotic fish, medical divorce, and why you should lick rocks. Later, Angela references the tradition of a presidential roast and its connection to the national press. She was likely thinking of the White House Correspondents Association Dinner, an annual event put on by the organization of journalists who cover the White House and the president of The United States.

自1924年卡尔文·柯立芝开始，共有15位总统参加过这一晚宴。自1983年起，晚宴的特邀演讲嘉宾通常是一位喜剧演员，负责调侃现任政府。唐纳德·特朗普上任第一年就缺席了晚宴，成为36年来首位缺席的总统。罗纳德·里根因遇刺后康复未出席1981年的晚宴，但仍通过电话发表了讲话。喜剧演员基南·汤普森和哈桑·明哈杰原定在2020年晚宴上发言，但因新冠疫情活动取消。

15 presidents have attended the dinner, beginning with Calvin Coolidge in 1924. And since 1983, the featured speaker has been a comedian who typically roasts the current administration. During his first year in office, Donald Trump became the first president to miss a dinner in thirty six years. Ronald Reagan didn't attend the dinner in 1981 because he was recovering from an assassination attempt but still delivered the remarks by phone. Comedians Keenan Thompson and Hassan Minaj were scheduled to speak at the 2020 dinner, but the event was canceled because of the COVID nineteen pandemic.

最后，史蒂文回忆起说唱歌手兼媒体人史努比·狗狗在喜剧中心《吐槽唐纳德·特朗普》特别节目中的玩笑。史蒂文以为这次吐槽发生在特朗普竞选总统之前。这说法部分正确——该节目最初于2011年播出，早于特朗普2016年成功当选。但特朗普其实在2000年就曾作为改革党候选人竞选过总统，并赢得了加州改革党初选。

Finally, Steven recalls a joke that rapper and media personality Snoop Dogg told at the Comedy Central Roast of Donald Trump. Steven thought that the roast occurred before Trump ran for president. This is partially true. The roast originally aired in 2011 before Trump's successful candidacy in 2016. But Trump also ran for president in 2000 as a candidate for the reform party and actually won the California reform party primary.

不过帕特·布坎南最终成为该党候选人。事实核查到此结束。《没有愚蠢的问题》由《魔鬼经济学》电台和Stitcher联合制作。本期节目由我丽贝卡·李·道格拉斯制作，属于魔鬼经济学电台网络的一部分。

But Pat Buchanan ultimately became the party's candidate. That's it for the fact check. No stupid questions is produced by Freakonomics Radio and Stitcher. This episode was produced by me, Rebecca Lee Douglas. No stupid questions is part of the Freakonomics Radio Network.

我们的团队成员包括艾莉森·克雷格洛、格雷格·里彭、马克·麦克卢斯基、詹姆斯·福斯特和艾玛·特雷尔。主题曲是Talking Heads乐队的《And She Was》。特别感谢大卫·伯恩和华纳查普尔音乐。如有问题想在未来节目中探讨，请发送邮件至nsq@Freakonomics.com。如果您听到史蒂文或安吉拉提及某项研究、专家或书籍想了解更多，可访问freakonomics.com/nsq，我们整理了节目中所有主要参考资料链接。

Our staff includes Alison Craiglow, Greg Ripon, Mark McCluskey, James Foster, and Emma Terrell. Our theme song is and she was by talking heads. Special thanks to David Byrne and Warner Chappell Music. If you have a question for a future episode, please email it to nsq@Freakonomics.com. And if you heard Steven or Angela reference a study, an expert, or a book that you'd like to learn more about, you can check out freakonomics.com/nsq, where we link to all of the major references that you heard about here today.

感谢收听。

Thanks for listening.

我看了《命运之轮》，当时就想，首先，如果你连那是俄克拉荷马州都看不出来，亲爱的俄克拉荷马，那你简直是脑死亡了。

I watched wheel of fortune, and I was like, first of all, if you cannot see that that is Oklahoma, sweet Oklahoma, you're brain dead.

不得不说，对于一个连酒都不喝的人来说，你脏话可真不少。

You swear a lot for someone who doesn't even drink, I have to say.

是啊，我上周确实骂得更多了。

Yeah. I've been swearing more this last week.

这里是《魔鬼经济学》广播网，揭示万物隐藏的真相。

The Freakonomics Radio Network, the hidden side of everything.

Stitcher。

Stitcher.