Who cares if people think wrongly that the Internet has had more important influences than the washing machine? Why does it matter that people are more impressed by the most recent changes?
谁在乎人们是否错误地认为互联网的影响比洗衣机更重要？为什么人们对最近的变化印象更深刻这一点很重要？
It would not matter if these misjudgments were just a matter of people's opinions. However, they have real impacts, as they result in misguided use of scarce resources.
如果这些错误判断只是人们的意见问题，那就无关紧要了。然而，它们有真正的影响，因为它们导致对稀缺资源的错误使用。
The fascination with the ICT(Information and Communication Technology) revolution, represented by the Internet, has made some rich countries wrongly conclude that making things is so "yesterday" that they should try to live on ideas. This belief in "post-industrial society" has led those countries to neglect their manufacturing sector with negative consequences for their economies.
对以互联网为代表的ICT(信息和通信技术)革命的迷恋，使一些富裕国家错误地认为制造产品太“过时”了，他们应该尝试依靠创意生活。“后工业社会”的信念导致这些国家忽视了制造业，对其经济产生了负面影响。
Even more worryingly, the fascination with the Internet by people in rich countries has moved the international community to worry about the "digital divide" between the rich countries and the poor countries. This has led companies and individuals to donate money to developing countries to buy computer equipment and Internet facilities. The question, however, is whether this is what the developing countries need the most. Perhaps giving money for those less fashionable things such as digging wells, extending electricity networks and making more affordable washing machines would have improved people's lives more than giving every child a laptop computer or setting up Internet centres in rural villages, I am not saying that those things are necessarily more important, but many donators have rushed into fancy programmes without carefully assessing the relative long-term costs and benefits of alternative uses of their money.
更令人担忧的是，富裕国家的人们对互联网的迷恋已经使国际社会开始担心富国和穷国之间的“数字鸿沟”。这导致公司和个人向发展中国家捐款，购买计算机设备和互联网设施。然而，问题是这是否是发展中国家最需要的。与其说给每个孩子一台笔记本电脑或在农村设立互联网中心，也许不如给钱买一些不流行的东西对，如挖井，扩展电力网络和制造更多的负担得起的洗衣机，这些可以改进人们的生活。我并不是说这些事情肯定更重要，但是许多捐赠者在没有仔细评估其资金的其他用途的相对长期成本和收益的情况下就匆忙地投入了花哨的项目。
In yet another example, a fascination with the new has led people to believe that the recent changes in the technologies of communications and transportation are so revolutionary that now we live in a "borderless world". As a result, in the last twenty years or so, many people have come to believe that whatever change is happening today is the result of great technological progress, going against which will be like trying to turn the clock back. Believing in such a world, many governments have put an end to some of the very necessary regulations on cross-border flows of capital, labour and goods, with poor results.
还有另一个例子，对新事物的迷恋使人们相信，最近通信和交通技术的变化是如此革命性，以至于我们现在生活在一个“无国界的世界”。因此，在过去的二十年左右，许多人已经开始相信今天发生的任何变化都是巨大的技术进步的结果，与之相反就像试图让时钟倒转。在这样一个世界里，许多国家的政府终止了一些非常必要的关于资本、劳动力和商品跨境流动的规定，结果却很糟糕。
Understanding technological trends is very important for correctly designing economic policies, both at the national and the international levels, and for making the right career choices at the individual level. However, our fascination with the latest, and our under valuation of what has already become common, can, and has, led us in all sorts of wrong directions.
无论是在国家层面还是国际层面，理解技术趋势对于正确设计经济政策，还是在个人层面做出正确的职业选择都非常重要。然而，我们对最新事物的迷恋，以及我们对已经变得普遍的事物的低估，可能或者已经把我们引向各种错误的方向。
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