首页
外语
计算机
考研
公务员
职业资格
财经
工程
司法
医学
专升本
自考
实用职业技能
登录
外语
(1) We’re swimming in data, and we can’t help but use it. Likes on Facebook measure our social standing, financial indicators sl
(1) We’re swimming in data, and we can’t help but use it. Likes on Facebook measure our social standing, financial indicators sl
admin
2022-08-27
45
问题
(1) We’re swimming in data, and we can’t help but use it. Likes on Facebook measure our social standing, financial indicators slice up company growth, standardized tests track student progress, and smartwatches count our every step. Measurement generally allows for prudent planning, but sometimes it focuses our attention on mere proxies for what we care about. We optimize short-term metrics—teaching to the test, worshiping the watch—at the expense of long-term goals, from corporate to corporal health.
(2) That’s one of the takeaways from The Optimist’s Telescope by Bina Venkataraman, a former journalist and senior adviser for climate change innovation in the White House. The book, wise but not boring, is an argument for foresight, by which Venkataraman means not the ability to look into the future but the willingness to do so. A number of social, psychological and structural forces deflect our gaze, and the book offers ways to retrain our sight toward the horizon, citing scientific experiments, historical events, business case studies and personal anecdotes.
(3) What’s wrong with wearable fitness trackers? If you want to put holes in your walking shoes, nothing. But consider Venkataraman’s friend who took long strolls to boost her step count—past a bakery near her office. In the end, she gained weight. More gravely, Venkataraman explores the role of myopic metrics that fueled a microlending surge in India. Microlenders saw high repayment rates as signs that their business model was solid, when in fact many borrowers were using the loans not to start businesses and repay the lenders with their profits, but rather to buy food; the borrowers then took out more loans to pay off their existing ones. The bubble collapsed a decade ago, and shame-filled borrowers killed themselves by the hundreds. At a minimum, Venkataraman recommends guiding behavior by the light of several metrics at once for a fuller picture of progress.
(4) Another takeaway is the need to align immediate incentives with distant aims. Most executives at American public companies admit to prioritizing quarterly earnings targets over sustainable profit. That’s in part because they receive bonuses based on such short-term metrics, an arrangement at odds with the more patient of the investors they supposedly serve. One solution is to reward executives with company stock that they must hold for several years. In medicine, many doctors—pressured by patients who want immediate results—overprescribe antibiotics and painkillers. Health-care systems in which doctors must receive prior approval for such prescriptions, or must justify them in medical notes, limit such temptation.
(5) Beyond removing rewards for immediate exploitation or concession, Venkataraman suggests adding new short-term incentives that align with long-term goals (a practice she calls "glitter-bombing," in reference to the time she repeatedly blasted her friend with glitter as he ran a marathon). A farmer at the Land Institute encouraged other farmers to grow perennial (多年生的) crops—which preserve the land—by engineering them to produce more food and by arranging buyers.’ Credit unions have encouraged customers to increase savings by entering depositors in lotteries. In Venkataraman’s ideal world, homeowners everywhere would receive tax rebates for disaster preparation. Campaign finance reform would offer public money to wean politicians off donors who seek near-term advantage. Venkataraman writes that Citizens United—a Supreme Court case that opened the doors to greater corporate influence in elections—has brought us an era of American leadership and decision making more geared for recklessness than ever.
(6) Why do we require immediate inducements to act in our own long-term interest—like a child receiving candies for visiting the doctor? In part because we see distant rewards as benefiting someone else-: We treat our future selves as strangers. "In my experience, it is easier to contemplate death by shark attack than it is to envision myself with fake teeth," Venkataraman writes. One psychologist has developed a solution: When participants faced artificially aged versions of themselves in virtual reality, they expressed greater interest in saving for retirement Another researcher has placed people in body suits that simulate the limitations of old age. These tricks make the future three-dimensional According to Venkataraman, "Prediction is not that helpful for heeding future threats, unless it is paired with imagination"
(7) There are also low-tech ways to engage imagery. You can write a letter to your future self or a hypothetical grandchild addressing the effects of your decisions today. Or consider what you will be remembered for in an obituary. There’s also a simple trick called an implementation intention, or an if-then plan: If I see a diet-busting dessert, then I eat an apple. You picture possible obstacles in life—such as a tasty temptation—and how you’ll react. Another telescopic tactic: Many organizations use game like scenarios in which they role-play responses to enemy attacks or natural disasters or business disruptions. "We feel, not just think, when we play a game," Venkataraman writes. Threats become more real, and participants feel more empowered.
(8) Finally, even when individuals have perfect foresight, it may not be in their interests to act on it unilaterally. If I refrain from depleting a fishery, my competitor might scoop up the catch instead. That’s one reason Venkataraman suggests institutional changes that bind us to intergenerational concerns: fishing catch-share programs, legal protection for communities that limit development in floodplains.
(9) By bringing tales from basketball, an Ebola epidemic, poker, classroom discipline and nuclear power plants, as well as literary depictions of her travels to Mexico, Japan, India and South Carolina, Venkataraman vividly depicts what happens when we don’t plan ahead and what we can do about it, on our own and together. Despite the high-seeming bar suggested by the book’s title, there’s no need to be an optimist or to have a special future-telling telescope. Whether you’re trying to lose a few pounds or avert climate catastrophe, all that’s needed is to be a realist with an imagination.
To the growing corporate influence in elections, Venkataraman’s attitude is ________.
选项
A、ambivalent
B、indifferent
C、indulgent
D、disapproving
答案
D
解析
根据题目关键词corporate influence in elections可定位至第5段最后一句第5段最后一句提到,文卡塔拉曼认为“联合公民诉联邦选举委员会案”增大了企业在选举活动中的影响力,把美国带进了一个前所未有的“瞎指挥、乱拍板”的时代(more geared for recklessness than ever)。由此可见,她对此应该持批判、不赞同的态度,D项符合题意。
转载请注明原文地址:https://jikaoti.com/ti/TBbiFFFM
0
专业英语八级
相关试题推荐
在考生文件夹下,存在一个数据库文件“Acc3.mdb”,里面已经设计了表对象“职工”、窗体对象“F1”、报表对象“R1”和宏对象“M1”。试在此基础上按照以下要求补充设计:(1)设置表对象“职工”中“聘用时间”字段的有效性规则为:2002年1月1日(含)
下列过程的功能是:通过对象变量返回当前窗体的Recordset属性记录集引用,消息框中输出记录集的记录(即窗体记录源)个数。SubGetRecNum()DimrsAsObjectSetrs=Me.
在报表中,要计算“数学”字段的最低分,应将控件的“控件来源”属性设置为()。
Assessorinvitescandidatesinandindicateschairs.Interlocutor:(ToCandidateAandCandidateB.)Goodmorning/afternoon.My
Somepeoplemakeyoufeelcomfortablewhentheyarearound.【B1】________Thesepeoplehavesomethingincommon.Andonceweknoww
Whydoestheideaofprogressloomsolargeinthemodernworld?Surelybecauseprogressofaparticularkindisactually【C1】___
Accordingtothereport,whatmeasurewillthegovernmenttake?
Whichofthefollowingcanbeanappropriatetopicofthereport?
WelcometoCityArchivesThefollowingpeoplemayusethearchives:Universitystudentswithavalid【L21】________Cityresidents
TheFrenchgovernmentistobanstudentsfromusingmobilephonesinthecountry’sprimary,juniorandmiddleschools.Children
随机试题
∫01x2dx=________.
下列引起皮下出血的疾病是
对于热点的描述,正确的是
A.体重B.身长C.上、下部测量D.前囟E.上臂围体格测量可以反映一些生长发育及疾病情况,反映骨骼发育的重要指标是
"属心而络于胞中"的脉络是:
关于项目部驻地选址的说法,正确的有()。
某有限责任公司股东甲将其所持全部股权转让给该公司股东乙。乙受让该股权时,知悉甲尚有70%出资款未按期缴付。下列关于甲不按规定出资责任的表述中,符合公司法律制度规定的是()。
下列各项中,属于侵犯纳税人和其他税务当事人合法权益的情形并且纳税人和其他税务当事人可以提起税务行政诉讼的有()。(2007年考题改编)
【2014年山东省属真题】开展“教学与发展”实验,以尽可能好的教学效果来促进学生的一般发展。“一般发展”概念的提出者是()。
Micro-EnterpriseCreditforStreetYouthA)Althoughsmall-scalebusinesstrainingandcreditprogramshavebecomemorecommonth
最新回复
(
0
)