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This internal sense of rightness that we all experience so often
我们心中时常感觉到的理直气壮的感觉，
is not a reliable guide to what is actually going on in the external world.
在真实世界中并不是个可靠的向导。
And when we act like it is, and we stop entertaining the possibility that we could be wrong,
当我们依此行事，不再思考我们是否犯错，
well that's when we end up doing things like dumping 200 million gallons of oil into the Gulf of Mexico, or torpedoing the global economy.
我们就有可能把两百万加仑的石油倒进墨西哥湾，或是颠覆世界经济。
So this is a huge practical problem. But it's also a huge social problem.
这是个很实际的问题，这也是个很大的社会问题。
Think for a moment about what it means to feel right.
想想“感觉对”究竟是什么意思。
It means that you think that your beliefs just perfectly reflect reality.
这代表着你认为你的信念和真实是一致的。
And when you feel that way, you've got a problem to solve,
当你有这种感觉的时候，你的问题就大了，
which is, how are you going to explain all of those people who disagree with you?
因为如果你是对的，为什么还有人和你持不同意见？
It turns out, most of us explain those people the same way, by resorting to a series of unfortunate assumptions.
于是我们往往用同一种思考方式去解释这些异议。
The first thing we usually do when someone disagrees with us is we just assume they're ignorant.
第一是当他人不同意我们的说法，我们便觉得他们无知。
They don't have access to the same information that we do,
他们不像我们懂得这么多，
and when we generously share that information with them, they're going to see the light and come on over to our team.
当我们慷慨地和他们分享我们的知识，他们便会理解，并加入我们的行列。
When that doesn't work, when it turns out those people have all the same facts that we do and they still disagree with us,
如果不是这样，如果这些人和我们获得的信息一样多却仍然不认同我们，
then we move on to a second assumption, which is that they're idiots.
我们便有了下一个定论，那就是他们是白痴。
They have all the right pieces of the puzzle, and they are too moronic to put them together correctly.
他们已经有了所有的信息，却笨到无法拼凑出正确的图像。
And when that doesn't work, when it turns out that people who disagree with us have all the same facts we do and are actually pretty smart,
一旦第二个定论也不成立，当这些反对我们的人和我们有一样的信息又聪明，
then we move on to a third assumption: they know the truth,
我们便有了第三个结论：他们知道事实是什么，
and they are deliberately distorting it for their own malevolent purposes. So this is a catastrophe.
但却为了自己的好处故意曲解真实。这真是个大灾难。
