介绍:
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So first of all, thank you, Class of 2015, for inviting me to speak. It’s such a great honor and when I got the invitation I started thinking back to when I was in Columbia and I remember getting to Columbia and I was immediately stressed out, because I realized that I now had to figure out, at some point, what I was going to do with my life. That was super scary. Some of you might be going through that now a little bit, (but not to bring that up or anything.)
首先感谢你们的邀请。获邀请那刻，我觉得这是如此伟大的一个荣耀，但很快就觉得压力巨大，因为我马上意识到：这场演讲，某种程度，实际上将指出我人生经历的一些关键“节点”。这种感觉真是超级吓人。
I remember when I got the first clue of what I might do, I was taking a class over in the Mudd Building, which somebody was telling me today is a great building if you like prisons and Catholic school. I was in this class and they were talking about this guy, Alan Turing and they were talking about how he had proven that if you built a machine, that he called a Turing Machine, it was theoretically impossible to build a machine that was computationally more powerful. It just melted my mind when I heard it, because I couldn’t even imagine what he was talking about, because it was 1984 and you have to remember 1984 computers weren’t even really a thing.
我在哥大获得我这一生可能干点什么的第一个“线索”。当时，我在一个课堂，听到他们讨论一个人，这个人叫阿兰.图灵。那时我第一次听到“一台能干任何事的机器”，这是在 1984 年，而 1984 年时计算机甚至都不能称作是一个东西。
So the idea of a machine that could do anything was just so farfetched, because all of our machines were just special-purpose machines, like for doing math. Your parents will remember it’s called a calculator. And then we had one machine for word processing called a typewriter and we even had one for video called a television set. And so the idea of, okay, now you’re gonna have the machine that can do absolutely anything and this guy had figured that out 40 years previously — I didn’t even know it was possible. I had no idea, it was like this secret to the universe in which they were saying, “Oh, here, there is a machine that’s limitless and you can do anything on it.” And I was just thought: “No way.” Translate, español, no way Jose. For the parents, that’s a Kanye West reference.
That point in my life was like, for those of you who are Phineas and Ferb fans, it was like that time when Phineas goes, “I know what I’m gonna do today. ” I’m gonna major in computer science. And so I ran over to (Carmen) and I was just so excited to tell my friends. I was, like, man, they’re gonna be just like so fired up for me, I figured it out. I’m not gonna be stressed anymore: “Guys, I’m gonna major in computer science.” And one of my friends said, “Wow, that’s the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard.” And said: “Why?” He said, “Look, you’re at Columbia University. That’s like a trade. You could learn that at DeVry. They’ll teach you how to build computers, fix them, program them. Here you should major in something real.” And I was just thinking to myself: “I’m talking about a limitless machine. You’re talking about a washing machine.” I was completely frustrated, I couldn’t really explain to him why, but it was at that point, at my height of frustration that I learned the most valuable lesson that I learned at Columbia, which is: Don’t listen to your friends. Think for yourself.
然后，我知道自己要做什么了：选择“计算机科学”作为专业。当时，我高兴地把想法告诉朋友们，但他们全认为我蠢。这让我非常沮丧，而后来我遇到的这个挫折，它形成的高度，事实上成为我在哥大学到的最有价值的一课。我明白了一点，那就是：不要听朋友的，而是要听自己的。
Thinking for yourself sounds both simple and trivial, but in reality it’s extremely difficult and it’s profound and here is why. As human beings, we want to be liked. It’s anthropological. If people didn’t like you in caveman days, they would just eat you. So you really have a natural built in instinct to want to be liked and the easiest way to be liked is to tell people what they want to hear.
我想独立思考这件事之所以这么难，原因在于：作为人类，我们都希望被人喜欢。这几乎是种可以叫做“人类学”的东西：在野人时期，如果别人不喜欢你，他们就能把你吃掉，所以，你几乎是在“本能性”地希望别人喜欢你。
