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演說(shuō)者：Lux Narayan 演說(shuō)題目：我們從 2000 則訃聞中，學(xué)到什麼？ Lux在每天的早上，都是一邊吃著炒蛋，一邊問(wèn)：「誰(shuí)在今天過(guò)世了？」為什么他會(huì)這么做？Lux分析了近2000 篇紐約時(shí)報(bào)的訃聞。從這些簡(jiǎn)單的文字當(dāng)中，可以看到亡者一輩子的成就。在這里他分享了，在報(bào)紙上這些令我們緬懷的事情教導(dǎo)我們?nèi)绾魏煤没钪覀兊娜松?/span> 00:12 Joseph Keller used to jog around the Stanford campus, and he was struck by all the women jogging there as well. Why did their ponytails swing from side to side like that? Being a mathematician, he set out to understand why. 00:30 Professor Keller was curious about many things: why teapots dribble or how earthworms wriggle. Until a few months ago, I hadn't heard of Joseph Keller. I read about him in the New York Times, in the obituaries. The Times had half a page of editorial dedicated to him, which you can imagine is premium space for a newspaper of their stature. 00:53 I read the obituaries almost every day. My wife understandably thinks I'm rather morbid to begin my day with scrambled eggs and a 'Let's see who died today.' 01:05 But if you think about it, the front page of the newspaper is usually bad news, and cues man's failures. An instance where bad news cues accomplishment is at the end of the paper, in the obituaries. 01:19 In my day job, I run a company that focuses on future insights that marketers can derive from past data -- a kind of rearview-mirror analysis. And we began to think: What if we held a rearview mirror to obituaries from the New York Times? Were there lessons on how you could get your obituary featured -- even if you aren't around to enjoy it? 01:43 Would this go better with scrambled eggs? 01:47 And so, we looked at the data. 2,000 editorial, non-paid obituaries over a 20-month period between 2015 and 2016. What did these 2,000 deaths -- rather, lives -- teach us? 02:04 Well, first we looked at words. This here is an obituary headline. This one is of the amazing Lee Kuan Yew. If you remove the beginning and the end, you're left with a beautifully worded descriptor that tries to, in just a few words, capture an achievement or a lifetime. Just looking at these is fascinating. Here are a few famous ones, people who died in the last two years. Try and guess who they are. 02:28 [An Artist who Defied Genre] That's Prince. 02:32 [Titan of Boxing and the 20th Century] Oh, yes. 02:35 [Muhammad Ali] 02:36 [Groundbreaking Architect] Zaha Hadid. 02:40 So we took these descriptors and did what's called natural language processing, where you feed these into a program, it throws out the superfluous words -- 'the,' 'and,' -- the kind of words you can mime easily in 'Charades,' -- and leaves you with the most significant words. And we did it not just for these four, but for all 2,000 descriptors. And this is what it looks like. Film, theatre, music, dance and of course, art, are huge. Over 40 percent. You have to wonder why in so many societies we insist that our kids pursue engineering or medicine or business or law to be construed as successful. And while we're talking profession, let's look at age -- the average age at which they achieved things. That number is 37. What that means is, you've got to wait 37 years ... before your first significant achievement that you're remembered for -- on average -- 44 years later, when you die at the age of 81 -- on average. 03:41 Talk about having to be patient. 03:43 Of course, it varies by profession. If you're a sports star, you'll probably hit your stride in your 20s. And if you're in your 40s like me, you can join the fun world of politics. 03:55 Politicians do their first and sometimes only commendable act in their mid-40s. 04:00 If you're wondering what 'others' are, here are some examples. Isn't it fascinating, the things people do and the things they're remembered for? 04:11 Our curiosity was in overdrive, and we desired to analyze more than just a descriptor. So, we ingested the entire first paragraph of all 2,000 obituaries, but we did this separately for two groups of people: people that are famous and people that are not famous. Famous people -- Prince, Ali, Zaha Hadid -- people who are not famous are people like Jocelyn Cooper, Reverend Curry or Lorna Kelly. I'm willing to bet you haven't heard of most of their names. Amazing people, fantastic achievements, but they're not famous. So what if we analyze these two groups separately -- the famous and the non-famous? What might that tell us? 04:52 Take a look. Two things leap out at me. First: 'John.' 05:03 Anyone here named John should thank your parents -- 05:08 and remind your kids to cut out your obituary when you're gone. And second: 'help.' 05:18 We uncovered, many lessons from lives well-led, and what those people immortalized in print could teach us. The exercise was a fascinating testament to the kaleidoscope that is life, and even more fascinating was the fact that the overwhelming majority of obituaries featured people famous and non-famous, who did seemingly extraordinary things. They made a positive dent in the fabric of life. They helped. 05:46 So ask yourselves as you go back to your daily lives: How am I using my talents to help society? Because the most powerful lesson here is, if more people lived their lives trying to be famous in death, the world would be a much better place. 06:02 Thank you. 06:04 (Applause) 00:12 約瑟夫·凱勒習(xí)慣在 史丹福大學(xué)校園周圍慢跑， 在那裡慢跑的其他女性， 引發(fā)了他的好奇： 為什么她們的馬尾總是左右晃動(dòng)著？ 身為一名數(shù)學(xué)家， 他決定要弄清楚原因。 00:30 凱勒教授對(duì)許多事情都很好奇： 為什么茶水會(huì)順著壺嘴滴下來(lái)， 或是蚯蚓如何蠕動(dòng)。 幾個(gè)月之前， 我還不知道約瑟夫·凱勒是誰(shuí)。 我在紐約時(shí)報(bào)看到他的消息， 在訃聞版。 紐約時(shí)報(bào)的編輯 用了半個(gè)版面來(lái)向他致敬。 你可以想像得到， 對(duì)一家大報(bào)社來(lái)說(shuō)， 這代表著極高的尊崇。 00:53 我?guī)缀趺刻於紩?huì)閱讀訃聞版。 我的妻子曉得我這個(gè) 有點(diǎn)病態(tài)的習(xí)慣： 每天早晨，我會(huì)一邊吃著炒蛋， 一邊閱讀訃聞版： 「我們來(lái)看看今天有誰(shuí)去世了」。 01:05 但是如果你仔細(xì)想想， 報(bào)紙的頭版通?？菈南?， 這暗示我們某人失敗了。 然而有一種情況： 壞消息卻暗示了某人的成就， 那就是在報(bào)紙的最后一版， 在訃聞版。 01:19 我平常的工作， 是經(jīng)營(yíng)一間企管顧問(wèn)公司， 我們關(guān)注未來(lái)的發(fā)展趨勢(shì)， 并分析過(guò)去所累積的數(shù)據(jù)── 這是一種稱為「回顧分析」的技術(shù)。 我們開(kāi)始思考： 如果我們對(duì)紐約時(shí)報(bào)的訃聞版， 進(jìn)行回顧分析？ 能否從裡面學(xué)到 「如何讓訃聞變得更為獨(dú)特」── 即使你以后也看不到自己的訃聞？ 01:43 這樣做能讓訃聞更適合搭配炒蛋嗎？ 01:47 所以，我們檢視了數(shù)據(jù)。 我們分析了總共 2000 篇 由編輯部刊登，非付費(fèi)的訃聞， 范圍是 2015 到 2016 年的 20 個(gè)月之間。 究竟這 2000 個(gè)死亡 ──應(yīng)該說(shuō)是生命── 教導(dǎo)了我們什么？ 02:04 好，首先來(lái)看訃聞的用字。 這是一篇訃聞的標(biāo)題。 這一位是傳奇人物李光耀。 移除開(kāi)頭和結(jié)尾后的內(nèi)容， 只剩短短的幾句話， 一些優(yōu)美的描述辭彙， 能讓你捕捉到亡者的成就， 或是他的一生。 看著這些詞彙就夠令人著迷了。 這裡有幾位， 在這兩年內(nèi)過(guò)世的名人。 試著猜猜看他們是誰(shuí)。 02:28 「一位顛覆形式的藝術(shù)家」 這是王子。 02:32 「二十世紀(jì)的拳擊巨星」 是的， 02:35 拳王阿里。 02:36 「開(kāi)創(chuàng)未來(lái)的建筑師」 札哈．哈蒂。 02:40 因此，我們找出這些描述詞， 進(jìn)行所謂的自然語(yǔ)言處理。 也就是你將文字輸入程式， 它能剔除不必要的文字， 例如 「the」-- 并且剔除在玩「比手畫(huà)腳」游戲時(shí)， 很容易以手勢(shì)表示的文字， 最后留下最重要的詞彙。 我們不只分析上面這四則， 而是分析了所有 2000 則 訃聞的描述詞彙。 我們來(lái)看看結(jié)果是什么樣子。 電影，戲劇，音樂(lè)，舞蹈。 當(dāng)然「藝術(shù)」是最明顯的。 出現(xiàn)的頻率多出 40%。 你不得不驚訝的是， 為什么在大多數(shù)的社會(huì)中， 我們一直認(rèn)為讓孩子讀工程、 醫(yī)學(xué)、商業(yè)或法律科系， 才是所謂的成功。 當(dāng)我們關(guān)注職業(yè)時(shí)， 也來(lái)看看年齡── 這些人功成名就的平均年齡。 這個(gè)數(shù)字是37年。 這意味著什么？ 就是你平均必須等待 37 年…… 才能獲得第一個(gè)成就， 44 年后， 當(dāng)你過(guò)世時(shí)才會(huì)被紀(jì)念， 平均年齡是 81 歲。 03:41 這告訴我們要有耐心。 03:43 當(dāng)然，這會(huì)因職業(yè)而異。 如果你是體育明星， 你可能會(huì)在 20 多歲打破紀(jì)錄。 如果你和我一樣已經(jīng) 40 多歲了， 你可以加入有趣的政治圈。 03:55 政治家完成他們的第一項(xiàng)成就， 可能也是唯一的一次， 大約是在45歲左右。 04:00 如果你想知道「其他職業(yè)」是什么， 這裡有一些例子。 這些人所做的， 和他們被紀(jì)念的事蹟， 是不是很令人著迷？ 04:11 我們的好奇心被點(diǎn)燃了， 我們不只想要分析描述詞。 所以，我們輸入了 2000 則 訃聞的第一段全文， 但是將亡者分為兩群： 知名人士，以及非知名人士。 知名人士例如：王子、 阿里、札哈．哈蒂。 非知名人士例如：?jiǎn)趟沽謳?kù)柏、 嘉里牧師 或羅娜．凱利。 我敢打賭，你絕對(duì)沒(méi)聽(tīng)過(guò) 大多數(shù)這些人的名字。 這些人有著令人驚訝，稀奇古怪的成就， 但是他們并不出名。 因此，如果我們分析一下這兩群人， 知名和非知名人士， 可能得到什么結(jié)果？ 04:52 我們來(lái)看一下。 有兩個(gè)結(jié)果讓我驚訝。 第一個(gè)： 「約翰」。 05:03 如果這裡有人也叫約翰的， 應(yīng)該感謝你的父母── 05:08 而且記得提醒你的孩子， 當(dāng)你過(guò)世時(shí)要把訃聞剪下來(lái)。 另一個(gè)結(jié)果是： 「幫助」。 05:18 我們發(fā)現(xiàn)了，這些已經(jīng)逝去， 在報(bào)紙上令我們緬懷的事蹟， 教導(dǎo)我們?cè)S多事情， 教導(dǎo)我們?nèi)绾魏煤没钪?這次的實(shí)驗(yàn)就是 萬(wàn)花筒般生命的迷人見(jiàn)證。 甚至更迷人的是， 在大多數(shù)的訃聞中， 無(wú)論是知名或非知名人士， 他們所做的不平凡事蹟。 他們?cè)诓煌＞幙椀娜松校?留下了有意義的印記。 他們幫助他人。 05:46 所以問(wèn)問(wèn)自己， 當(dāng)你回到日常生活中： 我如何運(yùn)用我的才華， 幫助這個(gè)社會(huì)？ 因?yàn)樵谶@裡，最重要的一課是： 如果有更多的人， 在活著時(shí)努力過(guò)著自己的人生， 而能在過(guò)世時(shí)變得知名， 這個(gè)世界將會(huì)變得更加美好。謝謝大家。 |
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