2014 比特币峰会上的马克安德森，对于比特币给出了他自己的看法。我觉得很受启发，所以就整理了英文文字稿和中文翻译，这里一并奉上。原视频地址：https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iir5J6Z3Z1Q
我做的中文配音视频地址：http://knewcoin.com/episodes/38
为何坏消息那么多？
主持人：最近关于比特币的的新闻不少，像有人被逮捕，有人破产跑路了，你怎么来看比特币这个世界？
我想先来聊两个事情… 看看咱们能不能把麦克的回声调小一点… 能行吗？… 好，首先我们应该要从当前这个时间点上来看比特币，比特币只存在了5年而已，最早的那篇论文是2009年发表的。我觉得历史上很类似的一个时间点就是大众互联网的1994年，为啥提这一年呢？因为1989年那年人们发明了万维网技术，发明了 http 协议和 html 语言。从89年到94年的这5年里，我们这些人参与到了互联网早期的一些项目里，例如 Mosiac 浏览器等。有人开始就用这些东西，主流社会也开始看得到这些东西。
但是那时候这些东西都是非常边缘的，看起来非常新，非常古怪和吓人。所以说，互联网最早是个非常边缘化的技术。同时呢，随之而来的还有一些很边缘的政治主张，和一些想法很边缘的人。确实有不少这样的人，有些在现在看来是非常成功的，成了历史名人了。
曾经这些人有过的那些疯狂想法中，一些关于技术的，今天看来是非常对的，另外有一些政治的，取决于你的观点的不同，看起来是对的或是错的。不过确实也有很多人获得了政治上的成功。
总之是要有一个过程的，果子需要慢慢的成熟。所以现在很多人批评说比特币就是些边缘另类的人在搞非常边缘的技术，边缘的政治，边缘的公司。但我的问题是，如果没有这些边缘的人和他们的政治主张，哪里会有来自边缘的技术呢？其实只要是等待时机成熟的时候，所谓边缘的技术就会被主流社会所接受。但是这个种子永远是来自边缘社会的，而从来都不诞生在主流人群。在整个的成熟的过程中，这些边缘的人和政治总会被大家当做异类去讨厌，但是其实历史上每一次颠覆性的创新都是走这样一个循环的。
所以你提到的那些比特币世界里最近的那些不好的新闻，就是这个历史规律的一个体现。其实如果不出这些事倒是很让人奇怪的。出现颠覆性的变革，但是同时又不出现这种激烈地社会摩擦，这个在历史上将会是极为少见的。
两种文化
最近我总跟大家讲的一个人，就是英国的一个化学家，同时也是个小说家，叫 C.P Snow 。他是二十世纪中叶的作家，那个时候，人们所谓的高新科技还是物理学这些东西…炸弹，原子能。 他写文章讨论了文化分为两支：科技文化和人文文化，这两个文化的鸿沟正在形成。这个观点其实也正好适用于我们今天。
现在我们有，一方面，工程文化，科学文化，技术文化，另一方面，艺术文化，文学文化等这些非技术文化。大家如果不搞技术，不是工程师，就开始觉得技术这个东西正在变得越来越怪异和可怕，想想原子弹，想想比特币… 哈，这类比够牛的。
技术上这些突破性成果，看起来是要把社会带人一种未知的状态啊，所以对于非技术文化下的人们，这个确实有点让人担心。谁知道会有什么坏得结果呢，谁知道呢？
在这个情景下，钱这个概念就变得很有意思，因为过去的这几百年来，钱一直是非技术领域的一个事，当人们一想到钱，其实直观上就是一个信任的问题。我们要信任谁，信任那个机构。你信任美国政府吗？你觉得美国财政部怎么样？所以基本上就是你要信任这些银行和他们身后的政府。
而在搞技术的人的角度来看，人和机构其实都是其次的，真正核心的问题是你是否相信数学，算法，代码，加密这些客观的技术手段。现在让一个技术人来看这个问题，他就会说：啊，这不很明摆着的事吗？比特币更值得信赖啊，因为基本的数学规律这个是不能骗人的，相应的，如果是让一些我们根本都不认识的人来操作我们的钱，那可以不一定了，就像我们大家2008年所看到的那样。
但是非技术领域的人就会说了，那我怎么去相信数学啊，我又不懂。总不至于让我去再读个数学或是计算机的博士吧。其实实际上也用不着，因为我觉得技术和非技术这两种文化未来会自然的融为一体，只要我们在两个角度来共同努力：首先是，我们这些代表工程技术文化的这些人，必须得努力给大家介绍这些内容，把逻辑简化，讲的生动形象一些，把这些技术弄到好用又好理解的程度。我们要和非技术领域的人们一起到达这种交叉点，而不是什么都不做，让这些技术把大家难倒。但是另一方面，非技术文化领域要有一种开放的心态，要参与进来学习和理解这些东西。我觉得未来3年，这种融合就要发生。
我们要解释自己
主持人：这是否能解释为何你最近又重启你的 twitter 跟大家做交流。
是的，总体上，我们硅谷这些高技术的，喜欢比特币的，所有的技术产业的这些人，都有义务把我们所做的这些事解释给大家听。就像 C.P Snow 曾经描述的那样，现在又到了一个特殊的时刻，有了一个像比特币这样的一个颠覆性创新被搞成了，期待大家都来用。但是咱们却没有很好的让大家理解这个东西，以至于让比特币显得挺吓人的。
所有我觉得我们这些人有这个责任，去让大家觉得其实比特币不是个特别奇怪的东西。要提一下的是，当前的互联网必须要经历这样的一个过程，最终大家度过了这个过程，个人计算机也是相同的故事。这种理解最终都会慢慢形成的，目前我们还处于比特币的这个过程的刚开头，所以前面我们还有很长的路要走。
I will start by saying two things… maybe they can turn down the echo a little bit， will that be possible… two things we think about a lot. First of all, we think it’s important to put bitcoin in context with where we are，bitcoin only exists for 5 years，the origin paper came out in 2009, I think the relevant comparison point for bitcoin is about 1994 for the consumer internet. I say that because that 1989 was when the web was first invented, when http and html were invented. And there was this five year period between 89 and 94, when those of us who are working on … early Mosaic , you kind of used these stuff and you can see it.
But it was really fringe, really new and really weird and really scary and really odd, and it arrived as a fringe technology. And then by the way, it arrived with fringe politics, and it arrived with fringe characters and there were a whole cast of characters in that era, some of them became very successful, and some of them are historical figures now.
But there were the whole set of fringe characters who had these crazy ideas, and many of the tech ideas turned out to be correct. Many of the political ideas, you know, depending on your point of view, turn out to be correct or not correct. Actually a fair number of people got the solution politically through that process.
But it worked, and there was this process maturation through which it worked. So I think the critique of bitcoin as sort of being fringe tech, fringe company, fringe politics, fringe characters, I don’t know how you get fringe tech without fringe politics and fringe characters. You just have to go through maturation process when you come out to the other end, fringe tech goes main stream and gets widely adopted. Along the way the fringe characters and fringe politics tend to get alienated and then move on to the next fringe tech and the circle repeats. But you don’t get the tech from the main stream, you get them from the fringe.
So I think this is the case study of that. And every single one of things you mentioned is a example of how the early stage of this adoption cycle happen. So it will be really shocking at this kind of things were not happening, it will be very historical unusual if this kind of thing were not happening.
Two Cultures
I’ll been talking recently about, there is a British chemist and novelist named C.P Snow, who wrote in the middle of 20th century, when physics was sort of high tech, and he wrote the famous essay and talked about the two cultures: Science Culture and Literal Culture, basically he described the kind of cultural divide was forming, where it mirrors to exactly what’s happening today, the sort of engineering culture, science culture, tech culture, and literal culture, liberal arts culture, non-tech culture are sort of normal people who are not engineers, increasingly feel like this tech stuff is getting really weird and scary, I mean, atom bomb, bitcoin.
The fundamental tech break through, looks like it’s going to change the world in unpredictable ways, and for non-tech people that can be weird and scary, because who knows what is the consequences it’s going to be, who knows how to think about these things.
Money is interesting in that context, because money has been on non-tech side of the culture for the last 1000 years, 300 years at least, with paper money and before that, when normal people think about money, they think about who can you trust, which institution can you trust, can you trust the US gov, can you trust US Treasure Dep, it’s very much that, can you trust the banks, do you trust the gov sitting behind the bank. The broad cultural view of money is based on trust in people and institutions.
On the engineering side of things, people and institutions are beside the point, the core of it is，can you trust the math? Can you trust algorithm, can you trust the code, can can you trust crypto. And part of what is happening right now is engineers look at this, and they are like: Oh this is obvious, the bitcoin is better because it’s math you can trust, oppose to people you have never known, as we discovered in 2008.
Normal people look at that, how can you trust math? does that mean you have to be mathematician，have ph.D in math or computer science to understand the stuff. So I think what has to happen is that actually the two cultures have to come together, and for ence to understand the stuff. So I think what has to happen is that actually the two cultures have to come together, and for ence to understand the stuff. So I think what has to happen is that actually the two cultures have to come together, and for ence to understand the stuff. So I think what has to happen is that actually the two cultures have to come together, and for ence to understand the stuff. So I think what has to happen is that actually the two cultures have to come together, and for ence to understand the stuff. So I think what has to happen is that actually the two cultures have to come together, and for ence to understand the stuff. So I think what has to happen is that actually the two cultures have to come together, and for ence to understand the stuff. So I think what has to happen is that actually the two cultures have to come together, and for ence to understand theybody expected to adapt to without having it get translated from weird and scary to like ok you can wrap your head as normal people around this.
That’s our responsibility, that’s not going to happen by itself. By the way, that had to happen with internet, did happen with internet, had to happen with PCs, and did happen with PCs, this does happen, we are just right in the middle of it, right at the beginning of it right now, so we still have quite a way to go.