大流行病后遗症：新常态
【挖空练习】
Legacy of a pandemic: The new normal
大流行病后遗症：新常态
The era of ___________ unpredictability is not going away
【1】Is it nearly over In 2021 people have been ________ for something like _________. Even those who accepted that they would never get their old lives back hoped for a new normal. Yet as 2022 draws near, it is time to face the world’s ___________ unpredictability. The pattern for the rest of the 2020s is not the familiar _______ of the pre-covid years, but the _______ and ____________ of the pandemic era. The new normal is already here.
【2】Remember how the _________ attacks of September 11th 2001 began to transform air travel in waves. In the years that followed each fresh ____ _______ an __________ ________ that required a new rule. First came locked _______ doors, more armed air marshals and bans on sharp objects. Later, _________ fell on bottles of ______, shoes and laptops. Flying did not return to normal, nor did it establish a new _______. _______, everything was ___________ up for ________.
【3】The world is similarly _____________ today and the pandemic is part of the reason. For almost two years people have lived with shifting regimes of mask-wearing, tests, lockdowns, travel bans, ___________ certificates and other paperwork. As outbreaks of new cases and ________ ebb and flow, so these regimes can also be expected to come and go. That is the price of living with a disease that has not yet _______ into its _______ state.
【4】And covid-19 may not be the only such _________. Although a century elapsed between the _______ of Spanish flu and the coronavirus, the next planet-conquering ________ could ______ much sooner. Germs ______ in an age of global travel and _______ cities. The _________ of people and animals will lead to the __________ of new human diseases. Such zoonoses, which tend to emerge every few years, used to be a minority interest. For the next decade, at least, you can expect each new outbreak to _______ paroxysms of __________.
【5】covid has also helped bring about today’s _____________ world __________, by ____________ change that was _________. The pandemic has shown how __________ can be ________ upended by _____________ shifts. Remote shopping, working from home and the Zoom boom were once the future. In the time of covid they _______ became as much of a _____ as picking up the groceries or the daily _______.
【6】Big _____________ shifts are nothing new. But _______ of taking centuries or decades to spread around the world, as did the printing press and _________, new technologies become _______ in a matter of years. Just 15 years ago, modern smartphones did not exist. Today more than half of the people on the planet carry one. Any boss who thinks their industry is immune to such wild ________ is unlikely to last long.
【7】The pandemic may also have ended the era of low global inflation that began in the 1990s and was _________ by economic ________ after the financial crisis of 2007-09. Having failed to achieve a quick recovery then, governments spent nearly $11trn trying to ensure that the harm caused by the _____ was _________.
【8】They broadly succeeded, but ______ ________ and bunged-up supply chains have raised global inflation above 5%. The ________ _______ of _______ spending will change how recessions are fought. As they raise interest rates to deal with inflation, central banks may find themselves in conflict with indebted governments. Amid a burst of innovation around cryptocoins, central-bank digital __________ and fintech, many outcomes are possible. A return to the comfortable _____________ orthodoxies of the 1990s is one of the least likely.
【9】In the case of climate change, the pandemic has served as an ______ of interdependence. Despite the best efforts to contain them, _____ _________ cross frontiers almost as easily as _________ of _______ and carbon dioxide. Scientists from around the world showed how vaccines and medicines can save hundreds of millions of lives. However, hesitancy and the failure to share doses __________ their plans. Likewise, in a world that is _________ with global warming, countries that have everything to gain from working together ___________ fall short. Even under the most __________ _________, the ____________ of long-lasting greenhouse gases in the __________ means that extreme and unprecedented weather of the kind seen during 2021 is here to stay.
【10】The desire to return to a more stable, ___________ world may help explain a 1990s revival. You can understand the appeal of going back to a decade in which superpower competition had ________ ended, _______ _________ was __________, suits were oversized, work ended when people left the office, and the internet was not yet __________ ____, established __________ or stoking the _______ machine that has supplanted public discourse.
Events, dear boy, events
【11】That desire is too _________. It is worth ________ up some of the benefits that come with today’s ___________ unpredictability. Many people like to work from home. Remote services can be cheaper and more accessible. The rapid _____________ of technology could bring __________ advances in medicine and the __________ of global warming.
【12】Even so, beneath it lies the __________ idea that once a system has _______ some _________, every _____ tends to shift it further from the old ___________. Many of the ____________ and attitudes that brought _________ in the old world look ill-suited to the new. The pandemic is like a doorway. Once you pass through, there is no going back.
【答案】
Legacy of a pandemic: The new normal
大流行病后遗症：新常态
The era of predictable unpredictability is not going away
【1】Is it nearly over In 2021 people have been yearning for something like stability. Even those who accepted that they would never get their old lives back hoped for a new normal. Yet as 2022 draws near, it is time to face the world’s predictable unpredictability. The pattern for the rest of the 2020s is not the familiar routine of the pre-covid years, but the turmoil and bewilderment of the pandemic era. The new normal is already here.
【2】Remember how the terrorist attacks of September 11th 2001 began to transform air travel in waves. In the years that followed each fresh plot exposed an unforeseen weakness that required a new rule. First came locked cockpit doors, more armed air marshals and bans on sharp objects. Later, suspicion fell on bottles of liquid, shoes and laptops. Flying did not return to normal, nor did it establish a new routine. instead, everything was permanently up for revision.
【3】The world is similarly unpredictable today and the pandemic is part of the reason. For almost two years people have lived with shifting regimes of mask-wearing, tests, lockdowns, travel bans, vaccination certificates and other paperwork. As outbreaks of new cases and variants ebb and flow, so these regimes can also be expected to come and go. That is the price of living with a disease that has not yet settled into its endemic state.
【4】And covid-19 may not be the only such infection. Although a century elapsed between the ravages of Spanish flu and the coronavirus, the next planet-conquering pathogen could strike much sooner. Germs thrive in an age of global travel and crowded cities. The proximity of people and animals will lead to the incubation of new human diseases. Such zoonoses, which tend to emerge every few years, used to be a minority interest. For the next decade, at least, you can expect each new outbreak to trigger paroxysms of precaution.
【5】covid has also helped bring about today’s unpredictable world indirectly, by accelerating change that was incipient. The pandemic has shown how industries can be suddenly upended by technological shifts. Remote shopping, working from home and the Zoom boom were once the future. In the time of covid they rapidly became as much of a chore as picking up the groceries or the daily commute.
【6】Big technological shifts are nothing new. But instead of taking centuries or decades to spread around the world, as did the printing press and telegraph, new technologies become routine in a matter of years. Just 15 years ago, modern smartphones did not exist. Today more than half of the people on the planet carry one. Any boss who thinks their industry is immune to such wild dynamism is unlikely to last long.
【7】The pandemic may also have ended the era of low global inflation that began in the 1990s and was ingrained by economic weakness after the financial crisis of 2007-09. Having failed to achieve a quick recovery then, governments spent nearly $11trn trying to ensure that the harm caused by the virus was transient.
【8】They broadly succeeded, but fiscal stimulus and bunged-up supply chains have raised global inflation above 5%. The apparent potency of deficit spending will change how recessions are fought. As they raise interest rates to deal with inflation, central banks may find themselves in conflict with indebted governments. Amid a burst of innovation around cryptocoins, central-bank digital currencies and fintech, many outcomes are possible. A return to the comfortable macroeconomic orthodoxies of the 1990s is one of the least likely.
【9】In the case of climate change, the pandemic has served as an emblem of interdependence. Despite the best efforts to contain them, virus particles cross frontiers almost as easily as molecules of methane and carbon dioxide. Scientists from around the world showed how vaccines and medicines can save hundreds of millions of lives. However, hesitancy and the failure to share doses frustrated their plans. Likewise, in a world that is grappling with global warming, countries that have everything to gain from working together continually fall short. Even under the most optimistic scenarios, the accumulation of long-lasting greenhouse gases in the atmosphere means that extreme and unprecedented weather of the kind seen during 2021 is here to stay.
【10】The desire to return to a more stable, predictable world may help explain a 1990s revival. You can understand the appeal of going back to a decade in which superpower competition had abruptly ended, liberal democracy was triumphant, suits were oversized, work ended when people left the office, and the internet was not yet disrupting cosy, established industries or stoking the outrage machine that has supplanted public discourse.
Events, dear boy, events
【11】That desire is too nostalgic. It is worth notching up some of the benefits that come with today’s predictable unpredictability. Many people like to work from home. Remote services can be cheaper and more accessible. The rapid dissemination of technology could bring unimagined advances in medicine and the mitigation of global warming.
【12】Even so, beneath it lies the unsettling idea that once a system has crossed some threshold, every nudge tends to shift it further from the old equilibrium. Many of the institutions and attitudes that brought stability in the old world look ill-suited to the new. The pandemic is like a doorway. Once you pass through, there is no going back.
段落大意：
[1]大流行病带来的新常态。
[2]意外事件的发生改变了航空旅行规则。
[3]今天的世界不可预测。
[4]新冠肺炎并非是现在唯一的传染病。
[5]新冠肺炎加速了刚刚开始的变化，也间接引发了世界的变化莫测。
[6]重大技术变革并不是什么新鲜事。
[7]新冠大流行病对经济的影响。
[8]政府应对新冠疫情的经济策略及后果。
[9]新冠流行病与气候变化的关系。
[10]人们渴望回归一个更稳定、更可预测的世界。
[11]人们这种回归渴望引人怀旧。
[12]技术传播会令稳定的体系偏离平衡。
①短语：
1 原文：In 2021 people have been yearning for something like stability。
分析：“yearn”的含义是：“渴望，怀念，思念，切盼，思慕，向往，同情，怜悯”，作为一个不及物动词，常与介词”for”连用。从形态上讲，“yearning”既是动词“yearn”的进行时态， 本身也是一个名词。相关例句如下所示：
例句1：We yearn for beauty, truth and meaning in our lives。
译文：我们渴望生活中的美、真和意义。
例句2：We yearn for a happy life, happiness is our aim。
译文：我们向往幸福的生活，幸福才是我们的目的。
2 原文： It is worth notching up some of the benefits that come with today’s predictable unpredictability。
分析：“notch”作为名词时的含义是“槽口，凹口，刻痕，等，级，”，作为动词时，其含义是“在...上开槽口，（用凹口）把...嵌入，刻痕记（数），赢得”。“notch up”的含义是“完成，获得，赢得，创造”，相关例句如下所示：
例句1：This magazine notched up a considerable plus mark with that article.
译文：这本杂志由于刊登了那篇文章声誉大为提高。
例句2：The movement has notched up 1,000 members。
译文：这场运动已获得1000名成员的支持。
②长难句
1 原文：You can understand the appeal of going back to a decade in which superpower competition had abruptly ended, liberal democracy was triumphant, suits were oversized, work ended when people left the office, and the internet was not yet disrupting cosy, established industries or stoking the outrage machine that has supplanted public discourse。
分析：本句很长，短语和从句分散且被动语态多。要把握并正确翻译好本句，还是要厘清主要成分，即全句的主谓宾。本句的主语是“You”，谓语动词是“can understand”，宾语是“the appeal of going back to a decade”，“decade”以后的成分则是修饰宾语的状语（从句）。厘清了主谓宾，我们再来看这些状语（从句），前面的“superpower competition had abruptly ended”，“liberal democracy was triumphant”，“suits were oversized”，“work ended when people left the office”这些句子较好理解，较难理解的是最后的“the internet was not yet disrupting cosy, established industries or stoking the outrage machine that has supplanted public discourse”，在这个句子中，主语是“the internet”，谓语动词是“was (not) disrupting, 及后面的 “stoking”，宾语是“industries”及“machine”，其后的 “that has supplanted public discourse”则是修饰宾语“machine”的定语从句。分清了这些句子成分，另外还要结合时代背景来理解这些句子含义。这些句子说的是上世纪90年代冷战结束后的情景，分别是“（美苏）超级大国的竞争突然结束了”，“（以美国为代表的）自由民主胜利了”，“西装是超大号的（形容当时的人们都是大腹便便）”，“人们离开办公室时工作就结束了（无需加班）”，“互联网还没有（兴起）打乱当时那些（让人们感到）舒适且（确立已久）成熟的行业，也没有煽风点火、激发人愤怒的电脑（喻指现在的智能电子设备），而现在这些智能电子设备早已取代了公共话语，掌握了舆论控制权”。全句译文如下所示：
译文：（人们）希望回到一个更稳定、更可预测的世界，这或许有助于解释上个世纪90年代的（经济）复苏。你能理解的（回到过去的）吸引力就是回到十年前，超级大国间的竞争突然结束，自由民主大获全胜，西装是超大号的，人们离开办公室时工作就结束了，且互联网还没有扰乱那些舒适而成熟的行业，也没有煽动引人愤怒的电脑，要知道，电脑早已取代了公共话语。
2 原文：Even under the most optimistic scenarios, the accumulation of long-lasting greenhouse gases in the atmosphere means that extreme and unprecedented weather of the kind seen during 2021 is here to stay。
分析：本句话中，由于各个修饰成分，让读者一时无法看出真正的主语，其实，本句的主语成分是“ the accumulation of long-lasting greenhouse gases in the atmosphere”，谓语动词是“means”，前面的“Even under the most optimistic scenarios”是一个（让步）状语短语，而后边的“that extreme and unprecedented weather of the kind seen during 2021 is here to stay”则是宾语从句，在这个宾语从句中，主语部分是“extreme and unprecedented weather of the kind seen during 2021”（核心主语还是“weather”），谓语动词（系动词）是“is”，后面的“to stay”是动词不定式做表语，这是一个主系表结构，注意：这里的“is here to stay”也是一个固定用法，含义是“持续下去，留下不走了，成为常态”。厘清了各成分结构，整句的意思就可以理解了，译文如下所示：
译文：即时是在最乐观的情况下，大气中长期积累的温室气体也意味着2021年出现的那种前所未有的极端天气会持续下去。
③写作技巧
1 原文：That desire is too nostalgic。
分析：“nostalgic”这个词属于低频词，作为形容词，其含义是“怀旧的，恋旧的，怀乡的，乡愁的”，其同根词有“nostalgia”：（名词）思乡病，恋旧，怀旧；“nostalgist”：（名词）：怀乡者，怀旧者。相关例句如下所示：
例句1：Perhaps it is our human nature to be nostalagic。
译文：也许怀旧思古乃人之天性。
例句2：She is filled with nostalgia for her own college days。
译文：她对自己的大学生活充满了怀念之情。
例句3：These nostalgists get together to think back those old days.
译文：这些怀旧者聚在一起缅怀那些旧日时光。
2 原文：Amid a burst of innovation around cryptocoins, central-bank digital currencies and fintech, many outcomes are possible。
分析：“amid”是一个介词，其含义是“在...中间，在...之中，被...所环绕”，与“among”相比，“amid”用法较为正式，在现代英语中可用“among”替代“amid”，如 He sat among the trees。这两个词的用法区别在于：among表同质关系；而amid表异质关系。例句如下所示：
例句1：He sat amid the ruins of his house。
译文：他坐在自己房子的废墟中。
例句2：He，among others, recognized the problem, but failed to solve it。
译文：他和其他人一样认识到了这个问题，但未能解决它。
④背景知识
就当前疫情所表现的全球市场反应来看，不确定性将在相当长的一段时间内随着疫情的起伏而起伏。就算疫情得以控制，但此次疫情的后遗症将陆续显现。疫情爆发之前，世界正在经历新一轮科技革命和产业变革，互联网、大数据、人工智能等现代信息技术不断取得突破，数字经济蓬勃发展。在全球抗疫行动中，大数据、人工智能、云计算等技术在疫情监测分析、病毒溯源、防控救治和资源调配方面发挥了重大作用，疫情催生在线教育、远程医疗、远程办公、直播带货等新业态、新模式，加快制造业的数字化、网络化、智能化发展。疫情将加速信息新技术的应用和基于需求的迭代更新，数字经济将以比疫情之前更快的速度发展。疫情也带来人们居家防护和居家办公等生活和工作方式的变化，将推动经济社会的数字化转型。(共20张PPT)
Legacy of a pandemic: The new normal
Legacy of a pandemic: The new normal
The era of predictable unpredictability is not going away
大流行病后遗症：新常态
可预测的不可预测性时代并未远去
Legacy of a pandemic: The new normal
【1】Is it nearly over In 2021 people have been yearning for something like stability. Even those who accepted that they would never get their old lives back hoped for a new normal. Yet as 2022 draws near, it is time to face the world’s predictable unpredictability. The pattern for the rest of the 2020s is not the familiar routine of the pre-covid years, but the turmoil and bewilderment of the pandemic era. The new normal is already here.
快要结束了吗？2021年，人们一直渴望着稳定之类的事情，即使是那些承认自己再也无法回到过去生活的人，也盼望能重新过上正常的生活。不过随着2022年的临近，到了面对世界上可预测的不可预测性的时候了。21世纪20年代剩余时间的模式并非是新冠病毒（爆发）前几年熟悉的老一套，而是大流行病时代（带来）的混乱和困惑。新常态已然到来。
Legacy of a pandemic: The new normal
【2】Remember how the terrorist attacks of September 11th 2001 began to transform air travel in waves. In the years that followed each fresh plot exposed an unforeseen weakness that required a new rule.
还记得2001年9月11日（在美国发生）的恐怖袭击是如何开始一波波地改变航空旅行的吗？在其后的几年里，每一个（发 生）的新阴谋都会暴露出一个无法预料的弱点，继而需要新规则（来弥补弱点）。
Legacy of a pandemic: The new normal
First came locked cockpit doors, more armed air marshals and bans on sharp objects. Later, suspicion fell on bottles of liquid, shoes and laptops. Flying did not return to normal, nor did it establish a new routine. Instead, everything was permanently up for revision.
首先是上锁的（飞机）驾驶舱门，（需要）更多的武装空警以及针对尖锐物品的禁令。后来，又将疑点落在了瓶装液态物、鞋子和笔记本电脑上。（航 空）飞行并没有恢复正常，也没有建立新航线，相反，却永久的修订了每件事（的规则）。
Legacy of a pandemic: The new normal
【3】The world is similarly unpredictable today and the pandemic is part of the reason. For almost two years people have lived with shifting regimes of mask-wearing, tests, lockdowns, travel bans, vaccination certificates and other paperwork. As outbreaks of new cases and variants ebb and flow, so these regimes can also be expected to come and go. That is the price of living with a disease that has not yet settled into its endemic state.
今天的世界同样是不可预测的，（新冠肺炎）大流行病是其中一个原因。近两年来，人们都是在不断变化的管理方式下生活，如戴口罩、检测、封锁、旅行禁令、疫苗接种证明和其它报告。伴随着新病例和变异病毒爆发的起起伏伏，这些管理方式也可能会去而复来。这就是与一种尚未进入地方流行状态疾病共存需要付出的代价。
Legacy of a pandemic: The new normal
【4】And covid-19 may not be the only such infection. Although a century elapsed between the ravages of Spanish flu and the coronavirus, the next planet-conquering pathogen could strike much sooner. Germs thrive in an age of global travel and crowded cities.
对于这类传染病来说，新冠肺炎并非是唯一的。尽管西班牙流感的肆虐和冠状病毒的爆发（时间差）隔了一个世纪，但下一个征服地球的病原体可能会更快的发起袭击。在一个全球旅行和城市拥挤的时代，病菌会蓬勃兴起。
Legacy of a pandemic: The new normal
The proximity of people and animals will lead to the incubation of new human diseases. Such zoonoses, which tend to emerge every few years, used to be a minority interest. For the next decade, at least, you can expect each new outbreak to trigger paroxysms of precaution.
人和动物（关系）的亲近酝酿着产生新的人类疾病。这等人畜共患病，往往每隔几年就会出现一次，而在过去这仅引起少数人的兴趣。至少在接下来的十年里，你可以预料爆发新疫情会出现突发的预防措施。
Legacy of a pandemic: The new normal
【5】covid has also helped bring about today’s unpredictable world indirectly, by accelerating change that was incipient. The pandemic has shown how industries can be suddenly upended by technological shifts.
新冠肺炎加速了刚刚开始的变化，也间接引发了世界的变化莫测。大流行病表明，技术变革会如何骤然颠覆行业。
Legacy of a pandemic: The new normal
Remote shopping, working from home and the Zoom boom were once the future. In the time of covid they rapidly became as much of a chore as picking up the groceries or the daily commute.
远程购物、在家工作和Zoom（视频会议软件）热潮曾是当初的未来（发展）趋势，而在新冠疫情期间，这些事情很快就变成了苦差事，就像买杂货或每日通勤上班一样。
Legacy of a pandemic: The new normal
【6】Big technological shifts are nothing new. But instead of taking centuries or decades to spread around the world, as did the printing press and telegraph, new technologies become routine in a matter of years. Just 15 years ago, modern smartphones did not exist. Today more than half of the people on the planet carry one. Any boss who thinks their industry is immune to such wild dynamism is unlikely to last long.
重大技术变革并不是什么新鲜事。只不过新技术并没有像印刷术和电报那样花了几百年或几十年才在世界各地传播开来，而是在几年之内就成为习以为常的事。就在十五年前，还没有出现时髦的智能手机，而现在，地球上超过一半的人都带着一部智能手机。任何老板，只要他/她认为自己的行业不受这等野生活力的影响，就不可能维持许久。
Legacy of a pandemic: The new normal
【7】The pandemic may also have ended the era of low global inflation that began in the 1990s and was ingrained by economic weakness after the financial crisis of 2007-09. Having failed to achieve a quick recovery then, governments spent nearly $11trn trying to ensure that the harm caused by the virus was transient.
这场（新冠）大流行病也可能终结了始于上世纪90年代的全球低通胀时代，而2007-2009年金融危机后的经济疲软更使低通胀根深蒂固。由于当时未能迅速恢复（经济），各国政府花费了近11万亿美元尽力确保（新冠）病毒造成的损害是暂时性的。
Legacy of a pandemic: The new normal
【8】They broadly succeeded, but fiscal stimulus and bunged-up supply chains have raised global inflation above 5%. The apparent potency of deficit spending will change how recessions are fought.
政府这样做大体上是成功的，但财政刺激和阻塞的供应链让全球通胀率超过了5%。赤字支出效果明显，它会改变对抗衰退的方式。
Legacy of a pandemic: The new normal
As they raise interest rates to deal with inflation, central banks may find themselves in conflict with indebted governments. Amid a burst of innovation around cryptocoins, central-bank digital currencies and fintech, many outcomes are possible. A return to the comfortable macroeconomic orthodoxies of the 1990s is one of the least likely.
随着央行提高利率以应对通胀，央行可能会发现自己与负债累累的政府有冲突。而围绕着加密货币、央行数字货币及金融科技等创新（事物）的爆发，可能会产生很多后果。但回归上世纪90年代宽松的宏观经济正统观念是最不可能（发生）的事情。
Legacy of a pandemic: The new normal
【9】In the case of climate change, the pandemic has served as an emblem of interdependence. Despite the best efforts to contain them, virus particles cross frontiers almost as easily as molecules of methane and carbon dioxide. Scientists from around the world showed how vaccines and medicines can save hundreds of millions of lives.
就气候变化而言，（新冠）流行病已成为（人与自然）互相依存的象征。尽管人们已尽了最大努力来控制病毒，但病毒粒子跨越边界（发生变异）几乎和甲烷及二氧化碳微粒（变异）一样容易。世界各地的科学家展示了疫苗和药物如何拯救数亿人的生命。
Legacy of a pandemic: The new normal
However, hesitancy and the failure to share doses frustrated their plans. Likewise, in a world that is grappling with global warming, countries that have everything to gain from working together continually fall short.
但是犹豫不决和分享（药物）失利让他们的计划受挫。同样，身处一个正在与全球变暖斗争的世界，那些能从合作中获得一切的国家却持续拖后腿。
Legacy of a pandemic: The new normal
Even under the most optimistic scenarios, the accumulation of long-lasting greenhouse gases in the atmosphere means that extreme and unprecedented weather of the kind seen during 2021 is here to stay.
即时是在最乐观的情况下，大气中长期积累的温室气体也意味着2021年出现的那种前所未有的极端天气会持续下去。
Legacy of a pandemic: The new normal
【10】The desire to return to a more stable, predictable world may help explain a 1990s revival. You can understand the appeal of going back to a decade in which superpower competition had abruptly ended, liberal democracy was triumphant, suits were oversized, work ended when people left the office, and the internet was not yet disrupting cosy, established industries or stoking the outrage machine that has supplanted public discourse.
（人们）渴望回到一个更稳定、更可预测的世界，这或许有助于解释上个世纪90年代的（经济）复苏。你能理解的（回到过去的）吸引力就是回到十年前，超级大国间的竞争突然结束，自由民主大获全胜，西装是超大号的，人们离开办公室时工作就结束了，且互联网还没有扰乱那些舒适而成熟的行业，也没有煽动人愤怒的电脑，要知道，电脑早已取代了公共话语。
Legacy of a pandemic: The new normal
【11】That desire is too nostalgic. It is worth notching up some of the benefits that come with today’s predictable unpredictability. Many people like to work from home. Remote services can be cheaper and more accessible. The rapid dissemination of technology could bring unimagined advances in medicine and the mitigation of global warming.
这种渴望太引人怀旧了。值得一提的是，今天可预测的不可预测性也带来一些好处。不少人喜欢在家工作，而远程服务成本更低，操作更可行。技术的迅速传播可能会在医学和放缓全球变暖方面带来难以想象的进步。
Legacy of a pandemic: The new normal
【12】Even so, beneath it lies the unsettling idea that once a system has crossed some threshold, every nudge tends to shift it further from the old equilibrium.
即便如此，（技术传播）的背后隐藏着一种令人不安的观点，即一旦一个体系跨越了某个门槛，每次轻微的推动都会令这个体系进一步偏离旧平衡。
Legacy of a pandemic: The new normal
Many of the institutions and attitudes that brought stability in the old world look ill-suited to the new. The pandemic is like a doorway. Once you pass through, there is no going back.
许多曾为旧世界带来的稳定体系和看法看起来并不适合新世界。（新冠）流行病就像一扇门，一旦你穿过了它，就没有回头路了。
