2001 Text 2 （英语一）我们能否结束世界贫困？

Text 2

短文 2

A great deal of attention is being paid today to the so-called digital divide - the division of the world into the info (information) rich and the info poor.

今天，人们十分关注所谓的是信息差异问题 — 世界上信息资源丰富的地区和信息资源贫乏的地区之间的差异。

And that divide does exist today.

这个差异确实存在。

My wife and I lectured about this looming danger twenty years ago.

我和我妻子 20年前就曾谈及这个临近的危险。

What was less visible then, however, were the new, positive forces that work against the digital divide.

然而，一些新的抵制数字分化的积极因素在当时并不如现在这样明显。

There are reasons to be optimistic.

实际上我们是完全有理由感到乐观的。

There are technological reasons to hope the digital divide will narrow.

一些技术上的因素使我们有理由期望差异会缩小。

As the Internet becomes more and more commercialized, it is in the interest of business to universalize access, after all, the more people online, the more potential customers there are.

随着互联网的日趋商业化，上网普及对商家是有利的，毕竟，上网人数越多，潜在的客户就越多。

More and more governments, afraid their countries will be left behind, want to spread Internet access.

越来越多的政府，惟恐自己的国家落后，纷纷推广互联网的普及。

Within the next decade or two, one to two billion people on the planet will be netted together.

一二十年之内，全球将有一二十亿人互联。

As a result, I now believe the digital divide will narrow rather than widen in the years ahead.

因此，我认为在未来的数年中，信息差异将缩小而不会变大。

And that is very good news because the Internet may well be the most powerful tool for combating world poverty that we've ever had.

那是好消息，因为互联网很可能成为我们消除所面临的贫困的最强有效的工具。

Of course, the use of the Internet isn't the only way to defeat poverty.

当然，使用互联网不是惟一消灭贫困的方法。

And the Internet is not the only tool we have. But it has enormous potential.

互联网也不是我们所拥有的惟一工具，但它却有巨大的潜力。

To take advantage of this tool, some impoverished countries will have to get over their outdated anti-colonial prejudices with respect to foreign investment.

要想利用互联网，某些贫困国家必须克服对国外投资所持的过时了的反殖民的种种偏见。

Countries that still think foreign investment is an invasion of their sovereignty might well study the history of infrastructure (the basic structural foundations of a society) in the United States.

那些认为外国投资是对本国主权的侵犯的国家最好还是研究一下美国的基础设施（社会的基本结构基础）建设历史。

When the United States built its industrial infrastructure, it didn't have the capital to do so.

当初美国建设自己的工业基础设施时，缺乏必要的资金。

And that is why America's Second Wave infrastructure including roads, harbors, highways, ports and so on were built with foreign investment.

因此美国的第二次浪潮基础设施，包括公路、港口，高速公路、港口城市等等，都是用国外资金建造的。

The English, the Germans, the Dutch and the French were investing in Britain's former colony.

英国人、德国人、荷兰人和法国人都在前英国殖民地投资。

They financed them. Immigrant Americans built them.

他们提供资金，美洲移民建造。

Guess who owns them now? The Americans.

想想看，现在谁拥有这一切？美国人。

I believe the same thing would be true in places like Brazil or anywhere else for that matter.

我想，在这件事上，像巴西或其他任何地方同样也该这样。

The more foreign capital you have helping you build your Third Wave infrastructure, which today is an electronic infrastructure, the better off you're going to be.

你拥有的去建造第三次浪潮基础设施（今天主要指电子基础设施）的外国资金越多，那么你的情况就越好。

That doesn't mean lying down and becoming fooled, or letting foreign companies run uncontrolled.

这并不是说卑躬屈膝，任人愚弄，也不是对外国公司不加控制。

But it does mean recognizing how important they can be in building the energy and telecom infrastructures needed to take full advantage of the Internet.

但这的确意味着你已认识到外国公司对本国能源及通信基础设施建设的重要性，这些基础设施是充分利用互联网所必要的。