第一部分：追求目标
English: I don't mind if my legacy is accurate or inaccurate, as long as I die feeling I've done the right thing for the future of Consciousness.
中文： 我不在意我的遗产是准确还是不准确，只要我死时觉得我为意识的未来做了正确的事情。
LIVING A PURPOSEFUL LIFE
过有目标的生活
English: You can choose to be not ordinary. You can choose not to conform to the conventions taught by your parents. It's possible for ordinary people to choose to be extraordinary.
中文： 你可以选择变得不平凡。你可以选择不遵从父母教给你的惯例。普通人也可以选择变得非凡。
Be Useful
要有用
English: Don't aspire to glory; aspire to work.
中文： 不要渴望荣耀；渴望工作。
English: The measure of success in my life is: "How many useful things can I get done?"
中文： 我衡量成功的标准是："我能完成多少有用的事情？"
English: On a day-to-day basis, I wake up in the morning and ask, "How can I be useful today?"
中文： 每天早晨醒来，我都会问："今天我能如何有用？"
English: I want to maximize my utility. It's difficult to be useful at scale.
中文： 我想最大化我的效用。大规模地有用是困难的。
English: I can't always get it right, but I aspire to make our future good.
中文： 我不能总是做对，但我致力于让我们的未来变得美好。
English: Sometimes I make mistakes. But, I try to take the set of actions most likely to improve the probability that the future will be good.
中文： 有时我会犯错。但我尽量采取最有可能提高未来变好概率的行动。
English: Try to be useful. Do useful things for your fellow human beings and the world. It's hard to be useful, to contribute more than you consume. Can you have a positive net contribution to society? Aim for that.
中文： 努力变得有用。为你的同胞和世界做有用的事情。有用很难，要贡献多于消耗。你能对社会有积极的净贡献吗？以此为目标。
English: I have a lot of respect for someone who puts in an honest day's work to do useful things. I admire anyone making a positive contribution to humanity. Whether that is in farming, technology, entertainment, or whatever else. To anyone useful to the rest of humanity: I admire you greatly.
中文： 我非常尊重那些诚实工作一天、做有用事情的人。我钦佩任何为人类做出积极贡献的人。无论是在农业、技术、娱乐还是其他方面。对于任何对其他人有用的人：我非常钦佩你。
English: Q: How do you know if you're helping?
中文： 问：你如何知道你是否在帮助？
English: I think about it mathematically. How many people you helped, multiplied by how much help you provided each person, on average. How many people you helped, and how much—that's the total utility (usefulness). It's almost like the physics definition of true work. If you aspire to do true work, your probability of success is much higher.
中文： 我从数学角度思考这个问题。你帮助了多少人，乘以你平均给每个人提供了多少帮助。你帮助了多少人，以及帮助了多少——这就是总效用（有用性）。这几乎就像物理学中真正功的定义。如果你致力于做真正的工作，你成功的概率会高得多。
English: For any product you're trying to create, ask yourself the utility improvement compared to the current state of the art, multiplied by how many people it would affect.
中文： 对于任何你试图创造的产品，问问自己与当前技术水平相比的效用改进，乘以它会影响多少人。
English: Building something that makes a big difference to a small number of people is just as great as something that makes a small difference for a vast number of people. Mathematically, the total positive impact would be roughly similar for those two things. It's about trying to be useful.
中文： 创造对少数人产生重大影响的东西，与对大量的人产生小幅影响的东西一样伟大。从数学上讲，这两者的总积极影响大致相似。关键是努力变得有用。
English: This is the mathematical first principles perspective—utility and numbers. Is some simple app really making people's lives better? If it's affecting a lot of people positively, even in a small way, then yes, that is good.
中文： 这是数学的第一性原理视角——效用和数字。某个简单的应用真的让人们的生活更好了吗？如果它在积极地影响很多人，即使是小幅度的，那么是的，这是好的。
English: Not every product needs to change the world. Many people do lots of useful things. Just ask yourself, is what I'm doing as useful as it could be? The goal of an organization should be usefulness to society. Not every product will change the world, but if it's making people's lives better, that's great.
中文： 不是每个产品都需要改变世界。许多人做了很多有用的事情。只要问问自己，我正在做的事情是否尽可能有用？一个组织的目标应该是对社会有用。不是每个产品都会改变世界，但如果它让人们的生活更好，那就很好。
English: This is the same advice I give to my own children: "Follow your heart in terms of what you find interesting or fulfilling to do."
中文： 这也是我给自己孩子的建议："追随你的内心，做你觉得有趣或有成就感的事情。"
English: I hope they will work extremely hard and become productive contributors to society. I'm also hopeful they will do things like engineering, writing books, or just in some way, adding more than they take from the world.
中文： 我希望他们能非常努力地工作，成为社会富有成效的贡献者。我也希望他们能做一些像工程、写书这样的事情，或者以某种方式，贡献多于他们从世界中索取的。
English: A useful life is worth having lived.
中文： 有用的一生值得活过。
Fight for the Future
为未来而战
English: Fight for the things that make you excited about the future. The future will not get here fast enough unless we force it.
中文： 为那些让你对未来感到兴奋的事情而战。除非我们推动它，否则未来不会足够快地到来。
English: I want to make sure there is a good future for humanity. We're on a path to understanding the nature of the universe, the meaning of life. Why are we here; how did we get here?
中文： 我想确保人类有一个美好的未来。我们正走在理解宇宙本质、生命意义的道路上。我们为什么在这里；我们是如何来到这里的？
English: I came to the conclusion that if we can advance the knowledge of the world—if we can do things that expand the scope and scale of consciousness—then we're better able to ask the right questions and become more enlightened. That's the only way forward.
中文： 我得出的结论是，如果我们能推进世界的知识——如果我们能做那些扩展意识范围和规模的事情——那么我们就能更好地提出正确的问题并变得更有智慧。这是唯一的前进道路。
English: I use scale and scope because we benefit from more consciousness and more variety in consciousness. If everyone is thinking about exactly the same things the same way, that may not create new knowledge. I'm motivated by curiosity more than anything.
中文： 我使用规模和范围是因为我们从更多的意识和意识的多样性中受益。如果每个人都在以完全相同的方式思考完全相同的事情，那可能不会创造新知识。我的动机更多是好奇心。
English: I almost had an existential crisis trying to figure out "What does it all mean? What's the purpose of things?"
中文： 我差点陷入存在主义危机，试图弄清楚"这一切意味着什么？事物的目的是什么？"
English: In college, I would wonder about the future and what areas were really going to have an important impact on the future of humanity as a whole. This wasn't for a paper, just what I thought about in the shower. I came up with five areas.
中文： 在大学时，我会思考未来以及哪些领域真的会对整个人类的未来产生重要影响。这不是为了写论文，只是我在洗澡时思考的事情。我想出了五个领域。
English: The three areas I thought would have the biggest positive impact on the future of humanity were the internet, the transition to sustainable energy, and space exploration—in particular the extension of life to multiple planets.
中文： 我认为会对人类未来产生最大积极影响的三个领域是互联网、向可持续能源的过渡，以及太空探索——特别是将生命扩展到多个星球。
English: The other two, artificial intelligence and rewriting genetics, were a little more uncertain in terms of net benefit. They could be a double-edged sword, and we're not sure which edge is the worst.
中文： 另外两个，人工智能和重写遗传学，在净收益方面更不确定一些。它们可能是双刃剑，我们不确定哪一边更糟糕。
English: I didn't ever expect to be involved in space exploration and expansion, but it seemed important to me even then. Eventually, with the capital from selling PayPal, I was able to work on all three.
中文： 我从未想过会参与太空探索和扩张，但即使在那时它也对我很重要。最终，凭借出售 PayPal 获得的资金，我能够在这三个领域都开展工作。
English: Q: What would you say is your most core skill?
中文： 问：你会说你最核心的技能是什么？
English: I don't worship anything, but I devote myself to the advancement of humanity using technology.
中文： 我不崇拜任何东西，但我致力于用技术推动人类进步。
English: My core personal competence is technology. If something has to be designed or invented and you must ensure the value of the thing you create is greater than the cost of the inputs—that's my core skill.
中文： 我的核心个人能力是技术。如果某样东西必须被设计或发明，并且你必须确保你创造的东西的价值大于投入的成本——那就是我的核心技能。
English: I look at the future from the standpoint of probabilities. It's a branching stream of probabilities, and actions we can take now affect those probabilities: Accelerate something, slow down another thing, or maybe introduce something new.
中文： 我从概率的角度看待未来。它是一条分叉的概率流，我们现在可以采取的行动会影响这些概率：加速某件事，减缓另一件事，或者引入一些新东西。
English: You have to ask, What are we doing to move toward the paths likely to make for a good future? That is what I care about.
中文： 你必须问，我们正在做什么来走向可能创造美好未来的道路？这才是我关心的。
English: We're all projecting out to the future in some way, and if you think we're going to end up in some terrible situation, that's depressing.
中文： 我们都在以某种方式投射到未来，如果你认为我们最终会陷入某种可怕的境地，那是令人沮丧的。
English: I'm interested in affecting the future in positive ways. I want to build wondrous new technologies where you feel awe when you see it: "How does that even happen? How is that possible?"
中文： 我有兴趣以积极的方式影响未来。我想建造奇妙新技术，让你看到时感到敬畏："这怎么可能发生？这怎么可能？"
English: I'm not trying to be some sort of savior; that's not my goal. The importance of these things just seems obvious to me. If it seems like the obvious thing to do, I'm not sure why you would do anything else. We want to maximize the happiness of our population, propagate into the future as far as possible, and understand the nature of reality. Everything else follows from that.
中文： 我不是试图成为某种救世主；那不是我的目标。这些事情的重要性对我来说只是显而易见的。如果看起来是显而易见该做的事，我不确定你为什么会做其他事。我们想最大化人民的幸福，尽可能远地传播到未来，并理解现实的本质。其他一切都由此而来。
English: Remember the future.
中文： 记住未来。
Obsess for Success
痴迷于成功
English: Doing something I enjoy, which is useful for other people—that gives me satisfaction.
中文： 做我喜欢的事情，同时对其他人有用——这给了我满足感。
English: I didn't aspire to create companies as a kid. I just liked computers. Don't start a company because you want to be an entrepreneur or because you want to make money. It is better to approach from this angle: What is a useful thing you could build that you wish existed in the world?
中文： 我小时候并没有渴望创建公司。我只是喜欢电脑。不要因为你想要成为创业者或想要赚钱而创办公司。更好的角度是：你能建造什么有用的东西，是你希望世界上存在的？
English: I do not start companies from the standpoint of asking, "What's the best risk-adjusted rate of return?" or what I think could be successful. I just find things that need to happen, and try to make them happen. I thought these things needed to get done. If the money was lost, okay. It was still worth trying.
中文： 我创办公司不是从问"什么是最好的风险调整后回报率？"或我认为什么会成功的角度。我只是找到需要发生的事情，并试图让它们发生。我认为这些事情需要完成。如果钱损失了，好吧。仍然值得尝试。
English: Try to find an overlap of your talents and what you're interested in. You may have skill in something but don't like doing it. Try to find work that is a good combination of things you are inherently good at but also like doing.
中文： 努力找到你的天赋和你感兴趣的事情的重叠。你可能擅长某件事但不喜欢做。努力找到一份工作，是你天生擅长但也喜欢做的事情的良好结合。
English: Then, try to get other people to work with you to create that thing. Keep making it better and better. If you create something useful, money will be the result. That's the way a properly working economy rewards the creation of useful goods and services.
中文： 然后，努力让其他人和你一起创造那个东西。不断让它变得更好。如果你创造了一些有用的东西，金钱会是结果。这就是正常运行的经济奖励有用商品和服务创造的方式。
English: Successful entrepreneurs come in all sizes, shapes, and flavors. I'm not sure there's any one particular trait that makes them. However, if there is one to focus on, it would be to have an obsessive nature about the quality of the product. In this context, being obsessive-compulsive is a good thing.
中文： 成功的创业者有各种规模、形状和风格。我不确定是否有任何一个特定特质造就他们。然而，如果有一个要关注的，那就是对产品质量有痴迷的天性。在这种情况下，强迫症是好事。
English: Given that, really really, really liking what you do is a big advantage. It's important to like whatever you're doing. Life is too short to spend it doing something you don't like.
中文： 鉴于此，非常非常非常喜欢你所做的事情是一个巨大的优势。喜欢你所做的任何事情很重要。生命太短，不要把它花在做你不喜欢的事情上。
English: If you like what you're doing, you think about it even when you're not working. It's something your mind is drawn to. If you don't like it, it's much harder to make yourself work.
中文： 如果你喜欢你所做的事情，即使你不工作时也会思考它。这是你的思想被吸引的东西。如果你不喜欢，让自己工作就困难得多。
English: If you're creating something you love and think other people will love, it's much easier to sacrifice the time and effort. If it doesn't work out, you won't regret it.
中文： 如果你在创造一些你热爱且认为其他人也会热爱的东西，牺牲时间和精力就容易得多。如果行不通，你不会后悔。
English: My way of dealing with mental problems is to make sure you really care about what you're doing—and take the pain.
中文： 我处理心理问题的方式是确保你真的关心你正在做的事情——并接受痛苦。
Start Before the World Is Ready
在世界准备好之前开始
English: We say the things we believe, even when sometimes those things we believe are delusional.
中文： 我们说出我们相信的事情，即使有时我们相信的事情是妄想的。
English: When you're building a radically new product, people don't know they want it yet, because it's just not in their scope. Around 1946–1948, when they first started making TVs, they did a famous nationwide survey: "Will you ever buy a TV?" and around 96 percent of respondents said, "No."
中文： 当你建造一个全新的产品时，人们还不知道他们想要它，因为它根本不在他们的范围内。大约在 1946-1948 年，当他们开始制造电视时，他们做了一项著名的全国调查："你会买电视吗？"大约 96% 的受访者说："不。"
English: In the beginning of Tesla, no one told us they wanted an electric car…I heard that zero times. If you need encouragement, don't start a company.
中文： 在特斯拉初期，没有人告诉我们他们想要电动车……我听到过零次。如果你需要鼓励，不要创办公司。
English: Getting people to believe in you and what you're doing is important. In the beginning, very few people will believe in you or what you're doing. Over time, as you make progress, evidence will build. More and more people will start to believe.
中文： 让人们相信你和你在做的事情很重要。开始时，很少有人会相信你或你在做的事情。随着时间的推移，当你取得进展时，证据会积累。越来越多的人会开始相信。
Create More than You Consume
创造多于消耗
English: Examine your beliefs of the economy.
中文： 审视你对经济的信念。
English: The economy is a positive-sum game, a "grow the pie" situation. Those who assume the economy is zero-sum believe the only way to get ahead is by taking things from another.
中文： 经济是正和游戏，是"做大蛋糕"的情况。那些认为经济是零和的人相信，领先的唯一方法是从别人那里拿走东西。
English: But obviously the economy today is much, much greater than it was in the past. The economic output per person is massively greater than the past. Obviously the pie has grown, and grown much faster than the population has grown.
中文： 但显然今天的经济比过去大得多。人均经济产出比过去大得多。显然蛋糕已经长大了，而且增长速度比人口增长快得多。
English: I put a lot of stock in having a grow-the-pie mindset, not a zero-sum mindset.
中文： 我非常重视做大蛋糕的心态，而不是零和心态。
English: When I see people (even some smart people) with a bad attitude or doing things that seem morally questionable, it's often because they have a zero-sum mindset.
中文： 当我看到人们（甚至一些聪明人）态度恶劣或做看似道德上有问题的事情时，通常是因为他们有零和心态。
English: They don't realize they have a zero-sum mindset, or at least don't realize it consciously. Those who have a zero-sum mindset believe the only way to get ahead is by taking things from others. Those who believe the pie is fixed believe the only way to have more pie is to take someone else's pie. This is obviously false.
中文： 他们没有意识到自己有零和心态，或者至少没有有意识地意识到。那些有零和心态的人相信，领先的唯一方法是从别人那里拿走东西。那些认为蛋糕是固定的人相信，拥有更多蛋糕的唯一方法是拿走别人的蛋糕。这显然是错误的。
English: In reality, there's a lot of pie. The economic pie is not fixed. It has grown dramatically over time. Make sure you're not operating from a zero-sum mindset, especially without realizing it. It will result in you trying to take things from others, which is not good. It won't benefit you.
中文： 实际上，有很多蛋糕。经济蛋糕不是固定的。它随着时间的推移大幅增长。确保你不是从零和心态出发，尤其是没有意识到的情况下。这会导致你试图从别人那里拿走东西，这不好。这不会对你有益。
English: It's much better to work on adding to the economic pie. Create more than you consume.
中文： 努力增加经济蛋糕要好得多。创造多于你消耗的。
Work like Hell
像地狱一样工作
English: I am wired for war.
中文： 我为战争而生。
English: Q: Why doesn't the world have more Elon Musks? If you think you want to be me or do the things I've done…I would say you're probably mistaken. Long periods of my life have been very painful and difficult. I'm not sure people would want to go through that.
中文： 问：为什么世界上没有更多的埃隆·马斯克？如果你认为你想成为我或做我做过的事情……我会说你可能错了。我生命中很长一段时间非常痛苦和艰难。我不确定人们会想要经历那些。
English: The amount I torture myself is next level. You need to have some kind of rage demon in your skull that drives you.
中文： 我折磨自己的程度是下一个级别的。你需要 skull 里有某种愤怒的恶魔来驱动你。
English: Q: Are you always working? How many days a year do I not put in some meaningful amount of work? Maybe two or three.
中文： 问：你总是在工作吗？我一年中有多少天没有投入一些有意义的工作量？也许两三天。
English: You must be extremely tenacious. Work like hell. You have to put in eighty- to one-hundred-hour weeks every week. This will improve your odds of success.
中文： 你必须极其顽强。像地狱一样工作。你每周必须工作八十到一百小时。这会提高你成功的几率。
English: You need to work. Work hard. Like every waking hour. Particularly if you're starting a company, you need to work super hard. Do the simple math: Somebody else is working fifty hours a week and you're working one hundred. You'll get twice as much done in a year.
中文： 你需要工作。努力工作。就像每个清醒的小时一样。特别是如果你在创办公司，你需要超级努力地工作。算一笔简单的账：别人每周工作五十小时，你工作一百小时。你一年完成的工作量会是他们的两倍。
English: If other people are putting in forty-hour workweeks and you're putting in one hundred, what takes them a year, you will achieve in four months.
中文： 如果别人每周工作四十小时，而你工作一百小时，他们花一年完成的事情，你四个月就能完成。
English: You're not going to create revolutionary cars or rockets in forty hours a week. It just won't work. Colonizing Mars isn't going to happen on forty hours a week.
中文： 你不可能每周工作四十小时就创造出革命性的汽车或火箭。这根本行不通。殖民火星不可能靠每周四十小时实现。
English: Nobody ever changed the world on forty hours a week.
中文： 没有人能靠每周四十小时改变世界。
English: I've done these things because I felt a strong compulsion to do them. I've been burning the candle at both ends with a flamethrower for a very long time.
中文： 我做这些事情是因为我感到强烈的冲动去做它们。很长一段时间以来，我一直用喷火器两头烧蜡烛。
English: From 2007 until 2022 was nonstop pain. There was a gun to my head to make Tesla work. Pull a rabbit out of your hat, then pull another rabbit. A stream of rabbits flying through the air. If the next rabbit does not come out, you're dead. It took a toll.
中文： 从 2007 年到 2022 年是不间断的痛苦。有一把枪指着我的头让特斯拉运转。从帽子里拉出一只兔子，然后再拉出一只。一连串的兔子在空中飞舞。如果下一只兔子不出来，你就死了。这付出了代价。
English: You can't be in a constant fight for survival, always in adrenaline mode, and not have it hurt you. Fighting to survive keeps you going for quite a while.
中文： 你不能一直处于为生存而战的状态，总是处于肾上腺素模式，而不让它伤害你。为生存而战能让你坚持相当一段时间。
English: With that said, I would say this to twenty-something me: I think there's some merit to not being too intense, and enjoying the moment a bit. Occasionally stopping to smell the roses would probably be a good idea.
中文： 话虽如此，我会对二十多岁的我说：我认为不要太紧张，享受一下当下是有一些好处的。偶尔停下来闻闻玫瑰花可能是个好主意。
English: When we were developing the Falcon One rocket on the Kwajalein Atoll, this beautiful little island in the middle of the Pacific, not once during that entire time did I pause and have a drink on the beach. Now, I realize I should have had a drink with the team on the beach…that would have been fine.
中文： 当我们在夸贾林环礁开发猎鹰一号火箭时，那是太平洋中央一个美丽的小岛，在那整个时间里，我没有一次停下来在海滩上喝一杯。现在，我意识到我应该和团队在海滩上喝一杯……那会很好。
English: If heat death will inevitably end the universe, it actually is all about the journey.
中文： 如果热死亡将不可避免地终结宇宙，那么实际上这一切都是关于旅程。
Feel the Fear; Do It Anyway
感受恐惧；无论如何都要去做
English: Look fear straight in the eye and it will disappear. The nature of fear is that people don't look at it. Look at it directly and it will be gone.
中文： 直视恐惧，它就会消失。恐惧的本质是人们不看它。直接看着它，它就会消失。
English: Q: How do you think about making a decision when everyone tells you it is a crazy idea?
中文： 问：当每个人都告诉你这是一个疯狂的想法时，你如何考虑做决定？
English: First of all, I feel fear. It's not as though I have the absence of fear. I feel it quite strongly. But when something is important enough and you believe in it enough, you do it in spite of fear.
中文： 首先，我感到恐惧。并不是说我没有恐惧。我强烈地感受到它。但当某件事足够重要，你足够相信它时，你会不顾恐惧去做。
English: You shouldn't think, "I feel fear about this and therefore I shouldn't do it." It's normal to feel fear. If you don't feel fear, you definitely have something mentally wrong. Just feel it and let the importance of your mission drive you to do it anyway.
中文： 你不应该想，"我对这件事感到恐惧，所以我不应该做它。"感到恐惧是正常的。如果你不感到恐惧，你肯定有心理问题。只需感受它，让你使命的重要性驱动你无论如何去做。
English: I also think fatalism is helpful to some degree. If you accept the true probabilities, it diminishes fear. When starting SpaceX, I thought the odds of success were less than 10 percent and I accepted I would probably lose everything. But maybe we would make some progress. If we could just move the ball forward—even if we died—maybe some other company could pick it up and keep moving and our work would still have done good.
中文： 我也认为宿命论在某种程度上是有帮助的。如果你接受真实的概率，它会减少恐惧。创办 SpaceX 时，我认为成功的几率不到 10%，我接受了我可能会失去一切。但也许我们会取得一些进展。如果我们能推动事情前进——即使我们死了——也许其他公司可以接手并继续前进，我们的工作仍然会有好处。
English: We should not be afraid of doing something just because some amount of tragedy is likely to occur. If our forefathers had taken that approach, the United States wouldn't exist.
中文： 我们不应该因为可能会发生某种悲剧而害怕做某事。如果我们的祖先采取那种方法，美国就不会存在。
English: Q: How do you persevere through these hard challenges? Where do you find the strength?
中文： 问：你如何坚持度过这些艰难挑战？你从哪里找到力量？
English: That's not how I think. I think: "This is simply something important. It must get done. We will keep doing it or die trying." I don't need a source of strength for that. Quitting is not in my nature. I don't care about optimism or pessimism. Fuck that. We're going to get it done.
中文： 我不是那样想的。我想："这只是一件重要的事情。它必须完成。我们会继续做它，或者死在尝试中。"我不需要力量来源。放弃不是我的天性。我不在乎乐观还是悲观。去他的。我们会完成它。
English: I definitely emboldened over time.
中文： 我肯定随着时间的推移变得更加大胆。
Seek the Nature of the Universe
探索宇宙的本质
English: I don't know the meaning of life. I don't think we can answer that question well…yet.
中文： 我不知道生命的意义。我认为我们还不能很好地回答这个问题……还不能。
English: We must expand humanity and consciousness to the point where we are able to answer that question.
中文： 我们必须扩展人类和意识，直到我们能够回答那个问题。
English: It may be uncomfortable for a lot of people, but I think this is a rational and logical philosophy. Basically saying, "We don't know what the answer is, but let's try to find out."
中文： 这可能让很多人不舒服，但我认为这是一个理性和逻辑的哲学。基本上是说，"我们不知道答案是什么，但让我们试着找出来。"
English: I think we as humans collectively know part of the answer, but only a tiny part at this point. If we can make civilization last for a million years, we will probably know much more of the answer.
中文： 我认为我们人类集体知道部分答案，但目前只是一小部分。如果我们能让文明持续一百万年，我们可能会知道更多的答案。
English: If we date civilization from the first written language, it was about five thousand years ago. This is practically no time at all. If civilization were to last a million more years, we're barely even at the beginning. Future humans will think of us as ancient ancients, like cavemen.
中文： 如果我们从第一种书面语言开始计算文明，那大约是五千年前。这实际上根本不算时间。如果文明再持续一百万年，我们甚至才刚刚开始。未来的人类会把我们视为古代的古人，就像穴居人一样。
English: This is the foundation of my philosophy: I am curious about the nature of the universe.
中文： 这是我哲学的基础：我对宇宙的本质感到好奇。
English: We can see the archaeological evidence in the fossil record, based on what we know of physics, how we came to be at this point on Earth step by step. But that doesn't explain how the universe came to exist in the first place.
中文： 我们可以看到化石记录中的考古证据，基于我们对物理学的了解，我们如何一步步来到地球上的这个点。但这并不能解释宇宙最初是如何存在的。
English: How do a bunch of molecules develop consciousness and feelings? From a physics standpoint, the chain of events from the beginning of the universe to now is quite well understood. There was a bunch of hydrogen gas that turned into complex molecules and now an assemblage of complex molecules—us humans who can feel, talk, and think. Apparently if you leave enough hydrogen gas sitting around long enough, it starts talking to itself. That's basically what happened here.
中文： 一堆分子如何发展出意识和感觉？从物理学的角度来看，从宇宙开始到现在的事件链是相当清楚的。有一堆氢气变成了复杂的分子，现在是一堆复杂分子的集合——我们人类，能够感觉、说话和思考。显然，如果你让足够的氢气放置足够长的时间，它开始和自己说话。这基本上就是这里发生的事情。
English: Assuming you believe the physics, which appear to be true, the universe started off as quarks and electrons and quickly became hydrogen, helium, lithium, most of the periodic table. Mostly hydrogen, though. Then, over a long period of time—13.8 billion years—that hydrogen became sentient.
中文： 假设你相信物理学，它看起来是真实的，宇宙从夸克和电子开始，迅速变成氢、氦、锂，以及元素周期表的大部分。不过主要是氢。然后，经过很长一段时间——138 亿年——那些氢变成了有知觉的。
English: Where along the path from a bunch of hydrogen to human beings did consciousness start? It's crazy. I wonder, is everything conscious or is nothing conscious? Maybe it's just degrees of consciousness or concentrations of consciousness.
中文： 从一堆氢到人类的道路上，意识是从哪里开始的？这很疯狂。我想知道，是一切都有意识还是没有东西有意识？也许这只是意识的程度或意识的浓度。
English: Total collective consciousness is how many people there are times the average amount of consciousness per person. If we can expand consciousness by creating more humans and more digital intelligence, then our opportunity to understand the meaning of life is that much greater. I would call this the philosophy of curiosity—to better understand the nature of reality.
中文： 总集体意识是人数乘以每个人的平均意识量。如果我们能通过创造更多人类和更多数字智能来扩展意识，那么我们理解生命意义的机会就更大。我称之为好奇心的哲学——更好地理解现实的本质。
English: What I think Douglas Adams was saying in his book The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy is "The universe is the answer." We need to figure out what questions to ask about the answer that is the universe. The question is the hard part, and if we can properly frame the question then the answer, relatively speaking, is easy.
中文： 我认为道格拉斯·亚当斯在他的书《银河系漫游指南》中说的是"宇宙是答案"。我们需要弄清楚要问关于宇宙这个答案的什么问题。问题是困难的部分，如果我们能正确地构建问题，那么答案相对而言就简单了。
English: We need to expand the scope and scale of consciousness in order to understand what questions to ask of the universe. This is the path forward. If we do, we will be better able to understand the nature of the universe and understand the meaning of life. As just one example, we have to get back to the moon and build a science base there. I think we could learn a lot about the nature of the universe.
中文： 我们需要扩展意识的范围和规模，以便理解要向宇宙问什么问题。这是前进的道路。如果我们这样做，我们将能够更好地理解宇宙的本质并理解生命的意义。仅举一个例子，我们必须回到月球并在那里建立一个科学基地。我认为我们可以学到很多关于宇宙本质的知识。
THINK LIKE A PHYSICIST
像物理学家一样思考
English: I try to be hyperrational. If the reasoning fits, and you're not violating the laws of physics, that's the thing you should try to do. These things just don't seem that crazy to me.
中文： 我试图超级理性。如果推理合理，而且你没有违反物理定律，那就是你应该尝试做的事情。这些事情对我来说似乎没那么疯狂。
Obsess over Truth
痴迷于真理
English: Start somewhere. Then be prepared to question your assumptions, fix what you did wrong, and adapt to reality.
中文： 从某个地方开始。然后准备好质疑你的假设，修正你做错的事情，并适应现实。
English: I am obsessed with truth. Obsessed. If you're going to come up with a good solution, the truth is really, really important.
中文： 我痴迷于真理。痴迷。如果你要提出一个好的解决方案，真理真的非常重要。
English: This obsession with truth is why I studied physics, because physics attempts to understand the truth of the universe. Physics is about finding the provable truths of the universe, and finding truths that have predictive power.
中文： 这种对真理的痴迷是我学习物理学的原因，因为物理学试图理解宇宙的真理。物理学是关于发现宇宙可证明的真理，以及发现具有预测能力的真理。
English: Physics is law. Everything else is a recommendation. I've met many people who can break the laws of man, but I have never met anyone who could break the laws of physics.
中文： 物理是定律。其他一切都是建议。我见过很多能打破人为法律的人，但我从未见过任何能打破物理定律的人。
English: For me, physics was a natural thing to study. It was intrinsically interesting to understand the nature of the universe. I also studied computer science and information theory to understand logic. (Information theory studies the transmission, processing, extraction, and use of information.) There's an argument that information theory is actually operating at a more fundamental level than physics.
中文： 对我来说，物理学是自然要学习的东西。理解宇宙的本质本身就很有趣。我还学习了计算机科学和信息论来理解逻辑。（信息论研究信息的传输、处理、提取和使用。）有一种观点认为，信息论实际上在比物理学更基础的层面上运作。
English: Truth matters to me a lot. Pathologically, it matters to me.
中文： 真理对我来说非常重要。病态地重要。
English: No matter how smart you are, you will make some number of mistakes. Everyone makes mistakes. It's just a question of how many and how often.
中文： 无论你多么聪明，你都会犯一些错误。每个人都会犯错。这只是多少和多频繁的问题。
English: In business and personal life, wishful thinking causes a lot of mistakes. You have to ask whether something is true or not. If something ever feels too easy or doesn't quite make sense…it is probably wishful thinking.
中文： 在商业和个人生活中，一厢情愿的想法会导致很多错误。你必须问某件事是否真实。如果某件事感觉太容易或不太合理……它可能是一厢情愿的想法。
English: Wishful thinking is a natural human tendency. It's a challenge to tell the difference between believing in a new idea and persevering or pursuing an unrealistic dream. You need to be rigorous in your self-analysis. Focus on something you're confident will have high value to someone else. Be rigorous in making that assessment too.
中文： 一厢情愿是人类的天性。区分相信一个新想法并坚持与追求不切实际的梦想是一个挑战。你需要在自我分析中保持严谨。专注于你有信心对他人有高价值的事情。在做出评估时也要保持严谨。
English: The real test of any startup is how well it responds to adversity and adapts. When most things start out they don't make much sense, but as long as you adapt quickly you can make the company work.
中文： 任何初创公司的真正考验是它如何应对逆境并适应。大多数事情开始时都没有太大意义，但只要你快速适应，你就能让公司运转起来。
English: Being tenacious and super focused on the truth is extremely important. Look for feedback from all sources.
中文： 坚韧并超级专注于真理极其重要。从所有来源寻求反馈。
English: If you have beliefs that are incompatible with a rocket getting to orbit, the rocket will not get to orbit. Physics is a harsh judge.
中文： 如果你的信念与火箭进入轨道不相容，火箭就不会进入轨道。物理学是严厉的法官。
English: Do you have the right fundamental axioms, or truths? Are they relevant? Are you making the right conclusions based on those truths? That's the essence of critical thinking, and yet it is amazing how often people fail to do that. Wishful thinking is innate in the human brain. You want things to be the way you wish them to be, so you tend to filter out information you shouldn't.
中文： 你有正确的基本公理或真理吗？它们相关吗？你基于这些真理得出了正确的结论吗？这是批判性思维的本质，然而人们未能做到这一点的情况令人惊讶。一厢情愿在人脑中是天生的。你希望事情按照你希望的方式发展，所以你倾向于过滤掉你不应该过滤的信息。
English: That's why I always assume we're losing, even when it looks like we might win.
中文： 这就是为什么我总是假设我们在输，即使看起来我们可能会赢。
First-Principles Thinking
第一性原理思维
English: Q: Where does first-principles thinking come from?
中文： 问：第一性原理思维来自哪里？
English: When you want to do something new, you have to apply the physics approach. Physicists discover counterintuitive new things, like quantum mechanics. They do that by thinking from "first principles": building their reasoning from the ground up.
中文： 当你想做新的事情时，你必须应用物理学方法。物理学家发现反直觉的新事物，比如量子力学。他们通过从"第一性原理"思考来做到这一点：从头开始构建他们的推理。
English: I would encourage people to use the mental tools of physics and apply them broadly in life. They are the best tools.
中文： 我会鼓励人们使用物理学的思维工具，并在生活中广泛应用它们。它们是最好的工具。
English: The normal way we conduct our lives is reasoning by analogy. That means we do something because it's similar to something else, or what other people are doing.
中文： 我们过生活的正常方式是类比推理。这意味着我们做某件事是因为它与其他事情相似，或者其他人在做的事情。
English: When you think this way, you only get slight iterations. It's easier to reason by analogy rather than from first principles, so that's what we do most of the time. And in most of life, we should reason by analogy. Otherwise, mentally, you wouldn't be able to get through the day. It would be too much thinking.
中文： 当你这样思考时，你只会得到微小的迭代。类比推理比第一性原理推理更容易，所以我们大多数时候都这样做。在大多数生活中，我们应该用类比推理。否则，在精神上，你无法度过一天。那会是太多的思考。
English: But for important things, that kind of thinking is too bound by convention or prior experiences. You will hear, "It's always been done this way," or "Nobody's ever done it." That is a ridiculous way to think.
中文： 但对于重要的事情，这种思考过于受传统或先前经验的束缚。你会听到，"一直都是这样做的，"或"从来没有人做过。"这是一种荒谬的思维方式。
English: Don't just follow the trends. You can avoid following trends by thinking with the physics approach, first principles. It's a powerful, powerful method for life in general.
中文： 不要只是跟随趋势。你可以通过用物理学方法、第一性原理思考来避免跟随趋势。这是一个非常非常强大的生活通用方法。
English: Look at the fundamentals and construct your reasoning from there. Then see if you have a conclusion that works or doesn't work. It might or might not be different from what people have done in the past.
中文： 看看基本原理，并从那里构建你的推理。然后看看你是否有有效或无效的结论。它可能与人们过去所做的相同或不同。
English: Q: How do you apply first-principles thinking?
中文： 问：你如何应用第一性原理思维？
English: Break something down to the most fundamental principles. Start by asking: What am I most confident is true at a foundational level? That sets your axiomatic base. Then you reason up from there. Then you check your conclusions against the axiomatic truths.
中文： 将某事分解到最基本的原理。首先问：在基础层面上我最确信什么是真实的？这设定了你的公理基础。然后你从那里向上推理。然后你用公理真理检查你的结论。
English: For instance, to approach any new technology problem, make sure you're not violating physics with a first-principles analysis. A basic question in physics would be: Am I violating conservation of energy or momentum? If so, it's not going to work. That's just to establish if this idea is possible.
中文： 例如，要处理任何新技术问题，确保你没有用第一性原理分析违反物理学。物理学中的一个基本问题是：我是否违反了能量或动量守恒？如果是，那就行不通。这只是确定这个想法是否可行。
English: It's hard to think this way. It takes a lot of effort. But if you're trying to do something new, it's the best way to think.
中文： 这样思考很难。需要很多努力。但如果你试图做一些新的事情，这是最好的思考方式。
English: Q: How have you applied first-principles thinking to building companies?
中文： 问：你如何将第一性原理思维应用于创建公司？
English: Here's an example from early in building Tesla. People said battery packs were too expensive to make cheap electric cars. They assumed they would always be expensive, because they had been in the past. That's pretty dumb. If you applied that reasoning to everything new, then you would never try anything new. "Oh, nobody wants a car. Horses are great; we're used to them. They can eat grass. There's lots of grass all over the place. There's no gasoline available. So people will never buy gas cars." People did say that, a lot.
中文： 这是特斯拉早期建设的一个例子。人们说电池组太贵了，无法制造便宜的电动车。他们假设它们会一直昂贵，因为过去一直如此。这很愚蠢。如果你将这种推理应用于所有新事物，那么你永远不会尝试任何新事物。"哦，没有人想要汽车。马很好；我们习惯了它们。它们可以吃草。到处都是草。没有汽油可用。所以人们永远不会买汽油车。"人们确实说过这样的话，很多。
English: People assumed batteries for electric vehicles would always cost $600 per kilowatt hour. The first-principles approach to battery costs is this: What are the batteries made of? What are the materials that make up the batteries? What is the market value of those material constituents?
中文： 人们假设电动车电池将一直花费每千瓦时 600 美元。第一性原理的电池成本方法是这样的：电池是由什么制成的？组成电池的材料是什么？这些材料成分的市场价值是多少？
English: It's got cobalt, nickel, aluminum, carbon, some polymers for separation, and a steel can. Okay, what if we bought that amount of material at the London Metal Exchange? What would each of those things cost? Oh, geez, it's only $80 per kilowatt hour. So clearly, we just need to think of clever ways to take those materials and combine them into the shape of a battery cell. That's how I knew it was possible to build batteries much much cheaper than anyone else realized.
中文： 它有钴、镍、铝、碳、一些用于分离的聚合物，以及一个钢罐。好吧，如果我们在伦敦金属交易所购买那么多材料会怎样？那些东西各会花费多少？哦，天哪，每千瓦时只要 80 美元。所以显然，我们只需要想出聪明的方法将这些材料组合成电池单元的形状。这就是我知道可以制造出比别人意识到的便宜得多的电池的方式。
English: Great differences in technology exist in the world, which even hardcore technologists are unaware of. What is simple in one arena is often profound in another.
中文： 世界上存在巨大的技术差异，即使是硬核技术专家也没有意识到。在一个领域简单的东西在另一个领域往往是深奥的。
English: The first-principles approach is a good way to understand what new things are possible. It doesn't mean you'll be successful, but at least you can determine if success is one of the possibilities, and that is important. This is how I decided to start SpaceX.
中文： 第一性原理方法是理解什么新事物是可能的好方法。这并不意味着你会成功，但至少你可以确定成功是否是可能性之一，这很重要。这就是我决定创办 SpaceX 的方式。
English: First-principles thinking built SpaceX. Most people think, "Historically, all rockets have been expensive. Therefore, in the future, all rockets will be expensive." But that's not true.
中文： 第一性原理思维建立了 SpaceX。大多数人认为，"从历史上看，所有火箭都很昂贵。因此，在未来，所有火箭都会很昂贵。"但这不是真的。
English: This is where it's helpful to use the analytical approach again.
中文： 这就是再次使用分析方法有帮助的地方。
English: The way we applied first-principles thinking to rocketry was asking, "What are the materials that go into a rocket?"
中文： 我们将第一性原理思维应用于火箭的方式是问，"火箭是由什么材料制成的？"
English: A rocket is made from aluminum, titanium, copper, and carbon fiber. Break it down further and ask, "How much of each material is used? Now, what is the cost of all these raw components?"
中文： 火箭由铝、钛、铜和碳纤维制成。进一步分解并问，"每种材料用了多少？现在，所有这些原材料的成本是多少？"
English: If you have them stacked on the floor and could wave a magic wand to create the rocket, what would the cost of the rocket be? We imagine the cost of rearranging the atoms was zero.
中文： 如果你把它们堆在地板上，可以挥动魔杖创造火箭，火箭的成本会是多少？我们想象重新排列原子的成本是零。
English: That's going to set the floor of the cost of the rocket. I call this the "magic wand number," the hypothetical best-case scenario. For rockets, that turned out to be a relatively small number, well under 5 percent of the current cost, in some cases closer to 1 or 2 percent. The manufacturing must be very inefficient if the raw material cost is only 1 or 2 percent of the finished product.
中文： 这将设定火箭成本的底线。我称之为"魔杖数字"，假设的最佳情况。对于火箭来说，这是一个相对较小的数字，远低于当前成本的 5%，在某些情况下接近 1% 或 2%。如果原材料成本仅占成品的 1% 或 2%，那么制造一定非常低效。
English: I was able to see a great deal of room for improvement. Now our challenge was to figure out how to get the atoms in the right shape more efficiently.
中文： 我能够看到很大的改进空间。现在我们的挑战是找出如何更有效地将原子塑造成正确的形状。
English: That first-principles thought process around the rocket became general purpose for all parts. I call it "The Idiot Index."
中文： 围绕火箭的第一性原理思维过程变得适用于所有部件。我称之为"白痴指数"。
English: How much more does a finished product cost than the cost of its materials? If a part or product had a high Idiot Index, we could cut the cost with more efficient manufacturing techniques.
中文： 成品的成本比其材料成本高多少？如果一个部件或产品有很高的白痴指数，我们可以用更高效的制造技术来降低成本。
English: A component that costs $1,000 when the aluminum it was made of costs only ten dollars likely has a design that is too complex or an inefficient manufacturing process. If the ratio is high, you're an idiot.
中文： 一个成本 1000 美元的部件，而制造它的铝只花费 10 美元，可能设计过于复杂或制造过程低效。如果比率很高，你就是个白痴。
English: One part of the rocket, the half nozzle jacket, cost $13,000. But it was only made of $200 worth of steel. I expect all my engineers to know all the best and worst parts in their systems as judged by the idiot index at all times.
中文： 火箭的一个部件，半喷嘴夹套，成本 13,000 美元。但它只由价值 200 美元的钢制成。我希望我所有的工程师随时都能通过白痴指数了解他们系统中所有最好和最差的部件。
English: That's what I mean by thinking about things from a first-principles standpoint. If I had analyzed it by analogy and said, "What are all other rocket companies doing? What do their rockets cost? What historically have other rockets cost?" That is reasoning by analogy, but it really doesn't illustrate what the true potential is.
中文： 这就是我从第一性原理角度思考事物的意思。如果我通过类比分析并说，"所有其他火箭公司在做什么？他们的火箭成本是多少？历史上其他火箭的成本是多少？"这是类比推理，但它真的没有说明真正的潜力是什么。
English: The first-principles approach is a good way to figure out counterintuitive solutions. It was a helpful thing to learn.
中文： 第一性原理方法是找出反直觉解决方案的好方法。学习这个很有帮助。
Thinking in Limits
极限思维
English: Another good physics tool is thinking about things "in the limit." Take a particular idea and imagine scaling it to a very large or very small number. How do things change?
中文： 另一个很好的物理学工具是"极限"思考事物。拿一个特定的想法，想象将它放大到非常大或非常小的数字。事情如何变化？
English: The Boring Company is a great example. A common criticism of the idea of tunnels is: The tunnel will get used up and there will still be traffic congestion. They don't realize there's no real limit to how many levels of tunnel you can have. You can go much farther deep underground than you can build up. The deepest mines are much deeper than the tallest buildings are tall.
中文： 无聊公司是一个很好的例子。对隧道想法的一个常见批评是：隧道会被用完，仍然会有交通拥堵。他们没有意识到你可以有多少层隧道是没有真正限制的。你可以向地下挖得比向上建得远得多。最深的矿井比最高的建筑物高得多。
English: Ever notice that cities are built in 3D, but roads are only built in 2D? You could build roads in 3D by building tunnels under cities. You can alleviate any amount of urban congestion with a 3D tunnel network.
中文： 有没有注意到城市是 3D 建造的，但道路只是 2D 建造的？你可以通过在城市下建造隧道来 3D 建造道路。你可以用 3D 隧道网络缓解任何数量的城市拥堵。
English: But, it's difficult and expensive to dig tunnels the way they're currently done. The LA subway extension cost roughly a billion dollars per mile to build.
中文： 但是，按照目前的方式挖掘隧道既困难又昂贵。洛杉矶地铁延伸线每英里建造成本约为 10 亿美元。
English: If you do just two things, you can get approximately an order of magnitude improvement in tunneling. But I think you can even go beyond that.
中文： 如果你只做两件事，你可以在隧道挖掘方面获得大约一个数量级的改进。但我认为你甚至可以超越这一点。
English: We need at least a tenfold improvement in the cost per mile of tunneling. The first thing to do is to cut the tunnel diameter. According to current regulations, a single road-lane tunnel has to be twenty-six to twenty-eight feet in diameter. But if you shrink that diameter to twelve feet, the area goes down by a factor of four. This is a huge improvement, because the cost of tunneling scales with the area. That's almost a half-order of magnitude (4–5x) improvement in cost per mile right there.
中文： 我们需要每英里隧道成本至少提高十倍。首先要做的是减小隧道直径。根据现行规定，单车道隧道的直径必须是 26 到 28 英尺。但如果将直径缩小到 12 英尺，面积会减少四倍。这是一个巨大的改进，因为隧道成本与面积成比例。这几乎是每英里成本半个数量级（4-5 倍）的改进。
English: Currently, tunneling machines work for half the time, then stop. The other half of the time is putting in reinforcements for the tunnel wall. If you design the machine instead to do continuous tunneling and reinforcing, that will give you a factor of two improvement. Combine those and that's a factor of eight.
中文： 目前，隧道机工作一半时间，然后停止。另一半时间是进行隧道壁的加固。如果你设计机器改为连续隧道挖掘和加固，这将给你带来两倍的改进。结合起来就是八倍的改进。
English: These machines are also far from being at their power or thermal limits, so we should jack up the power to the machine. We can get at least another factor of two there, maybe even four or five. Currently, we're not even close to the limits of tunneling technology.
中文： 这些机器也远未达到其功率或热极限，所以我们应该提高机器的功率。我们可以在那里再获得至少两倍的改进，甚至四倍或五倍。目前，我们甚至远未达到隧道技术的极限。
English: Q: How does thinking in limits apply to manufacturing?
中文： 问：极限思维如何应用于制造业？
English: Let's say we're trying to figure out why a part or product is expensive. Is it because of something foolish, or just because production volume is too low?
中文： 假设我们试图找出为什么一个部件或产品很昂贵。是因为一些愚蠢的事情，还是只是因为产量太低？
English: Ask, "If our volume was a million units per year, would it still be expensive?" If it's still expensive at a million units a year, then volume is not the reason why your part is expensive. Maybe something's wrong with the design. Maybe you can change the part to something not fundamentally expensive. That's thinking about things to the limit.
中文： 问，"如果我们的产量是每年一百万件，它还会昂贵吗？"如果每年一百万件仍然昂贵，那么产量不是你部件昂贵的原因。可能是设计有问题。也许你可以将部件改为本质上不昂贵的东西。这就是极限思考。
English: If you are really good at manufacturing and producing at a high volume, you can make anything for a cost that asymptotically approaches the raw material value of the components, plus any intellectual property you need to license. It's a hard thing to do, but it is possible.
中文： 如果你非常擅长制造和大规模生产，你可以以任何成本制造任何东西，这个成本渐近地接近组件的原材料价值，加上你需要许可的任何知识产权。这是一件困难的事情，但它是可能的。
English: Q: How does thinking in the limit apply to design?
中文： 问：极限思维如何应用于设计？
English: When designing a product, people often start designing with the tools, parts, and methods they are familiar with. That's their default. That will lead to a product that can be made with those tools and methods, but it is unlikely to be the perfect product.
中文： 在设计产品时，人们通常从他们熟悉的工具、部件和方法开始设计。这是他们的默认设置。这将导致一个可以用这些工具和方法制造的产品，但它不太可能是完美的产品。
English: The other way to think is to imagine the platonic ideal of the perfect product or technology. What is the perfect arrangement of atoms that would be the best possible product? Now try to figure out how to get the atoms in that shape.
中文： 另一种思考方式是想象完美产品或技术的柏拉图式理想。什么是完美的原子排列，会成为最好的产品？现在试着找出如何将这些原子塑造成那种形状。
English: Think through things in both directions. What can we build with the tools that we have? But also, what does the "theoretically perfect" product look like?
中文： 从两个方向思考事情。我们可以用我们拥有的工具建造什么？但是，"理论上完美"的产品是什么样子的？
English: The idea of the "theoretically perfect" product is going to be a moving target because as you learn more, the definition for that perfect product will change. You don't actually know what the perfect product is, but you can approximate a more perfect product. Then ask, "What tools, methods, or materials do we need to create to get the atoms in that shape?" People rarely think this way. But thinking in limits is a powerful tool.
中文： "理论上完美"产品的想法将是一个移动的目标，因为随着你了解更多，那个完美产品的定义会改变。你实际上不知道完美产品是什么，但你可以近似一个更完美的产品。然后问，"我们需要创造什么工具、方法或材料来将原子塑造成那种形状？"人们很少这样思考。但极限思维是一个强大的工具。
English: Impossible is a strong word. It's just a strong word. I approach things from a physics standpoint, and the word impossible is more or less banned in physics.
中文： "不可能"是一个强烈的词。它只是一个强烈的词。我从物理学的角度处理事情，"不可能"这个词在物理学中或多或少是被禁止的。
English: At SpaceX especially, we often consider what's possible within the absurd. If my team says something is impossible, I try to open their minds to new potential solutions by asking, "What would it take?"
中文： 特别是在 SpaceX，我们经常考虑在荒谬范围内的可能性。如果我的团队说某事不可能，我试图通过问"需要什么？"来打开他们的思路，寻找新的潜在解决方案。
English: IT IS OK TO BE WRONG, JUST DON'T BE CONFIDENT AND WRONG.
中文： 犯错是可以的，只是不要自信地犯错。
Aspire to Be Less Wrong
致力于少犯错
English: The mental tools of physics are powerful. They tell us to assume we're wrong and that our goal is to be less wrong. Aspire to be less wrong. I don't think you're going to succeed every day in being less wrong. But if you can succeed in being less wrong most of the time, you're doing great.
中文： 物理学的思维工具是强大的。它们告诉我们要假设我们是错的，我们的目标是少犯错。致力于少犯错。我不认为你每天都能成功地少犯错。但如果你能在大多数时间里成功地少犯错，你就做得很好。
English: It's OK to be wrong. Just don't be confident and wrong.
中文： 犯错是可以的。只是不要自信地犯错。
English: Aspirationally, you want to believe things proportionate to the evidence. Not inversely proportional to the evidence.
中文： 理想情况下，你希望相信与证据成比例的事情。而不是与证据成反比。
English: Most people can learn a lot more than they think they can. They sell themselves short by not trying.
中文： 大多数人可以学到的比他们认为自己能学到的多得多。他们因为不尝试而低估了自己。
English: Read books, because the data rate of reading is much greater than when somebody is speaking. What's the output rate of speech? A couple hundred bits per second, maybe a few thousand per second if you're going full tilt. You can get several times that by reading. The main reason I didn't go to lectures in college was because the data rate was too slow.
中文： 读书，因为阅读的数据速率远大于某人说话时。说话的输出速率是多少？每秒几百比特，如果你全力以赴的话可能每秒几千比特。你可以通过阅读获得几倍于这个的数据。我大学时不去听讲座的主要原因是数据速率太慢。
English: I encourage you to read a lot of books. Just read. Try to ingest as much information as you can.
中文： 我鼓励你读很多书。只管读。尽量吸收尽可能多的信息。
English: I was always really interested in reading. When I was a kid, I read everything I could get my hands on. Around nine or ten I ran out of things to read in our house, so in desperation I read the encyclopedia—which turned out to be a good idea. I found all sorts of things I didn't even know existed—a lot, obviously. I'd recommend everyone read or skim through the condensed version of the Encyclopedia Britannica. You can always skip subjects. If you read a few paragraphs and know you're not interested, just jump to the next one.
中文： 我一直对阅读非常感兴趣。当我还是个孩子时，我读了所有我能拿到手的东西。大约九岁或十岁时，我家里没有东西可读了，所以在绝望中我读了百科全书——结果证明这是个好主意。我发现了各种我甚至不知道存在的东西——很多，显然。我建议每个人都阅读或浏览大英百科全书的浓缩版。你总是可以跳过某些主题。如果你读了几段并知道你不感兴趣，就跳到下一段。
English: Develop good general knowledge, so you at least have a rough "lay of the land" of the full knowledge landscape. Read a broad range of material. How can you know what you're really interested in if you're not at least doing a broad, light exploration of the knowledge landscape?
中文： 发展良好的常识，这样你至少对整个知识版图有一个粗略的"地形"。阅读广泛的材料。如果你至少没有对知识版图进行广泛、轻松的探索，你怎么知道你真正感兴趣的是什么？
English: As a kid, I played historical strategy video games, like Civilization. This shows you how civilization formed. Through the technology tree, you invent different things. You'd invent literacy, democracy, and gunpowder. You start to realize, "Oh wow, there are stages to technology. You can't have democracy without creating literacy." There are stages of technology and development of ideas. That's a helpful framework.
中文： 小时候，我玩历史策略视频游戏，比如《文明》。这向你展示了文明是如何形成的。通过科技树，你发明不同的东西。你会发明读写能力、民主和火药。你开始意识到，"哦哇，技术有阶段。没有创造读写能力就不可能有民主。"技术和思想发展有阶段。这是一个有用的框架。
English: It is important to view knowledge as a semantic tree. Make sure you understand the fundamental principles (the trunk and big branches) before you get into the leaves (the details), then there is something for them to hang on to.
中文： 将知识视为语义树很重要。在深入叶子（细节）之前，确保你理解基本原理（树干和大树枝），这样它们才有东西可以依附。
English: Some ideas come from reading about a sad trend in technology. When I read about the Concorde being retired, I was like, "Jeez, we don't even have supersonic transport anymore. That's terrible." I never had a chance to fly on the Concorde. That seemed like a terrible thing, so I started reading about it.
中文： 一些想法来自阅读关于技术中令人悲伤的趋势。当我读到协和飞机退役时，我想，"天哪，我们甚至没有超音速运输了。太糟糕了。"我从来没有机会乘坐协和飞机。那似乎是一件可怕的事情，所以我开始阅读关于它的资料。
English: I learned the Concorde was designed back in the sixties. Aerodynamics have improved a great deal since then, with computational fluid dynamics. Engine efficiencies have improved massively. Even if you just change the engines on the Concorde, you could double the range or thereabouts. I thought, Well, what if we could figure out an efficient design that could make it economically competitive to have a supersonic aircraft? I started looking into it more and did the math on all of it.
中文： 我了解到协和飞机是在六十年代设计的。从那时起，空气动力学有了很大改进，有了计算流体动力学。发动机效率有了大幅提高。即使你只是更换协和飞机的发动机，你也可以将航程增加一倍左右。我想，好吧，如果我们能想出一个高效的设计，使超音速飞机在经济上具有竞争力呢？我开始更多地研究它，并对所有方面进行了计算。
English: You can get super efficient and super fast when electric aircraft have vertical takeoff and landing, and go supersonic. We could make a breakthrough aircraft several generations beyond what currently exists.
中文： 当电动飞机具有垂直起降并达到超音速时，你可以获得超高效率和超高速度。我们可以制造出比现有飞机先进几代的突破性飞机。
English: Diving into SpaceX and Tesla, I had to learn how to make hardware. I'd never seen a CNC machine or laid out carbon fiber. I didn't know any of those things, but if you read books and talk to experts, you can pick them up quickly. I started going to the Palo Alto public library to read about rocket engineering and started calling experts, asking to borrow their old engine manuals.
中文： 深入 SpaceX 和特斯拉，我必须学习如何制造硬件。我从未见过数控机床或铺设碳纤维。我不知道这些事情，但如果你读书并与专家交谈，你可以快速学会它们。我开始去帕洛阿尔托公共图书馆阅读火箭工程方面的书籍，并开始打电话给专家，请求借阅他们的旧发动机手册。
English: Most people self-limit their ability to learn. It's pretty straightforward—just read books and talk to people.
中文： 大多数人自我限制他们的学习能力。这很简单——只要读书并与人交谈。
English: The physics background is helpful as the foundation. But in rocketry I am self-taught, meaning I don't have an aerospace degree. I just read a lot of books and talked to a lot of people.
中文： 物理学背景作为基础是有帮助的。但在火箭方面，我是自学成才，意思是我没有航空航天学位。我只是读了很多书并与很多人交谈。
English: Talk to people from different walks of life, in different industries, professions, and skills. Try to learn as much as possible. Search for meaning.
中文： 与来自不同行业、职业和技能的不同背景的人交谈。尽量多学习。寻找意义。
THE VALUE OF ENGINEERING
工程的价值
English: I spend 80 percent of my time on engineering.
中文： 我 80% 的时间都花在工程上。
Engineering Is Magic
工程是魔法
English: Engineering is, for all intents and purposes, magic, and who wouldn't want to be a magician?
中文： 工程，就所有意图和目的而言，就是魔法，谁不想成为魔术师呢？
English: Q: What drew you to engineering?
中文： 问：是什么吸引你从事工程？
English: I have a physics background and grew up in an engineering-centric household. I'm still more an engineer than anything else.
中文： 我有物理学背景，在一个以工程为中心的家庭中长大。我仍然更多是工程师而不是其他任何身份。
English: My dad is an extremely talented electrical and mechanical engineer. We built model airplanes and circuit boards together when I was a kid. He tutored me, and I didn't even know it at the time. I also did things like make model rockets. In South Africa, there were no premade rockets. I had to go to the chemist to get the ingredients for rocket fuel, mix it, and put it in a pipe.
中文： 我父亲是一位极其有才华的电气和机械工程师。小时候我们一起制作模型飞机和电路板。他辅导我，我当时甚至不知道。我还做过制作模型火箭之类的事情。在南非，没有预制火箭。我必须去药剂师那里获取火箭燃料的成分，混合它，然后把它放进管子里。
English: There were lots of "engineery" things around me. When I asked for an explanation, I got the true explanation of how things work. When I was a little kid, I was really scared of the dark. But I came to understand "dark" just means the absence of photons in the visible wavelength—four hundred to seven hundred nanometers. I thought, well it's silly to be afraid of a lack of photons. Then I wasn't afraid of the dark anymore.
中文： 我周围有很多"工程类"的东西。当我要求解释时，我得到了事物如何工作的真实解释。当我还是个小孩时，我真的很害怕黑暗。但我开始理解"黑暗"只是意味着可见波长（400 到 700 纳米）没有光子。我想，害怕缺乏光子是愚蠢的。然后我不再害怕黑暗了。
English: I was very technology oriented as a kid growing up in South Africa. With our first computer came books to teach yourself programming. This was the coolest thing I'd ever seen. When I was about twelve, I started programming and selling my own games to buy new games. I was hooked. I'd spend money on better computers, Dungeons & Dragons modules, and things like that. I was nerdmaster3000.
中文： 我在南非长大时非常以技术为导向。我们的第一台电脑附带了自学编程的书籍。这是我见过的最酷的东西。大约十二岁时，我开始编程并出售自己的游戏来买新游戏。我上瘾了。我会花钱买更好的电脑、龙与地下城模组之类的东西。我是 nerdmaster3000。
English: I wasn't that much of a loner, but I was quite bookish. I was reading all the time. I would be reading, working on my computer, reading comics, that kind of thing.
中文： 我不是那么孤僻，但我相当书呆子。我一直在阅读。我会读书、用电脑工作、看漫画，类似的事情。
English: When I was young, I wasn't sure what I was going to do when I got older. I thought the idea of inventing things would be cool, because I read a quote from Arthur C. Clarke: "A sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic." That's really true.
中文： 年轻时，我不确定长大后要做什么。我认为发明东西的想法会很酷，因为我读到亚瑟·C·克拉克的一句话："任何足够先进的技术都与魔法无异。"这真的很对。
English: If you go back three hundred years, you'd be burned at the stake for things we take for granted today. Being able to fly is crazy. Being able to see over long distances, communicate, and instantly access all the world's information from almost anywhere on the earth. This would all be considered magic in times past. It actually goes beyond that. Many things we take for granted today weren't imagined in times past, even in the realm of magic.
中文： 如果回到三百年前，你会因为今天我们视为理所当然的事情而被处以火刑。能够飞行是疯狂的。能够从长距离看东西、交流，并从地球上几乎任何地方立即访问世界上所有信息。这些在过去都会被视为魔法。实际上它超越了这一点。许多我们今天视为理所当然的事情在过去甚至没有在魔法领域被想象过。
English: I thought if I could advance technology, that would be like being a magician. That would be really cool.
中文： 我想如果我能推进技术，那就像成为魔术师一样。那会很酷。
English: At one point, I was thinking about doing physics as a career. But to really advance physics these days, you need new data. Physics is fundamentally governed by the progress of engineering.
中文： 曾经有一段时间，我在考虑将物理学作为职业。但现在要真正推进物理学，你需要新数据。物理学从根本上受工程进步的支配。
English: There is always debate about, "Which is better, engineers or scientists? Aren't scientists better? Wasn't Einstein the smartest person?" Personally, I think engineering is better because without engineering, you do not have any new data. You hit a limit.
中文： 总是有关于"哪个更好，工程师还是科学家？科学家不是更好吗？爱因斯坦不是最聪明的人吗？"的辩论。就我个人而言，我认为工程更好，因为没有工程，你就没有任何新数据。你遇到了极限。
English: You can be smart within the context of the limits of the data you have, but unless you have a way to get more data, you can't make progress. Galileo engineered the telescope, which allowed him to see Jupiter had moons. If you want to advance civilization, you must address the limiting factor. The limiting factor is the engineering. Therefore, you must address the engineering.
中文： 你可以在你拥有的数据限制的范围内聪明，但除非你有办法获得更多数据，否则你无法取得进展。伽利略设计了望远镜，这使他能够看到木星有卫星。如果你想推进文明，你必须解决限制因素。限制因素是工程。因此，你必须解决工程问题。
English: I certainly admire the discoveries of the great scientists. They're creating a deeper understanding of how the universe already works. That's cool—but the universe, in a way, already knows that. They're discovering what already exists.
中文： 我当然钦佩伟大科学家的发现。他们正在创造对宇宙如何运作的更深入理解。这很酷——但宇宙在某种程度上已经知道了。他们在发现已经存在的东西。
English: Science is discovering the essential truths about what exists in the universe. Engineering is about creating things that have never existed before.
中文： 科学是发现关于宇宙中存在的事物的基本真理。工程是关于创造从未存在过的事物。
Engineering Wins Wars
工程赢得战争
English: In Sun Tzu's The Art of War, there is no chapter on technology. It is an interesting book I've read many times. It's packed with wisdom, but there should be a chapter saying: "If you have a decisive technological advantage, you can win with minimal casualties to your side."
中文： 在孙子的《孙子兵法》中，没有关于技术的章节。这是一本我读过很多次的有趣的书。它充满了智慧，但应该有一章说："如果你有决定性的技术优势，你可以以最小的伤亡获胜。"
English: Technology plays a much stronger role in war than is generally understood: technology viewed in the broadest sense, including a better phalanx, or spears made of bronze, iron, or steel. These can be big differences.
中文： 技术在战争中扮演的角色比通常理解的要强得多：从最广泛的意义上看待技术，包括更好的方阵，或由青铜、铁或钢制成的长矛。这些可能是巨大的差异。
English: The Romans won their wars through technology.
中文： 罗马人通过技术赢得了战争。
English: One of the advantages Romans had was good metallurgy. Their swords were martensitic (an improvement over austenitic metallurgy), so they were stronger. The Romans were often fighting opponents whose swords would basically bend over a Roman sword. If you're in a sword fight and your sword bends like a noodle…big disadvantage.
中文： 罗马人拥有的优势之一是好冶金。他们的剑是马氏体的（优于奥氏体冶金），所以它们更坚固。罗马人经常与对手的剑基本上会在罗马剑上弯曲的对手作战。如果你在剑战中你的剑像面条一样弯曲……巨大的劣势。
English: The Romans were great engineers. Even things like building roads gave them a military advantage. If you're trying to march an army somewhere fast, roads beat the heck out of a small winding path through the forest.
中文： 罗马人是伟大的工程师。即使是修路这样的事情也给了他们军事优势。如果你想快速将军队行军到某地，道路胜过穿过森林的小蜿蜒小路。
English: But when fighting outside the Roman empire, they sometimes lost their wars because of their opponent's technology. When the Romans fought the Scythians, they did not have a good counter to mounted war archers, especially if they got lured into flat terrain. They were pretty much helpless against the technology of a mounted archer.
中文： 但在罗马帝国之外作战时，他们有时会因为对手的技术而输掉战争。当罗马人与斯基泰人作战时，他们没有对付骑马战弓手的好方法，特别是如果他们被引诱到平坦地形时。他们对骑马弓箭手的技术几乎无能为力。
English: When there's a rapid change in the rate of technology, engineering plays a pivotal role.
中文： 当技术变化率快速时，工程发挥着关键作用。
English: If there is a big difference in the technologies—even if the other side has more people, better generals, and is smarter—the side with the advanced technology will win.
中文： 如果技术存在巨大差异——即使对方有更多人、更好的将军、更聪明——拥有先进技术的一方将获胜。
English: The technology war of fighters and bombers during World War II is fascinating. The US completely crushed it on bombers at the end of the war, but they didn't start out that way. At the start of World War II in the Pacific, entire US squadrons were sometimes shot down with zero Japanese losses. A total KO.
中文： 二战期间战斗机和轰炸机的技术战非常迷人。美国在战争结束时完全碾压了轰炸机，但他们开始时并非如此。在太平洋二战开始时，整个美国中队有时被击落而日本零损失。完全击倒。
English: The US fighters at the beginning of World War II were not good either. Their tactics were terrible, the aircraft were terrible, and the training was incorrect, too.
中文： 美国战斗机在二战开始时也不好。他们的战术很糟糕，飞机很糟糕，训练也不正确。
English: It's interesting to see where they started out and how fast things innovated. There was impressive design work by many countries: Japan, the US, Germany, UK, Russia, and others had some impressive fighter designs.
中文： 看看他们从哪里开始以及创新速度有多快是很有趣的。许多国家都有令人印象深刻的设计工作：日本、美国、德国、英国、俄罗斯和其他国家都有一些令人印象深刻的战斗机设计。
English: It was a constant technological rock-paper-scissors game. One country would make a plane, another made a new plane to beat that one, then another country would make an even newer plane. What really matters is the pace of innovation.
中文： 这是一场持续的技术石头剪刀布游戏。一个国家制造一架飞机，另一个国家制造一架新飞机来击败它，然后另一个国家制造一架更新的飞机。真正重要的是创新速度。
English: When the rate of change of technology is high enough, or there is a big technological difference between one side and the other, then that technology dominates and you get a lopsided victory.
中文： 当技术变化率足够高，或一方与另一方之间存在巨大技术差异时，该技术占主导地位，你会获得一边倒的胜利。
English: Many books on the strategy of war actually don't address technology, or do only in a tangential manner. But obviously, if there is an overwhelming technological advantage, that side will win even if the odds are dramatically stacked against them.
中文： 许多关于战争战略的书籍实际上没有涉及技术，或者只是以间接的方式涉及。但显然，如果有压倒性的技术优势，那一方将获胜，即使几率对他们极为不利。
English: To use an extreme example (a limit case), if you can shoot lasers from space to any spot on the ground by just pointing at it, it would not matter if you're fighting Julius Caesar, Heinz Guderian, or Napoleon. They just got lasered from space.
中文： 举一个极端的例子（极限情况），如果你可以从太空向地面上任何地点发射激光，只需指向它，那么你是在与朱利叶斯·凯撒、海因茨·古德里安还是拿破仑作战都无关紧要。他们只是从太空被激光击中了。
English: Most battles in history, because technology moved slowly, were more about maneuvering, tactics, and strategy. But when there's technological discontinuity, it fundamentally changes the whole situation. Wars in the modern era are very much technology race wars. How fast can we create new technology?
中文： 历史上的大多数战役，因为技术移动缓慢，更多是关于机动、战术和战略。但当存在技术不连续时，它从根本上改变了整个局面。现代战争非常像是技术竞赛战争。我们能多快创造新技术？
English: The best example would be the nuclear bomb. Anyone who made nuclear bombs first, won. That's it. End of story.
中文： 最好的例子是核弹。任何先制造出核弹的人就赢了。就是这样。故事结束。
English: That was the reason for the US Manhattan Project. People think it was a government project. I'd like to emphasize that it was a creation of the physics community more than it was the government. The government supported it, but it was a decision and creation from the physics community. Without them, it would not have happened.
中文： 这就是美国曼哈顿计划的原因。人们认为它是一个政府项目。我想强调的是，它更多是物理学界的创造，而不是政府的。政府支持它，但它是物理学界的决定和创造。没有他们，它不会发生。
English: They simply came to the conclusion that they couldn't let Hitler have the bomb. So they made it first to be certain of it.
中文： 他们只是得出结论，不能让希特勒拥有核弹。所以他们先制造它以确保这一点。
English: There isn't a better example of a super weapon—anyone who gets it wins.
中文： 没有比这更好的超级武器例子了——任何得到它的人就赢了。
English: Play to win, or don't play at all.
中文： 为了胜利而战，否则根本不要玩。
Engineering Creates Value
工程创造价值
English: My mind feels like a wild storm. I have a fountain of ideas. I have more ideas than I could possibly execute. Innovation is not the problem. Execution is the problem.
中文： 我的头脑感觉像一场狂暴的风暴。我有创意的喷泉。我的想法比我能执行的多得多。创新不是问题。执行是问题。
English: There is never a shortage of ideas. I find ideas to be somewhat trivial, but the execution of good ideas is extremely difficult. Prototypes are easy; production is hard. Production and being cash flow positive is excruciating pain. Product ideas are nearly irrelevant.
中文： 想法从来不会短缺。我发现想法有些微不足道，但好想法的执行极其困难。原型很容易；生产很难。生产并实现正现金流是极度痛苦。产品想法几乎无关紧要。
English: You only build value in a company if you do hard work to solve tough problems. That's why companies are valuable. It's why they should be valuable, and largely why they are.
中文： 你只有在努力解决棘手问题时才能在公司中建立价值。这就是公司有价值的原因。这就是它们应该有价值的理由，也大致是它们有价值的原因。
English: Tesla is a hardcore technology company. We do serious engineering. We do real manufacturing as well. We do hardcore manufacturing. Coils of aluminum and plastic pellets go into one end of the factory and cars come out the other. We did all the vehicle engineering, all the powertrain engineering, all the software. The evidence for us solving hard engineering problems is that Toyota, Daimler, and Mercedes buy electric powertrains from us. If it was easy, they would do it.
中文： 特斯拉是一家硬核技术公司。我们做严肃的工程。我们也做真正的制造。我们做硬核制造。铝卷和塑料颗粒从工厂一端进入，汽车从另一端出来。我们做了所有车辆工程、所有动力系统工程、所有软件。我们解决困难工程问题的证据是丰田、戴姆勒和奔驰从我们这里购买电动动力总成。如果这很容易，他们会自己做。
English: The idea of going to Mars is not hard; that's irrelevant. Getting to Mars is the hard part.
中文： 去火星的想法并不难；那是无关紧要的。到达火星才是困难的部分。
PART I 翻译完成 ✅
PART I: PURSUE PURPOSE（追求目标） 已全部翻译完成！
包含章节：
- LIVING A PURPOSEFUL LIFE（过有目标的生活）
- THINK LIKE A PHYSICIST（像物理学家一样思考）
- THE VALUE OF ENGINEERING（工程的价值）
下一条消息继续翻译 PART II: ULTRA HARDCORE WORK（极限硬核工作）