【译文】The Phony Patriots of Silicon Valley 硅谷的假爱国者们
译自《纽约时报》今天科技版的头条新闻，对我们当前的形势也有启发意义。
Not long ago, many leading technologists considered themselves too lofty and idealistic to concern themselves with the petty affairs of government. John Perry Barlow, a lion of the early internet, addressed his “Declaration of the Independence of Cyberspace” to the “governments of the industrial world,” saying that for him and his fellow netizens, these creaky institutions had “no moral right to rule us nor do you possess any methods of enforcement we have true reason to fear.”
不久以前，许多领先的科技企业被认为过于崇高和理想主义，以至于不想掺和进政府事务之中。早期互联网之狮，John Perry Barlow发表了他的“网络空间独立宣言”，他认为对于自己和他的追随者而言，那些愚蠢的“工业世界的政府”“没有任何道德权力来统治我们，也没有任何足以使我们害怕的强制性手段”。
But that was before privacy scandals, antitrust investigations, congressional hearings, Chinese tariffs, presidential tweets and Senator Elizabeth Warren.
但这些宣言仅仅存在于隐私门，不信任案调查，国会听证，对华关税，总统推特和参议院 Elizabeth Warren之前。
Now, as they try to fend off regulation and avoid being broken up, some of the largest companies in Silicon Valley are tripping over their Allbirds in a race to cozy up to the United States government. These companies’ motives vary — some are vying for lucrative public-sector contracts, while others are lobbying against regulation by painting China as a red menace that must be defeated for the good of the country.
今天，为了防止抵制政府监控，防止自由规则被迫害，硅谷一些最大的公司已经使劲全身解数来应付美国政府。这些公司的动机迥异，有些正在争夺利润丰厚的公共部门的合同，而另一些正在游说政府，以使他们放弃必须为了国家利益击败中国这一红色威胁的立场。
Either way, the game is the same: Salute the flag, save our bacon.
不管出于何种动机，博弈都是相同的：“致敬国旗，拯救培根”。
The latest example of Silicon Valley’s patriotic playacting comes courtesy of Peter Thiel, the Trump-backing venture capitalist. In an op-ed in The New York Times this month, Mr. Thiel took Google to task for opening an artificial intelligence lab in Beijing while canceling a controversial Pentagon contract, accusing the company of trying to “evade responsibility for the good of the country.”
硅谷爱国者的最近一场闹剧来自于特朗普支持的硅谷风险投资者，Peter Thiel. 在《纽约时报》本月不久之前的报告中，Thiel将支持谷歌在北京开办一个人工智能实验室，同时取消一项有争议的与五角大楼的合同，因为被指责为“逃避国家责任”。
Mr. Thiel’s obvious conflicts of interest aside (he is on the board of Facebook, Google’s rival, and is the chairman of the technology firm Palantir, which has lucrative government contracts of its own), seeing him lecture anyone on patriotism is rich. He was among the first major supporters of the Seasteading movement — a group of libertarians who wanted to flee the United States and build a floating city in international waters — and in 2011, he became a New Zealand citizen after buying up property there. (“It would give me great pride to let it be known that I am a New Zealand citizen and an enthusiastic supporter of the country,” Mr. Thiel wrote in his citizenship application.)
Thiel先生显然对此存在明显的利益冲突，他是谷歌的对手，Facebook公司的董事会成员，也是科技企业Palantir的主席，而后者在国防合同中赚到了丰厚的利润。他是Seasteading运动的第一位重要支持者，这项由自由党人发起的运动旨在于在公海上建立一座浮动的城市，以远离美国政府。而在2011年，他在购买了位于新西兰的资产之后，成为了新西兰公民。Thiel在新西兰公民的申请中写道，“成为一名新西兰公民是我的巨大荣耀，我是这个国家热诚的支持者。”
But Mr. Thiel, who did not respond to a request for comment, is far from the only tech titan trading in his hoodie for a flag pin.
Mark Zuckerberg, the Facebook chief, has also been warning that if the social network — the proud, American social network, that is — is broken up or harshly regulated, it will be only a matter of time before China takes over the global tech industry.
Facebook的总裁Mark Zuckerberg，同样也警告说如果美国引以为豪的社交网络被打破或者严厉监管的话，被中国在科技行业赶超只是时间问题。
In an interview last year, Mr. Zuckerberg said that if Facebook were broken up by American regulators, “the alternative, frankly, is going to be the Chinese companies.”
在去年的一场采访中，Zuckerberg谈到如果Facebook被美国监管者迫害，“坦诚地说，（脸书）成为一个中国企业也是可行的选项”。
David Marcus, one of Mr. Zuckerberg’s lieutenants and the executive in charge of Facebook’s digital currency project, Libra, echoed that point while testifying before Congress last month.
Zuckerberg的副手和数字货币项目Libra的执行者，David Marcus，在上个月接收国会听证之前又重申了这个观点。
“I believe that if America does not lead innovation in the digital currency and payments area, others will,” Mr. Marcus said. “If we fail to act, we could soon see a digital currency controlled by others whose values are dramatically different.”
“我想如果美国不能在数字货币和电子支付领域领导创新”，Marcus先生说道，“如果我们不能有所行动，我们就即将见到数字货币控制于他人之手，受人摆布”。
Mr. Zuckerberg, who speaks Mandarin, is an odd choice to lead the charge against China. He has spent much of the last decade trying desperately to curry favor with the Chinese government in hopes of getting Facebook’s apps — which are banned there — permission to operate in one of the world’s most lucrative markets. Mr. Zuckerberg even reportedly offered to let Xi Jinping, the Chinese president, name his second child. (Mr. Xi declined.)
说着汉语普通话的扎克伯格先生，显然不适合领导对抗中国的责任。在过去十年中，他花费了大量的金钱来取悦中国政府，希望被禁止的Facebook应用能够登陆世界上最赚钱的市场。他甚至提出来习来为他的第二个儿子取名（这个要求被习拒绝了）。
Google, too, is rallying around the flag. The company’s chief executive, Sundar Pichai, went to the White House to visit with President Trump in March, to discuss government contracts and reassure the president that Google does not discriminate against conservatives. This month, in a series of tweets attacking Mr. Pichai and Google, Mr. Trump recalled that meeting, which he described as “Mr. Pichai working very hard to explain how much he liked me, what a great job the Administration is doing, that Google was not involved with China’s military, that they didn’t help Crooked Hillary over me in the 2016 Election.”
谷歌同样也在爱国问题上立场摇摆。谷歌首席执行官Sundar Pichai在三月到访白宫与特朗普会谈，他与特朗普商谈政府部门的合同，并且再三向总统确保谷歌不会歧视保守派。本月在推特上接连攻击了Pichai和谷歌公司之后，特朗普回忆这次会议说，“Pichai先生非常努力地向我说明他他对我的热爱，对政府部门工作的赞美，以及谷歌并没有参与中国的军事建设，还有他没有试图帮助希拉里在2016年的大选中击败我”。
Like Mr. Zuckerberg, Mr. Pichai was a China booster before he began distancing himself from the country. Last year, Mr. Pichai had a large team of Google engineers building a prototype search engine, called Dragonfly, that was designed to be compatible with China’s censorship regime. The project was dropped amid heated internal dissent from Google employees. But it reportedly would have blocked sites like Wikipedia, as well as other material considered objectionable by Chinese authorities.
和扎克伯格一样，Pichai先生在和中国保持距离之前也是一位中国的鼓吹者。去年Pichai带领一支庞大的工程师团队以开发一款符合中国政府审查规定的搜索引擎，“蜻蜓”。这个项目最终在内部员工的强烈抗议中落马。但是根据报道这款引擎将会屏蔽包括维基百科等令中国政府反感的材料。
Amazon and Apple, two tech giants that love America so much that they have gone to elaborate lengths to avoid paying taxes to its Treasury, are also promoting themselves as national champions. After Mr. Trump criticized Apple’s plans to do some of the assembly of its Mac Pro in China, the company reiterated its desire to keep much of the computer’s assembly in the United States. And Amazon’s chief executive, Jeff Bezos, has knocked rival firms for insufficient patriotism, saying that “if big tech companies are going to turn their back on the U.S. Department of Defense, this country is going to be in trouble.”
亚马逊和苹果，这两个“热爱美国”的科技巨人一边把自己包装为国家荣耀，一边精心设计逃避国税局征税的方法。在特朗普批评苹果将Mac Pro的组装线移到中国之后，这家公司重申在美国保留生产线的愿望。亚马逊的首席执行官，Jeff Bezos，曾经抨击他的对手们缺少爱国主义，“如果大型科技公司拒绝美国国防部的话，这个国家就有麻烦了”。
Representatives for Facebook, Google, Amazon and Apple all declined to comment.
Facebook, Google, Amazon 和 Apple，这四大科技巨头在类指控下都不愿发表意见。
Conspicuous patriotism is not a new tactic for companies accused of bad behavior. In the 1980s and 1990s, defenders of American tech giants like IBM and Microsoft argued that those companies’ monopolistic behaviors were necessary to stave off competition from Japanese rivals. During World War II, Hollywood movie studios delayed a federal antitrust crackdown, in part by agreeing to help the military in the war effort.
用激进的爱国主义来为自己的错误行为掩饰，已经屡见不鲜。在1980年代和90年代，美国科技巨头IBM和微软的支持者们就认为这些公司的垄断行为，有利于对抗日本对手的竞争。在二次世界大战期间，好莱坞也因为在战争中帮助军方，而推迟了反垄断法案的生效。
Meredith Whittaker, a co-founder of the AI Now Institute at New York University and a former Google employee, characterized the tech industry’s scaremongering about China as a tactical move meant to deflect criticism.
前谷歌员工，纽约大学AI Now研究院的创立者，Meredith Whittaker，将科技行业对于中国的恐慌解释为转移批评的战术举措。
“It’s a really convenient narrative,” Ms. Whittaker said. “It evokes nationalism and a red scare trope that has worked in the past. And it implies that regulation, accountability and taking a pause to consider ethics would be counter to ‘winning.’”
“这是一种方便不过的叙事”，Whittaker小姐说，“（这种叙事）唤起了国家主义已经曾经对红色威胁的恐惧。因此，那些监管和审计都不得不暂停脚步，因为当前道德站在了战胜对手的反面。”
Patriotic posturing may be a cynical tactic, but it could also be a smart one. Today’s big tech companies are in a better negotiating position than most industries under fire. The meteoric growth of companies like Facebook, Google and Amazon has bolstered the American stock market and made Silicon Valley a global innovation hub. Even if the motives of the tech giants are questionable, the importance of technologies like 5G connectivity and artificial intelligence to the country’s competitive position isn’t lost on lawmakers.
展现出爱国主义姿态，也许是一种愤青式的行为，但有时也是一种聪明的行为。今日相比于其他行业，科技行业在斡旋中占据着有利的地位。科技公司脸书，谷歌，亚马逊等等的迅速发展助推了美国股市的牛市，并且使硅谷成为了世界性的创新中心。即使科技公司的动机可疑，立法者也无法低估在5G和人工智能领域中占据先机对于国家的重要性。
Representative Ro Khanna, a Democrat who represents parts of Silicon Valley in Congress, has called for greater regulation of tech companies. But in an interview this month, he told me that the risk of losing ground to China worried him.
一位部分代表硅谷的民主党议员，Ro Khanna，曾经呼吁对科技公司更严格的监管。但是在本月的采访中，他告诉记者输给中国的恐惧使他忧心忡忡。
“There is a risk that we could see a Berlin digital wall,” Mr. Khanna said. “The question is, are the values of liberty, privacy and freedom of speech going to be embedded in technology platforms? China’s platforms do not have many of the values that liberal democracies believe in.”
“数字世界的柏林墙有可能变为现实”，Khanna先生说道，“问题是，隐私和言论自由真的要内嵌在这些科技公司之中吗？中国的平台并不重视那些自由民主者所信奉的价值。”
There is nothing inherently wrong with the belief that America’s values are superior to those found in Shanghai and Shenzhen, or that American tech companies should act in the country’s best interest. But lawmakers should be appropriately wary of Silicon Valley’s charm campaign, and they should avoid conflating what’s good for Facebook, Google and other tech companies with what’s good for the nation. Tech executives might be whistling “I’m a Yankee Doodle Dandy,” but they really just want to be left alone.
认为美国的价值观高于深圳和上海的价值观并没有错，美国的科技公司应该为美国的利益最大化服务。但是立法者应该对硅谷充满魅力的说辞保持警惕，并且不能将科技公司的利益和国家的利益混淆在一起。科技公司的高管们，也许会叫嚣“我是一名疯狂的爱国者”，但是事实上他们仅仅想独善其身。