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. And that divide does exist today. My wife and I lectured about this looming danger twenty years ago. What was less visible then, however, were the new, positive forces that work against the digital divide. There are reasons to be optimistic.

There are technological reasons to hope the digital divide will narrow. As the internet becomes more and more commercialized, it is in the Internet of business to universalize access-after all, the more people online, the more potential customers there are. More and more governments afraid their countries will be left behind want to spread Internet access. Within the next decade or two, one to two billion people on the planet will be netted together. As a result, I now believe the digital divide will narrow rather than widen in the years ahead. 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.

Of course, the use of the Internet isn’t the only way to defeat poverty. And the Internet is not the only tool we have. But it has enormous potential.

To take advantage of this tool, some impoverished countries will have to get over their outdated anti-colonial prejudices with respect to foreign investment. Countries that still think foreign investment is an invasion of their sovereignty might well study the history of infrastructure in the United States. When the United States built its industrial infrastructure, it didn’t have the capital to do so. And that is why America’s Second Wave infrastructure----- including roads, harbors, highways, ports and so on----- was built with foreign investment. The English, the Germans, the Dutch and the French were investing in Britain’s former colony. They financed them. Immigrant Americans built them. Guess who owns them now? The Americans. I believe the same thing would be true in places like Brazil or anywhere else for that matter. 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. That doesn’t mean lying down and becoming fooled, or letting foreign corporations run uncontrolled. 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.

譯文

今天，人們十分關(guān)注所謂的數(shù)字分化問題——世界分成信息富有和信息貧困兩部分。當(dāng)今這種分化確實(shí)存在，我和妻子20年前就曾談到這一迫近的危險(xiǎn)。然而，當(dāng)時(shí)還不太明顯的是存在著一些新的積極因素來抵制數(shù)字分化。我們完全有理由感到樂觀。

一些技術(shù)上的因素使我們有理由期望分化會(huì)縮小。隨著互聯(lián)網(wǎng)的日趨商業(yè)化，網(wǎng)上交易變得普及——畢竟，上網(wǎng)人數(shù)越來越多，潛在客戶就越多。越來越多的政府唯恐自己的國家落后，紛紛推廣互聯(lián)網(wǎng)接人。在一、二十年之內(nèi)，全球?qū)⒂幸弧⒍�十億人互聯(lián)。因此，我認(rèn)為在未來的數(shù)年中，數(shù)字分化將縮小而不會(huì)變大。這是好消息，因?yàn)榛ヂ?lián)網(wǎng)很可能成為與我們所面臨的貧困做斗爭的比較有力的工具。

當(dāng)然，互聯(lián)網(wǎng)的使用不是消除貧困的唯一方法�；ヂ�(lián)網(wǎng)也不是我們所擁有的唯一工具，但它擁有巨大潛力。

想要利用互聯(lián)網(wǎng)，一些貧困國家就必須克服對(duì)國外投資所持有的那種過時(shí)的、反殖民的種種偏見。那些認(rèn)為國外投資是對(duì)本國主權(quán)侵犯的國家比較好還是好好研究一下美國基礎(chǔ)設(shè)施的歷史。當(dāng)初美國建立自己的工業(yè)基礎(chǔ)設(shè)施時(shí)，缺乏必要資金，因此美國的第二波基礎(chǔ)設(shè)施浪潮——包括公路、海港、高速公路、碼頭等等——都是用國外資金建造的。英國人、德國人、荷蘭人和法國人都在前英國殖民地投資。他們提供資金，美國移民者來建造。想想看，誰擁有這一切？是美國人。我想，就這一點(diǎn)來說，巴西或其他任何地方同樣也該這樣。在建設(shè)第三波基礎(chǔ)設(shè)施的浪潮（今天主要指電子基礎(chǔ)設(shè)施）中，擁有的國外資金越多，那么情況將會(huì)越好。這并不是要卑躬屈膝、認(rèn)人愚弄，也不是對(duì)國外公司不加控制，而是意味著你已認(rèn)識(shí)到國外公司對(duì)本國能源及通信基礎(chǔ)設(shè)施建設(shè)的重要性，而這些基礎(chǔ)設(shè)施則需要充分利用互聯(lián)網(wǎng)。

詞匯

派生：accessible a. 易接近的，可到達(dá)的 accession n. 就職

例句：The only access to their house is along that narrow road. 只有沿著那條狹窄的路走才能到達(dá)他們的房子。

詞組：access to 接近；have/gain access to 可以獲得；easy of access 易于接近

派生：commerce n. 商業(yè)，商務(wù)，貿(mào)易 commercialism n. 商業(yè)主義 commercial a. 商業(yè)的，盈利的，商品化的

例句：Love matters should not be commercialized. 不應(yīng)該把戀愛商品化。

例句：The troop has much experience of actual combat. 這支部隊(duì)有實(shí)際作戰(zhàn)經(jīng)驗(yàn)。

辨析：war, battle, combat

      war 指全面戰(zhàn)爭；battle 指局部戰(zhàn)爭；combat 指比battle 規(guī)模小的戰(zhàn)斗。

派生：corporate a. 團(tuán)體的；社團(tuán)的，全體的

例句：It grew from a tiny start-up to a multimillion-dollar corporation. 那家公司從小小的新公司發(fā)展成數(shù)百萬美元的大公司。

例句：This should be the aim over the next decade, it is crucial to our survival. 這應(yīng)該成為今后十年的奮斗目標(biāo)，它關(guān)系到我們的生死存亡。

例句：Our school defeated another school at football. 在足球比賽中我們學(xué)校戰(zhàn)勝了另一個(gè)學(xué)校。

派生：division n. 分割，除法

例句：Fire-break divided them at conveniently spaced intervals. 防火帶把他們的距離適當(dāng)分開了。

詞組：divide…into 分，劃分、除，除盡；divide among/between 在……之中分配；divide sth. with sb. 與某人分享某物；divide by 除以

辨析：separate, divide

separate 指把原來連接在一起的或者靠近的東西分割開來；divide 是指把整體分成若干份。

派生：enormously ad. 巨大地，極大地

例句：An enormous gap remains between the advanced countries and the developing countries. 在先進(jìn)國家和發(fā)展中國家之間仍然存在著巨大的差距。

辨析：enormous, huge

enormous 巨大的，較huge 正式，暗示超出尋常體積或程度，超大；huge 巨大的，兩詞都著重大小，數(shù)量之極多，體積之巨大。

派生：financial a. 財(cái)政的，金融的

例句：She is an expert in finance. 她是一位金融專家。

The government will finance the new building with the taxes it collected. 政府將用征繳的稅收為新建筑籌集資金。

派生：impoverishment n. 貧困

例句：Our lives would have been greatly impoverished if we had not got this job. 如果我們沒有這份工作，我們的生活會(huì)很貧困。

例句：Vast sums are needed to keep the infrastructure. 保養(yǎng)基礎(chǔ)設(shè)施需要大量資金。

派生：invade v. 侵略，入侵 invader n. 侵略者

例句：The navy is our principal bulwark against invasion. 海軍是我們抵御侵略者的重要保障。

派生：invest v. 投資，投入investor n. 投資者

例句：He made an investment of $ 10,000 in the supermarket. 她在這個(gè)超市投資了1萬美元。

例句：A figure loomed out of the forest. 一個(gè)影子隱約在森林出現(xiàn)。

詞組：loom large 赫然聳現(xiàn)；顯得嚴(yán)重

例句：For years, scientists have debated the potential impact of oil spills. 多少年來，科學(xué)家們就一直在探討石油溢漏可能造成的影響。

詞組：be potential for 對(duì)……有潛力，有可能

例句：We should cast away all prejudices to deal with this problem. 我們應(yīng)該拋棄所有偏見來處理這個(gè)問題。

詞組：have a prejudice against 對(duì)……有偏見

例句：China’s sovereignty and territorial integrity must not be infringed. 中國的主權(quán)與領(lǐng)土完整不容侵犯。

例句：He spread some apple jam on the bread. 他在面包上涂上蘋果醬。

The spread of the scientific knowledge is necessary. 科普知識(shí)的傳播是很必要的。

詞組：spread sth. with sth. 把某物鋪在某物上；spread over 延展，延神

派生：universal a. 全體的，與全體有關(guān)的；普遍的 universally ad. 全體地，普遍地 universalization n. 一般化，普遍化