Name: 世界怎麼變得這麼醜陋？！ (How Did The World Get So Ugly?)
Uploaded: 2026-01-05T17:42:34.000Z
Duration: 15 min 37 s

Now, it's a charming place where tourists love to come.

這裡是一個很迷人的地方，觀光客都很喜歡來。

Well, you've got views of iconic buildings like the house of parliament, St. Paul's Cathedral.

嗯，你可以看到像國會大廈、聖保羅大教堂這些標誌性的建築。

Well, it does its job, but not much else.

嗯，它有它的功能，但除此之外就沒什麼了。

它有它的功能，還能做得更多一點。

It's details like these help make this such a charming place to be.

就是這些細節，讓這裡成為一個迷人的地方。

But these two lampposts don't just look different, they represent fundamentally different worldviews.

但這兩個燈柱不只外觀不同，它們代表著根本不同的世界觀。

If you want to understand any society, don't listen to what it says about itself, look at what it creates.

如果你想了解一個社會，別聽它說了什麼，看看它創造了什麼。

London's little lanes are charming now, but

150 years ago in places like this, you'd have had whole families crammed into these tiny rooms without running water.

150年前，在像這樣的地方，你可能會看到一家人擠在沒有自來水的小房間裡。

There would have been open cesspits spilling down the streets and the stench of sewage boiling in the midday sun would have been unbearable.

街上會有露天的糞坑，正午的陽光下，汙水沸騰的惡臭會讓人難以忍受。

It wasn't only horrible to live in, but genuinely dangerous.

不只住起來很糟糕，而且真的很危險。

See, at that point, London had a problem.

看看，那時候的倫敦有個問題。

Its population was growing every year, along with the construction of new factories and mills and dockyards.

人口逐年增加，工廠、磨坊和船塢也跟著蓋。

All those people and all that industry produced a lot of waste.

這麼多人和這麼多工業產生了大量的廢棄物。

And it was an engineer called Joseph Basilger who stepped in to construct London's new sewer network in the 19th century.

一位名叫 Joseph Basilger 的工程師在 19 世紀挺身而出，建造了倫敦的新下水道系統。

Sewers which still carry London's waste today, rushing beneath me at this very moment.

這些下水道至今仍在運送倫敦的廢棄物，就在我腳下奔流。

And he also constructed this embankment that I'm standing on to replace what was essentially a stinking swamp filled with rubbish and human waste and eels.

而且他還建造了我現在站的這個堤防，來取代原本那個充滿垃圾、人類排洩物和鰻魚的惡臭沼澤。

It's impossible to calculate how many lives he saved, how many millions of lives he improved.

我們根本無法計算他拯救了多少生命，又改善了多少百萬人的生活。

And he's commemorated here at a memorial that no one ever stops to look at.

而他被紀念在這裡，立了一個卻沒有人會停下來看的紀念碑。

When Bazalgette's embankment was completed in 1870, it needed lighting, of course, and

當 Bazalgette 的堤防在 1870 年完工時，當然需要照明，

so a public competition was held to design the lamps that would line this new promenade.

所以舉辦了一場公開競賽，來設計將會沿著這條新長廊排列的燈具。

This was the winning design, featuring these peculiar creatures.

這就是獲獎的設計，特色是這些奇特的生物。

what's clear is that the Victorians took great pride in their embankment and thought it needed appropriately grand and dramatic decoration.

可以清楚的是，維多利亞時代的人們對他們的堤防感到非常自豪，認為它需要配得上宏偉且戲劇性的裝飾。

See, these lamps were among the first public electric lighting in the world.

你看，這些燈是世界上最早的公共電氣照明之一。

This was a radical, revolutionary new technology.

這是一項激進、革命性的新技術。

Crowds literally gathered to watch them be lit up for the first time.

人們真的會聚集起來，觀看它們第一次被點亮。

What the iPhone was in 2007, these lamps were in 1870.

就像 2007 年的 iPhone 一樣，這些燈在 1870 年就有了。

But looking at it now, you wouldn't know that.

但現在看來，你不會知道這件事。

Because they are decorated and we don't associate decoration with cutting edge technology.

因為它們有裝飾，而我們不認為裝飾跟尖端科技有關聯。

And that's a major difference between us and the Victorians in the 19th century.

這就是我們和 19 世紀的維多利亞時代人們之間的一大差異。

They saw no contradiction between startle and modernity and time honoured tradition.

他們不覺得驚奇與現代、以及歷久彌新的傳統之間有什麼矛盾。

Just like this building, the legendary Houses of Parliament.

就像這棟建築一樣，傳奇的國會大廈。

even then it had been designed in an old and medieval style of architecture.

即使如此，它的設計風格也是古老的中世紀建築風格。

Every technology becomes obsolete and outdated.

But a good aesthetic, even if fashions change, can never become obsolete.

但好的美學，即使潮流改變，也永遠不會過時。

Those lamps on the embankment did their job.

堤岸上的那些燈柱完成了它們的任務。

And even though more efficient and better methods of lighting have been invented, they remain 150 years later.

即使更有效率、更好的照明方式已經被發明出來，它們依然存在了 150 年。

And it applies to lampposts no less, and to national parliaments.

這同樣適用於燈柱，也適用於國家國會大廈。

And so here in the Houses of Parliament, everything we've been talking about comes together at last.

所以在這裡的國會大廈，我們一直在談論的一切終於匯集在一起了。

Except that this is not the Houses of Parliament.

It's an old sewage facility, a pumping station built in the 19th century as part of Bazalgette's new sewer system.

這是一個舊的汙水處理廠，是巴札傑特新汙水系統的一部分，建於 19 世紀。

Strange to think that this is infrastructure, a purely functional building with the sole purpose of managing human waste.

很難想像這居然是基礎設施，一個純粹為了處理人類排洩物而建造的功能性建築。

And yet it has been designed with the same ornamental exuberance as any church or palace.

但它的設計卻和任何教堂或宮殿一樣，充滿了華麗的裝飾。

And why shouldn't people who work in sewers also have a beautiful place of work?

而且為什麼在汙水處理廠工作的人，就不能擁有一個美麗的工作場所呢？

這就是維多利亞時代人們的想法。

Of pride, a belief that what they'd done here was worthwhile, that it meant something.

一種驕傲感，相信他們在這裡所做的一切都是值得的，是有意義的。

And the result, over a century later, is that this place, a sewage facility, is now a museum, a tourist destination.

結果就是，一個多世紀後，這個地方，一個汙水處理廠，現在變成了一座博物館，一個旅遊景點。

If you want to know what any society really believes in, just look at how they design their sewers.

如果你想知道任何社會真正相信什麼，看看他們如何設計他們的汙水系統就知道了。

Just a few steps from the old 19th century Victorian pumping station, which has now been decommissioned, is the one built to replace it.

離現在已經退役的十九世紀維多利亞時代的舊抽水站僅幾步之遙，就是為取代它而建造的新抽水站。

it was very clearly not built by the same society, or at least not by society with the same views about architecture and design.

顯然不是由同一個社會建造的，或者至少不是由對建築和設計有相同世界觀的社會建造的。

Will this, like the original, be turned into a museum?

這個地方，會像最初的那個一樣，被改建成博物館嗎？

In any case, I imagine that it is more functional and that it was more convenient to build and to design.

無論如何，我想它功能更強大，而且建造和設計都更方便。

I think it says more about the modern world than anything else, more than phones or social media.

我覺得它比其他任何東西更能說明現代世界，比手機或社群媒體更能說明。

It's a miraculous technology, one that has changed the world and improved billions of lives.

這是一項奇蹟般的科技，改變了世界，改善了數十億人的生活。

Hence we stick them literally everywhere.

所以我們把它們 literalmente 裝到處都是。

Ugly because it doesn't seem to express any belief in the idea that ordinary things can also be beautiful.

醜，因為它似乎不相信普通的東西也可以很美。

Now, it would certainly be a bit more expensive to make it prettier, take a little time and care and attention.

現在，讓它更漂亮一點，花點時間、精力、心思，當然會貴一點。

But these days it seems that we would rather make more money to make things look pretty.

但現在似乎我們寧願賺更多錢來讓東西看起來漂亮。

So you can see, I hope, that through something as simple as those lampposts, you can understand the Victorians in their entirety.

所以你們可以看到，我希望，透過像那些燈柱這麼簡單的東西，你們就能完全瞭解維多利亞時代的人。

They didn't have to make it look like that, but they did.

他們不必把它做成那個樣子，但他們還是做了。

現在，你可能會覺得它並不美。

I don't think it was supposed to be beautiful.

At least interesting, at least not boring.

至少是有趣的，至少是不無聊的。

looking at its buildings and its infrastructure, you're not just looking at objects.

看看它的建築和基礎設施，你看到的就不只是物件。

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世界怎麼變得這麼醜陋？！ (How Did The World Get So Ugly?)

literally

present

deserve

improve