为什么与其他发达国家相比，美国的技术和基础设施看起来如此过时？

Why does American technology and infrastructure seem so outdated compared to the rest of the developed world?

2023-11-28 Natsuo 7122 9 3 收藏纠错&举报

译文简介

好吧，这是我的一点看法。我曾在新加坡和美国生活过，并观察过两国的基础设施。我认为这是因为美国的规模和人口中心所致。

正文翻译

Desmond Ng
Well, heres my two cents. I have lived in both Singapore and America,and have observed both country's infrastructure. I think its because of America's sheer size and population centres.
You see, America is the world's 3rd largest country, coming in behind Canada and Russia.and narrowly beating out China. But theres one key difference. 99% of Canada's population is concentrated within 150 kilometres of the Canadian-American border. 70% of Russia's population is in its European land, comprising 30% of its territory. 80% of China's people are concentrated in the East coast.

好吧，这是我的一点看法。我曾在新加坡和美国生活过，并观察过两国的基础设施。我认为这是因为美国的规模和人口中心所致。
你看，美国是世界第三大国，仅次于加拿大和俄罗斯，比中国略大一点。但有一个关键区别。加拿大99%的人口集中在距离美加边界150公里内的地区。俄罗斯70%的人口位于其欧洲部分，占据了其30%的领土。中国80%的人口集中在东海岸地区。

评论翻译

Meanwhile, America's population is spread out across its land. The West and East coasts both have major population centres, and central America still has millions in many spread out towns. Therefore, unlike the other big countries, America cant afford to concentrate. They are forced to settle for acceptable infrastructure everywhere rather than excellent structure in their major/important areas.

与此同时，美国的人口分布在整个国土上。西海岸和东海岸都有主要人口中心，中部地区仍有许多分散的城镇居民。因此，与其他大国不同，美国无法集中精力。他们被迫接受到处都是可以接受的基础设施，而不是在主要/重要地区拥有卓越的基础设施。

This is even more apparent when looking at small countries. For instance, in Singapore we have just completed a new train line. At one point it lixs up two stations just 3 stations and 13 minutes away from each other. Our country is very small, so we can afford to concnetrate new infrastructure at a rate bigger countries can only dream of.

在小国中，这一点更为明显。例如，在新加坡，我们刚刚完成了一条新的铁路线。有一次，它连接了两个车站，只有3个车站，相距13分钟。我们的国家很小，所以我们有能力以大国只能梦想的速度集中建设新的基础设施。

Mark Weinert
American infrastructure is also very uneven. Some areas are first class, some are far behind. Even within a single metropolitan area there can be large infrastructure inequities. The city I live in is prosperous and has a large university and a well developed high tech industrial base. We have an excellent light rail system, free local buses will soon complete an all fiber internet backbone. Just pointing out that there are large parts of the country that can compare quire well with any place in the world and many other parts that are decades behind.

美国的基础设施也很不平均。有些地区是一流的，有些则远远落后。即使在一个都市区域内，基础设施的不平等也可能很大。我住的城市繁荣，有一所大型大学和一个发达的高科技产业基地。我们有一个优秀的轻轨系统，免费的公交车很快就会完成所有的光纤互联网骨干网。只是指出美国有很大的部分可以与世界上任何地方相比，还有许多其他部分已经落后了几十年。

Alex Johnson
we can't do anything about it we have nearly 10 million square km of land mass we can't invest in every part of the country however sooner or later things may change for the better or worse

我们无法对此做出任何改变，因为我们拥有近1000万平方公里的土地面积，我们无法在全国各地都进行投资，但是迟早会有好转或恶化的变化。

Jas Diaz
I think the real reason is many modern technological advances first happened in USA like electrical bulb. While it is easy to jump straight into the current state of technology, it is difficult to replace the old but still working technology. It can be done only in phases. Added to this is the country size and hence the costs.

我认为真正的原因是许多现代技术先在美国出现，比如电灯泡。虽然直接跳入当前技术状态很容易，但是替换旧但仍在工作的技术却很困难，只能分阶段进行。再加上国家规模和成本的问题。

Leif Jerram
One of the reasons that the US struggles to handle large scale, long term, expensive infrastructure projects (and pretty much all infrastructure projects are this) is the structure of the political system, both institutionally and culturally. The US political system has many well-publicised dysfunctions that stop it making long-term infrastructure decisions, and/or financing them. The key ones in terms of infrastructure would seem to me to be:

美国在处理大规模、长期、昂贵的基础设施项目（实际上几乎所有基础设施项目都是如此）时遇到困难的原因之一是其政治体系的结构，无论是从制度上还是从文化上来看。美国的政治体系存在许多公众熟知的功能障碍，阻碍了其做出长期基础设施决策和/或融资的能力。在基础设施方面，我认为以下几个关键问题：

1.The state/federal divide. Many major infrastructure projects (railroads, nuclear power stations, HEP, and so on) require cooperation which the division of powers mitigates against. Between the 30s and the 60s the federal government was able to overcome this (sometimes), but no longer...

1.州与联邦的分割。许多重大基础设施项目（铁路、核电站、水电站等）需要合作，而权力的分割却使这种合作受到限制。在30年代到60年代之间，联邦政府能够克服这一问题（有时候），但现在不再能够做到。

2.Fragmentary local government. Urban governments in the US are often fragmented into highly socially, economically and racially segregated sub-units which cannot either effectively deliver services themselves or co-operate with others to do so.
3.Voter initiatives. Mixing it up in the other factors, because there are so many occasions for people to say 'no' to things, and 'yes' arguments are so complex to make, a lot of folk say no to a lot of stuff. And no, it's not democracy at all, because saying 'no' in your area might harm ten times more people than live in your area, and democracy is much more than reducing technical, 'difficult to balance' equations to crass 'yes/no' propositions.

2.零散的地方政府。美国的城市政府通常分散成高度社会、经济和种族隔离的子单位，它们无法有效地提供服务，也无法与其他单位合作提供服务。 3.选民主动权。由于其他因素的混合作用，人们有很多机会说“不”并且“赞成”立场很复杂，所以很多人对很多事情说“不”。并且不，这并不是真正的民主，因为在你的区域说“不”可能会损害到比你所在区域的人口多十倍的人，而民主远远不止是将技术上“难以平衡”的等式简单化为肤浅的“是/否”命题。

4.The culture wars. The apocalyptic rhetoric of large chunks US politics over the last thirty years has tended to present government actions which enable choice (building light rail systems, for example, so people can choose whether to use a car or a train) as being hostile to freedom, and have often focused relentlessly on a 'spending = evil' mantra, to the exclusion of other possible views - like trying to distinguish between spending and investing.

4.文化战争。过去三十年来，美国政治的大部分都充斥着世界末日般的言辞，这倾向于将促使选择的政府行动（例如建设轻轨系统，让人们可以选择使用汽车还是火车）视为对自由的敌对，并且经常无休止地强调“支出=邪恶”的口号，排除了其他可能的观点——比如试图区分支出和投资。

5.Pork-barrel politics. One of the things which can shock outside observers of US politics, at federal and state level, is the way all sorts of irrelevant greedy shit ends up tacked on to unconnected legislation. This means that such US spending as there is on, say, building a bridge, is not always done because 'this is the place that most needs the bridge'. Rather it's done because the representative from Wheresat demanded a bridge from her backyard to her son's shooting range so the roads budget for the whole state/country could get passed. I'm often struck by some remarkable pieces of infrastructure in the US that just don't seem to be being used by people!

5.地方利益政治。观察美国联邦和州级政治的外界观察者会惊讶地发现，各种无关紧要的贪婪行为最终都与无关的立法挂钩。这意味着美国在某些方面的开支（比如修建一座桥梁）并不总是因为“这是最需要桥梁的地方”。相反，这是因为来自某地的代表要求在她的后院和她儿子的射击场之间建一座桥梁，以便整个州/国家的道路预算能够通过。我经常被美国一些引人注目的基础设施所震撼，但似乎人们并没有使用它们！

Brian Collins
A lot of it is exaggerated, some of it is true.
Home Appliances in the US are pretty old. We still use toasters and teapots. The first time I ever saw an electric kettle was at my girlfriend’s house in Melbourne, Australia. I was amazed at how it heats 1.5 liters of water in a minute to boiling.
I bought one in the US on Amazon… It isn’t like these new appliances don’t exist, they are just uncommon.
My family did not get a microwave until 2004 and my dad is still panicky about it and always gets mad at me when I stand near it while it is cooking.

其中很多是夸大其词，一些是真实的。美国的家用电器很老旧，我们仍然使用烤面包机和茶壶。我第一次看到电热水壶是在澳大利亚墨尔本女友的家里，我惊讶于它可以在一分钟内将1.5升水加热到沸腾。我在亚马逊上买了一台......这些新型电器并不是不存在，只是不常见而已。我家直到2004年才买了微波炉，我爸爸仍然对此非常紧张，在烹饪时我站在旁边他总会生气。

While I was in Japan complaining about the toll roads to a Portuguese dude and saying I can drive for thousands of miles without paying a single toll, he explained to me that “Your roads are crumbling and your bridges are falling down!”
That is not true at all really.
Ok, the bridges, yes they are a mess in some cases. The roads though are maybe a bit rougher than in Europe and Japan, but they are not falling apart or crumbling apart, with the exception of abandoned highways.
Cars go 60, 70, even 85 mph on them all the time without popping a tire. Construction happens often.

当我在日本向一位葡萄牙人抱怨收费公路时，说我可以开车数千英里而不用支付一分钱的过路费时，他向我解释道：“你们的道路正在崩溃，你们的桥梁正在倒塌！”这实际上并不正确。好吧，桥梁有些情况确实很糟糕。但是道路可能比欧洲和日本的道路粗糙一些，但它们并没有崩溃或分崩离析，除了废弃的高速公路。汽车经常以60、70甚至85英里/小时的速度行驶，而不会爆胎。经常进行施工。

It does vary a lot from state to state and county to county. Idaho has slightly rougher roads than Washington. The biggest difference though is not the quality of the roads, but the frequent lane closures and slow repairs in Idaho.
In Washington (state) you can tell the difference as soon as you cross into King County. In Pierce County the roads are smooth, but then all the sudden as you get closer to Seattle you feel bumping.
This though is a far cry from “falling apart”.
You really cannot tell the roads in the US apart from the roads in Canada except for the street signs. Yes, Ontario, B.C., and Alberta have better roads than most of the US, but the ones in Quebec are as bad as the ones in the Great Lakes.

它在不同的州和县之间有很大的差异。爱达荷州的道路比华盛顿州略微粗糙。然而，最大的区别并不是道路的质量，而是爱达荷州频繁的车道关闭和缓慢的修复。
在华盛顿州，一旦穿过金县，你就能感受到区别。在皮尔斯县，道路很平稳，但当你靠近西雅图时，突然感觉有些颠簸。不过这距离“崩溃”还相差甚远。
你真的无法从美国的道路中区分出加拿大的道路，除了街道标志。是的，安大略省、不列颠哥伦比亚省和艾伯塔省的道路比大多数美国的道路要好，但魁北克的道路和五大湖地区的道路一样糟糕。

John Carter
In terms of technology, we’re not outdated at all. The U.S. actually has more top of the line technology per capita than any other nation of the world. The main problem we have in that regard is infrastructure relation. And that is from the fact that our technology backbone has a lot of legacy systems that we can’t replace due to things like how much it would cost to do so, how long it would take, the fact that replacing them will negatively affect other key areas of our country, or any combination of the three.

就技术而言，我们并没有过时。事实上，美国每人拥有的顶尖技术比世界上任何其他国家都多。在这方面，我们主要的问题是基础设施关系。原因是我们的技术骨干系统有许多无法更换的遗留系统，原因可能是替换成本过高、时间过长，或者替换它们会对国家的其他关键领域产生负面影响，或者以上三种情况的组合。

In terms of infrastructure, you need to keep in mind that we are the third largest nation in the world. That means we have a lot of infrastructure to keep working as it is. Just maintaining the amount of infrastructure we have to maintain would bankrupt most nations, even those among the G8 would balk at the cost. And while upgrading it seems slow, it is still going apace, but again, we have a lot of infrastructure to upgrade.

就基础设施而言，需要记住我们是世界上第三大国家。这意味着我们有大量的基础设施需要保持正常运作。仅仅维护我们需要维护的基础设施就足以使大多数国家破产，即使G8国家中的国家也会对成本感到困扰。虽然升级速度似乎较慢，但仍在进行中，但我们确实有大量的基础设施需要升级。

And that is if the infrastructure needs upgrading. Infrastructure is designed for function first, how long it lasts second, and aesthetics when affordable. Much of our infrastructure just needs maintenance, and that is cheaper than upgrading it. And lo and behold, keeping infrastructure maintained also means it will keep working.
We are ranked eighth in the world when it comes to infrastructure, and we are larger than the other seven nations higher in the ranking combined.

而且前提是基础设施需要升级。基础设施首先是为了功能而设计的，其次是寿命，美观只是可行的情况下才考虑。我们的许多基础设施只需要维护，这比升级要便宜。保持基础设施的维护也意味着它将继续正常运作。
在基础设施排名上，我们排名第八，并且我们的国土面积比排名更靠前的其他七个国家加起来还大。
原创翻译：龙腾网 https://www.ltaaa.cn 转载请注明出处

George Gonzalez
When you develop something first, you end up with a bulge of old original equipment. Younger countries that piggyback on that initial development may end up with a bulge of newer equipment.
Also the USA is very large, so things like trains tend to be uneconomical for long trips, so the trains and rails are older or obsolete.
Since energy in the USA is quite a bit cheaper, and houses are larger, there are lots of larger and less efficient home appliances.

当你首先进行某项开发时，最终会产生一大批老旧的原始设备。那些依附于最初的发展的较年轻国家可能会拥有一大批更新的设备。
此外，美国地域辽阔，所以像火车这样的交通工具在长途旅行中往往是不经济的，因此火车和铁轨都比较老旧或过时。
由于能源在美国相当便宜，房屋也较大，所以有许多更大但效率较低的家电设备。

Dallas McKay
I like to look at telecommunications and eelectric grid. Our land lines are still pretty much the finest telecommunications system in the world when it comes to land line systems. Only wireless communications changed this. We didn't adopt wireless as quickly because we didn't need to. Now, we are quite up to date. We were also a little slower because we have more than one or two enourmas cities and a pretty damn dense population outside our major cities. Our east coast alone has nine cities as large as, or larger than, the biggest city in probably 80% of all other nnation. The northeast alone has five of them. So, we had to set up enough cellular band width per city to accommodate. And again, the land line system isn't completely obsolete.

我喜欢关注电信和电力网。当涉及到固定电话系统时，我们的有线电话系统仍然是世界上最好的。只有无线通信改变了这一点。我们没有那么快地采用无线通信，因为我们不需要。现在，我们已经非常更新换代了。我们也比较慢，因为我们有超过一两个巨大城市和相当密集的人口居住在主要城市之外。单单东海岸就有九个城市与其他国家中可能80%的最大城市一样大或更大。仅东北部就有其中的五个城市。因此，我们必须为每个城市设置足够的移动带宽以容纳。而且，有线电话系统并不完全过时。

You know freaks out Americans in any place in the nation? Power outages. We don't routinely have them. Even in our ost remote areas, the power rarely fails. I lived in Italy near Venice. We had monthly power outages. This wasn't some backwater village in the Alps. This was a large city about as big as Colorado Springs, Co., or Tallahassee, Fl. People were not surprised when the power went out. The same thing was common in Korea in cities not named Seoul or Busan. Large areas of the city blacked out for a little bit on a semi regular basis.

你知道美国人在全国任何地方最害怕什么吗？断电。我们不经常遇到停电情况。即使在我们最偏远的地区，停电的情况也很少见。我曾住在意大利靠近威尼斯的地方。我们每月都有停电。这不是在阿尔卑斯山脉里的某个偏僻村庄，而是一个与科罗拉多斯普林斯或塔拉哈西等规模相当的大城市。当停电发生时，人们并不感到惊讶。韩国的情况也是如此，除了首尔和釜山以外的城市经常出现大面积停电的情况。

The big complaint I hear from Europeans and Asians is the lack of passenger rail. They have trouble understanding the extreme distances in the US between cities. Texas alone is larger than several countries combined. Same can be said for California. The US is probably the most geographically diverse country in the world save for maybe China. Rail exists were it needs to. What most people don't know is that our cargo rail is just about the best in the world. Same for our long haul trucking. Our trucks are too heavy and too wide for just about everywhere but Australia and Canada.

我听到欧洲人和亚洲人最抱怨的是缺乏客运铁路。他们很难理解美国城市之间的极端距离。仅德克萨斯州就比几个国家加起来还要大。加利福尼亚也是如此。除了中国可能是世界上地理多样性最丰富的国家之外，美国可能是第二个。铁路存在于需要的地方。但大多数人不知道的是，我们的货运铁路几乎是世界上最好的。我们的长途卡车运输也是如此。我们的卡车在几乎除了澳大利亚和加拿大之外的任何地方都太重、太宽。

Doug Smith
There is nothing about a fire truck built right now that needs to be significantly different than a truck built in let’s say 1970. It needs a engine to propel it through roads and streets and to run a pump to pump water. A place to put hose so that it can be placed from a hydrant to fire in the city or from the pool that they dump water in at a rural fire. In many places a fire truck may only get 2000 mile (3000km) in a year. That means that they only get replaced when you can't get parts for the underlying truck anymore.

现在建造的消防车与1970年左右建造的消防车没有明显不同之处。它需要一个引擎来驱动它在道路上行驶，并运行一个泵来抽水。还需要一个放置软管的地方，以便将其从城市的消防栓或农村火灾处放置到火源。在许多地方，一辆消防车可能一年只能行驶2000英里（3000公里）。这意味着只有当无法获得底层卡车零件时才会更换消防车。
原创翻译：龙腾网 https://www.ltaaa.cn 转载请注明出处

Potholes as others have commented are a byproduct of the temperature going back and forth across the freeze thaw line. There is also no practical way to fix them until the weather warns up. Asphalt plants don't run in the winter and there is a minimum temperature at which asphalt can be put down and have it stick to the surface below. This means for about 6 months of the year in northern climates you live with them. Another factor is that salt which is used as a deicer also damages roads and bridges.

正如其他人评论的那样，坑洼是温度来回穿越冻融线的副产品。在天气变暖之前，也没有实际的修复方法。沥青厂在冬季不运行，而且有一个最低温度，在此温度下，沥青才能铺设并黏附到下面的表面上。这意味着在北方气候中的大约6个月时间里，你必须忍受它们。另一个因素是用作除冰剂的盐也会损坏道路和桥梁。

Home appliances: Take a toaster for example there isn't much about one to improve. They are heating elements with a place to put bread between them, a timer to turn them off and a heat resistant box to put it him. All the rest is aesthetics. Electric kettles are rare in the US for two reasons. One, the maximum power that you can get out of an outlet is a lot lower than on a 240 volt system and there are very few tea drinkers in the US. I recently counted coffee pots at my locsl diner. There were a total of twelve pots. Two were for decaf, nine were for regular coffee and one held hot water. The hot water would have been used for both hot chocolate and tea. It would also have been filled maybe once for every two times the coffee pots were filled. What I personally dislike about an electric kettle or for the most part any one use electric anything is that they take up counter space and are hard to store when not in use. I have a traditional tea kettle and it camps out on the stove unless I have a reason to use all four burners on the stove which is maybe twice a year rare.

家用电器：以烤面包机为例，几乎没有什么需要改进的地方。它们是带有放置面包的加热元件，有一个定时器来关闭它们，以及一个耐热的箱子来放置它们。其余的都是外观美学方面的考虑。在美国，电水壶很少见，原因有两个：一是插座输出的最大功率远低于240伏特系统，并且美国很少有喝茶的人。最近我在当地的小餐馆数了一下咖啡壶，一共有十二只壶。其中两只是给无咖啡因的，九只是给普通咖啡的，还有一只装着热水。这壶热水既可以用来冲热巧克力，也可以用来泡茶。相较于单一用途的电器，我个人不喜欢的是它们占用台面空间，而且在不使用时难以存放。我有一个传统的水壶，平时就放在炉子上，除非我有理由同时使用炉子上的四个炉头，这种情况可能很少发生，也就是每年两次左右。

There are some aspects of our railroads that could be improved but for the most part they are for freight and work well for that. If you are asking why they aren't electrified, the reason is you get no gain but a huge amount expense to do it.

我们的铁路有一些方面可以改进，但在很大程度上，它们是为货运而设计的，并且在这方面工作得很好。如果你问为什么它们没有电气化，原因是电气化没有任何好处，但费用却非常高昂。

发达国家 美国技术 基础设施

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