我们真的需要人生准则吗？

Ray Dalio is deluded, insensitive, emotionally illiterate, simplistic, breathtakingly smug, weird and plain wrong.

雷蒙德•戴利奥(Ray Dalio)易上当受骗、麻木不仁、情商为零、过分简单化、惊人的自命不凡、古怪、且错得离谱。

Harsh words, but I know the founder of one the world's most successful hedge funds will welcome them. The Bridgewater chief has just made a list of his top 300 rules for life and number 31 is to write down the weaknesses of others. Number 11 is never to say anything about a person you would not say to them directly, while number 22 is to “get over” fretting about whether comments are positive or negative. All that matters in Dalioland is whether they are accurate or inaccurate.

话说的很重，但我知道，作为世界上最成功对冲基金之一的创始人，雷蒙德会喜欢这些词的。这位Bridgewater的掌门人刚刚列了一张单子，罗列出自己最重要的300条人生准则。第31条是写下他人的缺点;第11条是当面不说的话决不在背后乱说;而第22条则是“克制”自己，努力做到荣辱不惊。在雷蒙德的世界里，他只关心准确与否。

These rules are contained in the most curious management document I have ever come across. Simply entitled “Principles”, it is being handed out to staff at Bridgewater to help them be as successful as their boss. It is also being passed gleefully from pillar to post on the internet.

这些准则包含在我所见过的最奇怪的管理文件中。文件被简单地冠名为“准则”，并分发给了Bridgewater员工，以帮助他们做到像老板一样成功。他们还欣喜地在互联网上四处传播。

But this is no mere staff manual. In it, Mr Dalio spends the first three chapters expounding on his general philosophy of life, which he says is a bit like skiing. So long as you do what the instructor tells you, all will go well. There is no ego in the exercise, he assures us: “With increased usage [the principles] will evolve from ‘Ray's principles' to ‘our principles' and Ray will fade out of the picture.”

但这不仅仅是员工手册。在其中，雷蒙德将开篇的头三章，都用来详述自己的人生哲学——他形容有一点像滑雪。只要你按照教练的指导做，一切皆会顺利。他向我们保证，在应用中完全没有彰显自我：“随着应用的增多，(这些准则)将从‘雷蒙德的准则'逐渐发展成‘我们的准则'，而雷蒙德的色彩将渐渐褪去。”

But for the time being Ray is rather firmly in the picture, writing a work that in its ambition reminds me of Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics. Both writers are pretty confident and both believe in principles that are not a priori, but discovered by doing. The main difference is that the Greek philosopher had less of an appetite for words such as “leverage” and “drilldown” than the modern hedge fund chief. And he avoided bogus equations such as

但眼下，雷蒙德的个人色彩还相当浓厚。作品中的雄心让我想起了亚里士多德(Aristotle)的《尼各马可伦理学》(Nicomachean Ethics)。两位作者都相当自信，都相信并非由推理得出、而是通过实践发现的准则。二人的主要区别在于，那位希腊哲学家没有当代这位对冲基金经理那么喜欢“杠杆”或“钻取”等词。他也没有用一些伪等式，例如：痛苦+深思=进步。

Pain + Reflection = Progress.

雷蒙德的哲学是美国梦狂热的原教旨主义版本。他宣称，“人们劳有所得”——如果你坐拥约40亿美元的财富，这个观点还是令人欣慰的。他还认为，“人们赚多少钱，大致反映了他们对社会的付出”——又是一种让雷蒙德安心的想法，但如果我是一名教师，我可能不会同意。

Mr Dalio's philosophy turns out to be a fanatical, fundamentalist version of the American dream. “People get what they deserve in life,” he states – a comforting view when you have made a fortune of about $4bn. He also thinks that “how much money people have earned is a rough measure of how much they gave society what it wanted” – again, a reassuring thought for Ray, though if I were a teacher I might not agree.

雷蒙德就这样将社会分了类，沉思人性的善恶。他宣称，任何顺应现实的东西都是好的。因此，他解释道，角马被鬣狗吃掉是好事，因为这推动了进化。

Having thus sorted society, Mr Dalio muses on the nature of good and evil, arguing that anything in tune with reality is good. Therefore it is good for the wildebeest to be eaten by the hyena, he explains, because that fosters evolution.

这种推理的问题在于，它不仅让人怀疑他是否见过角马，甚至会怀疑他到底见没见过人类。大多数我认识的进化人，都不愿成为众矢之的，就像角马肯定不愿被撕得支离破碎一样。

The trouble with this reasoning is that it leaves one wondering not only if Mr Dalio has ever met a wildebeest but whether he has met a human being. Most of the evolved humans I know hate being metaphorically ripped limb from limb by public criticism just as the wildebeest surely hates it in reality.

同样，进化人喜欢雷蒙德世界里违法的事情。在人背后嚼舌头——在他看来，这是仅次于监守自盗的坏事——在任何机构中都必不可少，这样做既可以消遣，还可以圆滑处事。如果雷蒙德认为自己的下属从不在背后对他说三道四，他也太容易被哄骗了。

Equally the evolved human loves things that are illegal in Ray's world. Talking behind peoples' backs – which he says is second-worst thing to having your hand in the till – is vital in any organisation, both for recreational and diplomatic purposes. If Mr Dalio thinks his underlings never bad-mouth him behind his back, he is dangerously deluded.

只有将那些唬人的哲学空话从“准则”中剔除，部分准则才有可能让人耳目一新。在戴利奥的世界里，并不存在“人才”和“我们”的力量之类空洞的废话。相反，你要雇用绝顶聪明的人，并积极管理他们——这在一定程度上解释了他的公司为何能取得成功。

If only one could take out the philosophical claptrap from “Principles”, some of the rules might make refreshing reading. There is no wishy-washy crud about “talent” and the power of “we”. Instead, in Mr Dalio's world, you hire super-bright people and manage them actively – which partly explains why his business is a success.

但就在我隐约感到一丝振奋时，我看到了其中一条准则，教导经理们将下属想象成棒球卡。这一条比其它准则都更能说明，“准则”为何毫无价值。雷蒙德或许是一位出色的投资者，但在情感上，他仍只是一个孩子。对于成年人而言，管理并不像搜集棒球卡。人才无法在棒球场上交换，严格按照安打率和失误率进行评级。相反，他们是理性、无理性、情感、抱负、懒惰、善良和恶意的复杂混合体。

Yet just as I was feeling vaguely invigorated, I came upon a rule that tells managers to think of their underlings like baseball cards. This, more than any of the others, explains why “Principles” is such a dud. Ray might be a brilliant investor, but he is still a little boy in emotional terms. For grown-ups, managing is not like collecting baseball cards. People cannot be swapped in playgrounds, graded exactly according to batting averages and errors. Instead they are complicated mixtures of rationality, irrationality, emotion, ambition, laziness, goodness and spite.

仿佛是担心雷蒙德的世界会被视为缺乏人情，第114条准则教导经理们要“真心实意地关心为你工作的人。尽量参加他们婚礼、分娩和葬礼”。这是最恐怖的准则。我立即把这一条记了下来：有谁敢当面贬损我，或像对待棒球卡一样对待我的人，都不会受邀参加我的葬礼。

As if fearing that Ray's World might be seen as lacking in human warmth, Principle 114 instructs managers to “sincerely care about the people who work for you. Try to be there for weddings, births and funerals”, he orders. This is the most chilling principle of all. I'm putting this on the record right now: anyone who tells me I'm rubbish to my face and views me like a baseball card is not invited to my funeral.