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To take advantage of this tool, some impoverished countries will have to get over their outdated anti-colonial prejudices with respect to foreign investment.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.

译文

今天，人们十分关注所谓的数字分化问题——世界分成信息富有和信息贫困两部分。当今这种分化确实存在，我和妻子20年前就曾谈到这一迫近的危险。然而，当时还不太明显的是存在着一些新的积极因素来抵制数字分化。我们完全有理由感到乐观。

一些技术上的因素使我们有理由期望分化会缩小。随着互联网的日趋商业化，网上交易变得普及——毕竟，上网人数越来越多，潜在客户就越多。越来越多的政府唯恐自己的国家落后，纷纷推广互联网接人。在一、二十年之内，全球将有一、二十亿人互联。因此，我认为在未来的数年中，数字分化将缩小而不会变大。这是好消息，因为互联网很可能成为与我们所面临的贫困做斗争的最有力的工具。

当然，互联网的使用不是消除贫困的唯一方法。互联网也不是我们所拥有的唯一工具，但它拥有巨大潜力。

想要利用互联网，一些贫困国家就必须克服对国外投资所持有的那种过时的、反殖民的种种偏见。那些认为国外投资是对本国主权侵犯的国家最好还是好好研究一下美国基础设施的历史。当初美国建立自己的工业基础设施时，缺乏必要资金，因此美国的第二波基础设施浪潮——包括公路、海港、高速公路、码头等等——都是用国外资金建造的。英国人、德国人、荷兰人和法国人都在前英国殖民地投资。他们提供资金，美国移民者来建造。想想看，谁拥有这一切？是美国人。我想，就这一点来说，巴西或其他任何地方同样也该这样。在建设第三波基础设施的浪潮（今天主要指电子基础设施）中，拥有的国外资金越多，那么情况将会越好。这并不是要卑躬屈膝、认人愚弄，也不是对国外公司不加控制，而是意味着你已认识到国外公司对本国能源及通信基础设施建设的重要性，而这些基础设施则需要充分利用互联网。

词汇

派生：accessible a. 易接近的，可到达的 accession n. 就职

例句：The only access to their house is along that narrow road. 只有沿着那条狭窄的路走才能到达他们的房子。

词组：access to 接近；have/gain access to 可以获得；easy of access 易于接近

派生：commerce n. 商业，商务，贸易 commercialism n. 商业主义 commercial a. 商业的，盈利的，商品化的

例句：Love matters should not be commercialized. 不应该把恋爱商品化。

例句：The troop has much experience of actual combat. 这支部队有实际作战经验。

辨析：war, battle, combat

      war 指全面战争；battle 指局部战争；combat 指比battle 规模小的战斗。

派生：corporate a. 团体的；社团的，全体的

例句：It grew from a tiny start-up to a multimillion-dollar corporation. 那家公司从小小的新公司发展成数百万美元的大公司。

例句：This should be the aim over the next decade, it is crucial to our survival. 这应该成为今后十年的奋斗目标，它关系到我们的生死存亡。

例句：Our school defeated another school at football. 在足球比赛中我们学校战胜了另一个学校。

派生：division n. 分割，除法

例句：Fire-break divided them at conveniently spaced intervals. 防火带把他们的距离适当分开了。

词组：divide…into 分，划分、除，除尽；divide among/between 在……之中分配；divide sth. with sb. 与某人分享某物；divide by 除以

辨析：separate, divide

separate 指把原来连接在一起的或者靠近的东西分割开来；divide 是指把整体分成若干份。

派生：enormously ad. 巨大地，极大地

例句：An enormous gap remains between the advanced countries and the developing countries. 在先进国家和发展中国家之间仍然存在着巨大的差距。

辨析：enormous, huge

enormous 巨大的，较huge 正式，暗示超出寻常体积或程度，超大；huge 巨大的，两词都着重大小，数量之极多，体积之巨大。

派生：financial a. 财政的，金融的

例句：She is an expert in finance. 她是一位金融专家。

The government will finance the new building with the taxes it collected. 政府将用征缴的税收为新建筑筹集资金。

派生：impoverishment n. 贫困

例句：Our lives would have been greatly impoverished if we had not got this job. 如果我们没有这份工作，我们的生活会很贫困。

例句：Vast sums are needed to keep the infrastructure. 保养基础设施需要大量资金。

派生：invade v. 侵略，入侵 invader n. 侵略者

例句：The navy is our principal bulwark against invasion. 海军是我们抵御侵略者的重要保障。

派生：invest v. 投资，投入investor n. 投资者

例句：He made an investment of $ 10,000 in the supermarket. 她在这个超市投资了1万美元。

例句：A figure loomed out of the forest. 一个影子隐约在森林出现。

词组：loom large 赫然耸现；显得严重

例句：For years, scientists have debated the potential impact of oil spills. 多少年来，科学家们就一直在探讨石油溢漏可能造成的影响。

词组：be potential for 对……有潜力，有可能

例句：We should cast away all prejudices to deal with this problem. 我们应该抛弃所有偏见来处理这个问题。

词组：have a prejudice against 对……有偏见

例句：China’s sovereignty and territorial integrity must not be infringed. 中国的主权与领土完整不容侵犯。

例句：He spread some apple jam on the bread. 他在面包上涂上苹果酱。

The spread of the scientific knowledge is necessary. 科普知识的传播是很必要的。

词组：spread sth. with sth. 把某物铺在某物上；spread over 延展，延神

派生：universal a. 全体的，与全体有关的；普遍的 universally ad. 全体地，普遍地 universalization n. 一般化，普遍化