Concise Summary简洁概述
Yudkowsky uses a satirical "lost outtake" from The Empire Strikes Back — in which actor Mark Hamill argues with George Lucas about why Luke Skywalker gives up lifting his X-wing after mere seconds — to make a serious rationalist point. The fictional Hamill insists Luke should at least try for five minutes; Lucas says audiences won't notice the absurdity. Lucas is right, and that is the indictment: people routinely abandon hard tasks almost instantly, yet neither they nor bystanders register that anything is wrong. When the fate of the world is at stake, most people would still quit in under five minutes.
Yudkowsky 用一段虚构的《帝国反击战》「失传花絮」——演员马克·哈米尔质问乔治·卢卡斯，为何卢克·天行者只用了几秒钟就放弃抬起他的 X 翼战机——来表达一个严肃的理性主义观点。虚构中的哈米尔坚持卢克至少应该再试五分钟；卢卡斯说观众不会察觉这种荒谬。卢卡斯是对的，而这正是控诉所在：人们习惯性地几乎立刻就放弃困难的任务，但无论是他们自己还是旁观者，都不会觉得有什么不对劲。即便人类的命运悬而未决，大多数人也仍然会在五分钟内放弃。
Infographic信息图
The fictional outtake
虚构的花絮
A satirical exchange in which Hamill demands that Luke — who has a feasibility demonstration and an 800-year Jedi master's assurance — try for at least five minutes before declaring something impossible.
一段讽刺性的对话：哈米尔要求卢克——他已有可行性演示、还有一位有着八百年资历的绝地大师背书——至少再试五分钟，然后才说「不可能」。
The feasibility demonstration
可行性演示
The X-wing already started to rise before Luke gave up — meaning the task was demonstrably not impossible, just hard. Quitting then and calling it impossible is a category error.
X 翼战机在卢克放弃之前已经开始上升了——这意味着这个任务明显并非不可能，只是很难。此时放弃并称之为「不可能」，是一个分类错误。
The audience does not notice
观众不会察觉
Lucas's prediction — that viewers will nod along without registering the absurdity — is the real bite. The failure mode is invisible precisely because it is normal.
卢卡斯的预言——观众会点头默认而不会察觉这种荒谬——才是真正的锋芒所在。这种失败模式之所以隐形，恰恰是因为它太正常了。
The stakes do not change behavior
高风险不会改变行为
Lucas's final line — that people would not try for five minutes even if the fate of humanity were at stake — extends the critique from a movie scene to the whole of human motivation.
卢卡斯的最后一句话——即便人类的命运悬而未决，人们也不会坚持试上五分钟——把这个批评从一个电影场景延伸到了整个人类动机问题。
Detailed Summary详细概述
Setup: Luke Skywalker was not the hero you remember
Yudkowsky opens by recalling watching Star Wars IV–VI as a young child and remembering Luke as a cool Jedi. Then he rewatches as an adult and discovers Luke is a whiny teenager. This sets up his real target: the Yoda scene.
The scene and the fictional outtake
The Yoda quote — "Do, or do not. There is no try" — sounds inspirational. But Yudkowsky watches the scene on YouTube and is appalled: after the X-wing starts to rise and then sinks again, Luke immediately says "I can't. It's too big" and walks away. He invented a satirical dialogue in which Mark Hamill argues with George Lucas:
Mark: "Shouldn't Luke maybe give it another shot?"
Hamill's argument is devastating in its logic: (1) the X-wing was already rising, which is a feasibility demonstration; (2) Yoda — with eight hundred years of Jedi seniority — just told him it was doable; (3) it is Luke's own spaceship; if he leaves it, he's trapped on Dagobah forever. The fictional Hamill escalates through proposals — try again fully rested, show a sunset-and-sunrise of him standing there straining — finally arriving at a minimum demand: "Five goddamned minutes."
Lucas's defence — and why it's the real indictment
George Lucas does not dispute that Luke quits too fast. He simply predicts that the audience will not care: "They're going to sit there and nod along and not notice anything out of the ordinary." He is right. That is the horror. The failure mode — declaring "impossible" after five seconds when a task was visibly starting to succeed — is invisible because it is normal.
Lucas then delivers the essay's punchline:
"People wouldn't try for five minutes before giving up if the fate of humanity were at stake."
What the essay is really about
This is not a film-criticism piece. The fictional dialogue is a vehicle for a real claim about human motivation and the meaning of "trying." Most people — when faced with a hard task — make one token gesture, feel discomfort, and stop. They call the result "I tried" and mean it sincerely. But they did not try in any sense that would distinguish them from Luke lifting his arm for ten seconds and sitting down.
The essay pairs with the John McCarthy epigraph: "When there's a will to fail, obstacles can be found." Motivated reasoning runs both ways: people searching for permission to stop will find it almost immediately. The point of "trying harder" is not brute force — it is refusing to accept the first flush of difficulty as evidence of impossibility, especially when you already have a feasibility demonstration in front of you.
The essay is short by design: the argument fits in a joke, and the joke lands precisely because the reader recognizes the behavior.
引子：卢克·天行者并不是你记忆中的英雄
Yudkowsky 以童年观看《星球大战》IV–VI 的回忆开场，记忆中的卢克是个很酷的绝地武士。然后他以成年人的眼光重看，发现卢克其实是个爱发牢骚的青少年。这为他真正的靶子做好了铺垫：尤达的场景。
场景与虚构的花絮
尤达的名言——「做，或不做。没有「试」。」——听起来很励志。但 Yudkowsky 在 YouTube 上看了那个场景后大为震惊：X 翼战机开始上升、然后又沉下去之后，卢克立刻说「我做不到，它太大了」，然后走开了。他虚构了一段马克·哈米尔与乔治·卢卡斯争论的对话：
马克：「卢克也许应该再试一次？」
哈米尔的论证在逻辑上是毁灭性的：（1）X 翼战机已经在上升了，这本身就是一个可行性演示；（2）尤达——拥有八百年绝地资历——刚刚告诉他这是可行的；（3）这是卢克自己的飞船；如果他就这么离开，他就永远被困在达果巴了。虚构的哈米尔不断升级他的提案——休息好了再试、用日落日出来展示他站在那里努力——最终抵达了一个最低要求：「五他妈分钟。」
卢卡斯的辩护——以及为何这才是真正的控诉
乔治·卢卡斯并没有反驳卢克放弃得太快。他只是预测观众不会在意：「他们会坐在那里随声附和，不会觉得有什么不对劲。」 他是对的。这才是恐怖之处。这种失败模式——在一个任务明显已开始成功时，只经过五秒钟就宣布「不可能」——之所以隐形，恰恰是因为它太正常了。
随后卢卡斯给出了整篇文章的点睛之笔：
「即便人类命运悬而未决，人们也不会在放弃之前试上五分钟。」
这篇文章真正在说什么
这不是一篇影评。虚构的对话是一辆载体，承载着一个关于人类动机和「尝试」之含义的真实主张。大多数人——面对困难任务时——做出一个象征性的姿态，感到不适，然后停下来。他们把这个结果称为「我试过了」，并且是真心这么认为的。但他们并没有「尝试」，在任何能把他们与卢克区分开来的意义上——卢克也不过是举了十秒钟手臂，然后坐下来。
本文与约翰·麦卡锡的题记相呼应：「当有意志要失败时，障碍总是找得到的。」 动机性推理是双向的：寻找停止许可的人几乎立刻就能找到。「更努力地尝试」的意义不在于蛮力——而在于拒绝把第一波困难感当作不可能的证据，尤其是当你面前已经有了一个可行性演示的时候。
这篇文章刻意写得简短：论证装在一个笑话里，而笑话之所以成立，恰恰是因为读者认出了那种行为。
FAQ常见问答
Is "Do or do not, there is no try" actually bad advice?「做，或不做，没有「试」」真的是坏建议吗？
Yudkowsky's objection is not to the slogan itself but to what it licenses in practice. If "there is no try" means "commit fully," it can be useful. But in the scene, Yoda's line is immediately followed by Luke giving up after ten seconds — so the slogan served as an exit ramp, not a commitment device. The problem is that "I tried" becomes a socially acceptable excuse that forecloses actual effort.
Yudkowsky 反对的不是这句口号本身，而是它在实践中授权的行为。如果「没有「试」」意味着「全力以赴」，它可以是有用的。但在那个场景里，尤达的话之后紧接着卢克十秒钟就放弃了——所以这句口号充当了退出坡道，而非承诺装置。问题在于，「我试过了」成了一个社会可接受的借口，从而封堵了真实努力的可能。
The outtake is fictional — does that undermine the argument?这段花絮是虚构的——这会削弱论证吗？
No, because the argument doesn't depend on Hamill or Lucas holding these views. The fictional dialogue dramatizes a logical analysis: given what was established within the Star Wars scene itself (the ship rising, Yoda's assurance), calling the task impossible after ten seconds is not warranted. The joke is a vehicle for the logic, and the logic stands on its own.
不会，因为这个论证并不依赖于哈米尔或卢卡斯真的持有这些观点。这段虚构对话戏剧化了一项逻辑分析：鉴于《星球大战》场景本身所建立的事实（飞船上升、尤达的保证），在十秒钟后宣布任务不可能是没有根据的。笑话是逻辑的载体，而逻辑本身是站得住脚的。
What is the John McCarthy epigraph about?约翰·麦卡锡的题记是什么意思？
"When there's a will to fail, obstacles can be found" points to motivated reasoning in reverse: just as people can rationalize why a belief is true, they can rationalize why a task is impossible. Someone who wants to stop will quickly find a reason that the task cannot be done. The epigraph frames the essay's concern as one about motivation distorting reasoning, not just a lack of raw effort.
「当有意志要失败时，障碍总是找得到的」指向了反向的动机性推理：正如人们能为某个信念为何为真而自圆其说，他们也能为某个任务为何不可能而自圆其说。想要停下来的人很快就能找到一个「这件事做不到」的理由。这句题记把本文关注的问题定性为动机扭曲推理的问题，而非仅仅是缺乏原始努力。
Is this essay only about persistence, or is there a broader epistemic point?这篇文章只是关于坚持不懈，还是有更广泛的认识论要点？
There is a broader epistemic claim embedded in the piece: that people mistake the feeling of difficulty for evidence of impossibility. Luke had a feasibility demonstration — the ship was already rising — and he still concluded impossibility. This is a failure of calibration: letting discomfort or a single failure update your beliefs far more than the evidence warrants. The essay is about not letting that first wave of difficulty close the question.
这篇文章里嵌入了一个更广泛的认识论主张：人们把「困难的感觉」误认为「不可能的证据」。卢克已经有了可行性演示——飞船在上升——他仍然得出了「不可能」的结论。这是一种校准失败：让不适感或一次失败对信念的更新幅度远远超出证据所支持的程度。这篇文章是关于不让第一波困难感就把问题盖棺论定。
Who is the real target: filmmakers who write weak heroes, or ordinary people who quit too fast?真正的批评对象是谁：写出懦弱主角的电影人，还是放弃太快的普通人？
Ordinary people. Lucas's prediction that the audience would "sit there and nod along" is the essay's genuine conclusion: the audience does not walk out because most of them would also give up in five seconds, and they recognize the behavior as normal. The film scene is just the concrete example that makes the universal pattern visible.
是普通人。卢卡斯预测观众会「坐在那里随声附和」，这才是本文真正的结论：观众不会离场，是因为他们中的大多数人也会在五秒内放弃，他们认出了这种行为，觉得这很正常。那个电影场景只是让普遍模式变得可见的具体例子。
How does this relate to the broader Map and Territory sequence?这篇文章与更广泛的《地图与疆域》系列有何关联？
It fits as a motivational complement to the epistemic essays: even if you understand rationality perfectly, none of it matters if you quit the moment a problem gets hard. The sequence is about building better maps, but you have to keep trying to build the map. Luke's failure was not a failure of technique — Yoda told him the technique — it was a failure to persist long enough to apply it.
它作为认识论文章的动机性补充而存在：即便你完全理解了理性，一旦问题变难就立刻放弃，这一切都毫无意义。这个系列是关于绘制更好的地图，但你必须持续尝试去绘制地图。卢克的失败不是技术上的失败——尤达已经告诉他技术了——而是没有坚持足够长的时间来应用它的失败。
In-depth Analysis · Pros & Cons深入解读 · 优缺点
This is one of Yudkowsky's shortest essays in the Sequences, yet it punches above its weight by embedding a serious claim about human motivation inside a comic dialogue. The setup is disarming — who takes a satirical Star Wars outtake seriously? — which is precisely what makes the final line land so hard.
这是 Yudkowsky 在「序列」中最短的文章之一，但它把一个关于人类动机的严肃主张嵌入了一段喜剧对话，因而分量超乎其篇幅。切入方式是解除武装的——谁会认真对待一段虚构的《星球大战》花絮呢？——而这恰恰是让最后那句话如此有力的原因。
- The joke works as an argument笑话本身就是一个论证The fictional dialogue isn't just funny — it assembles the logical conditions under which "impossible" is clearly premature: feasibility demonstrated, expert endorsement given, stakes sky-high. Hamill's escalation from "another shot" to "five goddamned minutes" is both comic and precise.这段虚构对话不只是好笑——它组装起了「不可能」明显为时尚早的逻辑条件：可行性已演示，专家已背书，风险无比之高。哈米尔从「再试一次」到「五他妈分钟」的升级，既喜剧，又精确。
- Lucas as the genuine villain卢卡斯才是真正的反派By making Lucas right — the audience does sit there and not notice — Yudkowsky implicates the reader, not just the protagonist. The essay becomes an accusation aimed at everyone who has ever said "I tried" after ten seconds.通过让卢卡斯说对了——观众确实坐在那里没有察觉——Yudkowsky 把矛头指向了读者，而不仅仅是主人公。这篇文章变成了一项指控，指向所有曾在十秒后说「我试过了」的人。
- The feasibility-demonstration point is sharp可行性演示这一点非常犀利Most persistence essays skip straight to "try harder." This one makes an explicit logical point: you cannot honestly claim something is impossible when you have just watched it partially succeed. Impossibility requires evidence; difficulty does not supply it.大多数关于坚持的文章直接跳到「更努力试试」。而这篇文章提出了一个明确的逻辑要点：当你刚刚亲眼看到某件事部分成功时，你不能诚实地声称它不可能。不可能需要证据；困难并不能提供这种证据。
- The McCarthy epigraph is doing real work麦卡锡题记是在做实质性工作Opening with "when there's a will to fail, obstacles can be found" signals from the first line that this is about motivated reasoning, not just weak willpower. It frames quitting-too-fast as a cognitive failure, not a character deficiency.以「当有意志要失败时，障碍总是找得到的」开篇，从第一行就表明这是关于动机性推理，而非仅仅是意志力薄弱。它把放弃太快定性为认知失败，而非性格缺陷。
- "Try harder" is underspecified「更努力」过于未作说明The essay establishes that people should try longer but not how to identify the right threshold, or how to distinguish productive persistence from sunk-cost stubbornness. Knowing you should try five minutes rather than five seconds doesn't tell you whether an hour or a decade is warranted.文章确立了人们应该更长时间地尝试，但没有说明如何确定正确的阈值，也没有区分富有成效的坚持与沉没成本式的固执。知道你应该试五分钟而不是五秒，并不能告诉你一小时还是十年是否合理。
- The joke may not generalize这个笑话可能不具备普遍性Luke's situation was controlled: one task, one skill, an expert trainer present, immediate feedback. Many real-world problems lack these properties — there may be no feasibility demonstration, no guru, and no clear signal distinguishing genuine impossibility from mere difficulty. The clean example may obscure how hard the judgment actually is.卢克的处境是受控的：一项任务、一种技能、一位专家培训师在场、即时反馈。现实世界中的许多问题并不具备这些属性——可能没有可行性演示、没有大师、也没有区分真正不可能与仅仅困难的清晰信号。这个干净的例子可能掩盖了这种判断实际上有多难。
- The target (ordinary human motivation) is broader than the evidence批评对象（普通人类动机）比证据所支持的更宽泛Lucas's prediction that audiences won't notice is offered as a sociological claim about all people at all times, supported only by an observation about movie-viewers in 1980. People do vary substantially in persistence; some systematically over-persist on doomed projects. The essay doesn't acknowledge this.卢卡斯关于观众不会察觉的预测，被作为一个关于所有人在所有时候的社会学主张提出，但仅有对1980年电影观众的一次观察作为支撑。人们在坚持性上确实有实质性差异；有些人会系统性地在注定失败的项目上过度坚持。本文没有承认这一点。
- Yoda's maxim is not really examined尤达的格言实际上没有被检视"Do or do not, there is no try" is used as a setup but its positive interpretation — full commitment vs. half-hearted hedging — is never seriously considered. As a result, the essay may leave readers thinking the slogan is simply bad advice, when it could be read as complementary: commit fully and persist long enough to actually test the commitment.「做，或不做，没有「试」」被用作铺垫，但它的正面解读——全力以赴与半心半意的保留之间的对比——从未被认真考虑。因此，本文可能让读者认为这句格言只是坏建议，而实际上它可以被解读为互补的：全力以赴并且坚持足够长的时间来真正检验那种投入。
A compact, effective piece that uses absurdist humor to deliver a real epistemic point: quitting too fast is a form of cognitive failure, not just a character flaw, because it treats the first wave of difficulty as evidence of impossibility. Its weakness is the narrowness of the implied remedy — "try harder for longer" — without addressing when persistence becomes its own error. Read it as a prompt to ask, before walking away from a hard problem: have I actually tried, or have I just gestured in the direction of trying?
这是一篇简洁而有效的文章，用荒诞幽默传递了一个真实的认识论要点：放弃太快是一种认知失败，而不仅仅是性格缺陷，因为它把第一波困难感当作了不可能的证据。它的弱点在于隐含解药的狭窄性——「更长时间地更努力尝试」——而没有说明坚持何时会变成自身的错误。把它当作一个提示来读：在离开一个困难问题之前，问问自己：我真的尝试过了吗，还是只是朝着尝试的方向做了个姿态？
Original Text原文
"When there's a will to fail, obstacles can be found." —John McCarthy
I first watched Star Wars IV-VI when I was very young. Seven, maybe, or nine? So my memory was dim, but I recalled Luke Skywalker as being, you know, this cool Jedi guy.
Imagine my horror and disappointment, when I watched the saga again, years later, and discovered that Luke was a whiny teenager.
I mention this because yesterday, I looked up, on Youtube, the source of the Yoda quote: "Do, or do not. There is no try."
Oh. My. Cthulhu.
Along with the Youtube clip in question, I present to you a little-known outtake from the scene, in which the director and writer, George Lucas, argues with Mark Hamill, who played Luke Skywalker:
Luke: All right, I'll give it a try. Yoda: No! Try not. Do. Or do not. There is no try.
Luke raises his hand, and slowly, the X-wing begins to rise out of the water—Yoda's eyes widen—but then the ship sinks again.
Mark Hamill: "Um, George..."
George Lucas: "What is it now?"
Mark: "So... according to the script, next I say, 'I can't. It's too big'."
George: "That's right."
Mark: "Shouldn't Luke maybe give it another shot?"
George: "No. Luke gives up, and sits down next to Yoda—"
Mark: "This is the hero who's going to take down the Empire? Look, it was one thing when he was a whiny teenager at the beginning, but he's in Jedi training now. Last movie he blew up the Death Star. Luke should be showing a little backbone."
George: "No. You give up. And then Yoda lectures you for a while, and you say, 'You want the impossible'. Can you remember that?"
Mark: "Impossible? What did he do, run a formal calculation to arrive at a mathematical proof? The X-wing was already starting to rise out of the swamp! That's the feasibility demonstration right there! Luke loses it for a second and the ship sinks back—and now he says it's impossible? Not to mention that Yoda, who's got literally eight hundred years of seniority in the field, just told him it should be doable—"
George: "And then you walk away."
Mark: "It's his friggin' spaceship! If he leaves it in the swamp, he's stuck on Dagobah for the rest of his miserable life! He's not just going to walk away! Look, let's just cut to the next scene with the words 'one month later' and Luke is still raggedly standing in front of the swamp, trying to raise his ship for the thousandth time—"
George: "No."
Mark: "Fine! We'll show a sunset and a sunrise, as he stands there with his arm out, straining, and then Luke says 'It's impossible'. Though really, he ought to try again when he's fully rested—"
George: "No."
Mark: "Five goddamned minutes! Five goddamned minutes before he gives up!"
George: "I am not halting the story for five minutes while the X-wing bobs in the swamp like a bathtub toy."
Mark: "For the love of sweet candied yams! If a pathetic loser like this could master the Force, everyone in the galaxy would be using it! People would become Jedi because it was easier than going to high school."
George: "Look, you're the actor. Let me be the storyteller. Just say your lines and try to mean them."
Mark: "The audience isn't going to buy it."
George: "Trust me, they will."
Mark: "They're going to get up and walk out of the theater."
George: "They're going to sit there and nod along and not notice anything out of the ordinary. Look, you don't understand human nature. People wouldn't try for five minutes before giving up if the fate of humanity were at stake."
「当有意志要失败时，障碍总是找得到的。」——约翰·麦卡锡
我第一次看《星球大战》IV–VI 时还非常小。七岁？也许九岁？所以我的记忆很模糊，但我记得卢克·天行者是，你知道的，一个很酷的绝地武士。
想象一下我的恐惧与失望——当我多年后再次观看这部传奇，发现卢克竟是一个爱发牢骚的青少年。
我提这件事，是因为昨天我在 YouTube 上查了「尤达名言」的来源：「做，或不做。没有「试」。」
哦。我的。克苏鲁。
除了那段 YouTube 片段，我还要向你们呈现一段鲜为人知的幕后花絮，出自那个场景的拍摄现场——导演兼编剧乔治·卢卡斯与扮演卢克·天行者的马克·哈米尔发生了争论：
卢克：好吧，我试试看。 尤达：不！别「试」。做。或不做。没有「试」。
卢克抬起手，缓缓地，X 翼战机开始从水中升起——尤达的眼睛睁大了——但随后飞船又沉了下去。
马克·哈米尔：「嗯，乔治……」
乔治·卢卡斯：「又怎么了？」
马克：「所以……按照剧本，我接下来说，『我做不到。它太大了。』」
乔治：「对。」
马克：「卢克不应该再试一次吗？」
乔治：「不。卢克放弃，然后坐到尤达旁边——」
马克：「这就是那个要推翻帝国的英雄？你看，他在一开始是个爱发牢骚的青少年，那还说得过去，但他现在是在接受绝地训练。上部电影他炸掉了死星。卢克应该表现出一点骨气来。」
乔治：「不。你放弃。然后尤达教训你一通，接着你说，『你要的是不可能的事』。你能记住吗？」
马克：「不可能？ 他是做了什么正式计算、得出了数学证明？X 翼战机都已经开始从沼泽里升起了！那就是可行性演示就在眼前！卢克分了一秒钟神，飞船又沉下去了——现在他说这是不可能的？ 更何况尤达，他在这个领域有整整八百年的资历，刚刚告诉他这是做得到的——」
乔治：「然后你走开。」
马克：「那是他他妈自己的飞船！ 如果他把它留在沼泽里，他就一辈子被困在达果巴了！他不可能就这么走开！好，我们就直接跳到下一个场景，用字幕写『一个月后』，卢克还在沼泽前蓬头垢面地站着，试图把飞船升起来，这已经是第一千次了——」
乔治：「不。」
马克：「好！我们展示一个日落和日出，他就站在那里，伸着手臂，竭尽全力，然后卢克说『不可能』。虽然说真的，他应该休息好了再试——」
乔治：「不。」
马克：「五他妈分钟！ 五他妈分钟才放弃！」
乔治：「我不打算让故事停下来五分钟，看X翼战机像浴缸玩具一样在沼泽里颠簸。」
马克：「看在糖渍山药的份上！如果一个像这样的可怜虫都能掌握原力，银河系里的每个人都会用了！人们成为绝地武士，因为这比上高中还容易。」
乔治：「听着，你是演员。让我来讲故事。念你的台词，尽量说得有感情。」
马克：「观众不会接受的。」
乔治：「相信我，他们会的。」
马克：「他们会从座位上站起来，走出影院。」
乔治：「他们会坐在那里随声附和，不会觉得有什么不对劲。你看，你不理解人性。即便人类命运悬而未决，人们也不会在放弃之前试上五分钟。"