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  3. Up until a few decades ago, our visions of the future were largely — though by no means uniformly — glowingly positive. Science

Up until a few decades ago, our visions of the future were largely — though by no means uniformly — glowingly positive. Science

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问题    Up until a few decades ago, our visions of the future were largely — though by no means uniformly — glowingly positive. Science and technology would cure all the ills of humanity, leading to lives of fulfilment and opportunity for all.
   Now Utopia has grown unfashionable, as we have gained a deeper appreciation of the range of threats facing us, from asteroid strike to epidemic flu and to climate change. You might even be tempted to assume that humanity has little future to look forward to.
   But such gloominess is misplaced. The fossil record shows that many species have endured for millions of years — so why shouldn’t we? Take a broader look at our species’ place in the u-niverse, and it becomes clear that we have an excellent chance of surviving for tens, if not hundreds, of thousands of years. Look up Homo sapiens in the "Red List" of threatened species of the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) and you will read: "Listed as Least Concern as the species is very widely distributed, adaptable, currently increasing, and there are no major threats resulting in an overall population decline."
   So what does our deep future hold? A growing number of researchers and organisations are now thinking seriously about that question. For example, the Long Now Foundation has as its flagship project a mechanical clock that is designed to still be marking time thousands of years hence.
   Perhaps willfully, it may be easier to think about such lengthy timescales than about the more immediate future. The potential evolution of today’s technology, and its social consequences, is dazzlingly complicated, and it’s perhaps best left to science fiction writers and futurologists to explore the many possibilities we can envisage. That’s one reason why we have launched Arc, a new publication dedicated to the near future.
   But take a longer view and there is a surprising amount that we can say with considerable assurance. As so often, the past holds the key to the future: we have now identified enough of the long-term patterns shaping the history of the planet, and our species, to make evidence-based forecasts about the situations in which our descendants will find themselves. This long perspective makes the pessimistic view of our prospects seem more likely to be a passing fad. To be sure, the future is not all rosy. But we are now knowledgeable enough to reduce many of the risks that threatened the existence of earlier humans, and to improve the lot of those to come.
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答案 一直到数十年之前，尽管有例外，但我们对未来的想象大都是非常积极的，尽管不是所有人都一致这么认为。科学技术会治愈人类所有的疾病，人人生活美满，机会均等。 现在乌托邦已经不流行了，因为我们对自己所面临的一系列威胁有了更深的认识，包括从小行星撞击到流感，再到气候变化。这些甚至使你认为人类几乎没有可展望的未来。 但这样的沮丧放错了地方。化石记录表明，许多物种已经历经几百万年之久——那我们为什么不能?把视野放宽一些，看看我们这个物种在宇宙中的位置，我们就可以清楚地看到：我们有绝佳的条件，就算活不上几十万年，也能够继续活上几万年。在国际自然保护联盟(IUCN)濒危物种的“红色名录”里查找“智人(译注：即指现代人类)”，你会读到这样的文字：“被列为‘无危物种’，因为其分布极其广泛，适应性强，目前数量正在增加，且没有重大威胁会导致其总体数量下降。” 那么，我们遥远的未来会给我们带来什么呢?越来越多的研究者和机构都在认真思考这个问题。例如，恒今基金会的旗舰项目是设计一个数千年后还在记时的机械钟。 或许是存心的，但思考如此长远的时间跨度比思考近期未来更为容易。现今科技可能出现的进步及其带来的社会影响相当复杂，令人目眩，也许最好是将我们能想象到的各种可能留给科幻小说作者和未来学家去探究。这是我们创办《Arc》杂志的原因之一，这本新的出版物专注于近期将来。 但是，把目光放长远一点，我们可以对非常多的事情作出准确的预测。正如经常发生的那样，了解过去是预测未来的关键：我们现在已经对塑造地球历史和我们物种的长期模式有了足够的认识，可以有根据地预测我们的子孙后代会处于什么情形。 这一长远的视角使得我们对于前景的悲观看法似乎更像是短暂的突发奇想。固然，未来并不全是光明的。但我们现在有足够的知识，可以减少许多曾经威胁早期人类生存的风险，以及改善子孙后代的命运。
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