我所说的一切都可能是错的！
即使你赞同我的观点，你的生活也不会因此有任何改变！
除非——你采取了相应的行动。
（这是书先生在的第36篇文章。本文约3700字，请花8分钟来阅读。）
本文英文是书先生亲弟弟的作品，中文是书先生翻译的。书先生的弟弟是香港浸会大学的语言学硕士。海量阅读英文原版社科著作，英文写作功力深厚。
本文文笔立意俱佳，绝对值得一读。
The Mundanity of Prosperity
繁荣的庸常
About 200,000 years ago, modern humans first appeared on the continent of Africa. They have bigger brains than other homo species. With this advantage, homo sapiens swiftly sweep over the surface of the earth and now there are nearly 7.5 billion of them roaming about on every corner of this blue planet. All other ape-like subspecies went extinct, along with them most of other animals and plants humans deem threatening or useless.
大约20万年前，现代人类第一次出现在非洲大陆上。他们拥有比其他类人物种更大的大脑。携此优势，智人迅速席卷了整个地球表面。现在，将近75亿他们的后代在这个蓝色星球的各个角落游荡。其它所有类人猿物种都灭绝了，同他们一起灭绝的还有大多数人类认为是威胁或者无用的其它动物和植物。
But humans’ expedition of claiming sovereignty over all the continents was long and treacherous. Before the dawn of science, human beings struggled for thousands of years to survive and propagate. There were happy moments, but sufferings and hopelessness seemed to be the theme.
但是人类夺取各个大陆统治权的征程漫长而危险。在科学诞生之前的数千年里，人类为生存和繁衍而苦苦挣扎。虽也有一些快乐的时光，但是痛苦和绝望似乎才是主旋律。
In old times, humans often prayed and they prayed to every object until Jesus said that it was sinful to worship anything other than the God. Why did humans pray? Because they were scared. The caprice of nature, the unexpectedness of diseases and the oftenness of wars could cut a person’s life short in his prime or in his infancy (more often the cases). The state of learned helplessness was the shared mentality of the whole human species until recently. The man may be the wisest of all creatures, but he was also the most haunted one, the price of being wise.
古时，人类常常会祈祷。他们向各种物体祈祷，直到有一天耶稣说向上帝以外的任何事物祈祷都是罪过。为什么人类会祈祷？因为他们感到害怕。反复无常的自然、突如其来的疾病以及无休无止的战争都会让一个人的生命在壮年甚至婴儿时期（这种情况更是频繁）就戛然而止。此句英文非常地道，值得学习。这种习得性的无助状态是整个人类共有的心态，直到最近才有所改变。人类也许是最聪明的物种，但也是最受折磨的物种——这是聪明的代价。
But human’s civilizations moved forward against all elements and by making use of many elements. Stone, bronze, iron, and steel stood witness to our growing capacity to reshape the nature to our benefit. But the process was too slow. Any breakthrough in technology or mode of production was like hitting the jackpot. Humans need something more omnipotent than the God to their rescue.
但是人类文明在对抗自然和利用自然中滚滚向前。这句话一定要读英文，以书先生的翻译功底，都翻不出原文elements的双关。石头、铜、铁和钢都见证了我们不断增长的按照自己的需求改造自然的能力。但是，这个过程太缓慢了。技术上或者生产方式上的任何突破都和中头彩的几率差不多。想要拯救自己，人类需要一个比上帝更全能的东西。
By chance or by destiny, we met Science. To put it more precisely, we met Scientific Methods. Humans had accumulated knowledge about the world for thousands of years and we were born with the ability to reason, but without scientific methods, the two led to nowhere. Tools are really essential to human civilizations!! Science enables us to verify our hypotheses quickly in a controllable environment - labs. We no longer needed to wait for our next Eureka moment. This world is never the same.
偶然抑或命运，我们与科学相遇了。更准确的说，我们与科学方法相遇了。关于这个世界的知识，人类已经积累了几千年，我们也天生就具有推理的能力。但是，没有科学的方法，这二者没有发挥任何实质性的作用。工具对人类文明真是至关重要！！科学使我们能够在可控的环境中——实验室里——快速验证我们的假设。我们无需再等待下一个灵感迸发时刻了。世界已经不一样了。
People’s lives in AD 1100 were basically the same as those in 100 years earlier. However, now we have lost our confidence to predict people’s lives in AD 2117 because everything is changing so fast even humanity. Zuckerberg and his wife said they were confident that humans could destroy all diseases at the turn of next century. Their confidence mainly came from our deepening understanding of the human genome and the evolution of AI. Theoretically, we can get rid of all diseases and even fool death.
公元1100年的人类，其生活状态同更早100年的人类相比，基本没有区别。然而，现在我们可没有把握预测2117年人类生活会是什么样子，因为一切都变得太快了，甚至人类自身。扎克伯格和他的妻子声称他们有信心人类可以在下个世纪初消灭所有疾病。他们的信心主要来自我们对人类基因和人工智能日益深刻的理解。理论上，我们能够摆脱所有疾病，甚至挣脱死亡的束缚。
For scientists, possibility in theory is certainty in reality. So it is more than very likely that humans can be immortal in future. It is also a fact that resources in the universe are inexhaustible. So every person on the earth can enjoy abundance without any scruple.
对科学家来说，理论上的可能性就意味着现实的确定性。因此，未来的人类非常有可能永生。宇宙中的资源是用之不竭的，这也是一个事实。所以，地球上的每个人都可以毫无顾忌地享受充裕。
Economics is founded on the concept of scarcity. But scarcity will be wiped out in future since theoretically we can produce anything, even planets. You should know it if you have read Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. Being immortal and being exempted from the fear of diseases and hunger are within human’s reach, the first time in history.
经济学的基础就是稀缺的概念，但是未来稀缺将不复存在，因为理论上我们能够制造任何东西，甚至制造星球。如果你读过《银河系漫游指南》，肯定会知道这一点。历史上第一次，永生不死、无疾病饥饿之虞对人类来说触手可及。
Abundance also makes this world more democratic and renders dictatorship archaic. Hungary and scared people are obedient while those with full stomach and certainty about the future are defiant. And power deprived of the ability to make people suffer is really boring therefore not even worth the efforts. Modern history, to a great extent, is about people’s uprisings against tyranny and fighting for liberty. Science has killed tyranny, along with it, the modern history. In future, what should we fight for?
物质的充裕也使得世界更加民主，独裁变得不合时宜。饥饿和恐惧的人顺从权威，而那些不愁吃穿对未来笃定的人蔑视权威。同时，权力一旦同让人痛苦的能力分开，就变得无趣因此甚至都不值得去追求。现代历史的主题，在很大程度上，是人们反抗暴政、争取自由。科学已经杀死了暴政，同时也杀死了现代历史。未来，我们还可以为什么而战？
Perhaps history has come to its end - when people don’t struggle for survival and fight for dignity, what is left of history? When there are no wars, what is the point in writing history? Great prosperity means great mundanity. Homer’s Odyssey will fade into oblivion; mundanity of everyday living will go into infinite loop.
也许历史已经走到尽头——当人们不再为生存和尊严而战斗，历史还剩下什么呢？当战争已经不复存在，撰写历史还有什么意义呢？伟大的繁荣意味着高度的庸常。荷马的《奥德赛》终将被束之高阁；日常生活的庸常将会走进无尽的循环。
For thousands of years, we celebrate and commemorate the deeds of heroes. Heroes can be the knights who save princesses in danger in fairy tales; heroes can also be the lords who protect the serfs from being slaughtered by barbarians. In a world in which people’s lives were always at stake, heroes were called for. If we are always safe and well, heroes are useless to us. From now on, we should prepare for living in a world without heroes and heroic deeds.
几千年来，我们庆祝和歌颂英雄的事迹。英雄可以是童话里拯救公主于危难的骑士；英雄也可以是保护平民免受野蛮人屠杀的领主。在一个人们的生命总是受到威胁的世界，人们召唤英雄。如果我们总是安全健康，英雄对我们毫无用处。从现在起，我们应该为生活在一个没有英雄、也没有英雄事迹的世界而做好准备。
Similarly, we should also prepare for living in a world without family. The societal unit - family, is created by humans to protect individuals by offering them food, clothes, and shelter. Parents are breadwinners so parents are very important. But in the future world where materials are greatly abundant and people don’t need to labor to get their mouths full, what is the point of having parents?
基于同样的理由，我们也应该为生活在一个没有家庭的世界做好准备。人们创造家庭这个社会单位，正是为了保护个体，为他们提供食物、衣服和住所。父母需要养家，所以父母很重要。但是，在未来的世界，物质极大丰富，人们不再需要为吃饱肚子而劳作，拥有父母还有什么意义呢？
Perhaps parents can function as playmates. Wait, robots are much better playmates because they are patient and don’t lecture. But some may argue that people will always need intimate relationships. I agree. People will go on falling in love and searching for a spiritual bond. But it is not necessarily a thing only between humans.
也许父母可以充当玩伴。等等，机器人是好得多的玩伴，因为他们有耐心，而且从不说教。但是，有人会说人们总是需要亲密关系的。这我同意。人们会继续陷入爱河，追求灵魂的结合。但是，这并不一定非要发生在人与人之间。
People can fall in love with anything. Many Japanese men are crazy about their virtual girlfriends on cell phones and show no interest in women in the real world. No, they are not escaping or in fact feeling empty deep in their hearts, rather, they truly feel happy and fulfilled. Remember, our brains can fool us into believing anything. When every lust of ours can be met in virtual reality, what is the point in living in reality? For the future, I can only be sure about one thing: most of the people will choose not to wake up in the Matrix.
人们能够爱上任何东西。很多日本男性疯狂迷恋手机里的虚拟女友，而对现实中的女性毫无兴趣。不，他们不是在逃避，也不是内心空虚。相反，他们真正感到快乐满足。记住，我们的大脑能够让我们相信任何东西。如果我们所有的欲望都能在虚拟世界得到满足，生活在现实里又有什么意义呢？对于未来，我唯一能够确定的是：大多数人都会选择不从“母体”中醒来。
The future world will be very prosperous and people will be free from all kinds of sufferings. It is like Heaven. The Bible says that in Heaven people live in eternal happiness and the only thing they do is worshiping the God. What a boring picture! If you ask me, I will definitely refuse to go to Heaven. But science seems to have put all of us on the trip to Heaven, and it is a one-way trip. So sad!
未来世界将会非常繁荣，人们将不再有任何痛苦，就像天堂。《圣经》里说，在天堂里，人们生活在永恒的幸福中，他们只做一件事——崇拜上帝。多么无趣的景象！如果你问我，我肯定拒绝上天堂。但是科学似乎已经把我们送上了前往天堂的路，而且是单程旅途。真是让人悲伤！
I may be too pessimistic and hypocritical. Isn’t it a good thing that humans finally reach the point of grasping the ultimate happiness? But I really don’t like it. I don’t think that human’s ultimate goal is to be immortal and live in the Elysian Fields.
我也许太过悲观和吹毛求疵。人类终于快要触到终极的幸福了，这难道不是一件好事吗？但我真的不喜欢。我不认为人类的终极目标就是在极乐世界中永生。
What makes us homo sapiens is our insatiable desires to explore the unknown. Luckily, the unknowns in the universe is unknown. I have the faith that there are always some people in the world who have unquenchable thirst in exploring the universe. They will leave the earth and embark on a precarious journey to the outer space. When this world becomes the symbol of mundanity, only exploring other worlds can send our adrenaline rushing again.
让我们成为万物之灵的正是我们永不满足、探索未知的欲望。所幸，宇宙中还有未知的秘密。我深信，世界上总有人在探索宇宙方面有无法遏制的渴望。他们会离开地球，踏上通往外太空的危险旅程。当这个世界变成了庸常的象征，只有探索另外的世界才能让我们的肾上腺素再次飙升。
Epilogue
I embrace prosperity but I hate mundanity. But since my brain can fool me into believing anything, I may feel ecstatic in the Mundanity of Prosperity. But I pray to the God: Please Don’t Make Me Go To Heaven!!
尾声
我拥抱繁荣，但是憎恨庸常。但是，因为我的大脑能够欺骗我，让我相信任何事情，也许我会在繁荣的庸常中感到兴奋。但是，我向上帝祈祷：请不要让我上天堂。
【作者简介】 万卷书和万里路，80后大学教师一对。 书先生语言老司机，玩转英语、德语、Python计算机编程； 路夫人旅游达人，足迹遍及欧洲、美洲、亚洲和大洋洲！ 读万卷书、行万里路、过精彩人生！