It is tempting to believe that we must have reached peak chaos, given the insanities of Brexit politics and the inanities of President Donald Trump. But we can cheer ourselves up this festive season by imagining the ways in which things could be so much worse.
鑑於英國退歐政治的瘋狂以及美國總統唐納德•特朗普(Donald Trump)的愚昧而狂妄，我們很容易相信我們肯定已到達混亂頂點。但在眼下這個假日季節，我們為了振作起來，不妨想象一下情況本來可能以哪些方式變得更加糟糕。
During the past few years, a sprinkling of institutes has sprung up in UK and US universities with the explicit aim of researching existential risks to our species. Catastrophic climate change, nuclear war, pandemics, a rogue superintelligence and alien invasion are just some of the scary scenarios explored by these academic doomsters. Many of these threats are outlined in a disturbingly eloquent book, On The Future, written by Martin Rees, one of Britain’s most eminent scientists, who helped set up the Centre for the Study of Existential Risk at Cambridge university. The author’s contention is that the stakes have never been higher for humanity: we have reached such a level of technological capability that we now possess the power to destroy our planet by mistake and must pursue more responsible innovation.
過去幾年，一些研究機構在英美大學內部成立，其宗旨很明確：研究人類的生存風險。災難性氣候變化、核戰、流行病、流氓超智能以及外星人入侵，只是這些末日論學者們探討的其中幾個可怕前景。英國最知名的科學家之一馬丁•里斯(Martin Rees)撰寫的雄辯但讓人憂心忡忡的《關於未來》(On The Future)羅列了其中很多威脅，他曾幫助設立劍橋大學(University of Cambridge)生存風險研究中心(Centre for the Study of Existential Risk)。里斯的看法是，對人類來說，風險從未像現在這麼高：我們具備了高超的技術能力，有可能一不小心就毀滅了地球；必須追求更負責任的創新。
Yet we exhibit no sense of urgency about many of these potential dangers. If we knew that there was a 10 per cent probability that an asteroid might crash into earth in 2100 then we would mobilise every resource to save our descendants. But we remain alarmingly insouciant about the threat of global warming or genetic engineering given the risks seem more nebulous.
然而，我們沒有對這些潛在的危險表現出任何緊迫感。如果我們知道，2100年某顆小行星有10%的幾率撞到地球，那麼我們將動用我們所有的資源來拯救我們的後代。但對於全球變暖或基因工程的威脅，因為這些風險似乎比較朦朧，我們仍漠不關心，這令人擔憂。
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