We have this mental image that a flying saucer will circle the White House lawn, land on the White House lawn and give us a bounty of all sorts of technological goodies to initiate an age of Aquarius on the planet earth. Personally, I don't think that's going to happen.
我們有過這樣的幻想，即一艘飛碟在白宮前的草坪上盤旋，然後降落在草坪上，並贈予我們各種先進的科技成果，以開啟地球的太空時代。要我說，我覺得那不可能發生。
For example, if you're in the forest, do you go out and talk to the squirrels and the deer? Maybe you do for a while, but after a while, you get bored, because they don't talk back to you; because they have nothing interesting to tell you; because they can't relate to our values and our ideas.
就好像，你在森林裡，你會跟松鼠和鹿說話嗎？可能有段時間你會這麼做，但很快，你就會覺得無聊，因為它們不會跟你說話，因為它們沒有什麼有趣的事要告訴你，因為它們不能理解我們的價值觀和想法。
If you go down to an anthill, you go down to the ants and say, "I bring you trinkets; I bring you bees; take me to your ant queen; I give you nuclear energy." So I think for the most part the aliens are probably not going to be interested in us, because we're so arrogant to believe that we have something to offer them.
就像如果你進了一個蟻穴，你對螞蟻說，“我能給你們帶些小玩意兒，我能給你們蜜蜂，請帶我去見你們的蟻后，我還能給你們核能。”所以我認為，在多數情況下，外星人可能並不會對我們產生興趣，因為我們太自大了，才會覺得我們能給他們提供什麼有用的東西。
Realize that they could be thousands, maybe millions of years ahead of us in technology. And they may have no interest in interacting with us in the same way that we don't necessarily want to deal with the squirrels and the deer in the forest.
要知道，他們的科技可能領先我們幾千年甚至幾百萬年。他們可能並沒有興趣跟我們互動，就好像在森林裡，我們也沒有跟松鼠和鹿互動的必要。
Now some people say that we should not try to make contact with them because they could be potentially dangerous. For the most part, I think they're going to be peaceful, because they'll be thousands of years ahead of us, but we cannot take the chance.
現在有些人會說，我們不應該試圖去聯繫他們，因為他們可能有潛在的危險性。多數情況下，我認為他們會是愛好和平的，因為他們領先了我們幾千年，但我們不能冒這個險。
So I personally believe that we should not try to advertise our existence to alien life in outer space, because of the fact that we don't know their intentions. Then the other question is what happens if they're evil?
所以就我個人而言，我們不應該在外太空向外星生命宣告我們的存在，因為事實上我們不知道他們的意圖。另一個問題是，如果他們是邪惡的，又會發生什麼？
Well, I think the question of evil is actually a relative question, because the real danger to a deer in the forest is not the hunter with a gigantic rifle. He's not the main danger to a deer in the forest.
我覺得這個問題中的邪惡實際上是相對的，因為對於一頭鹿來說，森林中真正的危險並不是帶著一把巨大步槍的獵人。他並不是鹿在森林中的主要威脅。
The main danger to a deer in the forest is the developer. The guy with blueprints; the guy in a three-piece suit; the guy with a slide rule and calculator; the guy that's going to pave the forest and perhaps destroy whole ecosystems.
而開發者才是鹿的主要威脅。這些人帶著藍圖，穿著三件套西裝，隨身攜帶著捲尺和計算器，這些人會在森林裡修路，甚至可能摧毀整個生態系統。
In other words, the aliens don't have to be evil in order to be dangerous to us, they might not care, they just might not care about us and in the process pave us over. In fact, if you read the novel War of the Worlds, the Martians in H. GWells' seminal novel were not evil in the sense they wanted to torture us and they wanted to do all sorts of barbaric things to humanity.
換句話說，外星人並不需要是邪惡的，對我們來說就足夠危險了，他們並不在意，可能只是無所謂我們的存在，從而在他們的進程中將我們覆滅。實際上，如果你讀過小說《世界大戰》，即 H.G Wells 的同名小說中的火星人，在某種意義上他們並不邪惡，他們的確想折磨我們，他們的確想對人類做各種野蠻的事。
No, we were just in the way. And so I think that is a potential problem.
那是因為我們成為了他們的阻礙。所以我認為那是一個潛在問題。
We could be in the way of a very advanced civilization that simply is not evil, but simply views us as we would view squirrels and deer in the forest. So personally, I think that we should not advertise our existence when we go into outer space.
我們可能會妨礙一個非常先進的文明，他們可能並不邪惡，只是他們看我們就像我們看森林裡的松鼠和鹿一樣。所以就我個人而言，當我們進入外太空的時候，我們不應該向外星生命宣告我們的存在。
For the most part, however, I do think they are going to be peaceful. They're not going to want to plunder the earth, because there are plenty of planets out there that have nobody on them that they can plunder at will without having to worry about restive natives called humanity.
然而，在多數情況下，我相信他們是愛好和平的。他們並不打算掠奪地球，因為外太空有數不清的行星，上面一個人都沒有，他們可以隨心所欲地掠奪，而不用擔心人類這種難以駕馭的土著。
And so I think they're not going to come to visit the earth to plunder us, to do all sorts of mischief. For the most part, I think they'll just leave us alone.
因此我認為他們不會來地球掠奪我們，不會做各種有害的事。大多數情況下，我覺得他們不會理我們。
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