Day 31: The future won't happen on its own
Sunday
各位书友，今天我们一起阅读《Zero to One》的结语Conclusion。
思考问题
STAGNATION OR SINGULARITY?
停滞不前，还是临近奇点？
IF EVEN THE MOST FARSIGHTED founders cannot plan beyond the next 20 to 30 years, is there anything to say about the very distant future? We don’t know anything specific, but we can make out the broad contours. Philosopher Nick Bostrom describes four possible patterns for the future of humanity.
如果连最高瞻远瞩的创业者都无法规划未来二三十年的事情，对遥远的未来还有什么可说的呢？我们无法预知具体的细节，但可以勾勒出大致的轮廓。哲学家尼克.博斯特罗姆描述了人类的未来可能出现的四种模式。
Pattern One
The ancients saw all of history as a neverending alternation between prosperity and ruin. Only recently have people dared to hope that we might permanently escape misfortune, and it’s still possible to wonder whether the stability we take for granted will last.
模式一
古人认为历史是兴衰的不断更替。直至最近，人们才敢于期待永远避免灾难，但还是怀疑我们视为理所当然的稳定能否持续。
Pattern Two
However, we usually suppress our doubts. Conventional wisdom seems to assume instead that the whole world will converge toward a plateau of development similar to the life of the richest countries today. In this scenario, the future will look a lot like the present.
模式二
然而，我们常常抑制自己的怀疑。保守派的观点迥然相反，他们认为全世界会融合，最终达到一个稳定发展的状态，类似于今天最富有国家的生活。在这一情境下，未来与现在很相像。
Pattern Three
Given the interconnected geography of the contemporary world and the unprecedented destructive power of modern weaponry, it’s hard not to ask whether a large-scale social disaster could be contained were it to occur. This is what fuels our fears of the third possible scenario: a collapse so devastating that we won’t survive it.
模式三
考虑到当今世界紧密相连的地理环境，以及现代武器史无前例的破坏力，能否阻止大规模的社会灾难发生，是必须要问的问题。已下是第三种情景，这是件令人恐惧的事情：毁灭性的衰落，我们无法幸免于难。
Pattern Four
The last of the four possibilities is the hardest one to imagine: accelerating takeoff toward a much better future. The end result of such a breakthrough could take a number of forms, but any one of them would be so different from the present as to defy description.
模式四
最后一种可能是最难想象的：加速腾飞，奔向更美好的未来。这种突破可以有多种形式，但任何一种都与现在大相径庭，因而无法描述。
Which of the four will it be?
未来会是这四种模式的哪一种呢？
Recurrent collapse seems unlikely: the knowledge underlying civilization is so widespread today that complete annihilation would be more probable than a long period of darkness followed by recovery. However, in case of extinction, there is no human future of any kind to consider.
周而复始的衰落是不可能的：构成文明的知识体系如今传播甚广，以至于完全的毁灭相比长期黑暗之后的光明重现更为可能。如果彻底衰落了，人类就没有未来可言。
If we define the future as a time that looks different from the present, then most people aren’t expecting any future at all; instead, they expect coming decades to bring more globalization, convergence, and sameness. In this scenario, poorer countries will catch up to richer countries, and the world as a whole will reach an economic plateau. But even if a truly globalized plateau were possible, could it last? In the best case, economic competition would be more intense than ever before for every single person and firm on the planet.
如果我们将未来定义为看起来和现在不同的时代，那么多说人根本不会期待未来；相反，他们期待未来几十年能更加全球化、更为融合、更为相像。这种情境下，贫穷国家会迎头追上富裕国家，全球经济会稳定发展。但即使真正的全球化稳定发展是可能的，它能够持久吗？最佳状况是，经济竞争对每个人、每个公司而言都将史无前例的激烈。
However, when you add competition to consume scarce resources, it’s hard to see how a global plateau could last indefinitely. Without new technology to relieve competitive pressures, stagnation is likely to erupt into conflict. In case of conflict on a global scale, stagnation collapses into extinction.
然而，加上对稀有资源的争夺，我们很难看到全球稳定能够无限存续。没有新技术来消除竞争压力，停滞很可能爆发为冲突。万一爆发全球范围的冲突，停滞最终会演变为灭绝。
That leaves the fourth scenario, in which we create new technology to make a much better future. The most dramatic version of this outcome is called the Singularity, an attempt to name the imagined result of new technologies so powerful as to transcend the current limits of our understanding. Ray Kurzweil, the best-known Singularitarian, starts from Moore’s law and traces exponential growth trends in dozens of fields, confidently projecting a future of superhuman artificial intelligence. According to Kurzweil, “the Singularity is near,” it’s inevitable, and all we have to do is prepare ourselves to accept it.
以上忽略了第四种情景。在这一情境中，我们创造新技术，打造更加美好的未来。此结果最为戏剧化的版本被称为“奇点”，这是尝试设想有个强大的超越我们理解范畴的新技术。雷.库兹韦尔，最负盛名的奇点理论家，从摩尔定律开始，在众多领域追求指数级增长，坚信能够建立人工智能超越人脑的未来。根据库兹韦尔的说法，“奇点已经临近”，这是不可避免的，我们能做的就是做好接受的准备。
But no matter how many trends can be traced, the future won’t happen on its own. What the Singularity would look like matters less than the stark choice we face today between the two most likely scenarios: nothing or something. It’s up to us. We cannot take for granted that the future will be better, and that means we need to work to create it today.
但无论有多少趋势可以追踪，未来都不是自行发生的。奇点描述的未来并不比我们今天面临的抉择重要：在两种最有可能发生的情景中做出选择，是无所作为，还是尽力而为，这取决于我们自己。我们不能理所当然地认为未来会更美好，而是要今天努力创造美好的未来。
Whether we achieve the Singularity on a cosmic scale is perhaps less important than whether we seize the unique opportunities we have to do new things in our own working lives. Everything important to us—the universe, the planet, the country, your company, your life, and this very moment—is singular.
我们是否在整个宇宙范围实现“奇点”或许不重要，重要的是我们是否能抓住独一无二的机会，在日常工作中创新。对我们——全宇宙、全球、全国、全公司、整个人生乃至此刻最为重要的是——独特。
Our task today is to find singular ways to create the new things that will make the future not just different, but better—to go from 0 to 1. The essential first step is to think for yourself. Only by seeing our world anew, as fresh and strange as it was to the ancients who saw it first, can we both re-create it and preserve it for the future.
我们当下的任务是找到创新的独特方式，使得未来不仅仅与众不同，而且更加美好，即从0到1最重要的第一步是独立思考。只有重新认识世界，如同古人第一眼看见这个世界一样新奇，我们才能重构世界，守护未来。
本月共读《Zero to One》英文版
点击公众号菜单栏“共读社群”立即加入有书英语共读
☞ 领读达人：刘亚南，英语共读负责人，85后
☞ 主播：熊叔，别人说我英语讲得像母语，是个美国人，我笑~谁说不出国门就学不会地道美语?别人说我拥有TESOL国际教师资格证~，我笑~自己只是个教书的逗比小光头罢了。
☞ 设计：刘莹
☞ 编校：陈珺洁
—共读书籍简介—
《Zero to One》涉及哲学、历史、经济等多元领域，解读世界运行的脉络，分享商业与未来发展的落实。该书将帮助我们思考从0到1的秘密，在意想不到之处发现价值与机会。
值得关注的是，这本《Zero to One》绝非学术讨论或者思想大师们的论战，自问世起，它的影响就迅速超越了投资圈，在美国亚马逊图书畅销总榜上跻身前列。