經(jīng)典2分鐘英語演講稿——更值得我們?nèi)リP(guān)注的新聞

We are drowning in news. Reuters alone puts out three-and-a-half million news stories a year. That's just one source.

我們被淹沒在了新聞的世界里。路透社一年發(fā)布350萬新聞故事，而它僅僅只是一個(gè)發(fā)布源而已。

My question is: How many of those stories are actually going to matter in the long run? That's the idea behind The Long News. It's a project by The Long Now Foundation, which was founded by TED sters including Kevin Kelly and Stewart Brand. And what we're looking for is news stories that might still matter 50 or 100 or 10,000 years from now. And when you look at the news through that filter, a lot falls by the wayside.

我的問題是：這些新聞到底有多少是長期有影響的?這就是“長遠(yuǎn)新聞”(Long News)的意義。這是由Long Now基金會(huì)提出的一個(gè)項(xiàng)目?；饡?huì)是由TED成員建立的，包括 Kevin Kelly 和 Stewart Brand。我們試圖找出那些仍然會(huì)有深遠(yuǎn)影響的新聞故事，50，100或者是一萬年以后。我是說新聞進(jìn)過上述條件過濾后，很多都會(huì)落在一邊。

If you take the top stories from the A.P. this last year: Is this going to matter in a decade? Or this? Or this? Really? Is this going to matter in 50 or 100 years? Okay, that was kind of cool. (Laughter) But the top story of this past year was the economy. And I'm just betting that, sooner or later, this particular recession is going to be old news.

假設(shè)你已經(jīng)找出去年美聯(lián)社的頭條。這些頭條在10年里內(nèi)會(huì)有影響?或者這個(gè)?或者這個(gè)?真的會(huì)嗎?會(huì)在50年或者100年內(nèi)有影響嗎?好的，這樣就很酷了(笑)。但是去年的頭條是經(jīng)濟(jì)，而且我敢打賭遲早，這個(gè)特殊的經(jīng)濟(jì)不景氣會(huì)成為舊聞。

So, what kind of stories might make a difference for the future? Well, let's take [medicine]. Someday, little robots will go through our bloodstreams fixing things. That someday is already here if you're a mouse. Some recent stories: Nanobees zap tumors with real bee venom. They're sending genes into the brain. [They've built a robot] that can crawl through the human body.

那么，什么樣的故事可能對未來造成影響?好的，讓我們先看看科學(xué)。某一天，迷你機(jī)器人能夠在我們血液里面穿梭來修復(fù)受損的細(xì)胞。如果你是一個(gè)老鼠的話，這個(gè)“某一天”已經(jīng)到來-幾則最近的新聞：納米峰用真蜂毒液殺死腫瘤，科學(xué)家們向人腦里面植入基因，他們還造了一個(gè)機(jī)器人可以在人體里爬行。

What about resources? How are we going to feed nine billion people? We're having trouble feeding six billion today. As we heard yesterday, there's over a billion people hungry. Britain will starve without genetically modified crops. Bill Gates, fortunately, has bet a billion on agri research.

資源呢?我們該怎么樣滿足90億人的需求。我們現(xiàn)在連60億人的肚子都填飽不了。昨天我們聽到，有超過10人處于饑餓中。沒有轉(zhuǎn)基因作物，英國人會(huì)挨餓，幸運(yùn)的是比爾·蓋茨投入10億美元用于農(nóng)產(chǎn)品研究。

What about global politics? The world's going to be very different when and if China sets the agenda, and they may. They've overtaken the U.S. as the world's biggest car market. They've overtaken Germany as the largest exporter. And they've started doing DNA tests on kids to choose their careers.

那么國際政治方面呢?這個(gè)世界會(huì)很不一樣，如果讓中國設(shè)置議程，而他們有可能做到的。他們已經(jīng)超過美國成為世界上最大的汽車市場;他們超過德國成為最大的出口國;他們已經(jīng)開始在兒童身上做DNA測試，來給他們選擇職業(yè)。

We're finding all kinds of ways to push back the limits of what we know. Some recent discoveries: There's an ant colony from Argentina that has now spread to every continent but Antarctica. There's a self-directed robot scientist that's made a discovery. Soon, science may no longer need us. And life may no longer need us either. A microbe wakes up after 120,000 years. It seems that with or without us life will go on.

我們正在尋找各種方法推后我們知道的各種限制，一些最近的發(fā)現(xiàn)，有一個(gè)阿根廷的蟻群現(xiàn)在傳播到了每一個(gè)大陸，除了南極洲有一個(gè)自我導(dǎo)向的機(jī)器人科學(xué)家搞出了一個(gè)發(fā)明。很快，科學(xué)可能不再需要我們，而且生活也不再需要我們一個(gè)微生物沉睡12萬年之后復(fù)活-好像有沒有我們生命都會(huì)繼續(xù)。

But my pick for the top Long News story of this past year was this one, water found on the moon. Makes it a lot easier to put a colony up there. And if NASA doesn't do it, China might, or somebody in this room might write a big check.

但是我選擇的去年的“長遠(yuǎn)新聞”是這一個(gè)：月亮上找到了水。這使得人類在月亮上建立殖民地簡單多了。如果NASA不做這個(gè)，也許中國或者在坐的某些人會(huì)簽上這個(gè)巨額支票。

My point is this: In the long run, some news stories are more important than others.

我的想表明的觀點(diǎn)是：長遠(yuǎn)來看，某些新聞，比其他的一些新聞更重要。