TED演讲:我们的大问题

 　　I want to talk today about 今天我所要讲的是

　　I've been asked to take the long view,  他们让我谈谈长远的观点

　　and I'm going to tell you what I think are the three biggest problems for humanity from this long point of view. 我要告诉你们，我认为，从长远来看，人类面临着三大问题。

　　Some of these have already been touched upon by other speakers, which is encouraging. 其中有些问题已经被其他讲演者提到了，这是很鼓舞人心的。

　　It seems that there's not just one person who thinks that these problems are important. 看起来远不止一个人认为这些问题意义重大。

　　The first is -- death is a big problem.  第一——死亡是一个重大的问题。

　　If you look at the statistics, the odds¹ are not very favorable to us. 如果你看看统计数据，形式对我们来说并不乐观。

　　So far, most people who have lived have also died.  到目前为止，大部分曾经活过的人，都已经死了。

　　Roughly 90 percent of everybody who has been alive has died by now.  大致来说，所有人类中百分之九十的人目前已经死亡了.

　　So the annual death rate adds up to 150,000 --  因此，年死亡率总计就是15万——

　　sorry, the daily death rate -- 150,000 people per day,  对不起，日死亡率——每天15万人，

　　which is a huge number by any standard.  以任何标准看，这个数字都是巨大的。

　　The annual death rate, then, becomes 56 million.  那么，年死亡率就变成了5千6百万人。

　　If we just look at the single, biggest cause of death, aging 如果我们只着眼于死亡的最大的单一因素，衰老

　　it accounts for roughly two-thirds of all human people who die.  大约有三分之二的人因此而死。

　　That adds up to an annual death toll² of greater than the population of Canada. 这些每年因衰老而死亡的人数比加拿大的人口还要多。

　　Sometimes, we don't see a problem  有时，我们无视于问题之存在，

　　because either it's too familiar or it's too big.  因为要么这个问题太熟悉，要么这个问题太大了。

　　Can't see it because it's too big.  因为问题太大了，所以我们看不见。

　　I think death might be both too familiar and too big for most people to see it as a problem. 我认为，死亡对我们来说，既过于熟悉也过于巨大，因此大多数人都不会把它当做一个问题来看待。

　　Once you think about it, you see this is not statistical³ points;  一旦你想一下，你就会发现这并不是统计数字而已。

　　these are -- let's see, how far have I talked?  这些是——让我看看，我讲了有多久了？

　　I've talked for three minutes.  我已经讲了三分钟。

　　So that would be, roughly, 324 people have died since I've begun speaking.  那么，从我开始讲话到现在，有大概324个人已经去世了。

　　People like -- it's roughly the population in this room has just died.  这个人数就像——大概有这个房间里的那么多人刚才去世了。

　　Now, the human cost of that is obvious,  死亡给人类带来的损失是很明显的。

　　once you start to think about it -- the suffering, the loss --  如果你开始细想，死亡带来的痛苦、损失

　　it's also, economically, enormously wasteful⁴.  从经济上来说，这也是一种巨大的浪费。

　　I just look at the information, and knowledge, and experience  光从信息、知识和经验来看，

　　that is lost due to natural causes of death in general, and aging, in particular. 一般而言，它们都因人的自然死亡而消失了，尤其是因衰老而造成的死亡。

　　Suppose we approximated one person with one book?  假设我们把一个人比作一本书，

　　Now, of course, this is an underestimation.  当然，这对人来说是低估的。

　　A person's lifetime of learning and experience is a lot more than you could put into a single book. 一个人一生的学识和经验，远不能为一本书所容纳。

　　But let's suppose we did this.  但让我们这么假设吧。

　　52 million people die of natural causes each year corresponds, then, to 52 million volumes destroyed. 每年有五千两百万人因自然原因而死亡，那么，相应的，五千两百万册书也毁灭了。

　　Library of Congress holds 18 million volumes.  国会图书馆有一千八百万册藏书。

　　We are upset about the burning of the Library of Alexandria.  亚历山大图书馆被烧毁让我们深感惋惜。

　　It's one of the great cultural tragedies that we remember, even today. 这是一大文化悲剧，我们直到今天还记忆犹新。

　　But this is the equivalent of three Libraries of Congress -- burnt down, forever lost -- each year. 但死亡造成的损失，相当于每年有三座国会图书馆的藏书灰飞烟灭，永远消亡。

　　So that's the first big problem.  因此，这是第一个重大问题。

　　And I wish Godspeed to Aubrey de Grey, and other people like him, 我要祝奥布里·德·格雷和他的同行们成功，

　　to try to do something about this as soon as possible.  祝他们在这个问题上尽早有所进展。

1 odds   

n.让步，机率，可能性，比率；胜败优劣之别

参考例句：

• The odds are 5 to 1 that she will win.她获胜的机会是五比一。
• Do you know the odds of winning the lottery once?你知道赢得一次彩票的几率多大吗？

2 toll   

n.过路(桥)费；损失，伤亡人数；v.敲(钟)

参考例句：

• The hailstone took a heavy toll of the crops in our village last night.昨晚那场冰雹损坏了我们村的庄稼。
• The war took a heavy toll of human life.这次战争夺去了许多人的生命。

3 statistical   

adj.统计的，统计学的

参考例句：

• He showed the price fluctuations in a statistical table.他用统计表显示价格的波动。
• They're making detailed statistical analysis.他们正在做具体的统计分析。

4 wasteful   

adj.（造成）浪费的，挥霍的

参考例句：

• It is a shame to be so wasteful.这样浪费太可惜了。
• Duties have been reassigned to avoid wasteful duplication of work.为避免重复劳动浪费资源，任务已经重新分派。