HUMAN RACE AT A CROSSROADS
十字路口的人类

But we have gotten ahead of our story. It is one thing to develop in the laboratory a series of psychological or biological techniques for manipulating human behavior and quite another to integrate these techniques into a functioning social system. The latter problem is the more difficult of the two. For example, while the techniques of educational psychology doubtless work quite well in the "lab schools" where they are developed, it is not necessarily easy to apply them effectively throughout our educational system. We all know what many of our schools are like. The teachers are too busy taking knives and guns away from the kids to subject them to the latest techniques for making them into computer nerds. Thus, in spite of all its technical advances relating to human behavior the system to date has not been impressively successful in controlling human beings. The people whose behavior is fairly well under the control of the system are those of the type that might be called "bourgeois." But there are growing numbers of people who in one way or another are rebels against the system: welfare leaches, youth gangs cultists, satanists, nazis, radical environmentalists, militiamen, etc..

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但是，我们的故事或许还是超前了一点。在实验室里开发一系列操纵人类行为的心理学或生物学技术是一回事，将这些技术整合进一个运转的社会体系则是另一回事。后一个问题更困难。例如，教育心理学技术在开发这些技术的“实验学校”中无疑十分有效，但要在我们的整个教育体系中有效地运用就不见得那么容易了。我们都知道我们的许多学校是什么样的。老师们正忙于收缴孩子们的刀具与枪支，根本没有时间运用最新技术把他们造就成计算机宅男。因此，虽然拥有这些关乎人类行为的技术进步，体系迄今在控制人类行为方而尚未取得令人印象深刻的成功。其行为受到体系很好控制的人是那些可以被称为“小资产阶级”的类型。但越来越多的人在这方面或那方面成为了体系的叛逆：社会福利的寄生虫、青年犯罪团伙、邪教崇拜者、恶魔崇拜者、纳粹分子、激进环境保护主义者、民间军事集团，等等。

The system is currently engaged in a desperate struggle to overcome certain problems that threaten its survival, among which the problems of human behavior are the most important. If the system succeeds in acquiring sufficient control over human behavior quickly enough, it will probably survive. Otherwise it will break down. We think the issue will most likely be resolved within the next several decades, say 40 to 100 years.

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体系目前正在为克服某些威胁到其生存的问题进行着拼死的斗争，在这其中最重要的或许就是人类行为问题。如果体系能够及时地掌握充分控制人类行为的能力，它就多半能够生存下去。否则它就会崩溃。我们认为这个问题多半在今后几十年，大约在40至100年间，就能见分晓。

Suppose the system survives the crisis of the next several decades. By that time it will have to have solved, or at least brought under control, the principal problems that confront it, in particular that of "socializing" human beings; that is, making people sufficiently docile so that their behavior no longer threatens the system. That being accomplished, it does not appear that there would be any further obstacle to the development of technology, and it would presumably advance toward its logical conclusion, which is complete control over everything on Earth, including human beings and all other important organisms. The system may become a unitary, monolithic organization, or it may be more or less fragmented and consist of a number of organizations coexisting in a relationship that includes elements of both cooperation and competition, just as today the government, the corporations and other large organizations both cooperate and compete with one another. Human freedom mostly will have vanished, because individuals and small groups will be impotent vis-a-vis large organizations armed with supertechnology and an arsenal of advanced psychological and biological tools for manipulating human beings, besides instruments of surveillance and physical coercion. Only a small number of people will have any real power, and even these probably will have only very limited freedom, because their behavior too will be regulated; just as today our politicians and corporation executives can retain their positions of power only as long as their behavior remains within certain fairly narrow limits.

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假设体系能够度过今后几十年的危机。到那时，它必须已经解决或至少控制住了它面临的主要问题，特别是“社会化”人类的问题，即将人们改造得足够驯顺，使得他们的行为不再威胁到体系。实现了这一点之后，技术的发展就不再会有任何障碍，它将会走向它的逻辑终点，也就是完全控制地球上的一切，包括人类和所有其它重要的有机体。体系将成为铁板一块的整体组织，或者多多少少分成几块，由几十个既合作又竞争的共存组织共同组成，就像今天的政府、公司和其他大型组织既合作又竞争一样。人类自由基本上将不复存在，因为个人和小群体无法对抗用超级技术以及可以操纵改造人类的先进心理学和生物学工具武装起来的大型组织，更不用说后者还掌握着监视仪器和物理强制手段了。只有极少数人握有真正的权力，但甚至就连他们的自由也是十分有限的，因为他们的行为也是受到管制的；就像今天的政客和公司主管，他们要保住自己的职权就必须限制自己的行为，不逾越某些十分狭隘的界限。

Don't imagine that the systems will stop developing further techniques for controlling human beings and nature once the crisis of the next few decades is over and increasing control is no longer necessary for the system's survival. On the contrary, once the hard times are over the system will increase its control over people and nature more rapidly, because it will no longer be hampered by difficulties of the kind that it is currently experiencing. Survival is not the principal motive for extending control. As we explained in paragraphs 87-90, technicians and scientists carry on their work largely as a surrogate activity; that is, they satisfy their need for power by solving technical problems. They will continue to do this with unabated enthusiasm, and among the most interesting and challenging problems for them to solve will be those of understanding the human body and mind and intervening in their development. For the "good of humanity," of course.

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今后几十年的危机如果能过去，那时体系就不再需要为生存而加强控制了，但不要想像体系会因此而停止进一步发展控制人与自然的技术。正相反，一旦艰难时期过去了，体系将更迅速地加强对于人与自然的控制，因为它将不再为今日所面临的困难所掣肘。生存并非加强控制的主要动机。我们在第87-90段已经阐述过，技术人员和科学家把他们的工作作为了替代性活动；他们解决技术问题是为了满足自己的权力欲。他们乐此不疲，而留待他们解决的最令人感兴趣、最具挑战性的问题就是探究人类身体和思想的秘密并干预它们的发展。当然，这是为了“人类福祉”。

But suppose on the other hand that the stresses of the coming decades prove to be too much for the system. If the system breaks down there may be a period of chaos, a "time of troubles" such as those that history has recorded: at various epochs in the past. It is impossible to predict what would emerge from such a time of troubles, but at any rate the human race would be given a new chance. The greatest danger is that industrial society may begin to reconstitute itself within the first few years after the breakdown. Certainly there will be many people (power-hungry types especially) who will be anxious to get the factories running again.

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但另一方面，请假设今后几十年的压力超出了体系的承受能力。如果体系崩溃，可能会有一个混乱时期，“动乱年代”，就像在过去各个对代历史所记载的那样。不可能预见动乱年代最后会产生什么结果。但无论如何人类会被赋予一个新机会。最大的危险是工业化社会很可能在崩溃后不几年就开始重组其自身，肯定会有许多人（特别是权力饥渴型的人们）急于重新开动工厂。

Therefore two tasks confront those who hate the servitude to which the industrial system is reducing the human race. First, we must work to heighten the social stresses within the system so as to increase the likelihood that it will break down or be weakened sufficiently so that a revolution against it becomes possible. Second, it is necessary to develop and propagate an ideology that opposes technology and the industrial society if and when the system becomes sufficiently weakened. And such an ideology will help to assure that, if and when industrial society breaks down, its remnants will be smashed beyond repair, so that the system cannot be reconstituted. The factories should be destroyed, technical books burned, etc.

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工业体系将人类贬低到了被奴役的状态，而憎恨这种被奴役状态的人则面临两个任务。第一，我们必须增强体系内的社会紧张态势，以加快其崩溃或把它弱化到足够程度，使得反对体系的革命成为可能。第二，当体系充分弱化时，我们必须发展并宣传一种反对技术和工业社会的意识形态。当工业社会崩溃时，这种意识形态将有助于保证其残余被粉碎到无法修复的地步，这样体系就无法重组。工厂将被捣毁，技术书籍将被烧掉，等等

HUMAN SUFFERING
人类苦难

The industrial system will not break down purely as a result of revolutionary action. It will not be vulnerable to revolutionary attack unless its own internal problems of development lead it into very serious difficulties. So if the system breaks down it will do so either spontaneously, or through a process that is in part spontaneous but helped along by revolutionaries. If the breakdown is sudden, many people will die, since the world's population has become so overblown that it cannot even feed itself any longer without advanced technology. Even if the breakdown is gradual enough so that reduction of the population can occur more through lowering of the birth rate than through elevation of the death rate, the process of de-industrialization probably will be very chaotic and involve much suffering. It is naive to think it likely that technology can be phased out in a smoothly managed orderly way, especially since the technophiles will fight stubbornly at every step. Is it therefore cruel to work for the breakdown of the system? Maybe, but maybe not. In the first place, revolutionaries will not be able to break the system down unless it is already in deep trouble so that there would be a good chance of its eventually breaking down by itself anyway; and the bigger the system grows, the more disastrous the consequences of its breakdown will be; so it may be that revolutionaries, by hastening the onset of the breakdown will be reducing the extent of the disaster.

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工业体系的崩溃不会纯粹是革命行动的结果，它不会那么难以抵御革命的攻击，除非它自身内部的发展问题导致了极为严重的困难。因此如果体系崩溃，那么它或是自发崩溃，或是部分自发、部分由革命者促发的崩溃。如果崩溃是突如其来的，许多人都会死去，因为世界人口已如此过分膨胀，离开了先进技术就无法养活自己。甚至即使崩溃足够缓慢，人口的减少可以主要通过出生率的降低而不是死亡率的提高而实现，非工业化的过程也多半是极度混乱和极度痛苦的。幻想通过平稳控制的有序方式逐步废除技术是天真的，特别是要考虑到技术爱好者们的负隅顽抗。那么，致力于体系的崩溃是否因此就十分残酷呢？也许是，也许不是。首先，除非体系本来就已经陷入了深重的困难，无论如何都很可能最终自行崩溃，否者单靠革命者是不可能强行使其崩溃的。而且体系发展得规模越大，崩溃的后果就越严重。因此加速体系崩溃的革命者或许反倒控制了灾难的规模。

In the second place, one has to balance the struggle and death against the loss of freedom and dignity. To many of us, freedom and dignity are more important than a long life or avoidance of physical pain. Besides, we all have to die some time, and it may be better to die fighting for survival, or for a cause, than to live a long but empty and purposeless life.

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其次，我们必须权衡斗争与死亡和丧失自由与尊严这两方面的得失。对于我们之中的许多人来说，自由与尊严比长寿和避免肉体痛苦更重要。再者，我们早晚会死，死于为生存或为某一事业而战，强于活得空虚而无目的。

In the third place, it is not all certain that the survival of the system will lead to less suffering than the breakdown of the system would. The system has already caused, and is continuing to cause , immense suffering all over the world. Ancient cultures, that for hundreds of years gave people a satisfactory relationship with each other and their environment, have been shattered by contact with industrial society, and the result has been a whole catalogue of economic, environmental, social and psychological problems. One of the effects of the intrusion of industrial society has been that over much of the world traditional controls on population have been thrown out of balance. Hence the population explosion, with all that it implies. Then there is the psychological suffering that is widespread throughout the supposedly fortunate countries of the West (see paragraphs 44, 45). No one knows what will happen as a result of ozone depletion, the greenhouse effect and other environmental problems that cannot yet be foreseen. And, as nuclear proliferation has shown, new technology cannot be kept out of the hands of dictators and irresponsible Third World nations. Would you like to speculate abut what Iraq or North Korea will do with genetic engineering?

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第三，体系的存续所带来的痛苦并不一定就比体系崩溃所带来的痛苦更少。在全世界范围内，体系已经招致、并且正在招致的巨大痛苦曾使人类千百年与他人以及环境和睦相处的古代文化被与其解接触的工业社会所摧毁。其结果就是全方位的经济、环境、社会和心理问题。工业杜会的侵扰所产生的影响之一，就是传统的人口控制在全球范围内一下子失去了平衡，因而产生了人口爆炸及其所有连带后果。接着就是心理疾病席卷了整个所谓“幸运”的西方社会（参见44, 45段）。没有人知道臭氧层耗尽、温室效应及其他现在还不能预测的环境问题最终会为这个世界带来怎样的后果。而且就像核扩散已经显示的那样，我们无法防止新技术落入独裁者和不负责任的第三世界国家手中。愿意猜猜伊位克或北朝鲜将用遗传工程来干什么吗?

"Oh!" say the technophiles, "Science is going to fix all that! We will conquer famine, eliminate psychological suffering, make everybody healthy and happy!" Yeah, sure. That's what they said 200 years ago. The Industrial Revolution was supposed to eliminate poverty, make everybody happy, etc. The actual result has been quite different. The technophiles are hopelessly naive (or self-deceiving) in their understanding of social problems. They are unaware of (or choose to ignore) the fact that when large changes, even seemingly beneficial ones, are introduced into a society, they lead to a long sequence of other changes, most of which are impossible to predict (paragraph 103). The result is disruption of the society. So it is very probable that in their attempt to end poverty and disease, engineer docile, happy personalities and so forth, the technophiles will create social systems that are terribly troubled, even more so that the present one. For example, the scientists boast that they will end famine by creating new, genetically engineered food plants. But this will allow the human population to keep expanding indefinitely, and it is well known that crowding leads to increased stress and aggression. This is merely one example of the PREDICTABLE problems that will arise. We emphasize that, as past experience has shown, technical progress will lead to other new problems for society far more rapidly that it has been solving old ones. Thus it will take a long difficult period of trial and error for the technophiles to work the bugs out of their Brave New World (if they ever do). In the meantime there will be great suffering. So it is not all clear that the survival of industrial society would involve less suffering than the breakdown of that society would. Technology has gotten the human race into a fix from which there is not likely to be any easy escape.

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“嗨！”技术爱好者们会说，“科学能解决所有这些问题！我们将征服饥荒、消灭心理病痛，让每一个人都健康而快乐！”是的，是的。他们200年前就是这么说的。人们曾指望工业社会能够消灭贫穷，使每一个人都快乐，等等。实际结果却不是那么回事。技术爱好者对社会问题的理解简直是无可救药地天真（或自欺欺人）。他们没有意识到（或故意视而不见）这样一个事实：当巨大的变化，即使是看上去有利的变化，被引入一个社会时，将会引发一长串其他变化，这些变化之中的大都分是不可预见的（103段）其结果则是社会的混乱。因此，技术爱好者们在试图消灭贫穷和疾病，设计制造驯顺、快乐的人格等等时，很可能会创造出比现在还糟糕的社会体系。例如，科学家们吹嘘说他们能够创造出新的、经遗传工程改造的粮食植物以消灭饥荒。然而，这将会允许人日无限膨胀下去，而众所周知，拥挤会导致紧张和攻击性的增强。这仅仅是技术会导致的可预见问题中的一个例子。我们强调指出，历史经验告诉我们，技术进步给社会带来新问题的速度远比它解决旧问题的速度要快。因此技术爱好者们要经过一个漫长的试错时期才能够为他们的美丽新世界排除掉所有的故障（假设他们最终能做到的话）。而与此同时所产生的痛苦将会如此巨大，以至于体系生存下去所带来的痛苦不见得就比体系崩溃更少。技术己将人类带入了一条无法轻易逃脱的死胡同。

THE FUTURE
未来

But suppose now that industrial society does survive the next several decade and that the bugs do eventually get worked out of the system, so that it functions smoothly. What kind of system will it be? We will consider several possibilities.

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然而，假设工业社会经过未来几十年确实幸存下来并最终排除了故障，因而实现了平稳运转，它又会是一个什么样的体系呢？我们将考虑几种可能性

First let us postulate that the computer scientists succeed in developing intelligent machines that can do all things better that human beings can do them. In that case presumably all work will be done by vast, highly organized systems of machines and no human effort will be necessary. Either of two cases might occur. The machines might be permitted to make all of their own decisions without human oversight, or else human control over the machines might be retained.

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首先，让我们假定计算机科学家成功地开发出了智能机器，这些机器无论做什么事都比人类强。在这种情况下，大概所有工作都会由巨大的、高度组织化的机器系统去做，而不再需要任何人类的努力。有两种情况可能发生。一种是允许机器在没有人类监督的情况下自已做出所有的决策，另一种是人类保留对于机器的控制。

If the machines are permitted to make all their own decisions, we can't make any conjectures as to the results, because it is impossible to guess how such machines might behave. We only point out that the fate of the human race would be at the mercy of the machines. It might be argued that the human race would never be foolish enough to hand over all the power to the machines. But we are suggesting neither that the human race would voluntarily turn power over to the machines nor that the machines would willfully seize power. What we do suggest is that the human race might easily permit itself to drift into a position of such dependence on the machines that it would have no practical choice but to accept all of the machines decisions. As society and the problems that face it become more and more complex and machines become more and more intelligent, people will let machines make more of their decision for them, simply because machine-made decisions will bring better result than man-made ones. Eventually a stage may be reached at which the decisions necessary to keep the system running will be so complex that human beings will be incapable of making them intelligently. At that stage the machines will be in effective control. People won't be able to just turn the machines off, because they will be so dependent on them that turning them off would amount to suicide.

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如果我们允许机器自己做出所有的决策，就无法对其结果进行揣度，因为不可能猜测此类机器的行为。我们只想指出，人类的命运那时就全凭机器发落了。人们也许会反驳，人类决不会愚蠢到把全部权力都交给机器。但我们既不是说人类会有意将权力交给机器，也不是说机器会存心夺权。我们实际上说的是，人类可能会轻易地让自己滑落到一个完全依赖机器的位置，滑落到不能做出任何实际选择，只能接受机器的所有决策的地步。随着社会及其面临的问题变得越来越复杂，而机器变得越来越聪明，人们会让机器替他们做更多的决策。仅仅是因为机器做出的决策会比人的决策带来更好的结果。最后，第二阶段将会来临，在这个阶段，维持体系运行所必需的决策已变得如此之复杂。以至于人类已无能力明智地进行决策。在这一阶段，机器实质上已处于控制地位。人们已不能把机器关上，因为他们已如此地依赖于机器，关上它们就等于是自杀。

On the other hand it is possible that human control over the machines may be retained. In that case the average man may have control over certain private machines of his own, such as his car of his personal computer, but control over large systems of machines will be in the hands of a tiny elite -- just as it is today, but with two difference. Due to improved techniques the elite will have greater control over the masses; and because human work will no longer be necessary the masses will be superfluous, a useless burden on the system. If the elite is ruthless the may simply decide to exterminate the mass of humanity. If they are humane they may use propaganda or other psychological or biological techniques to reduce the birth rate until the mass of humanity becomes extinct, leaving the world to the elite. Or, if the elite consist of soft-hearted liberals, they may decide to play the role of good shepherds to the rest of the human race. They will see to it that everyone's physical needs are satisfied, that all children are raised under psychologically hygienic conditions, that everyone has a wholesome hobby to keep him busy, and that anyone who may become dissatisfied undergoes "treatment" to cure his "problem." Of course, life will be so purposeless that people will have to be biologically or psychologically engineered either to remove their need for the power process or to make them "sublimate" their drive for power into some harmless hobby. These engineered human beings may be happy in such a society, but they most certainly will not be free. They will have been reduced to the status of domestic animals.

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另一方面，也可能人类还能保持对机器的控制。在这种情况下，一般人也许可以控制他自己的私人机器，如他自己的汽车或私人计算机，但对于大型机器系统的控制权将落入一小群精英之手——就像今天一样，但有两点不同。由于技术的改进，精英对于大众的控制能力将会极大提高，因为人不再必需工作，大众就成为了多余的人，成为了体系的无用负担。如果精英集团失去了怜悯心，他们完全可以决定灭绝人类大众。如果他们有些人情味，他们也可以使用宣传或其他心理学或生物学技术降低出生率，直至人类大众自行消亡，让这个世界由精英们独占。或者，如果精英集团是由软心肠的自由派人士组成的，他们也可以为剩余的人类种族扮演好牧人的角色。他们将注意保证每个人的生理需求都得到满足，每一个孩子都在心理十分健康的条件下被抚养成人，每一个人都有一项有益于健康的癖好来打发日子，每一个可能会变得不满的人都会接受治疗以治愈其“疾病”。当然，生活是如此没有目的，以致于人们都不得不经过生物学的或心理学的重新设计改造，以去除他们对于权力过程的需求，或使他们的权力欲“升华”为无害的癖好。这些经过改造的人们也许能在这样一个社会中生活得平和愉快，但他们决不会自由。他们将被贬低到家畜的地位。

But suppose now that the computer scientists do not succeed in developing artificial intelligence, so that human work remains necessary. Even so, machines will take care of more and more of the simpler tasks so that there will be an increasing surplus of human workers at the lower levels of ability. (We see this happening already. There are many people who find it difficult or impossible to get work, because for intellectual or psychological reasons they cannot acquire the level of training necessary to make themselves useful in the present system.) On those who are employed, ever-increasing demands will be placed; They will need more and m ore training, more and more ability, and will have to be ever more reliable, conforming and docile, because they will be more and more like cells of a giant organism. Their tasks will be increasingly specialized so that their work will be, in a sense, out of touch with the real world, being concentrated on one tiny slice of reality. The system will have to use any means that I can, whether psychological or biological, to engineer people to be docile, to have the abilities that the system requires and to "sublimate" their drive for power into some specialized task. But the statement that the people of such a society will have to be docile may require qualification. The society may find competitiveness useful, provided that ways are found of directing competitiveness into channels that serve that needs of the system. We can imagine into channels that serve the needs of the system. We can imagine a future society in which there is endless competition for positions of prestige an power. But no more than a very few people will ever reach the top, where the only real power is (see end of paragraph 163). Very repellent is a society in which a person can satisfy his needs for power only by pushing large numbers of other people out of the way and depriving them of THEIR opportunity for power.

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再假设计算机科学家们没有能够在开发人工智能方面取得成功，因此人的工作还是必要的。即使如此，机器也将承担越来越多的简单工作，而低能力的工人将越来越过剩（正如我们所见，这种事已经发生了。许多人很难或根本找不到工作，因为他们由于智力或心理原因而不能达到在现今体系内有用就必须达到的训练水平）对于那些找到工作的人，要求会越来越高。他们将需要越来越多的训练，越来越强的能力，他们将不得不越来越可靠、越来越规矩、越来越驯顺，因为他们将越来越像巨型有机体的细胞。他们的任务将越来越专门化，囚而他们的工作在某种意义上也将越来越脱离真实世界，仅集中于现实的一块小碎片。体系将使用一切可以使用的心理学或生物学手段来设计制造人类，使之驯顺，使之具有体系要求的能力，使之将权力欲“升华”为某些专门化的任务。但是这样一个社会的人民将不得不驯顺。这一陈述是有条件的。如果可以找到某种方法，能将竞争性导向服务于体系需求的轨道，那么社会也许会发现竞争性是有用的。我们可以想像这徉一个未来社会，生活于其间的人没完没了地为了声望和权力而竞争，但是只有少数人能够爬上独占真正权力的顶点（参见163段末尾）。这是一个极其令人反胃的世界，因为在这个世界当中，一个人满足权力需求的唯一方式就是将众多他人排挤到一边并剥夺他们满足权力需求的机会。

Once can envision scenarios that incorporate aspects of more than one of the possibilities that we have just discussed. For instance, it may be that machines will take over most of the work that is of real, practical importance, but that human beings will be kept busy by being given relatively unimportant work. It has been suggested, for example, that a great development of the service of industries might provide work for human beings. Thus people will would spend their time shinning each others shoes, driving each other around inn taxicab, making handicrafts for one another, waiting on each other's tables, etc. This seems to us a thoroughly contemptible way for the human race to end up, and we doubt that many people would find fulfilling lives in such pointless busy-work. They would seek other, dangerous outlets (drugs, , crime, "cults," hate groups) unless they were biological or psychologically engineered to adapt them to such a way of life.

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我们还可以想像某种把若干个上述可能性结合起来的场景。例如，机器可能接管大部分具有真正重要性的工作，但人类则仍旧还能在相对不那么重要的工作上面忙活。例如有人建议，大力发展服务业可以给人类提供工作机会。这样人们就可以把时间花在互相擦皮鞋上面，可以用出租车带着彼此到处瞎转，互相为对方做手工艺品，互相给对方端盘子，等等。人类如果最终以这样的方式结局，那对于我们来说也实在是太可怜了，而且我们怀疑有多少人会觉得这样的无意义的忙碌等同于充实的生活。他们会去寻找危险的其他渲泄途径（毒品、犯罪、邪教、仇恨群体等），除非他们经过生物学或心理学的设计改造后适应了这种生活方式。

Needless to day, the scenarios outlined above do not exhaust all the possibilities. They only indicate the kinds of outcomes that seem to us mots likely. But wee can envision no plausible scenarios that are any more palatable that the ones we've just described. It is overwhelmingly probable that if the industrial-technological system survives the next 40 to 100 years, it will by that time have developed certain general characteristics: Individuals (at least those of the "bourgeois" type, who are integrated into the system and make it run, and who therefore have all the power) will be more dependent than ever on large organizations; they will be more "socialized" that ever and their physical and mental qualities to a significant extent (possibly to a very great extent ) will be those that are engineered into them rather than being the results of chance (or of God's will, or whatever); and whatever may be left of wild nature will be reduced to remnants preserved for scientific study and kept under the supervision and management of scientists (hence it will no longer be truly wild). In the long run (say a few centuries from now) it is it is likely that neither the human race nor any other important organisms will exist as we know them today, because once you start modifying organisms through genetic engineering there is no reason to stop at any particular point, so that the modifications will probably continue until man and other organisms have been utterly transformed.

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不用说，上述场景尚未穷尽所有可能性。它们只是表明了我们看来似乎最可能的结局。然而，我们无法想像比上述情况更好而又似乎可能的场景。极其可能的情况是，如果工业技术体系能够度过未来40-100年而幸存下来，那时它将会发展出某些一般特征：个人（至少是那些“小资产阶级”类型的人，他们被整合进体系并维持其运转，因而也掌握了全部权力）空前地依赖大型组织，空前地“社会化”，他们的身心品质在相当程度上（很可能是极大程度上）是设计改造的结果，而不是机缘（或上帝意志，或其他什么）的结果；野生自然所能留下的部分只是为了科学研究而保留的一些残余，这些残余将由科学家监视与管理（因而也算不上真正野生）。从长远看（比如几个世纪以后），无论是人类，还是任何其他重要的有机体，都不会像我们今天所知道的那样存在下去，因为只要你一开始通过遗传工程改造有机体，就没有理由在某一个特定点上停下来，因此改造多半会继下去去，直至人类和其他有机体彻底改观。

Whatever else may be the case, it is certain that technology is creating for human begins a new physical and social environment radically different from the spectrum of environments to which natural selection has adapted the human race physically and psychological. If man is not adjust to this new environment by being artificially re-engineered, then he will be adapted to it through a long an painful process of natural selection. The former is far more likely that the latter.

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无论还有另外什么情况，有一点是肯定的：技术给人类创造了一个新的物质和社会环境。这个环境与人类通过自然选择而在生理上和心理上适应了的所有各类环境都极为不同。如果人类不能通过人为的重新设计改造而适应这一新环境，那么就得通过自然选择的痛苦过程去适应它，前者的可能性要比后者大得多

It would be better to dump the whole stinking system and take the consequences.

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更好的办法是把这个腐朽的体系整个扔进垃圾堆，并勇敢地承受其后果。