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And even this seems far from our potential: As the sun slowly gets hotter and brighter, earth will remain habitable for about 500 million years, giving so many more potential people the chance to become actual people.
但这似乎离我们的潜力还很远：随着太阳慢慢变得更热、更亮，地球将在未来5亿年内保持宜居状态，让更多潜在人类有机会成为真正的人类。
And now let's begin to think big. Scenario 2: Humans will leave Earth. We went from humans worshipping the moon, to humans walking on it, so who knows how much farther we can go?
现在让我们开始大胆思考。场景2：人类将离开地球。我们从崇拜月球的人类，到在月球上行走的人类，谁知道我们还能走多远？
If we don't die out within the next few hundred years, ideas that seem outlandish right now become serious considerations.
如果我们在未来几百年内不灭亡，现在看似荒诞的想法就会成为严肃的考虑。
If we believe that we have a chance of surviving for maybe millions of years, then we could expand onto the other planets or into our own artificial worlds. Life needs three things: a surface, resources and energy.
如果我们相信我们有机会存活数百万年，那么我们就可以扩展到其他星球或我们自己的人造世界。生命需要三样东西：地表、资源和能量。
Our Sun provides energy for billions of years and there is so much water and material floating in the asteroid and kuiper belt that we could sustain many times our current population.
我们的太阳为数十亿年提供了能量，小行星和柯伊伯带中漂浮着如此多的水和物质，足以维持我们目前人口的许多倍。
Instead of living on planets, we could decide to construct our own artificial worlds and habitats.
我们可以决定建造自己的人造世界和栖息地，而不是生活在行星上。
With resources and energy so abundant, we could try out different types of society and ways of life.
有了如此丰富的资源和能量，我们可以尝试不同类型的社会和生活方式。
An interconnected civilization spanning the solar system would create the basis of existence for an absurd number of individuals,
一个横跨太阳系的相互联系的文明将为大量个体创造生存的基础，
orders of magnitude more than if we stick to earth, even if it only existed for a few million years.
比我们留在地球上多出几个数量级，即使地球只存在了几百万年。
This future doesn't have to be grim and dark as science fiction likes to paint it.
这个未来并不像科幻小说所描绘的那样阴暗和黑暗。
With quadrillions of people waiting to be born, we will have billions of doctors working on curing cancer, billions of problem solvers working on ending poverty and billions of video game developers making life fun.
有数以万亿计的人口等待出生，我们将有数十亿医生致力于治疗癌症，数十亿解决问题的人致力于消除贫困，数十亿视频游戏开发者让生活充满乐趣。
More humans may actually mean more progress. Another upside of leaving earth and spreading out is that it becomes much harder for us to become extinct, as you need a solar system wide catastrophe to catch everybody.
更多的人类实际上可能意味着更多的进步。离开地球并向外扩张的另一个好处是，人类灭绝的难度大大增加，因为需要一场太阳系范围的灾难才能席卷所有人。
So aside from nearby supernovae or Gamma Rays bursts, humanity would be relatively safe from extinction, maybe for billions of years.
因此，除了附近的超新星或伽马射线爆发外，人类可能在数十亿年内都不会灭绝。
If we manage to survive for that long, slow evolution or genetic engineering might split us into multiple species, or we might intentionally keep ourselves the same as we are now.
如果我们能够存活这么久，缓慢的进化或基因工程可能会将我们分裂成多个物种，或者我们可能会故意保持与现在相同的状态。
So to account for that, we'll just talk about people from now on, instead of humans. Ok. Now let us think really big.
因此，为了解释这一点，从现在开始我们将只谈论人，而不是人类。好吧。现在让我们想得更远。
Scenario 3: People leave the Solar System. As enormous as the solar system is, it is just one star system among billions in the milky way.
场景3：人们离开太阳系。太阳系虽然巨大，但它只是银河系数十亿个恒星系统中的一个。
If future people can colonize, say, 100 billion stars and live there for 10 billion years, while each generating 100 million births per year, then we can expect something like a hundred Octillion lives to be lived in the future.
如果未来的人们可以殖民1000亿颗恒星并在那里生活100亿年，同时每年产生1亿个新生儿，那么我们可以预期未来会有大约兆亿人。
This is a 1 with 29 zeros, a hundred thousand trillion, trillion. We can spin this up as much as we like.
这是一个带有29个零的1，十万亿，万亿。我们可以随意旋转它。
The Andromeda Galaxy will merge with the Milky way, adding another trillion stars for us to settle.
仙女座星系将与银河系合并，为我们增加另外一万亿颗恒星供我们定居。
Red Dwarfs stay active for up to a trillion years and future civilizations might even find energy for their habitats around black holes.
红矮星的活跃期长达一万亿年，未来的文明甚至可能在黑洞周围找到能源来满足它们的栖息地需求。
A sufficiently advanced civilization of our descendants might even try to reach other galaxy groups.
我们的后代文明足够发达，甚至可能试图到达其他星系群。
While these numbers are mind blowing, they may underestimate the number of unborn people by many orders of magnitude.
虽然这些数字令人震惊，但它们可能低估了未出生人口的数量。
If we divide the total energy available in a galaxy by the average energy needs of a single person, then we get a tredecillion potential lives. A million, trillion, trillion, trillion potential people.
如果我们将星系中可用的总能量除以一个人的平均能量需求，那么我们就会得到一千万亿个潜在生命。一百万、一万亿、一万亿、一万亿个潜在人口。
Conclusion. Hopefully what has become evident is that if we don't kill ourselves in the next few centuries or millennia, almost all humans that will ever exist, will live in the future.
好在已经显而易见的是，如果我们在未来几个世纪或几千年内不自杀，几乎所有存在的人类都将生活在未来。
Which brings us back to us, in the present. We exist at a highpoint of human history, with incredible possibilities at our grasp. Technological, environmental and societal. What we do matters for all the people who do not exist yet.
聚焦于现在，我们处于人类历史的巅峰，拥有令人难以置信的可能性。技术、环境和社会。我们的所作所为对所有尚未存在的人都很重要。
So while it is not en vogue to think about humanity's long term future with optimism – or to think about it at all –, maybe this has given you a bit of perspective.
因此，尽管乐观地思考人类的长期未来并不流行——或者根本不去思考——但也许这给了你一些看法。
If we screw up the present, so many people may never come to exist. Quadrillions of unborn humans are at our mercy.
如果我们搞砸了现在，那么多人可能永远不会存在。数以万亿计的未出生人类将任由我们摆布。
Even if we go with fairly conservative estimates, the unborn are by far the largest group of people – and the most disenfranchised.
即使我们采用相当保守的估计，未出生的人类也是迄今为止最大的群体——也是最被剥夺权利的群体。
Somebody who might be born in a thousand or even a million years deeply depends on us today for their existence.
一千年甚至一百万年后出生的人深深地依赖于我们今天的存在。
This is why it is important to think about the distant future and why our presence is so crucial, why it matters what we do today. One day the last human will be born. We don't know when.
这就是为什么思考遥远的未来很重要，为什么我们的存在如此重要，为什么我们今天所做的事情很重要。总有一天，最后一个人类会出生。我们不知道什么时候。
But if we change our perspective from us living at the end of the human story, to us living at the very beginning we can not only build a wonderful world for us and for them but also for countless numbers of others.
但如果我们改变视角，从我们生活在人类故事的尽头，到我们生活在最开始，我们不仅可以为我们自己和他们建立一个美好的世界，还可以为无数其他人建立一个美好的世界。
