When do you want to die? The Reaper is busy, but he can fit you in right now. Too soon? Later, perhaps? Future You will keep the appointment?
你想什么时候死?死神很忙,但他现在就可以为你安排时间。现在太快了?也许之后?未来你会遵守约定吗?
Old and with a life fully lived, perhaps ever so slightly bored and ready? Now you might think that, but when the appointment whipper-snapper, you set comes...
年老了,生活充实,也许有点无聊,但已经做好准备了?现在你可能会这么想,但是当你设定的时间到来时……
It is not in the future, because you don't live in the future. You always live in the now.
它不在未来,因为你不生活在未来。你总是活在当下。
And thus, you always die now. Because the Reaper comes for all eventually, humans have formed a relationship with death perverse.
因此,你总是现在就死。因为死神最终会降临到所有人身上,所以人类与死亡形成了一种反常的关系。
Like a hostage who grows to love their kidnapper, humans tell themselves the handful of decades the reaper gives them is just the right length,
就像一个逐渐爱上绑架者的人质,人类告诉自己,死神给他们的几十年正好,
that living a truly long and healthy life would get boring and would be unnatural and imagine all the problems if death took a holiday.
过上真正长寿健康的生活会变得无聊,会变得不自然,想象一下如果死亡休假之后的所有问题。
And so the Reaper of Age whispers that he is your friend, always near: growing humans bigger, stronger, healthier, and smarter -- at first.
所以死神低声说,他是你的朋友,总是在你身边:让人类变得更大、更强壮、更健康、更聪明——一开始是这样。
Then comes his harvest of slow rot. Death is a part of life, he whispers. "Death gives life meaning," This is madness. Misery doesn't give happiness meaning.
然后就是他慢慢腐烂的收获。他低声说,死亡是生命的一部分。“死亡赋予生命意义”,这太疯狂了。痛苦并不能赋予幸福意义。
Happiness is meaning itself. If you tortured people to make them better appreciate the pleasures of life, you would be a monster. Just like this guy.
幸福本身就是意义。如果你折磨人们,让他们更好地欣赏生活的乐趣,你就是一个怪物。就像这个家伙一样。
No parent would ask the Reaper of Age to wrinkle their child's skin, weaken their bones, dim their vision, and their minds, cripple them in a thousand ways over decades to ultimately kill them, "to give their life meaning".
没有父母会要求死神让他们的孩子皮肤起皱,骨头变弱,视力减弱,思维变缓,几十年来以千种方式使他们残废,最终杀死他们,“赋予他们生命意义”。
But what can you do? The world contains pain and death, and so your brain believes the sweet lies that the horrors you can't avoid are good for you.
但你能做什么呢?这个世界充满了痛苦和死亡,所以你的大脑相信那些你无法避免的恐怖对你有好处的甜蜜谎言。
And while "Death is a part of life", cholera was a part of life until humans developed wells and sewers to separate water from waste.
虽然“死亡是生命的一部分”,但霍乱也曾是生命的一部分,直到人类发明了水井和下水道将水与废物分开。
Shortsightedness is a part of life, until it isn't. Just because a thing is natural doesn't make it good or necessary. It's natural to live lives nasty, brutish, and short.
近视是生命的一部分,直到它不再是。仅仅因为某件事是自然的,并不意味着它是好的或必要的。生活肮脏、野蛮和短暂是自然的。
And it's natural for humans to look at what indifferent nature provides as the starting point. As a to-do list, where humans focus, technology ever improves.
人类很自然地将冷漠的大自然所提供的东西视为起点。作为人类关注的待办事项清单,技术不断改进。
And with that, the ability to make lives better ever improves. And just now some basic tools, with real promise to slow or halt the decay are becoming visible on the horizon.
有了这些,改善生活的能力不断提高。而现在,一些真正有望减缓或阻止衰败的基本工具正出现在地平线上。
Which raises the question: Just how strong is the Reaper of Age? With enough time and attention can humans craft these basic tools into shields and swords to keep him at bay?
这就提出了一个问题:死神到底有多强大?只要有足够的时间和注意力,人类就能将这些基本工具制作成盾牌和剑来阻止他吗?
Possibly indefinitely? Perhaps. And if so, the first immortal generation may be alive today. A generation that lives a healthy adulthood as long as they wish to.
可能无限期地?也许吧。如果是这样,第一代永生者可能还活着。一代人可以按照自己的意愿过上健康的成年生活。
But to make that happen, brains need be cleared of the millennia of death acceptance. Death is not a solution to future problems imagined.
但要做到这一点,大脑需要清除数千年来对死亡的接受。死亡不是想象中的未来问题的解决方案。
Faced with the changes longer lives will bring, humans will not miss the Reaper and construct one to solve their problems.
面对更长的寿命将带来的变化,人类不会想念死神,也不会造一个死神来解决他们的问题。
Just as with our larger cities, we don't re-mix the water to bring back cholera.
就像我们的大城市一样,我们不会重新混合水来重新引发霍乱。
Humans must discard the learned helplessness the Reaper and their own brains have imposed on them.
人类必须抛弃死神和他们自己的大脑强加给他们的习得性无助。
To instead see the rot and decay not as natural and inevitable, but as a degenerative disease to be attacked like all the others.
相反,要把腐烂和衰败看作不是自然的和不可避免的,而是一种像所有其他疾病一样需要攻克的退行性疾病。
As the degenerative disease that affects 100% of the population and is a source of misery untold. Misery not in your distant future, but in your now.
退行性疾病影响100%的人口,是无数痛苦的根源。痛苦不是在遥远的未来,而是在你的现在。
And how soon we start the project of focusing our attention and shaping our tools against the Reaper matters.
而我们何时开始集中注意力和塑造我们的工具来对抗死神,这很重要。
For the difference of but a day might determine what side of the future chasm you find yourself on. Journeying forever forward or falling backward into the abyss.
因为仅仅一天的差别就可能决定你处在未来鸿沟的哪一边。是永远向前走,还是倒退跌入深渊。
Is it too late for you? We probably won't win the war against death because death is all-powerful. But we might be able to win the battle against the next best thing. Aging itself.
对你来说太晚了吗?我们可能无法赢得与死亡的战争,因为死亡是万能的。但我们也许能够赢得与次优事物的战斗,即衰老。
There's a realistic chance that you might live a longer and healthier life, but should we really do it? We explore this in our video.
你确实有可能活得更长寿、更健康,但我们真的应该这样做吗?我们将在视频中探讨这个问题。