长远新闻更值得我们去关注

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

我们被淹没在了新闻的世界里。路透社一年发布350万新闻故事，而它仅仅只是一个发布源而已。

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.

我的问题是：这些新闻到底有多少是长期有影响的？这就是“长远新闻”（Long News）的意义。这是由Long Now基金会提出的一个项目。基金会是由TED成员建立的，包括 Kevin Kelly 和 Stewart Brand。我们试图找出那些仍然会有深远影响的新闻故事，50，100或者是一万年以后。我是说新闻进过上述条件过滤后，很多都会落在一边。

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.

假设你已经找出去年美联社的头条。这些头条在10年里内会有影响？或者这个？或者这个？真的会吗？会在50年或者100年内有影响吗？好的，这样就很酷了（笑）。但是去年的头条是经济，而且我敢打赌迟早，这个特殊的经济不景气会成为旧闻。

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，什么样的故事可能对未来造成影响？好的，让我们先看看科学。某一天，迷你机器人能够在我们血液里面穿梭来修复受损的细胞。如果你是一个老鼠的话，这个“某一天”已经到来-几则最近的新闻：纳米峰用真蜂毒液杀死肿瘤，科学家们向人脑里面植入基因，他们还造了一个机器人可以在人体里爬行。

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.

资源呢？我们该怎么样满足90亿人的需求。我们现在连60亿人的肚子都填饱不了。昨天我们听到，有超过10人处于饥饿中。没有转基因作物，英国人会挨饿，幸运的是比尔·盖茨投入10亿美元用于农产品研究。

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.

那么国际政治方面呢？这个世界会很不一样，如果让中国设置议程，而他们有可能做到的。他们已经超过美国成为世界上最大的汽车市场；他们超过德国成为最大的出口国；他们已经开始在儿童身上做DNA测试，来给他们选择职业。

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.

我们正在寻找各种方法推后我们知道的各种限制，一些最近的发现，有一个阿根廷的蚁群现在传播到了每一个大陆，除了南极洲有一个自我导向的机器人科学家搞出了一个发明。很快，科学可能不再需要我们，而且生活也不再需要我们一个微生物沉睡12万年之后复活-好像有没有我们生命都会继续。

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.

但是我选择的去年的“长远新闻”是这一个：月亮上找到了水。这使得人类在月亮上建立殖民地简单多了。如果NASA不做这个，也许中国或者在坐的某些人会签上这个巨额支票。

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

我的想表明的观点是：长远来看，某些新闻，比其他的一些新闻更重要。

Notes:
agri research: 农产品研究。其中，agri是agricultural的缩写。