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I want to talk today about
今天我所要講的是
I've been asked to take the long view,
他們讓我談談長遠的觀點
and I'm going to tell you what I think are the three biggest problems for humanity from this long point of view.
我要告訴你們，我認為，從長遠來看，人類面臨著三大問題。
Some of these have already been touched upon by other speakers, which is encouraging.
其中有些問題已經被其他講演者提到了，這是很鼓舞人心的。
It seems that there's not just one person who thinks that these problems are important.
看起來遠不止一個人認為這些問題意義重大。
The first is -- death is a big problem.
第一——死亡是一個重大的問題。
If you look at the statistics, the odds are not very favorable to us.
如果你看看統計數據，形式對我們來說并不樂觀。
So far, most people who have lived have also died.
到目前為止，大部分曾經活過的人，都已經死了。
Roughly 90 percent of everybody who has been alive has died by now.
大致來說，所有人類中百分之九十的人目前已經死亡了.
So the annual death rate adds up to 150,000 --
因此，年死亡率總計就是15萬——
sorry, the daily death rate -- 150,000 people per day,
對不起，日死亡率——每天15萬人，
which is a huge number by any standard.
以任何標準看，這個數字都是巨大的。
The annual death rate, then, becomes 56 million.
那么，年死亡率就變成了5千6百萬人。
If we just look at the single, biggest cause of death, aging
如果我們只著眼于死亡的最大的單一因素，衰老
it accounts for roughly two-thirds of all human people who die.
大約有三分之二的人因此而死。
That adds up to an annual death toll of greater than the population of Canada.
這些每年因衰老而死亡的人數比加拿大的人口還要多。
Sometimes, we don't see a problem
有時，我們無視于問題之存在，
because either it's too familiar or it's too big.
因為要么這個問題太熟悉，要么這個問題太大了。
Can't see it because it's too big.
因為問題太大了，所以我們看不見。
I think death might be both too familiar and too big for most people to see it as a problem.
我認為，死亡對我們來說，既過于熟悉也過于巨大，因此大多數人都不會把它當做一個問題來看待。
Once you think about it, you see this is not statistical points;
一旦你想一下，你就會發現這并不是統計數字而已。
these are -- let's see, how far have I talked?
這些是——讓我看看，我講了有多久了？
I've talked for three minutes.
我已經講了三分鐘。
So that would be, roughly, 324 people have died since I've begun speaking.
那么，從我開始講話到現在，有大概324個人已經去世了。
People like -- it's roughly the population in this room has just died.
這個人數就像——大概有這個房間里的那么多人剛才去世了。
Now, the human cost of that is obvious,
死亡給人類帶來的損失是很明顯的。
once you start to think about it -- the suffering, the loss --
如果你開始細想，死亡帶來的痛苦、損失
it's also, economically, enormously wasteful.
從經濟上來說，這也是一種巨大的浪費。
I just look at the information, and knowledge, and experience
光從信息、知識和經驗來看，
that is lost due to natural causes of death in general, and aging, in particular.
一般而言，它們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?
假設我們把一個人比作一本書，
Now, of course, this is an underestimation.
當然，這對人來說是低估的。
A person's lifetime of learning and experience is a lot more than you could put into a single book.
一個人一生的學識和經驗，遠不能為一本書所容納。
But let's suppose we did this.
但讓我們這么假設吧。
52 million people die of natural causes each year corresponds, then, to 52 million volumes destroyed.
每年有五千兩百萬人因自然原因而死亡，那么，相應的，五千兩百萬冊書也毀滅了。
Library of Congress holds 18 million volumes.
國會圖書館有一千八百萬冊藏書。
We are upset about the burning of the Library of Alexandria.
亞歷山大圖書館被燒毀讓我們深感惋惜。
It's one of the great cultural tragedies that we remember, even today.
這是一大文化悲劇，我們直到今天還記憶猶新。
But this is the equivalent of three Libraries of Congress -- burnt down, forever lost -- each year.
但死亡造成的損失，相當于每年有三座國會圖書館的藏書灰飛煙滅，永遠消亡。
So that's the first big problem.
因此，這是第一個重大問題。
And I wish Godspeed to Aubrey de Grey, and other people like him,
我要祝奧布里·德·格雷和他的同行們成功，
to try to do something about this as soon as possible.
祝他們在這個問題上盡早有所進展。
