評論
打印
Americans live in ever-nicer, ever-large houses, but new homes and the businesses that serve them have to go somewhere. Spraw continues at a maddening pace, while once-rustic areas may now be gridlocked with SUVs and power boats.
美國人住在更好、更大的房子里，但新家和為他們服務的公司必須有地安置。城市以令人發瘋的速度繼續雜亂無序地擴展，曾經的鄉村地區如今可能堵滿了SUV和汽艇。
Agricultural yields continue rising, yet that means fewer family farms are needed. Biotechnology may allow us to live longer, but may leave us dependent on costly synthetic drugs. There are many similar examples.
農業產量在持續上升，這也意味著家庭農場的需求更少了。生物科技或許能使我們活得更久，卻可能讓我們依賴昂貴的合成藥物。類似的例子有很多。
Increasingly, Western life is afflicted by the paradoxes of progress. Material circumstances keep improving, yet our quality of life may be no better as a result—especially in those cases, like food, where enough becomes too much.
西方人的生活會越來越多地被發展的悖論折磨著。物質環境在不斷改善，而我們 的生活品質卻沒有變得更好——正如同食物由充足變為過剩而導致不良后果這種情況。
"The maximum is not the optimum5," the ecologist Garrett Hardin, who died last year, liked to say. Americans are choosing the maximum, and it does not necessarily make us healthier or happier.
“最大化并不意味著最佳結果，”去年去世的生態學家加勒特•哈丁常這樣說。美國人在選擇最大化，這未必會讓我們變得更健康或更快樂。
