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So I often get asked, which is an odd thing to ask a futurist, "Should I bring a kid into this world?
经常有人问我“我应该要孩子吗？”向一个未来主义者问这个问题还挺奇怪的。
I mean, look at all the problems right now- it makes the most sense either ethically, or from a climate change perspective, not to do it."
看看我们现在所面临的问题--无论从道德角度来讲，还是从气候变化的角度来看，不要孩子绝对是明智的。
Things are really bad right now in a moment-to-moment level: be it climate change, be it race or economic justice, and a host of other issues.
目前的情况无时无刻都糟到了极点：气候变化、种族问题、经济正义等等。
But, if we actually step back and don't look at the headlines or the breaking news alerts about how bad things are, and look at things from a hundred-year or even a thousand-year perspective, where we are as a species right now is amazing in terms of science, technology, morality, values.
但如果我们后退一步，不去看各种新闻头条，不去关注那些负面信息，而是从上百年，甚至上千年的角度去看人类这个物种，我们在科学、技术、道德、价值观方面取得的成就是非常了不起的。
Having children, in many ways, is a radical act of hope and courage for a better tomorrow.
在很多方面，生孩子其实是一种激进行为，它带着希望和勇气，期待着一个更加美好的未来。
Homo sapiens have been making short and long-term decisions for a very long time.
很久以来，人类都在做着短期或长期决策。
Yes, we built the Panama Canal, we built the transcontinental railroad, we did the Marshall Plan.
是的，我们建造了巴拿马运河，修建了横贯大陆的铁路，实施了马歇尔计划。
At the same time, we would create laws and ways of being that would deal with the injustices of 400 years past, by actually doing things that were very short-termistic, that we are still dealing with today.
与此同时，我们会做一些非常短期的事情，创造法律和生存规则，来应对过去四百年来的不公，而如今我们依然面临着这些不公。
So what we do is we develop these 'sandbag strategies,' which means it works well enough.
我们会制定一些“沙袋策略”，也就是那些行之有效的策略。
It doesn't deal with the underlying issue that you built a house in a flood plane or that we're gonna see more refugees fleeing because of climate change.
但它不会解决潜在的问题，比如你在洪水线上盖房子，或者有更多难民因为气候变化而逃离。
It means we're just dealing with it in the here and the now.
这意味着我们解决的只是眼下的问题。
And then when we actually don't deal with these short-term things that we've done these sandbag strategies, we see that we are gonna be dealing with them in multitudes at an exponential level for decades to come.
但是，如果我们不用这些沙袋策略去解决短期问题，就会在未来几十年里以指数级的水平去大量处理这些问题。
That being said, moving us forward as a species doesn't mean giving up.
虽然如此，作为一个物种向前发展，并不意味着破罐子破摔。
It doesn't mean going up a dark mountain, and pulling down the shades, and saying, "That's it."
这并不意味着跑到一座黑山上，把门窗一关，说：“就这样吧。”
There's still so much more for us to do, and one of the ways of doing that is actually perpetuating our species and having us move forward.
我们依然有很多事情可以做，其中之一就是延续我们的物种，使之继续向前。
If I think about my dad, who was born in the 1920s, who survived the Holocaust and moved forward, having seen what he saw, the worst of humanity, he still went ahead and had a family. He had children.
想想我父亲，他出生在20世纪20年代，在大屠杀中幸存了下来，他见过人性之极恶，却依然选择了组建家庭。还有了孩子。
There are some rough times ahead.
未来会有一些艰难的时刻。
What we do now matters, and one of those things is having radical hope and having awe towards what tomorrow could be.
我们现在的做法很重要，其中一点就是对未来有一些激进的希望和敬畏。
One way of doing that is having children.
它的表现之一就是生育孩子。
I'm not saying it's gonna be perfect.
并不是说生孩子就是完美的办法。
It wasn't perfect for me, it wasn't perfect for my dad.
对我来说不完美，对我父亲来说也不完美。
But every year that moves forward, the arc towards progress actually does bend towards a better tomorrow.
但每过一年，进步的天秤都会向更美好的未来倾斜一点。
The best thing you can do for your kids right now is not create a 'Shangri-La' picture of what they're gonna be going into, but giving them the tools to be better humans so that they themselves are setting themselves up to be great ancestors to future descendants.
现在，你能为你的孩子做的最好的事情就是不要给他们灌输‘香格里拉’式的未来图景，而是让他们掌握一些能变得更好的工具，这样他们就能成为未来后人的伟大祖先。
So for our kids, they will be moving through a time that will be in some ways difficult, in some ways easier, but it's gonna be more magnificent than anything we've ever known because we are consistently seeing us as a species pushing ourselves more forward when it comes to the morals that we need to be the great ancestors of future needs.
对我们的孩子来说，他们将经历一些或困难、或容易的时刻，但它会比任何时候都更为壮丽，因为我们这个物种总是能逼着自己向前，让自己成为未来所需要的伟大祖先。
