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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.
美国人住在更好、更大的房子里，但新家和为他们服务的公司必须有地安置。城市以令人发疯的速度继续杂乱无序地扩展，曾经的乡村地区如今可能堵满了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.
农业产量在持续上升，这也意味着家庭农场的需求更少了。生物科技或许能使我们活得更久，却可能让我们依赖昂贵的合成药物。类似的例子有很多。
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.
西方人的生活会越来越多地被发展的悖论折磨着。物质环境在不断改善，而我们 的生活品质却没有变得更好——正如同食物由充足变为过剩而导致不良后果这种情况。
"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.
“最大化并不意味着最佳结果，”去年去世的生态学家加勒特•哈丁常这样说。美国人在选择最大化，这未必会让我们变得更健康或更快乐。
