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Why are billionaires obsessed with going to space?
为什么亿万富翁痴迷于上太空？
Branson, Bezos, Musk: why are these billionaires, with all their worldly riches, fixated on space travel? The Tesla founder, Elon Musk, argues that in becoming “multiplanetary”, humans might gain “failsafe” protection from the risks of extinction or planetary collapse, while Amazon’s Jeff Bezos speaks of “saving the Earth”. If civilisation perishes on one planet, these billionaires seem to think we have a backup elsewhere.
布兰森、贝佐斯、马斯克：这些亿万富翁拥有世间的财富，为什么还执着于太空旅行？特斯拉创始人埃隆·马斯克认为，在成为“多行星物种”后，人类可能获得“故障安全”保护，免受灭绝或行星崩溃的风险，而亚马逊的杰夫·贝佐斯则谈到了“拯救地球”。如果一个星球上的文明灭绝了，这些亿万富翁似乎认为我们在其他地方还有后备力量。
Bezos, Musk and Richard Branson seem animated by a lofty goal: securing the future of humanity by going into space. Many have dismissed this as billionaire bravado that pays little attention to real, down-to-earth problems such as environmental collapse. Worse, others say it echoes rapacious, historic land grabs. But “going to space” and “saving the human race” are ideas that have long captivated people on Earth.
贝佐斯、马斯克和理查德·布兰森似乎被一个崇高的目标激励着：通过进入太空来确保人类的未来。许多人认为这只是亿万富翁的虚张声势，很少关注环境崩溃等现实问题。更糟糕的是，有人说这是对历史上贪婪的土地掠夺。但是“进入太空”和“拯救人类”是长久以来吸引着地球上的人们的想法。
For centuries, the west worked on the assumption that the universe was full of life and intelligence. The alternative – that humans were essentially alone, an oasis of intelligence surrounded by lifeless, barren void – was too difficult to accept. Many presumed other planets were populated with creatures essentially identical to us. Because of this, no one acknowledged that the end of the Earth would simultaneously spell the end of human life. And there was no reason to imagine humanity migrating to other planets to bring life to a non-living universe.
几个世纪以来，西方一直基于宇宙充满生命和智慧的假设。另一种说法——人类本质上是孤独的，是被无生命的、贫瘠的虚空包围的智慧绿洲，是难以接受的。许多人认为其他星球上居住着与我们本质上相同的生物。正因为如此，没有人意识到地球的末日同时也意味着人类生命的终结。也没有理由去想象人类迁移到其他星球去给一个没有生命的宇宙带来生命。
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