经济学人精读：关于包括我们自己在内的未来的狂想值得一读

经济学人的很多文章看起来挺难的，但实际上掌握了经济学人的阅读方法也没有想象的那么令人不可接受。今天给大家分享的这篇文章同样来自经济学人杂志是谈未来狂想的。有的时候，我们不应该被现实限制了自己对未来的想象，因为这样，才有可能拥有更加令人期待的未来。我们来看下今天的文章：

Predicting the future is hard. But preparing for its uncertainties, while you lie on the beach, can at least be entertaining. It can also broaden the mind and subtly change your understanding of the present. Rather than the Great American Novel or a tall stack ¹ of chick-lit bonkbusters, we propose a different sort of summer reading. Speculating about the future, even if it is far-fetched, can help people and institutions cope with what comes next. For the best material, here are three places to look.文章源自西贝博客-https://qinghe.me/it-is-worth-reading-crazy-sounding-scenarios-about-the-future-including-our-own.html

上标注解：文章源自西贝博客-https://qinghe.me/it-is-worth-reading-crazy-sounding-scenarios-about-the-future-including-our-own.html

1.stack文章源自西贝博客-https://qinghe.me/it-is-worth-reading-crazy-sounding-scenarios-about-the-future-including-our-own.html

• n. 堆；堆叠
• vt. 使堆叠；把…堆积起来
• vi. 堆积，堆叠

下面来看一个来自今日美国的例子：文章源自西贝博客-https://qinghe.me/it-is-worth-reading-crazy-sounding-scenarios-about-the-future-including-our-own.html

• It’s designed to move containers more efficiently by rail through a double-stack method while offering a cheaper alternative to gas-guzzling trucks.— USA TODAY, "Smokey Bear, tarantula trek, censoring Adam and Eve: News from around our 50 states," 9 Aug. 2019
• 它的设计目的是依据双层运输方式更有效地通过铁路运输集装箱，同时，也为耗油卡车提供更便宜的替代品。

预测未来很难。不过，当你躺在海滩上时，为未来的不确定做些准备，至少还挺好玩的。它还能拓宽你的思维，微妙地改变你对当下的理解。所以，我们向你推荐的夏日读物不是最伟大的美国小说，也不是一大堆鸡仔文学畅销书，而是一类不一样的内容。对未来的猜想，即便有时令人难以置信，也能帮助人们和机构应对接下来发生的事。若想要找最好的材料，有三个地方可以看看。文章源自西贝博客-https://qinghe.me/it-is-worth-reading-crazy-sounding-scenarios-about-the-future-including-our-own.html

文章源自西贝博客-https://qinghe.me/it-is-worth-reading-crazy-sounding-scenarios-about-the-future-including-our-own.html

The first is scenario planning. This originated ² in the armed forces during the second world war and was pioneered in industry by Royal Dutch Shell, enabling it to react more quickly and effectively than rival oil firms to the oil shock of 1973. The central idea was to avoid betting everything on a single forecast and instead to test future projects and plans against a set of plausible scenarios. Mapping out several futures, deciding how to respond to them and identifying the early signs that they might be coming about has been widely adopted ³ by multinational firms, particularly after the terrorist attacks of September 11th 2001. In that spirit, we publish our own annual set of speculative scenarios, “The World If”, in this week’s edition. What if America leaves NATO, or antibiotics ⁴ stop working, or Facebook switches itself off in Europe? These things may never happen, but it is mind-stretching to think about what you should do if they did.文章源自西贝博客-https://qinghe.me/it-is-worth-reading-crazy-sounding-scenarios-about-the-future-including-our-own.html

2.originated文章源自西贝博客-https://qinghe.me/it-is-worth-reading-crazy-sounding-scenarios-about-the-future-including-our-own.html

• vi. 起源于, 来自, 产生
• vt. 创造, 创始, 开创; 发明

来看一个来自财富杂志的例子：文章源自西贝博客-https://qinghe.me/it-is-worth-reading-crazy-sounding-scenarios-about-the-future-including-our-own.html

• Bubble tea, a sweet beverage that can be milky or fruity, originated in Taiwan, a region the government in Beijing considers a renegade province.— Naomi Xu Elegant, Fortune, "How Hong Kong’s Protests Are Roiling the World’s Booming Bubble Tea Market," 22 Aug. 2019
• 泡泡茶是一种甜饮料，也可以是牛奶或水果，起源于台湾，一个省（编译）。

3.adopted文章源自西贝博客-https://qinghe.me/it-is-worth-reading-crazy-sounding-scenarios-about-the-future-including-our-own.html

• adj. 被收养的；被采用的
• v. 采用；接受（adopt的过去式和过去分词）

看一个来自洛杉矶时报的例子：

• The county's recommended budget of $30.8 billion represents a slight decrease — of about $800 million — from last year's final adopted budget.— Nina Agrawal, latimes.com, "L.A. County unveils new budget, emphasizing homeless services and other safety-net programs," 10 Apr. 2018
• 这个县的建议预算为308亿美元，比去年通过的最终预算略有减少，约为8亿美元。

4.antibiotics

• n. (用作复数)抗生素
• (用作单数)抗生物质的研究

看一个来自华盛顿邮报的例子：

• Weeks of colds and shortness of breath have left him on antibiotics.— Washington Post, "As Amazon burns, breathing problems spike," 28 Aug. 2019
• 几周的感冒和呼吸急促使他不得不服用抗生素。

首先是情景规划

首先是情景规划。它起源于二战期间的军队，由荷兰皇家壳牌公司率先在工业界启用，使得这家公司能比其行业竞争对手更快、更有效地应对1973年的石油危机。这种规划的核心思想是避免把所有东西押注在单一预测上，而以一组可能发生的前景来检测未来项目和计划。绘制出几种未来场景，决定如何应对它们，识别它们将要到来的早期迹象。这种方法已经在跨国公司中得到广泛运用，特别是在“9·11”恐怖袭击之后。基于这样的精神，我们在本期杂志中发表了年度未来猜想系列《世界猜想》。如果美国退出北约，如果抗生素失效，如果Facebook撤出欧洲，会怎样？这些事可能永远不会发生，但想一想假如它们发生你该做什么，不失为一种有益的思维拓展训练。

Science fiction, a second realm of speculation, is perhaps a more familiar beach read. It is wrong to see sci-fi as chiefly predictive, however. Its contemplation ⁵ of the future is often a commentary on the present: many sci-fi authors take current concerns, from robots to climate chaos to gender politics, to the logical extremes and consider their implications. As a result, sci-fi can play a useful role as a forward-scanning radar for technological, social and political trends. But sci-fi does directly shape the future in one concrete way: the tech industry is full of people trying to make it come true. Amazon’s Alexa voice-assistant is the talking computer from “Star Trek”; SpaceX lands its rockets on drone ships whose names are borrowed from Iain M. Banks’s “Culture” novels; an entire industry is trying to bring to life the virtual world of Neal Stephenson’s “Snow Crash”. Beyond these familiar tropes, Chinese sci-fi and Afrofuturism offer refreshingly different perspectives and possibilities.

5.contemplation

• n. 注视；凝视
• 沉思,冥想
• 意图;期望

下面来看一个来自纽约时报的例子：

• Most of these stories are defined by contemplation rather than plot.— Tania James, New York Times, "Debut Stories Trace the Aftershocks of the Sri Lankan Civil War," 5 July 2018
• 这些故事大多是通过沉思定义，而非情节。

第二个猜想领域是科幻

第二个猜想领域是科幻。它可能是人们更为熟悉的海滩读物。但是，认为科幻主要是预测性内容是错误的。它对未来的沉思往往是对现状的评论。从机器人到气候混乱，再到性别政治，许多科幻作者把当下的忧患在逻辑上发挥到极致，探讨其含义和影响。因此，科幻可以作为技术、社会和政治趋势的前视雷达。但它确实也以一种具体的方式直接塑造了未来——科技行业里到处都是试图让幻梦成真的人。亚马逊的Alexa语音助理就是《星际迷航》中会说话的电脑；SpaceX回收助推火箭的遥控船舶的名字源自伊恩.M.班克斯（Iain M. Banks）的《文明》（Culture）小说系列；一整个行业都在努力将尼尔·斯蒂芬森（Neal Stephenson）的《雪崩》（Snow Crash）中的虚拟世界变为现实。除了这些人们耳熟能详的隐喻之外，中国的科幻作品和非洲未来主义（Afrofuturism）提供了令人耳目一新的不同视角和可能性。

The last speculative ⁶ category is corporate anthropology and trendspotting. Many large companies employ roving anthropologists to seek out “edge cases”: examples of emerging technologies and behaviour that have yet to become widely adopted, but have the potential to go global. As the sci-fi novelist William Gibson once put it, “the future is already here—it’s just unevenly distributed.” Two decades ago, Japanese schoolgirls led the way with modern smartphones, capable of taking pictures and downloading apps; we are all Japanese schoolgirls now. What’s next: the death of cash? Clothes made of mushrooms? Artificial meat? Trendspotters often get it wrong. But it is worth paying attention to what they think might be coming, just in case they are right.

6.speculative

• adj. 思考的,思索的,推测出的
• 投机的,投机生意的
• 带着疑问的；好奇的
• adv. 思考地,思索地
• 投机地
• n. 思考,思索
• 投机

来看一个来自纽约时报的例子：

• Reading the list is like seeing the world-building outline for a work of near-future speculative fiction.— Emily Witt, The New Yorker, "How Andrew Yang’s Robot Apocalypse Can Heal a Divided Nation," 18 July 2019
• 阅读这份榜单就如同在看一本有关未来投机性小说的世界建筑大纲。

企业人类学和趋势预测

最后一个猜想类别是企业人类学和趋势预测。许多大公司雇用行走于世界各地的人类学家来寻找“边缘案例”——那些尚未被广泛采用、却有潜力在全球流行的新兴技术和行为的样本。科幻小说家威廉·吉布森（William Gibson）就说过，“未来已经到来，只是分布不均而已。”20年前，日本女学生用能拍照和下载应用的现代智能手机引领潮流，而现在我们人人都是日本女学生。接下来是什么？现金灭亡？蘑菇做的衣服？人造肉？趋势预测者常是错的，但那些他们认为接下来可能发生的事仍然值得关注——兴许他们说对了呢。

The rewards of speculation

猜想的回报

Pierre Wack, one of the gurus ⁷ of scenario planning at Shell, once likened dealing with the future to shooting the rapids in a boat. You know the general direction of travel, but not the exact path, and the trick is to be able to respond quickly. Reading about possible futures can shift your perception of the present and help you understand what might be around the corner. It can also be fun. So why not give it a try, starting with the speculative scenarios in this issue: who knows what might happen?

7.gurus

• n. (个人的)宗教老师(或指导),(受下属崇敬的)领袖,头头
• She's a self-proclaimed financial guru.
• 她自诩金融界导师。

壳牌公司的情景规划传奇大师皮埃尔·瓦克（Pierre Wack）曾将应对未来比作划船穿越急流。你知道前行的大致方向，但不知道确切的路径，而诀窍在于能够快速做出反应。阅读对未来的猜想会改变你对现在的认知，帮助你理解可能即将发生的事。这也可能充满了乐趣。那么何不尝试一下，就从本期的猜想系列开始吧——谁知道会发生什么呢？

怎么样？看完这篇经济学人的精读有没有觉得想进入了未来了世界了？其实外刊阅读很有意思。不过，如果是想通过阅读外刊杂志来学习英语的话，需要好好做笔记，尤其是生词，要好好做好笔记。