Olaf Stapledon wrote a book called First and Last Men, in which he looked millions of years ahead. He told of different men and of strange civilizations, broken up by long “dark ages” in between. In his view, what is called the present time is no more than a moment in human history and we are just the First Men. In 2 000 million years from now there will be the Eighteenth or Last Men.
奥拉夫·斯泰普顿写了一本名为《第一批和最后一批人类》的书，书中他展望了数百万年的未来。他讲述了不同的人和奇怪的文明，其间是漫长的“黑暗时代”。在他看来，所谓的现在不过是人类历史上的一个瞬间，我们只是第一批人类。20亿年后，将会有第十八批或最后一批人类。
However, most of our ideas about the future are really very shortsighted. Perhaps we can see some possibilities for the next fifty years. But the next hundred? The next thousand? The next million? That's much more difficult. When men and women lived by hunting 50 000 years ago, could they even begin to picture modern life? Yet to men of 50 000 years from now, we may seem as primitive in our ideas as the Stone-Age hunters do to us. Perhaps they will spend their days gollocking to make new spundels, or struggling with their ballalators through the tribe. These words, which I have just made up, have to stand for things and ideas that we simply can't think of.
然而，我们对未来的大部分想法都是非常短视的。也许我们可以看到未来五十年的一些可能性。但是接下来的一百年？接下来的一千年？接下来的一百万年？这要困难得多。当男人和女人在50000年前以狩猎为生时，他们可以开始描绘现代生活吗？对于50000年后的人类来说，我们的观点可能看起来非常原始，就像石器时代的猎人们看我们一样。也许他们会把他们的日子用来制造新的spundel，或者在部落中操作他们的ballalator。这些单词，只是我编的，用来表示我们无法想象的事物和观念。
So why bother even to try imagining life in the future? Here are two reasons. First, unless we remember how short our own lives are compared with the whole human history, we are likely to think our interests are much more important than they really are. If we make the earth a poor place to live on because we are careless or greedy or quarrelsome, our grandchildren will not bother to think of excuses for us.
那么，为什么还要费尽心思去想象未来的生活呢？这里有两个原因。首先，除非我们记得我们自己的生命与整个人类历史相比有多么短暂，否则我们很可能会认为我们的利益更重要。如果我们因为粗心、贪婪或争吵而使地球成为一个贫瘠的生活场所，那我们的后辈们就不难找到迁怒于我们的理由了。
Second, by trying to escape from present interests and imagine life far in the future, we may arrive at quite fresh ideas that we can use ourselves. For example, if we imagine that in the future men may give up farming, we can think of trying it now. So set your imagination free when you think about the future.
其次，通过逃避当前的兴趣，想象遥远的未来，我们可能会得出一些我们可以利用的全新想法。例如，如果我们想象未来人们可能会放弃耕种，我们现在就可以考虑尝试。因此，当你想象未来时，请尽情释放你的想象力。
