每天一小段英语（27）

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2. We’re the First


For Group 1 Thinkers, if the Great Filter is not behind us, the one hope we have is that conditions in the universe are just recently, for the first time since the Big Bang, reaching a place that would allow intelligent life to develop. In that case, we and many other species may be on our way to super-intelligence, and it simply hasn’t happened yet. We happen to be here at the right time to become one of the first super-intelligent civilizations.
还是第一组猜想，如果大筛选还没来，一种可能就是自从宇宙大爆炸，我们现在在宇宙里是第一次允许智慧生命发展的境遇。这样的话，我们和其他物种正在成为超级智慧生命，只是还没发生而已。人类恰好在正确的时间变为第一个超级智慧文明。

One example of a phenomenon that could make this realistic is the prevalence of gamma-ray bursts, insanely huge explosions that we’ve observed in distant galaxies. In the same way that it took the early Earth a few hundred million years before the asteroids and volcanoes died down and life became possible, it could be that the first chunk of the universe’s existence was full of cataclysmic events like gamma-ray bursts that would incinerate everything nearby from time to time and prevent any life from developing past a certain stage. Now, perhaps, we’re in the midst of an astrobiological phase transition and this is the first time any life has been able to evolve for this long, uninterrupted.
一个现实案例就是观察到遥远星系γ射线疯狂大爆发现象。地球曾经有1亿年宇宙中全是可烧尽一切且持续不断的γ射线暴等大灾难，这些都会阻止生命发展，后来小行星和火山爆发都减少，生命的出现有了可能。也许现在我们就处在生物天体学的相变中，而我们是第一个连续演化这么长时间的文明。

3. We’re Fucked (The Great Filter is Ahead of Us)


If we’re neither rare nor early, Group 1 thinkers conclude that The Great Filter must be in our future. This would suggest that life regularly evolves to where we are, but that something prevents life from going much further and reaching high intelligence in almost all cases—and we’re unlikely to be an exception.
除去上面两种可能，还有一种情况：大筛选即将到来。生命都会演化到人类的位置，但是会由于各种原因被阻止继续发展为更高级智慧，我们也不是那个例外。
One possible future Great Filter is a regularly-occurring cataclysmic natural event, like the above-mentioned gamma-ray bursts, except they’re unfortunately not done yet and it’s just a matter of time before all life on Earth is suddenly wiped out by one. Another candidate is the possible inevitability that nearly all intelligent civilizations end up destroying themselves once a certain level of technology is reached.
接下来的大筛选可能是一个有规律的自然灾难，就像上面提到的γ射线暴，它们的到来只是时间问题，届时所有生命都会被消灭。还有一种可能是一旦达到某种技术，几乎所有智慧生命都以毁灭自己结束。
This is why Oxford University philosopher Nick Bostrom says that “no news is good news.” The discovery of even simple life on Mars would be devastating, because it would cut out a number of potential Great Filters behind us. And if we were to find fossilized complex life on Mars, Bostrom says “it would be by far the worst news ever printed on a newspaper cover,” because it would mean The Great Filter is almost definitely ahead of us—ultimately dooming the species. Bostrom believes that when it comes to The Fermi Paradox, “the silence of the night sky is golden.”

这就是为什么牛津大学哲学家Nick Bostrom说没有新闻就是最好的新闻。甚至在火星上发现简单生命都是毁灭性的，因为这会排除很多我们幸存的那种大筛选猜想。Bostrom认为如果我们在火星上发现很多复杂化石生命，“这将是迄今为止最恐怖的报纸封面”，因为这将意味着大筛选马上就要到来，最终判决所有物种。Bostrom相信谈到费米悖论，“黑夜的沉默便是金”。

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每日一词
inevitability
n. 必然性；不可逃避

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wiped out
精疲力竭的 消灭 清除