主题：【原创】炮打工业党：《论工业社会及其未来》 -- 万年看客

HUMAN SUFFERING

人类苦难

167. The industrial system will not break down purely as a result of revolutionary action. It will not be vulnerable to revolutionary attack unless its own internal problems of development lead it into very serious difficulties. So if the system breaks down it will do so either spontaneously, or through a process that is in part spontaneous but helped along by revolutionaries. If the breakdown is sudden, many people will die, since the world's population has become so overblown that it cannot even feed itself any longer without advanced technology. Even if the breakdown is gradual enough so that reduction of the population can occur more through lowering of the birth rate than through elevation of the death rate, the process of de-industrialization probably will be very chaotic and involve much suffering. It is naive to think it likely that technology can be phased out in a smoothly managed orderly way, especially since the technophiles will fight stubbornly at every step. Is it therefore cruel to work for the breakdown of the system? Maybe, but maybe not. In the first place, revolutionaries will not be able to break the system down unless it is already in deep trouble so that there would be a good chance of its eventually breaking down by itself anyway; and the bigger the system grows, the more disastrous the consequences of its breakdown will be; so it may be that revolutionaries, by hastening the onset of the breakdown will be reducing the extent of the disaster.

167，工业体系的崩溃不会纯粹是革命行动的结果，它不会那么难以抵御革命的攻击，除非它自身内部的发展问题导致了极为严重的困难。因此如果体系崩溃，那么它或是自发崩溃，或是部分自发、部分由革命者促发的崩溃。如果崩溃是突如其来的，许多人都会死去，因为世界人口已如此过分膨胀，离开了先进技术就无法养活自己。甚至即使崩溃足够缓慢，人口的减少可以主要通过出生率的降低而不是死亡率的提高而实现，非工业化的过程也多半是极度混乱和极度痛苦的。幻想通过平稳控制的有序方式逐步废除技术是天真的，特别是要考虑到技术爱好者们的负隅顽抗。那么，致力于体系的崩溃是否因此就十分残酷呢？也许是，也许不是。首先，除非体系本来就已经陷入了深重的困难，无论如何都很可能最终自行崩溃，否者单靠革命者是不可能强行使其崩溃的。而且体系发展得规模越大，崩溃的后果就越严重。因此加速体系崩溃的革命者或许反倒控制了灾难的规模。

168. In the second place, one has to balance the struggle and death against the loss of freedom and dignity. To many of us, freedom and dignity are more important than a long life or avoidance of physical pain. Besides, we all have to die some time, and it may be better to die fighting for survival, or for a cause, than to live a long but empty and purposeless life.

168，其次，我们必须权衡斗争与死亡和丧失自由与尊严这两方面的得失。对于我们之中的许多人来说，自由与尊严比长寿和避免肉体痛苦更重要。再者，我们早晚会死，死于为生存或为某一事业而战，强于活得空虚而无目的。

169. In the third place, it is not all certain that the survival of the system will lead to less suffering than the breakdown of the system would. The system has already caused, and is continuing to cause , immense suffering all over the world. Ancient cultures, that for hundreds of years gave people a satisfactory relationship with each other and their environment, have been shattered by contact with industrial society, and the result has been a whole catalogue of economic, environmental, social and psychological problems. One of the effects of the intrusion of industrial society has been that over much of the world traditional controls on population have been thrown out of balance. Hence the population explosion, with all that it implies. Then there is the psychological suffering that is widespread throughout the supposedly fortunate countries of the West (see paragraphs 44, 45). No one knows what will happen as a result of ozone depletion, the greenhouse effect and other environmental problems that cannot yet be foreseen. And, as nuclear proliferation has shown, new technology cannot be kept out of the hands of dictators and irresponsible Third World nations. Would you like to speculate abut what Iraq or North Korea will do with genetic engineering?

169，第三，体系的存续所带来的痛苦并不一定就比体系崩溃所带来的痛苦更少。在全世界范围内，体系已经招致、并且正在招致的巨大痛苦曾使人类千百年与他人以及环境和睦相处的古代文化被与其解接触的工业社会所摧毁。其结果就是全方位的经济、环境、社会和心理问题。工业杜会的侵扰所产生的影响之一，就是传统的人口控制在全球范围内一下子失去了平衡，因而产生了人口爆炸及其所有连带后果。接着就是心理疾病席卷了整个所谓“幸运”的西方社会（参见44, 45段）。没有人知道臭氧层耗尽、温室效应及其他现在还不能预测的环境问题最终会为这个世界带来怎样的后果。而且就像核扩散已经显示的那样，我们无法防止新技术落入独裁者和不负责任的第三世界国家手中。愿意猜猜伊位克或北朝鲜将用遗传工程来干什么吗?

170. "Oh!" say the technophiles, "Science is going to fix all that! We will conquer famine, eliminate psychological suffering, make everybody healthy and happy!" Yeah, sure. That's what they said 200 years ago. The Industrial Revolution was supposed to eliminate poverty, make everybody happy, etc. The actual result has been quite different. The technophiles are hopelessly naive (or self-deceiving) in their understanding of social problems. They are unaware of (or choose to ignore) the fact that when large changes, even seemingly beneficial ones, are introduced into a society, they lead to a long sequence of other changes, most of which are impossible to predict (paragraph 103). The result is disruption of the society. So it is very probable that in their attempt to end poverty and disease, engineer docile, happy personalities and so forth, the technophiles will create social systems that are terribly troubled, even more so that the present one. For example, the scientists boast that they will end famine by creating new, genetically engineered food plants. But this will allow the human population to keep expanding indefinitely, and it is well known that crowding leads to increased stress and aggression. This is merely one example of the PREDICTABLE problems that will arise. We emphasize that, as past experience has shown, technical progress will lead to other new problems for society far more rapidly that it has been solving old ones. Thus it will take a long difficult period of trial and error for the technophiles to work the bugs out of their Brave New World (if they ever do). In the meantime there will be great suffering. So it is not all clear that the survival of industrial society would involve less suffering than the breakdown of that society would. Technology has gotten the human race into a fix from which there is not likely to be any easy escape.

170，“嗨！”技术爱好者们会说，“科学能解决所有这些问题！我们将征服饥荒、消灭心理病痛，让每一个人都健康而快乐！”是的，是的。他们200年前就是这么说的。人们曾指望工业社会能够消灭贫穷，使每一个人都快乐，等等。实际结果却不是那么回事。技术爱好者对社会问题的理解简直是无可救药地天真（或自欺欺人）。他们没有意识到（或故意视而不见）这样一个事实：当巨大的变化，即使是看上去有利的变化，被引入一个社会时，将会引发一长串其他变化，这些变化之中的大都分是不可预见的（103段）其结果则是社会的混乱。因此，技术爱好者们在试图消灭贫穷和疾病，设计制造驯顺、快乐的人格等等时，很可能会创造出比现在还糟糕的社会体系。例如，科学家们吹嘘说他们能够创造出新的、经遗传工程改造的粮食植物以消灭饥荒。然而，这将会允许人日无限膨胀下去，而众所周知，拥挤会导致紧张和攻击性的增强。这仅仅是技术会导致的可预见问题中的一个例子。我们强调指出，历史经验告诉我们，技术进步给社会带来新问题的速度远比它解决旧问题的速度要快。因此技术爱好者们要经过一个漫长的试错时期才能够为他们的美丽新世界排除掉所有的故障（假设他们最终能做到的话）。而与此同时所产生的痛苦将会如此巨大，以至于体系生存下去所带来的痛苦不见得就比体系崩溃更少。技术己将人类带入了一条无法轻易逃脱的死胡同