各種黑暗末日猜想 請勿對未來失去希望

Our future, according to Hollywood, is not pretty. Take two movies that are currently showing for example: In Dawn of the Planet of the Apes, humans battle with super-intelligent apes for world domination. In Divergent, survivors in a post-apocalyptic world are pigeonholed into five factions. Those who don’t fit in are hunted down and persecuted.

按照好萊塢大片的描寫，我們的未來不太樂觀。以最近上映的兩部影片爲例：《猩球崛起2：黎明之戰》中，人類與擁有超級智能的猩猩爲統治地球打得難解難分；而《分歧者》裏，後末日時代倖存的人類被分成五種派系，無門無派之人慘遭追殺。

Both movies belong to the dystopian sci-fi genre. Dystopia is the antonym of utopia, which was coined by the English writer Thomas More. In his 1516 book Utopia, More described a fictional island society in the Atlantic Ocean. A utopia is an ideal society with peace, equality, justice and prosperity.

這兩部影片都屬於反烏托邦式科幻電影。反烏托邦，即烏托邦的反義詞。後者最早由英國作家托馬斯•莫爾提出，他在1516年的同名著作《烏托邦》中描寫了一座大西洋上虛構的島嶼社會。烏托邦是充滿和平、平等、正義、繁榮的理想社會的代名詞。

But in dystopian fiction, the world is usually a bleak place ruled by a totalitarian government. Mistrust and fear permeates the whole of society. High-tech machines and tools are used to wage wars or suppress discontent citizens.

而在反烏托邦小說中，世界通常被極權政府統治，暗無天日。整個社會瀰漫着猜疑和恐懼。高科技機器與工具都被用來發動戰爭，鎮壓不滿民衆。

Just as bad news grabs more attention, many dystopian works are immensely successful. Movies such as The Hunger Games trilogy, Total Recall and World War Z are all box office successes worldwide.

正像負面新聞更容易引人關注，許多反烏托邦作品也都大獲成功。如《飢餓遊戲》三部曲、《全面回憶》、《末日之戰》等在全球範圍內都是票房贏家。

But now a group of scholars and science fiction writers are saying: enough of the depressing stuff. They say negative visions of the future depicted in pop culture are limiting people’s abilities to dream of a better world.

但現在，一些學者和科幻小說作家表示：這些壓抑的內容太多了！他們認爲，流行文化中對未來的負面描寫限制了人們對美好世界的嚮往。

US writer Neal Stephenson is one of the dissenters. A sci-fi writer himself, he sees the cynicism of the current dystopian sci-fi rut and calls for a more optimistic approach–fewer zombies and catastrophes, more creative inventions and solutions.

美國作家尼爾•斯蒂芬森就是反對者之一。作爲一名科幻小說作家，他並不看好當下反烏托邦的科幻作品狂潮，而是呼籲更多積極的內容：少一些喪屍和大災難，多一些有創意的發明與解決方案。

Bright, not bleak

光明，而非淒涼

In an interview with the BBC, Stephenson said he got this idea from president of Arizona State University (ASU) Michael Crow, who said at a conference on futurology that science fiction needed to supply ideas that scientists and engineers could actually implement.

斯蒂芬森在接受BBC採訪中表示，他的觀點來自亞利桑那州立大學校長邁克爾•克羅。這位校長曾在一場未來學的會議上說，科學家和工程師應該爲科幻小說提供更多科學依據。

Stephenson wasted no time to take action. In 2011, he partnered with ASU and started Project Hieroglyph to rally writers to inject new optimism into science fiction so as to inspire the next generation to build a better future.

斯蒂芬森也迅速付諸行動：2011年，他與亞利桑那州立大學合作，展開名爲“象形文字”的項目。爲鼓勵下一代人創建更美好的未來，他聯合一衆作家爲科幻小說注入新的樂觀主義觀點。

The project brings writers and scientists together to learn from and influence each other. Renowned writers have been working with scientists to imagine technically-grounded science fiction stories depicting futures achievable within the next 50 years, the BBC reported. These stories, collected in a book entitled Hieroglyph, were just released two weeks before.

該項目將作家和科學家聚集在一起，他們相互學習、彼此影響。據BBC報道，久負盛名的作家與科學家一道，創作出了具有科技背景的科幻小說，對未來觸手可及的50年提出展望。這些小說都被收錄在《象形文字》一書中，該書於兩週前正式發行。

Ed Finn, director of Project Hieroglyph, wrote in the Slate online magazine: “We are in desperate need of this sort of long view in contemporary culture, where we can barely see beyond the next Apple press conference.”

該項目主任艾德•芬恩在網絡雜誌《板岩》上寫道，“當代文化中，大家的目光最多隻能看到下一次蘋果發佈會，我們亟需一些長久的展望。”

“What’s really exciting about Hieroglyph is the idea of bringing some constructive criticism to our notions of the future: not just pointing out problems but ponying up some possible solutions,” Finn said.

芬恩說，“該項目對我們關於未來的觀點提出了建設性批評，它不僅指出了問題，而且提出了一些解決方案，這纔是其真正令人振奮之處。”