Lesson56
Science and technology have come to pervade every aspect of our lives and, as a result, society is changing at a speed which is quite unprecedented. There is a great technological explosion around us, generated by science. This explosion is already freeing vast numbers of people from their traditional bondage to nature, and now at last we have it in our power to free mankind once and for all from the fear which is based on want. Now, for the first time, man can reasonably begin to think that life can be something more than a grim struggle for survival. But even today, in spite of the high standard of living which has become general in the more fortunate West, the majority of people in the world still spend nearly all their time and energy in a never-ending struggle with nature to secure the food and shelter they need. Even in this elementary effort millions of human
beings each year die unnecessarily and wastefully from hunger, disease, or flood.
Yet, in the West, science and technology have made it possible for us to have a plentiful supply of food, produced by only a fraction of the labour that was necessary even a few decades ago. In the United States, for instance, one man on the land produces more than enough food to feed fifteen men in the cities, and, in fact, there is a surplus of food grown even by this small proportion of the
American labour force. We have considerably extended our expectation of life. We have enriched our lives by creating physical mobility through the motor-car, the jet aeroplane, and other means of mechanical transport; and we have added to our intellectual mobility by the telephone, radio, and television. Not content with these advances, we are now thrusting forward to the stars, and the conquest o space no longer strikes us as Wellsian or Jules Vernian. And with the advent of the new phase of technology we call automation, we have the promise both of greater leisure and of even greater material and intellectual riches.
But this is not inevitable. It depends on automation being adequately exploited. We shall need to apply our scientific and technological resources to literally every aspect of our society, to our commerce, our industry, our medicine, our agriculture, our transportation.
It is fascinating and encouraging to observe the development of this immense process, a process in which man appears all the time to be engaged in the act of creating an extension of himself. In his new technological successes this appears particularly true. He is extending his eyes with radar; his tongue and his ear through telecommunication; his muscle and body structure through mechanization. He extends his own energies by the generation and transmission of power and his nervous system and his thinking and decision-making faculties through automation. If this observation is accurate, as I believe it is, the implications are far-reaching. It might be reasonable to conclude that the direction of modern science and technology is towards the creation of a series of machine-systems based on man as a model.
LEON BAGRIT The Age of Automation from The Listener
参考译文
科学和技术已渗透入我们生活的每一个方面，其结果是使社会以前所未有的速度发生着变化。由科学引起的巨大技术爆炸发生在我们周围。这个爆炸已经把许许多多人从大自然的传统束缚中解放出来，现在我们终于有能力把人类从因贫乏而产生的恐惧里彻底予以解放。
现在，人类第一次能合情合理地开始认为生活绝不只是为生存而进行的残酷斗争。但甚至到了今天，尽管高水平的生活在比较幸运的西方已很普遍，世界上的大多数人几乎仍得花费所有的时间和精力同大自然作永不休止的斗争，以期获得所需的食物和栖身之地。每年甚至
还有数以百计的人在这种初级的努力中不必要地和过多地死于饥饿、疾病或洪水。
而在西方，科学和技术已使我们有可能取得足够的粮食供应，而且生产这些粮食所需的劳动力仅为几十年前的几分之一。以美国为例，一人务农就能生产出供城市里15人食用的粮食，实际上这小部分美国劳动力生产的粮食已经过剩。我们已大大提高了自己寿命的期望值。
我们通过汽车、喷气式飞机和其他机械交通工具所创造的人身机动性丰富了我们的生活；我们还通过电话、无线电和电视提高了我们智力上的机动性。我们对这些进展并不感到满足，我们正走向星球，我们不再会像Wells（英国科学幻想小说家）时代或是Jules Veme（法国科幻
小说家）时代的人们那样对空间的征服感到不可思议。由于有我们称之为自动化的新型技术的进展，我们将能在获得更多空闲时间的同时，又享用更多的物质和精神财富。
但这并非是必然的。它取决于如何对自动化进行恰当的利用。我们必须把科学和技术资源实实在在地用于社会的每一个方面，用于商业、工业、医疗、农业和交通运输。
对这个巨大过程的进展进行审视既迷人又鼓舞人心，在这个过程里，人类似乎一直从事于创造自我延伸的活动。在他的新技术成就里，这一点似乎特别正确。他用雷达延伸他的双眼；通过电信延伸他的舌头和耳朵；通过机械化延伸他的肌肉和身体构造。他通过发电输电延伸
他自身的能力，并通过自动化延伸他的神经系统，思维和果断作出的能力。如果这种观察是正确的（我认为是这样），则其意义极为深远。我们有理由推断，现代科学和技术正朝以人为模型基础的一系列机器体系的创造前进。
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