评论
打印
Look, I had second thoughts, really,
说实话，我犹豫过
about whether I could talk about this
到底应不应该
to such a vital and alive audience as you guys.
对你们一群如此有活力的观众讲这个题目。
Then I remembered the quote from Gloria Steinem,
但我又想起了Gloria Steinem的一句话
which goes,
她是这样说的
"The truth will set you free,
“真相会给你自由，
but first it will piss you off."
但它会先令你难受”
So...
所以呢……
So with that in mind, I'm going to set about
所以谨记着这一点，我要开始
trying to do those things here,
试图来谈谈这些事
and talk about dying in the 21st century.
聊一聊21世纪的死亡。
Now the first thing that will piss you off, undoubtedly,
首先，第一件会令你们十分不爽的，毫无疑问的，
is that all of us are, in fact, going to die
就是我们所有人，事实上，都将在
in the 21st century.
21世纪死去。
There will be no exceptions to that.
这不会有例外吧！
There are, apparently, about one in eight of you
可是根据调查，我们当中每8个人就会有1个
who think you're immortal, on surveys, but --
觉得自己可以长生不老，但是……
Unfortunately, that isn't going to happen.
不幸的是，长生不老是不可能的。
While I give this talk, in the next 10 minutes,
在接下来的这10分钟内，就在我做这个演讲的同时，
a hundred million of my cells will die,
我身体里的一亿个细胞将死去，
and over the course of today, 2,000 of my brain cells
今天，我的2000个脑细胞会死去
will die and never come back,
而且永远不会回来。
so you could argue that the dying process
所以可以说，死亡的过程
starts pretty early in the piece.
其实在这类的日常小事中就开始了。
Anyway, the second thing I want to say about dying in the
无论如何，我想说的关于死在21世纪的第二件事是，
21st century, apart from it's going to happen to everybody,
除了这件事会发生在每个人的身上以外，
is it's shaping up to be a bit of a train wreck
它对大部分人来说，就是一列好好的火车
for most of us,
最终是怎么走向撞车和成为一个残骸的过程。
unless we do something to try and reclaim this process
除非我们做点什么，把这列火车
from the rather inexorable trajectory that it's currently on.
从它现在正向着的死亡方面前进的轨道上拉回来。
So there you go. That's the truth.
这就是我要告诉你的真相。
No doubt that will piss you off, and now let's see
毫无疑问，这会让你非常不爽，但现在我们来看看
whether we can set you free. I don't promise anything.
可不可以让你获得自由并重生。但我不能向你保证什么。
Now, as you heard in the intro, I work in intensive care,
正如你们在介绍中听到的一样，我在ICU （重症监护治疗病房）工作，
and I think I've kind of lived through the heyday
而且我想我经历过ICU的黄金时期。
of intensive care. It's been a ride, man.
那就像坐过山车一样，
This has been fantastic.
那真的一直都很棒。
We have machines that go ping.
我们有很先进的设备。
There's many of them up there.
这照片上就有很多啊。
And we have some wizard technology which I think
我们有一些魔术般的技术，
has worked really well, and over the course of the time
我觉得一直以来都很好用。
I've worked in intensive care, the death rate
在我在ICU工作的时间里，
for males in Australia has halved,
澳大利亚的男性死亡率减少了一半，
and intensive care has had something to do with that.
这跟ICU特护是有关系的。
Certainly, a lot of the technologies that we use
当然，这跟我们采用的许多技术
have got something to do with that.
也有很大的关系。
So we have had tremendous success, and we kind of
所以我们取得过巨大的成功，
got caught up in our own success quite a bit,
而我们有点被自己的成功冲昏了头脑，
and we started using expressions like "lifesaving."
所以，我们开始用一些像是“挽救生命”之类的词形容自己
I really apologize to everybody for doing that,
为此我真的要对所有人表示歉意，
because obviously, we don't.
因为，很明显，我们并不能救命。
What we do is prolong people's lives,
我们能做的是延长人们的生命，
and delay death,
让死亡迟一点到来，
and redirect death, but we can't, strictly speaking,
让死亡的过程改变一点点，但是严格来说，
save lives on any sort of permanent basis.
从任何永久性的角度看，我们并不能拯救病人的生命。
And what's really happened over the period of time
而从我在ICU这些年的工作经验来看，
that I've been working in intensive care is that
事实的真相是，
the people whose lives we started saving back in the '70s,
我们在70年代，80年代，
'80s, and '90s, are now coming to die in the 21st century
90年代所救过来的人，现在慢慢开始在21世纪逝去
of diseases that we no longer have the answers to
死于我们当时没法治愈
in quite the way we did then.
现在也一样没法的治愈的疾病。
So what's happening now is there's been a big shift
而最大的不同点是，
in the way that people die,
人们死亡的方式发生了巨大的转变。
and most of what they're dying of now isn't as amenable
而大部分让人们致死的疾病
to what we can do as what it used to be like
已经和我们当年
when I was doing this in the '80s and '90s.
在80年代、90年代处理的方法有了很大的不同了。
So we kind of got a bit caught up with this,
所以我们也有点困惑
and we haven't really squared with you guys about
而我们也没有机会和大家分享一下
what's really happening now, and it's about time we did.
如今ICU里都在发生什么。现在就让我们来看一下。
I kind of woke up to this bit in the late '90s
我是在90年代后期才思考这个问题的，
when I met this guy.
当时我遇到了这个人。
This guy is called Jim, Jim Smith, and he looked like this.
他叫做Jim Smith，他当时的样子是这样的。
