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Here's a classic thought experiment that's designed to trick your brain into thinking long-term and getting out of the daily news cycle.
这是一个经典的思维实验，旨在欺骗你的大脑，让你长远考虑，并从日常的新闻循环中脱离出来。
And it goes like this: if a newspaper came out once a century, what would the front page banner headline be?
就像这样：如果说一份报纸一世纪只出版一次，那么它的头版大标题会是什么呢？
"We defeated the Nazis," or "landed on the moon," or "built the Internet"?
“们战胜了纳粹”，还是“成功登月”，又或许是“互联网建立”？
I would argue that it would be the story of a single number, maybe the most elemental measure of progress that we have.
而我认为头版会是一个关于数字的故事，或许是我们想要取得进步最基本的方式，
Life expectancy at birth.
那就是出生时的预期寿命。
The length of time that the average person can expect to live in a given place at a given time.
我们所能预测的每一个人的生存寿命在给定的时间和地点。
One hundred years ago, as best as we can measure, the average global life expectancy stood somewhere in the mid 30s.
据我们所知，一百年以前全球人均寿命大约在35岁上下。
Today, it's just over 70.
而今，人均寿命则超过了70岁，
So in one century, we doubled global life expectancy.
因此在一个世纪里，我们全球人均寿命翻了近一倍。
And to give a sense of what this looks like geographically, take a look at this image, these maps.
并为了给人一种像是从地理角度去观察的感觉，看一看这张图片，这些地图。
This is data courtesy of the great organization, Our World in Data.
数据由一个很好的组织提供，叫做“数据看世界（OurWorldinData）”。
This is the world in 1950.
这是1950年时的世界，
And in blue are the countries where life expectancy is more than 70.
而蓝色区域所指的是那些人均寿命超过70岁的国家。
You can see it's just five countries in northern Europe. That's it.
你可以看到只有北欧5个国家位于蓝色区域，仅此而已。
And in red, these are the countries where life expectancy is below 45.
而那些红色的区域则是人均寿命低于45岁的国家。
It's about a third of the planet.
而这些国家的数量大约占全球国家总量的三分之一。
So fast-forward to more recent history to 2015 — in blue the countries where life expectancy is above 70.
让我们快进到近代，在2015年——图中蓝色区块指的是人均寿命超过70岁的国家。
Look at all that life.
看看所有地区的情况，
And in red, the countries where it's below 45.
而这些红色部分则是人均寿命低于45岁的地区。
There's no red on the map because there are no countries where life expectancy is below 45.
这张地图上没有红色的区域，那是因为没有任何国家的人均寿命是低于45岁的。
In fact, there are very few where it's below 60.
事实上，地图上很少有国家的人均寿命是低于60岁的，
This is an extraordinary achievement.
这是一项非凡的成就。
And you'll sometimes hear people say that life expectancy and this kind of progress is actually just a statistical illusion.
有时候，你会听见一些人说到，预期寿命以及我们现在所取得的这些进步，只是统计假象罢了。
That we got better at reducing infant mortality, but the rest of our lives are actually not all that different.
我们在降低婴儿死亡率方面做得更好了，但实际上，其余人的预期寿命并没有和以往有太多的不同。
And it is true that infant mortality has been dramatically reduced over the last hundred years.
在过去一百年里，婴儿的死亡率确实大幅下降。
But the story is much richer and more intense than that.
但事情远比这要更加精彩、振奋。
If you take a look at this early infographic by the great Victorian statistician William Farr, which is attempting to show mortality rates by age group in London in the early 1840s.
如果你看了早期的信息图，由维多利亚时代伟大的统计学家——威廉·法尔所绘制——它试图显示19世纪40年代早期的伦敦不同年龄组的死亡率。
I find something incredibly heroic about this chart.
我从这张图表上发现了一些非常了不起的东西。
I mean, here's a guy without computers, without the Internet, without Excel, trying to do something that is incredibly hard and incredibly important.
我是说这个家伙他没有电脑，没有网络，没有办公软件，却尝试着去完成这一极其困难，却极其重要的挑战。
He's trying to look at broad patterns in life and death in a great city, trying to make sense of what is going on.
他打算去研究一个大城市出生与死亡的大致关系，并搞明白自己下一步要去做些什么。
And what the chart reveals is that there is a tragic amount of death among children, not just infants, but five-year-olds and 10-year-olds are dying at an alarming rate.
这个图表所展现的是儿童的死亡数量是极其多的，这让我们感到悲伤，而不仅仅是婴儿，五岁和十岁左右的儿童也正以令人惊恐的的速度死去。
But almost nobody makes it to 85 or 90.
可几乎没有人能够活到85或90岁。
And more than half of the population is dead by the age of 45.
超过半数的人口在45岁之前死亡。
How many people in this room are older than 45? right?
我们这间屋子里有多少人的年龄是大于45岁的？
And think about that: half of you would not be here.
想想看：在座一半的人将不会在这儿。
We talk about optimism.
我们演讲的主题是“乐观”，
That is the most fundamental form of good news there is.
我想没有什么比这更好的消息了吧。
You are not dead, right?
你们没有死，对吧？
So I want to stress here that this good news is not uncomplicated.
我要强调的是这个好消息并不简单。
100 years ago, there were less than two billion people on earth.
百年以前，只有不到20亿的人类生活在地球上。
Today there's almost eight billion and counting.
而现在快有80亿了，并且数量在不断增加。
And we have that runaway population growth not because people started having more babies, but rather because people stopped dying and the generations stacked up.
我们的人口正在失控似的增长，并不是因为出生率提高了，而是因为人类的死亡率下降，人类数量不断累积增加。
