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Olaf Stapledon wrote a book called First and Last Men, in which he looked millions of years ahead. He told of different men and of strange civilizations(文明), broken up by long "dark ages" in between. In his view, what is called the present time is no more than a moment in human history and we are just the First Men. In 2,000 million years from now there will be the Eighteenth or Last Men.
However, most of our ideas about the future are really very short-sighted. Perhaps we can see some possibilities for the next fifty years. But the next hundred? The next thousand? The next million? That's much more difficult.
When men and women lived by hunting 50,000 years ago, how could they even begin to picture modern life? Yet to men of 50,000 years from now, we may seem as primitive(原始的) in our ideas as the Stone-Age hunters do to us. Perhaps they will spend their days gollocking to make new spundels, or struggling with their ballalators through the cribe. These words, which I have just made up, have to stand for things and ideas that we simply can't think of.
So why bother even to try imagining life far in the future? Here are two reasons. First, unless we remember how short our own lives are compared with the whole human history, we are likely to think our own interests are much more important than they really are. If we make the earth a poor place to live because we are careless or greedy(贪婪) or quarrelsome, our grandchildren will not bother to think of excuses for us.
Second, by trying to escape from present interests and imagine life far in the future, we may arrive at quite fresh ideas that we can use ourselves. For example, if we imagine that in the future men may give up farming, we can think of trying it now. So set you imagination free when you think about the future.
1. A particular mention made of Stapledon's book in the opening paragraph ________.
A. serves as a description of human history
B. serves an introduction to the discussion
C. shows a disagreement of views
D. shows the popularity of the book
2. The text discusses men and women 50,000 years ago and 50,000 years from now in order to show that ________.
A. human history is extremely long
B. life has changed a great deal
C. it is useless to plan for the next 50 years
D. it is difficult to tell what will happen in the future
3. Spundels and ballalators are used in the text to refer to ________.
A. tools used in farming
B. ideas about modern life
C. unknown things in the future
D. hunting skills in the Stone Age
4. According to the writer of the text, imagining the future will ________.
A. serve the interests of the present and future generations
B. enable us to better understand human history
C. help us to improve farming
D. make life worth living
