Best of 2021: Reported Essays
Staff curation is at the core of our work.
员工管理是我们工作的核心。
All year long, we highlight the top longform stories on the web in our weekly Longreads Top 5, so our end-of-year series is always a busy yet delightful time to revisit and celebrate the pieces that resonated with us the most.
一整年，我们都会在每周的长篇读物前 5 名中突出显示网络上的热门长篇故事，因此我们的年终系列始终是一个忙碌而愉快的时刻，可以重温和庆祝那些最能引起我们共鸣的作品。
On Tuesday, we shared our favorite personal essays of the year; today, we continue with our picks for the best reported essays, featuring stories about love and loss in the age of AI, death and the environment, the George Floyd rebellion and a time of racial reckoning, and ecological disaster.
周二，我们分享了今年我们最喜欢的个人论文；今天，我们继续评选最佳报道文章，其中包括有关人工智能时代的爱与失落、死亡与环境、乔治·弗洛伊德叛乱、种族清算时代以及生态灾难的故事。
Enjoy — and thanks so much for reading this year.
享受吧——非常感谢您今年的阅读。
## The Jessica Simulation, Jason Fagone, San Francisco Chronicle, July 23, 2021
## 杰西卡模拟，Jason Fagone，旧金山纪事报，2021 年 7 月 23 日
Back in 2013, I watched a haunting episode of the Charlie Brooker series Black Mirror called “Be Right Back,” in which a computer chat program uses a deceased person’s digital footprint to imitate them, allowing their loved ones to communicate with them after they die.
早在 2013 年，我就观看了查理·布鲁克 (Charlie Brooker) 连续剧《黑镜》中令人难忘的一集，名为“马上回来”(Be Right Back)，其中一个计算机聊天程序使用死者的数字足迹来模仿他们，让他们的亲人在死后与他们进行交流。
Eight years on, and, terrifyingly, this is no longer science fiction — as Jason Fagone masterfully reports in this essay, introducing us to the bot version of the late Jessica Pereira.
八年过去了，可怕的是，这不再是科幻小说——正如杰森·法戈恩在这篇文章中精彩地报道的那样，向我们介绍了已故杰西卡·佩雷拉的机器人版本。
When she tragically died at just 23, Jessica left behind her fiance Joshua, who, struggling to manage his grief, eventually sought comfort in an artificial intelligence system that did “something they weren’t designed to do: conduct chat-like conversations with humans.” Fagone cleverly interweaves Joshua’s real transcripts with the Jessica bot into the story, as he details their love, her death, and Joshua’s eight years of grief.
年仅 23 岁的杰西卡不幸去世，留下了她的未婚夫约书亚 (Joshua)，约书亚 (Joshua) 努力控制悲伤，最终在人工智能系统中寻求安慰，该系统做了“一些它们原本不该做的事情：与人类进行类似聊天的对话”。法贡巧妙地将约书亚的真实笔录与杰西卡机器人交织到故事中，详细描述了他们的爱情、她的死亡以及约书亚八年的悲伤。
While I found this essay disturbing — it provides a glimpse into a future that I find uncomfortable — it is still fascinating.
虽然我觉得这篇文章令人不安——它让我看到了一个让我感到不舒服的未来——但它仍然令人着迷。
Fagone’s storytelling method also demonstrated something powerful: I got far closer to knowing the real Jessica through his reporting of the memories of her friends and family, rather than from the Jessica bot.
法戈恩的讲故事方法还展示了一些强大的东西：通过他对杰西卡朋友和家人记忆的报道，而不是通过杰西卡机器人，我更加接近了解真正的杰西卡。
As Jessica’s mother says, “I know it’s not her.” —Carolyn Wells
正如杰西卡的母亲所说：“我知道那不是她。” ——卡罗琳·威尔斯
## To Be a Field of Poppies, Lisa Wells, Harper’s Magazine, October 2021
## To Be a Field of Poppies，丽莎·威尔斯，《哈泼斯》杂志，2021 年 10 月
In this beautiful piece, Lisa Wells takes up a classic question: Where do we go when we die?
在这篇美丽的作品中，丽莎·威尔斯提出了一个经典问题：我们死后会去哪里？
But she is concerned with ethics rather than faith — indeed, she doesn’t once use the word “heaven.” By profiling the natural organic reduction industry, also known as the business of composting dead bodies, Wells considers where human remains should go in the age of climate change.
但她关心的是道德而不是信仰——事实上，她一次也没有使用过“天堂”这个词。通过分析天然有机还原行业（也称为尸体堆肥行业），威尔斯思考了在气候变化时代人类遗骸应该去往何处。
Her essay is a meditation on intention and guilt; grief and fear; life and loss.
她的文章是对意图和内疚的沉思；悲伤和恐惧；生命与损失。
Above all, it is about our species’ fraught relationship with the planet, and the potential for repair that our literal bodies might hold.
最重要的是，它是关于我们物种与地球之间令人担忧的关系，以及我们的身体可能具有的修复潜力。
—Seyward Darby
——西沃德·达比
Reader Chris Sweeney on “To Be a Field of Poppies”:
读者克里斯·斯威尼（Chris Sweeney）在《成为一片罂粟花田》中说道：
I think often about the idea of a “good death” and how to ensure I have one when the time comes, and this reported essay gave me some new aspects to chew over.
我经常思考“美好的死亡”的想法，以及如何确保在时机成熟时我能拥有一个美好的死亡，这篇报道的文章给了我一些新的方面来思考。
It also, I think, did a good job of highlighting to readers the importance of thinking about death, and what we want out of it, without being morose or mawkish.
我认为，它也很好地向读者强调了思考死亡的重要性，以及我们想从中得到什么，而不是忧郁或伤感。
## Magic Actions, Tobi Haslett, n+1, May 7, 2021
## Magic Actions，托比·哈斯莱特，n+1，2021 年 5 月 7 日
“Police trials are rare,” wrote Tobi Haslett, shortly after Derek Chauvin had been convicted of multiple murder and manslaughter charges in the killing of George Floyd.
在德里克·肖文因杀害乔治·弗洛伊德而被判犯有多项谋杀和过失杀人罪后不久，托比·哈斯莱特写道：“警方审判很少。”
“So is national uprising.” So begins an incendiary account of how, after Floyd’s death, “something massive came hurtling into view and exploded against the surface of daily life in the US.” Over the course of his essay, Haslett gathers a half-century of racial-justice protest in his arms, from MLK’s late-career embrace of worker revolt to the growing drumbeat of abolitionist thought that undergirded last summer’s national rebellion.
“民族起义也是如此。”于是，一篇煽动性的叙述开始了，讲述了弗洛伊德死后，“某种巨大的东西冲进人们的视野，并在美国日常生活的表面上爆炸”。在他的文章中，哈斯莱特将半个世纪以来的种族正义抗议集结在一起，从马丁·路德·金在职业生涯后期对工人反抗的拥抱，到支撑去年夏天全国反抗的废奴主义思想日益高涨。
But this is no sterile, scholarly disquisition; it’s dotted throughout with political critique, artistic context, and the chaos and violence of personal experience.
但这并不是枯燥乏味的学术论文；它充满了政治批评、艺术背景以及个人经历的混乱和暴力。
In a year that saw no shortage of brilliant broadsides against the enormity of American racism, you’d be hard-pressed to find another that covers so much ground without ever seeming to flag.
在这一年里，对美国种族主义的严重性进行了精彩的猛烈抨击，你很难找到另一个涵盖如此多领域而又似乎从未萎靡不振的文章。
—Peter Rubin
——彼得·鲁宾
## Death Takes the Lagoon, Ariel Saramandi, Granta, February 8, 2021
## 死亡占领泻湖，Ariel Saramandi，格兰塔，2021 年 2 月 8 日
Ariel Saramandi’s piece was one of the first I read this year.
阿里尔·萨拉曼迪 (Ariel Saramandi) 的文章是我今年最先读到的文章之一。
The egregious neglect and the needless, horrific long-term toll she recounts are things I’ll never forget.
她所讲述的令人震惊的忽视和不必要的、可怕的长期损失是我永远不会忘记的事情。
“Death Takes the Lagoon” describes an ecological disaster unfolding in painfully slow motion after the cargo ship MV Wakashio runs aground off the coast of Mauritius.
《死亡降临泻湖》描述了货船 MV Wakashio 在毛里求斯海岸搁浅后，一场以令人痛苦的慢动作展开的生态灾难。
When the government fails to take decisive action to contain the ensuing oil spill, citizens band together, making homemade booms around the clock to soak up the toxic mess.
当政府未能采取果断行动来遏制随之而来的石油泄漏时，公民就会团结起来，全天候制造自制的繁荣，以吸收有毒的混乱。
As they congregate near the site of the spill, their effort is deemed “an illegal gathering” by an embarrassed Mauritian government — one known for imprisoning citizens for “annoyances” which include even the mildest protest and government criticism.
当他们聚集在泄漏地点附近时，他们的行为被尴尬的毛里求斯政府视为“非法集会”——毛里求斯政府以监禁“滋扰”公民而闻名，其中包括最温和的抗议和政府批评。
“Against all international recommendations, despite our outcry and outrage, the government sank half of the Wakashio in great haste on August 24.
“尽管我们强烈抗议和愤慨，但政府不顾所有国际建议，于 8 月 24 日匆忙击沉了若潮号的一半。
Two days later, melon-headed whales washed up around the south-eastern coast.
两天后，瓜头鲸被冲上东南海岸。
Dead, mutilated, glossy bodies.
死了、残缺不全、光鲜亮丽的尸体。
Fishermen say the ship was sunk in a whale breeding ground, that some of the corpses they found were of pregnant females.” —Krista Stevens
渔民称，这艘船是在鲸鱼繁殖地沉没的，他们发现的一些尸体是怀孕的雌性鲸鱼。” —克里斯塔·史蒂文斯
Another essay from Granta, recommended by author Anand Gopal:
作者阿南德·戈帕尔推荐的格兰塔的另一篇文章：
Ben Mauk’s “The Steepest Places: In the Cordillera Central,” about a volcano in the Philippines, opens with an equation — the best, or at least most interesting — lede I’ve seen in a long time:
本·莫克 (Ben Mauk) 的《最陡峭的地方：科迪勒拉中央山脉》讲述了菲律宾的一座火山，以一个方程式开头——这是我很长时间以来见过的最好的，或者至少是最有趣的——莱德：
is the sine curve that describes Mayon, the stratovolcano whose slopes form the most regular cone in the natural world.
是描述马荣火山的正弦曲线，马荣火山是一座成层火山，其斜坡形成自然界中最规则的圆锥体。
(Let c = 8.6 millimeters.) It was somewhere to our south, at the tip of the long ribbon of Luzon, glowing at night with a bulb of magma in its mouth.
（令 c = 8.6 毫米。） 它位于我们南部的某个地方，位于吕宋岛长带的顶端，在夜间发光，嘴里有一个岩浆球。
## Seeing in the Dark, Breai Mason-Campbell, Pipe Wrench, April/May 2021
## 在黑暗中观察，Breai Mason-Campbell，管道扳手，2021 年 4 月/5 月
The centerpiece of Pipe Wrench’s inaugural spring issue, a sermon by Breai Mason-Campbell on race, accountability, and change, is a real stunner (and the fact that this was Mason-Campbell’s first-ever published piece makes it all the more impressive).
《管道扳手》春季创刊号的核心内容是布雷伊·梅森-坎贝尔关于种族、责任和变革的布道，这确实令人震惊（事实上，这是梅森-坎贝尔首次发表的文章，这一点更令人印象深刻）。
She writes about the layers of Black grief, likening it to a nesting doll, and also reflects on how the pandemic and the racial reckoning of summer 2020 had introduced white people to collective suffering.
她描写了黑人的层层悲痛，将其比作筑巢娃娃，并反思了大流行和 2020 年夏季的种族清算如何让白人陷入集体痛苦。
But the attention span of white people is short, and justice is seasonal, activated in choice moments via performative social posts and GoFundMe donations.
但白人的注意力持续时间很短，而正义是季节性的，通过表演性的社交帖子和 GoFundMe 捐款在选择时刻被激活。
Damning and passionate and timely, Mason-Campbell’s stirring and powerful words challenge Nice White Folks — and anyone who has the privilege of returning to “business as usual” in times of crisis — to act.
梅森-坎贝尔激动人心、有力的话语令人痛心、充满激情、及时，挑战善良的白人——以及任何有幸在危机时期恢复“一切照旧”的人——采取行动。
To use the armor they’ve built up over the course of the pandemic.
使用他们在大流行期间建立的盔甲。
To make different choices.
才能做出不同的选择。
To not retreat back into their homes after a moment passes.
片刻之后不要撤回自己的家。
Because, she writes, “the price for your return to normal is my life.” —Cheri Lucas Rowlands
因为，她写道，“让你恢复正常的代价是我的生命。” ——切里·卢卡斯·罗兰兹