My 2030 Doomsday Plan for California

我的加州 2030 年世界末日计划

· Zocalo Public Square · 原文

Your columnist will always be here for you, until the very end.

您的专栏作家将永远为您服务，直到最后。

Now that we know that the very end is coming soon—artificial general intelligence will kill us all by the close of this decade, according to those who work with artificial general intelligence—I am here to offer my fellow Californians a plan for our last days together.

既然我们知道末日即将到来——根据那些从事通用人工智能研究的人的说法，通用人工智能将在本十年结束时杀死我们所有人——我在这里为我的加州同胞们提供了我们最后日子的计划。

Call it the California 2030 Doomsday Platform.

You may not want to read on, since you have so little time left.

您可能不想继续阅读，因为您剩下的时间已经所剩无几了。

But give the Doomsday Platform a chance.

I think you may actually enjoy this exercise.

Why?

为什么？

Because, while the all-but-certain apocalypse is kind of a drag, it turns out that there is something profoundly freeing about giving up on tomorrow.

因为，虽然几乎确定的世界末日有点令人拖累，但事实证明，放弃明天会带来深刻的自由。

With less than four years left on the clock, we can drop all our crippling anxiety about the future, and live for the present.

只剩下不到四年的时间了，我们可以放下对未来的所有严重焦虑，活在当下。

The benefits of the Doomsday Agenda start at the top.

世界末日议程的好处始于高层。

We no longer have to spend time worrying about politics or government leaders.

我们不再需要花时间担心政治或政府领导人。

That will improve our mental health, and take the heat off our state’s elected officials.

这将改善我们的心理健康，并减轻我们州民选官员的压力。

Consider Xavier Becerra for instance.

Critics complain that our governor-in-waiting has no real agenda or plan for his first term.

批评者抱怨我们的候任州长在他的第一个任期内没有真正的议程或计划。

Now, no worries.

现在，不用担心。

He doesn’t need one!

他不需要一个！

His first term will be everyone’s last term.

Digging into the possibilities and perils of our certain end, I must confess a realization: A Doomsday Platform almost writes itself.

在深入研究我们特定结局的可能性和危险时，我必须承认一个认识：世界末日平台几乎是自己编写的。

You just pull the plug on anything aimed at improving the state beyond 2030.

你只需停止任何旨在改善 2030 年之后国家状况的事情即可。

California high-speed rail?

Cancel it today.

今天就取消吧

The not-yet-fully-funded initial operating segment between Merced and Bakersfield isn’t even scheduled to open until somewhere between 2032 and 2033.

默塞德 (Merced) 和贝克斯菲尔德 (Bakersfield) 之间的初始运营部门尚未获得充分资金，甚至预计要到 2032 年至 2033 年之间的某个时间段才能开业。

Why pour billions into a train that will transport only sentient algorithms?

为什么要投入数十亿美元建造一列只运输有感知算法的火车？

Stop the construction, sell the concrete, and use the remaining money to throw the world’s biggest hootenanny in the Central Valley.

停止施工，卖掉混凝土，然后用剩下的钱在中央谷扔出世界上最大的胡特纳尼。

We can also end YIMBY-NIMBY housing wars.

There’s no need to sue cities over zoning laws or repeal the California Environmental Quality Act.

没有必要就分区法起诉城市或废除《加州环境质量法案》。

No one needs a new house with a 30-year mortgage when they only have a three-year life expectancy.

当人们的预期寿命只有三年时，没有人需要一套抵押贷款为 30 年的新房子。

There’s no point in passing multi-billion-dollar housing bonds when we’ll all be dead before any of the housing will be built.

当我们在任何住房建成之前就都死了时，通过数十亿美元的住房债券是没有意义的。

Similarly, we can shrink our horizons when it comes to the state budget and economy.

同样，当涉及到国家预算和经济时，我们可以缩小视野。

Forget the billionaire wealth tax, and the years of litigation and administrative wrangling it will bring.

忘掉亿万富翁财富税，以及它带来的多年的诉讼和行政纠纷吧。

Instead, Gov.

相反，州长。

Becerra can issue an executive order imposing the Apocalypse Asset Forfeiture Act, and immediately seize the accounts of every tech billionaire who built the doom-machines in the first place.

贝塞拉可以发布行政命令，实施《天启资产没收法》，并立即扣押每一位最初建造末日机器的科技亿万富翁的账户。

Distribute the cash and let everyone buy a jet ski for their final summers.

分发现金，让每个人都可以在最后一个夏天购买摩托艇。

We can also officially give up on public education.

我们也可以正式放弃公共教育。

Why wring our hands over catastrophic post-COVID drops in math and reading scores?

为什么我们要为新冠疫情后数学和阅读成绩灾难性的下降而苦恼呢？

Why teach the kids calculus if AI is going to do all the doomer math anyway?

如果人工智能无论如何都会完成所有的厄运数学，为什么还要教孩子们微积分呢？

Why make the UC system restore the SATs?

Standardized testing is about predicting future success.

标准化测试是为了预测未来的成功。

There is no future success.

Let kids play outside.

让孩子们到外面去玩。

Turn schools into laser tag arenas.

We can abandon our gains in health care, too.

Today’s fight over Medi-Cal expansion no longer means much.

今天关于 Medi-Cal 扩张的争论已经不再有多大意义了。

Preventive medicine only matters if people are going to live long enough to get sick.

只有当人们能够活到足够长的时间生病时，预防医学才有意义。

If the AI is going to get us, high cholesterol certainly won’t.

如果人工智能能够战胜我们，那么高胆固醇肯定不会。

Hand out the pain meds, and let everyone eat as much red meat, red dye, and processed sugar as they want.

分发止痛药，让每个人想吃多少红肉、红色染料和加工糖就吃多少。

Perhaps the most liberating part of the Doomsday Platform is environmental policy.

也许世界末日平台最自由的部分是环境政策。

California has long prided itself on being a global leader in mitigating climate change.

加州长期以来一直以成为减缓气候变化的全球领导者而自豪。

Last year, we renewed our cap-and-trade program out to 2045.

去年，我们将限额与交易计划延长至 2045 年。

Earth to Sacramento: We’re never going to see 2045!

从地球到萨克拉门托：我们永远不会看到 2045 年！

We weren’t on track to meet our ambitious 2030 greenhouse gas reduction targets anyway.

无论如何，我们都无法实现雄心勃勃的 2030 年温室气体减排目标。

So why are we still pretending?

Let the oil refineries in Richmond and El Segundo stay open and run at maximum capacity, and tell the Texans to pump all the off-shore oil they want.

让里士满和埃尔塞贡多的炼油厂保持开放并以最大产能运行，并告诉德克萨斯人开采他们想要的所有海上石油。

We need cheap gas to drive to the beach for the final countdown.

我们需要便宜的汽油才能开车去海滩进行最后的倒计时。

If the sea levels knock over some coastal houses before the robots terminate us, good for us.

如果海平面在机器人消灭我们之前摧毁一些沿海房屋，那对我们有好处。

It’ll improve our ocean views.

A central principle of the Doomsday Platform is: Never miss a chance to party, or live dangerously.

末日平台的核心原则是：永远不要错过聚会的机会，也不要危险地生活。

Which brings me to the 2028 Los Angeles Olympics.

这让我想到了 2028 年洛杉矶奥运会。

Conventional wisdom says it’s going to be a logistical nightmare that will bankrupt the city, gridlock the freeways, empower Trump, and leave a massive debt for the next generation of Angelenos.

传统观点认为，这将是一场后勤噩梦，将使这座城市破产、高速公路堵塞、特朗普获得权力，并给下一代洛杉矶人留下巨额债务。

But under the Doomsday Platform?

Full steam ahead.

全速前进。

Let L.A.

让洛杉矶

go bankrupt.

破产。

Who are the creditors going to complain to in 2030?

2030年债权人会向谁抱怨？

Make the Games the wildest, most expensive two-week goodbye fiesta in human history.

让奥运会成为人类历史上最疯狂、最昂贵的为期两周的告别嘉年华。

Now, some responsible Californians may balk at the Doomsday agenda.

现在，一些负责任的加州人可能会对世界末日议程犹豫不决。

My end-of-the-decade-is-the-end platform looks pretty shocking.

我的“十年末了”平台看起来非常令人震惊。

It means failing to maintain and replace important infrastructure projects.

这意味着无法维护和更换重要的基础设施项目。

It means throwing our hands up at failing schools and declining test scores.

这意味着我们要对失败的学校和考试成绩下降举手投足。

It means giving up on healthcare gains.

It means failing to reckon with housing.

It means missing our 2030 climate targets.

It means ignoring long-term fiscal stability to fund short-term pleasures.

这意味着为了短期享乐而忽视长期财政稳定。

But if you take a step back, if you look closely at what California’s state and local governments are and are not doing now, you’ll have a chilling realization.

但如果你退后一步，仔细观察加利福尼亚州和地方政府现在正在做什么和没有做什么，你就会有一个令人不寒而栗的认识。

We haven’t built the infrastructure.

We’re rolling back our healthcare progress.

We haven’t resolved the housing crisis.

Our kids aren’t reading at grade level.

Our environmental milestones are quietly being missed or moved.

我们的环境里程碑正在悄然被错过或转移。

We don’t need an AI apocalypse to force us to embrace a new Doomsday agenda.

我们不需要人工智能末日来迫使我们接受新的世界末日议程。

We’ve already embraced it.

Armageddon, it turns out, won’t require us to change much at all.

事实证明，世界末日根本不需要我们做出太多改变。

Joe Mathews writes the Connecting California column for Zócalo Public Square and is founder-columnist of Democracy Local , a planetary publication.

乔·马修斯 (Joe Mathews) 为佐卡洛公共广场 (Zócalo Public Square) 撰写《连接加州》专栏，也是行星刊物 Democracy Local 的创始人兼专栏作家。

Primary editor: Eryn Brown | Secondary editor: Sarah Rothbard

主要编辑：Eryn Brown |二级编辑：莎拉·罗斯巴德

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中文为机器翻译，仅供参考。