#3.Holodecks
第三名：全息甲板

As seen in:
Most people would know the holodeck as being an invention out of the Star Trek series, but they probably took the idea from a Ray Bradbury short story called The Veldt where a family has a holodeck that simulates an African veldt, and then are (predictably) eaten by virtual lions.
曾经出现在：
大多数人对全息甲板的了解，可能以为它是来自《星际迷航系列》的一个发明。但是，他们很可能是从Ray Bradbury写的一个叫《大草原》的短篇小说里得到这个想法的。在这部小说里，一家人有一个全息甲板，能模拟非洲的大草原，然后他们（很可能）被虚拟的狮子给吃掉了。

Why we thought we wanted it:
The holodeck is just big room, that can simulate any number of environments and/or experiences for the user, and can trick all five senses into believing that it's real. You don't have to hook anything up to your brain, you can walk in and out of it like any room. A room that happens to be full of ninjas and naked women and everything else you don't have in your real life.
我们想要它的原因：
全息甲板只是一个能模拟任意数量环境的大屋子，也能模拟进去的人的感觉，从而欺骗人的五感，让人以为是处在真实的世界。你不用在你的大脑上连接什么东西，你也可以像进出任何屋子一样进出全息甲板，在里面你可以看到在现实生活中你所没有的东西：满屋的忍者、裸女以及其它的一切。

Why we were wrong:
Of course, we here at Cracked were too busy practicing Jujitsu and working on our dragsters to watch something as geeky as Star Trek, but we do know that the dangers of a holodeck were demonstrated in Episode 234 ("A Fistful of Datas", aired November 9, 1992, Stardate 46271.5). This episode proved that if you get shot by a cowboy in the holodeck world, you really die.
我们是笨笨：
当然，就像我们疯也似的忙着练柔道和改装汽车一样，我们疯狂地看着像《星际迷航》这样令人生厌的东西。但我们知道，全息甲板的危险性出现在第234集里（《大量的数据》，1992年11月9号——星际日期46271.5——播出的）。这集告诉我们：如果你在全息甲板的世界里被一个牛仔射杀了，那你也就真的死了。

Now, assuming the creators of the real holodeck are not completely retarded and they install something that makes it so the simulation cowboys do not shoot real bullets and that the veldt lions don't really eat you (both of these would seem to be first-day considerations in the design phase), there is another problem.
现在，假设创造全息甲板这玩意儿的人的脑子没有进水，而且他们也确实造出来一个类似的东西的话，那么牛仔不会发射真的子弹，大草原上的狮子也不会真的吃了你（这两种情况似乎是在设计之初就应该考虑到的）。肯定还有别的问题。

Imagine how you'll react if you're in your holodeck and somebody interrupts you. Say, you're halfway through your chess game with Darth Vader, when suddenly he disappears, Scarlett Johansson is no longer sitting in your lap, and pizza costs money again. You'd find the guy who turned off the machine and snap his damned neck. Dilbert creator Scott Adams jokingly points out in his book The Dilbert Future that the holodeck, "will be society's last invention." It's no joke; once we had it, there'd be no reason to have anything else.
想像一下，如果你在你的全息甲板里，然后某人打断了你，你会怎么办。比如，你正跟Darth Vader下棋呢，他突然出现了，Scarlett Johansson也不再坐在你的大腿上了，你吃的披萨也不是免费的了。你会看见是那个家伙关掉了机器，然后你会拧断他的脖子。呆伯特之父Scott Adams在他的书《呆伯特的未来》里开玩笑似的指出，全息甲板“将会是这个社会的最后一项发明”。他绝不是在说笑，一旦我们拥有了它，别的东西就再也没有存在的理由了。

It's not just that it would be addictive; it's that it would literally fill every possible human emotional need and utterly eliminate all motivation to ever do anything ever. Everyone's only goal would be to do just enough work to keep food and electricity coming into the holodeck, to keep those interruptions by reality to a minimum.
不只是因为它有诱惑力，它还会满足每一个人的几乎所有欲望，让人永远失去做任何事情的任何动力。所有人的唯一目标，就是不停地工作，保证食物和供给全息甲板的电力，把那些现实中的干扰降到最低。

People would stop reproducing, your virtual Scarlett Johansson could have perfect virtual kids who'll never wind up in jail or steal money from you to buy crack. If you get tired of them, tell the holodeck to blink them out of existence. If you're saying that you're a high-minded person who pursues spiritual goals and would never be sucked in by anything as crude as a simulation, hey, they've got a holodeck for you, too. You can sit down to dinner with Plato and Abe Lincoln and Gandhi and Jesus. If somebody yanked you out of that to go work at the post office all day, you'd barricade yourself in with a shotgun.
人们会停止生小孩，你的虚幻的Scarlett Johansson能生出来完美的虚幻小孩，他们永远不会进监狱或者偷你的钱去买零食。如果你厌烦了他们，就告诉全息甲板，让他们在一眨眼的工夫里消失。如果说你是一个有着高尚情操的人，追求的是精神满足，永远不会沉浸在虚幻制造出来的东西里。别急，全息甲板也能满足你。你可以和柏拉图、林肯、甘地、耶稣坐在一起吃饭。要是某人叫你离开，去邮局上一天班，你自己就会拿把鸟枪拦住你自己。

If aliens showed up to Earth 1,000 years later, they'd find an abandoned planet with ten billion mummified corpses laying on the floor of ten billion dusty holodecks, with huge smiles on their faces.
倘若一千年以后，外星人出现在地球，他们会看到一个被抛弃的星球，上面是几百亿个木乃伊般的僵尸躺在几百亿个灰扑扑的全息甲板上，脸上都是夸张的笑容。

#2.Teleporters
第二名：远程传送

As seen in:
Star Trek, The Fly, countless video games.
曾经出现在：
《星际迷航》，《变蝇人》，还有数不清的电子游戏里。

Why we thought we wanted it:
Here's a technology that'd make the flying car and the jetpack both look like that retarded Flintstones car you drive with your feet. We're talking instant transport to anywhere, any time. You can live on the beach in Hawaii and live in New York. Sit there in the morning and sip coffee until about five seconds before the meeting is set to start, then step into your transport and there you are, in the conference room.
我们想要它的原因：
有一种技术，能让飞车和飞行背包都看起来像呆呆的《摩登原始人》里，你用脚开的那种车一样傻。这儿说的是瞬间传送东西到任何时间、任何地点的技术。你可以住在夏威夷的海滩上，也可以住在纽约。在开会前五秒钟，你还可以坐在早晨的海滩上品着咖啡，然后你起身走进你的传送机——你就到会议室了。

Why we were wrong:
Many later science fiction writers have declared that a device that can disassemble and reassemble a human molecule-by-molecule would be patently unsafe (the most famous and grotesque portrayal of a teleporter accident came, of course, in the film Spaceballs). But, even if they get the bugs worked out (what method of transportation is perfectly safe, after all?) there is a much larger and much weirder issue.
我们是笨笨：
后来的许多科幻小说家都声明说，那种可以一个分子一个分子地拆分、组合人体的设备，很明显是不安全的（史上最著名和怪异的失败的传送，出现在电影《太空炮弹》里）。但是，尽管他们补上了漏洞（终究哪种传送方式会是完全安全的？），还是有一个更大的、更离奇的问题。

A teleporter wouldn't actually break down your atoms and then shoot those same atoms thousands of miles through the air; even if it were possible, there'd be no reason to do it. It would instead just grab Hydrogen and Oxygen atoms from out of the air and assemble you out of those (one Hydrogen atom is the same as another, after all).
一台传送机不会真的拆分你到原子然后把那些原子发射到几千里外；即使这是可能的，也没有理由去那样做。取而代之的是，只要在空气里抓一把氢和氧的原子，然后把它们组装起来，就是你了（毕竟氢原子们总是一模一样的）。

In other words, teleporters would work more like fax machines than mail. It transmits a signal and the machine on the other end spits out a copy. Only instead of a copy of a letter, it's a copy of a person, right down to all their thoughts and memories and here the original is destroyed. This was demonstrated in Star Trek: The Next Generation, Episode 250 ("Second Chances", aired May 24, 1993, Stardate 46915.2) where they failed to destroy the original Will Riker and were left with two of him.
换句话说，传送机工作起来与其说像发信，还不如说像是在发传真。传送信号，另一头的机器就打出来一个复印件。唯一的不同，就是一封信的复印件和一个人的替身的区别。这个替身从思想到记忆都和本人一样，但是在那边的本人已经消失了。《星际迷航：下一代》里就是这么说的：在第250集《第二次机会》（1993年 5月24号——星际时间46915.2——播出的）里，他们没有能把Will Riker搞消失，于是就有两个他。

Are you grasping the weirdness of this? The original is destroyed. That means when you step into a teleporter, you die. But, the rest of the world won't know you died, because a copy of you will step out of the other end of the machine. It won't be you, though, it'll be another you that happens to share your memories. To the outside observer the thing will always work fine, and the thing that steps out of the receiving end will think it worked fine. The one person who knows it didn't worked fine, can't tell anyone because they  died via total atomization the moment they stepped into the machine.
你是不是因为这个诡异的事情而倒吸了口凉气？本人消失了，意思是你走进传送机的那一刻，你死了。但是，世界上别的人不知道你死了，因为你的替身会从另一头的机器里走出来。虽然那个不是你自己，但是那个替身“不巧”拥有你的记忆。在外人看来，永远不会有什么问题，从接收端走出来的那个也不会认为有什么问题。那些明知道不是没问题的人却不能把真相告诉任何人，因为他们在走进传送机的时候，已经在完全的原子化的过程中死了。

So, the first time Captain Kirk used the teleportation device to beam down to an alien planet, he was basically resigning himself to an immediate death and hoping that his twin would carry out the mission for him.
所以当Kirk船长第一次用传送机发送自己到一个外星球的时候，他基本上是在宣告他的立即死亡，希望他的胞弟能替他执行任务。

#1.Matter Replicators
第一名：物质复制机

As seen in:
Again, Star Trek
曾经出现在：
还是《星际迷航》

Why we thought we wanted it:
You're hungry, and you don't really feel like cooking or even going out to get something. Well no need to starve! This machine will replicate virtually any food that you can think of. Or, at least a series of foods that have previously been programmed into the machine.
我们想要它的原因：
你饿了，可你很不想做饭，甚至不想出去买吃的。你不会饿死的！这台机器基本上可以复制出任何你想吃的东西。或者，至少是那些被预先编到机器程序里的食物。

Not just food, either. Anything. Need new batteries for your remote? Replicator. New pair of shoes? No problem. Forget your girlfriend's birthday? Punch a button on the replicator and it'll spit out a pair of flawless diamond earrings.
还不止是吃的东西，而是任何东西。遥控器该换新电池了？复制。想要双新鞋？没问题。把女朋友的生日忘了？按机器上的一个钮，一对完美无暇的钻石耳环就从机器里出来了。

Why we were wrong:
Since it's just assembling molecules, presumably it would be cheaper for this thing to make you a pair of diamond earrings than a hot dog, since fewer molecules and less energy would be required. It could print perfect counterfeit money. Hell, punch a button, and it'll crank out a molecule-for-molecule replica of The Mona Lisa.
我们是笨笨：
既然只是分子的组装，那么可以推出，用这个机器做一对钻石耳环会比做一只热狗便宜，因为做前者用的分子和能量更少。它还能造出完美的假币。更绝的是，只要按一下钮，它就会做出一幅一个分子一个分子复制的《蒙娜丽莎》。

The bad news is, of course, it would eliminate your job. Your job, and all your friends' jobs, and, well, almost everyone else's. No need for farms or factories or stores. The only people who'd still be working are doctors and the people who make replicators. Oh, wait, you can just have a huge replicator that makes replicators. Nevermind.
可惜，这显然会让你失业。你的工作、你所有朋友的工作，还有几乎每个人的工作都会丢掉。我们再也不需要什么农场或者工厂或者商店了。唯一在工作的人们，就是医生和那些做复制机的人。呃，等等，你可以只做一个巨大的复制机，专门复制复制机。这样就再也不愁了。

It's just as well, even if there were jobs, there would be no way to pay you. You could make bars of gold in your replicator. Yes, we're talking about the utter collapse of the entire basis by which every society has ever existed on the planet.
同样的，即便有工作，也不用给工资了。你能用你的复制机做金条嘛。没错，这儿说的正是每个存在在这星球上的社会中，最基本的东西的崩塌。

The end of everything will come on the day when anyone can make anything. Except a flying car, those will still be useless.
 当任何人都有能力做任何东西的时候，世界末日也就到了。除了飞车，剩下那四个就都没用了（译者注：飞行的棺材，人人都会最终死去）。

翻译：shog
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