Floating Cities, No Longer Science Fiction, Begin to Take Shape
海上城市走出科幻小說
By David Gelles

It is an idea at once audacious and simplistic, a seeming impossibility that is now technologically within reach: cities floating in international waters – independent, self-sustaining nation-states at sea.
這是個大膽創新又將複雜事物過分簡單化，看似不可能，現在科技卻有望實現的概念：漂浮在公海上的城市—獨立且自給自足的海上民族國家。

Long the stuff of science fiction, “seasteading” has in recent years matured from pure fantasy into something approaching reality, and there are now companies, academics, architects and even a government working together on a prototype by 2020.
「海上家園」向來是科幻小說的題材，近年已從純粹的空想發展為即將成真的事物，目前有企業、學者、建築師和甚至一個政府通力合作，要在2020年前建立原型。

At the center of the effort is the Seasteading Institute, a nonprofit organization based in San Francisco. Founded in 2008, the group has spent about a decade trying to convince the public that seasteading is not an entirely crazy idea.
在這場努力中位居關鍵的是海洋家園研究所，這是總部設在美國舊金山的非營利組織，創立於2008年，已經花了十年左右說服大眾，住在海上不是全然瘋狂的主意。

That has not always been easy. At times, the story of the seasteading movement seems to lapse into self parody. Burning Man gatherings in the Nevada desert are an inspiration, while references to the Kevin Costner film “Waterworld” are inevitable. The project is being partially funded by an initial coin offering, a new concept sweeping Silicon Valley and Wall Street in which money can be raised by creating and selling virtual currency.
這一路可並不平順。有時，提倡海上家園的故事似乎陷入自我搞笑。美國內華達州沙漠的「火人祭」聚會是個啟發，而與凱文科斯納主演的電影「水世界」的聯結也無以避免。計畫的資金部分來自「首次代幣發行」，這是橫掃矽谷和華爾街的新概念：錢能藉由創造和販售虛擬貨幣而募得。

And yet in 2017, with sea levels rising because of climate change and established political orders around the world teetering under the strains of populism, seasteading can seem not just practical, but downright appealing.
不過在2017年，當海平面因氣候變遷而上升，世界各地老牌的政治體系都在民粹壓力下搖搖欲墜時，住在海上看來就不僅可行，且真能吸引人。

Earlier this year, the government of French Polynesia agreed to let the Seasteading Institute begin testing in its waters. Construction could begin soon, and the first floating buildings – the nucleus of a city – might be inhabitable in just a few years.
今年稍早，法屬玻里尼西亞政府同意讓海洋家園研究所開始在轄下水域試驗。建築工程可能很快就會展開，第一批海上建物，也就是城市核心，也許在幾年內就能入住。

“If you could have a floating city, it would essentially be a startup country,” said Joe Quirk, president of the Seasteading Institute. “We can create a huge diversity of governments for a huge diversity of people.”
海上家園研究所所長奎爾克說：「如果你有一座海上城市，它將形同一個新創國家，我們可為各式各樣的人創造各式各樣的政府。」

The term seasteading has been around since at least 1981, when avid sailor Ken Neumeyer wrote a book, “Sailing the Farm,” that discussed living sustainably aboard a sailboat. Two decades later, the idea attracted the attention of Patri Friedman, grandson of economist Milton Friedman, who seized on the notion.
海上家園一詞至少早自1981年即已出現，當時酷愛航海的水手諾伊邁爾寫了一本書「駕著海上農場出航」，討論持久住在帆船上的生活。20年後，經濟學家米爾頓．傅利曼的孫子派特瑞．傅利曼受到這個點子吸引，並予以發揚光大。

Friedman, a freethinker who had founded “intentional communities” while in college, was living in Silicon Valley at the time and was inspired to think big. So in 2008 he quit his job at Google and co-founded the Seasteading Institute with seed funding from Peter Thiel, the libertarian billionaire. In a 2009 essay, Thiel described seasteading as a long shot, but one worth taking. “Between cyberspace and outer space lies the possibility of settling the oceans,” he wrote.
傅利曼是自由思想家，讀大學時創辦「理念型社區」，而得知這個點子時他住在矽谷，受到鼓勵要勇於逐夢。所以他在2008年辭去Google的工作，在自由派億萬富豪泰爾的種子基金挹注下，與人合創海洋家園研究所。泰爾在2009年撰文說，海上家園成功希望不大，但值得一試，「在網路和外太空之間，存在著住在海上的可能性」。

原文參照：
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/11/13/business/dealbook/seasteading-floating-cities.html

2017-12-03．聯合報．D4．紐約時報賞析 李京倫

說文解字看新聞 李京倫

本文討論「海上家園」（seasteading）的概念，seasteading由sea（海）和homestead（農莊住宅）合併而成，是指在不屬於任何國家的海域上建立永久住所。

法屬玻里尼西亞是法國在南太平洋的海外集體和自治國。海洋家園研究所打算實現夢想，但因為剛起步，所以原型設在法屬玻里尼西亞領海內且靠近岸邊。

at once一般指「同時地」或「立刻」，在本文中與both同義，是比較少見的用法。initial coin offering是「首次代幣發行」，是熱門籌資管道，新創公司發行代幣，投資人用虛擬貨幣購買代幣，之後再用代幣交換該公司產品，或用代幣投機炒作。

intentional community是有共同理念的人刻意建立的社區，生活方式另類，社區財產往往共有，外人要加入一般須經既有成員同意，不是透過仲介介紹。libertarian指重視個人自由、反對政府干預的人。

Studying Fake News About Voltaire, Spread by Voltaire Himself
閱讀伏爾泰寫自己的假故事
By James Barron

The invitation, all fancy-looking script, promised “dinner and perhaps a birthday party.”
這份邀請函字體花俏，看起來肯定有「晚宴，也許還有場生日派對」。

There was definitely dinner. It was served to 70 boldface types – Francophiles, Anglophiles, bibliophiles and, the organizers hoped, philanthropists who would donate to the cause being promoted.
絕對會有晚宴，且將提供給70位使用粗體字標註姓名的人，這些人包括了親法派、親英派與愛書人，籌辦人並且希望還能有肯為他們推廣的目標捐款的慈善家。

Yes, as at so many dinners in similar settings night after night in Manhattan at this time of the year, a cause was being promoted.
沒錯，正如每年此際夜復一夜在曼哈頓類似場合進行的諸多晚宴一樣，他們正在推動一個目標。

The setting was the Fifth Avenue mansion that McKim, Mead & White, the architects to the rich and famous of the original Gilded Age, designed for Payne Whitney. He was once the third-richest man in America after John D. Rockefeller Jr. and Henry Ford. The town house is now the New York headquarters of the cultural services division of the French Embassy.
活動場地是第五大道的一棟豪宅，是原始鍍金年代富豪名流專屬建築師McKim, Mead & White為佩恩惠特尼所設計的。他曾是排在小洛克菲勒與亨利．福特之後的全美第三大富豪。這座聯棟別墅現為法國大使館文化服務部門的紐約總部。

And the birthday party? No one sang “Happy Birthday to You.” No cake with candles was trundled out. The birthday celebrant was not present, having died in 1778 – Voltaire, the philosopher who wrote the satire “Candide” and is prized by free-speech advocates for a famous saying: “I disagree with what you say, but will defend to the death your right to say it.”
至於生日派對呢？沒有人唱「生日快樂歌」，也不見插蠟燭的生日蛋糕被拖出來，壽星不在現場，因為他早在1778年就過世了，他就是伏爾泰。這位哲學家著有諷刺小說《憨第德》，並且說過「我不同意你的觀點，但我誓死捍衛你說話的權利」這句名言，從而深受主張言論自由者讚揚。

Voltaire was the cause – or, more precisely, the cause was a scholarly project to publish everything that he wrote, which was a lot.
伏爾泰就是這目標，或更確切說，目標是個學術性計畫，要出版他寫過的所有東西，數量極其龐大。

But the central figure in this monumental effort to assemble and explicate the works of a central figure in the French Enlightenment is British.
伏爾泰是法國啟蒙運動的中心人物，然而，集結和闡述他作品的這項創舉，中心人物卻是個英國人。

His name is Nicholas Cronk, and he is happy to defend to the death Voltaire’s right to confuse us all. He is also happy to make the case that Voltaire could be slippery with the truth, at least about himself.
他名叫尼可拉斯．柯隆克，他很樂意誓死捍衛伏爾泰要把大家弄糊塗的權利。他也樂於認為，伏爾泰對事實的說法可能是不可信的，至少跟他自己有關的部分是如此。

Cronk is the director of the Voltaire Foundation at Oxford University, which is issuing “The Oxford Complete Works of Voltaire,” the first exhaustive annotated edition of Voltaire’s writings – novels, plays, letters. “The Oxford Complete Works” will run to 220 volumes by 2020, after the last 18 are completed and released.
柯隆克是正在發行《牛津伏爾泰全集》的牛津大學伏爾泰基金會的負責人，這套書是第一部針對包括小說、戲劇、信札在內伏爾泰所有作品的詳盡註釋版本。這套《牛津全集》最後18冊將在2020年前完成並發行，全套共計220冊。

A pamphlet in the goody bag handed out as the dinner guests left said that Voltaire’s fans revel in his productivity. They love it that his lifetime output far exceeds the word count of the Bible.
晚宴客人離開時拿到的禮品袋內小冊子上寫著，伏爾泰的粉絲們陶醉於他的多產。他們很高興他一生的產量字數遠遠超過聖經。

“I think he wrote too much,” Cronk said, with the nervous laugh of someone racing to ensure that everyone involved in preparing six volumes a year is meeting the deadlines.
柯隆克說，「我認為他寫得太多了」，他緊張地笑著，並趕緊確認每位參與一年準備發行6冊的工作的人都能按時完成。

He said Voltaire was so prolific because he was popular in his own time. He called him “the first-ever European celebrity.”
他說，伏爾泰多產，因他在那時就受歡迎。他稱他是「有史來首位享譽全歐的名人」。

原文參照：
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/11/19/nyregion/studying-fake-news-about-voltaire-spread-by-voltaire-himself.html

2017-12-03．聯合報．D4．紐約時報賞析 陳韋廷