我們的「東西」怎樣重新定義了世界

Nature was once a 「separate and wild province」 from human civilization, as Bill McKibben wrote in his famous 1989 call-to-arms, The End of Nature: It was 「a world apart from man to which he adapted and under whose rules he was born and died.」

But, claimed McKibben, we have effectively killed off this independent sphere—that wondrous, self-sustaining, life-generating realm which existed for eons before us.

「There』s still something out there,」 he said, but 「in the place of the old nature rears up a new 『nature』 of our own devising」—a construct where 「each cubic yard of air, each square foot of soil is stamped indelibly with our crude imprint, our X.」

Some now call this evolved world (or new layer of the planet) the 「technosphere,」 a term coined by Duke University geologist Peter Haff. And it is filled to the brim with stuff. Indeed, there is so much of this human-made stuff—machinery, skyscrapers, packaging, waste, Ikea furnishings—that it』s almost impossible to fathom, let alone measure. And yet—gotta love science!—that is precisely what a team of researchers has tried to do in a recent academic paper.

Their conclusion? Our stuff weighs approximately 30 trillion metric tons. (Yes, the authors used the word 「approximately.」) That works out to a mass of over 50 kilos per every square meter of earth』s surface, and one that』s an order of five magnitudes larger than that of the human beings who created it. Or so they estimate.

The diversity of stuff—the manufactured flotsam and jetsam of our daily lives—may even exceed the total diversity of biology throughout Earth』s history, the same research team asserts. This endless assembly of things and devices, moreover, interacts and evolves in its own dynamic, emergent way: 「In this sense,」 writes Haff (in another paper) 「one might say that technology is the next biology.」

It』s a thought-provoking thought.

On the one hand, says Haff, we can no longer live without the 「support structure and the services provided by technology」—the communication, transportation, energy, and other networks that developed to make human life on an increasingly crowded planet function in the first place.

On the other hand, we are positively drowning in it. Our days are consumed by consumption, our calendars an endless parade of Presidents』 Day sales, Black Fridays and Cyber Mondays. And each trip to the garage bin gets more laden than the last.

What this stuff-to-trash-to-stuff cycle does to our collective well-being is anybody』s guess. Our so-called e-waste alone has dark, if still imprecise implications for human health, say lots and lots of scientists and public institutions.

As I said, it』s too early to know what the effects of all of this will be. But as we head deeper into a realm of digital health technology, we should perhaps consider that the new whiz-bang thingamajigs we create today will surely end up atop the piles of thingamajigs we created yesterday.

Hmm. It does sound biological, after all. Call it the reproductive cycle of stuff.

大自然曾是人類文明「以外的荒野」，正如比爾·麥克基本在1989年的警世之作《自然的終結》中所說，它是「遠離人類的世界，人要適應它，並按它的規則出生和死亡。」

但麥克基本指出，我們實際上已經消滅了這個獨立存在的領域，也就是這個奇妙、自立而又不斷創造生命的王國，它在人類出現之前已經存在了無數個世代。

他說：「那兒還有些東西，但在原先自然所在的地方出現了我們發明的新『自然』」，在那裡，「每一立方碼空氣和每一立方英尺土壤都打上了人類不可磨滅的殘酷印記，或者說我們的符號。」

如今有些人把這個演化而來的領域（或者說地球的新表層）稱為「技術圈」，這個詞由杜克大學地質學家彼得·哈夫發明。這一層中充滿了「東西」。實際上，其中的人造物是如此之多，比如機械、摩天大樓、商品包裝、廢棄物和宜家傢具，幾乎已經不可能清楚地進行認知，更不用說測量了。然而，一個研究團隊最近發表的學術論文正是要弄清楚這個問題——科學真是惹人愛！

他們的結論是什麼呢？這些人造物的重量約為30萬億公噸（沒錯，他們用了「約為」）。平均算來，地球上每平方米就有50公斤的人造物，這比製造這些物品的人類的重量高了五個數量級。他們估算情況大致如此。

這些研究者認為，上述人造物，也就是製造出來為我們日常生活所用的這些零零碎碎的多樣性甚至可能超過了地球自誕生以來所有生物的多樣性。此外，這個物品和器具的無窮盡集合體正以它那種活躍的新方式進行互動和演化。哈夫（在另一篇論文中）寫道：「從這個角度看，或許可以說科技就是下一門生物學。」

這個觀點發人深省。

哈夫指出，一方面，沒有「技術提供的支持框架和服務」，我們就再也無法生存下去，這包括人類開發出的通信、交通、能源以及其他網路 ，它們就是要讓人類在這個越發擁擠的星球上正常生活。

另一方面，我們確實陷於其中。我們的生活中充斥著消費，我們的日曆上是永無止境的購物活動，比如總統日促銷、黑色星期五和剁手星期一。我們每次扔掉的垃圾都比上一次多。

這個商品-垃圾-商品的循環對整個人類的幸福有何影響眾說紛紜。許許多多科學家和公共機構都說，單就電子廢棄物而言，就算它對人類健康的影響還不完全明確，但一定是負面的。

就像我說的那樣，判斷所有這些會產生什麼樣的作用還為時過早。但隨著我們在數字健康領域的進一步探索，我們也許應該認為，今天我們創造的這些很棒的新玩意最終一定會覆蓋在昨天我們創造的那堆玩意之上。

嗯，畢竟這聽起來確實有些生物學的味道。那就叫它「東西」的循環繁衍吧。（財富中文網）

作者：Clifton Leaf

譯者：Charlie

審稿：詹妮