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If you can buy a home in the metaverse, why not on the moon? The heavenly body has already hosted visitors, played a key role in earthly geopolitics and may be home to untold mineral treasures. Traffic jams, collisions and debris all point to outer space facing some of the issues that bedevil planet earth. High time, reckons the neoliberal Adam Smith Institute, to consider privatisation.
如果你能在元宇宙里买到房子，为什么不能在月球上买呢？这个天体已经接待过访客，在地球的地缘政治中扮演了关键角色，而且可能是数不清的矿物宝藏的家园。交通堵塞、碰撞和碎片都表明外太空正面临着困扰地球的一些问题。新自由主义的亚当•斯密研究所(Adam Smith Institute)认为，是时候考虑私有化了。
This is a long shot, to put it mildly. As things stand, the moon — like other celestial bodies — cannot be appropriated by any sovereign or militia, under the Outer Space Treaty it is the “province of all mankind”. Changing that would require international consensus and a mindset shift rather too grand for a world struggling with earthly borders and reappraising globalisation.
往好了说，这也只是一脚“远射”，进球的机会很渺茫。目前的情况是，月球和其他天体一样，不能被任何主权国家或军事力量所占有，根据《外层空间条约》，它是“全人类的领土”。要改变这一点，需要国际共识和思维方式的转变，而这种转变对于一个深陷边界冲突和重新评估全球化的世界来说，未免过于宏大。
Virtually every country has lunar ambitions but the big muscle comes from the US, Russia and China, an uneasy set of bedfellows at the best of times. Increasingly, space is in the sights of individuals who have amassed earthly wealth: Elon Musk, Amazon’s Jeff Bezos and Virgin founder Richard Branson, among others. That illustrates the shift in motivations, from national pride to financial incentives. The global space economy was worth an estimated £270bn in 2019 and is projected to almost double to £490bn by the end of this decade.
事实上，每个国家都有登月的雄心，但最大的力量来自美国、俄罗斯和中国，在最好的情况下，这是一组令人不安的伙伴。越来越多的人开始关注太空，他们在地球上积累了财富，比如埃隆·马斯克(Elon Musk)、亚马逊(Amazon)的杰夫·贝佐斯(Jeff Bezos)和维珍航空(Virgin)的创始人理查德·布兰森(Richard Branson)等。这说明，登月的动机已经从民族自豪感转变为经济激励。2019年，全球空间经济价值约为2700亿英镑，预计到本世纪末，这一数字将几乎翻倍，达到4900亿英镑。
There would be losers too from a carve-up that allotted parcels to the modern equivalent of 16th century colonisers. Imagine a sovereign controlling not just a gas pipeline but entire communications. The UK has estimated that blocked access to global navigation satellite systems for just five days could cost the country £5.2bn. Consider too that the triumvirate of countries leading the way have vastly different ideas about both property and human rights.
将土地分块给现代的16世纪殖民者，也会有输家。想象一下，一个主权国家不仅控制着一条天然气管道，还控制着整个通信系统。英国估计，全球导航卫星系统仅被封锁5天，就可能使该国损失52亿英镑。再想想，这三个国家在财产和人权方面有着巨大的不同。
Rebecca Lowe, the author of the paper, proposes getting round this with temporary and conditional ownership of plots. Owners, more akin to long term renters, could not hand their plots down from generation to generation.
亚当•斯密研究所的这篇论文的作者丽贝卡•洛(Rebecca Lowe)建议，通过对地块的临时和有条件所有权来解决这一问题。业主，更类似于长期租客，不能将他们的土地一代一代传下去。
Because rent cannot be paid to the man in the moon, a philanthropic fund would take the money and redistribute it into areas of common good such as conservation, say, or scientific endeavours.
因为租金不能支付给月球上的人，一个慈善基金将把钱重新分配到公共利益的领域，比如环境保护或科学研究。
Plenty of critics see this as about as likely as chunks of moon going on sale at the local fromagerie. But precisely because humanity has made such a hash of carving up the earth, it is a worthwhile debate to start.
很多批评者认为，这个计划成功的可能性，就像把月球切成小块，在当地奶酪店出售一样渺茫。但是，正因为人类在瓜分地球方面做得如此糟糕，这才是一场值得开始的辩论。