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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.
如果你能在元宇宙裏買到房子，爲什麼不能在月球上買呢？這個天體已經接待過訪客，在地球的地緣政治中扮演了關鍵角色，而且可能是數不清的礦物寶藏的家園。交通堵塞、碰撞和碎片都表明外太空正面臨著困擾地球的一些問題。新自由主義的亞當•斯密研究所(Adam Smith Institute)認爲，是時候考慮私有化了。
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.
往好了說，這也只是一腳「遠射」，進球的機會很渺茫。目前的情況是，月球和其他天體一樣，不能被任何主權國家或軍事力量所佔有，根據《外層空間條約》，它是「全人類的領土」。要改變這一點，需要國際共識和思維方式的轉變，而這種轉變對於一個深陷邊界衝突和重新評估全球化的世界來說，未免過於宏大。
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.
事實上，每個國家都有登月的雄心，但最大的力量來自美國、俄羅斯和中國，在最好的情況下，這是一組令人不安的夥伴。越來越多的人開始關注太空，他們在地球上積累了財富，比如伊隆·馬斯克(Elon Musk)、亞馬遜(Amazon)的傑夫·貝佐斯(Jeff Bezos)和維珍航空(Virgin)的創辦人理查德·布蘭森(Richard Branson)等。這說明，登月的動機已經從民族自豪感轉變爲經濟激勵。2019年，全球空間經濟價值約爲2700億英鎊，預計到本世紀末，這一數字將幾乎翻倍，達到4900億英鎊。
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.
將土地分塊給現代的16世紀殖民者，也會有輸家。想像一下，一個主權國家不僅控制著一條天然氣管道，還控制著整個通信系統。英國估計，全球導航衛星系統僅被封鎖5天，就可能使該國損失52億英鎊。再想想，這三個國家在財產和人權方面有著巨大的不同。
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.
亞當•斯密研究所的這篇論文的作者麗貝卡•洛(Rebecca Lowe)建議，透過對地塊的臨時和有條件所有權來解決這一問題。業主，更類似於長期租客，不能將他們的土地一代一代傳下去。
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.
因爲租金不能支付給月球上的人，一個慈善基金將把錢重新分配到公共利益的領域，比如環境保護或科學研究。
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.
很多批評者認爲，這個計劃成功的可能性，就像把月球切成小塊，在當地乳酪店出售一樣渺茫。但是，正因爲人類在瓜分地球方面做得如此糟糕，這纔是一場值得開始的辯論。