If you believe history is yet to come, the United States is still the place to be. Only in America can you find people trying to make cars fly, abolish human mortality and nurture robots with feelings. Yet America’s politics is remarkable for its resistance to new ideas. The gap between Washington’s dearth of creativity and the ferment beyond is widening. Every week, some audacious start-up aims to exploit the commercial potential of science. Many are too zany to succeed. A few will deserve to. Every week, it seems, a presidential campaign is launched. Some of the 2016 candidates are actively hostile to science. None, so far, have hinted at original ideas for fixing America’s problems. One will undeservedly succeed.
如果你相信人类还在继续创造历史，那么美国仍是你应该待的地方。只有在美国，你才能发现有人正尝试着让汽车飞起来、让人类长生不老、让机器人拥有感情。不过，美国政坛对新观念的抵制是引人注目的。在缺乏创造力的华盛顿与蓬勃发展的美国其余地方之间，鸿沟正在扩大。每周都会有些大胆的初创公司试图开发科技的商业潜力。很多都太过荒唐，无法成功。而一些公司则成功得实至名归。每周似乎都有一场总统竞选活动启动。2016年大选的一些候选人对科技表现出咄咄逼人的敌意。迄今为止，没有哪位候选人对解决美国的种种问题有什么原创性想法，虽然肯定还是会有一个人取得这场名不副实的胜利。