纽约时报 沙特王储欲打造后现代生态乌托邦(3)（在线收听）

As M.B.S. conjures this brave new world - no journey will take more than 20 minutes! zero carbon emissions! - you get the sense that his chutzpah is nothing short of metaphysical.

当MBS变出这个勇敢的新世界时——任何旅程都不会超过20分钟！而且零碳排放！——你会感觉到他那大胆的行为简直是形而上学。

He appears to believe that nature itself is at his command.

他似乎相信大自然是由他指挥的。

This shouldn't be entirely surprising, because M.B.S. has been promoting equally outlandish ideas since 2017, when he first introduced Neom, the broader futurist development of which the Line forms a part. (The name is a portmanteau of Greek and Arabic words for "new" and "future.")

这并不完全令人惊讶，因为MBS自2017年首次提出Neom这一概念以来，就一直在推广同样天方夜谭的理念，Neom是一种更广泛的未来派发展，而The Line正是Neom的一部分。（这个名字由希腊语和阿拉伯语组成，表示“新的”和“未来”。）

The Neom prospectus described "a new way of life from birth to death reaching genetic mutations to increase human strength and I.Q.," according to a 2019 article in The Wall Street Journal.

《华尔街日报》2019年的一篇文章称，Neom的简介描述了“一种从出生到死亡的新生活方式，通过基因突变来增加人类的力量和智商”。

Cloud-seeding would bring rain to the desert.

人工降雨会给沙漠带来雨水。

The project includes serious, realistic planning on desalination, alternative energy and desert agriculture, I was told by Ali Shihabi, a member of the Neom advisory board.

Neom咨询委员会成员阿里·沙哈比告诉我，该项目包括对海水淡化、可替代能源和沙漠农业进行认真、现实的规划。

But those ideas were overshadowed by wild-eyed talk of super-high-speed trains, robotic maids and beaches with glowing sand.

但这些想法的光彩被超高速列车、机器人女佣和闪闪发光的沙滩的狂野言论所掩盖。

The hubris underlying these proposals, nourished by generations of yes men (including well-paid Western consultants), will be familiar to anyone who has spent time in Saudi Arabia.

一代又一代唯唯诺诺者（包括高薪的西方顾问）助长了这些提议背后的傲慢，任何在沙特阿拉伯待过的人都会熟悉这些提议。

Still, you might have expected a bit more circumspection from M.B.S., at least right now.

不过，至少现在，你可能还以为MBS会更谨慎一点。

This is the man who stands accused of ordering the gruesome murder of Jamal Khashoggi, the Saudi journalist who was lured to the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul in 2018, then strangled and dismembered with a bone saw by a team sent from Riyadh.

这就是被指控下令谋杀沙特记者贾马尔·哈苏吉的人，哈苏吉在2018年被引诱到沙特驻伊斯坦布尔领事馆，然后被从利雅得派出的一个小组勒死并用骨头锯肢解。

Khashoggi dared to write mildly critical columns in The Washington Post.

哈苏吉敢于在《华盛顿邮报》上撰写温和批评的专栏。

The details of his brutal killing shocked the world and made M.B.S. a pariah.

他残暴杀害的细节震惊了世界，MBS变得为人唾弃。

He has condemned the murder and denies any role in it. (The C.I.A. begs to differ.)

他谴责了这起谋杀案，否认与此有关。（中情局可不这么认为。）

Humility is not in M.B.S.'s genes, for better and worse.

不管怎样，MBS的基因里都没有谦逊这一概念。

He continues to harass and jail his critics as if the Khashoggi murder never came to light.

他继续骚扰和监禁他的批评者，就好像哈苏吉谋杀案从未曝光一样。

But his brashness has allowed him to hem in Saudi Arabia's religious establishment, putting an end to the kingdom's longtime promotion of poisonous Islamist doctrine.

但是，他的鲁莽让他在沙特阿拉伯的宗教机构受限，这终结了沙特长期宣扬恶毒的伊斯兰教义的进程。

He is relaxing the rigid constraints on cultural life, and that has made him immensely popular, especially among the young.

他正在放松对文化生活的严格限制，这使他非常受欢迎，特别是在年轻人之中。