TED | 人类为何能成为地球的“掌权者”？ - What explains the rise of humans?

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Seventy thousand years ago, our human ancestors were insignificant animals, just minding their own business in a corner of Africa with all the other animals. But now, few would disagree that humans dominate planet Earth; we've spread to every continent, and our actions determine the fate of other animals (and possibly Earth itself). How did we get from there to here? Historian Yuval Noah Harari suggests a surprising reason for the rise of humanity.

70000年前，人类祖先是微不足道的动物，在非洲的某个角落跟其他动物一起各自做事。但是现在，几乎没有人会否认人类在统治着地球。我们已经遍布每一个洲，我们的行为决定着其他动物的命运（并且可能是地球本身）。我们是怎么从过去变成现在这样子的呢？历史学家Yuval Noah Harari 讲述了关于人类崛起的一个让人惊奇的原因。

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 TED演讲文本  

70,000 years ago, our ancestors were insignificant animals. The most important thing to know about prehistoric humans is that they were unimportant. Their impact on the world was not much greater than that of jellyfish or fireflies or woodpeckers.

70000年前，我们的祖先是微不足道的动物。了解史前人类的最关键一点就是他们是无足轻重的。他们对地球影响并不比水母、萤火虫或啄木鸟大多少。

Today, in contrast, we control this planet. And the question is: How did we come from there to here? How did we turn ourselves from insignificant apes, minding their own business in a corner of Africa, into the rulers of planet Earth?

现在，反过来了，我们控制了这个星球。那么问题来了：我们是怎么从过去变成现在这样子呢？我们是如何从毫不起眼、在某个角落默默干活的猩猩，变成地球统治者的呢？

Usually, we look for the difference between us and all the other animals on the individual level. We want to believe -- I want to believe -- that there is something special about me, about my body, about my brain, that makes me so superior to a dog or a pig, or a chimpanzee.

通常，我们寻找自身与其他动物在个体上的差异。我们想去相信--我也想去相信-我自己是特别的，我的身体，我的大脑，让我比一只狗、一只猪或者一只猩猩更加优越。

But the truth is that, on the individual level, I'm embarrassingly similar to a chimpanzee. And if you take me and a chimpanzee and put us together on some lonely island, and we had to struggle for survival to see who survives better, I would definitely place my bet on the chimpanzee, not on myself.

然而事实是，在个体层面，我跟一只猩猩是如此让人尴尬地相似。如果你把我和一只猩猩一起放在一个孤独的小岛，同时看看我们谁能更好地生存下去。我肯定会赌那只猩猩赢，而不是我自己。

And this is not something wrong with me personally. I guess if they took almost any one of you, and placed you alone with a chimpanzee on some island, the chimpanzee would do much better. The real difference between humans and all other animals is not on the individual level; it's on the collective level.

这不是我个人有什么问题。我估计，如果他们把你们任何一个人和一只猩猩放在某个小岛上，那只猩猩也会活得比你们更好。人类与其他动物的真正区别不是在于个体层面，而是集体层面。

Humans control the planet because they are the only animals that can cooperate both flexibly and in very large numbers. Now, there are other animals -- like the social insects, the bees, the ants -- that can cooperate in large numbers, but they don't do so flexibly.

人类控制地球是因为他们是唯一能够大规模并灵活地合作的动物。是的，有其他动物也能够大规模地协同，比如蜜蜂、蚂蚁这类社会性昆虫，但是他们做不到那么灵活。

Their cooperation is very rigid. There is basically just one way in which a beehive can function. And if there's a new opportunity or a new danger, the bees cannot reinvent the social system overnight. They cannot, for example, execute the queen and establish a republic of bees, or a communist dictatorship of worker bees.

他们之间的合作是非常僵硬的。基本上，一个蜂巢只能通过一种方式来运转。如果面对新的机会或危机，蜜蜂不能在一夜之间重新发明一个社会系统。比如，他们不能够处决蜂后并建立一个蜜蜂共和国，或者一个蜜蜂工人阶级专政gongchan主义政权。

Other animals, like the social mammals -- the wolves, the elephants, the dolphins, the chimpanzees -- they can cooperate much more flexibly, but they do so only in small numbers, because cooperation among chimpanzees is based on intimate knowledge, one of the other.

其他动物，比如狼、大象、海豚、猩猩这类社会性哺乳动物，他们能够更灵活地合作，但是他们只能在小规模地合作，因为猩猩之间的合作只是基于一只对另一只猩猩的熟悉。

I'm a chimpanzee and you're a chimpanzee, and I want to cooperate with you. I need to know you personally. What kind of chimpanzee are you? Are you a nice chimpanzee? Are you an evil chimpanzee? Are you trustworthy?

我是一只猩猩，你也是一只猩猩，我想跟你合作。我们需要私下地了解你。你是什么样的猩猩？你是一只好猩猩？你是一只坏猩猩？你值得信任吗？

If I don't know you, how can I cooperate with you? The only animal that can combine the two abilities together and cooperate both flexibly and still do so in very large numbers is us, Homo sapiens.

如果我不知道你，我怎么能跟你合作呢？唯一能够同时掌握两种能力，能够灵活地合作并能非常大规模地去做的动物就是我们，现代人。

One versus one, or even 10 versus 10, chimpanzees might be better than us. But, if you pit 1,000 humans against 1,000 chimpanzees, the humans will win easily, for the simple reason that a thousand chimpanzees cannot cooperate at all. And if you now try to cram 100,000 chimpanzees into Oxford Street, or into Wembley Stadium, or Tienanmen Square or the Vatican, you will get chaos, complete chaos. Just imagine Wembley Stadium with 100,000 chimpanzees. Complete madness.

在单对单，甚至10个对10个的情况下，黑猩猩也许比人类强。然而，如果1000个人类与同等数量的猩猩对抗，人类能够轻易取胜。理由很简单，那1000只黑猩猩完全不能协同合作。如果你把10万只黑猩猩塞进牛津街，温布利球场，天安门广场或者梵蒂冈，你看到的将会是完全混乱的局面。想象下10万只猩猩涌进温布利球场的画面，简直让人彻底抓狂。

In contrast, humans normally gather there in tens of thousands, and what we get is not chaos, usually. What we get is extremely sophisticated and effective networks of cooperation. All the huge achievements of humankind throughout history, whether it's building the pyramids or flying to the moon, have been based not on individual abilities, but on this ability to cooperate flexibly in large numbers.

当人类成千上万地聚集在一起，通常我们不会陷入混乱。恰恰相反，我们看到的是相当精细有效的协作组织网络。人类史上所有的显著成就，无论是建造金字塔或飞奔月球，都并非凭借一人之力，而是基于大规模灵活协作的能力之上。

Think even about this very talk that I'm giving now: I'm standing here in front of an audience of about 300 or 400 people, most of you are complete strangers to me. Similarly, I don't really know all the people who have organized and worked on this event. I don't know the pilot and the crew members of the plane that brought me over here, yesterday, to London. I don't know the people who invented and manufactured this microphone and these cameras, which are recording what I'm saying. I don't know the people who wrote all the books and articles that I read in preparation for this talk. And I certainly don't know all the people who might be watching this talk over the Internet, somewhere in Buenos Aires or in New Delhi.

试想一下我正在做的演讲：我站在这里面对着300或者400号观众，大多数都未曾谋面。同样，我不怎么认识演讲组织方的工作人员，或者昨天载我到伦敦的飞行师及飞机上的所有机组人员。我也不认识正在记录我演讲内容的麦克风及摄像机的发明制造者，或者我为这次演讲准备而阅读的书及文章的作者。我当然也不知道在布宜诺斯艾利斯或新德里所有通过网络观看这次演讲的人。

Nevertheless, even though we don't know each other, we can work together to create this global exchange of ideas. This is something chimpanzees cannot do. They communicate, of course, but you will never catch a chimpanzee traveling to some distant chimpanzee band to give them a talk about bananas or about elephants, or anything else that might interest chimpanzees.

然而，即使对彼此毫不了解，我们依然可以一起完成这次世界范围的思想交流。这个是黑猩猩没法做到的。当然，它们可以交流，但你绝不会看到它们跑到老远去给黑猩猩群体作关于香蕉、大象或其它可能吸引它们的演讲。

Now cooperation is, of course, not always nice; all the horrible things humans have been doing throughout history -- and we have been doing some very horrible things -- all those things are also based on large-scale cooperation. Prisons are a system of cooperation; slaughterhouses are a system of cooperation; concentration camps are a system of cooperation. Chimpanzees don't have slaughterhouses and prisons and concentration camps.

协作当然并不总是带来好的结果。人类过去及现在所做过的所有恐怖事情，--我们一直在一些非常恐怖的事情--都是基于大规模的协作。监狱，屠杀场，集中营都是协作系统，而黑猩猩不会有这些。

Now suppose I've managed to convince you perhaps that yes, we control the world because we can cooperate flexibly in large numbers. The next question that immediately arises in the mind of an inquisitive listener is: How, exactly, do we do it? What enables us alone, of all the animals, to cooperate in such a way? The answer is our imagination.

现在假设我已成功说服你相信这点--由于人类可以大规模灵活协作，我们在掌控着这个世界。好奇心强的听众脑中浮现的下一个即时问题则是:我们具体是如何做到的？是什么让我们从所有动物中脱颖而出，可以进行如此大规模协作？想象力是答案。

We can cooperate flexibly with countless numbers of strangers, because we alone, of all the animals on the planet, can create and believe fictions, fictional stories.

我们之所以可以跟无数的陌生人灵活进行合作，那是因为在这星球上所有的动物当中，唯独我们，懂得创造和愿意相信虚构出来的故事。

And as long as everybody believes in the same fiction, everybody obeys and follows the same rules, the same norms, the same values.

一旦每个人都相信同一个虚构的故事，每个人就会遵循统一的规则，统一的行为规范和统一的价值观。

All other animals use their communication system only to describe reality. A chimpanzee may say, "Look! There's a lion, let's run away!" Or, "Look! There's a banana tree over there! Let's go and get bananas!"

所有其他的动物只用他们的沟通系统去描述现实。（好比如）一只大猩猩会说：“看！来了只狮子，我们赶紧跑吧！”或者“看！那里有棵香蕉树！我们过去摘香蕉吧！”

Humans, in contrast, use their language not merely to describe reality, but also to create new realities, fictional realities. A human can say, "Look, there is a god above the clouds! And if you don't do what I tell you to do, when you die, God will punish you and send you to hell."

相反，人类不仅用他们的语言描述现实，也用来创造新的、虚拟的现实。人类会说：“看！上帝就在我们的云端之上（监视着众生）！如果你不按照我的旨意去行事，你死去的时候就会被上帝惩罚，诅咒你下地狱去。”

And if you all believe this story that I've invented, then you will follow the same norms and laws and values, and you can cooperate.

如果你们相信了我所创造出来的故事，你们就会去遵循统一的行为准则、规则和价值了。然后你就可以与他人合作了。

This is something only humans can do. You can never convince a chimpanzee to give you a banana by promising him, "... after you die, you'll go to chimpanzee heaven ..." (Laughter) "... and you'll receive lots and lots of bananas for your good deeds. So now give me this banana."

这一切只有人类才可以做到。你是永远无法说服一只大猩猩会给你一根香蕉，仅仅承诺他说：“你死了之后，将会升上大猩猩的天堂（笑声），你会因为你现在的德行而获得非常多的香蕉。所以赠我一根香蕉吧！”

No chimpanzee will ever believe such a story. Only humans believe such stories, which is why we control the world, whereas the chimpanzees are locked up in zoos and research laboratories.

从来没有猩猩会相信这种故事，只有人类才会相信。这就是为什么我们能操控着这个世界，而大猩猩它们只能被所在动物园和实验室里面。

Now you may find it acceptable that yes, in the religious field, humans cooperate by believing in the same fictions. Millions of people come together to build a cathedral or a mosque or fight in a crusade or a jihad, because they all believe in the same stories about God and heaven and hell.

现在你或许会开始接受——没错，在宗教的领域里面，人类通过深信同一个故事来去通力合作。成千上百万的人会齐聚一起，大兴土木建造一间天主教堂或者一座清真寺，或是一起在十字军东征或护教运动中并肩作战。因为他们都深深相信同一个关于上帝、天堂和地狱的故事。

But what I want to emphasize is that exactly the same mechanism underlies all other forms of mass-scale human cooperation, not only in the religious field.

但我更加想强调的是，正正是这同一种机理可以解释其它所有形式的人类大规模合作活动，而不仅仅在宗教领域中才适用。

Take, for example, the legal field. Most legal systems today in the world are based on a belief in human rights. But what are human rights?

举个例子，在法律的领域中，世界上现今大部分的法律体系是基于我们对于人权的信念。但是，人权是什么呢？

Human rights, just like God and heaven, are just a story that we've invented. They are not an objective reality; they are not some biological effect about homo sapiens.

人权正如上帝和天堂一样，它只是我们创造出来的故事而已。它们并非客观存在的实际，它们也不是某种关于人类的生物学作用。

Take a human being, cut him open, look inside, you will find the heart, the kidneys, neurons, hormones, DNA, but you won't find any rights.

拿一个人，切开他看看里面的东西，你会找到心脏、肾脏、神经元、荷尔蒙激素、DNA，但是你不会找到一种叫“权利”的东西。

The only place you find rights are in the stories that we have invented and spread around over the last few centuries. They may be very positive stories, very good stories, but they're still just fictional stories that we've invented.

你唯一可以找到权利的地方，只有在过去几个世纪里我们创造出来并四处传播宣扬开来的故事当中。它们或许是很积极向上的、很好的故事愿景，但它们始终只是我们凭空制造出来的故事。

The same is true of the political field. The most important factors in modern politics are states and nations. But what are states and nations? They are not an objective reality.

这一规律也适用于政治领域。现代政治中最重要的因素就是州与国家。但是什么是州和国家？它们不是客观现实。

A mountain is an objective reality. You can see it, you can touch it, you can ever smell it. But a nation or a state, like Israel or Iran or France or Germany, this is just a story that we've invented and became extremely attached to.The same is true of the economic field. The most important actors today in the global economy are companies and corporations. Many of you today, perhaps, work for a corporation, like Google or Toyota or McDonald's. What exactly are these things? They are what lawyers call legal fictions. They are stories invented and maintained by the powerful wizards we call lawyers.

一座山是客观现实。你可以看到它，触摸它，甚至闻到它。但一个国家或一个州，像是伊斯兰或伊朗或法国或德国，只是我们发明并极度迷恋的一个故事。经济领域也如此。当今全球经济中最重要的角色就是公司和企业了。今天，你们许多人，也许为一个公司工作，比如谷歌或丰田或麦当劳。这些公司到底是什么呢？它们是律师所谓的法律虚拟。他们是被我们称为力量强大的巫师的律师所发明并维持的教义。

(Laughter) And what do corporations do all day? Mostly, they try to make money. Yet, what is money? Again, money is not an objective reality; it has no objective value. Take this green piece of paper, the dollar bill. Look at it -- it has no value. You cannot eat it, you cannot drink it, you cannot wear it.

（笑声）这些公司整天在做什么呢？主要来说，它们努力挣钱。但是，什么是钱呢？同样，钱也不是客观现实；它没有客观价值。拿这张绿色的纸 美钞 来说吧。 看看它，它没有价值。你不能吃它，你不能喝它，你不能穿上他。

But then came along these master storytellers -- the big bankers, the finance ministers, the prime ministers -- and they tell us a very convincing story: "Look, you see this green piece of paper? It is actually worth 10 bananas."

但是随后就来了这些大师级别的讲故事的人――那些大银行家，财政部长，首相。――他们给我们讲了一个令人信服的故事：“看，你看到这张绿色的纸了吗？它实际上值10个香蕉。”

And if I believe it, and you believe it, and everybody believes it, it actually works. I can take this worthless piece of paper, go to the supermarket, give it to a complete stranger whom I've never met before, and get, in exchange, real bananas which I can actually eat. This is something amazing.

如果我相信这个故事，你也相信，大家都相信，它就起作用了。我可以拿着这张无价值的纸，去超市，把它给我素未谋面的陌生人，作为交换得到我能真正吃到的香蕉。这是令人惊奇的事儿。

You could never do it with chimpanzees. Chimpanzees trade, of course: "Yes, you give me a coconut, I'll give you a banana." That can work. But, you give me a worthless piece of paper and you except me to give you a banana? No way! What do you think I am, a human? (Laughter)

你对黑猩猩就永远不能做这种事儿。当然，黑猩猩也贸易：“是的，你给我一个椰子，我会给你一个香蕉。”那能行得通。但是，你给我一张没价值的纸然后你希望我给你一个香蕉？没门儿！你以为我是什么，人类吗？（笑声）

Money, in fact, is the most successful story ever invented and told by humans, because it is the only story everybody believes. Not everybody believes in God, not everybody believes in human rights, not everybody believes in nationalism, but everybody believes in money, and in the dollar bill.

钱，事实上，是人类发明并讲述的最成功的故事，因为它是唯一一个大家都相信的故事。不是所有人都相信神，不是所有人都相信人权，不是所有人都相信民族主义，但是所有人都相信钱和美钞。

Take, even, Osama Bin Laden. He hated American politics and American religion and American culture, but he had no objection to American dollars. He was quite fond of them, actually. (Laughter)

甚至拿奥萨玛 本拉登来说吧。他憎恨美国政治美国宗教和美国文化，但是他一点都不反对美元。事实上，他还想当喜欢它们。（笑声）

To conclude, then: We humans control the world because we live in a dual reality. All other animals live in an objective reality. Their reality consists of objective entities, like rivers and trees and lions and elephants.

那么，总结一下吧：我们人类控制着世界因为我们生活在双重现实中。所有其他的动物生活在一个客观现实中。他们的现实由客观的存在组成，像河流，树木，狮子和大象。

We humans, we also live in an objective reality. In our world, too, there are rivers and trees and lions and elephants.

我们人类也生活在客观世界里。在我们的世界也有河水，树木，狮子和大象。

But over the centuries, we have constructed on top of this objective reality a second layer of fictional reality, a reality made of fictional entities, like nations, like gods, like money, like corporations.

在过去几个世纪，我们在这个客观存在的世界之上又建立了第二层虚拟的现实。这现实是基于虚拟的实体而建立的，如国家，上帝，金钱，公司。

And what is amazing is that as history unfolded, this fictional reality became more and more powerful so that today, the most powerful forces in the world are these fictional entities.

而且更令人惊讶的是，研究历史我们会发现，这虚拟的现实越来越有强大而有生命力。以至于今天，世界上最有力的约束武器竟然是这些虚拟实体。

Today, the very survival of rivers and trees and lions and elephants depends on the decisions and wishes of fictional entities, like the United States, like Google, like the World Bank -- entities that exist only in our own imagination.

时至今日，河流，树木，狮子，大象的生死存亡取决于这些虚拟实体的决定与意愿，如美国，谷歌，世界银行等，这些仅在我们人类的规则中有意义的虚拟实体。

Thank you.

谢谢

(Applause)

鼓掌。

Bruno Giussani: Yuval, you have a new book out.

布鲁诺：尤哇，你出了一本新书哦~

After Sapiens, you wrote another one, and it's out in Hebrew, but not yet translated into ...

在《现代人》后，你用希伯来语写了一本新书，已经上市了。但还没翻译成……

Yuval Noah Harari: I'm working on the translation as we speak.

尤哇：我正在翻译这本书。

BG: In the book, if I understand it correctly, you argue that the amazing breakthroughs that we are experiencing right now not only will potentially make our lives better, but they will create -- and I quote you -- "... new classes and new class struggles, just as the industrial revolution did."

布鲁诺：在书里面，如果我理解得没错的话，你认为我们现在经历这些惊人的突破和进步不仅仅会逐渐令我们的生活变得更好，而且会创造，恕我引用原文“一个新的阶级和阶级斗争，正如工业革命一样”。

Can you elaborate for us?

可以详细为我们讲讲吗？

YNH: Yes. In the industrial revolution, we saw the creation of a new class of the urban proletariat.

是的，在工业革命，我们见到一个新的，无产阶级的诞生。

And much of the political and social history of the last 200 years involved what to do with this class, and the new problems and opportunities.

而且，在过去200年的政治和社会历史中，这个阶级，以及一些新的机遇和问题也与此有关。

Now, we see the creation of a new massive class of useless people. (Laughter)

现在我们可以看到一批数量庞大的废柴阶级。

As computers become better and better in more and more fields, there is a distinct possibility that computers will out-perform us in most tasks and will make humans redundant.

正如现在电脑在很多方面都越来越好，很有可能电脑会比我们表现更棒，令人类变得多余。

And then the big political and economic question of the 21st century will be, "What do we need humans for?", or at least, "What do we need so many humans for?"

而21世纪在一个在政治和经济方面的大问题是“我们要人类来做什么？”，至少“我们要那么多人干嘛？”

BG: Do you have an answer in the book?

布鲁诺：那你在书里面有回答吗？

YNH: At present, the best guess we have is to keep them happy with drugs and computer games ... (Laughter) but this doesn't sound like a very appealing future.

目前，让这些人开心的最佳办法就是让他们多打游戏、多磕药。虽然这并不是一个光明的未来。

BG: Ok, so you're basically saying in the book and now, that for all the discussion about the growing evidence of significant economic inequality, we are just kind of at the beginning of the process?

诺鲁诺：好的。那你在书中和现在都传达的意思是，现在，我们所有讨论的不断出现的明显的经济不平衡的现状也只是这个过程的开始？

YNH: Again, it's not a prophecy; it's seeing all kinds of possibilities before us. One possibility is this creation of a new massive class of useless people. Another possibility is the division of humankind into different biological castes, with the rich being upgraded into virtual gods, and the poor being degraded to this level of useless people.

尤哇：再次强调，这也只是预测。我们在探索所有的可能性。一种可能是产生一个庞大新的阶级——无用之人。另一个可能是人类会分成不同的阶级，有钱人就好像看得见的神一样。而穷人只能慢慢降级到无用之人的阶级。

BG: I feel there is another TED talk coming up in a year or two. Thank you, Yuval, for making the trip.

布鲁诺：我感觉这一两年内你会在这里有一个新的TED演讲哦。谢谢你，尤哇，特地飞过来为我们讲述。

YNH: Thanks! (Applause)

尤哇说：谢谢！鼓掌。

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