演讲者：尤瓦尔·诺亚·赫拉利 (Yuval Noah Harari)

2015年，《人类简史：从动物到上帝》的作者 尤瓦尔·赫拉利 在TED做了一个相关演讲。

What explains the rise of humans？  为什么人类会崛起？

(相关资料图)

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.

七万年前，我们的人类祖先是微不足道的动物，和其他所有动物一样，在非洲一角，只管他们自己的事。但是现在，很少有人会不同意人类主宰地球；人类的足迹已经遍及每个大陆，我们的行为决定了其他动物（可能还有地球本身）的命运。我们是如何从那时到现在的？历史学家尤瓦尔·诺亚·赫拉利（Yuval Noah Harari）提出了人类崛起的一个令人惊讶的原因。

因为十分赞同演讲中的观点，所以整理了演讲稿双语版，供大家阅读并思考

Yuval Noah Harari: 《What explains the rise of humans?》

尤瓦尔·诺亚·赫拉利：《为什么人类会崛起？》 演讲稿双语版

00:01

Seventy-thousand (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. 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?

七万年前，我们的先祖只是无足轻重的动物。关于史前人类所要了解的最重要的事是他们并不重要。 他们对这个世界的影响，并不比水母、萤火虫或啄木鸟大。 今天, 我们却称霸这个星球。 所以问题是：我们是怎么实现这一步的呢？ 我们是如何把自己从 在非洲的一角自生自灭、毫不起眼的人猿，变成地球主宰者的呢？

00:39

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. 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. 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.

通常，我们会在个体水平上寻找我们与其它所有动物的差异。我们想要相信 － 我想要相信，我有与众不同之处，我的身体、我的大脑，让我比狗、猪，或是黑猩猩更高等。 但事实却是尴尬的，在个体层面上，我和黑猩猩很相似。并且如果把我和一头黑猩猩放在孤岛上，我们必须努力生存以便比较我们之间谁能生存的更好，我一定会赌是黑猩猩，而不是我自己。 这不是我个人的问题， 我猜如果把你们中的任何一个人和一头黑猩猩一起放在孤岛上， 黑猩猩几乎绝对会生存得好很多。

01:38

The real difference between humans and all other animals is not on the individual level; it's on the collective level. 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. 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.

让人类与其它动物分别开来的根本特质，不是在个体层面上，而是在群体层面上。人类能称霸这个星球是因为他们是唯一可以灵活大规模合作的动物。 有一些其它动物，像那些社会性昆虫，蜜蜂、蚂蚁，它们也可以大规模地合作，但没有像我们这么灵活。它们的合作方式十分死板。 蜂巢总是用同一种方式运转。如果出现了新的机遇或危险，蜜蜂也无法很快改造他们的社会系统。比如说，它们无法处死蜂后并建立蜜蜂共和国，或工蜂领导的共产主义专政。

02:32

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. 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? If I don't know you, how can I cooperate with you?

其他的动物，像群居的哺乳类动物， 比如 狼、大象、海豚、黑猩猩，它们可以更灵活地合作，但只能是小规模的， 因为黑猩猩合作的基础是相互之间的熟悉。 要是你我都是黑猩猩，我想和你合作，我需要先了解你。你是哪种黑猩猩？ 好的黑猩猩？ 还是坏的黑猩猩？ 你值得信赖吗？ 如果我不了解你， 我怎么和你合作呢？

03:09

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. One versus one, or even 10 versus 10, chimpanzees might be better than us. But, if you put 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 Tiananmen Square or the Vatican, you will get chaos, complete chaos. Just imagine Wembley Stadium with 100,000 chimpanzees. Complete madness.

唯一能将这两种能力结合在一起，能灵活地大规模合作的动物，是我们——智人。 一对一，甚至十对十， 黑猩猩也许比我们强。  但是，如果你让1000个人类对抗1000个黑猩猩，人类将轻易获胜。因为一个简单的原因，一千只黑猩猩根本无法合作。并且如果你尝试把十万头黑猩猩放进牛津大街、或温布利体育场、或天安门广场、或梵蒂冈， 那儿绝对会陷入混乱，完全混乱。 想象一下，温布利体育馆里有十万只黑猩猩，完全是疯了。

04:00

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 (only) on individual abilities, but on this ability to cooperate flexibly in large numbers.

相比之下，经常会有几万人聚集在那里，通常产生的也不是混乱，反而是极其复杂和有效的合作网络。人类历史上所有的巨大成就，无论是建造金字塔还是登月（飞向月球），都不（仅仅）是基于个体能力，而是基于大规模灵活合作的能力。

04:31

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.

甚至想想我现在正在进行的这个演讲：我站在三四百个人面前，你们中的大多数我完全不认识。同样地，我也真的不认识所有组织和为这个活动工作的人。 我不认识昨天带我飞抵伦敦的飞行员和机组人员。我不认识发明和制造 这些正在记录我的演讲的麦克风和摄像机的人。我也不认识，在准备这个演讲时，我所读的所有书籍和文章的作者。 我当然也不知道，可能在布宜诺斯艾利斯或是在新德里，通过网络观看这个演讲的人。

05:24

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，尽管我们不认识彼此， 我们却可以共同合作来进行这次全球思想交流。这是黑猩猩所做不到的。当然，它们也交流，但你不会看到一只黑猩猩去到某个遥远的黑猩猩群体中，做一个关于香蕉或大象的演讲，或关于其他任何一个能引起黑猩猩兴趣的东西的演讲。

06:05

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.

合作当然不总是好的。历史上人们做过的那些可怕的事情，我们的确做过一些非常恐怖的事，所有这些事也是基于大规模合作。 监狱是一种合作体系，屠宰场是一种合作体系，集中营是一种合作体系。黑猩猩是没有屠宰场、监狱、和集中营的。

06:24

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

现在假设我已经成功地使你相信，我们称霸世界是因为我们可以灵活地进行大规模合作，也许是的。 好奇的听众的脑海里立即浮现的下一个问题将是： 我们是怎么做到的呢？ 是什么让我们，在这个星球上的所有动物中，只有我们能以这种方式合作呢？ 答案是我们的想象力。 我们之所以可以和无数陌生人一起合作， 因为在这星球上的所有动物中，只有我们能创造并相信虚构的故事。只要大家都相信同样的虚构故事， 每个人便会遵守同样的规定， 同样的准则，同样的价值观。

07:18

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!" 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."

其他所有动物都只使用他们的交流系统来描述事实。黑猩猩可能说：“看！有一头狮子！咱们快跑！” 或是：“看！有一颗香蕉树！咱们去摘香蕉吧！” 相比之下，人类不仅使用他们的语言来描述现实，而且还使用他们的语言来创造新的现实，虚构的现实。人类可以说：“看，上帝在云霄之上！如果你不按照我的吩咐去做，当你死的时候，上帝会惩罚你，让你下地狱。”

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. 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." 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.

如果你们都相信我创造的这个故事，那么你们将遵循同样的准则、法律和价值观，你们便可以合作。你永远无法说服黑猩猩给你一根香蕉，通过承诺他，“......你死后，你会到黑猩猩的天堂......”（笑声）“…...到时候你会因为你的善行而收到很多很多的香蕉。所以现在把这根香蕉给我。”根本没有黑猩猩会相信这样的故事。只有人类才会相信这样的故事。这就是为什么我们称霸世界，而黑猩猩则被关在动物园和实验室里。

08:34

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. 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.

现在或许你可以接受，在宗教领域，人类通过相信相同的虚构故事来合作。数百万人聚集在一起共同建造大教堂或清真寺，或者在（中世纪的）十字军东征战争或（为保卫伊斯兰进行的）抵抗战争（又称圣战）中战斗，因为他们都相信关于上帝、天堂和地狱的相同的故事。但我想强调的是，正是这相同的机制，支持着所有其他形式的大规模人类合作，不仅仅是在宗教领域。

09:11

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? 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 effects about homo sapiens. 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. 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.

以法律领域为例。当今世界上大多数法律制度都基于（人们）对人权的信仰。但什么是人权？人权，就像上帝和天堂一样，只是我们创造的一个故事。它们不是客观现实。 它们不是关于智人的一些生物学效应。 找一个人，切开他，往里面看，你会发现心脏，肾脏，神经元，荷尔蒙，脱氧核糖核酸（DNA），但你不会找到任何权利。 你唯一能找到权利的地方是我们在过去几个世纪里创造出来并传播的故事。它们可能是非常正面的故事，非常好的故事，但它们仍然只是我们虚构的故事。

10:03

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. A mountain is an objective reality. You can see it, you can touch it, you can even 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.

政治领域也一样（这同样适用于政治领域）。现代政治中最重要的因素是国家和民族。但什么是国家和民族？它们不是客观现实。一座山是客观现实。你可以看到它，你可以触摸它，你甚至可以闻到它（的气味）。但是一个国家，比如以色列、伊朗、法国或德国，这只是我们创造并变得非常依赖的一个故事。

10:34

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. (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.

经济领域也一样（这同样适用于经济领域）。当今全球经济中最重要的参与者是大大小小的公司和企业。今天，你们中的许多人可能都在为公司工作，比如谷歌、丰田或麦当劳。这些东西到底是什么呢？它们就是律师所说的法律虚拟。它们是由我们称之为律师的强大巫师创造和维护的故事。（笑声） 那么企业整天都在做什么呢？大多数情况下，他们都在努力赚钱。然而，钱是什么呢？ 同样，钱也不是客观现实；它没有客观价值。

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. 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." 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. 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)

拿着这张绿色的纸，美元钞票。看看它——它没有任何（客观）价值。你不能吃它，不能喝它，也不能穿它。但后来这些讲故事的大师来了，大银行家、财政部长、首相，他们告诉我们一个非常有说服力的故事： “看，你看到这张绿色的纸了吗？它实际上值10根香蕉。” 如果我相信它，你相信它，每个人都相信它，它便真的有效。我可以拿着这张毫无价值的纸，去超市，把它给一个素未谋面的陌生人，换来我可以吃的真正的香蕉。这是一件惊奇的事。你永远不能和黑猩猩做这件事。黑猩猩当然也会交易：“是的，你给我一个椰子，我就给你一根香蕉。这行得通。但是，你给我一张没有价值的纸，就期望我给你一根香蕉？没门！你觉得我是什么，人类吗？

12:24

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. 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)

事实上，钱是人类迄今为止创造并讲述的最成功的故事，因为它是唯一一个每个人都相信的故事。不是所有人都相信上帝，不是所有人都相信人权，不是所有人都信奉民族主义，但每个人都相信钱，相信美元纸币。 甚至是本拉登，他恨美国的政治、美国的宗教、美国的文化，但他绝对对美金没有意见。事实上，他挺爱它们的。（笑声）

13:04

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

总结一下：我们人类称霸世界，因为我们生活在双重现实中。所有其它动物都只生活在客观现实中。它们的现实由客观实体组成，像河流、树木、狮子和大象。 我们人类也活在客观现实中。在我们的世界里，也有河流、树木、狮子和大象。但经过几千年，我们已经在这客观现实上，建构了第二层虚构现实，一个由虚构实体构成的现实，比如国家、神、钱、公司。令人惊讶的是，随着历史逐渐发展，这个虚构的现实变得越来越强大，于是今天，世界上最强大的力量就是这些虚构的实体。今天，河流、树木、狮子和大象的生存竟取决于这些虚构实体的决定和意愿，像美国、谷歌、世界银行 － 这些只存在于我们想象中的实体。

14:32  Thank you. (Applause)  

演讲结束后，主持人和演讲者的交谈

14:44

Bruno Giussani: Yuval, you have a new book out. After Sapiens, you wrote another one, and it's out in Hebrew, but not yet translated into ...

Bruno Giussani：尤瓦尔，你有一本新书出版了。 继《人类简史》后，你又写了一本书，用西伯利亚出版的，但还没翻译成......

14:50

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

尤瓦尔·诺亚·.赫拉利： 我目前正在进行这本书的翻译工作。

14:53

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." Can you elaborate for us?

在这本书里，如果我理解得没错的话，你认为我们现在经历的这些令人惊讶的突破，不只会很可能让我们的生活更好，也可能创造 － 引用你说的 － “新的阶级和新的阶级斗争，就像工业革命时期一样。”  你可以给我们详细解释一下吗？

15:12

YNH: Yes. In the industrial revolution, we saw the creation of a new class of the urban proletariat. 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. Now, we see the creation of a new massive class of useless people. (Laughter) 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. 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?"

赫拉利：好的。在工业革命中，我们见证了一个新阶级的诞生——城市无产阶级。 过去两百年的大部分政治和社会历史，都与怎么应对这个阶层以及新的问题和机会有关。现在，我们见证了新的庞大阶级的诞生——由无用之人组成的阶级。（笑声）  随着电脑在越来越多的领域变得越来越好用（随着电脑应用在越来越多的领域中并不断精进），一个很明显的可能就是电脑会在大多数任务中胜过我们，使人类变得多余。如果真是这样的话，21世纪的一个重大政治和经济问题将是，“我们需要人类干什么？”或者至少是，“我们需要这么多人干什么？”

15:58

BG: Do you have an answer in the book?

BG：在书中，你对这个问题有解答吗？

16:01

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.

赫拉利：目前，我们能想到的最好的猜想是，能用药物、电子游戏让他们保持幸福 （笑声）。 但这好像并不是一个非常吸引人的未来。

16:11

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?

BG：好的，所以你基本上已经在书中和现在说了这个问题。那，对于所有关于显著经济不平等的日益增强的证据的讨论，我们仅仅在这个过程的开始而已吗？

16:22

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.

哈拉利：再说一遍，这不是预言，只是展现我们面前的所有可能性。其中一种可能是诞生了一个新的庞大阶级——由无用之人组成的阶级。另一种可能是把人类分成不同的“生物性”社会等级，富人升级为人类眼中的神，穷人则贬到无用之人的阶级。

16:47

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

BG：我感觉一两年后会有另一个TED演讲。 尤瓦尔，感谢你的到来！

16:52 Yuval Noah Harari: Thanks!

16:53 (Applause)

致谢：TED、必应翻译

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