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嗨，你好。
Hey there.
我是史蒂文·杜布纳，想祝你节日快乐。
It's Steven Dubner, and I'd like to wish you happy holidays.
我非常感谢你们一整年收听《魔鬼经济学》播客。
I really appreciate your listening to Freakonomics Radio all year long.
我们在制作节目以及拓展《魔鬼经济学》播客网络、推出新节目方面度过了非常愉快的时光。
We have had a great time making it and also building out the Freakonomics Radio network with new shows.
其中之一是那些我最钦佩的人。
One of them is people I mostly admire.
这是一个由我的《魔鬼经济学》朋友兼合著者列维特主持的精彩访谈节目。
It's an amazing interview show hosted by my Freakonomics friend and coauthor, Levitt.
所以今天，我们想为你播放列维特与尤瓦尔·诺亚·赫拉利的一次顶尖访谈，赫拉利是作家和历史学家，以撰写《人类简史》而闻名。
So today, we wanted to play for you one of Levitt's very best interviews with Yuval Noah Harari, the author and historian best known for writing Sapiens, a brief history of humankind.
这本书改变了数百万人对历史和自我的看法。
It is a book that has changed how millions of people think about history and themselves.
如果你读过《人类简史》，你即将听到的这段对话将带你更深入地理解它。
If you have read Sapiens, the conversation you are about to hear will take you even deeper inside it.
如果你还没读过，那就准备好迎接一场盛宴吧，或许你的世界观会被彻底颠覆。
And if you haven't, well, prepare yourself for a treat and perhaps to have your mind blown.
史蒂夫·莱维特在与科学家、慈善家、疗愈者、艺术家、 trivia 达人等人的对话中，已经变得非常擅长引发震撼性的思考。
Steve Levitt has gotten really good at having mind blowing conversations with scientists, philanthropists, healers, artists, trivia masters, you name it.
他的播客名叫《我最钦佩的人》，我希望你能通过你最喜欢的播客平台关注或订阅它。
Again, his podcast is called People I Mostly Admire, and I hope you will follow or subscribe to it on your favorite podcast app.
一如既往，感谢你的收听。
As always, thanks for listening.
我今天的嘉宾是《人类简史》的作者尤瓦尔·诺亚·赫拉利，这本书用不到450页的篇幅讲述了整个人类物种的历史。
My guest today is Yuval Noah Harari, author of the blockbuster book Sapiens, which tells the entire history by species in under 450 pages.
《人类简史》风靡全球，已被翻译成65种语言，销量超过两千三百万册。
Sapiens took the world by storm, selling over 23,000,000 copies in 65 languages.
这是你作为人类的故事。
This is your story as a human being.
成为人类意味着什么？
What does it mean to be human?
欢迎收听《我最钦佩的人》，主持人史蒂夫·列维特。
Welcome to people I mostly admire with Steve Levitt.
《人类简史》的成功之路极其 unlikely。
Sapiens' path to success was an extremely unlikely one.
在撰写这本书时，哈拉里是一位完全不为人知的中世纪历史学家，在以色列希伯来大学授课。
At the time he wrote it, Harari was a completely unknown historian of the Middle Ages lecturing at Hebrew University in Israel.
这本书最初是以希伯来语撰写和出版的。
The book was originally written and published in Hebrew.
四年之后才推出英文版，但它却成为21世纪最具影响力的非虚构书籍之一。
Four years passed before it was even released in English, and yet it became one of the most influential nonfiction books of the twenty first century.
这本书中的观点为何如此强大且引人入胜？
What makes the ideas in the book so powerful and compelling?
我想今天弄清楚这一点。
I wanna find that out today.
尤瓦尔，很高兴见到你。
Yuval, what a pleasure getting to meet you.
你写出如此有智慧的书，还能让这么多人阅读，这真是太了不起了。
It's absolutely amazing that you write such intelligent books, and you get people to read them.
这是工作的一部分。
It's part of the job.
这不在于主动发言。
It's not about speaking up.
而在于被人听到。
It's about being heard.
因此，你需要思考如何以一种易于理解的方式表达自己。
So you need to think how you express yourself in a way that is understandable.
我听说过一个说法，如果你不是对公开演讲有深深的不安，《人类简史》可能永远不会问世。
So I've heard the story that if it weren't for your deep insecurities around public speaking, the book Sapiens might never have come to be.
这是真的吗？
Is that a true story?
某种程度上是的，因为这本书源于我在大学开设的一门课程，当时我作为讲师还不够自信，所以就把讲课内容全部写了下来。
In a way, yes, because it came out of a course I gave at university, and I just would write everything that I have to say during the lecture because I wasn't so secure as a lecturer.
这些讲义最终演变成了这本书。
And these lecture notes, they eventually became the book.
所以我还听说，当年你还是博士生时，读完贾雷德·戴蒙德的《枪炮、病菌与钢铁》后，你的反应是：我也可以写一本这样的书。
So I've also heard that your reaction to reading Guns, Germs, and Steel by Jared Diamond back in the day when you were a PhD student was something like, I could write a book like that.
也许一开始我没这么想，但写这样的书是可能的。
Well, maybe not I at first, but it is possible to write books like that.
我当时正在研究十五和十六世纪士兵的回忆录或自传性文献，这是一个非常狭窄的课题。
I was doing my PhD on the memoirs or autobiographical writings of soldiers from the fifteenth and sixteenth century, quite a narrow subject matter.
但突然间我读了这本书，意识到原来可以从如此宏大的视角来审视历史。
And suddenly I read this book, and I realized that it is possible to look at history from such a broad perspective.
所以当时我并没有立刻想到自己也能做到，但至少我知道有人能做到。
So it didn't immediately occur to me that I could do it, but at least somebody could do it.
当我读《枪炮、病菌与钢铁》时，我的反应是：怎么可能有人掌握这么多知识，还如此自信地写出这样一本书？
When I read Guns, Germs, and Steel, my reaction was, how is it possible that anyone could know enough and have enough confidence to write such a book?
我认为，你在某些领域，比如公开演讲时表现出担忧，同时又拥有足以写下整个人类历史的极端自信，这种组合非常罕见。
I think it's very unusual to have your mix of apprehension in some domains, say, like public speaking, and what must be extreme self confidence to feel like you can write the entire history of mankind.
我不确定这是自信。
I'm not sure it's self confidence.
至少在写《人类简史》时，我没有把自己或这个项目看得太严肃，因为我并不认为会有很多人读它。
At least when I wrote Sapiens, I didn't take myself or the project too seriously because I didn't think that many people would read it.
这本书源于我大学里的这门课程。
It came out of this university course.
我最初用希伯来语写作，当时我注意到，还没有一本希伯来语书籍向以色列读者讲述世界历史。
I worked in Hebrew originally, and I was struck by the fact that there was no book in Hebrew which tells the history of the world to the Israeli audience.
所以我心想，一定有一些大学或学院的学生需要这样的书，于是我就为他们而写。
So I said there must be some people in university, in colleges that could use that, so I write for them.
而且没有竞争对手，因为当时根本没有其他类似的书。
And there is no competition because there was no other book available.
我想，是的，我可能会犯一些可怕的错误，但那也没关系。
And I thought, yeah, I might make some terrible mistakes, but that's fine.
我的意思是，反正会有人读它吗？
I mean, who's going to read it anyway?
显然，尽管你最初是为很小的以色列受众写的，但你的事情发展得非常好。
Obviously, despite the fact that you wrote this for a very small Israeli audience, things really worked out for you.
你不仅卖出了大量副本，而且我认为人们在购买后真的会阅读《人类简史》，而这并不总是发生的情况。
You not only sold a ton of copies, but I think people actually read Sapiens after they buy it, which isn't always the case.
我最早是从丹尼·卡尼曼那里听说这本书的，他是在英国买的，因为这本书在以色列之后又传到了英国。
I first learned about the book from Danny Kahneman, and he had purchased it in The UK because after Israel, it went to The UK.
他告诉我，这是这十年最重要的书，而且他已经读了两遍。
And he told me that it was the most important book of the decade and that he had read it twice.
他还说，我一生中总共只读过几本书两遍。
And he said, I've only read a few books twice in my entire life.
所以和丹尼一样，我也读了两遍《人类简史》，而且非常喜欢。
So like Danny, I've also read Sapiens twice, and I love it.
但坦白说，我很惊讶还有其他人喜欢它，因为它违背了斯蒂芬·杜布纳的前两条叙事法则。
But being completely honest, I'm surprised anyone else loves it because it violates Stephen Dubner's first two laws of storytelling.
所以，杜布纳的第一条法则就是，每个好故事都必须以一个人为中心，一个具体的个体。
So Dubner's first law is that every good story has a person at the center of it, an individual.
除非有一个鲜明的人物来吸引观众，否则你无法讲好一个关于理念或事件的故事。
You can't tell a good story about an idea or an event unless there's some personality to keep the audience captivated.
杜布纳的第二条故事法则就是，人们只想读故事。
And Dubner's second law of storytelling is that people only want to read stories.
他们不想看事实、假设或微妙的论证。
They don't want facts or hypotheses or subtle arguments.
他们想要的是故事。
They want stories.
而与几乎所有其他广受欢迎的非虚构类书籍不同，《人类简史》几乎完全没有人物形象。
And unlike almost every other popular nonfiction book that people read, Sapiens is almost completely devoid of characters
是的。
Yes.
也没有关于人的故事。
Or stories about people.
这一定是你有意为之的决定。
This must have been a conscious decision on your part.
对吧？
Right?
是的。
Yes.
有一个英雄，那就是我们自己。
There is a hero, which is us.
所以某种程度上，这并没有违背这些法则。
So in some way, it doesn't violate these laws.
我认为我写作时，很多人阅读时，都是把自己当作主角。
I think that I wrote it, and many people maybe read it, with yourself as the main character.
这是你作为一个人的故事。
This is your story as a human being.
成为人类意味着什么？
What does it mean to be human?
所以我明白这一点，
So I get that,
但人们竟然有如此多的创造力，能将自己的身影融入你所创造的内容中，这仍然让我感到惊讶。
but it's still surprising to me that people have that much creativity to actually be able to inject themselves into what you've done.
将整个历史浓缩在400页或500页内的部分工作，就是要快速切入重点。
Part of the job of writing the whole of history in 400 pages or 500 pages is get to the point quickly.
你不会带读者走太长的路。
You don't take people on very long rides.
你会直接展示他们目的地。
You immediately show them the destination.
而你抵达的许多目的地都相当令人震惊。
And many of the destinations you reach are quite shocking.
如果我们谈论尼安德特人，你会立刻提出这样一个观点：实际上，智人和尼安德特人不仅有过性关系，还生下了孩子。
If we talked about Neanderthals, you immediately begin with the idea that actually Homo sapiens and Neanderthals not only had sex, but actually had children together.
你会在脑海中勾勒出这样一幅家庭场景：一位尼安德特人母亲、一位智人父亲，和他们的孩子。
And you conjure in your mind this family scene of, you know, a Neanderthal mother, a Sapiens father, and a child.
然后你把这个极具争议的场景延续下去，提出问题：天主教会会对尼安德特人的灵魂说什么？
And then you take this kind of extremely provocative scene, and you carry it forward, and you ask questions about what would the Catholic church say about the souls of Neanderthals?
因为天主教会，比如说，认为黑猩猩没有灵魂。
Because the Catholic church, for instance, says that chimpanzees don't have souls.
它们死后，一切就结束了。
When they die, that's it.
它们不会去天堂或地狱。
They don't go to heaven or hell.
那么尼安德特人呢？
So what about Neanderthals?
如果你说尼安德特人没有灵魂，那就想象一下，你的父亲有灵魂，他去了天堂。
If you say that Neanderthals don't have a soul, then just imagine it, that your dad has a soul, he goes to heaven.
你的母亲没有。
Your mom doesn't.
她是个尼安德特人。
She's a Neanderthal.
她没有灵魂。
She doesn't have a soul.
所以你不得不倾向于说：不，不，不，不。
So you're kind of pushed in the direction of saying, No, no, no, no.
尼安德特人也有灵魂。
Neanderthals also had souls.
但这是一条危险的滑坡，因为随着你向进化史的更早期追溯，最终会到达黑猩猩、狗以及其他所有生物。
But this is a slippery slope because as you move further back in the evolutionary story, you eventually reach the chimpanzees and the dogs and everybody else.
所以你把一个非常长的故事简化成一个简短而富有挑衅性的观点。
So you make a very long story very short and provocative.
或者类似地，转向经济学领域，有一章讲货币。
Or similarly, to move to the field of economics, there is a short chapter on money.
而在开头，也就是核心观点：货币本质上就是信任。
And right at the beginning, like the main message, that money is simply trust.
它不是由物质构成的。
It's not made of matter.
它不是黄金。
It's not gold.
它不是纸张。
It's not paper.
它只是我们头脑中的一个概念。
It's just an idea in our mind.
而且不只是任何概念，它是信任。
And not just any idea, it's trust.
人与人之间的信任。
Trust between people.
这就是货币。
That's money.
这对那些一直把货币视为邪恶的人来说是令人震惊的。
So that's shocking to the people who have used to think about money as evil.
对。
Right.
同样也让那些非常热爱金钱的死硬资本主义者感到震惊。
And also to the diehard capitalists who like money very much.
意识到金钱只不过是我们脑海中一个完全虚构的故事，这也令人震惊。
It's also shocking to realize that it's just a completely fictional story in our minds.
这并不是自然法则。
It's not the laws of nature.
因此，所有那种认为可以存在一个没有任何监管、没有任何政府干预的完全自由市场经济的想法，
And therefore also all this idea that you can have a completely free market economy without any regulations, without any government intervention.
不，这是不可能的。
No, you can't.
因为最基础的东西，比如货币，是建立在人与人之间的信任之上的。
Because the most basic thing, like money, it is based on people trusting each other.
如果你没有某种法院、议会、政府或宗教来帮助建立人与人之间的信任，你就无法形成市场。
And if you don't have some kind of courts, of parliaments, of governments, of religions that help to establish trust between people, you will not get a market.
你只会得到彻底的混乱。
You will get complete chaos.
你意思是说，这是一种社会建构，对吧？
What you're saying is it's a social construct, right?
如果没有人同意货币具有这种用途，货币就不可能存在。
Money can't exist unless everyone agrees that money is going to serve this purpose.
我们都被某种程度地洗脑了，甚至可能都没意识到，我们参与了这种接受货币的社会契约。
And we're all kind of brainwashed and maybe not even aware of the fact that we're part of this social contract to accept money.
你用‘虚构’这个词来形容这一点，真有意思。
It's interesting you use the word fiction to describe that.
是的，因为社会契约或社会建构都是抽象而复杂的概念。
Yes, because social contract or social construct, they are abstract and complicated ideas.
而且你还需要把它讲清楚。
And again, you need to make it clear.
这并不是某种抽象的社会建构。
It's not some abstract social construct.
这仅仅是一个有人讲给我们听的故事。
It's simply a story that somebody is telling us.
回到你所说的必须有人物作为故事核心的法律，这并不正确。
And going back to this law that you must have a person at the center of the story, that's not true.
有史以来最成功的故事，就是金钱的故事。
The most successful story ever told is the story of money.
我的意思是，金钱是如何运作的呢？
I mean, how does it work, money?
你有像美联储主席、财政部长这样的一群大讲故事者，他们告诉我们一美元等于一根香蕉。
You have these big storytellers like the chairperson of the Federal Reserve and the finance ministers and all these people, and they tell us that $1 equals a banana.
这在客观意义上并不成立。
It's not true in any objective sense.
你不能吃美元。
You can't eat dollars.
你也不能喝美元。
You can't drink them.
这只是一个有人告诉我们一美元等于一根香蕉的故事。
It's just a story that somebody told us that a dollar is equal a banana.
只要足够多的人相信这个故事，它就有效。
And it works provided that enough people believe in the story.
它并不是关于某种客观生物事实的真实故事。
It's not a true story about some objective biological fact.
病毒是否存在，无论我们是否相信它们，它们都存在。
Viruses exist whether we believe in them or not.
即使你不接受关于病毒的故事，它们仍然可能夺走你的生命。
Even if you don't accept the stories about viruses, they can still kill you.
钱的情况却不一样。
It's not the same with money.
如果一个人不再相信美元，什么也不会发生。
If one person stops believing in the dollar, nothing happens.
但如果数百万人不再相信美元，它就会消失。
But if millions of people stop believing in the dollar, it disappears.
它会失去所有价值。
It loses all its value.
到目前为止，美元还没有发生这种情况，但历史上有不少其他货币确实经历过。
And it didn't happen to the dollar so far, but it did happen to quite a number of other currencies throughout history.
在金融危机爆发前，我原计划飞往欧洲，为一家冰岛大银行的客户做一场演讲。
Right before the financial crisis, I was scheduled to fly to Europe to give a talk to a bunch of clients of a big Icelandic bank.
我们提前打了个电话。
And we had a call ahead of time.
我对他说：嘿。
And I said, hey.
你对美国正在发生的事情感到担忧吗？
Are you at all worried about what's going on in The US?
他回答：哦，不。
And he said, oh, no.
一点也不。
Not at all.
完全没问题。
It's no problem whatsoever.
我们这边一切都很好。
Everything's great where we are.
然后过了两三天，他们说：嘿。
And then two or three days passed, and they said, hey.
考虑到局势动荡，我们决定不再举办这次会议了。
We decided, given the unrest, we're not gonna have this conference after all.
但根据我们的合同，我们同意如果会议取消，仍会支付您的费用，所以我们会照常支付您的酬金。
But per our contract, we agreed that we would pay you if the conference got canceled, so we will still pay your fee.
于是周一，我收到了来自这家冰岛银行的电汇，而到了周二，这家银行就不复存在了。
So on Monday, I received a wire transfer from this Icelandic bank, and on Tuesday, the bank no longer existed.
它恰恰消失了，就像你所说的那样——冰岛围绕信任建立了一个庞大的金融部门，但却没有一个足够规模的政府或经济来在人们恐慌时支撑这种信任。
It literally disappeared in exactly what you're talking about, that Iceland had built an enormous financial sector around trust, but didn't actually have a government or an economy of a size that could reinforce the trust in the case that people got spooked.
他们去英格兰银行说：嘿。
They went to the Bank of England and said, hey.
你们能支持我们一下吗？就简单说一声‘是的’。
Would you support us and just say, yes.
我们是认真的，你们得救我们。
We're for real, and you'll bail us out.
他们说不，然后真的就消失了。
And they said no, and they literally disappeared.
这可能是我一生中最好的时机。
And it's probably the best timing I've ever had in my entire life.
也许是你把银行搞垮了。
Maybe you broke the bank.
我知道。
I know.
这家银行开出的最后一张支票是给我的。
The last check that this bank wrote was to me.
所以我们谈论的是人物。
So we're talking about characters.
在任何书中最容易塑造的角色就是你自己——作者，以及你个人生活中的故事。
The easiest character to build into any book is yourself, the author, personal stories from your own life.
所以贾雷德·戴蒙德、马尔科姆·格拉德威尔、罗伯特·斯波尔斯基经常在他们的书中加入自己。
So Jared Diamond, Malcolm Gladwell, Robert Spolsky, they frequently insert themselves into their books.
但据我回忆，你本人在《人类简史》中从未出现过。
But to the best of my recollection, you yourself do not make a single appearance in Sapiens.
在后来的书中偶尔会出现几次，但在《人类简史》里没有。
In the later books, few times, but in Sapiens, no.
这是因为，正如我之前提到的，我的研究方向最初是十五和十六世纪士兵的自传性文本。
This is because my line of research, as I mentioned earlier, was originally on autobiographical texts of these soldiers from the fifteenth and sixteenth century.
后来，我又研究了直到二十世纪的军事回忆录和军事自传。
And later, I did my other research on military memoirs and military autobiographies until the twentieth century.
这让我对将自己强行插入故事中的自传式冲动产生了免疫力。
And it just inoculated me against the autobiographical urge to inject yourself into the story.
很多书，即使它们并不标榜为自传，但当你深入挖掘时，会发现它们实际上就是未明言的自传。
So many books, even books that don't present themselves as an autobiography, when you dig, you learn that actually it is an autobiography, an undeclared autobiography.
我对那些过于依赖作者个人经历的写作方式所伴随的陷阱和风险太过熟悉了。
I was too familiar with the traps and the dangers involved in writing something which is too much based on the author's own experiences.
但我会说，你的个性在一些话题上还是显露出来了。
But I would say your personality creeps in on a few topics.
我知道，例如，你吃得很少的肉。
I know, for instance, that you don't eat a whole lot of meat.
当你写到现代肉类产业时，很明显你是以一个不认同这些做法的人的视角来写的。
And it's really clear when you write about the modern meat industry that you write from the perspective of someone who doesn't approve of the methods being used.
当然，很多人都是这样。
Now, of course, many people don't.
但你觉得这是自传性的表达，还是只是常识？
But do you consider that autobiography or that's just common sense?
显然，我的观点会进入我的书中。
Obviously, my views enter my books.
否则你还能怎么写呢？
How can you write otherwise?
但即使只是为了影响他人，最好也不要以一种咄咄逼人的方式表达。
But even just in terms of trying to influence people, it's best if you don't do it in a kind of in your face attitude.
是的，我非常关心动物的痛苦。
Yes, I care a lot about the suffering of animals.
但在《人类简史》中，我的决定只是让动物在历史中获得应有的位置。
But my decision in Sapiens was simply to give them their proper place in history.
没有动物，你就无法真正理解农业革命。
Without animals, you can't really understand the agricultural revolution.
你无法理解古代经济体系。
You can't understand ancient economic systems.
你无法理解军事历史。
You can't understand military history.
马、牛、鸡，它们都存在于其中。
The horses, the cows, the chickens, they are there.
它们也是有感知能力的生物，因此也受到了影响。
And they are also sentient beings, so they were also influenced by it.
我只是让它们在故事中获得应有的位置。
And I just give them their proper place in the story.
你提出的很多观点在我看来都是显而易见的，但从来没人真正谈论或思考过它们，我认为这才是最棒的观点，因为不需要太多说服力。
Many of your points you make, I think, are obvious, but no one ever really talks about them or thinks about them, which I think are the best points to make because it doesn't take a lot of convincing.
只要我看到纸上写出来，我就立刻信了，但除此之外，它并不属于我的现实体验。
As soon as I see it on the page, I'm convinced, but it's not part of my reality otherwise.
我认为，这正是搭建科学界与公众之间桥梁的工作的一部分。
I think that that's part of the job of building a bridge between the scientific community and the general public.
当我写《人类简史》时，我的感觉只是在复述我在大学历史系一年级时学到的内容。
When I wrote Sapiens, my impression was that I'm just saying what I was taught as a student in my first year in the history department at university.
我并不觉得其中有什么是科学界或历史学者们还不知道的新发现。
I didn't feel that there was anything there which was a new revelation to the scientific community or to scholars of history.
但很多读者却指出，我认为最平淡无奇的那些观点，他们却说这是我读过的最深刻的内容。
And then a lot of readers, they pointed out what I thought were the most banal statements, and they said this was the most profound thing I've read.
甚至像‘货币只是一种社会建构’或‘只是一种虚构的故事’这样的观点。
And even this thing that money is just a social construct or just a fictional story.
在学术界，人人都知道这一点。
Everybody knows it in academia.
这几乎被视为理所当然，但从来没有人谈论它。
It's just almost taken for granted, but you never talk about it.
而当你真的谈论它时，你会发现对许多人来说，这简直是革命性的。
And when you do talk about it, it turns out that for many people, it's extremely revolutionary.
短暂休息后，我们将继续播放我与尤瓦尔·诺亚·赫拉利的对话。
We'll be right back with more of my conversation with Yuval Noah Harari after this short break.
我特别着迷于你写作中的那种语气。
The thing that I find so addictive about your writing is the tone that you bring to it.
你的语气带点固执，这让你能做出一些在孤立看来显得荒谬的陈述，但在叙事的连贯性中，读者会说，是的，这太对了。
Your voice is it's a little bit cranky in a way that allows you to make statements that would seem outrageous out of context, but within the flow of the narrative, they make a reader say, yeah, that's so right.
所以我标记了几个例子。
So I bookmarked a couple of examples.
这是来自《人类简史》中的一个例子。
Here's one from Sapiens.
你写道：据我们所知，从纯粹的科学角度来看，人类生命没有任何意义。
You write, As far as we can tell, from a purely scientific viewpoint, human life has no meaning.
当你问生命的意义时，在你试图给出答案之前，我认为第一步是思考什么样的答案对我来说是可以接受的。
When you ask what is the meaning of life, before you even attempt an answer, I would say the first step is to think what kind of answer would be acceptable to me.
而答案是一个故事。
And the answer is a story.
我们是善于讲故事的生物。
We are storytelling animals.
我们思考的不是事实，不是统计数据，也不是方程式。
We think not in facts, not in statistics, not in equations.
我们思考的是故事。
We think in stories.
人们有时会把宇宙看作一场宏大的戏剧，并问自己：我在剧中扮演什么角色？
People sometimes think about the cosmos as one big drama, and they ask themselves, what is my role in the drama?
或者，人类在剧中扮演什么角色？
Or what is the role of humankind in the drama?
这就像是有一部庞大的好莱坞制作，而我只是其中一名演员。
It's like there is this big Hollywood production, and I'm one of the actors.
我在这出戏剧中扮演着一个角色，这将成为我生命的意义。
I have a role in the drama, and this will be the meaning of my life.
在我临终时，我会感到圆满和满足。
And on my deathbed, I would feel complete and satisfied.
我已经尽了我的本分。
I've done my share.
而令人震惊的领悟是，这种整个方法完全是错误的，因为现实本身、宇宙、物理定律，它们并不像故事或戏剧那样运作。
And the shocking realization is that this entire approach is completely misguided because reality itself, the universe, the laws of physics, they don't work like a story or like a drama.
自然法则并不在乎我们。
The laws of nature don't care about us.
如果明天早上地球爆炸，上面的所有生命都消失，物理学也不会在意。
If planet Earth explodes tomorrow morning and all life on it disappears, physics wouldn't care.
在宇宙中，行星和恒星时刻都在爆炸，而宇宙只是继续着它的运行。
Planets and stars explode all the time throughout the universe, and the universe just goes along with its business.
所以，答案是：根本没有什么戏剧，你也没有任何角色要扮演。
So, the answer is there is no drama, and you have no role to play in it.
有些人可能会因此感到非常沮丧。
Some people may get very depressed because of that.
所以，生命没有意义。
So, life has no meaning.
是的，但我不认为生命的主要问题是意义问题。
Yes, but I don't think that the main question in life is the question of meaning.
我认为生命的主要问题是痛苦问题。
I think that the main question in life is the question of suffering.
什么是痛苦？
What is suffering?
它从何而来？
Where is it coming from?
我们如何从中获得解脱？
And how can we be liberated from it?
甚至你因感到无意义而产生的抑郁或痛苦，也正是这个问题的根源。
And even the depression or the suffering that you experience from feeling meaningless, that's where the question arises.
那里正在发生什么？
What is happening there?
你为什么会觉得痛苦，因为你没有参与某种宏大的宇宙剧？
Why should you feel miserable that you are not part of some big cosmic drama?
这有什么不对？
What's wrong with that?
这不是宇宙的许可。
It's not permission from the cosmos.
这是一种直接的体验。
It's something immediate.
你正在受苦，而你不想受苦。
You suffer and you don't want to suffer.
还有什么比这更简单呢？
What could be more simple than that?
它就在此时此刻。
It's here and now.
我通过选修E. O. Wilson教授的本科课程，摆脱了自己是宇宙中心、一切皆为我服务的这种想法。
The way that I disabused myself of this idea that I was at the center of the universe and everything was there to serve me is I took an undergraduate course from E.
O.
O.
威尔逊，哈佛大学的生物学家。
Wilson, the biologist at Harvard.
真不错。
Good for you.
这门课的基本观点是，你没有任何意义。
And the basic point of that course is that you have no meaning.
任何个体都是无价值的。
Any individual is worthless.
这本可能让人士气低落、令人沮丧，但事实恰恰相反，因为我在青少年时期一直被对死亡的普遍恐惧所困扰。
And it could have been demoralizing and depressing, but it was just the opposite because I was really haunted by a pervasive fear of death as a teenager.
我非常害怕死亡。
I was just terrified of death.
我坐在那个大礼堂里，听着E.
And I sat in that big auditorium listening to E.
O.
O.
威尔逊讲课。
Wilson talk.
通过理解自己毫无意义，我得以摆脱对死亡的恐惧。
And by understanding I was meaningless, I was able to shed this fear of death.
那么他实际上做了什么呢，E.
Now what he did do, E.
O.
O.
威尔逊在过程中说过，看吧。
Wilson did do along the way, said, look.
你毫无意义。
You mean nothing.
但关键是，对周围的人而言，你实际上是有意义的。
But the thing is, to the people around you, you actually mean something.
他们也不重要。
They don't matter either.
但对周围的人而言，你是重要的。
But to the people around you, you matter.
因此，他的基本观点就是对身边的人好一点。
And so his basic view is just be nice to people around you.
当你不再把自己视为宇宙故事的中心时，摆脱这种负担、能够自由地做日常琐事，反而是一种解脱。
And when you're free of being the center of the story about the universe, it's liberating to be free of that and just to be able to do your daily things without those obligations.
我记得我十三四岁在学校时，我们在阵亡将士纪念日举行仪式，悼念在以色列战争中牺牲的士兵。
I remember when I was 13 or 14 at school, we have the ceremony for the fallen soldiers who died during the wars of Israel on Memorial Day.
大家都穿着白衬衫，举行盛大的仪式，献上鲜花，唱着歌曲等等。
And everybody dressed in white shirts, and you have this big ceremony, and you bring flowers, and you sing songs and so forth.
我当时想，成为一名阵亡士兵一定很美好，因为这样你的人生就有了意义。
And I decided, it must be wonderful to be a fallen soldier because now you have meaning in life.
所有这些学生将为你歌唱数百万年。
All these schoolchildren will be singing songs in your honor for millions of years.
然后我想，不，不可能的。
And then I thought, no, no, that's not possible.
我知道宇宙大约有140亿年的历史。
I know that the universe is like 14,000,000,000 years old.
它可能还会继续存在至少140亿年。
It will probably go on for at least, let's say, 14,000,000,000 years more.
我了解历史。
I know history.
不可能还会有以色列国和犹太民族存在。
There is no way that there will still be a state of Israel and a Jewish people.
别说一百万年以后，就连一千年以后都不太可能。
Forget about a million years from now, a thousand years from now.
这非常不可能。
It's very unlikely.
更简单地说，你已经死了。
On an even simpler level, you're dead.
你怎么知道人们在为你唱颂歌呢？
How do you know that people are singing songs in your honor?
一旦你死了，你就不会躺在地底下，还能听到上面传来的歌声。
Once you're dead, it's not like you're lying in the ground and you can hear the songs coming from above.
你谈论犹太教，但说话方式却像一个佛教徒。
So you talk about Judaism, but you speak like a Buddhist.
你显然研究过佛教思想。
You've obviously studied Buddhist thought.
你发现佛教比犹太教更符合你的人生目标吗？
Have you found that to serve your life purposes better than Judaism?
好得多。
Oh, far better.
从很小的时候起，我就无法接受犹太教的故事，因为从历史角度看，它完全是虚假的。
From a very early age, I just couldn't accept the Jewish story because it's completely false from a historical perspective.
你看看每一种宗教、每一个民族的神话，总是以我们为中心。
You look at every religion, every national mythology, and it's always centered on us.
我看看犹太教，这是我的民族所在的地区，也是以色列国籍的基础。
I look at Judaism, which is the region of my people, which is also the basis for Israeli nationality.
那么中国人在世界上的角色是什么？
And what is the role of the Chinese in the world?
他们在犹太教中没有任何角色。
They have no role in Judaism.
有谁会在乎这十五亿人呢？
Who cares about these 1,500,000,000 people?
显然，那一千五百万犹太人，才是故事的中心。
Obviously, the 15,000,000 Jews, they are the center of the story.
然后你再看看中国。
And then you go to China.
当然，中国人是宇宙剧中的主要英雄。
And of course, the Chinese are the main heroes of the cosmic drama.
新几内亚的人们也毫无作用。
And people in New Guinea, they have no role to play.
佛教并不是去研究它。
And Buddhism, it was not studying it.
而是真正地实践冥想。
It was really practicing meditation.
理解冥想的一种方式是：放下你脑海中所有的故事，只是观察正在实际发生的事情。
One way to understand meditation is the instruction, Just forget about all the stories in your mind and just observe what is actually happening.
你的大脑不断产生各种故事，把它们放在一边，试着观察现实。
You have the mind constantly producing stories and leave them aside and try to observe reality.
我第一次参加冥想课程时，给出的第一个指导是：把全部注意力集中在鼻孔进出的呼吸上。
The first time I went to a meditation course, the first instruction given was to just focus all of your attention on your breath coming in and out of your nostrils.
只是注意，现在呼吸正在进入。
Just note, now the breath is coming in.
呼吸还在继续进入。
It's still coming in.
它还在进入。
It's still coming in.
哦，不再进来了。
Oh, stops coming in.
现在它在呼出。
Now it's going out.
它在呼出。
It's going out.
在许多冥想传统中，这就像最基本的训练。
In many meditation traditions, this is like the most basic training.
这非常深刻，因为你不需要做任何事。
And it was so profound because you don't need to do anything.
你没有任何角色。
You have no role.
你只是在观察正在发生的事情。
You're just observing what's happening.
令人震惊的是，我连十秒钟都坚持不了，思绪就会跑偏。
And the shocking thing was that I couldn't do it for more than ten seconds before my mind would run away somewhere.
它会跑到哪里去？
Where would it run?
跑到一个故事里。
To a story.
我会想起过去的一些事情。
I would remember something from the past.
我会幻想未来的一些事情。
I would fantasize about something in the future.
我会想象一些东西。
I would imagine something.
我的思绪连十秒钟都无法停留在现实中。
My mind couldn't be with reality for even ten seconds.
所以，对我来说，冥想就是努力与现实连接，而不是沉溺于我们不断编造的故事中。
So, meditation for me is really the practice of trying to connect to reality and not to the stories we constantly create.
让我再引用一句话。
Let me give another quote.
这句话还是来自《人类简史》。
This one is from Sapiens again.
农业革命是历史上最大的骗局。
The agricultural revolution was history's biggest fraud.
我猜测，那些没有读过你书籍的播客听众，听到这句话时可能会觉得震惊，因为我们从小就被教导要庆祝农业革命，而不是把它看作一场骗局。
My hunch is that listeners to this podcast who haven't read your books, when they hear that sentence, they probably find it jarring because we're taught to celebrate the agricultural revolution, not to think of it as being a fraud.
如果你从今天西方中产阶级的视角来看，农业确实是美好的。
If you look at it from the viewpoint of middle class people in the West today, then agriculture is wonderful.
我们有这么多苹果、面包、意大利面、牛排、鸡蛋等等。
We have all these apples and bread and pasta and steaks and eggs and whatever.
而且，如果你从古埃及法老或中国皇帝的视角来看，那确实很棒，我拥有宏伟的宫殿和众多仆人等等。
And also if you look at it from the viewpoint of an ancient Egyptian pharaoh or a Chinese emperor, wonderful, I have this huge palace and all these servants and whatever.
但如果你从古埃及或古代中国普通农民的视角来看，他们的生活实际上比农业革命之前的普通狩猎采集者要糟糕得多。
But if you look at it from the viewpoint of the ordinary peasant in ancient Egypt or ancient China, their life was actually much worse than the life of the average hunter gatherer before the agricultural revolution.
首先，他们必须工作得更辛苦。
First of all, they had to work much harder.
我们的身体和大脑经过数百万年的进化，适应的是爬树摘果子、到森林里寻找蘑菇、猎捕兔子之类的活动。
Our body and our mind evolved for millions of years to do things like climbing trees to pick fruits and going in the forest to sniff around for mushrooms and hunting rabbits and whatever.
但突然间，你发现自己整天在田里劳作，一遍又一遍地挖灌溉沟渠，或者除草等等。
And suddenly you find yourself working in the field all day, just digging irrigation ditch hour after hour, day after day, or taking out weeds or whatever.
这对身体来说要困难得多。
It's much more difficult to the body.
我们在骨骼中就能看到这些古代农民所遭受的各种问题和疾病。
We see it in the skeletons, all the problems and ailments that these ancient farmers suffered from.
这也无聊得多。
It's also far more boring.
而且，农民们并没有因此获得更好的饮食。
And then the farmers didn't get a better diet in return.
法老或中国皇帝才得到了回报。
Pharaoh or the Chinese emperor, they got the reward.
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普通农民的实际饮食比狩猎采集者差得多。
The ordinary present, they actually ate a far worse diet than hunter gatherers.
他们的饮食种类要少得多。
It was a much more limited diet.
狩猎采集者会食用数十种甚至数百种不同的水果、蔬菜、坚果、动物和鱼类等。
Hunter gatherers, they ate dozens, hundreds of different species of fruits and vegetables and nuts and animals and fish and whatever.
如果你生活在埃及，你吃的就只有小麦，还是小麦。
Most ancient farmers, if you live in Egypt, you eat wheat and wheat.
如果你生活在 China，你吃的就只有大米，还是大米。
If you live in China, you eat rice and rice.
如果你运气好，作物没有歉收的话，是的。
If you're lucky, if the crop doesn't fail, yeah.
没错。
Exactly.
如果你运气好，有足够的收成。
If you're lucky, if you have enough.
由于这是单一种植，大多数田地里只种水稻。
And then because this is monoculture, most fields are just rice.
如果突然发生干旱、洪水或新的植物病害，就会导致饥荒。
If suddenly there is a drought, there is a flood, there is a new plant disease, you have famine.
农民实际上比狩猎采集者更容易遭遇饥荒，因为他们依赖的经济基础狭窄得多。
Farmers were actually more in danger of famine than hunter gatherers because they relied on a much more narrow economic base.
如果你是狩猎采集者，而一种疾病杀死了所有兔子，这也不是什么大问题。
If you're a hunter gatherer and there is a disease that kills all the rabbits, it's not such a big deal.
你可以多捕鱼。
You can fish more.
你可以多采集蚊虫。
You can gather more gnats.
但如果你是牧民，而你的山羊群被某种瘟疫摧毁了，那你就和你的家人完了。
But if you're a herder and your goat herd has been decimated by some plague, that's the end of you and your family.
此外，你还面临更多疾病。
And then in addition to that, you have many more diseases.
在新冠疫情期间，值得记住的是，大多数传染病都起源于农业革命，因为它们来自家养动物，并在大型永久性聚居地传播。
In the days of COVID, it's good to remember the fact that most infectious diseases started with the agricultural revolution because they came from domesticated animals, and they spread in large permanent settlements.
作为狩猎采集者，你会带着大约50个人在大地上迁徙。
As a hunter gatherer, you wander around the land with 50 people or so.
你没有牛和鸡与你同住，因此从野生鸡那里感染病毒的可能性要小得多。
You don't have cows and chickens that live with you, so your chances of getting a virus from some wild chicken is much smaller.
即使你感染了，也只会传染给少数人，而且你一直在移动。
And even if you get it, you can infect only a few other people, and you move around all the time.
所以卫生条件非常理想。
So hygienic conditions are ideal.
现在，如果你生活在古代的村庄或城镇里，你会与大量动物密切接触，因此更容易感染疾病。
Now, if you live in an ancient village or town, you're in very close proximity to a lot of animals, so you get more diseases.
如果你感染了病毒，会通过贸易网络传染给整个城镇以及邻近的城镇和村庄，而你们都生活在一个永久定居点里，周围是粪便和垃圾。
And if you get a virus, you infect the whole town and the neighboring towns and villages through the trade networks, and you all live together in this permanent settlement with your sewage, with your garbage.
农业革命时期的人们试图为人类创造一个天堂。
People in the agricultural revolution, they tried to create paradise for humans.
他们实际上为病菌创造了天堂。
They actually created paradise for germs.
我喜欢这个说法。
I like that.
在某个时刻，你提出了一个有趣的观察：你对某个特定历史时期了解得越深，就越难说服自己真正理解为什么事情会以这种方式发生而不是另一种方式。
At one point, you make the interesting observation that the better you know a particular historical period, the harder it becomes to convince yourself that you truly understand why things happen one way and not another.
而亲身经历这些事件的人，恰恰是所有人群中对事件影响最无知的。
And that the people living through events, they're the most clueless of all the people for understanding the implications.
因此，在承认我们对自己所处时代有多么无知的同时，我还是想听听你对历史将如何看待，比如说，新冠疫情的猜测。
So acknowledging how clueless we are about our own times, I'd nonetheless like to get your guesses as to how history will view, let's say, COVID nineteen.
我经常被问到这个问题，但不幸的是，我总是得说，这取决于我们当下所做出的决定。
I get this question a lot, and unfortunately, I always have to say that it depends on the decisions that we are making right now.
历史从来不是决定论的。
History is never deterministic.
所以，像新冠疫情这样的危机，一百年后的历史学家如何看待这些事件，完全取决于我们所做的选择。
So you have a crisis like COVID-nineteen, and how historians in one hundred years would look at events simply depends on the choices we make.
到目前为止，我能说的是，新冠疫情是一场巨大的科学胜利，却伴随着政治上的失败。
Up till now, what I can say is that COVID has been an amazing scientific triumph coupled with political failure.
历史上从未有过人类拥有如此强大的科学工具来应对一场大流行病。
Never in history was humanity so powerful in the scientific tools it had to deal with the pandemic.
在黑死病时期，从中国到英国，人口中有四分之一到一半死亡，而当时没人明白发生了什么。
With the Black Death, it killed between a quarter and a half of the population between China and Britain, and nobody understood what was happening.
多年以来，人们都认为这是上帝的惩罚。
For years and years, it was punishment from God.
这是黑魔法。
It was black magic.
这是占星术。
It was astrology.
而新冠疫情爆发后，仅用了大约两周时间就准确识别出了病毒。
With COVID, it took something like two weeks to identify the virus correctly.
又过了几周或几个月，人们才弄清楚它的传播方式以及最有效的应对措施。
It took a couple of more weeks or months to understand how it spreads and what would be the most effective countermeasures.
然后在一年之内，科学家们研发出了不止一种而是多种有效的疫苗。
And then within a year, scientists developed not one but several effective vaccines.
这是一次了不起的科学成就。
It was an amazing scientific success.
并且实现了大规模生产。
And produced them at scale.
这简直是个奇迹。
It's a miracle.
确实如此。
Absolutely.
但这使得政治上的失败显得更加令人沮丧、更加悲剧，因为这确实是一场政治失败。
But this makes the political failure only more depressing, only more tragic, because it was a political failure.
科学家们只是提供了这些工具。
The scientists, they just produced the tools.
而政治家们的职责是决定如何使用这些工具。
It's the job of politicians to decide what to do with these tools.
现在，一些国家的一些政治家做得不错。
Now some politicians in some countries, they did a good job.
但在许多国家，这是一场失败。
But in many countries, it was a failure.
如果从全球层面来看，这是一次全球性的失败。
And when you look at the global level, was a global failure.
甚至到现在，我们还没有应对下一次大流行的计划。
And even now, we don't have a plan for the next pandemic.
从长远来看，一般来说，大流行对历史的影响比战争等其他灾难要小。
In the long run, generally, pandemics have a smaller impact on history than other catastrophes like wars.
你把第一次世界大战和1918到1919年的西班牙流感相比，死于流感的人要多得多。
You compare the First World War to the Spanish influenza of 1918, 1919, many more people died from the flu.
但在新冠疫情之前，人们几乎根本不会想到它。
But until COVID, people hardly even thought about it.
它的影响实际上要小得多。
And its impact was really far smaller.
第一次世界大战塑造了现代世界。
The First World War shaped the modern world.
即使你想想艺术，许多新的艺术形式也诞生于战壕之中。
Even you think about something like art, so many new art forms came out of the trenches.
产生了许多伟大的艺术作品。
So many great works of art.
如果你想到威尔弗雷德·欧文这样的诗歌。
If you think about poetry like Wilfred Owen.
如果你想到奥托·迪克斯这样的绘画。
If you think about painting like Otto Dix.
你会想到整个艺术运动。
You think about entire artistic movements.
西班牙流感，什么都没有。
The Spanish influenza, nothing.
没有著名的诗篇。
There is no famous poem.
没有著名的画作。
There is no famous painting.
没有任何艺术流派由此产生。
There is no artistic genres that came out of it.
即使你看看黑死病，也是如此。
And that's true even if you look at the Black Death.
它可能是人类历史上最大的灾难之一。
It was maybe one of the biggest catastrophes in human history.
欧洲在黑死病之前和之后当然有差异，但没有任何国家发生政权更迭。
Europe, before and after the Black Death, there are, of course, differences, but there was no regime change in any country.
你依然拥有相同的政治体系。
You have the same political systems.
你拥有相同经济体系，前后并无变化。
You have the same economic systems before and after.
也许因为我们从进化上被编程为如此，我们或许更擅长应对疾病，而不是像战争这样的人为灾难。
Maybe because we are programmed to it evolutionarily, we are perhaps better at dealing with diseases than we are with man made catastrophes like wars.
我在这档播客中邀请过70到80位嘉宾，但不得不说，准备和你对话比其他任何一位嘉宾都更困难。
So I've had 70 or 80 guests on this podcast, and I have to say it was harder to prepare to talk to you than any of the other guests I've had.
大多数时候，我很容易就能感受到一个人的为人和信念。
Most of the time, it's easy for me to get a sense of what people are about, what they believe in.
但就你而言，尽管你提出了强烈的观点——这一点我们已经确认了。
But in your case, despite the fact that you make strong statements, we've already established that.
大多数时候，你并不试图解决问题。
Most of the time, you don't resolve things.
你不会用漂亮的包装把事情收尾，也不会在相互竞争的理论中选出胜者。
You don't tie things up with pretty bows and pick a winner among competing theories.
那我们就来谈谈‘进步’这个概念。
So let's take this idea of progress.
像史蒂芬·平克或大多数经济学家，他们会认为进步本质上是好的。
Someone like Steve Pinker or most economists for that matter, they would see progress as necessarily good.
对吧？
Okay?
但从你刚才关于狩猎采集者的说法来看，很明显你的观点是：看。
But from what you've just said about hunter gatherers, it's clear that you say, look.
有一种观点认为，我们从狩猎采集者过渡到农业革命所取得的进步，并不全是好事。
There's an argument that the progress we made going from being hunter gatherers through the Agricultural Revolution, that was not all good.
对大多数人来说，并不是这样。
Not for most people, no.
我的意思是，直到十九世纪，大多数人才真正开始看到进步。
I mean, you start seeing real progress for most people only in the nineteenth century.
没错。
Exactly.
我们生活在一个进步令人惊叹的世界里。
We live in a world in which progress has been amazing.
有些证据是如此显而易见。
Some of the evidence, it's so obvious.
预期寿命更长，还有手机。
A longer life expectancy, cell phone.
生活很棒，对吧？
Life is great, right?
你不会否认我们一直是进步的巨大受益者吧？
You don't disagree that we have been amazing beneficiaries of progress.
是的。
Yes.
在过去两百年里，发生过一些可怕的事情，而且现在仍然有可怕的事情在发生。
Over the last two hundred years, there have been some terrible things happening, and there are still terrible things happening.
我住在中东。
I live in The Middle East.
我对此非常清楚。
I know this perfectly well.
但从漫长的历史来看，至少自农业革命以来，二十一世纪初至今，一直是人类历史上最好的时代。
But looking at the long span of history, at least since the agricultural revolution, the early twenty first century has been, until now, the best time to be a human being.
不是牛或鸡最好的时代，但绝对是人类最好的时代。
Not the best time to be a cow or a chicken, but the best time to be a human being.
尽管有新冠疫情，你对传染病的防护能力仍高于自农业革命以来的任何历史时期。
Despite COVID, you are more protected from infectious diseases than at any previous time in history since the beginning of agriculture.
再来看看饥荒。
Then you look at famine.
如今仍然存在的唯一饥荒——我们从俄罗斯入侵乌克兰的惨状中清晰看到——就是政治性饥荒。
The only famine that still exists, and we see it now very painfully with the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the only famine that still exists is political famine.
如果地球上任何地方的人仍因食物匮乏而死亡，那纯粹是政治原因造成的。
If a person anywhere on earth still dies from lack of food, it is only because of political reasons.
我们有能力阻止这种情况，而中世纪或古代世界并没有这种能力。
We have the power to prevent it, which we did not have in the Middle Ages or in the ancient world.
然后是暴力问题。
And then you have violence.
在这方面，我总体上同意史蒂芬·平克及其他研究者的观点：最近几十年是人类历史上最和平的时期。
And here I agree, generally, with Steven Pinker and other researchers that the recent decades have been the most peaceful era in human history.
完全和平。
Again, completely peaceful.
你不必提醒我。
You don't have to remind me.
我住在以色列。
I live in Israel.
我对此非常清楚。
I know this perfectly well.
但与有记录的历史上的任何时期相比，人类的暴力行为已降至最低点。
But compared to any previous time in recorded history, human violence is at its lowest.
但这里有一个重要的前提。
But there is a big caveat.
这并不是对未来的预言。
This is not a prophecy for the future.
这仅仅是对过去几十年的观察。
This is only an observation of the last few decades.
人类建立了制度来应对饥荒、瘟疫和战争。
Humans have built institutions in order to deal with famine and plague and war.
像世界卫生组织、大学及其医学研究机构、贸易机构、联合国和国际法这样的制度。
Institutions like the World Health Organization, like universities and their medical research institutions, like trading institutions, United Nations, international law.
这并不是奇迹。
It was not a miracle.
这是人类建立制度的结果。
It was humans building institutions.
如果我们停止维护这些制度，战争、瘟疫和饥荒将以比以往任何时候都更严重的形式卷土重来。
And if we stop maintaining these institutions, then war and plague and famine will come back in an even worse form than ever before.
这就像在河上建一座大坝，然后说：太好了，我们现在控制了河流。
It's like building a dam over a river and saying, Hooray, we now have control of the river.
然后你停止维护大坝，出现一道裂缝，又一道裂缝，最终大坝崩溃，引发可怕的洪水。
And then you stop maintaining the dam, and there is a crack and another crack, and the dam collapses, and there is a terrible flood.
过去五六年里，这种情况一直在发生。
And this has been happening over the last five, six years.
自2010年代中期以来，你看到所有这些制度的维护状况持续恶化。
Since the middle of the 2010s, you see a continuing deterioration in the maintenance of all these institutions.
这一切始于那些曾是全球秩序建设领导者的国家——英国和美国在2016年通过英国脱欧和唐纳德·特朗普的孤立主义政策，宣布不再支持这一项目。
And it began with the very countries which were the leaders in building the global order Britain, The United States in 2016 with Brexit and with the isolationist policies of Donald Trump, they declared we no longer support this project.
回顾过去几年新冠疫情的发生，以及如今的战争和粮食危机，不幸的是，我们正目睹这些机构正在崩溃，瘟疫、饥荒和战争正在卷土重来。
And looking at what happened over the last few years with the pandemic, now with the war and the food crisis, unfortunately, we are seeing the institutions collapsing and plague and famine and war coming back.
现在拯救这座拦住河流的大坝还不算太晚，但我们的时间已经不多了。
It's not too late to save the dam that is holding the river, but we don't have much time.
坦率地说，我没有看到世界主要国家正在采取足够措施来挽救全球秩序。
And frankly, I don't see that the leading countries of the world are doing enough to save the global order.
您正在收听《我最钦佩的人》，主持人史蒂夫·列维特与尤瓦尔·诺亚·赫拉利的对话。
You're listening to People I Mostly Admire with Steve Levitt and his conversation with Yuval Noah Harari.
短暂的广告后，他们将回来继续讨论未来。
After this short break, they'll return to talk about the future.
如果你觉得尤瓦尔·诺亚·赫拉利对过去的观点令人惊讶，那等你听到他对未来的看法时，一定会更加震惊。
So if you think Yuval Noah Harari's ideas about the past are surprising, just wait till you hear what he believes about the future.
这真的是激进得惊人。
It is truly radical.
所以我们刚刚谈到了过去两百年里，进步是多么惊人。
So we just talked about how in the last two hundred years, progress has been amazing.
科学一直是改善人类生活的核心力量。
Science has been at the heart of transforming human life, at least for the better.
但你对科学的未来以及你所设想的最终前景深感忧虑。
But you have deep concerns about the future of science and where we're going in your final vision.
从根本上说，人类的存在已经不再依赖于科学进步。
Essentially, humans no longer exist because of scientific progress.
这种说法公平吗？
Is that a fair assessment?
是的。
Yes.
这可能会以几种方式发生，有些情况比其他情况要好一些。
It can happen in a couple of ways, some better than others.
考虑到当今科技和科学进步的速度，我认为两百年或三百年后，像你我这样的智人很可能已经不复存在了。
And given the pace of technological and scientific progress today, I think it's very unlikely that there will still be Homo sapiens like you and me in two hundred years or three hundred years.
但这种情况可能以不同方式发生。
But it can happen in different ways.
最糟糕的情况是我们会因为某种核灾难或其他原因自我毁灭。
The worst way is that we will just destroy ourselves in some nuclear catastrophe or whatever.
我认为这不太可能发生，但仍然是有可能的。
I don't think this is very likely, but it's possible.
还有一种令人恐惧的场景是，我们会利用生物工程和人工智能等强大技术，试图改造自己或创造一个新的超级物种。
Then there is another frightening scenario that we will use the immense powers of bioengineering and artificial intelligence and so forth to try and upgrade ourselves or try and create a new super specie.
由于我们并不真正理解自己所作所为的后果，这将是一种退化。
And because we don't really understand the consequences of what we are doing, it will be a downgrade.
例如，如果你把改造人类的权力交给军队和大公司，他们很可能会试图强化那些他们认为对自己最有用的人类特质，比如智力和自律。
If you give, for instance, to armies and big corporations the power to reengineer humans, they are likely to try and amplify those human qualities that they deem the most useful to them, qualities like intelligence and discipline.
你需要的是高度聪明、高度自律的员工和士兵。
You want highly intelligent and highly disciplined employees and soldiers.
其他人类特质，比如同情心、艺术敏感性、精神性，大多数军队和大公司并不需要有深厚同情心或强烈艺术美感的士兵或员工。
Other human qualities, like compassion, like artistic sensitivity, spirituality, most armies and most corporations, they don't need spiritual employees or soldiers with a very deep sense of compassion or a deep sense of artistic beauty.
如果结果是产生了一种高度聪明、高度自律但缺乏同情心、缺乏艺术敏感性、缺乏精神深度的超人种族，这将是一场可怕的灾难，尤其是这种改变几乎是永久性的。
And if the result will be a race of superhumans who are highly intelligent and highly disciplined, but they lack compassion, and they lack autistic sensitivity, and they lack spiritual depth, this will be a terrible catastrophe, especially as this is kind of permanent.
要回头非常困难。
It's very difficult to go back.
如果你想想二十世纪的极权主义政权，无论它们造成了多大的伤害，最终你还是可以回归根本，回到人类的身体和心智。
If you think about the totalitarian regimes of the twentieth century, whatever harm they did, in the end you can go back to basics, to the human body, to the human mind.
希特勒、斯大林、毛泽东都试图创造新人，但他们失败了，因为他们没有这项技术。
Hitler, Stalin, Mao, they tried to create a new man, but they failed because they didn't have the technology.
二十一世纪的斯大林们将拥有这项技术，这令人极度恐惧。
The Stalins of the twenty first century, they will have the technology, and this is extremely frightening.
历史上有时有些事情很简单，但很多时候事情都很复杂。
Sometimes there are simple things in history, but very often things are complicated.
历史上很少有革命是完全好或完全坏的。
There are very few big revolutions in history which are all good or all bad.
如果你只过分关注某一个方面，那就非常危险。
And it's very dangerous if you focus overwhelmingly on just one side.
你必须呈现完整的图景，而完整的图景必然是复杂的。
You have to give the full picture, and the full picture is bound to be complicated.
是的，这是写作中最大的挑战之一，尤其是为普通大众撰写通俗科学作品时。
And yes, this is one of the biggest challenges in writing, especially popular science for the general public.
风格应该简单、易懂，但传达的信息却不应如此。
The style should be simple, should be accessible, but the message shouldn't.
我现在正在努力将这一点推向极致。
I'm now working trying to push it to the extremes.
比如我最新的项目是一本儿童读物。
Like my latest project is a children's book.
这本质上又是将人类历史重新讲述给10到12岁的孩子听。
It's basically, again, taking the history of humankind and retelling it to kids aged 10, 11, 12.
我认为这是我所做过的最困难的项目。
And I think this was the hardest project I ever worked on.
真的吗？
Really?
因为大家都觉得给孩子写书更容易。
Because people think it's easier to write to kids.
不对，实际上反而更难，因为你得把概念提炼得更加透彻直白。
No, it's actually harder because you need to distill the ideas further.
你要怎么给孩子解释资本主义，才能既符合历史事实，又能让10岁的孩子听懂呢？
How do you explain capitalism to kids in a way which will still be true to history and yet somebody who is 10 years old can understand it?
那又要怎么解释宗教呢？
How do you explain religion?
你要怎么给孩子解释钱是什么？
How do you explain money?
这比给四五十岁的成年人解释钱还要难得多。
That's even more difficult than explaining it to people who are 40 or 50 years old.
那你现在过的生活——作为一名畅销书作家，还是这个纷乱世界里的理性之声——这是你曾经梦想的生活吗？
Is the life you're living, best selling author, voice for reason in a troubled world, is that a life you dreamed of?
不是。
No.
这只是碰巧发生在我身上。
It just happened to me.
我从未想过要去做这些事情。
It was never kind of part of my dreams to do these things.
我真正关注的正是这些话题。
It's really the kind of topics that I'm engaging with.
我选择历史部分是因为我不喜欢数学。
Like I went to history partly because I don't like mathematics.
数学太精确了，数字也太多。
It's too accurate and too many numbers.
对我来说，计算机科学是最不可能选择的领域。
The furthest thing for me is computer science.
而我发现自己突然花了大量时间谈论比特币、区块链、人工智能、人工智能的危险以及计算机科学中的各种问题。
And I find myself suddenly talking much of my time about Bitcoin and blockchain and artificial intelligence and the dangers of AI and all these problems in computer science.
你有没有想过回归私人生活？
Do you ever think about slipping back into a private life?
这对你有吸引力吗？
Does that have appeal to you?
嗯，我尽量让我的大部分时间和生活保持私密。
Well, I try to keep a lot of my time, a lot of my life private.
我每年都会进行一次长达一到两个月的静修，完全断开联系。
And I take every year a long meditation retreat between one month and two months that I just completely disconnect.
我知道这是一种特权。
I know it's a privilege.
大多数人没有能力断开一两个月，甚至几个小时都做不到。
Most people don't have the ability to disconnect for two months or one month, but even for a few hours.
这极其重要。
It's extremely important.
我经常接触到许多政界人士和商业领袖，他们常常向我寻求建议。
I get to meet a lot of politicians and business leaders, and they often ask me for advice.
我告诉他们的一件事就是：要留出时间，断开联系。
And one thing I tell them is to take time off, to disconnect.
当今许多领域的领导者面临的一个最严重的问题是，过去由于旧世界通信技术的限制，他们的日程中自然安排了一些休息时间。
One of the worst problems of leaders today in many fields is that previously they had built into their schedule some time off because of the limitations of communication technology in the old world.
而现在，这些休息时间完全消失了。
Now there is none.
你始终处于连接状态。
You are always connected.
你承受着巨大的压力，这极其危险。
There is immense pressure on you, And it's extremely dangerous.
我认为，身处顶层的人有责任为公众照顾好自己的心智健康。
I think that the people at the top, they have a commitment to the public to take good care of their minds.
其中一部分就是需要断开连接，让大脑得到净化。
And part of this is to disconnect and detoxify their mind.
此外，他们也需要私人生活。
And also, they need a private life.
如今我看到的一个令人担忧的现象，尤其是在民主国家，就是顶层人士——尤其是政治家——被剥夺了私人生活。
Again, one of the frightening things I see now, especially in democracies, is the way that the people at the top, especially politicians, are denied a private life.
他们在任何时候说的任何话都可能被拿来针对他们。
Anything they say at any moment can and will be used against them.
作为一名公众演讲者，我知道当我公开讲话时，必须付出巨大努力来集中注意力，并非常谨慎地注意自己说的话。
And as a public speaker, I know that when I speak in public, I have to make a very big effort to concentrate and to be very aware of what I'm saying.
但当我非正式场合时，我可以让大脑放松。
But then when I'm off record, I can let my mind rest.
放松的一部分就是说些愚蠢的话。
And part of resting is saying stupid things.
就是那些你不会仔细思考的事情。
Same things you don't think about carefully.
每个人的脑海里都充满垃圾信息。
The mind of every person is full of garbage.
我认为这是一种基本的人权。
I think this is a basic human right.
你在私底下有权说些愚蠢的话。
You have a right to say stupid things in private.
作为一个同性恋者，如果一位政客在私下对朋友讲了一个恐同笑话，有人录了下来并传到了YouTube、Twitter等平台上，我并不在意。
As a gay man, if a politician tells a homophobic joke in private to some friends and somebody records it, and it's now on YouTube and Twitter and whatever, I don't care.
我在意的是这位领导者在公共场合说了什么。
I care what this leader says in public.
如果他在公共场合讲了一个恐同笑话，那就非常糟糕，因为这会煽动数百万人的仇恨。
If in public he or she tells a homophobic joke, this is very bad because this is inciting hatred among millions.
我关心的是他们的政策。
I care about their policies.
但他们私下说的话，与我无关。
But what they say in private, it's not my business.
有些人持相反观点，认为我们终于能听到他们真实的想法。
Some people think the opposite, that finally we get to hear what they really think.
这才是他们真实的自我。
This is their authentic self.
他们在舞台上说的话，不过是某个公关顾问教他们讲的。
What they say on stage, this is something that some spin doctor told them to say.
他们真正的想法，会在私下流露出来。
What they really think, this comes out in private.
但这是一种非常危险的方向。
And that's a very dangerous direction.
因为我不想要真实的领导者。
Because I don't want authentic leaders.
我想要负责任的领导者。
I want responsible leaders.
政治不是心理分析。
Politics is not psychoanalysis.
我不希望有人站在那里，只是把他的内心想法一股脑儿说出来。
I don't want somebody who stands there and just gives me his stream of consciousness.
那很真实，但也很糟糕。
That's authentic and that's bad.
我们需要那些在思想和言语之间设有屏障的人，谨慎思考自己所说的话，因为这是一项重大的责任。
We need people who have a barrier, a wall between the mind and the mouth and think very carefully about what they say because it's a big responsibility.
然后他们应该有隐私，可以去某个地方说些愚蠢而糟糕的话。
And then they should have the privacy to go somewhere and just say stupid and terrible things.
这，你知道的，只是作为一个人的本性。
That's, you know, just being human.
当我与作者交谈时，我常常发现他们所有有趣的想法都已经写在他们的书里了。
When I talk with authors, I often find that all their interesting ideas are already in their books.
这仍然可以做成一集很棒的播客，因为大多数听众没读过他们所有的书，但对我来说有点令人失望，因为我通常已经读过他们的书，所以从中得不到任何新东西。
And that can still make a great podcast episode because most listeners won't have read all their books, but it's a little disappointing for me because I usually have read their books, so I don't get anything new out of it.
但尤瓦尔绝对不属于这一类。
But Yuval definitely did not fall into that category.
是的。
Yes.
我们谈了很多关于他的书的内容，但最让我印象深刻的是，无论我们谈到什么新话题，他都能说出一些让我铭记于心的观点，比如在新冠疫情中，他提到1918年的致命流感大流行相比世界大战几乎没有留下持久的文化影响；或者在我们对话结束时，他提出的观点是，人们，包括政治家，都应该能在私下里说些愚蠢的话。
We talked a lot about his books, but what I found most striking is that whatever new topic we touched on, he had something to say that really sticks with me, like in COVID, the idea that the brutal flu pandemic of nineteen eighteen had little lasting cultural impact compared to the world wars, or at the end of our conversation, the idea that people, including politicians, should be able to say stupid things in private.
尤瓦尔是我未来非常希望再次邀请的嘉宾。
Yuval is a guest I would love to bring back in the future.
现在是我们回答听众问题的时间了，让我欢迎我的制作人摩根加入，帮我们一起来探讨这个问题。
So now is the time where we take a listener question, and let me welcome my producer Morgan on to help us walk through that.
嘿，列维特。
Hey, Levitt.
一位名叫弗朗西斯的听众来信了。
So a listener named Francis wrote in.
因为你是一名经济学家，他想知道你主持《Pima》（Pima是‘我最钦佩的人’的首字母缩写）的动机是什么。
Because you're an economist, he wants to know what are your incentives for hosting Pima, Pima being an acronym for people I mostly admire.
你认为你的嘉宾参与节目的动机又是什么？
And what do you surmise are your guests' incentives for participating?
我喜欢这个问题。
Oh, I like that question.
让我告诉你我为什么开始做这个播客。
Let me tell you about the reason I started the podcast.
这其实源于我对教学的挫败感。
It really came out of frustration with teaching.
我花大量时间准备讲座，然后站在80名学生面前授课。
I would spend so much time preparing lectures, and I would stand in front of my class of 80 students.
但他们大多并不想来上课。
And they would mostly not wanna be there.
他们大多只关心自己的成绩。
They would mostly be worried about their grades.
我羡慕着杜布纳在《魔鬼经济学》播客中所做的事，心想：为什么我要把时间和精力花在这80个孩子身上，而不是去和成千上万的听众交流，试着传递我的观点呢？
And I just looked longingly at what Dubner was doing with Freakonomics Radio, and I thought, why am I spending so much time and effort on these 80 kids when maybe I could talk to an audience of thousands of people and try to get my ideas across?
此外，我心里还隐隐觉得，我自己也快没什么好点子了。
Also, in the back of my mind, I was thinking, I'm kinda out of good ideas.
如果我能请到特别有趣的人来分享他们的想法，这不仅会让我更开心，也会对所有人更有价值。
And if I got really interesting people to talk about their ideas, it'd both be a lot more fun for me and a lot better for everyone.
所以，正是这些动机让你进入了播客行业。
So those incentives were what got you into the podcasting business.
这些动机现在还成立吗？还是说现在有了其他新的动力？
Do they still hold true, or are there other incentives now?
我一开始做播客后，又出现了另外两个动力。
Two other incentives arose once I got started.
第一个是，我意识到一旦把这些有趣的人请到我的播客里，我就可以开始和他们讨论合作以及我们可以一起做的事情。
The first was I realized once I had these interesting people captive on my podcast, I could start to talk to them about collaborations and things we might do together.
超出我最疯狂的想象，播客结束后，我和嘉宾们发生了许多美好的事情，这最终成了一个巨大的额外收获。
And beyond my wildest dreams, I've had so many great things happen with the guests after the podcast has ended, and that turned out really to be a huge perk.
另一个变化是我们真的成功了，吸引了庞大的听众群体。
The other thing that changed is we were actually successful, and we get these big audiences.
这对我来说产生了改变。
And it changes it for me.
它让这件事不再那么像一场游戏或有趣的业余爱好。
It makes it maybe less of a game and a little fun hobby.
我感到一点恐惧，一点责任。
I feel a little bit of fear, a little bit of obligation.
现在，我努力做好节目的动力，很大程度上源于这样一个事实：既然有这么多人会听，我可不能让自己出丑。
Now the incentive to do well is really motivated by the fact that if so many people are gonna listen, I better not make a fool out of myself.
当我有嘉宾来访，觉得自己表现糟糕时，这种感觉会萦绕我好几天。
When I have a guest on and I feel like I blew it, it just haunts me for days.
我根本无法摆脱它。
I can't get it out of my head.
我怎么会让这种情况发生？
How did I let that happen?
我为什么没有问这个问题？
How did I not ask this question?
对我来说，做采访并不自然，也不完全令人愉快。
For me, being an interviewer is not natural, and it's not completely pleasant either.
但总体而言，也许我喜欢它的原因在于它对我来说极具挑战性。
But as a whole, maybe what I like about it is it's it's very challenging for me.
那么，你认为我们的嘉宾为什么愿意上这个播客呢？
So why do you think our guests come on the podcast?
我并不完全了解所有嘉宾的动机，但我很清楚，当有人邀请我参加节目时，我是怎么想的。
I don't fully understand the incentives of all my guests, but I certainly know how I think about it when someone invites me to be on a show.
而最有可能让我答应参加的原因，就是我有东西要推广。
And the thing that's most likely to lead me to say yes is if I have something to sell.
这就是为什么你会发现，节目里的很多嘉宾都出了新书，或是有新播客要宣传。
That's why you'll see that many of the guests that are on the show have a new book or have a new podcast.
不过还有另一个会让我答应
But the other thing that leads me to say yes to
参与录制的原因
being
接受采访时，我总会先看看在我之前参加过这个节目的嘉宾名单。
interviewed is I tend to look at the list of other people who've done it before me.
如果那份名单里全是我觉得比我聪明、比我有分量或是比我风趣的人，那我通常都会答应邀约。因为我会想，既然这个节目值得他们花时间参与，那应该也值得我花时间。
And if that list is full of people who I think are smarter or more important or funnier than I am, then I usually say yes because I think, well, if it was worth their time, probably worth my time too.
大家好。
Hey there.
这里是史蒂夫和达布纳，希望你觉得花时间收听史蒂夫·莱维特与尤瓦尔·赫拉利的对谈是值得的。
It's Steve and Dubner again, and I hope you found it worth your time to listen to Steve Levitt in conversation with Yuval Noah Harari.
再次提醒，列维特的播客名为《我最钦佩的人》，你最好现在就去你最喜欢的播客应用上订阅。
Again, Levitt's podcast is called People I Mostly Admire, and you should probably go right now and get it on your favorite podcast app.
那里几乎有近百期节目等着你。
There are almost a 100 episodes waiting for you there.
最新的一期，奇怪的是，嘉宾是我自己。
The most recent one, weirdly enough, with me as the guest.
如果你想为Pima推荐未来的嘉宾，或发送任何反馈，邮箱地址是Pima,pima,@Freakonomics.com。
If you want to suggest future guests for Pima or send any feedback at all, the address is Pima,pima,@Freakonomics.com.
我很想知道你对这期节目有什么看法。
I'd love to know what you thought of this feed drop episode.
我们的邮箱是radio@Freakonomics.com。
We are at radio@Freakonomics.com.
下一期《魔鬼经济学》播客，你需要带着‘没有愚蠢的问题’开启新的一年。
Coming up next time on Freakonomics Radio, you need to start the new year with no stupid questions.
我在想医院，因为它们太糟糕了。
I'm thinking hospitals because they're terrible.
88%的小学教师鼓励学生憋尿。
88% of elementary school teachers encourage their students to hold their pee.
就在今天早上，我家突然响起了‘哔’的一声，我怎么也找不到声音来源。
Just this morning, there was this, like, beep in my house, and I couldn't figure out where it was.
这是《别问蠢问题》的特别节目，这是Freakonomics Radio网络下的另一个节目。
It's a special episode of no stupid questions, another show in the Freakonomics Radio Network.
你将听到安吉拉·达克沃斯和我讨论人类行为如何受到我们所处建筑环境的影响。
You will hear Angela Duckworth and me discuss how human behavior is affected by our built environment.
你去过梵蒂冈吧？
You've been to The Vatican, I assume?
我去过梵蒂冈。
I have been to The Vatican.
下次再讲。
That's next time.
在那之前，照顾好自己，如果可以的话，也照顾一下别人。
Until then, take care of yourself, and if you can, someone else too.
《Freakonomics Radio》和《People I Mostly Admire》都是Freakonomics Radio网络的一部分，该网络还包括《无脑问题》和《Freakonomics MD》。
Freakonomics Radio and People I Mostly Admire are both part of the Freakonomics Radio network, which also includes no stupid questions and Freakonomics MD.
我们的节目由Stitcher和Renbud Radio制作。
Our shows are produced by Stitcher and Renbud Radio.
本集由Morgan Levy制作，由Greg Rippin和Jasmine Klinger混音。
This episode was produced by Morgan Levy and mixed by Greg Rippin and Jasmine Klinger.
我们的团队还包括Zach Lipinski、Ryan Kelly、Katherine Moncure、Alina Cullman、Rebecca Lee Douglas、Julie Kanfer、Eleanor Osborne、Jeremy Johnston、Daria Clehnert、Emma Terrell、Lyric Bowditch和Elsa Hernandez。
Our staff also includes Zach Lipinski, Ryan Kelly, Katherine Moncure, Alina Cullman, Rebecca Lee Douglas, Julie Kanfer, Eleanor Osborne, Jeremy Johnston, Daria Clehnert, Emma Terrell, Lyric Bowditch, and Elsa Hernandez.
我们的执行团队是Neil Carruth、Gabriel Roth和我，Steven Dubner。
Our executive team is Neil Carruth, Gabriel Roth, and me, Steven Dubner.
我们的音乐由Luis Guerra创作。
Our music is composed by Luis Guerra.
如果你想阅读任何一集的文本稿或查看其基础研究，所有内容都在freakonomics.com上。
If you would like to read a transcript or check out the underlying research of any episode, that is all at freakonomics.com.
一如既往，感谢收听。
As always, thanks for listening.
你被困在车里的交通堵塞中。
You're stuck in traffic in your car.
交通完全不动了。
The traffic is not moving.
你感到很烦躁。
You're annoyed.
这是宇宙中最神奇的事情。
This is the most amazing thing in the universe.
Freakonomics Radio Network，一切的隐藏面。
The Freakonomics Radio Network, the hidden side of everything.
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