3 THE SAPIENS’ SUPERPOWER

CHAPTER 2 THE SAPIENS' SUPERPOWER

第二章智人的超级大国

BANANA ADVENTURES SO, WHAT DO YOU THINK? WHAT HAPPENED 50,000 YEARS ago? What superpower did Sapiens get that allows us to rule the planet today? The answer isn't obvious. Superman, Spider-Man, Wonder Woman and all the other comic superheroes are powerful because they're strong, fast and brave. But Sapiens weren't stronger, faster or braver than Neanderthals—or plenty of other animals, for that matter. In a fight with a wolf, a crocodile or a chimpanzee, a Sapiens would have very little chance of winning. Even an old grandma chimpanzee could beat the world boxing champion. The only reason we can scare away wolves and lock chimpanzees in zoos is that we cooperate in very large numbers. One human can't defeat one chimpanzee, but a thousand humans can achieve incredible things that chimpanzees can't even dream of. And it's thanks to our secret superpower that we can cooperate better than any other animal. We can even cooperate with complete strangers.

香蕉冒险，你觉得怎么样？ 5万年前发生了什么？ 智人获得了什么超能力，让我们今天能够统治地球？ 答案并不明显。超人、蜘蛛侠、神奇女侠和所有其他漫画中的超级英雄都很强大，因为他们强壮、敏捷、勇敢。 但智人并不比尼安德特人更强壮、更快或更勇敢——就此而言，也不比其他许多动物更勇敢。 在与狼、鳄鱼或黑猩猩的战斗中，智人几乎没有获胜的机会。 即使是一只黑猩猩老奶奶也能打败世界拳击冠军。 我们之所以能吓跑狼，把黑猩猩关在动物园里，唯一的原因就是我们大量合作。 一个人无法打败一只黑猩猩，但一千个人可以完成黑猩猩做梦都想不到的不可思议的事情。 多亏了我们的秘密超能力，我们才能比其他动物更好地合作。 我们甚至可以和完全陌生的人合作。

Take, for example, the last piece of fruit you ate. Maybe it was a banana. Where did that banana come from? If you were a chimp, you'd have to go to the forest and pick a banana yourself. But because you're a human, you usually rely on help from strangers. Very few people pick their own bananas. In most cases, someone you've never met and never will meet grew this banana thousands of miles from you. Then other strangers put it on a truck, a train or perhaps a ship and transported it to your local shop. Then you went to the shop, chose your banana, took it to the cashier, and gave the cashier some money. And that's how you got your banana. How many people touched that banana before you bought it? How many of these people do you know personally? Maybe you don't know any of them… but they helped you get your banana. Or think about your school. How many people make up a school? First of all, you need lots of students. Without them, the school would be pointless! How many kids are there at your school? Then you need teachers. Try to count how many teachers your school has. And there are the people who built the school, the people who clean it, the people who serve food in its cafeteria, the people who generate electricity so you have light in the classroom, the people who wrote and printed all the textbooks, and many, many others. So, all in all, how many people does it take to make a school? And how many of them do you know personally?

以你吃的最后一块水果为例。 也许是香蕉。香蕉是从哪里来的？ 如果你是黑猩猩，你就得自己到森林里去摘香蕉。 但因为你是人类，你通常会依赖陌生人的帮助。 很少有人自己摘香蕉。 在大多数情况下，一个你从未见过，也永远不会见过的人在离你数千英里的地方种了这种香蕉。 然后其他陌生人把它装上卡车、火车或轮船，运到你当地的商店。 然后你去了商店，选了你的香蕉，把它拿给收银员，给了收银员一些钱。 你就是这样得到香蕉的。 在你买香蕉之前，有多少人碰过它？ 这些人中有多少是你认识的？ 也许你不认识他们，但他们帮你拿到了香蕉。 或者想想你的学校。 一所学校有多少人？ 首先，你需要很多学生。 没有他们，学校将毫无意义！你们学校有多少孩子？ 然后你需要老师。试着数一数你们学校有多少老师。 还有建造学校的人，打扫学校的人，在食堂提供食物的人，为教室照明而发电的人，编写和印刷所有教科书的人，还有很多很多其他人。 所以，总而言之，需要多少人来建立一所学校？ 其中有多少是你认识的？

All the big achievements of humankind, such as flying to the Moon, were the result of cooperation between hundreds of thousands of people. In 1969, Neil Armstrong was the first human to set foot on the Moon. He got there by flying in a spaceship, but he didn't build the spaceship himself. Countless people cooperated to build the spaceship: miners extracted iron from the earth to build it, engineers designed it, mathematicians calculated the best course to the Moon, technicians made special boots so that Armstrong could walk on the Moon, and farmers grew bananas so that the astronauts would have something to eat in space.

人类所有的伟大成就，比如飞向月球，都是成千上万人合作的结果。 1969年，尼尔·阿姆斯特朗成为第一个踏上月球的人。 他乘宇宙飞船到达那里，但他并没有自己建造宇宙飞船。 无数人合作建造宇宙飞船：矿工从地球上提取铁来建造它，工程师设计它，数学家计算到月球的最佳路线，技术人员制作特殊的靴子，以便阿姆斯特朗可以在月球上行走，农民种植香蕉，以便宇航员在太空中有东西吃。