4 THINGS THAT SCARE ADULTS

3 THINGS THAT SCARE ADULTS

让成年人害怕的3件事

WORSE THAN GHOSTS When adults are worried and kids ask why, adults often reply, "You'll understand when you're older." How often have you been told that? Apparently, there are some scary things in the world that kids can't understand. That's a bit strange. After all, kids can see everything adults see and touch everything adults touch—so what are these things that kids can't see or touch that scare adults so much?

当大人们担心孩子问为什么时，大人们通常会回答：“等你长大了你就会明白的。” 这话你听过多少次？ 显然，世界上有些可怕的事情是孩子们无法理解的。 这有点奇怪。毕竟，成年人看到的孩子都能看到，触摸到的孩子都能触摸到。那么，究竟是什么东西孩子看不到、触摸不到，却让成年人如此害怕呢？

Many of these things didn't exist in the time of ancient gatherers. When a gatherer worried about something and her kid asked, "Mom, why are you so worried?" the gatherer rarely replied, "You'll understand when you grow up" because most things that made gatherers worried could be explained to their kids: "I'm worried because your sister is sick. I'm worried because there's a storm coming. I'm worried because we saw a lion prowling nearby." Agriculture made life more complicated. When lots of people started living together, the villages and towns offered them protection from storms and lions, but this also created new worries— complicated ones! For example, one of the things that scare adults most is called taxes. Children are afraid of ghosts and monsters. Adults are scared of taxes. If you wanted to play a practical joke on your parents, you might dress up as a ghost and go "Wooo!" in the middle of the night. Your parents would probably just laugh. But if you said, "Mom, while you were away this guy called and said he wanted to talk with you. I think he said he was from the tax authority or something…." Watch out! Your mother might become very scared indeed! What exactly are taxes, and why are they so frightening? And why did adults develop fears they didn't have before? It has something to do with living in bigger places like cities and kingdoms and how that made life more complicated. You don't really have to grow up to understand these worries. But you do have to know a few things about how agriculture created the first cities and kingdoms. LUGAL-BANDA AND LUGAL-KINISHE-DUDU When people started farming, they lived in small villages. One village had 60 people, another had 100, and the really big villages had perhaps 300. As farmers burned more forests, sowed more fields,

这些东西在古代采集者的时代是不存在的。 当一个采集者担心什么事情时，她的孩子问她：“妈妈，你为什么这么担心？”采集者很少回答：“等你长大了你就会明白了。”因为大多数让采集者担心的事情都可以向他们的孩子解释：“我担心你妹妹病了。” 我很担心，因为暴风雨就要来了。 我很担心，因为我们看到一头狮子在附近徘徊。” 农业使生活变得更加复杂。 当许多人开始住在一起时，村庄和城镇为他们提供了免受风暴和狮子侵害的保护，但这也产生了新的担忧——复杂的担忧！例如，最让成年人害怕的事情之一就是税收。 孩子们害怕鬼和妖怪。 成年人害怕税收。 如果你想对你的父母开个恶作剧，你可能会打扮成一个鬼，在半夜里发出“呜”的声音。 你的父母可能只会笑。 但如果你说：“妈妈，你不在的时候有个人打电话来说他想和你谈谈。 我想他说他是税务机关什么的...." 小心!你妈妈可能会非常害怕！税收到底是什么，为什么它们如此可怕？ 为什么成年人会产生以前没有的恐惧？ 它与生活在更大的地方，如城市和王国，以及生活如何变得更加复杂有关。 你不需要长大就能理解这些担忧。 但是你必须知道一些关于农业如何创造第一批城市和王国的事情。 当人们开始务农时，他们住在小村庄里。 一个村庄有60人，另一个有100人，真正大的村庄可能有300人。 随着农民烧了更多的森林，播种了更多的土地，

raised more sheep, and had more kids, some villages grew into towns with thousands of people. The towns also grew bigger over time. In places such as the Middle East, India, China, and Mexico, cities with tens of thousands of people appeared. These cities often had strong walls, big temples, and a beautiful palace where a king lived. Some of the kings ruled not only one city but an entire kingdom, which included many towns and villages. Where did these kings come from? Some of the priests and chiefs of old times became more and more powerful, until they were kings. In an ancient village or small town, when an important decision had to be made, all the people would meet, and everybody would say what they thought about the matter. People respected what the local priests and chiefs said but didn't always agree with them. But in the big new cities, there were so many people that it was difficult for all of them to meet in one place and hear what each person had to say. One of the first cities in the world was called Uruk. It was on the banks of the Euphrates River, in the land of Sumer, which is now in southern Iraq. Some 50,000 people lived in Uruk… and it was difficult for 50,000 people to make decisions together. For example, suppose a group of warriors from another Sumerian city—Lagash—came to steal grain and sheep from the fields around Uruk. What should the Urukians do? Should they stay safely inside the city, defend its walls, and allow the Lagashians to steal what they want? Should they go out to fight the Lagashians? Or should they try to make peace with the Lagashians, offering them some grain and sheep? If each one of the 50,000 Urukians took five minutes to put

养了更多的羊，生了更多的孩子，一些村庄发展成了拥有数千人的城镇。 随着时间的推移，城镇也变得越来越大。 在中东、印度、中国、墨西哥等地，出现了数万人的城市。 这些城市通常有坚固的城墙、高大的寺庙和一座国王居住的美丽宫殿。 有些国王不仅统治一个城市，而且统治整个王国，其中包括许多城镇和村庄。 这些国王是从哪里来的？ 古代的一些祭司和首领变得越来越强大，直到他们成为国王。 在一个古老的村庄或小镇上，当必须做出一个重要的决定时，所有的人都会聚集在一起，每个人都会说出他们对这件事的看法。 人们尊重当地牧师和酋长所说的话，但并不总是同意他们的观点。 但是在新的大城市里，人太多了，很难让所有人在一个地方见面，并听到每个人要说的话。 世界上最早的城市之一叫做乌鲁克。 它位于幼发拉底河岸边，在苏美尔的土地上，现在在伊拉克南部。 乌鲁克大约有5万人，5万人很难一起做决定。 例如，假设一群来自另一个苏美尔城市拉格什的战士来到乌鲁克附近的田地里偷粮食和羊。 乌克兰人应该怎么做？ 他们应该安全地呆在城里，保卫城墙，让拉加什人偷走他们想要的东西吗？ 他们应该出去和拉加西亚人作战吗？ 或者他们应该试着与拉迦西亚人讲和，给他们一些粮食和羊？ 如果5万乌鲁奇人每个人花5分钟

forward their view, just listening to all these ideas would take 250,000 minutes, which adds up to 173 days! By the time everybody finished explaining and discussing their ideas, the Lagashians would have taken every grain of wheat and every last lamb in Uruk. So when an important decision like this had to be made, the Urukians didn't let everybody speak. They chose a few wise people to lead them. These leaders met in a small council that could decide things quickly. But if these leaders quarreled and couldn't agree, they went to the big chief who led the warriors of Uruk in times of war, asked him what to do, and obeyed whatever he said. If that big chief made more and more decisions on his own, he might eventually become king. We know the names of many kings of Uruk. They had names like Lugal-banda, Lugal-kisalsi, and Lugal-kinishe-dudu. The kings of neighboring Sumerian cities had similar names, like Lugal-sha-engur of Lagash and Lugal-zage-si of Umma. Why were they all called lugal-something? In the language of Sumer, lu meant "man" and gal meant "big." So lugal meant "big man." NEFERIRKARE-KAKAI AND TUTANKHAMEN The lugals thought they were the biggest men in the world. Lugalzage-si of Umma even boasted that he ruled the entire world! That was nonsense. Most people in the world had never even heard of Sumer and all these lugals. Many people still lived in bands of gatherers or in small towns where everybody made all the decisions together and there was no lugal. Other people lived in kingdoms that existed far from Sumer, each with its own "big man." More than 1,000 kilometers to the west of Sumer, there was a particularly big kingdom called Egypt, which was ruled by "big men" called pharaohs.

把他们的观点向前推进，光是听所有这些想法就需要25万分钟，加起来就是173天！当每个人都解释和讨论完他们的想法时，拉加什人可能已经拿走了乌鲁克的每一粒小麦和最后一只羊。 因此，当必须做出这样的重要决定时，乌鲁克人不会让每个人都发言。 他们选了几个聪明人来领导他们。 这些领导人召开了一个小型会议，可以迅速做出决定。 但是，如果这些领导人发生争吵，无法达成一致，他们就会去找在战争时期领导乌鲁克战士的大酋长，问他该怎么做，并照他说的去做。 如果那个大酋长自己做越来越多的决定，他最终可能会成为国王。 我们知道很多乌鲁克国王的名字。 他们的名字有卢格班达、卢格基萨尔斯和卢格基尼什杜都。 邻近苏美尔城市的国王也有类似的名字，比如拉格什的卢加尔-沙-恩古尔和乌玛的卢加尔-扎吉-西。 为什么他们都被称为法律之类的？ 在苏美尔语中，lu意为“人”，gal意为“大”。 所以lugal的意思是“大人物”。尼费里卡雷-卡卡伊和图坦卡蒙这两个强盗以为他们是世界上最伟大的人。 乌玛的Lugalzage-si甚至吹嘘他统治了整个世界！那是胡说八道。 世界上的大多数人甚至从未听说过苏美尔和所有这些卢伽尔。 许多人仍然生活在采集者的部落里，或者住在小镇里，所有的决定都是大家一起做的，没有法律。 其他人生活在远离苏美尔的王国，每个王国都有自己的“大人物”。 在苏美尔以西1000多公里的地方，有一个特别大的王国，叫做埃及，它由被称为法老的“大人物”统治。