As Bertolt Brecht said, “Grub first, then ethics.”

正如贝托尔特·布莱希特所说“先要吃饱 再讲道德”

A lot of people have an expectation that society ought to work in uniform harmony and affluence,

很多人都期望社会能够和谐统一 富裕充足

and any deviation from that is an outrage that requires identifying which bad people made it possible.

任何偏离此轨道的现象都是暴乱 需要找出是哪些坏人成了搅屎棍

And when I began Enlightenment Now I wanted to really orient the reader in a very different mindset about the human condition.

我开始写《Enlightenment Now》的时候 是想引导读者去接触一种截然不同的人类社会

Namely, as we find ourselves in the universe nothing is expected to work in our favor,

也就是说 我们存在于这世间 没有任何东西生来就该为我们服务

beginning with what many scientists consider one of the most fundamental of scientific discoveries,

先来说说被很多科学家奉为科学发现之最的定律

namely the Second Law of Thermodynamics, or the law of entropy.

即热力学第二定律 又称熵定律

Namely, that in a closed system—one that isn’t receiving inputs of energy or information—disorder naturally increases.

意思是 在封闭系统中——不接受能量或信息输入的系统——混乱度自然增加

The ability to do useful work/life-enabling structure.

做有用的工作/形成生命的结构

Just because there are astronomically so many more ways for things to go wrong than things to go right by any definition of things going right.

只是因为在天文学上 根据事情正常运转的定义 事情不顺的方式要比正常运转的方式多很多

So right from the start we don’t have any right to expect that the universe is going to be particularly kind to us.

所以从一开始 我们就无权奢望宇宙能对人类格外友善

Indeed, the universe is not out to get us, but it just doesn’t care about us, and there’s a lot of ways for things to go wrong

确实 宇宙不会跟我们过不去 它只是根本就不在乎我们 事情不顺的方式有很多种

unless we deploy energy and information to carve out local zones of beneficial order that keep us alive and healthy and happy.

除非我们利用能量和信息 开创出能让我们活着并且健康幸福的有利的本地区域

That’s a different way of just thinking about the human predicament, namely we constantly have to expend effort, intelligence, knowledge

这只是看待人类困境的另一种方式 也就是说我们需要不断消耗我们的努力 智力和知识

in order to make things work, and our background expectation should be that things fall apart.

以便让事情进展顺利 我们隐藏的预期是情况会崩溃

It’s advances in energy capture that lead to the beneficial complexity of life.

正是能量获取的改进引发了有利的生活复杂度

Perhaps back to the axial age, the period of about 800 years in the first millennium B.C.

或许在轴心世纪 公元前一千年的800年期间

which saw the emergence of a number of moralistic philosophies arising in different parts of the world around the same time.

当时世界各地同时出现了很多道德哲学

The age of classical Greek philosophy, the age of the Hebrew prophets, of Confucius, of Buddha,

经典的希腊哲学世纪 希伯来先知世纪 孔子 佛教

a kind of uncanny coincidence seemingly of movements that went from merely propitiating gods and making sacrifices and begging him for victory and better weather and relief from misfortunes

这看似是各项运动的奇妙巧合 从仅仅是供奉上帝 祭祀 向上帝祈求胜利 更好的天气 摆脱厄运

to a more universal system of human betterment, human flourishing.

上升到一个更为广泛的体系 乞求人类的进步和繁荣

So what led to this development seemingly in different parts of the world at the same time?

那么是什么让世界各地在同一时期有了这种相似的发展呢？

According to one hypothesis by a team of scholars including Ian Morris and Pascal Boyer and Nicolette Molnar,

根据包括伊恩·莫里斯 帕斯卡尔·波伊尔和尼科莱特·莫尔纳等学者在内的一群人的假设

there were gains in energy capture in the ability to use the products of agriculture – oil and fiber and calories from food

在使用农产品（食物中的油 纤维和卡路里）方面的能量获取有所改进

to allow for a priestly cast separate from the people who actually have to scratch out a living from the ground.

这让我们不同于那些依靠土地维持生计的人

And also, once people’s minds are elevated from just putting a roof over their head—

而且 一旦人们不再仅仅关注有房子住——

or to keeping the wolf at the door, where their next meal is coming from—

或者是保护自己免受野外野兽的伤害 而野外正是人类的食物来源——

they have the cognitive luxury to think about, “What’s it all about?

他们就会产生奢侈的认知 会想“这一切都是什么？

Why are we here? What do we strive for?”

我们为什么存在？为了什么奋斗？”

And according to this theory it was something as mundane—but really not mundane—as energy capture:

根据这条理论 它是一种与能量获取同样平凡（但其实并不平凡）的事：

Not mundane given that the second law of thermodynamics determines our fate unless we can push it back.

并不平凡 因为热力学第二定律决定了我们的命运 除非我们能与之抗衡

And so perhaps it’s not such a homely pedestrian explanation for how so many civilizations made this leap to further moral horizons.

所以这么多文明是如何飞升到了更加道德的层面 这可能并不只是平凡随意的解释