Factfulness: Ten Reasons We're Wrong About The World - And Why Things Are Better Than You Think

by Hans Rosling

Every group of people I ask thinks the world is more frightening, more violent, and more hopeless—in short, more dramatic—than it really is.

This is data as you have never known it: it is data as therapy. It is understanding as a source of mental peace. Because the world is not as dramatic as it seems.

Does make sense saying the world atleast its problems are not dramatic as it seems but it can certainlhy be extremely grave

Start to practice it, and you will be able to replace your overdramatic worldview with a worldview based on facts.

chapter is about the first of our ten dramatic instincts, the gap instinct. I’m talking about that irresistible temptation we have to divide all kinds of things into two distinct and often conflicting groups, with an imagined gap—a huge chasm of injustice—in between. It is about how the gap instinct creates a picture in people’s heads of a world split into two kinds of countries or two kinds of people: rich versus poor.

If you want to convince someone they are suffering from a misconception, it’s very useful to be able to test their opinion against the data. So I did just that.

Because the four income levels are the first, most important part of your new fact-based framework.

But any simplification of information may also be misleading, and averages are no exception.

spread: not just the group all bundled together, but the individuals. Then we often see that apparently distinct groups are in fact very much overlapping.

secondhand experiences are filtered through the mass media, which loves nonrepresentative extraordinary events and shuns normality.

Factfulness is … recognizing when a story talks about a gap, and remembering that this paints a picture of two separate groups, with a gap in between. The reality is often not polarized at all. Usually the majority is right there in the middle, where the gap is supposed to be.

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There are three things going on here: the misremembering of the past; selective reporting by journalists and activists; and the feeling that as long as things are bad it’s heartless to say they are getting better.

This improved reporting is itself a sign of human progress, but it creates the impression of the exact opposite.

“possibilist.”

The loss of hope is probably the most devastating consequence of the negativity instinct and the ignorance it causes.

How can we help our brains to realize that things are getting better when everything is screaming at us that things are getting worse?

A solution that works for me is to persuade myself to keep two thoughts in my head at the same time.

Factfulness is … recognizing when we get negative news, and remembering that information about bad events is much more likely to reach us.

We have now arrived at the third instinct—the straight line instinct—and the third and last mega misconception: the false idea that the world population is just increasing.

For the first time in human history, we live in balance.

It might be that a healthy population produces more income. It might be that a rich population can afford better health. I think both are true.

Factfulness is … recognizing the assumption that a line will just continue straight, and remembering that such lines are rare in reality. To control the straight line instinct, remember that curves come in different

Critical thinking is always difficult, but it’s almost impossible when we are scared. There’s no room for facts when our minds are occupied by fear.

Nepal is one of the last Asian countries left on Level 1, and

was born in 1948, three years after the end of the Second World War, in which 65 million people died.

Most children who catch measles recover, but there is still no cure and even with the best modern medicine, one or two in every thousand will die of it. Second, ask yourself, “What kind of evidence would convince me to change my mind?” If the answer is “no evidence could ever change my mind about vaccination,” then you are putting yourself outside evidence-based rationality, outside the very critical thinking that first brought you to this point. In that case, to be consistent in your skepticism about science, next time you have an operation please

This chapter has touched on terrifying events: natural disasters (0.1 percent of all deaths), plane crashes (0.001 percent), murders (0.7 percent), nuclear leaks (0 percent), and terrorism (0.05 percent). None of them kills more than 1 percent of the people who die each year, and still they get enormous media attention. We should of course work to reduce these death rates as well. Still, this helps to show just how much the fear instinct distorts our focus.

Factfulness is … recognizing when frightening things get our attention, and remembering that these are not necessarily the most risky. Our natural fears of violence, captivity, and contamination make us systematically overestimate these risks. To control the fear instinct, calculate the

exposure. The risk something poses to you depends not on how scared it makes you feel, but on a combination of two things. How dangerous is it? And how much are you exposed to it?

More people die of diseses than terirorism. The idea is to not stop worrying about terrorism but also worry about diseases. Its because of journalist concentrting more on terrorism that we are scared of it

So if you are investing money to improve health on Level 1 or 2, you should put it into primary schools, nurse education, and vaccinations. Big impressive-looking hospitals can wait.

Never, ever leave a number all by itself.

To give myself the big picture I would use the 80/20 rule, which tells us that oil+coal+gas give us more than 80 percent of our energy: 87 percent in fact.

FACT QUESTION 8 There are roughly 7 billion people in the world today. Which map shows best where they live? (Each figure represents 1 billion people.)

The correct map is A. The PIN code of the world is 1-1-1-4. That’s how to remember the map. From left to right, the number of billions, as a PIN code. Americas: 1, Europe: 1, Africa: 1, Asia: 4. (I have rounded the numbers.) Like all PIN codes, this one will change. By the end of this

Factfulness is … recognizing when a lonely number seems impressive (small or large), and remembering that you could get the opposite impression if it were compared with or divided by some other relevant number. To control the size instinct, get things in proportion.

When someone says that an individual did something because they belong to some group—a nation, a culture, a religion—take care. Are there examples of different behavior in the same group? Or of the same behavior in other groups?

Factfulness Factfulness is … recognizing when a category is being used in an explanation, and remembering

Cultures, nations, religions, and people are not rocks. They are in constant transformation.

possibilist

with the West’s current economic stagnation portrayed as a temporary accident from which it will soon recover. For years after the global crash of 2008, the International Monetary Fund continued to forecast 3 percent annual economic growth for countries on Level 4. Each year, for five years, countries on Level 4 failed to meet this forecast. Each year, for five years, the IMF said, “Next year it will get back on track.” Finally, the IMF realized that there was no “normal” to go back to, and it downgraded its future growth expectations to 2 percent.

The Western consumer market was just a teaser for what is coming next.

changes that seem small and slow add up over time: 1 percent growth each year seems slow but it adds up to a doubling in 70 years; 2 percent growth each year means doubling in 35 years; 3 percent growth each year means doubling in 24 years.

To control the destiny instinct, don’t confuse slow change with no change. Don’t dismiss an annual change—even an annual change of only 1 percent—because it seems too small and slow.

Factfulness is … recognizing that many things (including people, countries, religions, and cultures) appear to be constant just because the change is happening slowly, and remembering that even small, slow changes gradually add up to big changes. To control the destiny instinct, remember slow change is still change.

I call this preference for single causes and single solutions the single perspective instinct.

Being always in favor of or always against any particular idea makes you blind to information that doesn’t fit your perspective. This is usually a bad approach if you like to understand reality.

The world cannot be understood without numbers. But the world cannot be understood with numbers alone.

learn from Western European countries. The communist system in Cuba is an example of the danger of getting hooked on a single perspective: the seemingly reasonable but actually bizarre idea that a central government can solve all its people’s problems.

Reality is just more complicated than that.

No single measure of a good society can drive every other aspect of its development. It’s not either/or. It’s both and it’s case-by-case.

Factfulness is … recognizing that a single perspective can limit your imagination, and remembering that it is better to look at problems from many angles to get a more accurate understanding and find practical solutions. To control the single perspective instinct, get a toolbox, not a hammer. • Test your ideas.