Book Info
Hans Rosling: Factfulness: Ten Reasons We’re Wrong About the World—and Why Things Are Better Than You Think
There are ten instincts that prevent us from understanding the world with better factfulness
- Gap
- Beware comparison of averages
- Beware comparison of extremes
- There was no gap, but a big overlapping part
- Negativity
- Bad news are more likely to reach us
- Good news, gradual improvement is not news
- More news does not mean more suffering
- People tend to glorify their past
- Straight Line
- Most trends do not follow straight lines
- Fear
- We should calculate the risk
- Fear vs reality, the world seems scarier than its reality
- Risk = danger x exposure
- Size
- We should understand figures, get things in proportions
- Compare and 80/20 rule
- Using rate is more meaningful in understanding things
- Generalization
- Question our categories
- Look for differences and similarities within and across groups
- Beware of vivid examples, and ‘the majority’
- Assume people in a whole are not idiots
- Destiny
- Keep track of gradual improvements
- Update your knowledge
- Talk to grandpa to constrast the changes
- Collect examples for cultural changes
- Single Perspective
- Equip yourself with various tools in understanding the world
- Test your idea, and know the limitation of your expertise
- Use numbers to understand the things but do not solely rely on numbers
- Beware simple ideas and solutions (complexity)
- Blame
- We tend to blame a single one for everything, but we should look for causes, not villains
- Look for systems establishment not heroes
- Urgency
- Not many things are that urgent, take a deep breath and take small steps forward
- Beware of drastic action