Reading keeps us in shape, that’s a fact. Hans Rosling is the author of the bestseller “Factfulness“, a book that presents a fact-based worldview. Encourages us to think about instincts that prevents us from focusing on what is important or seeing the world as it is.
Hans Rosling, who was Swedish, founder of Gapminder, created tools to explain our world though simplicity. Together with his son, Ola Rosling, and his daughter-in-law, Ana Rosling Rönnlund, wrote this book – “Factfulness: Ten reasons we’re wrong about the world and things are better than you think”.
When I first read it years ago, many of the examples and graphs from the book made me think about blind spots or biases, and put things in perspective. Even though not everything is data driven, facts based on real data, without omissions, are important. Especially during a time of fake news, misinformation, pseudo-science, picture manipulation, conspiracy theories, exaggerations, and distorted perception.
The Premise
When Hans Rosling asked questions about global events or trends, about climate change, gender equality, economic growth, or for example, “how many people in the world have access to electricity” and “how many girls finish primary school in low-income countries”, he realized that most people give the wrong answer, even educated individuals, economists, world leaders or policy makers.
The 10 instincts that lead to misconceptions are explained in individual chapters:
the Gap Instinct, the Negativity one, the Straight Line, the Fear, the Size, Generalization, the Destiny, the Single Perspective, the Blame, and the Urgency.
First, how to control the gap instinct, the misconception that the world is divided in only two groups? In ‘Us’ and ‘Them’. In high-income and in low-income countries. Well, when we see a story talking about a gap, a solution would be to look for the middle, for the average or the majority, and not just at the outliers or extremes examples presented often in the media.
The overdramatic and negative worldview is stressful and misleading. I personally think negativity is contagious, often obnoxious, and the tendency needs to be understood. For reasons related to evolution, the brain focuses only on the negative events and comments, and good news is no longer considered news. But is useful to remember that, “though the world faces huge challenges, we have made tremendous progress.” Is useful to navigate life this way. This is the fact-based worldview.
People often call me an optimist, because I show them the enormous progress they didn’t know about. That makes me angry. I’m not an optimist. That makes me sound naive. I’m a very serious “possibilist”. That’s something I made up. It means someone who neither hopes without reason, nor fears without reason, someone who constantly resists the overdramatic worldview. As a possibilist, I see all this progress, and it fills me with conviction and hope that further progress is possible. This is not optimistic. It is having a clear and reasonable idea about how things are. It is having a worldview that is constructive and useful.
Hans Rosling – Factfulness
The destiny instinct comes from the belief that things are how they are and will not change, even though nobody can predict the future. The examples of Hans Rosling from the book prove that in fact, “cultures, nations, religions and people are in constant transformation”, knowledge must be updated and that low-income countries can catch up and importantly, that “slow change is not no change”.
Single perspective can limit our imagination. While the blame instinct I find it harder to grasp. Maybe because is the most unfair, such as when an individual is blamed in order to shift focus and to confuse. Or maybe because it involves personal responsibility and limits, for example when I need to resist the urge to blame the media, or blame technology, blame the parents, the government and so on.
There’s no room for facts when our minds are occupied by fear.
Hans Rosling – Factfulness
Moreover, I admit the fear, generalization and urgency instincts were the most informative for me to understand, since most fears, assumptions and generalizations are unconscious or based on small sample sizes. “To control the fear, calculate the risks”, as Hans Rosling puts it. Plus, the “now or never” approach being pushed is a red flag for me, since a decision rarely is urgent, and important ones should never be impulsive. This is an important reminder. The solution when urgency instinct is being triggered is to ask for more details and time.
Being an economist and a curious person myself, mixing my corporate world with culture and travel, after reading the definition of the title on the back cover, I knew I have to read the book. Factfulness =the stressed reducing habit of only carrying opinions for which you have strong supporting facts.
In conclusion, while being aware the world is far from perfect, there is still injustice and poverty, climate change is a threat, many systems need to be improved, the progress should not be minimized or dismissed. Biases should be understood. Generalizations should be avoided. The last chapter of the book is with advice how to use factfulness in practice in everyday life. I can’t recommend it enough. Is a both inspirational and realistic read.
Remember: things can be bad, and also getting better.
Hans Rosling – Factfulness
Book review: My Invented Country
As a fun fact, at the beginning of this year was my 5 years anniversary with WordPress. I still enjoy my creative outlet, writing my travel journal and reading the other stories here. Back then, I didn’t imagine that besides travel opinions, I would also review books, write about theater or even events as Berlinale. Thank you for taking the time to read.
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