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Factfulness Summary
About Factfulness Book
INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER
“One of the most important books I’ve ever read—an indispensable guide to thinking clearly about the world.” – Bill Gates
“Hans Rosling tells the story of ‘the secret silent miracle of human progress’ as only he can. But Factfulness does much more than that. It also explains why progress is so often secret and silent and teaches readers how to see it clearly.” —Melinda Gates
"Factfulness by Hans Rosling, an outstanding international public health expert, is a hopeful book about the potential for human progress when we work off facts rather than our inherent biases." - Former U.S. President Barack Obama
Factfulness: The stress-reducing habit of only carrying opinions for which you have strong supporting facts.
When asked simple questions about global trends—what percentage of the world’s population live in poverty; why the world’s population is increasing; how many girls finish school—we systematically get the answers wrong. So wrong that a chimpanzee choosing answers at random will consistently outguess teachers, journalists, Nobel laureates, and investment bankers.
In Factfulness, Professor of International Health and global TED phenomenon Hans Rosling, together with his two long-time collaborators, Anna and Ola, offers a radical new explanation of why this happens. They reveal the ten instincts that distort our perspective—from our tendency to divide the world into two camps (usually some version of us and them) to the way we consume media (where fear rules) to how we perceive progress (believing that most things are getting worse).
Our problem is that we don’t know what we don’t know, and even our guesses are informed by unconscious and predictable biases.
It turns out that the world, for all its imperfections, is in a much better state than we might think. That doesn’t mean there aren’t real concerns. But when we worry about everything all the time instead of embracing a worldview based on facts, we can lose our ability to focus on the things that threaten us most.
Inspiring and revelatory, filled with lively anecdotes and moving stories, Factfulness is an urgent and essential book that will change the way you see the world and empower you to respond to the crises and opportunities of the future.
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“This book is my last battle in my life-long mission to fight devastating ignorance...Previously I armed myself with huge data sets, eye-opening software, an energetic learning style and a Swedish bayonet for sword-swallowing. It wasn’t enough. But I hope this book will be.” Hans Rosling, February 2017.
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“Step-by-step, year-by-year, the world is improving. Not on every single measure every single year, but as a rule. Though the world faces huge challenges, we have made tremendous progress. This is the fact-based worldview.”
HANS ROSLING
2.41K
The Gap Instinct
- This is that irresistible temptation we have to divide all kinds of things into two distinct and often conflicting groups, with an imagined gap in between.
- The gap instinct makes us imagine division where there is just a smooth range, differences where there is convergence, and conflicts where there is agreement.
- 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.
2.29K
"Human beings have a strong dramatic instinct toward binary thinking, a basic urge to divide things into two distinct groups, with nothing but an empty gap in between. We love to dichotomize. Good versus bad. Heroes versus villains. My country versus the rest. Dividing the world into two distinct sides is simple and intuitive, and also dramatic because it implies conflict, and we do it without thinking, all the time."
HANS ROSLING
2.38K
“Forming your worldview by relying on the media would be like forming your view about me by looking only at a picture of my foot.” ― Hans Rosling
Short Summary
• Factfulness is about the ten instincts that distort our perspective of the world and prevent us from seeing how it actually is.
10 Instincts That DISTORT Our Perspective Are:
1. The Gap Instinct
2. The Negativity Instinct
3. The Straight Line Instinct
4. The Fear Instinct
5. The Size Instinct
6. The Generalization Instinct
7. The Destiny Instinct
8. The Single Perspective
9. The Blame Instinct
10. The Urgency Instinct
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The Gap Instinct
Our tendency to divide things into two distinct and often conflicting groups with an imagined gap between them (e.g. us and them).
144
The Negativity Instinct
Our tendency to notice the bad more than the good (e.g. believing that things are getting worse when things are actually getting better).
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We are often wrong about the world, people always tell us how bad it is and how bad it will be, blaming the new generations and technology. Use your brain, improve yourself, your knowledge and ideas, don't trust and don't absorb everything people say: TRUST FACTS.
The world seems scarier than it is because what you hear about it has been selected—by your own attention filter or by the media
HANS ROSLING
54
The Negativity Instinct
Our tendency to notice the bad more than the good (e.g. believing that things are getting worse when things are actually getting better).
54
The Blame Instinct
Our tendency to find a clear, simple reason for why something bad has happened.
50
As Hans Rosling says: Factfulness and the Fact-Based Worldview This book is my very last battle in my lifelong mission to fight devastating global ignorance. It is my last attempt to make an impact on the world: to change people’s ways of thinking, calm their irrational fears, and redirect their energies into constructive activities. In my previous battles I armed myself with huge data sets, eye-opening software, an energetic lecturing style, and a Swedish bayonet. It wasn’t enough. But I hope that this book will be.
Worldvie
Forming your worldview by relying on the media would be like forming your view about me by looking only at a picture of my foot.
31
Binary Thinking
human beings have a strong dramatic instinct toward binary thinking, a basic urge to divide things into two distinct groups, with nothing but an empty gap in between. We love to dichotomize. Good versus bad. Heroes versus villains. My country versus the rest. Dividing the world into two distinct sides is simple and intuitive, and also dramatic because it implies conflict, and we do it without thinking, all the time.
33
Factful Balance
There was a balance. It wasn’t because humans lived in balance with nature. Humans died in balance with nature.
33
The Gap Instinct
Summary
The tendency to divide things into distinct and often opposing groups and imagine/project some sort of gap between them (e.g. us and them).
Factfulness
The world is better understood by imagining data distributions on a bell-curve rather than as a series of opposing polarities - the majority (and accurate perception) usually exists in the middle, not as warring opposites. Polarizing our view of the world can foster an “us versus them” mentality that spills into our actions and imagines a separation “them” and “us” that in fact, does not truly exist.
3
The Negativity Instinct
Summary
The tendency to notice/emphasize the negatives over positives (or in evolutionary terms, threats versus opportunities - e.g. believing that things are getting worse when they may actually be getting better).
Factfulness
Recognize that the media machine feeding us news prioritizes negativity by nature, but that doesn’t mean the nature of things is negative. Like with the first instinct above, the truth is most often found somewhere in the middle.
4
The Straight Line Instinct
Summary
The tendency to believe that things will continue as they have before.
Factfulness
Acknowledge that many things will change over time and pay attention to data that may protect you from falsely believing that some aspect of your life will continue as it has before.
3
5 THINGS TO LEARN FROM FACTFULNESS📚🔖✍️
- There's no room for facts when our minds are occupied by fear.
- Forming your worldview by relying on the media would be like forming your view about me by looking only at a picture of my foot.
- The world cannot be understood without numbers. But the world cannot be understood with numbers alone.
- When things are getting better we often don't hear about them.
- Experts are experts only within their field.
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FACTFULNESS RULES OF THUMB TO OVERCOME DRAMATIC INTERPRETATIONS
- Remember that fear is a basic and easily arousing feeling.
- If negativity hits you remember positive news get the same attention as negative news
- If something seems hugely negative or dramatic it might be an exaggeration.
- Remember that there is a majority in the middle.
- Understand that stereotypes are drastic simplifications.
- Notice that what might seem static actually slowly changes.
- If you see a pattern don't jump to conclusions.
- If you see a single solution to a complexproblem it's probably not it.
- If your feel the urge to blame look at the circumstances.
- It's better to think things through first.
3
Why we need factfulness book?
- First of all the media loves negativity as it attracts more audience towards it. Not alone the media it is in all forms within us.
- Whoever we ask about world progress the maximum answer will be, "THE WORLD IS GETTING WORSE" . But actually it's not. If the statement is wrong then why we are still using it. The answer is OVERDRAMATIC INTERPRETATION within us and all over the people living in world.
- The world is improving much better than what we think. This book gives the answer why and how to overcome those dramatic instincts and gives us a positive hope and opinion about our world.
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I wonder, how not to be a prey to bad facts…?
Book Of The Year
How to read and accept the things that are happening in the world.
Can you control the biases we fall prey to?
1
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