FACTFULNESS Paperback – 7 April 2020

The book presents interesting data on various topics in a synthetic and highly visual way, the actions that we have to take to try to combat the ignorance in which the majority of the population is immersed when drawing conclusions about the development of humanity, that is, stop believing that the world and everything that happens in this is getting worse every day.The only problem I see for the author is that, although he updates the global statistical data, he does not compare them with quality of life indices of the 21st century. That is, 50 years ago, it was normal and acceptable that a middle-class person did not have Internet or transportation, did not have a cell phone, had to agree to receive water or electricity service for a few hours a day, even not having these services, because indeed at that time there was not yet enough technology or the advances required to carry out such projects. Today the situation is different. Thanks to advances in science, technology, and health. As the years go by and with scientific progress in health, technology, education, or employment increases, the development of populations must also go hand in hand with them.Regarding the concept of segmentation of the world population into four social groups depending on their economic income and how these evolve over time, I think they had to inquire into the parameters to establish the values ​​of these incomes. It is not the same for a family to earn $4 a day today as it would have earned it 50 years ago. Factors such as inflation, the exchange rates of each country, or the purchasing power for X amount of dollars influence these analyzes too much. The author never says whether or not he takes them into account, so it seems necessary that the author make these clarifications.I would say that this is one of the best books I have read. I am grateful to have done it in these days of bitterness over the pandemic (something the author himself says was one of his great fears, including that it could be a disease similar to the flu due to its degree of contagion and perhaps more deadly).The central question of the book is: you can “think two things at the same time.” One is that many things are wrong and that must be worked on; the other is that we are much better than before, and I think this is the most important thing. It is worth working on what we consider essential because we can change the world for the better as we have already done. The ozone layer is an excellent example in this context. Though not mentioned in the book, it is a piece of news that many read in half. They only paid attention to it when they said that the weakening of this layer could be the end of humanity, but they did not read the good news that it is already getting more robust, thanks to the measures we have been taking.The book goes in this sense trying to understand why we tend to see only the most negative, dismissing the positive. Rosling speaks of “instincts” that confuse or blind us in some cases. This is where some more in-depth analysis or criteria may be lacking and needs to be supplemented by other books such as “Think Fast, Think Slow” by Kahneman, others on cognitive biases, and much on behavioral economics.The truth is that this book is welcomed during these times, in the midst of so much bad news, brings a little air and hope... the author who says that the efforts are worth it.Factfulness changed my vision of the world that I had, teaching me that, although many bad things have not been wholly eradicated, over the years, they are reduced, which translates to a better quality of life for people.The Facts1. 80% of girls complete primary education in low-income countries.2. The majority of the world’s population lives in middle-income countries.3. The percentage of people living in extreme poverty has halved in the last 20 years.4. The life expectancy of a person is 70 years.5. There will be 3 billion children in 2100 (just a billion more than now).6. In 2100, the world population will increase by another 4 billion people because there will be more adults between 15-74 years.7. The percentage of deaths caused by natural disasters has decreased by less than half in the last 100 years.8. The world population is divided: one billion in America, one billion in Europe, one billion in Africa, and 4 billion in Australia and Asia.9. 80% of children have been vaccinated against some disease.10. Worldwide, an average of 30-year-old women have gone through 9 years of education (one year less than men of the same age).11. Tigers, giant pandas, and black rhinos are no longer endangered.12. 80% of the world’s population has access to electricity.13. The global temperature will increase in the next 100 years.Concluding thoughtsThis is an excellent book that highlights through data the need to update the knowledge acquired in recent years in schools, in books, in the media, and in life itself. Always governed by drama and lack of curiosity.Beyond how interesting the analysis it makes of the figures, the book makes us think about the way we tend to form judgments and opinions on specific issues, without an objective evidence base and without seeking to understand the situations from the data. I believe that anyone who knows how to read and has a critical attitude should read this book, especially early, to develop an open and innovative mindset.

A few months ago, I had the opportunity to attend a corporate training programme at a leading business school in Europe, which included a short video presentation featuring Dr Hans Rosling speaking on global health and poverty. The professor who showed that video mentioned that Dr Rosling, who had passed away the previous year, was a well-known Swedish doctor who lectured in business schools all over the world.I was amazed to hear that a medical doctor was being invited to speak at reputed business schools and decided to find out more about him. I discovered that Dr Hans Rosling (1948-2017) had been a doctor, a researcher, a professor of international health and a consultant to international bodies like WHO and UNICEF. He was an intellectual giant, who was able to influence the lives of millions of people through his medical activities as well as his lectures – but unlike many scholars who project themselves as Prophets of Doom, Dr Rosling was a Prophet of Hope. I found a large number of his video recordings on the Internet, in which he shares his unconventional but highly convincing opinions based on published statistics from sources like World Bank and United Nations. I also discovered this book, “Factfulness,” written by Dr Rosling, along with his son Ola and daughter-in-law Anna.The book under review is sub-titled “Ten reasons we’re wrong about the world – and why things are better than you think,” which is an indicator of what to expect, but the content is truly mind-boggling. The Introduction contains a short quiz about world population, health, income, education, etc. for the reader. It turns out that most people get very low scores in this seemingly simple test. As the author puts it, a group of chimpanzees in a zoo would score 33% by randomly “answering” these questions, but well educated humans score even less! Rosling argues that the wrong answers are because of what he calls “actively wrong ‘knowledge,’” for which he blames the “overdramatic worldview” frequently projected by the Western media. In contrast, the author proposes a “fact-based worldview,” based on his analysis of large quantities of data.Dr Rosling postulates the following ten “instincts” which interfere with our analysis/ interpretation of data: Gap Instinct, Negativity Instinct, Straight Line Instinct, Fear Instinct, Size Instinct, Generalization Instinct, Destiny Instinct, Single Perspective Instinct, Blame Instinct and Urgency Instinct. One chapter is devoted to each of these instincts and how they can cause us to reach wrong conclusions. The eleventh chapter summarises the previous ten chapters into an integrated whole.Each chapter is interesting and exposes the reader’s own instincts. For example, the first chapter dealing with the Gap Instinct mentions that students in the West talk about “Us and them” or “West and the rest” or perhaps “developing and developed countries.” The author presents data on important parameters like “babies per woman” versus “children surviving to age 5” to demonstrate that in the contemporary world, there is no significant gap between the so-called developing and developed countries.In the author’s own words: “The world has completely changed. Today, families are small and child deaths are rare in the vast majority of countries, including the largest: China and India… Eighty five percent of mankind are already inside the box that used to be named “developed world” … the world used to be divided into two but isn’t any longer. Today, most people are in the middle. There is no gap between the West and the rest, between developed and developing, between rich and poor. And we should all stop using the simple pairs of categories that suggest there is.”Instead of the traditional classification of rich and poor, Rosling presents his own model of income levels, called simply Level 1 (upto $2 per day), Level 2 ($2 to $8 per day), Level 3 ($8 to $32 per day) and Level 4 (over $32 per day). He presents statistics on the number of people in the world at each of these levels, and analyses the differences in lifestyle amongst them based on fundamental parameters such as source of water, means of transport, source of energy for cooking and type of food consumed. Generally, he says, it takes several generations for a family to move up from Level 1 to Level 4. Also, countries can also be classified into the same four levels, based on the level at which most of their citizens are living. Finally, countries also move up these four levels, as more and more of their citizens improve their levels. In this chapter, the author mentions a great achievement on his part: after 15 lectures by him over 17 years, the World Bank decided to discontinue the use of the terminology of “developed” and “developing” countries, replacing them with four levels of income.The previous three paragraphs give a glimpse into the first chapter of the book. The remaining chapters are equally stimulating and deserve to be read and re-read by anyone who is interested in global economics or data analysis – or anyone who wants to avoid falling into the trap of the ten Instincts.Towards the end of this book, one can find the “Outro” (opposite of “Intro”) in which the two junior authors share their poignant memories of the senior author’s battle with pancreatic cancer while all of them were working on this book.This book remains his enduring legacy for all mankind.

.....therefore not a book for those on the hard left and right. Well written and will make you think, and helps you avoid the FaceBook trap of I found an article that supports my view, job done. An employer of mine spend $30,000 US to put me through a Princeton course on CT, buying this book would have saved them a lot of dollars. A thought provoking and well constructed book..........

Devastante ha un impatto devastanteMolto bello perché mi è piaciuto molto il libro di Hans bravo scrittore svedese intelligente

A very interesting book by an eminent scientist who explains why the facts are important so that we don't make the wrong judgements about other people or countries.The facts are very important. Don't make judgements without facts! The world is better than most people think!

“I didn’t see what I wanted to see. I saw what I was afraid of seeing. Critical thinking is always difficult abut it’s almost impossible when we are scared.”I heartily recommend Factfulness by Hans Rosling and his co-authors Ola Rosling and Anna Rosling Ronnlund. My bookclub picked it because the subtitle (ten reasons we’re wrong about the world - and why things are better than you think) sounded hopeful and we’re all hungry for hope. And I have to say, aside from all the ways Rosling shows how we misinterpret the world and how to combat our all too human instincts, reading it actually did have a wonderfully calming effect!Rosling outlines 10 basic instincts that plague our perceptions of the world: The Gap Instinct, the Negativity Instinct, the Straight Line instinct, the Fear instinct, the Size instinct, the Generalization instinct, the Destiny instinct, the Single Perspective instinct, the Blame instinct, and the Urgency instinct. I found myself guilty of almost all of them in very obvious ways, and probably the ones I didn’t recognize, I’m also playing out in some subconscious (to myself) way.“Stay open to new data, and be prepared to keep freshening up your knowledge.”I deeply appreciated being taught that there is no binary between "developed" and "developing" countries - rather a continuum from Level 1 to Level 4, each with its own set of challenges. It took the World Bank 17 years and 14 of Rosling's talks to stop espousing this false binary, so maybe it's not so shameful that it took me 45 years to stop doing it myself.Each chapter has a textbook-like ending with tips and tricks to deal with each of these biases. “Tips and tricks” is far too pat a way to describe the often simple, elegant, and profound advice he proffers. For example, his phrase “bad and better” is about being able to hold two conflicting ideas in your head: that the world is bad and that it’s getting better. So one could both acknowledge very dire problems as well as the progress and solutions that have happened and are to come. This is not to minimize the issues, but to understand how the world actually works in order to really change it. The benefits to this approach are: 1) be able to see the world or a particular problem more accurately and complexly, 2) devise and/or maintain effective multi-player multi-pronged solutions, and 3) act from a position of knowledge and power and hope rather than one of despair and stress.That last bit alone was validation enough for me. We live in a time that feels overwhelming and hopeless at times, and it was an enormous relief to be able to acknowledge our very real accomplishments and progress, as well as the proposition that some of what we’re doing is working - perhaps too slowly for our liking, but it’s working.For example, we’ve achieved enormous success in increasing child survival and almost all of it has been achieved through “preventive measures outside hospitals by local nurses, midwives, and well-educated parents. Especially mothers: the data shows that half the increase in child survival in the world happens because the mothers can read and write.”That last underpins Rosling’s oft-repeated mantra of education and contraceptives as part of the solution to eradicate poverty, curb population growth, and give people better lives. He calls eradicating extreme poverty a moral imperative and I can’t think of much better goals.“We should be teaching our children humility and curiosity.”Another example of progress referred to our disaster prevention measures and other modern indicators and technologies. Because of these, the number of deaths from acts of nature is now just 25% of what it was 100 years ago. Keep in mind that during that same time, our population increased by 5 billion people, so the drop in deaths per capita is even more astonishing: just 6% of what it was 100 years ago.Bangladesh comes up several times in the book, and not as a basket case as is often the case in the news, but as an example of inspirational progress. For example, after far too many devastating floods and cyclones and ensuing famines, the Bangladeshi government installed a country-wide digital surveillance system connected to a freely available flood-monitoring website. Just 15 years ago, no country in the world had such an advanced system. It has also improved its economic position drastically, going from a level 1 country (one marked by extreme poverty) to level 2 in just 4 decades.“Insist on a full range of scenarios.”I found myself giving the most pushback in the chapter that tackled environmental concerns, which Rosling readily acknowledges at the outset of the chapter as one of the most pressing issues humans face. Ok, so the total wild populations of tigers, giant pandas, and black rhinos have all increased over the past years. Is that a reason to rest on our laurels? Not that Rosling counsels any resting - on the contrary, his life is testament to an almost maniacal commitment to help the world’s young and poor and helpless. But I kept thinking: everything is horrible and our wildlife and seas are dying - we have to do something drastic now! Ironically, this was also the chapter about the urgency instinct, and how the now-or-never/either-or way of thinking is probably the wrong approach. Touché, Dr. Rosling.I took almost 9 pages of notes while reading Factfulness, and it almost felt like taking a (great) course. I wish I had had the chance to see Rosling talk in person but there are apparently dozens of TEDtalks and other lectures he’s given, online (sadly, he passed away just before the book came out). And I’m glad the waiting list at the library was so long that I ended up buying the book, because it’s one I will reread and quote and learn from for a long time to come.Factfulness was a breeze to read, written in a highly engaging style, and chockfull of personal anecdotes, statistical details, and global trends. I hope everyone reads it and feels charged and ready to continue changing the world for the better.“Welcome complexity. Combine ideas. Compromise.”

Esse é um livro brilhante. É impressionante a genialidade do autor em nos alertar sobre a nossa ignorância em relação ao desenvolvimento sócio-econômico do mundo. De verdade, eu acredito que o conteúdo deste livro deveria ser matéria obrigatória nas escolas.Eu mesmo leio bastante e acreditava que tinha uma boa noção do que vem acontecendo pelo mundo. Acontece que uma série de fatores prejudica uma percepção mais sensata da realidade. O autor através de algumas perguntas simples de múltipla escolha conseguiu me alertar: minha visão estava quase que completamente errada.Além de nos alertar sobre nossas concepções erradas o autor traz dados sólidos e mostra o que de fato vem acontecendo com o mundo. Em seguida ele dá aula sobre porque tendemos a ter essa visão tão deturpada e mostra formas de melhorar a nossa capacidade de enxergar as coisas com clareza. E como se não fosse o suficiente o autor dá dicas de regiões que serão as grandes oportunidades para fazer negócios nos próximos anos. Tudo é bem surpreendente e explicado com clareza.Leitura obrigatória para qualquer pessoa que deseja entender melhor como as pessoas vivem no mundo, como isso está mudando e o que essa mudança significa.Leitura obrigatória para quem deseja se tornar uma pessoa mais safra, com uma visão mais sensata da realidade de como as pessoas vivem o mundo e como o está acontecendo o desenvolvimento sócio-econômico.Leitura obrigatória para quem não entende porque a mídia adora mostrar apenas catástrofes e violência gratuita.Leitura obrigatória para restaurar os ânimos de quem anda acreditando que as coisas só pioram e de que não há esperança.