Factfulness

Factfulness

Hans Rosling teaches us that the world is better than we're led to believe through numbers, facts, and his experiences around the globe.

By Yuzo Makitani in Books —

The Book in 3 Sentences

  1. The world is a better place than you think because news coverage focuses on the high-impact and negative data-points rather than the big picture trend of gradual improvements humanity has achieved.
  2. The world can be grouped into four income levels from level 1 earning less than $2/day to level 4 earning above $32/day; 1B people are in level 1 and level 4 each, while the other 5B are in levels 2 and 3.
  3. The book explores 10 instincts (biases), how to overcome them in order to view the world in a more factful nature, and derive actions based on the new view.

Impressions

This book is a good read for anybody. If you read or watch the news for more than one hour a year, you would rather read the first 30 pages of this book because it will teach you more about the real state of the world than the news ever will in the same span of time.

The graphs presented in the group focus on big picture statuses and trends; sometimes surprising graphs such as the reduction in oil spills and increase in share of Earth's land surface protected by reserves.

How the Book Changed Me

  • I have been avoiding reading the daily news and instead prefer weekly news sources like The Economist to get a more complete picture rather than negative or inconsequential snippets of what is happening in the world. Longer, in-depth articles which analyze an issue or present an event in the context of its implications gives a more useful description of the world.

My Top 3 Quotes

  • Good news is not news. Good news is almost never reported. So news is almost always bad. When you see bad news, ask whether equally positive news would have reached you.
  • The PIN code of the world is 1-1-1-4... Americas: 1, Europe: 1, Africa: 1, Asia: 4... By 2100 the new PIN code of the world will be 1-1-4-5. More than 80 percent of the world’s population will live in Africa and Asia.
  • When someone threatens you with a machete, never turn your back. Stand still. Look him straight in the eye and ask him what the problem is.

Summary + Notes

Ch.1 The Gap Instinct

The gap instinct divides the world into two separate groups with a gap in between, when in reality the majority is usually in the middle.

  • To control for the gap instinct (looking at extremes and difference in averages only), look for the majority
  • The distinction between "developed" and "developing" world is blurring as previously developing countries close the gap to developed countries:
    • Infant mortality rate and births per woman
    • Income, tourism, democracy
    • Access to education, tourism, and electricity
  • Instead, the world should be grouped into four categories based on income (2017):
Level # of People Daily Income
Level 1 1 billion Less than $2
Level 2 3 billion $2 ~ $8
Level 3 2 billion $8 ~ $32
Level 4 1 billion More than $32
  • Compare both means and standard deviations between populations, as comparing just the average can be misleading (ex: SAT math scores men vs women; averages show gap but there is mostly overlap)
Beware comparisons of extremes. In all groups, of countries or people, there are some at the top and some at the bottom. The difference is sometimes extremely unfair. But even then the majority is usually somewhere in between, right where the gap is supposed to be.
  • Avoid comparing extremes only as it does not paint the whole picture

Ch.2 The Negativity Instinct

The negativity instinct makes us have misconceptions that the world is getting worse in most aspects. Recognize that information about bad events is more likely to reach us. To control for it, expect bad news.

  • We tend to notice the bad and ignore the good. The current state does not equate to the trend. Something can be bad, but better, at the same time.
Now the girls have almost caught up: 90 percent of girls of primary school age attend school. For boys, the figure is 92 percent. There’s almost no difference.
  • We tend to ignore gradual improvement and focus on the periodic dips, such as recessions.
  • More bad news is sometimes due to better surveillance of suffering.
  • Beware of nostalgia. People often glorify their early experiences and nations often glorify their histories.

Ch.3 The Straight Line Instinct

The straight line instinct is our tendency to assume trends continue in a straight line. Remember that curves come in various shapes.

  • Don't assume linear trends. The world population is an example of a sigmoid (logistic) curve, which has a period of exponential growth followed by slowing to a steady state. Examples of:
  • Linear line: life expectancy vs income, bridal age vs income, length of eduction vs income
  • Sigmoid curve: female literacy vs income, infant vaccination rate vs income
  • Hump curve: tooth decay vs income, two-wheeler and pedestrian deaths vs income
The world population today is 7.6 billion people, and yes, it’s growing fast. Still, the growth has already started to slow down... [UN experts] think the curve will flatten out at somewhere between 10 and 12 billion people by the end of the century.

Ch.4 The Fear Instinct

We naturally tend to react strongly to our fears: violence (harm caused by people/nature), captivity (loss of control/freedom), and contamination (poison/infection), which make us systematically overestimate these risks. Both your self-selection and selection by media over-emphasizes the importance of events related to these three fears.

Risk = danger × 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?

In fact, deaths per million people due to disasters, plane crashes, and conflicts are all trending (exponentially) downwards since the early to mid 1900s.

Moreover, people at Level 4 experience far fewer terrorism deaths in 2016 compared to a decade ago.

Get calm before you carry on. When you are afraid, you see the world differently. Make as few decisions as possible until the panic has subsided.

Ch.5 The Size Instinct

Recognize that lone numbers are rarely useful. Golden rules to looking at numbers usefully:

  • Compare: Look at ratios and trends. Compare a number against a larger population. Compare a metric against its history.
  • 80/20: 80% of the response can be explained by 20% of the variables. Look for the most important 1/5 of a long list.
  • Divide: Look at rates. Look at rates per person when comparing between countries or regions.

The PIN code of the world is 1-1-1-4. One billion people in the Americas, Europe, Africa each, and four billion in Asia. This will become 1-1-4-5 by 2100: more than 80% of the worlds population will live in Africa and Asia. By 2040, 60% of Level 4 people will live outside the West. Western domination of the world will soon be over so look to Asia and Africa for the most future development.

Ch.6 The Generalization Instinct

Avoid generalizing incorrectly by questioning the categories:

  • Look for differences within groups. Look for ways to split large groups into more precise categories.
  • Look for similarities across groups. If there are striking similarities between different groups, are the categories relevant?
    • Ex) A person’s quality of life may be better estimated by their income level rather than their nationality. A level 2 family in both China and Nigeria will use an open fire to prepare their food, and other facts about life such as shelter and toilets will be similar.
  • Look for differences across groups. Do not assume what applies to one group applies to another.
    • Ex) Turning babies on their fronts. In WW2, injured soldiers were turned on their bellies to prevent death from choking on their own vomit. This was incorrectly applied to babies who are able to look sideways before vomiting, resulting in unnecessary deaths (est. 60,000) until the advice was reversed in 1987 after a detailed study.
  • Beware of “the majority”. It just means more than half, from 51% to 99%.
  • Beware of vivid examples. Vivid images are easier to recall but may be the exception rather than the norm.
  • Assume people are not idiots. When something looks strange, be curious and humble and think why something may be a smart solution.

Ch.7 The Destiny Instinct

Destiny instinct is idea that innate characteristics determine the destinies of people, countries, religions, or cultures. That things will never change.

Control for the destiny instinct by recognizing that slow change is still change:

  • Keep track of gradual changes. The power of compounding interest applies to society.
  • Update your knowledge constantly. Change is the only constant.
  • Think about your grandparent’s values and how they differ from yours. That is a reminder of how values have changed.
  • Observe change by looking at how things have changed.

Don’t take continuing Western progress for granted, and Africa will catch up. The largest expansions are taking place in Africa and Asia in the middle income consumer market.

Ch.8 The Single Perspective Instinct

Simple ideas and simple solutions are attractive but not necessarily accurate or practical. Such as:

  • That free market without government interference will solve all problems.
  • That inequality is the root of all problems and all wealth should be redistributed.
  • That democracies lead to economic success.
    • Most countries that make great economic and social progress are not democracies. Of 10 countries with the fastest economic growth in 2016, 9 scored low on democracy.
  • That greater healthcare spending results in higher life expectancy
    • The US spends more than 2x per capita on health care as other capitalist countries on Level 4: ~$9,400 compared to ~$3,600. However its citizens have life expectancies that are 3 years shorter. The US is an absolute outlier on health spending but 39 countries have longer life expectancies. This is due to the absence of basic health insurance, where poor patients cannot afford simple and inexpensive treatments, dying younger than they should.

Experts are not experts outside their field. The factfulness quiz had the following results:

  • Numerate people score just as badly as everyone else
  • Highly educated people score just as badly or worse
  • People with extraordinary expertise in one field score just as badly as everyone else

Activists are not necessarily experts. Ex) Only 8% of feminists at a Stockholm women’s education conference knew that 30 year old women have spent on average only 1 year less in school than 30 year old men.

Recognize that a single perspective can limit your understanding. Use a toolbox, not a hammer, to achieve practical solutions:

  • Test your ideas. Have people who disagree with you test your ideas to find their weaknesses.
  • Expertise is limited. Be aware of the limits of the expertise of others.
  • No one tool is good for everything. Find colleagues from other fields.
  • Numbers alone cannot describe the world.
  • Beware of simple ideas and simple solutions. Solve problems on a case-by-case basis.

Ch.9: The Blame Instinct

People want to find a clear and simple reason why something bad has happened. It makes people exaggerate the importance of individuals or particular groups. It is popular to blame companies, media, refugees, and foreigners.

  • Businesses not being evil example: A small pharmaceutical company was selling pills to UNICEF at a lower price than the BOM cost. They did this by accruing interest between in the 1 month between when UNICEF paid them and when they paid the raw material supplier.
  • Institutions causing refugee deaths example: In 2015, 4,000 refugees from Syria drowned in the Mediterranean Sea. Smugglers were blamed for the deaths. The real blame lies in the EU member state’s laws: although refugees are allowed asylum according to the Geneva convention, the only practical means for transport is by one-time use boats. Flights must be boarded with a visa, which the embassies had no resources to give, and boats were confiscated upon arrival.

The more important agents of change are:

  • Institutions: the people/many who build society can enable change despite inept governments
    • Ex) The fight against Ebola was won by government staff and local health workers, not UNICEF or Doctors Without Borders. They created public health campaigns that changed funeral practices, treated dying patients, and contact tracing.
  • Technology: The industrial revolution saved billions of lives because it produced technology like detergents and washing machines, not because it produced better leaders
    • Ex) Electricity

Resist finding a scapegoat:

  • Look for causes, not villains. Accept that bad things can happen without anyone intending them to. Understand the multiple interacting causes, or system, that created the situation.
  • Look for systems, not heroes. Ask if an outcome may have happened anyway even if an individual claiming credit had done nothing.

Ch.10: The Urgency Instinct

The urgency instinct makes people want to take immediate action in the face of perceived imminent danger. It is useful for surviving immediate dangers, but the complex and abstract problems of today require analytical reasoning and thinking clearly.

To control for the urgency instinct:

  • Take a breath: When the urgency instinct is triggered, step back and analyze. Ask for more time and information.
  • Insist on the data: If something is urgent and important, it should be measured. Only relevant and accurate data is useful.
  • Beware of fortune tellers: Be wary of predictions which do not account for uncertainty.
  • Be wary of drastic action: Ask what the side effects will be. Ask how the idea has been tested. Take step-by-step improvements and evaluate their impact.

Cassava plant example: An unknown disease was causing leg paralysis and blindness in a village in Mozambique. Fearing that it was contagious, the mayor setup a  roadblock, which Rosling approved. The next day, 20 or so village members drowned in a fishing boat that sunk trying to bypass the roadblock. The root cause of the disease was because the villagers were eating unprocessed cassava plants, because they were selling all their processed stock at a high price due to a bad year of harvest. This is an example where urgent and uninformed actions have unintended consequences.

Ebola outbreaks are defeated by contact tracing. Setting up roadblocks can destroy the trust of people abandoned, which is important where one individual leaving out information about his dead brother’s multiple lovers can cost a thousand lives.

Ch.11: Factfulness in Practice

How to make use of factfulness in everyday life:

  • In education: Protect the next generation from ignorance.
  • Teach children that there are countries in different levels of health and income, and most lie in the middle.
  • Teach children about their own country’s standing on the different levels, and that mostly people are moving up the income levels.
  • In business:
  • The world market of the future will grow primarily in Asia and Africa
  • Focus on global branding
  • In journalism, activism, and politics:
  • News outlets will not convey neutral and nondramatic news, unlike statistics agencies
  • So it is up to consumers to learn how to consume news factfully