For fans of Freakonomics and Thinking, Fast and Slow, here is a book by Hans Rosling, the scientist called “a true inspiration” by Bill Gates, that teaches us how to see the world as it truly is.
Factfulness: The stress-reducing habit of carrying only 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 longtime 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.
A must read …. and Now If you take the 13 question test and fail…. as you will, then you must read this book. It will enrich and enlighten your life and how you view the world.Shocking yet enjoyable. Written with humility and humour.Just read it!
Manual on getting an evidence based world view Hans Rosling explains how media bias, ideological preconceptions and statistical illiteracy makes most people (in rich countries) believe in a gloomy and spectacularly wrong worldview. The book carefully explains by data and vivid examples how positive developments are systematically underreported, while disaster news are vastly over-reported. Rosling categorise the 10 most important sources of bias and misconceptions as well as explaining strategies on how to avoid them.This book…
Everyone should read this. I bought this book after seeing Bill Gates recommendation, and I have been really enjoying it. It goes a long way towards explaining human cognitive behavior in the face of today’s “us vs. them” social media environment, as well as more historical cases where people just have a really hard time accepting the fact that things are almost always better than they think they are, and the extremes are much rarer than most people would guess.It ought to be required reading at the…