42 pages • 1 hour read
Factfulness
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Themes
The Prevalence of Ignorance
After asking fact-based questions to people from various countries, cultures, and education levels across the world, Rosling discovered that the same wrong information and misconceptions exist everywhere. Humans, regardless of race, class, gender, age, religion, or any other society-constructed classification, all have a tendency towards believing misinformation. All of our brains evolved out of the same hunter-gatherer civilization characterized by identical fears and instincts. People are more alike than they are different.
We all form opinions about the world based on our experiences, and we assume experiences elsewhere are either the same (the generalization instinct) or vastly different (the gap instinct) from our own. We do this in order to make sense of the world. We believe our opinions are reality because we want to think our brains have no reason to lie to us. As a result, we misinterpret experiences that differ from our own. For example, people from cultures in which love matches are made often believe that arranged marriages are a confining and antiquated ritual, and those from cultures where arranged marriages are commonplace cannot understand why people would leave such an important life choice to chance. Unless we broaden our horizons by traveling and challenging our beliefs, we will never learn any different. Stagnation leads to the perpetuation of false information.
Our ignorance puts ourselves and our societies at risk. While Rosling’s division of Sweden and Denmark in terms of larvae likely had no lasting harm, the perpetuating of such differences leaves us open to drawing false conclusions about groups to which we don’t belong. Doing so allows gaps to grow and stereotypes to form unchallenged. Activists from Level 4 fight for causes based on their perspective while they look down on the less fortunate, not from the view of what the less fortunate actually need. The villagers from the poor, remote village in Chapter 11 believed Rosling was there to harm them, even though he worked to save their children’s lives. Ignorance causes us to jump to conclusions based on our limited viewpoint. We take drastic action when drastic action is not needed and could even do more harm than good.
Left unchecked, ignorance leads to the belief things cannot change (the destiny instinct). People on Level 4 see disturbing images of poverty on Level 1 and rationalize all kinds of reasons for why those people don’t live better. When presented with evidence the people on Level 1 have moved up to a better life on Level 2, people on Level 4 struggle to believe. Our brains form opinions and hold on to that information as unchanging because it is easier to process the world this way. Ignorance to human progress causes us to become closed-minded. We don’t want to accept change and thus convince ourselves change is not possible.
The Limitations of Numbers and Statistics
Throughout Factfulness, Rosling uses numbers and statistics to show everything from systematic ignorance to improvement in the infant mortality rate to population growth. These numbers and percentages help construct a fact-based view of how the world continues to improve. Even so, Rosling consistently reminds the reader not to rely on numbers and statistics alone because they can be misleading.
Numbers are necessary to understand many things. Our brains wouldn’t be able to function without counting or an understanding of the difference between 50 and 500. Numbers can also be used to promote fear and misunderstanding. If the news reports a hundred thousand deaths in a year, that number feels huge and frightening by itself. Only by comparing the hundred thousand to total deaths in at least one other year is the number given meaning. Single numbers are often assigned meaning where there is little, which triggers the size, negativity, and then urgency instincts. We misinterpret the number’s meaning, and its meaning is no longer proportional. Negativity convinces us that situations are terrible, and the urgency instinct drives us to take immediate action, which can result in making things worse. If we had just compared the deaths from the beginning, the stress could have been avoided.
Statistics are also sometimes misleading. In particular, Rosling points to the problem of relying on an average. Aside from being a single number, an average hides a spread of data. We look at an average and see only where that one number falls on a spectrum of good to bad. We don’t see all the other data points on the spectrum or how spread out they are. If the scores of boys and girls on a math test are compared and one boy does far better than everyone else on the test, the average reflects this outlier. The result shows boys, on average, do better than girls in math, when in reality the data shows they do about the same but for that one person. We see averages like this and assume we know something because knowledge makes us feel powerful and in-control. Truthfully, we only know what the average tells us, even if the average isn’t fully representative of the data.
Rosling also warns readers to be careful of extremes. Looking at the differences between life on Levels 1 and 4, we see a drastic difference in how people live. We don’t see that these extremes contain the fewest people, and we don’t see the bulk of people living in relative comfort and safety in the middle. When taken together, averages and extremes offer a more thorough, but not complete, look at the world. They tell us where the majority lies on a scale and also the full range of options, even if there is only one data point at an extreme. Considering data from multiple angles helps clarify what the numbers mean. Still, the only way to truly know what the numbers represent is to go see for ourselves.
The Futility of Drama and Worry
In Chapter 10, Rosling gives a list of conditions he believes worth worrying about (pandemic, financial collapse, war, climate change, and poverty). These conditions have the power to stall human progress, as well as cause death on a mass scale. They require immediate attention when they become a threat. Beyond these and any yet-unknown circumstances, Rosling approaches other problems through a lens of factfulness—an approach he recommends that discourages practices like worrying, rushed decision-making, and drastic action.
Drama and worry propagate fear and the fear instinct. When the fear instinct triggers, our ability to reason shuts off. We become victims to our fear, which leaves us open to the influence of the other dramatic instincts. As a result, the impulse to prosecute whoever is responsible for all the wrongs (the blame instinct) fires as well as the belief that things can never get better (the destiny instinct). The fear instinct keeps us from seeing the good, the improvements, and the progress humans make every day. In Chapter 4, Rosling describes his fear-based reaction to what he believed was the start of a conflict between Russia and Sweden. In reality, the injured pilot presented no threat, but childhood memories triggered his fear instinct, causing him to panic and overlook a patient’s hypothermia, which is a treatable condition. On a worldwide scale, fear holds the ability to destroy everything. Fearful politicians, businesspeople, and military leaders have the potential to start bloody wars, sink economies, or let illness spread unchecked. Understanding drama and worry is essential for controlling fear.
For the individual, drama and worry serve a purpose when there is an actual threat. Otherwise, drama triggers our instincts unnecessarily, and worry causes us to find problems where there are none. These problems are often outside our control. A person on Level 4 can donate to charity, volunteer to build homes in poor countries, or become a doctor and choose to live on Level 1, but each of these choices helps a finite number of people. No one person can fix poverty, infant deaths, or malnourishment. Improving healthcare, agriculture, and other systems takes time, and minute improvements are hard to see. Without identifiable marks of progress, worry settles in, leading to anxiety, depression, and other mental health crises, limiting our ability to understand and cope with the world.
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