Finished: Rosling's 'Factfulness'

Just when you think you know it all, along comes a book like "Factfulness" to set you straight.

A guy in our office liked this book so much he bought a copy for everyone a couple months ago. I knocked off a chapter here and there and finally finished it. Oddly enough, the author, Hans Rosling, suggests later in the book that is the way to read it. So information is absorbed and considered.

Keep in mind, this wasn't written by some goofy cable talk show host. This guy has cred: Hans Rosling was a medical doctor, professor of international health and renowned public educator. He was an adviser to the World Health Organization and UNICEF, and co-founded Médecins sans Frontières in Sweden and the Gapminder Foundation. His TED talks have been viewed more than 35 million times, and he was listed as one of Time Magazine’s 100 most influential people in the world. Hans died in 2017, having devoted the last years of his life to writing Factfulness.

The full title of the book is: "Factfullness: Ten Reasons We're Wrong About the World - and Why Things Are". He starts with a short multiple choice quiz that most likely will prove how uninformed you are. Coincidentally, of the subgroups of people he gave the test to over the years, journalists did the worst. It might behoove them to fork over the 15 bucks.

It's a book I think everybody would benefit from, but especially journalists. It's not overly optimistic, but shows that things are not as bad as usually presented by the media. Things aren't perfect, but they are getting better. From poverty to disease to women's rights, they are all going in the right direction, many with remarkable improvement in a short time.

I was stunned at the end to learn the Rosling was terminally ill while writing most of the book. So if a guy had reason to be negative, he had it, but wasn't. So he wasn't around to do the media tour and cash in like Jordan B. Peterson and his "12 Rules for Life". But it's received raved reviews. According to Bill Gates, it's "one of the most important books I've ever read - an indispensable guide to thinking clearly about the world."

Yet it doesn't read like a textbook. It's interesting, woven with humor, sadness and reality.

Amazonians gave it a 4.6 out of 5. The Haugenometer doesn't work on nonfiction books, but if it did would tell you to read it. You'll be smarter and look at things a bit differently. Or don't. Your call.

It's one of the more heavily marked-up books I've read, but here's just some tidbits to whet your appetite:

- Today, most people, 75 percent, live in middle-income countries.
- Most people have enough to eat, most people have access to improved water, most children are vaccinated, and most girls finish primary school.
- Over the last 20 years, the proportion of people living in extreme poverty has almost halved.
- There are three things going on here (regarding our negativity instinct): the misremembering of the past; selective reporting by journalists and activists; and the feeling that as long as things are bad it's heartless to say they are getting better.
- Critical thinking is always difficult, but it's almost impossible when we are scared. There's no room for facts when our minds are occupied by fear.
- If we are not extremely careful, we come to believe that the unusual is usual: that this is what the world looks like.
- Everyone automatically categorizes and generalizes. He says it's a "necessary and useful instinct to generalize. One again, (though) the media is the instinct's friend. Misleading generalizations and stereotypes act as a kind of shorthand for the media, providing quick and easy ways to communicate.
- Almost every activist I have ever met, whether deliberately, or, more likely, unknowingly, exaggerates the problem to which they have dedicated themselves.
- We have to seek to understand why journalists have a distorted worldview (answer: because they are human beings, with dramatic instincts) and what systemic factors encourage them to produce skewed and overdramatic news (at least part of the answer: they must compete for their consumers' attention or lose their jobs).
- He suggests: Be less stressed by the imaginary problems of an overdramatic world, and more alert to the real problems and how to solve them.
- When we have a fact-based worldview, we can see that the world is not as bad as it seems - and we can see what we have to do to keep making it better.

I think there's probably something for everyone to dislike in this book. He gores some sacred cows here, from both sides of the political aisle. His personal ideology is liberal but, again, seems very thoughtful, provides examples, and most importantly provides facts. Argue with him if you want. My guess is you'll lose.