Factfulness: Ten Reasons We’re Wrong About the World – and Why Things Are Better Than You Think (ENG)
A review of a book Factfulness written by Hans Rosling with cooperation with Ola Rosling and Anna Rosling Rönnlund. The book show that our view on the world is mainly negative and we should learn confirm our point of view on a real data, which usually show that the world is not getting worse and even in a lot of cases is getting better.
I found this book because of Bill Gates recommendation on his pages
Hans Rosling shows that our feeling about world is usually very biased to negative point of view. Our news serves us a plenty of messages about new deadly diseases. The war is almost all over the world and there are big differences between industrial West and the others. In his book, Hans points on data and tell us that it was maybe true 60 years ago. Today’s world is much more connected and much more in balance in compare with the past.
There is no us and the others
He is trying to describe our world in more granular way and he define four levels of poverty/income:
- Level 1 - you survive with less than $2 a day
- Level 2 - you spent more than $2 but less than $8 a day
- Level 3 - you spent more than $8 but less than $32 a day
- Level 4 - you spent more than $32 a day
More to that here.
Unfortunately, our school system (in countries on Level 3/4) still teach us that we live in a period of time when we need to divide world only to two parts (west/east, develop/developing …). This book is trying to change this view with a life-time experiences of Hans Rosling, who serve as a doctor all over the world. He describes that he also did several mistakes in judgement about the world, but it helped him to change his and his friend’s behavior to be able cooperate on a world level. I think we need to understand that either to be able to create fully connected whole worlds society.
I would strongly recommend taking a look at this QUIZ. It is taken from the book and I think after completing it you will want to read that book more and more. The next thing that can encourage you to read it is recommendation of Bill Gates in a video below.
Bill Gates recommendation
TED Talk
If that is not enough, please spent at least few minutes on a TED Talk given by Hans and Ola Rosling about this topic. It will help you and your feelings about the world.
