PDF Summary:Factfulness, by Hans Rosling
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1-Page PDF Summary of Factfulness
Factfulness: Ten Reasons We’re Wrong About the World—And Why Things Are Better Than You Think explores the misconceptions that color our view of the world. Whether it’s global poverty, epidemics, war, or terrorism, we tend to have a dramatic, negative view of the world: that things are worse than they’ve ever been and they’re getting worse all the time.
But this view is wrong. By almost any measure, there’s never been a better time to be alive than right now. The book walks us through ten instincts that distort how we understand global problems, and offers solutions for overcoming these instincts—turning our dramatic worldview into a factful one.
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The Size Instinct
This shows up when we assume too much based on one single incident or a solitary point of data. With only fragmentary evidence, we lose our sense of proportion: we make faulty judgements of scale, thinking things are bigger or smaller than they really are. In reality, isolated pieces of information and anecdotal evidence are poor substitutes for reliable statistical data. When we lean too heavily on small samples (and unrepresentative samples at that), we apply disproportionate focus to the wrong problems, and misallocate scarce resources. To avoid falling into this trap, apply extra scrutiny to data: instead of just accepting some isolated statistic, compare it against a larger set of data to get a better sense of proportion and perspective. Also, focus more of your attention and resources on only the largest numbers in a set of data.
The Generalization Instinct
When we generalize, we miss differences. This is especially true of those whom we consider to be different than “us.” Building on the Gap Instinct’s tendency to divide the world into binary groups, the Generalization Instinct turns the diversity of the rest of the world into a single, amorphous, and undifferentiated “them.” This ignores both the diversity within groups (like the vast income level differences between African countries) and the similarities between groups (like the common material standards of people at the same income level in different countries). When we think this way, it leads to stereotypes and ignorance about just how much the world has changed. To overcome this instinct, question your categories, avoid extreme examples, and be aware of your own biases and limited worldview.
The Destiny Instinct
This is our mistaken assumption that immutable characteristics determine the fate of nations and societies. In fact, cultures change rapidly over time. The instinct forces us to miss opportunities to invest in parts of the world that have undergone major development and shun efforts to help regions develop (since we assume they can’t change anyway). To rise above this instinct, remember that “slow change” is not “no change” and always update your knowledge about the world: what you knew to be true 10 years ago is probably out-of-date.
The Single Perspective Instinct
This is the impulse toward simple explanations for complex problems and one-size-fits-all solutions. It leads us to embrace all-encompassing ideologies and apply the wrong solutions to the wrong problems. As the old expression goes, “to someone with a hammer, every problem looks like a nail.” To apply factfulness to this instinct, seek out the opinions of people who disagree with you, don’t rely on numbers alone to form your view of the world, and avoid ideologues.
The Blame Instinct
This is when we look for a single source of blame for a given problem. Problems like war, famine, poverty, and discrimination, however, arise from multiple, complex sources. Rarely is an individual person or single factor responsible: instead, broader political and economic forces shape our world. When we lean into the Blame Instinct, we ignore the broader context in which events happen, focus only on symptoms of problems, and scapegoat the wrong people. To avoid this pitfall, look for causes instead of villains and study systems instead of individual heroes.
The Urgency Instinct
This is the “now or never” instinct: to avert catastrophe, we must act immediately and drastically. Rarely is this a good strategy for solving global problems, however. It leads to rash overreactions, panic, unintended consequences, and a loss of credibility when we overstate the severity or urgency of problems. Instead of doing this, we should insist on the data, take worst-case-scenario predictions with a dose of skepticism, and accept that the future is uncertain before we commit to action.
Conclusion: Opening Your Eyes to the World (As It Really Is)
By identifying and overcoming these instincts, you will transition from having a pessimistic and dramatic worldview to having one that is based on facts and reason. Shedding these instincts doesn’t make you a wide-eyed, naive optimist: it makes you a possibilist. You will be convinced of humankind’s possibilities for growth and progress based on the evidence of the enormous strides we’ve already made. And hopefully, you will learn not to hope without reason, but also not fear without cause.
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PDF Summary 1: The Gap Instinct
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As this range shows (and as we mentioned above), the majority of the world’s population lives at Levels 2 and 3. If you go a step further and combine the middle and high-income countries, we see that only 9 percent of people live in extreme poverty. This is lower than at any time in human history.
Delusions of Distance
Despite this, people in Level 4 countries are deeply ignorant of how the rest of the world lives. They believe that the gap between their standard of living and that of the rest of the world is far greater than it actually is. For example:
- Only 36 percent of Americans know that the majority lives in middle-income countries.
- Only 9 percent of Germans correctly guessed the percentage of girls in low-income countries who finish primary school (the correct answer is 60 percent).
This pattern of ignorance among people at Level 4 is profound. Whether you’re looking at life expectancy, child mortality, or vaccination rates, citizens of wealthier countries consistently believe in this vast chasm between themselves and the rest of the world.
Causes of the Gap Instinct
Why do we believe that we’re all so different from one...
PDF Summary 2: The Negativity Instinct
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- Hunger: 28 percent of people worldwide were malnourished in 1970. Today, that figure is 11 percent.
And as a corollary, check out these good trends that are on the rise:
- Women’s suffrage: At the dawn of the 20th century, almost no countries allowed women to vote. Today, 193 out of 194 do.
- Food production: Crop yields have nearly quadrupled since 1961. This has been a major driver of the aforementioned decline in worldwide hunger.
- Access to electricity: The share of people with access to electricity increased from 72 to 85 percent from 1991 to 2014.
- Access to clean drinking water: More people than ever can drink safe, treated water, with that figure going up 30 percent from 1980 to 2015.
Causes of the Negativity Instinct
With things so clearly improving, why are we so prone to negativity? Why don’t we see the progress that’s happening all around us?
Nostalgia
We are misinformed by nostalgia. We exalt the past as being a better time whose standards and values we’ve forsaken. And we usually attribute today’s problems to the abandonment of those values. But this is flatly wrong.
But this is flatly wrong. In fact, by most statistical...
PDF Summary 3: The Straight Line Instinct
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Why will population slow down? Because the number of children will stay flat. One of the benefits of people moving out of Level 1 is that they have fewer children: and indeed, the worldwide average number of babies per woman has halved over the past 50 years. This is because people at Levels 2 and 3 (remember, this is where most of the population now lives) have better access to contraception and less of a need to have children since they don’t need more hands for subsistence agriculture.
As more people leave Level 1 for Levels 2,3, and 4, this will only continue. The trend then starts to become self-sustaining: the new generation of people born at higher income levels will have fewer children than the generation that preceded them. The expected, modest increase in population will come from these children and young adults today growing up and becoming the middle-aged and elderly of the future: there will simply be more adults.
It’s useful to put population in some historical context. World population was approximately 5 million during the prehistoric era and stayed flat throughout antiquity and well into the modern era, due to high rates of child mortality. It only...
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Learn more about our summaries →PDF Summary 4: The Fear Instinct
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Plane crashes are a recurrent source of fear (and receive wall-to-wall media attention when they do happen). There were 2,100 deaths per billion passenger miles at the dawn of the Aviation Era in 1929-1933. Today, that figure is virtually zero: 99.999975 percent of commercial flights landed safely in 2016 (in other words, only 10 crashes out of 40 million flights). This is partially a result of better international cooperation: the 1944 Chicago Convention created rules around aviation safety and a common accident report so pilots, airlines, and governments could learn from crashes.
We all know war is terrible and the media often portrays a world engulfed in conflict. It’s true that warfare has been a constant since the dawn of human history (there’s never been a time where there wasn’t some armed conflict going on somewhere). But some historical context brings things into perspective. 65 million people died in World War Two. Contrast that with the Syrian Civil War, the bloodiest conflict going on today, whose death tolls pale in comparison with those from earlier conflicts. Even if its death toll reaches 200,000, that is a shadow of the figures from conflicts as...
PDF Summary 5: The Size Instinct
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Swine flu has generated a lot of panic, particularly in the media in Level 4 countries. During a two-week period in 2009, the disease killed 31 people worldwide. During that same period, 253,442 articles were written about swine flu: over 8,000 articles per death! Meanwhile, over 63,000 died of tuberculosis, mostly in level 1 and Level 2 countries, but swine flu received 82,000 times the coverage.
The Size Instinct was at work in all of these examples: the focus on a relative handful of extreme cases caused the world to overlook the bigger picture.
Causes Of the Size Instinct
Why do we focus so much attention on single incidents and isolated data points?
Human Compassion
When we hear a story about a dead child or a freak event that resulted in a death, it is natural for us to feel compassion and devote attention to the story. We have a bias toward things that we can see and feel: when we see one instance of suffering, we extrapolate that to form our view of the broader world. Again, this is an evolutionary inheritance: our hunter-gatherer ancestors weren’t data-crunchers. Instead, they had to make quick decisions based on conditions right in front of them....
PDF Summary 6: The Generalization Instinct
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As another example, Level 4 business leaders do not realize that family sizes are decreasing all across the world as people move out of extreme Level 1 poverty into the more comfortable Levels 2 and 3. This means that women are menstruating more (since menstruation pauses for about two years during each pregnancy), creating a growing market for menstrual pads and other products in these countries. But with a distorted worldview caused by the Generalization Instinct, businesses will fail to capitalize on this opportunity.
Causes of the Generalization Instinct
Why do we group the world into simplified categories?
Organize Information
The world is complicated and messy, with lots of information. We need categories to help us process the information we are faced with every day: we would simply not be able to function if we saw every item and scenario as unique.
Survival Instinct
There is also an evolutionary basis: our ancestors did not have time to take a nuanced view of the world. They had to make quick decisions for basic survival, for which generalizations were extremely useful (don’t eat plants of that color because they’re poisonous, avoid going in the...
PDF Summary 7: The Destiny Instinct
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In China, India, and South Korea, billions have escaped extreme poverty in just half a century, giving the lie to claims that they could never feed 4 billion people. 50 years ago, these countries (which are now manufacturing powerhouses and reliable trading partners) lagged behind where sub-Saharan Africa is today.
The Destiny Instinct can also lead to wrong assumptions about the continued dominance of Western Europe and North America. By 2100, the balance of power will have shifted, with 80 percent of the world’s population living in Asia and Africa. Moreover, the IMF predicts that economic growth will only be 2 percent annually for today’s Level 4 countries. This is a significant downgrade from earlier predictions, and much less than what Level 2 and 3 countries are achieving.
It’s not just economics: Western cultural values have changed drastically over time as well. Liberal Sweden had quite conservative values and mores around sex, family, marriage, and contraception as recently as the 1960s.
We mentioned Iran above when we talked about the Generalization Instinct, but it’s worth exploring again. Even this country, with a traditionalist, clerical Shi’ite government, has...
PDF Summary 8: The Single Perspective Instinct
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People with expertise want to put it to good use and they see a reason to put it to use everywhere. But this leads to experts and activists overstating problems and proposing their pet solutions as the cure-all for complex and nuanced global challenges.
Even advocates of democracy can fall prey to this mode of thinking. Democracy is not always the solution. In fact, the countries that have undergone the greatest economic growth and escape from Level 1 in the 20th century (China, South Korea) were not democracies: they were one-party states and military dictatorships.
Look Beyond the Numbers
Data (as important as it is) does not tell the full story. You still need to look behind the numbers to see real people and lives.
The Prime Minister of Mozambique measures economic progress in his country by things that he can see with his eyes: how many people have shoes and how many new houses are being built. He emphasizes that a disproportionate focus on cold, impersonal stats like GDP and FDI growth obscures the reality of progress on the ground.
Look Beyond Medicine
Doctors tend to see medicine as the single best way to treat deadly diseases. This causes...
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PDF Summary 9: The Blame Instinct
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Journalists
Journalists are often accused of distorting the facts to promote an agenda. Politicians especially love to point the finger at journalists for unfair or inaccurate reporting. And the media really does contribute to a lot of misunderstanding about the world. But are they really to blame? No.
A recent IPSOS poll shows that journalists are just as misinformed as the rest of us, whether it’s about worldwide vaccination rates, future population growth, or female educational attainment. Of course this ignorance is going to be reflected in their coverage. The solution is to combat the ignorance and address the larger systemic factors that shape coverage—not wrongly accusing individual journalists of lying.
Refugee Smugglers
In 2015, over 4,000 refugees drowned in the Mediterranean Sea. The European media and general public were quick to blame the smugglers who packed the refugees into unsafe rubber dinghies. But it was actually the EU’s own regulations that forced people to travel this way. These regulations penalize airlines for boarding people without proper entry documents, and those documents are impossible to get in war-torn countries. Since...
PDF Summary 10: The Urgency Instinct
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Ebola
Thee 2014 ebola outbreak in West Africa caused a great deal of panic in the region and in the world at large. However, much of this panic (and the resultant calls for drastic action) was overblown. Many of the suspected cases were false positives driven by confounding variables: ebola-like symptoms were really caused by other factors like poor sanitation and lack of clean drinking water. In the end, the ebola outbreak subsided because of common-sense, easy-to-implement public health measures like strict hygiene measures in public places and limiting unnecessary bodily contact. The solution did not come from drastic measures like border controls and mass quarantining.
Real Global Risks
Of course, there are still real problems that we should be focusing our attention on.
Consider pandemics, to which people at Level 1 are especially vulnerable. We need strong institutions like the WHO to provide the knowledge, resources, and infrastructure to combat deadly communicable diseases.
Another financial crisis would throw tens of millions of people around the world out of work, destabilize global trade, wipe out retirement savings, and erode trust in democracy and...
PDF Summary Epilogue: Factfulness in Practice
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Your Organization
Within your organization, don’t rest on laurels and accept the status quo.
Hunt for ignorance among your colleagues (and within yourself). Always be asking, “What don’t we know? What opportunities might we be missing? What are our cultural biases and blind spots?”
Remember, a factful worldview is not just more accurate than a dramatic one. It’s more useful, comforting, and inspiring.
The Instincts: A Refresher
As you’ve seen, most of the instincts have a few things in common. To help you get the big picture details, we’ve boiled them down to their essentials here.
Causes of the Instincts
Broadly speaking, most of these instincts are vestigial characteristics that we’ve inherited from evolution. Making snap judgements and assumptions based on the environment immediately around us was probably a good survival instinct for our ancestors: that’s why they survived and got to pass these instincts down to us. In today’s data-heavy and complex world, however, these instincts lead us to faulty conclusions.
We also live in the age of the 24-hour news cycle. To beat out the competition and keep eyeballs on the screen, media outlets...