The following is a synopsis of Factfulness by Hans Rosling.…

The following is a synopsis of Factfulness by Hans Rosling. It’s a great read on the Ten Reasons We are Wrong About Everything and Why Things are Not as Bad as We Think
Introduction: Why I Love the Circus
Hans Rosling was a physician, academic and public speaker. Together with his son, Ola Rosling and his daughter in law Anna Rosling Ronnlund, he founded the Gap Minder Foundation in 2005 to fight ignorance and encourage what he calls a more factful approach to life. Although this book, like his TED Talks, was written in his voice it is a collaboration between the three of them.
Although he pursued a career in medicine and became a leading academic, Rosling’s true passion as a child was the circus. He loved everything about it and was convinced he would one day live his dream and run off to become a performer. His parents had other ideas; they wanted him to enjoy the first-rate education they didn’t have and so he studied medicine instead.
When studying medicine, he discovered he could stick his hands down his throat further than anyone else. For a short time, he dreamed once again of joining the circus as a sword swallower. Because swords were in short supply, he decided to start with a fishing rod, but found it impossible. It was only later, when treating an actual sword swallower, that he learned the reason why he had failed.
The throat, he was told, is flat and can only take flat objects. To his delight he discovered he could actually do it and, later in life when he began giving talks, he often used it as a finale to his act.
He talks about sword swallowing for a reason. It’s one of those ideas which inspire people to think differently, to question perceptions and, as such, to accomplish the seemingly impossible. This is a key feature of the book.
Another is the continual need to test yourself and question your assumptions. To illustrate he lists 13 questions:
- How many girls finish primary school in low income countries around the world?
- Where does the majority of the world’s population live: low income, middle income or high-income countries?
- In the last 20 years, the number of people living in extreme poverty has increased or halved?
- What is the life expectancy of the world today?
- There are 2bn children aged 0 to 15 years old. How many will there be in the year 2100 according to the UN?
- The UN predicts that, by 2100, the world’s population will have increased by 2bn. Why is this: more younger people or more older people?
- How has the number of deaths from natural disasters changed over the last 100 years?
- There are 7bn people in the world. Where do they live: mostly in Europe, Africa, Asia or America?
- How many of the world’s one-year old children today have been vaccinated?
- 30-year-old men have spent ten years in school on average. How many years have women of the same age spent?
- In the 1990s tigers, giant pandas and black rhinos were all listed as endangered. How many are listed as more critically endangered than they were then?
- How many people in the world have access to some electricity?
- Over the next 100 years will the average temperature get warmer, stay the same or get colder?
He sets these tests to people around the world and the majority get them wrong. Our perception of the world is far removed from the reality. His aim in the book is to give people the tools to think in a factful manner, to challenge perceptions and understand the world more completely.
Chapter 1: The Gap Instinct
Our world view is often distorted thanks to the tendency to divide everything into two extremes with a space or a gap in between. For example, we often view the world through the perspectives of distinct groups such as ‘rich versus poor’, ‘us versus them’ or ‘developed and developing countries’.
This is simple and makes it easy to develop a view of the world, but he believes it’s wrong.
To demonstrate his point, he looks at our tendency to divide the global population into developing and developed countries. Those in developed worlds have better access to healthcare, live longer lives and have better access to electricity, while those in the developing world do not. However, the data shows that most people have access to all these things.
In reality, most countries fall into a gap between the perceived developed and developing worlds, with many moving towards the group of developed countries. As such, this divisive world view makes no sense.
Instead, he introduces four categories which can provide us with a better view of the world. These are:
Level 1: Earning less than $2 per day.
Level 2: Earning between $2 and $8 per day.
Level 3: Living off$8 to $32 per day.
Level 4: Bringing in more than $32 each day.
It doesn’t matter where you live in the world; people in each group tend to have a similar quality of life. Those in Level 1 suffer from poor nutrition, live hand to mouth and rely on walking to get where they need to go. In Level 2 people are better off; they can feed themselves have be…