Oh, interesting!
How confident are you in your knowledge about
the world?
You might be wrong more often than you think.
Why that is we learn from Hans Rosling and
his book “Factfulness”.
And today, we’ll take a look at that.
Welcome to the Soft Skill channel.
My name is Sebastian Jung and today I’ve
got another book review for you.
And today, we’re looking at “Factfulness”
by Hans Rosling, in cooperation with his son
Ola Rosling and his son’s wife Anna Rosling
Rönnlund.
The book starts with a couple of multiple
choice questions.
Allow me to ask one of those as an example.
In the last 20 years the proportion of the
word population living in extreme poverty
has A: almost doubled, B: remained about the
same, or C: almost halved.
What do you think?
The correct answer is C: almost halved.
However, if you chose an incorrect answer
you are in good company.
Rosling asked this question to 12,000 people
in different countries and most of them were
wrong.
For example, in Germany only six percent of
the people answered correctly. in the US it
was only five percent, in the UK only nine
percent.
So Hans Rosling said, “Well, I will go to
the zoo and I will ask the .... ah, not him
... I will ask the chimpanzees.”
The chimpanzees don’t even understand the
question.
However, if they just choose A, B, or C at
random, 33 percent of chimpanzees should end
up with a correct answer.
And 33 percent is considerably more than five
or six or nine percent.
So the humans who did the questionnaire, they
didn’t just not know the answer and pick
something at random.
They consciously picked the incorrect answers.
How can it be that our knowledge of the word
is so wrong, is wrong to such an extent?
Hans Rosling explains this by 10 instincts
that lead us astray, 10 mental mistakes we
make when viewing the world.
The first of those is the “Gap Instinct”.
We like to imagine two extremes that are far
apart with a big gap in between.
For example, we like to think of the world
as divided into poor, developing countries
and rich, developed countries.
At this point, Hans Rosling shows a chart
that shows the number of babies per woman
and the child mortality rate, because those
are good indicators for the standard of living
in a country.
Now, I could hold the page that has the chart
into the camera but that wouldn’t look very
good and that wouldn’t be very helpful for
you.
But fortunately, we don’t have to rely on
that.
Hans and Ola Rosling and Anna Rosling Rönnlund
didn’t just write this book, they also founded
the Gapminder Foundation.
and the Gapminder Foundation provides a lot
of numbers and statistics on its website gapminder.org.
So I can use this to show you the chart in
full screen and color.
Have a look!
The vertical axis shows babys perr woman.
Further down means fewer babies.
The horizontal axis shows child mortality.
Further left means fewer children die.
The colorful circles represent the different
countries.
The bigger a circle is the higher that country’s
population.
For example, the big circle here is China
and the very small circle are the Seychelles.
The colors represent different regions.
As you can see here, green is North and South
America, yellow is Europe and Russia, blue
is Africa, red is Asia and Oceania.
And, as you can see, we really have a small
cluster of rich, developed countries and a
big cluster of poor, developing countries.
However, you’ve probably noticed the big
number in the background.
This is the state from 1965.
Allow me to forward to 2019.
As you can see, the distribution has changed
dramatically.
The area in the middle that used to be a gap
now contains the majority of the word population.
As a replacement for those outdated categories
of developed nations and developing nations
Hans Rosling proposes to distinguish between
four income levels.
Level one is extreme poverty.
At this level, people have less than two dollars
per day.
They might not have sufficient food, they
might not have constant access to clean drinking
water.
Medical services are either not available
or they can’t afford them.
One billion people worldwide live on level
one today.
On level two, people have two to eight dollars
per day.
At this level, they have sufficient food,
they can afford basic medical services, and
the children go to school.
They can afford shoes, they might have a bicycle
or a gas stove or electric lighting.
Three billion people live on level two today.
On level three, people have 8 to 32 dollars
per day.
At this level, they probably have running
water indoors, even though it might be just
cold.
They probably have stable electricity so they
can have a fridge.
They can afford a motorbike or another means
of motorized transportation and they can afford
better education for their children.
Two billion people live on level three worldwide
today.
And finally, on level four, people have more
than 32 dollars per day.
Of course they have hot and cold water indoors.
They can afford a car and they can travel
by plane on vacation.
But I don’t need to tell you a lot about
level four because, if you are watching this,
you probably are on level four and you know
your own standard of living.
If we are on level four, three dollars more
or less don’t make a huge difference for
us.
So it’s difficult to imagine what a big
difference it is to live on level two instead
of level one.
Today, one billion people worldwide are on
level four.
The majority of the world population, five
billion total, are on level two and level
three, which is a standard of living that
is similar to what we had in Western Europe
and North America around 1950.
When we read the book, at first this is all
just fun facts and general education for us.
However, this information is crucial when
it comes to making political or economical
decisions.
Imagine a big company that’s making some
basic everyday goods such as menstrual pads
or toothbrushes.
If all the decision makers still stick to
the old “developing countries vs. developed
countries” worldview, they will probably
see that one billion people on level four
as their only viable market.
However, there are five billion people on
level two and three that are quite interested
in buying just basic menstrual pads and toothbrushes
at an affordable price.
I’ve been talking for a while about the
gap instinct and some basics now.
The other nine instincts I will go through
more quickly so the video doesn’t go on
endlessly.
Instinct number two is the “Negativity Instinct”.
When I asked you the question about poverty,
did you say it doubled?
Because we tend to believe that things are
getting worse even though they seldom are.
A typical example for that is the crime rate
in the USA.
For the last 30 years, the crime rate decreased
almost every year.
However, in polls when people are asked, “Do
you think there is more crime today than in
the past or less crime?”, almost every year
more than 50 percent of the people say, “More
crime!”
Instinct number three is the “Straight-line
Instinct”.
If we look at a chart and there is an increase
or a decrease we expect this to continue in
a straight line.
However, there are several different types
of charts and quite often there is no straight
line.
The most important example in this chapter
is the increase in world population.
In the last hundred years, we had a quite
a big increase in world population.
And a lot of people are afraid this increase
will continue like this and the population
will just grow and grow until we face severe
problems from overpopulation.
The topic has even appeared in popular culture.
Think, for example, of Dan Brown’s “Inferno”,
the book and the movie, or one of the Avengers
movies or the Kingsman movie.
In all of those there was a super villain
who wanted to severely decimate the world
population in order to rescue mankind from
going extinct due to overpopulation.
Actually, however, we are already past the
peak.
Do you remember the chart I showed you, with
the number of babies per woman?
Did you see how all the bubbles move downwards?
In 1965, on average, a woman had five children.
In 2017, this had decreased to 2.5 children.
So the rate of birth has gone down.
We have two billion children today and the
UN expects there to be still two billion children
in 2100.
The population will still increase in the
coming decades, but not because there are
more children.
Currently, the age groups form a kind of pyramid.
we have two billion children at the bottom,
we have less young adults, even less older
adults, and so on.
So, kind of a pyramid shape.
Now, if the two billion children of today
grow up to become adults and they are replaced
by the same number of new children, then this
will move upwards to form a kind of tower
or something like that.
So in the coming decades the population will
increase but we won’t have more children,
we will have more adults.
According to current predictions, the world
population will grow to 10 or 11 billion people.
But then the growth will stop and it won’t
increase anymore.
Instinct number four and five I will deal
with together since they are similar.
Instinct number four is the “Fear Instinct”.
We tend to pay a lot of attention to things
that are frightening, that involve danger
and risk, and that make us afraid.
Even if there is very little actual danger
behind them.
And the “Size Instinct” means that we
are easily impressed by a lonesome number
or a single event, even if those aren’t
that significant anymore when put into proportions,
put into context.
For example by comparing a number with another
relevant number.
It is october 17th 2004.
We are in Sweden.
Mari Larsson, 38 years old, mother of three,
is murdered.
Her former partner has broken into her house
and waited for her there.
And when she came home he hit her head repeatedly
with an axe.
At the same day, Johan Vesterlund, 40 years
old, father of three, is attacked and killed
by a bear on a hunting trip.
Now, the question is: Which of those events
was featured heavily in the media, in the
news, and which one was barely mentioned?
A human being killed by a bear, the last time
that happened in Sweden was 1902.
This is a once in a century event.
A woman is killed by her partner every 30
days.
Now, imagine you’re a journalist.
You can’t write the same article each month
– “Another woman killed by domestic violence.”
Your readers would get bored of that quite
quickly.
However, this doesn’t change the fact that
being killed due to domestic violence is a
thousand and three hundred times more likely
than being killed by a bear.
Hans Rosling doesn’t elaborate on that but
I’m pretty sure, at the time, there were
several Swedes who said, “Oh, I better not
take my usual walk through the woods on Sunday
so the bear doesn’t get me as well.”,
or who canceled their camping vacation, or
who suddenly felt uneasy living close to the
forest.
And there probably were some who said, “Oh,
we have to do something before those bears
wipe us all out!”
Now, you really don’t need to be afraid
of a bear attack because that is one of the
most unlikely causes of death at all.
And the same is true for natural disasters.
Natural disasters account for 0.1 of the deaths
each year.
Plane crashes account for 0.001 percent, murder
for 0.7 percent, nuclear leaks for zero percent,
terrorism for 0.05.
However, if you watch the news, if you have
a look at the media they paint quite a different
picture.
So it’s quite important to remember to put
things into perspective, for example by comparing
the deaths from the people killed by bear
attacks to the people killed due to domestic
violence.
I will also combine instinct six and seven.
Those are the “Generalization Instinct”
and the “Destiny Instinct”.
We like to generalize and we are blind to
steady, slow change over a long time.
And, yeah, those instincts, um, this is where
a lot of stereotypes and prejudice come in.
The kind of, “Oh, you know, you know those
people.
You know how they are.
They are all the same and they don’t ever
change and that’s why they won’t make
any progress!”
We tend to emphasize cultural and religious
differences.
For example, a lot of people believe that
in other religions people get a lot more children
than Christian people.
We have a chart for that.
The vertical axis again shows babies per woman,
the further down the fewer babies.
The horizontal axis this time shows income.
The further right the higher the country’s
income.
The colorful circles again represent countries.
The bigger the circle the higher the country’s
population.
The colors this time do not represent regions
but religions.
Blue are Christian countries, green are Muslim,
red are Eastern religions.
And, as you can see, they are pretty evenly
distributed.
There are Christian countries with a lot of
babies per woman and there are Muslim and
Eastern religion countries with few babies
per woman.
However, there is a strong correlation between
babies per woman and income.
The higher a country’s income is the fewer
babies per woman there seem to be.
Now, this is quite a common problem.
A lot of differences we attribute to culture
or religion are actually differences in income
levels.
And there is quite a fascinating service provided
by gapminder.org which is Dollar Street.
At Dollar Street you can have a look at how
people on different income levels around the
world live by having a look at photographs.
Let me show you an example.
Here, I’ve got eight different bedrooms
from families around the world who have between
900 and 1,100 hundred dollars per month available.
One of those is from the USA and one is from
the United Kingdom.
Can you guess which those are?
The others are from Brazil, Cambodia, there
are two from India, one from Mexico, one from
Nepal.
All right, I’ll show the country labels.
Did you pick the right ones?
I really recommend to have a look at gapminder.org
and Dollar Street.
I find them quite interesting and fascinating
and enlightening.
Instinct number eight is the “Single-perspective
Instinct”.
We like simple explanations and we tend to
look for simple explanations, especially ones
that confirm our world view, that confirm
our ideologies.
However, there rarely is a simple solution,
a simple explanation, and ideologies are rarely
the solution.
In this chapter, Hans Rosling describes the
situation in Cuba where, due to government
regulation, people have a good level of health,
people are healthy, but they live in poverty.
And he describes, in comparison, the situation
in the United States which has the highest
spending on medical services, on health services,
of all countries but still is surpassed by
39 other countries when it comes to life expectancy.
Instinct number nine is the “Blame Instinct”.
We like to look for a scapegoat and blame
all the problems on him, rather than searching
for the actual explanation and the actual
causes.
In 2015, 4,000 refugees drowned in the Mediterranean
Sea while trying to reach Europe in inflatable
boats.
You might still remember shocking images of
dead children washed ashore on European beaches.
And the villain who caused this tragedy was
quickly found.
It was smugglers who tricked poor refugees
into handing over large sums of money for
this passage to Europe in death traps of inflatable
boats.
However, Hans Rosling wondered, “Why didn’t
those refugees take a plane or a proper ship?
After all, all the European countries are
signed up to the Geneva Convention, so refugees
from war have a right to asylum.”
Well, there is a European Council directive
from 2001 regarding illegal immigrants.
If an airline or a shipping line brings illegal
immigrants into a country they have to take
them back at their own cost.
Now, obviously, this directive says it doesn’t
apply to legitimate asylum seekers, it only
applies to illegal immigrants.
However, in reality this doesn’t really
matter because the person at the check-in
counter can’t distinguish within a few seconds
between an illegal immigrant and a legitimate
refugee seeking asylum.
This takes an embassy several months.
So the bottom line is: Commercial airlines
and shipping lines won’t let anyone on board
who doesn’t have a visa.
And as you can probably imagine it was quite
impossible to get a visa at this time because
the European embassies in Libya and Turkey
didn’t have the resources to process all
these applications they got.
So no plane, no ship.
Well, you could say, “All right, but those
smugglers - at least they could have used
proper ships that wouldn’t sink during the
voyage!”
Yeah, well, there is another European Union
policy that states that all ships are confiscated
on arrival.
So you have to use a single-use ship or boat
and, yeah, that’s an inflatable boat.
Instinct number 10, the final one, is the
“Urgency Instinct”.
If things appear to be urgent, we tend to
make hasty and bad decisions.
Now, this chapter also deals with the problem
that people who want to raise awareness and
activists
tend to create a sense of urgency because
they find it necessary to get people to pay
attention and to get people to realize it’s
important.
Hans Rosling was involved in the fight against
Ebola in African countries.
And when he joined the fight there were only
statistics that counted suspected cases of
Ebola.
And these statistics, they went straight up,
they increased at an alarming rate, Now, one
of the first things Hans Rosling did was that
he collected data from the different laboratories
and combined it and he created a statistic
of confirmed cases of Ebola.
And when he had finished that, he noticed
that the confirmed cases of Ebola had reached
a peak a few weeks before and, after that,
the number of cases had been declining.
And of course this realization was, um, for
the people in Africa who were fighting Ebola
it was great to see that their efforts actually
had an effect, that they were winning, and
that the worst had passed and things were
getting better.
However, the organizations that dealt with
Ebola, in their publications they still used
the statistics that showed the suspected cases,
that went straight up and where the situation
still seemed to get worse - because they thought
if they told everyone, “Oh, well, the worst
has passed, things are getting better!”,
they they would lose interest and they would
lose their support.
The book’s final chapter is about “Factfulness
in Practice” - in business, for journalists,
politicians, and activists, and for your own
organization.
Now, I have to admit: When I started reading
the book I was pretty clueless, just as the
people who did Hans Rosling’s questionnaire.
Now, obviously, if you buy a book that is
called “Factfulness”, and the cover says,
“10 reasons we are wrong about the world”,
you might suspect those questions in the introduction
will probably not turn out as you expect.
However, if I had encountered them in a neutral
place I would have answered most of them incorrectly
and the chimpanzees would probably have laughed
about me.
So I learned a lot from this book and I’m
glad I read it.
And it was also quite enjoyable!
For one, it’s a very positive book since
you learn a lot of things that are nice and
positive and optimistic.
As it says, the world is better than we think!
And on the other hand it is quite well written.
Hans Rosling traveled a lot and visited a
lot of countries and did a lot of work and
he tells several interesting and exciting
experiences from his life.
And also, the examples he uses are well chosen
and well described.
And,yes, the book is fun and quite enjoyable
to read.
And I also like this topic of mental mistakes
we make, of situations where some mechanism
of our brain is leading us astray.
There are also some books by Rolf Dobelli
who deal with such topics and also in “Thinking,
fast and slow” from Daniel Kahneman this
is also an important aspect.
We might look at some of those books later
on by the way.
So I can really recommend this book, it’s
a great book.
Have a look at it!
Oh, and also have a look at gapminder.org
and Dollar Street.
I really find them quite fascinating and surprising
and interesting.
Of course, I will provide links to those in
the video description.
And I will also provide a link to a TED talk
with Hans Rosling that is pretty cool, as
well.
Did you, maybe, read the book or are you interested
in reading the book?
Let me know your opinion about it in the comments!
And, while you’re at it, maybe click the
like button and subscribe to the channel.
We will see each other next week in the next
channel update.
Until then, I’ll take my leave.
Have a nice day!
See you next time.
