Factfulness - Notes - summary of book PDF

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Konstantin Golpayegani – Current Trends

December 9, 2018

Chapter 1; The Gap instinct -

Comparative by extremes Comparative by averages The view from up here Always have facts to back up your point The majority of people are living in the average part (there are less people in the level 1 and 2)

Chapter 2; The Negativity instinct -

Misremembering of the past Selective reporting by journalists and activists The feeling that as long as things are bad it’s heartless to say they are getting better Educated mothers decide to have fewer children and more children survive

Chapter 3; The straight line instinct -

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The straight line instinct  the false idea that the world population is just increasing The straight line instinct is about predicting just growth – a straight line up “As billions of people left extreme poverty, most of them decided to have fewer children. They no longer needed large families for child labor on the small family farm. And they no longer needed extra children as insurance against child mortality. Women and men got educated and started to want better-educated and better-fed children: and having fewer of them was the obvious solution.” Chart on page 85 On average four out of six children died before becoming parents themselves, leaving just two surviving children to parent the next generation. There was a balance. It wasn’t because humans lived in balance with nature. Humans died in balance with nature. Families with many children reason it; insurance of if someone dies, and use them for labor o Having fewer well educated children is better Controlling straight lines is by thinking that there are different kinds of curves

Chapter 4; blood all over the floor -

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We tend to have overdramatic worldview Fears that once helped keep our ancestors alive, today help keep journalists employed. The reason natural disasters kill so many fewer people today is not that nature has changed. It is that the majority of people no longer live on Level 1. Remember: things can be bad, and getting better. Getting better, but still bad. It wasn’t radioactivity, but the fear of radioactivity that killed them. Because “frightening” and “dangerous” are two different things. Something frightening poses a perceived risk. Something dangerous poses a real risk. Always news looks at the bad numbers – just look at the remaining percentage to understand o The world seems more scary as what you are hearing is being selected To control the fear instinct, calculate the risks The risk something poses to you depends not on how scared it makes you feel, but on a combination of two things. How dangerous is it? And how much are you exposed to it?  risk = danger x exposure When you are afraid you see differently

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Konstantin Golpayegani – Current Trends

December 9, 2018

Chapter 5; The size instinct

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Comparing and dividing Baby death was 14.4 in 1950 and it is 4,2 in 2016 (it is good)

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people who care about saving lives should be much more concerned about domestic violence than about bears. The 80/20 rule Correct pin of the world; 1-1-1-4 and by 2100 the new pin would be 1-1-4 (3 billion more in afirca)-5 Often the best thing we can do to make a large number more meaningful is to divide it. To get a rate. i.e. number of children in hong kong divided by number of schools in hongkong = children per school

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“But we forgive you, because you did not know what you were doing. We should never blame someone retrospectively for harm they were unaware of.” Said the indian guy at the UN

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Konstantin Golpayegani – Current Trends

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December 9, 2018

Rate per person will always be more meaningful DON’T LOOK AT ONLY ONE NUMBER. GET ANOTHER AND COMPARE IT WITH THAT!

Chapter 6; the generalization instinct

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“I hear you have love marriages in your country but that must be a lie. Look at these men. What woman would marry them if their parents didn’t make them?”

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Look for differences within and similarities across groups; beware of “the majority”; beware of exceptional examples; assume you are not “normal”; and beware of generalizing from one group to another. In order to deal with the generalization instinct; o Look for differences within groups o Look for differences across groups o Beware of the majority o Beware of vivid examples o Assume people are not idiots

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Chapter 7; the destiny instinct -

Do we Westerners love free speech so much that it makes us blind to any progress in a country whose regime does not share our love? The macho values that are found today in many Asian and African countries, these are not Asian values, or African values. They are not Muslim values. They are not Eastern values. They are

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Konstantin Golpayegani – Current Trends

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December 9, 2018

patriarchal values like those found in Sweden only 60 years ago, and with social and economic progress they will vanish, just as they did in Sweden. Stay open to new data – update your knowledge data Slow change is not no change It is not their culture that doesn’t allow for change or modernization – don’t stick it to the culture How to deal with the destiny instinct o Keep track of gradual improvements o Update your knowledge o Talk to parents and grandparents o Collect examples of cultural change

Chapter 8; the single perspective instinct -

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Forming your worldview by relying on the media would be like forming your view about me by looking only at a picture of my foot. Sure, my foot is part of me, but it’s a pretty ugly part. I have better parts. My arms are unremarkable but quite fine. My face is OK. It isn’t that the picture of my foot is deliberately lying about me. But it isn’t showing you the whole of me see people who contradict you, disagree with you, and put forward different ideas as a great resource for understanding the world “give a child a hammer and everything looks like a nail.” Numbers and data have its limits – don’t look only at the numbers but also observe what people are doing

There is a misalignment between the pharma companies and the hospitals – the pharma should adjust their prices better It’s strange where people end up drawing their lines and how well behaved they feel if they stay inside their boxes. “We are not the healthiest of the poor, we are the poorest of the healthy.” then you must reject everything the government does in Cuba, and you must support what Cuba’s government rejects—the free market. Compare with other similar states Everything has more than one perspective To understand every perspective, get a toolbox and not a hammer o Test your ideas o Limited expertise o Hammers and nails

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Konstantin Golpayegani – Current Trends

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December 9, 2018

Numbers, but not only numbers Beware of simple ideas and simple solutions

Chapter 9; the blame instinct -

Don’t blame from first sight, say instead why did he do what he did? Claim and blame It is not only always that businessmen are bad people, they could be good people with better solutions

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Look at the system instead of blaming someone what we need in order to save the planet from the huge risks of climate change is a realistic plan. We must put our efforts into inventing new technologies that will enable 11 billion people to live the life that we should expect all of them to strive for. The life we are living now on Level 4, but with smarter solutions. Don’t use a scape goat as all most of the people do o LOOK FOR CAUSES, NOT VILLAINS o LOOK FOR SYSTEMS, NOT FOR HEROES

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Chapter 10; The urgency Instinct -

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When we are afraid and under time pressure and thinking of worst case scenarios, we tend to make really stupid decisions The instinct of urgency – now or never (it is almost not true, it is never that urgent, it is almost never neither and or) We can’t draw a worst case scenario as if we were certain because the future is uncertain We can round the numbers to our own disadvantage Fear and urgency with exaggerated claims might work in short term but… o Heating up others they must remain coll so they won’t take stupid decisions o Track the progress in order to know what your actions are going to be data should be used to tell the truth and not to call to action always analyze, there is no urgency. Calm down and think We need Olympic Games, international trade, educational exchange programs, free internet— anything that lets us meet across ethnic groups and country borders. We must take care of and

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Konstantin Golpayegani – Current Trends

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December 9, 2018

strengthen our safety nets for world peace. Without world peace, none of our sustainability goals will be achievable The hardest to help will be those stuck behind violent and chaotic armed gangs in weakly governed states. To escape poverty, they will need a stabilizing military presence of some kind. They will need police officers with guns and government authority to defend innocent citizens against violence and to allow teachers to educate the next generation in peace. Worry about the right things, ignore the noise Conclusion; o Recognizing when a decision feels urgent and remembering that it rarely is o Take a breath, stay calm o Insist on the data, it should be measured if important o Beware of fortune tellers, any prediction of the future is uncertain o Be wary of drastic action; ask what will the side effects be

Chapter 11; Factfulness in practice

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Konstantin Golpayegani – Current Trends

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December 9, 2018

Be open to new information Be curious, then you learn Globalization is not over When I present to European corporations, I always tell them to tune down their European branding (“remove the Alps from your logo”) and to move their headquarters—but not their European staff —elsewhere Journalists always focus on the unusual rather than the common and on the new or temporary rather than slowly changing patterns First: a fact-based worldview is more useful for navigating life, just like an accurate GPS is more useful for finding your way in the city. Second, and probably more important: a fact-based worldview is more comfortable. It creates less stress and hopelessness than the dramatic worldview, simply because the dramatic one is so negative and terrifying. When we have a factbased 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. The world cannot be understood without numbers. And it cannot be understood with numbers alone.

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Konstantin Golpayegani – Current Trends

December 9, 2018

Critical points to Factfulness -

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Chapter 2; the world is not getting worse (my point is that the world is getting worse in understanding the values. Connect it with the “What went wrong” article) “all the books of knowledge that you might read and then go ahead and impart your knowledge through innovation, through creativity, through technology, but mankind will never be the wiser about its future unless it is coupled with a sense of love and compassion for their fellow beings” – we don’t need more automation Page 95 – I don’t agree that in level 4 the accidents gets lower Page 141 – on level 2, not enough money to cover expensive costs  link this to the U.S

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