And how can anyone argue that 4.2 million is anything other than a huge number? You might think that nobody would even try to argue that, but you would be wrong. Who can even imagine 4.2 million dead babies? It is so terrible, and even worse when we know that almost all died from easily preventable diseases. We often see lonely and emotionally charged numbers like this in the news or in the materials of activist groups or organizations. That is the most recent number reported by UNICEF of deaths before the age of one, worldwide. Compromise.”įactfulness: Ten Reasons We're Wrong About The World - And Why Things Are Better Than You Think History is full of visionaries who used simple utopian visions to justify terrible actions.
Beware of simple ideas and simple solutions.Love numbers for what they tell you about real lives. The world cannot be understood without numbers, and it cannot be understood with numbers alone. If your favorite idea is a hammer, look for colleagues with screwdrivers, wrenches, and tape measures. Remember that no one tool is good for everything.
If you have analyzed a problem in depth, you can end up exaggerating the importance of that problem or of your solution. If you are good with a tool, you may want to use it too often. Be aware too of the limits of the expertise of others. Don’t claim expertise beyond your field: be humble about what you don’t know. Have people who disagree with you test your ideas and find their weaknesses. Don’t only collect examples that show how excellent your favorite ideas are. To control the single perspective instinct, get a toolbox, not a hammer. “Factfulness is … recognizing that a single perspective can limit your imagination, and remembering that it is better to look at problems from many angles to get a more accurate understanding and find practical solutions. This is the fact-based worldview.”įactfulness: Ten Reasons We're Wrong About the World-and Why Things Are Better Than You Think Though the world faces huge challenges, we have made tremendous progress. Not on every single measure every single year, but as a rule.
Step-by-step, year-by-year, the world is improving.
Their girls go to school, their children get vaccinated, they live in two-child families, and they want to go abroad on holiday, not as refugees. Perhaps they are not what we think of as middle class, but they are not living in extreme poverty. In fact, the vast majority of the world’s population lives somewhere in the middle of the income scale. At least that’s the picture that most Westerners see in the media and carry around in their heads. Things are bad, and it feels like they are getting worse, right? The rich are getting richer and the poor are getting poorer and the number of poor just keeps increasing and we will soon run out of resources unless we do something drastic. War, violence, natural disasters, man-made disasters, corruption.
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