The late Swedish professor Hans Rosling wrote the book Facts to show how inconsistent current opinions are when compared to actual data.
The main theme of the book is that humanity has never lived in a safer, more prosperous and healthier era, despite all the fears.
Most people's views are still based on how things were when they left school - which for many was several decades ago - when the world was raging with wars, violence, corruption and extreme poverty.
Nevertheless, during this time, huge global changes have occurred that completely changed almost the entire society on Earth. And pretty much for the better.
However, when people were asked 12 multiple choice questions on topics such as global poverty, life expectancy, wealth, or women's education, the average person only rated two points (16 percent) out of twelve, much lower than if a group of chimpanzees were asked select answers for all items at random (33 percent). This indicates that people adhere to a super-dramatic worldview.
Neither a high IQ, life experience, or a higher degree of education seem to help people better assess the situation in the world.
The authors argue that most people in the Western world are deceived by a "global illusion" that suggests that things are bad and are getting worse. The rich are getting richer and the poor are getting poorer, and the world will soon run out of resources at all.
But this position is stressful and misleading, the authors argue. In fact, the vast majority of the world's population lives somewhere in the middle of the income scale. While they cannot be considered middle class, they do not live in extreme poverty. People have access to electricity, their daughters go to school, and their children are treated for diseases. In today's world, things like legal slavery, oil spills, HIV infection, infant mortality, deaths in wars, child labor, nuclear weapons testing, smallpox, and global hunger have drastically diminished.
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The authors argue that the discrepancy between worldview and facts is based on how our brains work. A willingness to jump to conclusions and worst-case scenarios helped our ancestors survive. But now this ability just makes people unhappy.
The advent of 24-hour news feeds and the opportunity to travel to remote areas also gave people knowledge about natural disasters, poverty and disease that they would never have known about before.
In the preface to The Facts, Professor Rosling wrote:
“This is data you never knew. Data as therapy. The fact that a healthy diet can and should be part of your daily routine. Start practicing this knowledge and you can replace your overdramatic worldview with a fact-based worldview. And you will make better decisions, be on the alert for real dangers and, if possible, avoid constant attention to unpleasant things."
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