Factfulness

Posted on | In

the gap instinct

  • There is no gap between the West and the rest, between developed and developing, between rich and poor. And we should all stop using the simple pairs of categories that suggest there is.
    low-income countries are much more developed than most people think. And vastly fewer people live in them. The idea of a divided world with a majority stuck in misery and deprivation is an illusion.​

  • Most people live in middle income countries
    4 level by the author
    most people - lv 2-3
    ​

how to get rid of gap instinct

  • compare average

  • compare extremes

  • The view from up here.
    Remember, looking down from above distorts the view. Everything else looks equally short, but it’s not.

the negativity instinct

  • be careful jumping to any conclusions if the differences are smaller than say, roughly, 10 percent

  • Remember, averages disguise spreads

  • Warning: Objects in Your Memories Were Worse Than They Appear

How to Control the Negativity Instinct

  • The solution is not to balance out all the negative news with more positive news

  • To control the negativity instinct, expect bad news.
    Good news is not news.
    Gradual improvement is not news.
    More news does not equal more suffering.

  • Beware of rosy pasts.

the straight line instinct

  • The Mega Misconception That “The World Population Is Just Increasing and Increasing”
    The “just” implies that, if nothing is done, the population will just keep on growing.
    公众的认知不一定是正确的，因为“群众的眼睛不一定是雪亮的”
    所以真正的所谓“普选”的意义也是值得商榷的​

  • 人口的例子表明并非直线增长

  • 妇女生育率大跳崖

  • News and documentaries are all exceptions
    religion and large family - Ch.7

  • large families & extreme poverty

    • extreme poverty - more children - incase child died in early years

    • We should do everything we can to reduce child mortality

how to avoid

  • Don’t assume straight lines. Straight lines are much less common than we tend to think

  • When we compare income with basic necessities like primary-level education or vaccination, we see S-shaped curves

  • Slides

  • Humps

  • Doubling Lines (expotionary growth)

the fear instinct

  • 本能恐惧种类

    • 物理

    • 毒（化学）

    • 失去自由，被控制

    • proper to level 1 and survive them

  • no drama no journalist + 信息化 → 悲观
    不是他们的错，也无法改变新闻行业现状

eg1 自然灾害造成的死亡——100年前的25%

  • 原因：准备防范措施（教育）
    level1（轻松被自然打倒）→level2~3
    UN急救队 paid by level 4 RelifWeb

eg2 plane crashed

It’s amazing how well people can work together when they share the same fears.
The fear instinct is so strong that it can make people collaborate across the world, to make the greatest progress. It’s so strong it can also remove 40 million noncrashing aircraft from our field of sight each year. Just like it can erase 330,000 child deaths from diarrhea from our TV screens. Just like that.

  • Chicago Convention
    1930s flight - dangerous
    after convention - every accident has been reported -> fear upup
    remove 40 million noncrashing aircraft from our field​

eg3 War and conflict

eg4 contamination

  • Nuclear

    • 1986 - 64000 warheads; now 18000

    • Fukushima - a lot die during evacuation not radiation

  • DDT

    • ->chemophobia
      The memory of insufficient regulation has created automatic mistrust and fear, which blocks the ability to hear data-driven arguments.
      In 2002 the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention produced a 497-page document named Toxicological Profile for DDT, DDE and DDD. In 2006 the World Health Organization finally finished reviewing all the scientific investigations and, just like the CDC, classified DDT as “mildly harmful” to humans, stating that it had more health benefits than drawbacks in many situations.

  • eg5 terrorism

  • My understanding
    其实现在这里的状况何尝不是恐惧呢，我一直以来都是理解成恐惧的，而恐惧就需要一个发泄的对象，在他们眼里是gov，然后恐惧在群体中扩散升级，最后为了恐惧而恐惧，给自己制造恐惧。
    人们拥有共同的恐惧，所以走上街头
    人在恐惧的情况下会丧失判断priorities的理智，所以情况会不可控
    Fear can be useful, but only if it is directed at the right things. The fear instinct is a terrible guide for understanding the world. It makes us give our attention to the unlikely dangers that we are most afraid of, and neglect what is actually most risky.

how to avoid

  • The scary world: fear vs. reality.
  • Risk = danger × exposure.
  • Get calm before you carry on

the size instinct

  • eg number and proportion of dead children in extremely poor area - nurse education, primary schools, and vaccinations

how to avoid

  • comparing
    • always ask for another number
  • dividing
  • 80/20 rule
    列表中，其实少数几个占了80%，大部分只占20%

the generalization instinct

  • media is the instinct’s friend

  • when many people become aware of a problematic generalization it is called a stereotype

  • Look for differences within groups. Especially when the groups are large

  • Look for similarities across groups

  • Look for differences across groups

  • Beware of “the majority.”

  • Beware of vivid examples, they might be the exception rather than the rule.

  • Assume people are not idiots. When something looks strange, be curious and humble, and think, In what way is this a smart solution?

the destiny instinct

  • It’s the idea that things are as they are for ineluctable, inescapable reasons: they have always been this way and will never change.

  • Slow Change Is Not No Change

  • Be Prepared to Update Your Knowledge

  • If you are tempted to claim that values are unchanging, try comparing your own with those of your parents, or your grandparents—or your children or your grandchildren.

  • Collect Examples of Cultural Change

the single perspective instinct

  • We find simple ideas very attractive. We enjoy that moment of insight, we enjoy feeling we really understand or know something.

  • constantly test your favorite ideas for weaknesses. Be humble about the extent of your expertise. Be curious about new information that doesn’t fit, and information from other fields.

  • I love experts, but they have their limitations.

    • experts are experts only within their own field

    • Many activists present themselves as experts.

  • People like me, who believe this, are often tempted to argue that democracy leads to, or is even a requirement for, other good things, like peace, social progress, health improvements, and economic growth. But here’s the thing, and it is hard to accept: the evidence does not support this stance.

  • Anyone who claims that democracy is a necessity for economic growth and health improvements will risk getting contradicted by reality.

  • There is no single indicator through which we can measure the progress of a nation. Reality is just more complicated than that.

  • The world cannot be understood without numbers, nor through numbers alone.
    所以垃圾运营不能只看握手

  • A country cannot function without a government, but the government cannot solve every problem.

How to avoid

  • Test your ideas.

  • Limited expertise.

  • Hammers and nails. Remember that no one tool is good for everything.

  • Numbers, but not only numbers.

  • Beware of simple ideas and simple solutions. History is full of visionaries who used simple utopian visions to justify terrible actions.

the blame instinct

  • The blame instinct is the instinct to find a clear, simple reason for why something bad has happened.
    出什么坏事总会有个背锅侠挨骂

  • It seems that it comes very naturally for us to decide that when things go wrong, it must be because of some bad individual with bad intentions. We like to believe that things happen because someone wanted them to, that individuals have power and agency: otherwise, the world feels unpredictable, confusing, and frightening.
    这就是要换c/某人下台的原因

  • If you really want to change the world you have to understand it. Following your blame instinct isn’t going to help.

Let’s look at some of the people we most love to point the finger at:

  • evil businessmen,

  • lying journalists,

    • Do not demonize journalists: they have the same mega misconceptions as everyone else.

    • The media is not and cannot be neutral, and we shouldn’t expect it to be.

    • we have to seek to understand why journalists have a distorted worldview (answer: because they are human beings, with dramatic instincts)

    • they must compete for their consumers’ attention or lose their jobs

  • refugees
    Our European governments claim to be honoring the Geneva Convention that entitles a refugee from a severely war-torn country to apply for and receive asylum. But their immigration policies make a mockery of this claim in practice and directly create the transport market in which the smugglers operate.

  • foreigners.

    • Most of the human-emitted CO2 accumulated in the atmosphere was emitted over the last 50 years by countries that are now on Level 4
  • how much of all the fossil fuel burned each year is burned by the richest billion? More than half of it

how to avoid

  • resist the urge to blame the media for lying to you

  • If you really want to change the world, you have to understand how it actually works and forget about punching anyone in the face.

  • Look for causes, not villains.

  • Look for systems, not heroes.

the urgent instinct

  • Learn to Control the Urgency Instinct. Special Offer! Today Only!

  • A Convenient Fear

  • The Five Global Risks We Should Worry About

    • global pandemic,

    • financial collapse,

    • world war,

    • climate change, and

    • extreme poverty.

How to avoid

  • Take a breath

  • Insist on the data

  • Beware of fortune-tellers

  • Be wary of drastic action

这个一年半之前的读书笔记一开始是做成思维导图的，但是发现文字量太大了，不合适，所以换一个形式