factfulness

welcome to introspection ft. harsehaj! ⭐️ i’m harsehaj, a 19 y/o always up to something in social good x tech.

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btw, feel free to reply with topic ideas you want me to write about for future posts.

onto today’s topic: factfulness (part 1) 🤔

back when i wrote a post on attribution bias, i also stumbled on this book called “factfulness” written by hans rosling that essentially describes 10 instincts which distort our perception of the world.

i haven’t read the book but i did take a look at a summary of these 10 points, and believe they’re a good way to check-in on your optimism and debunk pessimism. i’ll explain 3 of them in this post otherwise it’ll drag on.

1) the gap instinct

this instinct describes our tendency to categorize things into two, often conflicting, buckets with a “gap” between them.

the main example rosling uses for this point is the use of the “developed country” and “developing country” labels. the rich and the poor. the west and the rest. it’s not just one or the other — most people exist within that gap. ⚖️

“the majority of people live neither in low-income countries nor in high-income countries, but in middle-income countries. this category doesn’t exist in the divided mindset, but in reality, it definitely exists.”

dividing countries in this way simply doesn’t make sense. you can’t determine their actual development, income level or business opportunities with a gap instinct-driven perspective.

2) the negativity instinct

somewhat self-explanatory, but this instinct depicts our tendency to notice the bad over the good. yes, things can be bad but they can also be better — the two aren’t mutually exclusive. an event can be both bad and better, and that’s a pretty accurate way to describe today’s world. 🌎

part of “factfulness” is recognizing that more news doesn’t necessarily equal more suffering. increasing news can also be due to better surveillance rather than a worsening situation. we don’t have extensive case studies and statistics of domestic abuse rates from the early 1900s but we do now. that doesn’t mean domestic abuse rates have increased, they’re just being reported now. this point reminds me of the time donald trump told america to stop testing for covid so that way there would be less cases. 💀 bro used this logic in reverse.

3) the straight line instinct

this one hasn’t fully clicked for me yet but it describes how we assume that a line will just continue straight perpetually. this assumption ignores that these lines are scarce in reality.

rather than population growth happening in a straight line, it comes in many curves that can be controlled without drastic action which is what the straight line instinct leads us to believe. 📈 curves come in many different shapes and the reality of deflecting such a curve downwards is much easier than forcing a straight line to a complete stop.

the 10 instincts described in “factfulnes” are interesting to think about and to challenge your own perspective with. i’ll eventually cover all the points in later blog posts. ;)

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