FACTFULNESS by Hans Rosling

이 책은 Steven Pinker 의 "The Better Angels of Our Nature ; Why Violence has declined" 가 생각나는 책이다. 정말 Steven Pinker는 쉽게 읽기 힘들 정도의 페이지(책의 판에 따라서 다르겠지만 적어도 800페이지는 넘는거 같다)에  방대한 자료를 제시하고 있다. 힘들게 읽었던 기억이 지금도 있다. 반면에 이 책은 정말 편하게 읽을 수 있는거 같다. 두 책의 공통점은 "우리가 흔히 알고 있는 것과는 다르게 세상은 점점 좋아지고 있다" 는 것이다. 본문 마직막에 저자는 다음과 같이 적고 있다. "When we have a fact-based 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." 그럼 왜 우리는 점점 좋아지고 있다는 것을 인식하는 것이 힘든가? 저자는 "The Gap Instinct" "The Negativity Instinct" "The Straight Line Instinct" "The Fear Instinct" "The Size Instinct" The Generalization Instinct" "The Destiny Instinct" "The Single Perspective Instinct" "The Blame Instinct" "The Urgency Instinct" " 같은 오류들을 설명하고 극복할 수 있는 방법들을 제시하고 있다. 재미있는 이야기들이 많이 등장하기 때문에 흥미를 잃지 않고 계속 읽을 수 있다. 외국독자들의 평은 비교적 좋은거 같다. "ビル・ゲイツも絶賛しているが、確かに非常に有意義な一冊" "This book gives you the ability to see the world how it really is. one of the most important reads ever." "世界が良くなっているのか悪くなっているのかこの本を読むとわかるようになるのかもしれません.." 이 책을 읽은 후에 세상을 바라보는 관점에 변화가 생겼다는 사람이 많다. 다만 언론과 세상의 이해 부분에서 좀 생각을 하게 만든다. "i cannot see even the highest-qiality news outlets conveying a neutral and nondramatic representative picture of the world. as statistics agencies do. It would be correct but just too boring. We should not expect the media to move very far in that direction. Instead it is up to us as consumers to learn how to consume the news more factfully, and to realize that the news is not very useful for understanding the world." 그렇다면 대체 언론의 진정한 역할은 무엇인가 ?

사전의 도움을 받아가면서 읽어도 흥미를 잃지 않고 읽을 수 있을 것이다.

 

- Low income countries are much more developed than most people think.

- What we should do is stop dividing countries into two groups. It doesn't make sense anymore. It doesn't help us to understand the world in a practical way.

- Your most important challenge in developing a fact -based worldview is to realize that most of your firsthand experiences are from level 4 ; and that your secondhand experiences are filtered through the mass media, which loves nonrepresentative extraordianry events and shuns normality.

- The four-level framework, the replacement for the overdramatic "divided" worldview, is the first and most important part of the fact-based framework you will learn in this book.

- To control the gap instinct, look for the majority ; Beware comparisons of averages. Beware comparisons of extremes. The view from up here.

- Be careful jumping to any conclusions if the difference are smaller than say, roughly, 10% ..

- As long as people have a worldview that is so much more negative than reality, pure statistics can make them feel more positive.

- THe misremembering of the past ; selective reporting by journalists and activists  ......

- What are people really thinking when they say the world is getting worse ? My guess is they are not thinking. They are feeling.

- As a possibilist, I see all this progress, and it fills me with conviction and hope that further progress is possible. This is not optimistic.

- The large increase in population is going to happen not because there are more children. And not, in the main, because old folks are living longer.

- There's no room for facts when our minds are occupied by fear.

- Fears that once helped keep our ancestors alive, today help keep journalists employed.

- If there's one group of people who have fully understood the power of the fear instinct, it's not journalists. It's terrorists.

- To control the size instinct, compare ; 80/20 ; Divide ...

- The necessary and useful instinct to generalize, like all the other instincts in this book, can also distort our worldview.

- When many people become aware of a problematic generalization it is called a stereotype.

- Generalization instinct ; look for differences within groups ; look for similarities across groups ; look for differences across groups .....

- To control the destiny instinct, don't confuse slow change woth no change ....

- Being always in favor of or always against any particular idea makes you blind to information that doesn't fit your perspective.

- The world cannot be understood without numbers. But the world cannot be understood with numbers alone.

- To understand most of the world's significant problems we have to look beyond a guilty individual and to the system.

- It must make one ask if the leaders are that important. And the answer, probably, is no. It's the people, the many, who build a society.

- When we are afraid and under time pressure and thinking of worst-case senarios, we tend to make really stupid decisions.

- Most important of all, we should be teaching our children humility and curiosity.