Factfullness - Book review - Positivity overflowing
" There is no room for facts when our mind is full of fear" Hans Rosling, author of the book "FACTFULLNESS".
World outlook -Poverty levels
This book I think, is a must read for people who want to know about the journey of human progress made thus far. One of the super positive books I have ever read. This book is a kind of eye opener for many as this will turn their world outlook upside down. For the better, of course. Essence of the book is positive progress made by humanity in the last 200 years. The author establishes with facts and figures and with the help of many charts how we have come a long and better way in poverty alleviation, education, health and many other social indicators. For example, poverty level of the people was 85 percent in the 1800s and now (2018) it came down to just 9% which was just phenomenal and unbelievable according to the author(s). It remained at around the same level for thousands of years and only in the last 200 years the increase had been made possible. Likewise, the author gives a lot of information with statistical data. In the last twenty years, according to the authors the extremity in poverty levels has almost halved which is really revolutionary,
Reason for negative outlook
But instead of having an optimistic view about the state of affairs in the world
around us the vast majority of people think that the world has become frighteningly more violent and their hopelessness is now palpable more than ever. Reasons are simply put, an upgrade problem the book says. For instance the views of many on the health indicators of world population are almost several decades old and not updated to the present day levels.
A World view based on FACTS
Think about wars, violence, natural disasters, man made disasters, corruption. Things are very bad and it feels like getting worse and worse. The rich are getting richer and the poor are getting poorer and the number of poor are increasing, Unless we do something very drastic things are not going to improve. This, the authors call overdramatic world view. The truth is, according to the statistics available, step by step, year by year, the world is making a progress on all social and other indicators and it is happening as a rule. Yes, it is true that we are still facing huge challenges and the road ahead is pretty long but the fact remains that we also have made tremendous progress so far. This is the fact based world view.
How to divide the countries into categories
The countries in the world are to be made into four categories Levels One to Four instead of the usual two. We find that majority of people are living in middle income and high income countries if you divide the world that way. These middle categories cover 91 percent of human lives. Most of whom have already integrated into the global market and made great progress towards decent lives and this is a very crucial realization for global business and a happy realization for humanitarians. The authors contend that people who are always used to binary based thinking tend to divide anything into two. It is also more dramatic and intuitive.
Human history started with everyone on Level 1. For tens and tens of thousands of years no one made any progress to go up in the levels. Just before 200 years 85 percent of global people were in extreme poverty levels. After that bench mark year, the authors say that step by step, year by year, world is improving. Not just on poverty levels but on every developmental indicator, the world has come leaps and bounds which majority of us fail to notice. This negative perception about the world is to change for the better as humanity made tremendous progress since the 1800s. This positive factfullness as they call it, will impact the world view and change people's way of thinking, calm their irrational and unfounded fears and redirect their energies into more constructive acts. This is called data therapy and this will bring mental peace and hope to whoever reads this view.
Other positive data authors quote
The authors talk about world changing fundamental improvements but are too slow and small to get noticed. This is the silent miracle of human progress. What the authors quote is from official statistics from UN data and these pure stats will make people more positive as they learn that the world is much better than many would think.
Just about 20 years ago 29% of world population lived in extreme misery and poverty and that number is just 9% (2017). Time for party? In 1800 life expectancy level was around 30 years in the world. In fact, it was the same level thoroughout history. Today it is 70 years.
On education, the authors say that since the 1970s there has been fantastic progress that across religions, cultures and continents almost all parents afford to send all their children to school. The percentage of such children is now 92 and that of girls is not far behind, 90%. Difference is almost negligible. In levels 2,3 and 4 where 6 billion of world population live, girls are going to school as much as boys, or even more.
The world population was 1.5 billion in the year 1900 and dramatically increased to 6 billion in 2000, a unique period of human history when two parents on average produced more than two who survived. Number of deaths from acts of nature has dropped substantially and it is now 25 percent of what it was 100 years ago. The reason is majority of world population do not live on Level 1 i.e in extreme poverty.
It will be surprise to many to note that how many percentage of children today get vaccinated some disease. It is 88 percent.
80 percentage of people have some access to electricity.
Other points of progress
There has been noticeable enough progress in human rights, animal protection, women's education, climate awareness, catastrophe relief and many more areas where activists are calling
for work by campaigning hard. This progress has been made possible only due to these people
and we must thank them. But if only they have been made more aware what has been possible thus far which might make to work more enthusiastically for a still more better world. For them, it can be energizing to hear evidence of progress than constant negative outlook.
Five important concerns
The authors identify five notable and important areas of challenge to the world today.
They are 1 Global Pandemic 2 Financial collapse 3 World war 4 Climate change and 5 Extreme
poverty.
For people who read this book today that it is a huge surprise that the authors identify global pandemic as the first important risk the world will face as we are going through covid 19 crisis in the year 2020. Unlike in 1918-20 where many more millions died in Spanish flu, due to lessons learnt by the humanity from it and the improvement brought about in health sector ever since, the death rates are kept low in most of the countries.
Conclusion
As the authors themselves concede throughout this book that humanity is a work in progress and there is a long journey ahead of us realizing our dream of more prosperous, more equitable and just society for all the members. But it is equally important to remind ourselves that the progress made thus far is so humongous that it is almost absurd to ignore that and claim that nothing has been done.
There has been noticeable enough progress in human rights, animal protection, women's education, climate awareness, catastrophe relief and many more areas where activists are calling
for work by campaigning hard. This progress has been made possible only due to these people
and we must thank them. But if only they have been made more aware what has been possible thus far which might make to work more enthusiastically for a still more better world. For them, it can be energizing to hear evidence of progress than constant negative outlook.
Five important concerns
The authors identify five notable and important areas of challenge to the world today.
They are 1 Global Pandemic 2 Financial collapse 3 World war 4 Climate change and 5 Extreme
poverty.
For people who read this book today that it is a huge surprise that the authors identify global pandemic as the first important risk the world will face as we are going through covid 19 crisis in the year 2020. Unlike in 1918-20 where many more millions died in Spanish flu, due to lessons learnt by the humanity from it and the improvement brought about in health sector ever since, the death rates are kept low in most of the countries.
Conclusion
As the authors themselves concede throughout this book that humanity is a work in progress and there is a long journey ahead of us realizing our dream of more prosperous, more equitable and just society for all the members. But it is equally important to remind ourselves that the progress made thus far is so humongous that it is almost absurd to ignore that and claim that nothing has been done.
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