Book Recommendation: Factfulness

Factfulness: Ten Reasons We’re Wrong About the World–and Why Things Are Better Than You Think

Factfulness is my book recommendation for anyone who wants to get an analytical perspective about the world. Factfulness is a book by Hans Rosling with his son and daughter-in-law, Ola and Anna. Hans Swedish physician, academic, and public speaker. He was a health adviser to WHO, UNICEF, and several aid agencies. I have no doubt, if he was alive today. He would have been in the front line advising WHO on our current pandemic.

Book Recommendation: Factfulness – Ten reasons we’re wrong about the world and why things are better than you think

As the title suggests, Rosling bursts the common misconception people have about the world and shows us how our preconceived notions about the world can lead us to perform worse than chimpanzees (or random chance). But the book is much more than that. Rosling gives us tools to analyze any situations we face by putting aside our biases. Biases that we developed by listening to media, biases we inherit due to our brain’s inability to process exponential growth, its tendency to do linear extrapolation, etc.

Rosling doesn’t pose himself as all-knowing but shows us how he has developed these tools over the years by making mistakes, learning from them, and he takes us through the journey. This is what I feel inscribes the idea of factfulness in our mind instead of just stating facts without context.

The main reason to read this book in these trying times is to understand and grasp the thin line our government is walking on. Where a small misstep can cause lots of lives. To understand the seriousness of the exponential growth of the ill. Also, to realize why we are better off today than we were just a few years ago to deal with such a crisis. Understanding how today’s world is not divided into developing and developed countries. And most importantly, to have solace in knowing that we as the human race have devised systems that are adapted to handle situations like this, and the smartest among us, like Hans Rosling, is working on it even before such crisis rears its head.

Finally, I would like to leave you with a couple of lines from the book to ponder upon, especially after this crisis is dealt with.

Look for causes, not villains.
Look for systems, not heroes.