Want to learn the ideas in Factfulness better than ever? Read the world’s #1 book summary of Factfulness by Hans Rosling here.

Read a brief 1-Page Summary or watch video summaries curated by our expert team. Note: this book guide is not affiliated with or endorsed by the publisher or author, and we always encourage you to purchase and read the full book.

Video Summaries of Factfulness

We’ve scoured the Internet for the very best videos on Factfulness, from high-quality videos summaries to interviews or commentary by Hans Rosling.

1-Page Summary of Factfulness

Overview

Hans Rosling, who died at the age of 68 in 2017, was a researcher and scientist dedicated to truth. He believed that people are taught that everything is going downhill. However, after doing research he came to the conclusion that nearly everyone believes the world is more dire than it really is.

The author researched the problem of people not trusting experts and found that it wasn’t due to outdated knowledge or media bias. It was due to cynicism.

Did you know that the population of those living in extreme poverty has dropped? If you don’t believe it, then you’re probably cynical. It’s easier to hold on to your cynicism than it is to let go of a lie. And people are more likely to believe lies rather than facts about the world because they can rationalize their beliefs with false logic and faulty information. A fact-based outlook will help solve this problem by providing an accurate view of the world so we can all be better informed and make better decisions for our future.

The Gap Instinct

The root of our self-deception is a suite of instincts from the past. These instincts were crucial to survival in primitive times, when there was no way to get information except through gossip and unfounded suppositions. The world has progressed since then, but people have not evolved as much as they think. We still use data to scare ourselves rather than comfort and heal us with understanding.

Rosling believes that our biggest misunderstanding is the gap instinct. It’s when we see things as black and white, good or bad, male or female instead of seeing them for what they really are.

Among the dichotomies, there is one that stands out: poor versus rich. The idea of poor people being different from those who are better off has become so prevalent in our society that it can be seen everywhere. Some people even think that 75% of the world’s population lives in poverty and that only 9% live above a middle-income level. However, this is not true because most people on earth fall into a middle-income bracket. Only about 9% of the global population lives below a low-income level.

Rosling suggests that we shouldn’t think of the world as divided into “us” and “them.” Instead, he divides the world into four income levels. Level 1 makes less than $1 a day, Level 2 earns between $2 and $8 a day, Level 3 makes between $9 and 32 dollars a day (which is considered rich), while people earning over 32 dollars are in level 4 (college educated). Most people live somewhere between Levels 2 and 3. Many of us live closer to level 4.

To combat our natural tendency to be biased by gaps, Rosling suggests that we: resist the urge to compare averages because they skew data in favor of gaps, ignoring overlaps; resist the urge to compare extremes as they inflate provocative exceptions and skew the whole; and avoid taking a “view from up here” approach. Instead, keep in mind that mass media eschews normality for extreme examples. Because most of us can’t comprehend Level 1 poverty, we tend to create dramatic images of it. A factfulness-based approach recognizes when a gap is being presented and looks for shades of meaning instead.

The Negativity Instinct

A Swedish professor named Hans Rosling has been distributing questionnaires for decades, and he found that over 50% of the world believes the world is getting worse. This is because so many advancements go unreported or are buried under a deluge of negative information.

Despite the fact that extreme poverty has dramatically declined, to a mere 9%, and that it might one day be eradicated, we hold on to images of starving children. We fear the world they will inherit — assuming they’re still around to see it. This doesn’t negate existence of the good, though.