I chanced upon this book, Factfulness – 10 reasons we’re wrong about the world – and why things are better than you think, because it was on the WhatsApp DP of one of my phone contacts. Then I saw another review on Linkedin about this book.
I had a feeling I should order it and now that I am done reading, I want you to read it too. Why?
Read on.
Do you wear vision glasses?
You remember how it felt to put them up on your nose the very first time. The world appears clearer than ever before. The colours are more visible, the outlines more prominent and the constant haze has now disappeared.
See, that’s what Factfulness by Hans Rosling does to you. It gives you a brand new set of glasses to see the world.
The book argues that how we continue to see the world with outdated data, biases and make incorrect decisions based on that knowledge. The entire world including intellectuals, CEOs, Heads of States and Bureaucrats suffer from this issue.
It is not uncommon to hear theories and opinions about extreme poverty, climate change, diseases, social reform, etc. The book first makes us realise that most of what we know is plain wrong.
This is how in Factfulness, Hans Rosling, the author, puts it.
When you use the GPS in your car, it is important that it is using the right information. You would’nt trust it if it seemed to be navigating you through a different city than the one you were in, because you would know that you would end up in the wrong place. So, how could policy makers and politicians solve global problems if they were operating on the wrong facts? How could business people make sensible decisions for their organisations if their worldview were upside down? And how could each person going about their life know which issues they should be stressed and worried about?
Hans takes it up to himself to put all our misconceptions about the world into perspective and then set them right.
From the word go, he systematically tears apart every assumption that you might have made about the state of the world. You realise how ignorant you are about the world and how this ignorance probably affects your work, relationships and various decisions you make.
He uses telling facts (publicly available), bubble graphs and anecdotes from his own experiences to help us see the current true state of the world and how it has changed over years.
As you cruise through pages till you reach the end, you cannot but feel that the world you are now living in so different than you had known. Yes, not everything is great but they are better with significant improvement over centuries.
Personally, I still wear eye glasses for vision and for over 23 years.
Reading this book felt like getting a new pair of glasses. I can appreciate that the while several things about the world are still bad, overall the world is better now and constantly moving into that direction.
For my readers, who are likely to be a business person or an investor, this book will help you see where the real future growth opportunities lie.
It is a must read. Consider it to be the new glasses for the year 2019 and onwards.
Factfulness – 10 reasons we’re wrong about the world – and why things are better than you think