Over the past twenty years, the proportion of the global population living in extreme poverty has halved. This is absolutely revolutionary. (Location 147)
Note: In the last 20years the proportion of people living i extreme poverty has halved
Every group of people I ask thinks the world is more frightening, more violent, and more hopeless—in short, more dramatic—than it really is. (Location 180)
why so many people, from members of the public to very smart, highly educated experts, score worse than chimpanzees on fact questions about the world. (And I will also tell you what you can do about it.) In (Location 228)
Think about the world. War, violence, natural disasters, man-made disasters, corruption. Things are bad, and it feels like they are getting worse, right? The rich are getting richer and the poor are getting poorer; and the number of poor just keeps increasing; and we will soon run out of resources unless we do something drastic. At least that’s the picture that most Westerners see in the media and carry around in their heads. I call it the overdramatic worldview. It’s stressful and misleading. (Location 230)
Tags: media
Note: The media depicts a negative view of the world
our quick-thinking brains and cravings for drama—our dramatic instincts—are causing misconceptions and an overdramatic worldview. (Location 260)
Tags: drama
Note: .drama
“you won’t find any countries where child mortality has increased. Because the world in general is getting better. Let’s have a short coffee break.” (Location 325)
Tags: mortality
Note: Infant mortality is decreasing across the globe
The collapse of the US housing market in 2007, which no regulators had predicted, was caused by widespread illusions of safety in abstract investments, which hardly anyone understood. The system remains as complex now as it was then and a similar crisis could happen again. (Location 659)
Note: complex financial systems, which nobody understands, lead to disaster!
Back in 1800, when Swedes starved to death and British children worked in coal mines, life expectancy was roughly 30 years everywhere in the world. That was what it had been throughout history. Among all babies who were ever born, roughly half died during their childhood. Most of the other half died between the ages of 50 and 70. So the average was around 30. It doesn’t mean most people lived to be 30. It’s just an average, and with averages we must always remember that there’s a spread. (Location 716)
Tags: lifeexpectancy
Note: life expectancy in 1800 half of Babies died in their childrenhood
The population grew from 1.5 billion in 1900 to 6 billion in 2000 because humanity went through a transition from one balance to another during the twentieth century, a unique period of human history when two parents on average produced more than two children who survived to become parents themselves in the next generation. (Location 1070)
Tags: humans
The reason natural disasters kill so many fewer people today is not that nature has changed. It is that the majority of people no longer live on Level 1. Disasters hit countries on all income levels, but the harm done is very different. With more money comes better preparedness. (Location 1302)
Tags: poverty
Note: Less people die from natural disasters because more countries are wealthier now and better prepared
In the United States, the risk that your loved one will be killed by a drunk person is nearly 50 times higher than the risk he or she will be killed by a terrorist. (Location 1465)
Tags: terrorism
Note: .terrorism
This chapter has touched on terrifying events: natural disasters (0.1 percent of all deaths), plane crashes (0.001 percent), murders (0.7 percent), nuclear leaks (0 percent), and terrorism (0.05 percent). None of them kills more than 1 percent of the people who die each year, and still they get enormous media attention. (Location 1473)
Tags: newsletter, death, favorite, media
Note: Natural disasters, plane crashes, murders, nuclear leaks & terrorism account for less than 1% of deaths.
“In the deepest poverty you should never do anything perfectly. If you do you are stealing resources from where they can be better used.” (Location 1543)
Tags: poverty
Note: Be pragmatic and dont do things perfectly in order to serve more people
The most important thing you can do to avoid misjudging something’s importance is to avoid lonely numbers. Never, ever leave a number all by itself. Never believe that one number on its own can be meaningful. If you are offered one number, always ask for at least one more. Something to compare it with. (Location 1580)
Tags: statistics
Note: Always compare a single number to something else
The wars with China had lasted, on and off, for 2,000 years. The French occupation had lasted 200 years. The “Resistance War Against America” took only 20 years. The sizes of the monuments put things in perfect proportion. It was only by comparing them that I could understand the relative insignificance of “the Vietnam War” to the people who now live in Vietnam. (Location 1614)
Compare and Divide When I see a lonely number in a news report, it always triggers an alarm: What should this lonely number be compared to? What was that number a year ago? Ten years ago? What is it in a comparable country or region? And what should it be divided by? What is the total of which this is a part? What would this be per person? I compare the rates, and only then do I decide whether it really is an important number. (Location 1731)
Tags: statistics
Note: Always question lonely numbers. What should they be compared to, what were they a year ago
Vaccines must be kept cold all the way from the factory to the arm of the child. They are shipped in refrigerated containers to harbors around the world, where they get loaded into refrigerated trucks. These trucks take them to local health clinics, where they are stored in refrigerators. These logistic distribution paths are called cool chains. (Location 1802)
Note: Vaccines must be kept cool at all times during transport nd storage
the main factor that affects how people live is not their religion, their culture, or the country they live in, but their income. (Location 1902)
Tags: poverty, wealth
Note: Income is the main factor determining how peope live
On Levels 2 and 3, families often do not have access to a bank to put their savings and cannot get a loan. So, to save up to improve their home, they must pile up money.
Money, though, can be stolen or lose its value through inflation. So, instead, whenever they can afford them, the Salhis buy actual bricks, which won’t lose their value. But there is no space inside to store the bricks and the bricks might get stolen if they are left in a pile outside. Better to add the bricks to the house as you buy them. Thieves can’t steal them. Inflation won’t change their value.
No one needs to check your credit rating. And over 10 or 15 years you are slowly building your family a better home. Instead of assuming that the Salhis are lazy or disorganized, assume they are smart and ask yourself, How can this be such a smart solution? (Location 1962)
Tags: savings, bank, wealth
Note: Families cant store wealth in banks so they build onto their house when they have money
Experts are experts only within their field. (Location 2323)
Hammers and nails. If you are good with a tool, you may want to use it too often. If you have analyzed a problem in depth, you can end up exaggerating the importance of that problem or of your solution. Remember that no one tool is good for everything. If your favorite idea is a hammer, look for colleagues with screwdrivers, wrenches, and tape measures. Be open to ideas from other fields. (Location 2499)
The idea that India, China, and other countries moving up the levels should be blamed for climate change, and that their populations should be forced to live poorer lives in order to address it, is shockingly well established in the West. I remember, during a lecture about global trends at Tech University in Vancouver, an outspoken student saying with despair in her voice, “They can’t live like us. We can’t let them continue developing like this. Their emissions will kill the planet.” It is shocking how often I hear Westerners talking as if they hold remote controls in their hands and can make decisions about billions of lives elsewhere, just by pressing a button. (Location 2653)
Tags: climate change
Note: The West is to blame for climate change, not developing countries
Look for causes, not villains. When something goes wrong don’t look for an individual or a group to blame. Accept that bad things can happen without anyone intending them to. Instead spend your energy on understanding the multiple interacting causes, or system, that created the situation. (Location 2760)
As fear of Ebola increased, so did suspicion, and more and more people were “suspected.” As the normal health services staggered under the weight of dealing with Ebola and resources had to move away from treating other life-threatening conditions, more and more people were dying from non-Ebola causes. Many of these deaths were also treated as “suspect.” So the rising curve of suspected cases got more and more exaggerated and told us less and less about the trend in actual, confirmed cases. (Location 2931)
Factfulness is … recognizing when a decision feels urgent and remembering that it rarely is. To control the urgency instinct, take small steps. • Take a breath. When your urgency instinct is triggered, your other instincts kick in and your analysis shuts down. Ask for more time and more information. It’s rarely now or never and it’s rarely either/or. • Insist on the data. If something is urgent and important, it should be measured. Beware of data that is relevant but inaccurate, or accurate but irrelevant. Only relevant and accurate data is useful. • Beware of fortune-tellers. Any prediction about the future is uncertain. Be wary of predictions that fail to acknowledge that. Insist on a full range of scenarios, never just the best or worst case. Ask how often such predictions have been right before. • Be wary of drastic action. Ask what the side effects will be. Ask how the idea has been tested. Step-by-step practical improvements, and evaluation of their impact, are less dramatic but usually more effective. (Location 3034)
Tags: decisions
Being humble, here, means being aware of how difficult your instincts can make it to get the facts right. It means being realistic about the extent of your knowledge. It means being happy to say “I don’t know.” It also means, when you do have an opinion, being prepared to change it when you discover new facts. It is quite relaxing being humble, because it means you can stop feeling pressured to have a view about everything, and stop feeling you must be ready to defend your views all the time. (Location 3132)
Tags: humble
Note: be open to changing your open when you hear new facts
dollarstreet.org (Location 3151)
Tags: tolookup
Note: .tolookup