Thinking books · Critical thinking · Hans Rosling, 2018

Factfulness — the big ideas

Why most people’s picture of the world is systematically out of date, and ten habits that cause it.

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The big ideas

People are wrong about global trends in a consistent direction — worse than random — which means it is not ignorance but an acquired distorted model.

The gap instinct: seeing two separated groups where there is actually a continuous distribution with most people in the middle. It reappears in every "us and them" framing.

Things can be bad and getting better at the same time, and treating those as contradictory prevents accurate thinking about almost any improvement.

Its practical rules are simple: look for the majority, expect the line not to be straight, ask about the size of a number relative to something else.

Practise it — no need to have read it

Write what you believe about a trend in your own field — improving, worsening, flat. Then find the actual numbers and compare.

A hint: Note the direction of your error, not just whether you were wrong.

Where it shows up in real life

• Market assumptions
• Opinions about groups of people
• Reading the news

Described in our own words with the source named — never quoted, and not a substitute for reading the book.