Factfulness

Just finished Factfulness, which I heartily recommend. Not only is it full of important facts about human progress, it is full of excellent discussions of our biases and the heuristics that lead us to not believe how much better the world is getting. Rosling has excellent advice for maintaining a "factful" world view.

And his stories are great, especially two. One is about how he basically told Al Gore to, eventually, fuck off when Gore wanted him to have a Gapminder demo that showed the worst case scenario for global warming. Rosling insisted that they show either just the consensus view or all of the best, consensus, and worst case scenarios.

The other is about the students who responded to his noting that big pharma doesn't do a lot for the world's poor by suggesting that Rosling, who was going to speak at one such company in the near future, punch the CEO, Board, and stockholders in the face (seriously). Rosling eventually got them to see that the main stockholders were.... retirement funds. And he said to them:

"So maybe I don't have to do any punching, because I will not meet the shareholders. But you will. This weekend, go visit your grandma and punch her in the face. If you feel you need someone to blame and punish, it's the seniors and their greedy need for stable stocks.

And remember last summer, when you went backpacking and grandma gave you a little extra travel money? Well. Maybe you should give that back to her, so she can give it back to Novartis and ask them to invest in poor people's health. Or maybe you spent it already, and you should punch yourself in the face."

God love you, Hans.