Factfulness: Ten Reasons We're Wrong About The World - And Why Things Are Better Than You Think

unusual events are more newsworthy than everyday ones. And the unusual stories we are constantly shown by the media paint pictures in our heads. If we are not extremely careful, we come to believe that the unusual is usual: that this is what the world looks like.

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 on

Big change is always difficult to imagine. But it is definitely possible, and I think it will happen, for two simple reasons. First: a fact-based worldview is more useful for navigating life, just like an accurate GPS is more useful for finding your way in the city. Second, and probably more important: a fact-based worldview is more comfortable. It

Unfortunately, the people on Level 4 paying for ReliefWeb are the same people we asked about the trend in natural disasters. Ninety-one percent of them are unaware of the success they are paying for because their journalists continue to report every disaster as if it were the worst.

There will always be the richest and the poorest, there will always be the worst regimes and the best. But the fact that extremes exist doesn’t tell us much. The majority is usually to be found in the middle, and it tells a very different story.

The goal of higher income is not just bigger piles of money. The goal of longer lives is not just extra time. The ultimate goal is to have the freedom to do what we want.

The huge reduction in deaths from natural disasters is yet another trend to add to the pile of mankind’s ignored, unknown success stories.

It’s a bit strange, isn’t it? Such terrifying things rarely happen “here,” in this safe place where we live. But out there, they seem to happen every day. Remember, though, “out there” is the sum of millions of places, while you live in just one place. Of course more bad things happen out there: out there is much bigger than here. So even if all th

we should look at the systems instead of looking for someone to blame when things go wrong.