Spur of the Moment Guide to FACTFULNESS: WEEK 7

P.47-51

In chapter two the author, Hans Rosling, talks about the negativity instinct. Here’s a quote from page 49, paragraph 5, for which there are no ‘buts’ from my end.

“In order for this planet to have financial stability, peace, and protected natural resources, there’s one thing we can’t do without, and that’s international collaboration, based on a shared and fact-based understanding of the world. The current lack of knowledge about the world is therefore the most concerning problem of all.”

In today’s political environment that quote really makes you think whether we are at risk of turning that negativity instinct from a bias into a reality.

On page 51 the author talks about using UN statistics to prove how the world is doing better. I had a look and the stats look really good for a number of things. We’ll talk about all of that in next week’s post.

For now one major ‘but’ about the negativity instinct and good stats about our improving world, which is more like a question no one can ever really know the answer to.

What if the effect of all these improvements and good things happening in the world—no matter how great they are—could be negated by the effect of a single negative thing that will happen or is already happening and growing?

In other words, is it good enough that the world is improving? Should we use those facts to feel better? Or should we be constantly on the lookout for the negative things that are gaining ground and prioritize our efforts to stop them from growing and spreading?

I think we should treat the negative things as a virus. A virus which we know cannot be contained by cordoning off the affected areas; a virus we cannot isolate, but a virus which we have to fight against together to stop it from growing into something which if left unchecked eventually we will not be able to protect ourselves against.

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Week 6