Book report “Factfulness”

     I decided to go with the book Factfulness by Hans Rosling. Factfulness was not my first option. I am glad that I chose this book because it was an eye opener. The way that the book started off was quite intriguing, I was reeled in with the thirteen questions that Hans Rosling presented at the beginning. I scored a zero out of the thirteen questions, although I was surprised with my grade. The book explains that the world isn't as bad as we believe it is. I highly recommend this book because it made me look at things differently. I realized that I was a bit close minded when it came to some causes. I genuinely feel that we can take the tactics that Rosling provided us and use it in our everyday lives.

    In each chapter Rosling explains to the reader each of the misconceptions that influence our viewpoints. These misconceptions are the gap instinct, the destiny instinct, the single perspective instinct, the negativity instinct, the straight line instinct, the fear instinct, the size instinct and the generalization instinct. Throughout the book Rosling provides data for each of the ten misconseptions. Throughout the book Rosling gives you more reasons to overcome these instincts that we have that influences our beliefs of how we look at the world and also how we make decisions. 

I enjoyed every part of the book but the chapter that stood out to me the most was “The Single Instinct”. In this chapter Rosling explains that we tend to just focus on one single thing. We are just fixated on one idea and don’t bother to look at it from another perspective. Rosling encourages people to be open to other ideas. If we just focus on one cause this can limit our imagination as he stated, “and rather than only talking only to people who agree with you, or collecting examples that fit your ideas, see people who contradict you, disagree with you, and put forward different idea as a great resource for understanding the world”.