Factfulness: Ten Reasons We're Wrong About the World – and Why Things Are Better Than You Think

It’s Dangerous Out There
The safest lives in history are lived today by people on Level 4. Most
preventable risks have been eliminated. Still, many walk around feeling
worried.
They worry about all kinds of dangers “out there.” Natural disasters kill so
many people, diseases spread, and airplanes crash. They all happen all the
time out there, beyond the horizon. 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 the places
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out there were just as safe as your place, hundreds of terrible events would
still happen there. If you could keep track of each separate place though, you
would be surprised how peaceful most of them were. Each of them shows up
on your screen only on that single day when something terrible happens. All
the other days, you don’t hear about them.
Compare and Divide
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 only then do I decide
whether it really is an important number.
Factfulness
Factfulness is … recognizing when a lonely number seems impressive
(small or large), and remembering that you could get the opposite impression
if it were compared with or divided by some other relevant number.
To control the size instinct,