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

The Fear Instinct
When people are asked in polls what they are most afraid of, four answers
always tend to turn up near the top: snakes, spiders, heights, and being
trapped in small spaces. Then comes a long list with no surprises: public
speaking, needles, airplanes, mice, strangers, dogs, crowds, blood, darkness,
fire, drowning, and so on.
These fears are hardwired deep in our brains for obvious evolutionary
reasons. Fears of physical harm, captivity, and poison once helped our
ancestors survive. In modern times, perceptions of these dangers still trigger
our fear instinct. You can spot stories about them in the news every day:
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physical harm: violence caused by people, animals, sharp objects, or
forces of nature
•
captivity: entrapment, loss of control, or loss of freedom
•
contamination: by invisible substances that can infect or poison us
These fears are still constructive for people on Levels 1 and 2. For
example, it is practical, on Levels 1 and 2, to be afraid of snakes. Sixty
thousand people are killed by snakes every year. Better to jump one too many
times when you see a stick. Whatever you do, don’t get bitten. There’s no
hospital nearby and if there is you can’t afford it.
A Midwife’s Wish
In 1999, I traveled with a couple of Swedish students to visit a traditional midwife in a remote
village in Tanzania. I wanted my medical students from Level 4 to meet a real health worker on
Level 1 instead of just reading about them in books. The midwife had no formal education, and the
students’ jaws dropped when she described her struggles, walking between villages to help poor
women deliver babies on mud floors in complete darkness with no medical equipment and no
clean water.
One of the students asked, “Do you have children of your own?” “Yes,” she said proudly, “two
boys and two daughters.” “Will your daughters become midwives like you?” The old woman
threw her body forward and laughed out loud. “My daughters! Working like me?! Oh no! Never!
Ever! They have nice jobs. They work in front of computers in Dar es Salaam, just like they
wanted to.” The midwife’s daughters had escaped Level 1.
Another student asked, “If you could choose one piece of equipment that could make your work
easier, what would that be?” “I really want a flashlight,” she answered. “When I walk to a village
in the dark, even when the moon is shining, it is so difficult to see the snakes.”
On Levels 3 and 4, where life is less physically demanding and people can
afford to protect themselves against nature, these biological memories
probably cause more harm than good. On Level 4, for sure the fears that

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evolved to protect us are now doing us harm. A small minority—3 percent—
of the population on Level 4 suffers from a phobia so strong it hinders their
daily life. For the vast majority of us not blocked by phobias, the fear instinct
harms us by distorting our worldview.
The media cannot resist tapping into our fear instinct. It is such an easy
way to grab our attention. In fact the biggest stories are often those that
trigger more than one type of fear. Kidnappings and plane crashes, for
example, each combine the fear of harm and the fear of captivity. Earthquake
victims trapped under collapsed buildings are both hurt and trapped, and get
more attention than regular earthquake victims. The drama is so much
stronger when multiple fears are triggered.
Yet here’s the paradox: the image of a dangerous world has never been
broadcast more effectively than it is now, while the world has never been less
violent and more safe.
Fears that once helped keep our ancestors alive, today help keep journalists
employed. It isn’t the journalists’ fault and we shouldn’t expect them to
change. It isn’t driven by “media logic” among the producers so much as by
“attention logic” in the heads of the consumers.
If we look at the facts behind the headlines, we can see how the fear
instinct systematically distorts what we see of the world.