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

Statistics as Therapy
It is easy to be aware of all the bad things happening in the world. It’s harder
to know about the good things: billions of improvements that are never
reported. Don’t misunderstand me, I’m not talking about some trivial positive
news to supposedly balance out the negative. I’m talking about fundamental
improvements that are world-changing but are too slow, too fragmented, or
too small one-by-one to ever qualify as news. I’m talking about the secret
silent miracle of human progress.
The basic facts about the world’s progress are so little known that I get
invited to talk about them at conferences and corporate meetings all over the
world. They sometimes call my lectures “inspirational,” and many people say
they also have a comforting effect. That was never my intention. But it’s
logical. What I show is mostly just official UN data. As long as people have a
worldview that is so much more negative than reality, pure statistics can make
them feel more positive. It is comforting, as well as inspiring, to learn that the
world is much better than you think. A new kind of happy pill, completely
free online!
Extreme Poverty
Let’s start by looking at the trend for extreme poverty.
FACT QUESTION 3
In the last 20 years, the proportion of the world population living in extreme poverty
has …
A: almost doubled
B: remained more or less the same
C: almost halved
The correct answer is C: over the last 20 years, the proportion of people
living in extreme poverty has almost halved. But in our online polls, in most

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countries, less than 10 percent knew this.
Remember the four income levels from chapter 1? In the year 1800,
roughly 85 percent of humanity lived on Level 1, in extreme poverty. All over
the world, people simply did not have enough food. Most people went to bed
hungry several times a year. Across Britain and its colonies, children had to
work to eat, and the average child in the United Kingdom started work at age
ten. One-fifth the entire Swedish population, including many of my relatives,
fled starvation to the United States, and only 20 percent of them ever
returned. When the harvest failed and your relatives, friends, and neighbors
starved to death, what did you do? You escaped. You migrated. If you could.
Level 1 is where all of humanity started. It’s where the majority always
lived, until 1966. Until then, extreme poverty was the rule, not the exception.
The curve you see above shows how the extreme poverty rate has been
falling since 1800. And look at the last 20 years. Extreme poverty dropped
faster than ever in world history.
In 1997, 42 percent of the population of both India and China were living
in extreme poverty. By 2017, in India, that share had dropped to 12 percent:
there were 270 million fewer people living in extreme poverty than there had
been just 20 years earlier. In China, that share dropped to a stunning
0.7 percent over the same period, meaning another half a billion people over
this crucial threshold. Meanwhile, Latin America took its proportion from
14 percent to 4 percent: another 35 million people. While all estimates of
extreme poverty are very uncertain, when the change appears to be like this,
then beyond all doubt something huge is happening.

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How old were you 20 years ago? Close your eyes for a second and
remember your younger self. How much has 
your
world changed? A lot? A
little? Well, this is how much 
the
world has changed: just 20 years ago,
29 percent of the world population lived in extreme poverty. Now that number
is 9 percent. Today almost everybody has escaped hell. The original source of
all human suffering is about to be eradicated. We should plan a party! A big