Factfulness Book Review #2

Taehoon Kim

Introduction

This review #2 is followed by review #1 and written about Factfulness chapters 4

to 6. I tried to write this review more informal than before and contain my
sentiment about this book. The expected reader of this review I aimed is just
moderate people who can easily be seen anywhere and think about the world as
same as most people think.

The Fear Instinct

Before the chapter goes any further, the author depicts his cruel memory when he
worked for the junior doctor On October 7, 1975. The wounded got out of the
helicopter and bled so much, shocking the pitiful junior doctor. While the doctor
and nurse executed the first-aid for the wounded, panic stuttering the Russian
language, the doctor realized that this must be a Russian fighter pilot shot down
over Swedish territory. This means that the Soviet Union is attacking us. World
War III has started! So That paralyzed the young doctor. But as we know about
what happened after 1975, yeah, World War III didn't begin, and just the doctor
couldn't see the clear because he was so scared of that accident.

To understand this phenomenon, we should know about the attention filter that
protects us from the noise of information in our life. We may get crazy if
accepting all of the pieces of news like "all flight comes back smoothly today" and
"ten thousands of people drink a cup of coffee today!". So the holes do allow
through the information that appeals to our dramatic instinct. For that reason,
the media can't waste time on stories that won't pass our attention filter.
I sometimes heard of the news in the media, which seriously describes the
accident as a flight that falls because of the pilot's abnormal behavior. Even
though It makes me feel worried when I enplane and flights totter, I never try to
search the exact number of flight accidents and always fear how the flight is
broken down. But with the data, there is usually only one flight accident in a year.
Yes! Just one! Then what reason are we scared on the flight? The most sense that
I fear is relevant to our brain, not just the media. We easily get bored having a ton
of data that flights come back safely, so filter out the dramatic data into our brain.

In this book, there are several cases we often fear but, in fact, rarely are related to
our life. Natural disasters, contamination, war, and terrorism are examples of
that. In level 1 and 2, people should care about that in their life because almost all
cases of that accident occurred in level 1 and 2. In level 4, where we are in, that
rarely happens, and it is recommended to care about strangers who can be fraud
or attack rather than stressing too much about natural disasters and flight
tragedy.

The Size Instinct

We have judged, realized, and understood some phenomenon with just one
number, on which people usually count to be represented and stood for today.
But we must need comparable data for the given number because it may be
getting better or worse than the past data. Let's look at an example in this book.

Based on this book, last year, 4.2 million babies died. We might think that this
number is so huge that our world will worsen and haven't been developed so far
through our instinctively thought. But What a surprise is that it is not huge: it is
beautifully small ( quote from the book ). The number 4.2 million is for 2016. The
year before, the number was 4.4
million. The year before that, it was 4.5 million. Back in 1950, it was 14.4
million. When we divided the total number of dead babies into the total number
of births, In 1950, 97 million children were born, and 14.4 million children died.
To get the child mortality rate, we divide the number of deaths (14.4 million) by
the number of births (97 million). That comes out to 15 percent. In 2016, 141
million children were born, and 4.2 million died. Dividing the number of births
by the number of deaths comes out to just 3 percent. The infant mortality rate has
changed from 15 percent to 3 percent.

Criticizing the lonely number is difficult for us when this number is so absurd
that we can't analyze how that number has evolved and updated. We sometimes
feel uncomfortable receiving lonely numbers that don't have comparable
numbers for that. Given some numbers, it can be a majority or a minority of all,
which means we try to gather at least 80 percent of all data for accurate analysis.
( In this book, the 80/20 rule is introduced and I quoted about that number on
that )

THE GENERALIZATION INSTINCT

Everyone automatically categorizes and generalizes all the time. Unconsciously.

It is not a question of being prejudiced or enlightened.
Categories are absolutely necessary for us to function. They give structure to our
thoughts. But how about mistakenly categorizing and generalizing things, people,
and countries that are actually different in one category? If some products are
mostly used in Level 4, we will expect that Level 2-3 people can't afford to use
that and be the potential customers. But Generalizing group can mislead wrong
judgment. It can lead marketing staff to miss a great opportunity to secure targets
who can't be seen by customers.

I often have heard of how different cultures can affect life in a country. Actually,
The criteria of how people live differently between countries don't come from the
culture, but from the income. If their countries are different cultures but
correspond with income, they have lived similarly. It is a good example of
categorizing and generalizing with criteria.