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Shaun Sellars brought me another book.

He keeps doing that, he keeps buying me books that stay on the shelf forever so I can reference back to them.

Those are proper books.

Factfulness  was written by Hans Rosling in conjunction with his son and daughter in law.

Like all people who go on to create a storm or make a dent in the world he is somewhat controversial and people have disagreed with what he has said.

You’d need to read the book to make your mind up about that.

Some of this though is indisputable and it’s so powerful because it’s based on widely available statistics produced by the United Nations and the World Health organisations.

One way or another, it will change the way you look at things for several reasons.

1. The world is not divided into them and us, it’s not divided into the West and the rest and it’s not divided into rich and poor.

Rosling uses four income categories which has now been accepted by the United Nations as a classification of world economic status, and these are as follows:

1. People who earn $1 a day
2. People who earn $4 a day
3. People who earn $16 a day
4. People who earn $64 a day

You’re in level 4, you would not be able to read this if you’re not.

Congratulations you’re in the top 14% of global wealth. That would be like getting an A at GCSE in global wealth.

2. The other thing that Rosling does is he blows apart statistics, grafts and analysis of such, the way that it’s done in the mass media and press.

The world is so safe and is getting safer all the time, despite the horrors that you see on the television, the risks of terrorism or the horrible conflicts that exist in the world today. Less and less people are dying in war, less and less people are dying in aeroplane crashes, and less and less people are dying from all the things that you see on the television.

We live in an utterly safe society.

Trying to live in a ‘factfull’ way becomes almost impossible because we do not control the data streams that inform our opinions and our fears.

The Factfullness is a book that tries to teach you to be able to do that again.

Not to run and scream every time you see something on the news, but to objectively look at things and realise that even over the past 50 years the world has become safer and safer. When we accept and understand that it gives us a chance to move forwards to better and greater things.

Read the book, it’s extraordinary. But I would suggest you get the book and not the audiobook because you need the diagrams; they’re the best bit!

Blog post number: 1664