Do we really know?

“Factfulness: The stress-reducing habit of only carrying opinions for which you have strong supporting facts.”

Bill Gates has called Factfulness (subtitled Ten Reasons We're Wrong About the World--and Why Things Are Better Than You Think) one of the most important books he’s ever read. I agree -- it’s one of those books that’s very hard to put down and it will challenge many of your beliefs.

There are so many examples of how this plays out in our world. For instance, think about extreme poverty. Based on never-ending sad stories about poor people abroad or rising poverty, you might think times are worse than ever. But the number of people living in extreme poverty has been cut in half over the last 20 years. The world is getting better. When did you hear about that fantastic news? Yet this plays out again and again, where we believe the wrong things based on stories in the media that we share and repeat to each other. For instance, are we really in danger of overpopulation (It doesn’t look that way)? All of us, even the most educated are ignorant of very important facts and trends. 

We draw conclusions based on opinion, hearsay, and the media, rather than facts. Checking facts is much harder than repeating the latest news.

I’m not going to give you some magical, never-been-tried before advice about how to check what you think you know. 

Instead, here’s a quick, fun quiz from the Factfulness authors for you to check how much you know about the world around you. I bet you will be surprised. Hopefully, this will be a reminder for you to always put on your critical thinking hat whenever you are trying to make sense of the world around you.

Take the Gapminder quiz, share this newsletter with others to see if they know more than you do!