[BOOK REVIEW] "Factfulness" by Hans Rosling ft. Covid-19

There could not have been a worse time to read this bestselling book. I can’t have a worse job, as a journalist, to be reading this book about “facts” authored by a person who doesn’t think the news is factful. Of course, his definition of “factfulness” differs from the facts I chase everyday. Hans Rosling was one of the best physicians/statisticians/public health experts of modern time and it is the world’s tragedy that he is not alive when now is the time he’s most needed to contribute in facing the coronavirus pandemic of 2020.

Rosling’s thesis is the title of the book “Factfulness: Ten Reasons We’re Wrong About the World - and Why Things Are Better Than You Think”. And it’s the last sentence he wrote before his death due to pancreas cancer in 2017, before the book was published by his co-authors.

“When we have a fact-based worldview, we can see that the world is not as bad as it seems - and we can see what we have to do to keep making it better.” (pg. 255, Rosling et al.)

I am not an idealist. One can say I’m a pessimist and I can’t deny. The only element the word “pessimist” fails to nuance is that lots of pessimists, despite their views, strive to do their best to make improvements. In that sense, I agree with Rosling. I’m also not going to deny Rosling’s insistent argument that the world has only gotten better over time. Not only do I not have enough data to fight against it, but also do I know I’m living a far better life than my parents or my grandparents in an ever-growing industrial society that’s about to create robots that act and think like us. Undeniably, it would have been far more tough for us to stay home and social-distance if we had faced this merely 5 years ago when grocery and food deliveries weren’t as common; when entertainment streaming services weren’t as high-speed; when Instagram had much fewer features.

Rosling is a “possibilist”. It’s something he made up and means “someone who constantly resists the overdramatic worldview” and having “conviction and hope that further progress is possible.” He argues that an overdramatic worldview is caused by daily flows of news that spotlight negativities. Although he insists he’s not blaming the media or the journalists, people who continuously generalize the world based on daily happenings, he provides several examples of media putting people in fear and specifically shows the imbalance between the severity of swine flu and the amount of news coverage on it. 31 people died from swine flu in 2009 within 2 weeks. He says there were 253,442 articles written about the flu after a search in Google, meaning he must have searched “swine flu” which would have brought up all kinds of articles that include the word, whether it really was about the flu or not.

Rosling is not a convincing solutionist, just like many other idealists who downplay the problems. Here’s a good example. While acknowledging climate change as a serious problem, Rosling wrote this.

“Those who care about climate change should stop scaring people with unlikely scenarios. Most people already know about and acknowledge the problem. Insisting on it is like kicking at an open door. It’s time to move on from talking talking talking...So, what is the solution? Well, it’s easy. Anyone emitting lots of greenhouse gas must stop doing that as soon as possible.” (pg. 231, Rosling et al.)

First, the solution he presents is clearly not easy. Second, the fear of consequences of climate change does not stem from people who talk about it, but the issue itself. The major flaw in Rosling’s thesis lies right here - the world in a chronologically linear fashion is getting better in accelerating speed only when compared to the past.

Progress can’t be relative to history. Progress is progressive and only goes forward. It does not look to the past. Therefore, cherry-picking the data and blaming hindrances to perceiving “the good sides” are not helpful in drawing appropriate solutions. Of course, at a macro-level, in which Rosling is deeply immersed in, humans have come from dragging animals to plow soils to generating food from science labs lit with LED lights. Rosling criticizes the media for exaggerating negativities and overwhelming the public, but he’s basically doing the same on the other side of the fence by exaggerating the obvious growth of technology and infrastructure.

Rosling died not too long ago and the Ebola outbreak of 2014 was the last public health emergency he would have witnessed. Ebola outbreak killed 11,323 people total and was huge damage. Of course, it’s nothing compared to the coronavirus outbreak this year. As of the morning of April 1st, 2020, more than 42,000 people have died of coronavirus.

Despite his life long career in data science as a physician, Rosling would have never ever predicted the scale of coronavirus outbreak and therefore, the book’s chapter 10 is thrown out the window.

“The world is more ready to deal with flu than it has been in the past, but people on Level 1 still live in societies where it can be difficult to intervene rapidly against an aggressively spreading disease. We need to ensure that basic health care reaches everyone, everywhere, so that outbreaks can be discovered more quickly. And we need the World Health Organization to remain healthy and strong to coordinate a global response.” (pg 238, Rosling et al.)

Medical experts facing the pandemic in 2020 are saying the world was not ready for a pandemic of this scale. The world may have become better at keeping track of the spread, but certainly not at stopping the spread. Written before his death in 2017 and published in 2018, the above paragraph only proves how enormously unprecedented the coronavirus pandemic was, even to

Rosling who had dedicated his career in public health and data science. The second half of the paragraph is too vague to nitpick, but the first half paints a contradicting picture to the current reality because coronavirus is affecting everyone on all income levels. Here’s how Rosling divided the world into 4 income levels.

Level 1 - people who earn less than $2/day

Level 2 - people who earn $2-$8/day

Level 3 - people who earn $8-$32

Level 4 - people who earn more than $32/day

Rosling affirms that more people are moving up towards higher levels of income with a higher quality of life, therefore longer life expectancy - slowly, but surely. And the trend, according to how he scaled the levels is exponential and nonlinear. He warns the readers to never assume straight lines in any growth since S-bends, slides, humps, or doubling lines exist in trends. Yet he does not explain why those curves and slides might occur and what they are - side effects of technological improvements, dictatorships, civil wars perhaps? Not once does Rosling mention a strategic solution to end poverty. At the end of the reading, it almost feels like we can all sit back and the world will automatically move towards the better. Slowly but surely! We know that’s just too good to be true.

It’s difficult to imagine what Rosling would have offered if he were alive with us today encountered with the coronavirus pandemic. Would he debunk any of his previous arguments? Would he still be celebrating the progress in the midst of one of the greatest economic setbacks the world faces?

Perhaps there is no need to imagine any of this. There are acclaims that praise Rosling for his optimistic views, easing anxiety and fear of people. He is right about the dramatic worldview of the media. I also agree that we often let illusions happen in our brains and often sink into the hole of hopelessness in front of the series of unfortunate events, one of them being the pandemic that kills our loved ones and forces us to distance ourselves from others. The daily flow of news certainly isn’t an accurate portrayal of the world at large.

Nevertheless, in the real world, people in level 3 and level 4 face societal obstacles whether it’d be racism, sexism, income inequality, or pollution. In the real world today, hundreds of people are dying every day of the unfamiliar virus, nowhere in the world has enough hospital beds or medical equipment to treat patients and stock markets all over the world plummeted. I’ll still wonder how Rosling would have perceived 2020.