How not to be ignorant about the world

How not to be ignorant about the world

Hans & Ola Rosling divide their presentation in two parts. First they try to explain why we are so ignorant about these important matter, then they presents some keys that should help us to be less ignorant about the world.


WHY ARE WE SO IGNORANT?

1 Skewed sources of information:
Our personal bias, developed since our childhood, shapes our world views. What we learned at school is now outdated facts! The world goes faster than we think and push books or teachers lessons to get quickly outdated.
News Bias. Unusual events are more interesting. Often on the first page we find especially things that talk about what we are afraid of. It’s commercially driven and bias our world view.

2 Human intuitions:
Our intuitions possess evolutionary reasons and roots. They were great tools for a hunter-gather lifestyle. It helped us to generalize, to see causality easily and to remember and avoid dangerous animals. But for obtaining a adequate world view our intuition makes thing worse.


HOW CAN WE NOT BE SO IGNORANT?

1 Read and learn all the facts by reading international reports.
2 Use Ola Rosling rules of thumb: If you don’t know the answer to a question about our world, just think:
- Most things improve
- The most people are in the middle of the pyramid
- The majority of countries already have electricity power, girls in school...
- We tend to exaggerate problem that scare us; earthquakes, terrorists, sharks


WHY IS IT IMPORTANT?

It’s important to understand what worked and where we actually succeed so we can replicate it. The main danger of not seeing something that worked it’s to go back to an original position.

A good evaluation of what is working emphasize what is not working. It’s much essayer to have a correct diagnostic and to fix the problem. It’s crucial to recognize what we achieved.


Sources
ted.com, How not to be ignorant about the world, Hans Rosling & Ola Rosling. View the video

Link: ht