Factfulness

Rosling opens this chapter with a story from his time as a junior doctor. A patient arrived in the hospital wearing an air force suit. Unbeknownst to him, Rosling accidentally stepped on the red life vest color cartridge, causing it to appear as if the man was bleeding heavily. Between the blood and the man’s suit, Rosling jumped to the conclusion the pilot was a Russian who had been shot down and that Sweden was under attack. Fortunately, the head nurse arrived, informed Rosling the man was a Swedish pilot, and took charge before Rosling’s fear allowed him to neglect the man’s hypothermia and make a devastating mistake.

Fear caused Rosling to see what he thought was real instead of actual reality. He summarizes the fear instinct by saying that “[t]here’s no room for facts when our minds are occupied by fear” (103). The way our brains are hardwired allows us to process the most dramatic information quickly and easily. News outlets use hardwired fears to present horrific stories as the norm when, in fact, the circumstances are not as bad as they seem. Rosling asserts that in reality, the world has never been safer, but dramatic stories grab our attention.