
Bill Gates is giving Factfulness to those getting a degree from a U.S. college - Balgair
https://www.gatesnotes.com/About-Bill-Gates/My-gift-to-college-graduates?WT.mc_id=06_05_2018_08_FactfulnessGift_BG-TW_&WT.tsrc=BGTW&linkId=52604752
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nemild
Hans Rosling's work is famous for pointing out how media incentives,
statistical illiteracy, and our preconceptions give us a flawed sense of the
world.

In the vein of Hans Rosling, I've done add'l research on media coverage vs
actual stats for death. What's covered is what we most want to read about. As
a society, we need many more lessons on statistics and the incentives behind
news:

The deaths that are most covered are a tiny fraction (<1%) of the way we die

[https://www.nemil.com/s/part3-horror-
films.html](https://www.nemil.com/s/part3-horror-films.html)

Today’s biggest threat to democracy isn’t fake news—it’s selective facts

[https://qz.com/1130094/todays-biggest-threat-to-democracy-
is...](https://qz.com/1130094/todays-biggest-threat-to-democracy-isnt-fake-
news-its-selective-facts/)

How Media Fuels our Fear of Western Terrorism

[https://www.nemil.com/s/part2-terrorism.html](https://www.nemil.com/s/part2-terrorism.html)

EDIT: As some commenters point, news covers "new" things — and so of course
it's at odds with data.

The problem is that most consumers of news don't understand that just because
something is heavily covered doesn't mean it's common — or relevant input for
personal decisions they make. This speaks to the issue of media literacy, and
I'd argue is why Rosling's book is so important.

~~~
titanix2
> The deaths that are most covered are a tiny fraction (<1%) of the way we die

They are precisely covered because they are exceptional. No one care about car
accidents because that's a banal cause of death. But a plane crash is not. In
countries like France where islamic terror attacks have became common place,
small scale attacks causing a few deaths are not covered for days and days
anymore.

Also event like a terror attack informs more about the state of a country and
the world than an one suicide (suicide rate or aggregate can be valuable
insight hough).

~~~
randcraw
Of course. By its very nature, outliers are the _only_ thing that news covers.
Exceptions make news. Conventions do not. If you're hearing it on the news,
it's useless information, like a TouTube video of a cat playing the piano
while juggling mice.

Once upon a time, I think news was an invitation to get engaged in your
community because change was needed or forthcoming, and as a citizen, it was
your duty to know about the subject in order to contribute constructively,
perhaps in a town hall meeting or at least in a civic (civil) conversation
with neighbors.

Today nobody acts upon what they learn in big media news, other than to form
misinformed opinions fraught with bias, to vote only every few years for a bad
binary choice in rigged elections fielding untrustworthy candidates who
pretend to address problems but actually perpetuate them via myopic self-
interested gangsterism.

Pop news is 99% clickbait and 1% fact.

~~~
devoply
The point of mass media is propaganda and entertainment in that order.

~~~
jrs95
And given that the point of entertainment, from the perspective of “the elite”
(government officials but also other wealthy and powerful individuals who are
a part of the same de facto governing system) the primary purpose of
entertainment isn’t much different from a form of propaganda anyways. Mass
media is largely about programming the populace. Now of course it’s not all
produced with malicious intent, but that doesn’t stop the powers that be from
influencing them, and by extension “the people” through mass media.

But this is just my relatively uninformed opinion based on casual observation,
not any serious study of the issue. Although given that if this were studied
and published in a journal it would have likely gone through institutions
which are subject to the same system which would be criticized by the research
so...how much good could that really do?

I suppose my cynicism towards the people I’m supposed to trust is the primary
thing prevents me from having a more fact based view of the world.

~~~
alter_eco123
> _I suppose my cynicism towards the people I’m supposed to trust is the
> primary thing prevents me from having a more fact based view of the world._

How so? Is it not a fact that politicians can't be trusted, and that, as you
said, the mainstream media is largely about programming the populace?

"Cynisism" is what people call _realism_ when they want you to stop talking
about reality.

~~~
jrs95
Perhaps at one point I was realistic but I think at this point I’ve seen
enough blatant deception that I am overly paranoid as sort of a defense
mechanism. This is probably still more accurate than how I viewed things
before, but all I really meant by cynicism is that I am conscious of the fact
that I am probably even more distrustful than what would be reasonable, just
as a result of negative experience. Perhaps I’m right, but I don’t have an
objective rationale for this, it’s largely based on heuristics.

To be a bit more concrete, it’s true that politicians and the media are liars,
but then to extend that further to education, entertainment, and those who are
culturally influential in general can be quite the stretch outside of a few
specific data points. And _how_ is it connected? How does this system actually
work? It’s so complex it’s almost immeasurable. A critical view of this is
necessarily heavily influenced by intuition and emotion IMO since you’re
unable to trust a large body of your learned information from that mindset.

~~~
alter_eco123
> _And how is it connected? How does this system actually work?_

Look at things and keep asking: "Who benefits?"

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philwelch
One of the best things about reaching the Bill Gates level of wealth is
probably being able to say, "man, I really liked this book, I think every
college graduate should read it," and then realizing you can literally buy it
for all of them.

~~~
hkmurakami
I regularly buy books for friends for whom I think it would be useful.
Sometimes business books for entrepreneur friends, sometimes fiction that I
think they would enjoy (or I really want to talk to them about!).

Nothing stopping any of us from doing something similar at a smaller scale.
(though the ability to reach people who we don't know, at a large scale, is
definitely much much harder)

~~~
technotony
Who knows how much this is even costing him. It's pretty good PR for the
publishing company and will probably generate sales from non-graduates. Could
just be a genius marketing move which benefits brand Gates and the publisher.

~~~
raven105x
You don't need marketing moves with a net worth of over 90B USD. If he wants
to act, he'll buy the required companies/patents & do it.

How would this, as a "marketing move", make any sense for him - or even be
worth his time to do in the first place?

~~~
technotony
Recruitment for his foundation?

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Isamu
I am reading this now, it's pretty good.

I think some misunderstand this book, maybe because there is a tendency to
interpret any talk about how the world is improving as blindness about world
problems. Or that admitting there have been gains made is the same as saying
it's time to take it easy, stop trying to improve.

This is nonsense of course. The point of finding out what has improved is to
find out what works, and do more of that. See if you can apply what works in
one place to another place, another problem.

------
onion2k
I like to think of myself as reasonably well-informed and unbiased, with a
pretty decent set of tools for looking at things I see in the news but when I
read it recently I learned quite a lot. It's a very good book.

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kaypro
I just finished this last night in fact. My first thought upon completing it
was that this should be required reading in every high school curriculum. Very
cool to see this happening. Highly recommended read.

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BadassFractal
What are some other great resources for de-biasing oneself? I believe Charlie
munger did a whole talk on this back in the day.

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rhombocombus
This is great, I wish he were giving it to high schoolers and GED recipients
too.

~~~
rdlecler1
And the far right and far left.

~~~
tudelo
We are running out of categories. Really, everyone will have availability to
the book given that the chances that one person will upload it is pretty darn
high if it isn't already available.

~~~
bonsai80
From the comments on that page it sounds like you just need to fill out the
form with anything and you get the file. No validation. Also libraries :)

Anyway, I hope it's a clever trick to get people to feel like they beat the
system and go read the book.

~~~
fjsolwmv
That's exactly it. Classic parental psychology trick: "are you sure you're
grown up for this stuff? I don't know...."

------
briantmaurer
It would be great if the publisher would make digital copies of this book
available to everyone for free. I wonder if Gates explored that option but the
price was too steep.

------
sharemywin
Was reading about the income levels I-IV in the book and looks like II-IV have
access to cellphones form this article:

[http://newsfeed.time.com/2013/03/25/more-people-have-cell-
ph...](http://newsfeed.time.com/2013/03/25/more-people-have-cell-phones-than-
toilets-u-n-study-shows/)

------
johnsonjo
Funny. I just graduated and bought the physical copy like last week. It’ll be
nice to have the ebook too. I haven’t really started it yet, because sadly I
hoard books, and collect a lot faster than I read. I’m interested in the topic
though. I would love to learn more about how we make mistakes in our
assumptions, and statistical fallacies.

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pg_bot
It is incredibly important to see that the world on a macro level is improving
at an incredible rate. Hans Rosling was a brilliant educator and while I
haven't read this book yet, I will be adding it to my backlog today.

~~~
xg15
As others have said, it's a good thought to have (and the book indeed sounds
like an interesting read), but we should still define what "on a macro level"
actually means.

E.g., is "macro level" the average? Then it could just as well be a rich elite
(or the spike part of a power law distribution) pulling up that average.

Even if it's not, we should investigate how different parts of the world are
improving differently and why.

E.g., yes, eradicating certain diseases in African countries is laudable - but
in an age where others dream about genetically augmenting humans, is that the
bar we should use?

And even if the overall measure of health and well-being might go up, why is
it that _nevertheless_ statistics for certain groups seem to regress? Like job
security or the ability of low/middle-income groups to make savings?

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IkmoIkmo
Great, let's me buy a cheap one second hand!

~~~
Dowwie
borrow from a library?

------
megamindbrian2
Stephen Peterson says facts are relative.

------
Torwald
Yo, Bill, what about your own degree? LOL.

------
jakelazaroff
1 in 7 people in the U.S. face hunger every year and Flint still doesn't have
clean water, but sure: let's buy every college graduate a book!

~~~
yoran
Arguably, turning college graduates into better citizens by giving them a book
can have a bigger long-term effect than directly solving the problem. Not that
immediate action shouldn't be done, but both are valid attacks to the same
problem.

I think Bill Gates' underlying reasoning is that by giving all college
graduates this book, the future generation will be better thinkers and
therefore that society will be better than today's. Hopefully, this will lead
to a situation where that 1 in 7 number will turn into 1 in 70, and every
place in the US will have access to clean water.

It's kind of like that saying "Give a man a fish, and you feed him for a day.
Teach a man to fish, and you feed him for a lifetime.".

~~~
hkmurakami
One might call it leverage.

Also, any good is better than no good, if by requiring a person to pursue the
maximum good, they would have not had the emotional catalysis for pursuing the
good.

