
Hans Rosling has died - anc84
https://m.gapminder.org/news/sad-to-announce-hans-rosling-passed-away-this-morning/
======
CapTVK
Most readers only know him as a statistician, gapminder (which he founded) and
the ted talks but he also had a medical background and was prepared to go
straight to work during the Ebola outbreak in Monrovia. He called and jumped
right in.

[http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2014/12/star-statistician-
han...](http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2014/12/star-statistician-hans-rosling-
takes-ebola)

"After he arrived in Monrovia, Rosling started by doing simple things, such as
proofreading the ministry's epidemiological reports, which he says nobody had
time for. He changed an important detail in the updates: Rather than listing
"0 cases" for counties that had not reported any numbers—which could be
misleading—he left them blank. Next, he tackled the problem behind the missing
data. Some health care workers couldn't afford to call in their reports,
because they were paying the phone charges themselves; Rosling set up a small
fund to pay for scratch cards that gave them airtime."

Rosling says he's tired of the portrayal of Africa as a continent of
incompetence, superstition, and rampant corruption. “I am astonished how good
people are that I work with here, how dedicated, how serious,” he says. When
The New York Times reported that governmental infighting was hampering the
Ebola response, Rosling tweeted: “Don McNeil misrepresents Liberia’s EBOLA-
response to win the MOST INCORRECT ARTICLE ABOUT EBOLA AWARD.” His self-
assurance and impatience with opinions he disagrees with can grate on others.
“I find him quite irritating,” says one Western colleague. “Mostly because he
turns out to be right about most things.”

That last line is the ultimate compliment.

He will be missed.

~~~
agumonkey
The view on Africa is doubly sad I believe, because it reinforces the
psychological bias that African immigrants are worthless, coming from natural
resource only places; which in turns I'm sure fuels the racism from Caucasians
in Europe. Even if a French "hate" an English, he knows the two are similar
and so cannot think himself above much.

------
xenadu02
My favorite video of his: A huge chunk of the women in the world spend a
depressing amount of their time washing clothes. The washing machine has done
more for women than anything else:
[http://www.ted.com/talks/hans_rosling_and_the_magic_washing_...](http://www.ted.com/talks/hans_rosling_and_the_magic_washing_machine)

~~~
a_ight
that idea is an old idea predating Rosling, that the automation or labor-
saving in the home and, more or less at the same time, women working in
factories while the men fought WWII, was what led to women being recognized as
"economically capable" and having a lot of free time as soon as they were done
baby booming.

Also, with the shifting and opening of roles for women, education of children
plummeted because "teacher" used to be the most acceptable role for an
educated woman, and quality dropped dramatically when the most talented women
funelled into the economy to become scientists, doctors, lawyers, etc. It's a
serious question, this is a real "technical debt" style tradeoff, and it's not
a question of "pay teachers better" or "treat them differently", it's a
quality question (this view is not popular within teachers' organizations)

~~~
eru
Paying teachers better might attract more people to become teachers instead of
lawyers?

Just nitpicking your argument here. I think there are empirical studies
looking at things like impact of teacher pay, teacher prestige in society,
teacher selection etc on student learning; and teacher pay doesn't actually
have that much of an impact (and neither does class size). But I would need to
look that up to be sure.

~~~
geon
Perhaps not from lawyer specifically, since that tends to be a much more
ambitious goal, but yes in general.

------
widforss
Professor Rosling is just the type of man we would need in todays political
landscape. A character with a strong belief in verifiable facts and using
those facts to change the world for the better.

~~~
timClicks
And, almost more importantly, the creativity to think about how to communicate
those facts to a large audience.

~~~
agumonkey
It is, we need a list of such persons, and entice them the spread the
knowledge.

------
radicalbyte
Sad day. RIP.

For some context: Hans is famous here for his fantastic series of TED talks
which cover population growth, poverty and development.

Totally changed (well, confirmed) my world view.

Start here:

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fTznEIZRkLg](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fTznEIZRkLg)

~~~
knz
Great presentation, thanks for sharing it. Are there any others you recommend?

~~~
radicalbyte
Check the other ones posted in this thread :)

I can also recommend the Planet Money podcast which covered tshirts. It
changed my mind about the whole globalization and child labour story. The
textile industry is the first step towards industrialization, and despite the
abuses it's a net positive for humanity. More so when you consider the
systemic pressure of the charities which work for better conditions.

The only counter argument is global warming: development means more energy
usage, which means more warming. Certain groups know this, and would prefer
that 80% of the world's population live a Victorian lifestyle so we can keep
enjoying ours.

It's clear to me that if our generation can solve the energy problem then the
driving factors behind most of the human-world problems go away.

~~~
beambot
Do you happen to know which podcast in particular? A quick Google search
revealed several. Was there a specific one featuring Rosling?

~~~
radicalbyte
This series: [http://www.npr.org/series/248799434/planet-moneys-t-shirt-
pr...](http://www.npr.org/series/248799434/planet-moneys-t-shirt-project)

This episode goes into detail iirc:
[http://www.npr.org/sections/money/2013/12/03/247360855/two-s...](http://www.npr.org/sections/money/2013/12/03/247360855/two-
sisters-a-small-room-and-the-world-behind-a-t-shirt)

------
Entalpi
Sad day for all of us who value a fact-based worldview in these dark days of
rising nationalism and euroscepticism.

Vila i frid, professor Rosling.

~~~
fjdlwlv
Please don't drag that into every unrelated thread

~~~
TorKlingberg
Hans Rosling was an outspoken proponent of globalization and specifically
criticized the idea of a past when things were great.

------
melling
Very sad. Another victim of pancreatic cancer. A couple of months ago,
astronaut Piers Sellers died from it.

Ever since I heard Randy Pausch's "The Last Lecture", I take notice when
people die from pancreatic cancer, which a decade later, is still basically a
death sentence.

[http://www.cmu.edu/randyslecture/](http://www.cmu.edu/randyslecture/)

~~~
masklinn
> I take notice when people die from pancreatic cancer, which a decade later,
> is still basically a death sentence.

And that's unlikely to change given how late symptoms show and how benign they
seem.

~~~
melling
...or you could find a way to detect it earlier. I'm not sure why you'd simply
throw up your hands in defeat. It's not an unsolvable problem, just a
difficult one.

[https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2017/02/170206111912.h...](https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2017/02/170206111912.htm)

~~~
masklinn
> ...or you could find a way to detect it earlier.

The problem of that method is the number of false positives, and that
pancreatic isn't a hugely common cancer, just a really lethal one.

> I'm not sure why you'd simply throw up your hands in defeat.

Now what the bloody fuck are you talking about? Looking at the situation
objectively is not "throwing up my hands in defeat".

------
Karlozkiller
I feel that the last round of attention Rosling got in Sweden gave the
impression of a man determined to see ONLY good. But I do think this feeling
got elevated by everyone else parroting uncritically everything he said taking
it as the utter truth, and proof that anyone not thinking the exact same were
crazy idiots. I guess it also connects to my aversion for simplification and
fear of how easy some people seem to take anything at face value.

That being said I do not think my thoughts above lessens his work. I have deep
respect for his vision and what he strived to achieve.

~~~
mongol
My impression is he disappeared from the spotlight after a rise to fame. Never
understood why. Maybe his illness? Or that some of his facts actually were
inconvenient.

~~~
kpil
I think lately his illness, but I think he peaked in popularity just before he
stated his belief that it is multiple times (100 times?) more efficient to
help refugees from the Middle East and Africa in their home countries or local
region rather than he to help them in Sweden.

This was a position held only by the nationalistic (and at least partially
racist) political party Sverigedemokraterna, but I think he simply looked at
the numbers and saw that the cost for refugees in Sweden is at least 5 (10?)
times higher than UNHCR's total budget, while helping only 1-2% of the number
of refugees compared to what UNHCR administers.

If I remember correctly, he might have mentioned that at a big fundraiser
supporting immigration which was a truth no one wanted to hear, as the "story"
as told by media at the time conveyed that the middle east and Africa is
inhabitable in general, without exception.

He was remarkably absent in the news after that, almost like an embarrassed
silence, but I guess he probably was diagnosed with his illness less than 6
months after that, so I might have been over-interpreting the coincidence.

I might add that Sweden is a very small country with a very strong group-
mentality in regards to political ideas and opinions ( and other areas, like
fashion).

Political triangulation would have arrived at almost unrestricted immigration
at the time.

~~~
johansch
I agree wholeheartedly. He made this "mistake" of stating correct facts in a
broken debate that is emotional. And like clockwork the Swedish
"establishment" shut him out of the spotlight.

... and yet here we have the main political editor of the largest Swedish
tabloid (aka main representative of the people who feel rather than think):

[http://www.aftonbladet.se/nyheter/a/8dn4A/lamnar-oss-nar-
vi-...](http://www.aftonbladet.se/nyheter/a/8dn4A/lamnar-oss-nar-vi-behover-
honom-som-mest)

wherein she basically reclaims his legacy for her own use. This is.. rich.

~~~
Natanael_L
How about let him speak for himself?

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13596940](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13596940)

~~~
kpil
Those articles are spin written as damage control by a leftist journalist with
a political agenda and a think tank, respectively, and does not let the man
speak himself.

~~~
Natanael_L
He did speak for himself. "We can help people everywhere" is his literal
words. He said outright he don't think migration needs to be stopped.

So stop pretending he meant anything else.

------
afoot
A sad day indeed. One of his TED talks changed my career forever:

[https://www.ted.com/talks/hans_rosling_shows_the_best_stats_...](https://www.ted.com/talks/hans_rosling_shows_the_best_stats_you_ve_ever_seen)

~~~
ChuckMcM
I saw him give a variant of this talk at Google, it was very powerful. The
world has lost a great teacher.

~~~
puzzle
He actually had a green badge for a while. That's normally associated with
interns, but it's also given to visiting scientists. Something about that was
just funny.

I only waved hello to him, but was very lucky to spend time with the
Gapminder/Trendalyzer folks in B41 (his son Ola, Anna and Henrik), before they
moved back to Stockholm. My thoughts go out to Ola and Anna. :-(

------
lentil_soup
So sad, this guy was amazing and very enlightening in an era of
misinformation.

Check out his presentations:
[https://www.ted.com/talks/hans_rosling_on_global_population_...](https://www.ted.com/talks/hans_rosling_on_global_population_growth)
(to showcase just one)

------
botswana99
Very sad. We need more like him to help us understand the true state of the
world we live in today. And if you look at the data, like he did, the world is
trending upward very well:

A quick article: [https://singularityhub.com/2016/06/27/why-the-world-is-
bette...](https://singularityhub.com/2016/06/27/why-the-world-is-better-than-
you-think-in-10-powerful-charts/)

Hans Rosling's Gapminder website: [https://www.gapminder.org/videos/dont-
panic-end-poverty/](https://www.gapminder.org/videos/dont-panic-end-poverty/)

The Website 'Our World In Data':
[https://ourworldindata.org/](https://ourworldindata.org/)

Some books that go into the world facts in detail:
[https://twitter.com/sapinker/status/814855168793554944](https://twitter.com/sapinker/status/814855168793554944).

------
dorfsmay
For me, he both made me discover TED and be disappointed with every other TED
video!

Who's going to carry on his amazing work now...

------
yesbabyyes
Me and a friend participated in the Node Knockout 2011, we had decided to
build a rap lyrics analytics engine and we called it Rapminder. The day before
the hackathon started I ran into Hans Rosling right outside of our office and
got his blessing. Serendipity.

[http://imgur.com/a/bATQn](http://imgur.com/a/bATQn)

Rest in Power big homie. May the facts be with us.

------
braymundo
A sad day, indeed. I will miss his creative and entertaining ways of showing
how the world is getting better. Especially in these dark times.

------
milesf
Aw man. What a loss! Hans is the guy that gave me eyes to see statistics as
something beautiful and exciting. I still remember the first time I saw his
TED Talk:
[http://www.ted.com/talks/hans_rosling_shows_the_best_stats_y...](http://www.ted.com/talks/hans_rosling_shows_the_best_stats_you_ve_ever_seen)

------
awicz
Hans Rosling truly changed the way I view information, and the world. A great
loss indeed.

------
e40
Pancreatic cancer has taken the majority of people I know that have died from
cancer. A horrible way to go.

------
btilly
My favorite video of his is
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jbkSRLYSojo](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jbkSRLYSojo).

~~~
neogodless
Also my favorite - over 100 years of improvements in health and wealth.

------
porker
Sad news, his visualizations and approach to communication were the first to
get me interested in this field.

------
wallzz
I remember meeting him in Algeria, where he gave a speak on various economic
data of every country and the expected changes in the future with some focus
on Africa, it was such an inspiring speech, he has a way to make the data come
alive.

------
dsjoerg
Thanks you, Hans, for your excellent & inspiring work. I salute you!

------
mildlyclassic
Goodbye Hans. You will be sorely missed.

~~~
VikingCoder
Well, let's not just assume that. Let's collect some data and see...

:)

Yes, I agree, he will be missed.

------
sleepychu
black bar, please?

------
kayoone
Wow, I still have this tab open for weeks with an article about him that i
wanted to read: [http://www.nature.com/news/three-minutes-with-hans-
rosling-w...](http://www.nature.com/news/three-minutes-with-hans-rosling-will-
change-your-mind-about-the-world-1.21143)

Now hearing that he passed in the meantime is very sad indeed. What a great
man.

------
verytrivial
Google's cached version:
[http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:8ws7tWb...](http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:8ws7tWbdZgAJ:https://www.gapminder.org/news/sad-
to-announce-hans-rosling-passed-away-this-
morning/&num=1&hl=en&gl=us&strip=0&vwsrc=0)

------
dandersh
Awful news. I just started getting into his work and will be sure to watch
some of his TED talks this evening in his honor.

------
robert_foss
:F

A more inspiring and constructive individual I have never encountered. This is
a loss with a larger impact than most.

------
tomjen3
This is on of his TED talks:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hVimVzgtD6w](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hVimVzgtD6w)

Also fuck cancer.

------
ak39
What a loss to humanity. This man's lectures and explanations of population
growth epitomized hope for me. Empathy in motion!

Heartfelt love and condolences to his family.

------
bostand
This is very sad.

He could explain very complex issues in a way everyone could understand.
Something that is need more than ever now in the age of fake news and
alternative facts...

RIP

------
sixQuarks
Why do so many good people die from terrible ailments, while the evil ones
like Dick Cheney keep having dozens of heart attacks and keep ticking on?

------
synicalx
Now what're the chances of that...

In all seriousness though, sorry to hear he passed. He's done a lot of good
work and was still quite 'young'.

------
headconnect
Truly a great loss, but his style and enthusiasm will endure! I'll never
forget the first time I watched him speed up the world..

------
ekianjo
Wow, that was a surprise. I remember seeing him on TV not too long ago, no
idea he was already ill at that time... A sad day.

------
diegorbaquero
I will always remember his advocacy to teach, share and contribute knowledge.
Amazing talks too. Sad and shocking day

------
mckoss
One of great humans that will be missed by millions. It's a shock that he is
no longer a part of our world.

------
manuelbieh
Had the honor to see a talk of him live at the TEDSalon in Berlin 2014. Very
inspiring. Great loss. RIP Hans

------
cicloid
What a loss! Seeing his TED talks did make an impact on me. He truly was an
inspiring person.

------
abc_lisper
Sad sad day! He seemed to have boundless energy in his talks, did not expect
this...

------
markshuttle
A man with a wonderful mix of wit, intellect and humanity, he will be missed.

------
baxtr
What a sad day. I will miss his way of making facts really exciting

------
tigroferoce
Sad day. I will always remember his talks at TED. RIP.

------
ianai
I truly hate cancer.

------
dodysw
This person inspires me, very sad day.

------
unixhero
I am filled with sadness about this.

------
bobowzki
Very sad news. He inspired me.

------
jpatel3
Sad day :(

His story is inspirational.

------
johansch
Wow. This was so unexpected. This hit me surprisingly hard. I guess I expected
him to teach us about important misunderstood things for like 20 more years or
so.

~~~
equalarrow
Yah, my thoughts exactly. Such a big loss for humanity. :( At least we have
his son to carry on - there's still a lot of work to be done.

