[*** You can find the answer in World Bank Poverty home page. ***]
If you haven’t tried the quiz provided in the book, “Factfulness – Ten Reasons We’re Wrong About the World – and Why Things Are Better Than You Think”, you can click the link below and see how you perform with this global trend quiz:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1WrdRLV ... sp=sharing
According to Hans Rosling, a Swedish doctor and the author of the book, most people including business executives and Nobel Laureates did worse than chimpanzees in answering these questions.
Why is people’s worldview so wide of the mark?
How do we construct our frame of reference?
What influences our perspectives?
How much can we attribute our innate tendency to our perspectives? [Hint: The ten human instincts in the book]
How much can we chalk it up to the external sources for nurturing our distorted viewpoints?
[Hint: Media, media and media: the best friend of our instincts]
The book is not an answer to everything, but it helps us think about the above questions and get deep insights into our behaviors and perceptions. I surely hope the book helps us stay on the right path with our self-reflection.
Reading:
Factfulness Summary (Explanation, Examples, and How to fight it)
https://blog.12min.com/factfulness-pdf-summary/
Book Summary (with graphs)
https://readingraphics.com/book-summary-factfulness/
Good Quotes:
- "The blame instinct makes us exaggerate the importance of individuals or of particular groups.
This instinct to find a guilty party derails our ability to develop a true, fact-based understanding of the world: it steals our focus as we obsess about someone to blame, then blocks our learning because once we have decided who to punch in the face we stop looking for explanations elsewhere.
This undermines our ability to solve the problem, or prevent it from happening again, because we are stuck with oversimplistic finger pointing, which distracts us from the more complex truth and prevents us from focusing our energy in the right places." -- Factfulness
"The media does not tell us how the world is changing, it tells us where the world is going wrong." -- Forbes
"Forming your worldview by relying on the media would be like forming your view about me by looking only at a picture of my foot." -- Hans Rosling
Videos:
How not to be ignorant about the world | Hans and Ola Rosling, 9/2014 (20 min)
Hans Rosling's 200 Countries, 200 Years, 4 Minutes - The Joy of Stats - BBC Four (4 min)
Session I: Ten Instincts that contribute to our distorted worldview
Q1: What makes people think the world is bad (or is more frightening, more violent, or more hopeless)?
Q2: Do you think people hold accurate perceptions about the two current events, COVID-19 and US riots? How does the media influence our viewpoints?
Q3: How do you see the “poverty” issue in the world? What is the reality of it?
a) Do you agree that “poverty” issue is “bad but better/improving”?
b) Will extreme poverty be eradicated by 2030 as World Bank pledged?
c) How about relative poverty issue? Can it be solved?
Q4: What is the “blame instinct”? How does it play a role in our daily life on a personal level and on a society level? What does this tendency cost us?
Session II: Control and Manage our Instincts
“We should look at the system instead of looking for someone to blame when things go wrong. We should also give more credit to two kinds of systems when things go right…. the unsung heroes of global development: institutions and technology.”
Q5: Based on the above statements, who or what we should “blame” and “credit” for handling COVID-19 event in United States and Taiwan?
Q6: How about the recent US Riots? How should the incident be “blamed”?
“Now or never!” and “We are doomed, if no action!” are the slogans used often by many social activists, such as environmentalists, climate change advocates, LGBT rights activists and opponents. Furthermore, they might get exaggerated and unsupported data to call for action.
Q7: What are the tactics used by the above social activists? What human instincts would be triggered? Do you think they usually get the support they expected? Why?
Q8: Among the ten instincts listed in “Factfulness”, which one do you resonate most with? How does it impact your perspectives?
[The ten instincts: Gap, Negative, Straight Line, Fear, Size, Generalization, Destiny, Single-Perspective, Blame, Urgency]
Agenda:
6:45 ~ 7:00pm Greetings & Free Talk / Ordering Beverage or Meal / Getting Newcomer’s Information
7:00 ~ 7:10pm Opening Remarks / Newcomer’s Self-introduction / Grouping
(Session I)
7:10 ~ 7:45pm Discussion Session (35 mins)
7:45 ~ 8:00pm Summarization (15 mins)
8:00 ~ 8:05pm Regrouping / Instruction Giving / Taking a 5 Minutes Break (Intermission)
(Session II)
8:05 ~ 8:40pm Discussion Session (35 mins)
8:40 ~ 8:55pm Summarization (15 mins)
8:55 ~ 9:00pm Concluding Remarks / Announcements
Meeting Date: As shown on the Subject Line
Meeting Time: 7:00pm – 9:00pm
Meeting Venue: 丹堤咖啡 Dante Coffee (Minimum Order $100)
Address: 台北市濟南路三段25號[MAP]-捷運忠孝新生站3號出口步行3分鐘
Important Notes:
1. We advise participants to print out the discussion questions and bring them to the meeting for reference. As for the supporting articles, feel free to print them out, as well, according to your preference.
2. We suggest that participants read the articles and think about the questions in advance.
3. Newcomers should prepare a two-to-three minute self-introduction in English to deliver when called upon by the host before the start of the discussion. The host may also ask you to give brief feedback about the meeting at the conclusion of the meeting.
4. We conduct the entire meeting in English. All participants should have at least moderate English-conversation skills and be able to articulate your ideas for each discussion question.
5. We welcome newcomers and other guests to attend the meetings and join the discussion freely for two times. After that, we hope you will consider becoming a YoYo English Club member. We charge a NT$1500 lifetime membership fee, or NT$1000 for students.