The author of the book, Hans Rosling, was a doctor, professor, and researcher who visited many countries and dealt with ecosystems around healthcare. He mentioned different instincts, to explaine the reasons we are wrong about the world. He experienced over the years while dealing with patients, students, hospitals, government officials, Organisations like UNICEF, etc. Here we are trying to feature some of the anecdotes of each instinct mentioned in the book.

Gap Instinct:

In general, we divide the world into two categories, like developed and developing or West and rest. But that is not correct as nothing is just binary. Instead it should be segregated into 4 different levels: Level 1(~$1/day), Level 2(~$4/day) Level 3(~$16/day) Level 4(~$32/day).

Generalisation Instinct:

Story:In the year 1972, the author attended a fourth-year medical class in Bengaluru with other native country students and realised he knew the answer by looking at the X-ray image. Initially he had an impression of superiority as he belonged to Sweden, Level 4 and West was the best, but he felt embarrassed immediately for his assumption when he not only saw many hands in the air but heard the details of the diagnosis, like the image shows kidney cancer, How it spreads, and how best to treat it. He had nothing to add it, and he quickly felt he was in a specialist class, which was also not true. Forty-five years ago, he realised the West would not dominate the world for much longer.

What is normal in your own environment can be completely different for others. So we shall try hard not to generalise across incomparable groups, levels, or individuals. If someone provides you with a single example and wants to draw a conclusion about a group, then ask for more examples.

Blame Instinct:

Story: One Switzerland-based pharma company, Rivopharm, applied for the UNICEF project and received the bid as their quotation was less than others; in fact, their quotation was less than the cost of ingredients. UNICEF got paranoid and assigned the author to investigate and uncover the scan. When the author started the investigation, he was also surprised with the things around this small company. Then he asked the company owner for the reason behind the low quotation. He explained they had a fully automated company and they had quite a big buffer time between receiving the ingredients for malaria tablets and getting payment back to the supplier. So they received ingredients with 30 days credit, made medicine, delivered it to the concerned customer in Angola, received the money from UNICEF within four days, and got interest from the payment, which earned profit.

Look for Causes, not Villain’s. Look for system, not Hero’s.

Negativity Instinct:

A: Some bad things are decreasing, e.g. children dying percent, hunger rate, child labour, oil spills, etc. And some good things are increasing, e.g. science, literacy, girls in school, immunisation, etc.

We pay more attention to negative news like US Housing market crash, Ice melting, War fatalities, etc. Also, reporters and their selective reporting want to capture our attention by showing negative ones again and again. We don’t pay attention to the slow progress, positive things, which compounds over time. And good and positive news are no news.

Destiny Instinct:

Story: One student was overwhelmed after the presentation where the author presented UN data for Iran on increasing life expectancy and decreasing babies per woman. She said, “My family is from Iran. The fast improvements in health and education in Iran were the first positive things I’ve ever heard anyone from Sweden ever say about Iranian people.”

Society and culture are not rock, which is unchangeable.

Slow progress over time makes a lot of difference, and that can be easily recognized by our previous (parent) generation or definitely by the previous to previous (grandparent) generation. We can recognize this only by updating our knowledge and view about the culture and society, and by collecting the right examples of change.

Size Instinct:

Story: After 15+ years of Vietnam War, author went to Vietnam for Swedish aid project and went to check memorials of Vietnam War. He was underwhelmed with a three ft brass memorial to the Vietnam War against the US. After that, his colleague showed him a twelve ft high marble memorial of the War against the French, which lasted for 200 years. Finally, he went to Central Park, where there is a large pagoda covered in gold, a three hundred ft grand memorial for war against China, which lasted for more than 2000 years and now author overcame the size instinct after checking three memorials & it’s size.

Single numbers on their own are always misleading. So compare it before getting into any conclusion. The world can’t be understood without numbers. But the world can’t be understood only by the numbers.

Urgency Instinct:

Story: In 1980, author was in charge of a hospital in Nacala, Mozambique, district, where population-to-doctor ratio was 10000:1. During that time, many people were sick of an unknown disease where their leg paralyzed and lost eyes because of blindness. As the disease was spreading, the Mayor of the district wanted the city doctor to confirm it as contagious and to enforce lock down to restrict it. The doctor was already overwhelmed with the number of patients, tired of sleep-deprived nights, and had a doubt that the disease was not contagious. With the increasing pressure of the overall situation, the doctor confirmed, the mayor ordered the army to restrict all road transport to and from the city. People who used to live on daily wage & market started to suffer because of the restriction. So these needy people started to board a small boat by ignoring the boat capacity, tried to cross the river, but the boat capsized which led to much casualty. After revisiting all the disease reports and similar situation in other parts of the city, the doctor came to conclusion that the disease was not contagious but happened due to poison from local food. 

Now or never can block our roads and our minds which may lead to bad decision and catastrophic impact on individual, society, district or country. So take a deep breathe in such situations.

Single Perspective Instinct:

Story: Once PM of Mozambique, Pascoal Mocumbi, met the author and others in Sweden where he went to attend some conference. In a discussion, author mentioned to PM that their country was not doing well as per the countries financial numbers like GDP per capita and etc.  PM disagreed with author as he saw many people wear new shoes during the national celebration events. His country people constructed house and made upgrades, unlike grass is growing on concrete. This reflects that the world can’t be understood only by the numbers.

Experts are expert only in their field.

Neither only public nor private, similarly, neither democratic nor communist, can alone solve the problems. But we need collaboration of both for any kind of solution.

Fear Instinct:

Story: When author started as junior doctor in Swedish hospital, he was frightened by blood around soldier who was brought to hospital and speculated different reasoning likes a Russian pilot has been shoot down in Swedish territory, Russian is going to attack and WWIII is started. Of course, that was not the situation, a Swedish soldier wounded in his routine practice. But for some time, author was blocked from clear thinking because of fear.

We pay attention to the dramatic stories and news instead of information based ones which trigger FEAR and block critical thinking. So be afraid of real things(i.e. dangerous) instead of perceived risk(i.e. frightening). 

Straight Line Instinct:

A: If we have to make an educated guess about population growth for next decades, people may visualise straight line as numbers are increasing and we hear from news. But that is not absolutely correct as number of babies per woman in 2017 was 2.5 while it was 6 in 1800. When poverty is eradicated, people focus on education and betterment with less number of child instead of having more number of children as insurance.

Like our instinct on population growth, many events are not increasing in straight line curve but with different way like s-curve, slides, humps, etc.

If you want to level up your running activity, then checkout 2024 Marathon Run.