Favorite quote:
“There’s no room for facts when our minds are occupied by fear.”
Let’s get started.
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Factfulness Book summary in 3 sentences.
Don’t blame others for your own responsibility.
Don’t blame luck.
Learn to act with facts in every area of your life.
The five key takeaways from Factfulness.
Never compare yourselves to others.
Happiness lasts long and pleasures last short.
If you can work hard continuously, you will undoubtedly succeed.
We should never be afraid of failure.
We should take breaks between tasks because sometimes we work so hard out of enthusiasm that we forget to take a rest.
Top 10 lessons from Factfulness book.
Without numbers, the world cannot be understood. However, using only numbers to understand the world is inadequate.
Keep in mind that things can be bad and improving.
Here’s the paradox: the world has never been less violent and safer, yet the image of a dangerous world has never been broadcast more effectively than it is now.
Being smart—being good with numbers, well-educated, or even winning a Nobel Prize—is not a shortcut to having access to all available information. Experts are only experts in their particular fields.
We frequently don’t hear about things when they start to get better. This is very stressful because it gives us a consistently inaccurate perception of the world.
The 80/20 rule is limited to this. We have a tendency to believe that every item on a list is equally significant, but in reality, only a select few are typically more significant than the sum of the others.
Keep an open mind to new information and be prepared to continually update your knowledge.
Even slow change is change.
Risk = danger × exposure.
Expect bad news to overcome the negativity instinct.
Action steps from Factfulness.
Track your progress.
Keep increasing your knowledge.
Take your own responsibility.
Don’t blame others for your own mistake.
Instead of heroes, look for systems.
“Seek out causes, not bad guys.”
Greater income is intended, not just bigger bank accounts. Longer lives aim to provide more than just time. To be able to do whatever we want is the ultimate goal.
Factfulness is the ability to see things from multiple perspectives in order to gain a deeper understanding of the situation and come up with workable solutions. One perspective can limit your creativity.
Test your theories. Don’t just gather instances that support the superiority of your preferred theories.
Never avert your gaze from a machete-wielding threat. Keep still. Ask him what the issue is while maintaining eye contact.
What kind of evidence would lead you to reconsider your position? If you respond that “no evidence could ever change my mind about vaccination,” you are going against evidence-based rationality and the very critical thinking that got you here in the first place.
Most importantly, we should instill humility and curiosity in our kids. Here, humility means realizing how challenging it can be to get the facts straight when acting on your instincts.
Simple concepts and answers should be avoided. Many visionaries throughout history have used straightforward utopian ideals to defend terrible deeds. Embrace the complexity. Combine concepts. Compromise. Case-by-case resolution of issues
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