I got sent a 13-question quiz by a young friend. She said that it came from a book called 'Factfulness', which I see is by Hans Rosling. Hans was a Swedish academic; he passed away in 2017.
I first encountered Hans Rosling through TED Talks. He was one of the very first speakers back in 2006. His TED Talk in 2010 on the effect of the innovation of the washing machine has always stuck with me.
This quiz asks questions like the change in the number of deaths per year from natural disasters in the last 100 years (doubled, stayed the same or halved), or percentage of people in the world that have some access to electricity, or how many years of schooling have women had vs men of the same age.
The questions should be answered without Googling the answers.
The quiz is available online. Give it a try now before reading the rest of my post: Factfulness quiz
My answers were mostly on the pessimistic side of the scale, and thus a large chunk were incorrect because things are, as the title of the book tells us, better than we think.
The full title of Rosling's book is "Factfulness - Ten Reasons We're Wrong About The World - And Why Things Are Better Than You Think".
The questions asked are actually fairly general knowledge and the answers are indeed stats that we have heard. I really shouldn't have gotten so many wrong, because I do know better with regards to some of them.
That said, I'm not in a very optimistic frame of mind, so this would most definitely contribute to my decidedly negative responses in the quiz. I am not very positive about the world. I'm also swayed by doses of ongoing bad news in South Africa. Is my judgement and perception of South Africa vs The World skewed? Indeed. I find it hard to dissociate the two.
People have family members who drop down dead - unexpectedly or from sudden illness. If I hear of someone's aunt or cousin who has died, I always ask why, especially if the person was 'young' - 50s and 60s. Many undetermined causes. Life expectancy in South Africa is 64. Life expectancy in the World is 72. The quiz offered up 50, 60 or 70. I went with 60 in the quiz. My perception of the world definitely skewed by my South African biases and experience.
Other things right now that concern me, which affect my biases:
Some of the kayak factory workers, good guys, who still have no work, or just odd jobs. Some have jobs paying minimum wage. I puzzle over how those on minimum wage of around R3,500 survive and support their families and extended families.
I've also been contemplating how having freedom of transport, even by bicycle, opens opportunities in people's lives. They can transport themselves to work (reliable, safe, time-saving) as well as children to school and also be able to transport products to market or tools/equipment to jobs. It means more time with family instead of walking for 2-3hrs per day to get back-and-forth to work (or school). Also, if you can move around more easily, you can attend events, shop at better value stores, get involved with and contribute more to the community. But, how can someone earning minimum wage buy a R4,000 single-speed bicycle?
One of the questions in the quiz asked about the percentage of people who have some access to electricity. The answer is 80% (I went for 50%). I know that a low-income household may have access to electricity but they don't have enough money to recharge their pre-paid meter - certainly not to keep them with power for a whole month. They don't have geyers for hot water, which reduces their electricity consumption but means that bathing is out of a tub of water heated on the gas cooker and school homework is done by candle light. I know a middle-income household where they shower every second day so that they only turn the geyser on then as they don't have enough income to pay electricity for use for the whole month. I can go with 80% having some access to electricity as opposed to absolutely no access to electricity. Charging your phone at the house of a friend who has electricity would count as 'some access' to electricity.
I googled what world electricity access is now... As of 2020, 90% of the world's population has some access to electricity.
I've got a family member who has been going through the public health system. Everything is a standard "come back in four weeks" whether it is for blood results (these only take a few days at most and can be telephonically reported), biopsies, or an appointment with a different doctor. She is almost a year down the line. The aim should be to sort out people's problems quickly so that they are out of the system and also so that the person doesn't get worse and more greatly burden the system.
As I'm learning about plants, my eyes have been opened to how many endangered and vulnerable species there are. If plants are vulnerable, organisms associated with the plants would be impacted too. George is growing. More land space will be used to build houses, schools and shops. This means that the creatures that live in these spaces get pushed out. It is the reality of development, but it comes at a price.
Did I think that two out of tigers, giant pandas and black rhinos were more critically endangered than they were in 1996? Yes. Of course, I do know that conservation efforts have been successful and that in captivity there have been amazing successes. These animals are still in a fix. The answer is that they are still all critically endangered but none are as critically endangered as in 1996.
I have just Googled these three animals. We are almost 20 years ahead and numbers in all populations have improved to varying degrees through massive efforts. Black rhino populations have almost doubled.
More than half of the 13,000 global tiger population lives in captivity with only 5,000-odd roaming wild. This number of wild tigers is much the same as in 1999. With ongoing habitat destruction, wild tigers are almost as screwed as they were in 1996, but, at least there is more awareness, protection and efforts around doing more for them.
In 1995, there were around 1000 pandas in the wild. There are around 1800 in the wild now, plus <400-odd in captivity.
I've just downloaded the audiobook of Factfulness and look forward to being injected with a dose of positivity, at least in my outlook of the world as a whole.
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