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1) Gap Instinct
Recognising that a story talks about a gap. Reality is not polarised, data/categories/tiers are more granular. Majority is right in the middle, where the gap is supposed to be. To control the gap instinct, look for the majority. We hav1) Gap Instinct
Recognising that a story talks about a gap. Reality is not polarised, data/categories/tiers are more granular. Majority is right in the middle, where the gap is supposed to be. To control the gap instinct, look for the majority. We have to define the scope and minimum acceptable threshold levels.
-Beware comparisons of averages. If you could check the spreads, they probably overlap. There's probably no gap at all. -Beware comparisons of extremes. Can't compare the upper and lower percentile. Majority are at the median, where the gap is. -The view from up here. Looking down from above distorts the view. Everything else looks equally short but it's not. Bottom up approach.
2) Negativity Instinct
Recognising when we get negative news, and remembering that info about bad events is much more likely to reach us. When things are better, we don't hear about them. This systemically gives us a negative impression of the world around us.
To control it , expect bad news.
- Better and bad: distinguishing between level/state (eg bad) and direction/rate of change (eg better). Convince yourself that things can be both better and bad. - Good news is not news. Good news is never reported. So news is almost always bad. When you see bad news, ask whether equally positive news would have reached you. -Gradual improvement is not news. When a trend is gradually improving, with periodic dips, you are more likely to notice dips than the overall improvement. -More news does not equate more suffering. More bad news is sometimes due to better surveillance of suffering, not a worsening world. -Beware of rosy pasts. People often glorify their early experiences, and nations often glorify their histories.
3) Straight Line Instinct
Recognising the assumption that a line/projection/estimates will just continue straight and remembering that such lines are rare in reality. To control the straight line instinct, remember that curves come in different shapes. -Don't assume the straight linear lines between two variables. Many trends do not follow linear relationships but are S-bends, slides, humps, or doubling lines (exponential). No child ever kept up the rate of growth it achieved in its first six months and no parents would expect it to. There's other distributions and skews to take note of.
4) Fear Instinct
recognising when frightening things get our attention, and remembering that these are not necessarily the most risky. Our natural fears of violence, captivity, and contamination make us systematically overestimate these risks. To control the fear instinct, calculate these risks. - The scary world: fear vs reality. the world seems scarier than it is because what you hear about it has been selected - by your own attention filter (confirmation bias) or by the media - precisely because it is scary. - Risk = danger x exposure. The risk something poses to you depends not on how scared it makes you feel, but on a combination of two things. How dangerous is it? And how much are you exposed to it? - Get calm before you carry on. When you are afraid, you see the world differently. Make as few decisions as possible until the panic has subsided.
5) Size Instinct
recognising that a lonely number seems impressive (small or large), and remembering that you could get the opposite impression if it were compared with or divided by some other relevant number. To control the size instinct, get things in proportion. -Compare: Big numbers always look big. Simple numbers on their own are misleading and should make you suspicious. Always look for comparisons (benchmarking). Ideally, divide by something (rate/ratio). - 80/20 Golden rule: have you been given a long list? look for the few largest items and deal with those first. They are quite likely more important than all the others put together. -Divide: amounts and rates can tell very different stories. Rates are more meaningful, especially when comparing between different-sized groups. In particular, look for rates per person when comparing between countries/regions (common denominator/ normalised / benchmarking).
6) Generalisation Instinct
recognising when a category is being used as an explanation, and remembering that categories can be misleading. We can't stop generalization and we shouldn't even try. What we should try to do is to avoid generalising incorrectly. To control the generalization instinct, question your categories. -Look for differences within groups. Especially when the groups are large, look for ways to split them into smaller, more precise categories. - Look for similarities across groups. If you find striking similarities between different groups, consider whether your categories are relevant. -Look for differences across groups. Do not assume that what applies for one group applies for another. - Beware of the majority. The majority just means more than half. Ask whether it means 51%, 99% or something in between. - Beware of vivid examples. Vivid images are easier to recall but they might be the exception rather than the rule. -Assume people are not idiots. When something looks strange, be curious and humble, and think, In what way is this a smart solution?
7) Destiny Instinct
Recognising that many things (including people, countries, religion, and cultures) appear to be constant just because the change is happening slowly, and remembering that even small, slow changes gradually add up to big changes. To control the destiny instinct, remember slow change is still change.
-Keep track of gradual improvements. A small change every year can translate to a huge change over decades. - Update your knowledge. Some knowledge goes out of date quickly. Technology, countries, societies, cultures, and religions are constantly changing. - Talk to Grandpa. If you want to be reminded of how values have changed, think about your grandparents' values and how they differ from yours. - Collect examples of cultural change. Challenge the idea that today's culture must also have been yesterday's, and will also be tomorrow's.
8) Single Perspective Instinct
Recognising that a single perspective can limit your imagination, and remembering that it is better to look at problems from many angles to get a more accurate understanding and find practical solutions. To control the single perspective instinct, get a toolbox, not a hammer.
- Test your ideas. Don't only collect examples that show how excellent your favourite ideas are. Have people who disagree with you test your ideas and find their weaknesses. - Limited expertise. Don't claim expertise beyond your field; be humble about what you don't know. Be aware too of the limits of the expertise of others. - Hammers and nails. If you are good with a tool, you may want to use it too often. If you have analysed a problem in depth, you can end up exaggerating the importance of the problem or the solution. Remember that no one tool is good for everything. If your favourite idea is a hammer, look for colleagues with screwdrivers, wrenches, and tape measures. Be open to ideas from other fields. - Numbers and only numbers. The world cannot be understood without numbers, and it cannot be understood with numbers alone. Love numbers for what they tell you about real lives. - Beware of simple ideas and simple solutions. History is full of visionaries who used simple utopian visions to justify terrible actions. Welcome complexity. Combine ideas. Compromise. Solve problems on case-by-case basis.
9) Blame Instinct
Recognising when a scapegoat is being used and remembering that blaming an individual often steals the focus from other possible explanations and blocks our ability to prevent similar problems in the future. To control the blame instinct, resist finding a scapegoat.
- Look for causes, not villains. When something goes wrong, don't look for an individual or a group to blame. Accept that bad things can happen without anyone intending them to. Instead spend ypur energy on understanding the multiple interacting causes, or system, that created the situation. - Look for systems, not heroes. When someone claims to have caused something good, ask whether the outcome might have happened anyway, even if that individual had done nothing. Give the system some credit.
10) Urgency Instinct
Recognising when a decision feels urgent and remembering that it rarely is. To control the urgency instinct, take small steps.
- Take a small breath. When your urgency instinct is triggered, your other instincts kick in and your analysis shuts down. Ask for more time and more information. It's rarely now or never and it's rarely either/or. - Insist on the data. If something is urgent and important, it should be measured. Beware of data that is relevant but inaccurate, or accurate but irrelevant. Only relevant and accurate data is useful. - Beware of fortune-tellers. Any prediction about the future is uncertain. Be wary of predictions that fail to acknowledge that. Insist on a full range of scenerios, never just the best or worst case. Ask how often such predictions have been right before. - Be wary of drastic action. Ask what the side effects will be. Ask how the idea has been tested. Step-by-step practical improvements, and evaluation of their impact, are less dramatic. but usually more effective.
11) Factfulness in practice
- Countries in all different levels of health and income and that most are in the middle. - Their country's socioeconomic position in relation to the rest of the world, and how that is changing. - How their country has progressed through the income levels to get to where it is now, and how to use that knowledge to understand what life is like in other countries today. - People are moving up the income levels and most things are improving for them. - What life was really like in the past so that they do not mistakenly think that no progress has been made. - How to hold 2 ideas at the same time: that bad things are going on in the world, but that many things are getting better. - Cultural and religious stereotypes are useless for understanding the world - How to consume the news and spot the drama without becoming stressed or hopeless - Common ways that people will try to trick them with numbers - The world will keep changing and they will have to update their knowledge and world-view throughout their lives.
Being humble - means i don't have to feel pressured to have a view and wstop feeling like we have to be ready to defend it, being aware that it is difficult your instincts can make it to get our facts right, being realistic about the extent of our knowledge. Being curious means being open to new information and actively seeking it out. Embracing facts tha don't fit your worldview and trying to understand its implications. Letting my mistakes trigger curiosity instead of embarrassment.
Business - big data is freely and readily available. Until someone tests their global knowledge, they just assume that they got it right. markets are growing in Asia/Africa. Shift of global chain from Europe/US to Asia and next would be Africa as Asia grows more affluent.
Journalists, activists, politicians
Suffer a dramatic worldview. the need to present a less-distorted worldview...more
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