11 ms·

One of the most amazing things I learned reading the excellent "Factfullness" by Hans Rosling [1] is that the poorest countries in the world are currently impro

by grecy 8y ago

One of the most amazing things I learned reading the excellent "Factfullness" by Hans Rosling [1] is that the poorest countries in the world are currently improving faster than any country ever did, at any point in history. That's correct - countries like Lesotho and Central African Republic are improving faster than his home country of Sweden ever did, at any time. In only his lifetime Sweden went from having an infant mortality rate similar to that of the poorest countries today, to being one of the world leaders. Those poor countries are improving faster than Sweden ever did... so in just one more lifetime they'll be where the world leaders are today. The book makes it plainly clear that the world is improving much, much, much faster - even for the poorest - than the mainstream media would have anyone believe. [1] https://amzn.to/2Ihb6jM https://amzn.to/2Ihb6jM - full title is great "Factfulness: Ten Reasons We're Wrong About the World--and Why Things Are Better Than You Think"

sonnyblarney 8y ago
"is that the poorest countries in the world are currently improving faster than any country ever did, at any point in history. " This isn't surprising and the reasoning isn't that hard. Economic advancement is very hard if you have to 'figure out how to do it' i.e. intensive R&D. But if you are 'far behind' and there are examples to copy, you can just copy. Developing nations not only have many examples, but they have access to capital, credit etc.. Many of them have natural resources to get things gong. As long as there is conscientious leadership - they can grow quickly. There are examples of countries growing 'even more quickly' than such developing nations - and those are post-war nations. Nations that already have functioning institutions, when faced with a cataclysmic shock of war - don't need to build from scratch, rather, they are 'repairing' their economy. Europe, S. Korea, Japan in the post-war years really boomed. China, one might argue is not just 'developing' but it's 'snapping back' after a long period of oppression. But once development reaches a certain level, it tends to slow, and come in line with the development of other advanced nations. You can see this glowingly with Japan and S. Korea as they rockted forward, but are now in the slog with the rest of us. When you have 'no roads' - investment decisions are easy. But when everyone has 'stuff' ... well ... it's a lot harder.
- rory096 8y ago
  This phenomenon is known as convergence. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Convergence_(economics) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Convergence_(economics)
- kiliantics 8y ago
  The post war countries you mention had access to massive investment from the US, e.g. the Marshall plan. It's no surprise they're doing well. In contrast, the post-colonial developing countries today were hit with extremely predatory debt by the IMF - as a form of "international aid" - so it's no surprise they are not as wealthy. Some of these places were also very developed prior to colonialism and could have "snapped back" given the chance. Unless the exploitative nature of the relationships between wealthier and poorer countries changes, they will have a hard time reaching our economic standards.
  - sonnyblarney 8y ago
    You've contradicted yourself in your own statement. You can't have 'not enough investment' and then 'debt trap' (i.e. taking on too much debt) at the same time. Which is it? They can't access debt? Or they're taking on too much, so much they can't service it? Countries usually wantonly and willingly approach the IMF/WB for loans - not the other way around. The reason is because they can get better terms than anyone else will provide. The IMF/WB are sources of capital wherein none else would even exist. The IMF/WB are not really profit centers for anyone. If it were highly lucrative, then lenders would be lining up to put money into these amazingly profitable funds! But of course this is not the case. The reason these countries end up with problems, is the same reason they are not able to 'catch up' to rich countries: they are dysfunctional, corrupt, lacking many of the institutions and systems necessary to make use of the money. Corrupt leaders often take a hefty chunk off the top of the loan, hand out sub contracts to their idiot friends etc., and things fail or fall apart. And then the lender is blamed? There's a lot of money floating out there and made available for rational infrastructure investment - on very good terms - it's just that the money often can't be turned around into some kind of productive gain. This should give a hint as to why the countries are poor in the first place.
heyjudy 8y ago
Yet you fail to mention the thousands of deaths every month from Al Shabab and the genocides and famines that have happened repeatedly throught the continent. Putting lipstick on a pig, it's still a pig. China and India can pour all the money they want into various countries' infrastructure, it can all come tumbling down with the next disputed election or sectarian genocide.
- empath75 8y ago
  People who say stuff like this forget that Europe nearly destroyed itself through war twice in just the last hundred years— and followed it up with an arms race that put the entire planet at risk of extinction. It was only the threat of nuclear annihilation that stopped Europeans from murdering each other on an industrial scale.
  - saiya-jin 8y ago
    You are badly mixing up sides in nuclear race a bit, we europeans were bystanders compared to US-Russia race and never really caught up with neither of them.
    - empath75 8y ago
      France and the UK both built nuclear weapons. They didn’t have the resources to build more than they did or they would have. But that wasn’t really my point. I was merely pointing out that the so called civilized west is responsible for far more misery and death than any nation in the developing world could even aspire to at this point. It’s not that the Europeans are uniquely horrible people, only that the current era of peace and cooperation in the west is a historical aberration.
- pas 8y ago
  How bad is Al Shabab compared to obesity and car accidenty? (Or other luxury deaths/ills) > can all come tumbling down with the next disputed election or sectarian genocide. Will it though? I mean sure it might look like that, but the US just had a Gov shutdown, whereas India and China had none in the previous decades. [Even if the US system is better IMHO.] (Of course there is an index for that: https://www.theglobaleconomy.com/India/wb_political_stability/ https://www.theglobaleconomy.com/India/wb_political_stabilit... and let's say vs Syria https://www.theglobaleconomy.com/Syria/wb_political_stability/ https://www.theglobaleconomy.com/Syria/wb_political_stabilit... )
teddyh 8y ago
> so in just one more lifetime they'll be where the world leaders are today. You are extrapolating the current rate, but doing that is dangerous: https://xkcd.com/605/ https://xkcd.com/605/
- igravious 8y ago
  No. Not true. Nobody does that. Economists are well aware that as countries develop the rate at which they progress slows.
Maro 8y ago
I read the Factfullness book, and I thought it's really poorly argued. I remember my BP was through the roof on the plane when I was reading that. HR is not believable imo. (I work in data, I'm a physicist.)
- WA 8y ago
  Care to elaborate on actual data?
- nabla9 8y ago
  Rosner, Pinker and Co fell into the same trap they critiqued others - belief in destiny. They try to counter pessimistic destiny narratives with positive destiny narratives and selecting data that fits the narrative. You can't extrapolation the future from current trends. There are discontinuities and challenges that can change the dynamics.
  - pas 8y ago
    Aren't they simply trying to explain and persuade people current institutions are responsible for the positive changes, and that therefore they are good, and thus we should be supporting them? Also, they seem to counter misconceptions, not advocate for blind faith in a never ending progression. Pinker actually addressed this, but unfortunately I can't remember in which book/lecture/talk/article. Largely paraphrasing he said that we have to work for the gains, but that doesn't mean we can't have a positive attitude about these processes. (Such as comparative advantage resulting in trade resulting in cooperation and some degree of altruism - or we can just call it "counterparty risk management", or simply looking out for your buyers and suppliers.)
    - nabla9 8y ago
      > people current institutions are responsible for the positive changes, and that therefore they are good, and thus we should be supporting them? Current institutions as a vague continuity or the same? Because if Pinker and other try to argue that current institutions have been historically enough, we just continue growth, they are very much wrong. Benefits from innovations and growth have been accompanied with massive institutional changes in every 30 years or so. The current era is becoming an exception where institutions are becoming stale after 40-50 years of the same. That threatens continuity because institutions have to change in response to the change in the environment or they collapse.
hannob 8y ago
> so in just one more lifetime they'll be where the world leaders are today. This is where you are probably wrong and which so often is used in the narrative of "things are getting better". You make an implicit assumption that this development will go on. It probably won't. The reason is climate change.
- goatlover 8y ago
  > It probably won't. The reason is climate change. But as is the case with automation predictions and massive net job destruction, it hasn't happened yet. So it's possible we're wrong about such predictions. We've been wrong in the past about environmental doom and job loss. Or maybe not this time, but we should keep that in mind and be a little bit skeptical about our current state of knowledge when predicting the future. It would be one thing if the trend was clearly toward things getting worse because of climate change. But it's not so far.
  - Aeolun 8y ago
    Anecdotally, I’ve seen more climate related disasters in the past year than in the previous 5 before that.
    - deleted 8y ago
      [deleted]
  - thiagoharry 8y ago
    We also have been wrong in the past about the end of poverty and the gap between countries. These predictions usually focus just in technology improvements, ignoring politics, both internal as international.
  - sgift 8y ago
    > It would be one thing if the trend was clearly toward things getting worse because of climate change. But it's not so far. Someone tell Fiji, I'm sure they will be happy to hear that: https://unfccc.int/news/how-fiji-is-impacted-by-climate-change https://unfccc.int/news/how-fiji-is-impacted-by-climate-chan... https://www.salon.com/2012/09/19/first_village_relocated_due_to_climate_change/ https://www.salon.com/2012/09/19/first_village_relocated_due...
pizza234 8y ago
> Those poor countries are improving faster than Sweden ever did... so in just one more lifetime they'll be where the world leaders are today. This is a very simplistic extrapolation. There are significant factors, primarily social/cultural ones, that will halt the relative development of those countries, sooner or later.
- pas 8y ago
  Why? What are those? Could you please explain this argument?
- grecy 8y ago
  > primarily social/cultural ones, that will halt the relative development of those countries, sooner or later. Hans addresses this in the book, actually. What you said has no basis in fact, and makes no sense. Do you think people said exactly the same thing about Sweden a generation ago? Why / why not? We in the West have this completely-made-up assumption that "they" can't develop like "we" did, with absolutely no grounding in fact.
  - megous 8y ago
    > We in the West have this completely-made-up assumption that "they" can't develop like "we" did, with absolutely no grounding in fact. They can. But "we" developed in a very turbulent and deadly ways. Just handful of decades ago, during WWI and WWII, "we" were killing millions of people, helping spread massive disease outbreaks that killed other millions in just a few years, created economy destroying monetary and isolationist policies, impoverished millions, destroyed advanced industrialized countries in the middle of Europe with communism, were colonizing, destabilizing and exploiting natural resources of other countries, etc. We're still humans, and all this is still possible to repeat. And developing "like we did", is not necessarily something great or positive. It can mean pretty much anything, unless you cherry-pick baselessly.
    - kiliantics 8y ago
      This is absolutely right. The wealth in the West was largely gained through colonialist/imperialist means. Developing countries don't have this option.
igravious 8y ago
Enlightenment Now was easily Pinker's worst book. It took the counter-intuitive theme ("hey, things are not so bad when you look at the data") of Better Angels of Our Nature – which is a great book – and ran with it. Enlightenment Now is really two books: the first part deals with (chapter by chapter) a successive list of indicators of human progress. It's second part deals with the philosophical reasons behind human progress, what collectively are called enlightenment ideals. Let's put to one side the second part of the book which is some of the worst material Pinker has put down on paper – not in terms of style of course, he writes like an angel, but in terms of philosophical content. What struck me about the first part was where he deals with inequality. It is demonstrably true using Pinker's own metrics and datasets that economic progress is not distributed evenly. To put it very simply the data shows that the middle class is becoming hollowed out in the developed world. Where is that wealth flowing to? The rich in the developed world and the poor in the developing world. The argument goes like this: because the number of very poor and poor that are being lifted out of poverty in the developing world outnumbers the middle class that are losing their wealth in the developed world, then the current system is great because smaller overall numbers are better. QED. You can attack this position from two angles. First, as Jason Hickel does by saying that the way poverty has been and is being measured is broken in some way. Second, in a way that is more compelling which is this: that the global and regional and national growth in wealth ought to be more evenly distributed. The current distribution is fundamentally and deliberately skewed. That would be the tack I would take. I would say, why do there have to be losers? And isn't this what Brexit in the UK, the Yellow Vests in France, and the election of Trump in the US demonstrate? It shows that many feel squeezed and left behind. This was the first time I felt like saying to Pinker, "Well, look at you, a successful author in a developed country – do you not care about how your average countryman is doing?" Extreme and rising inequality is bad in and of itself. We know this because historically and in the present day when societies are more equal the knock on effects are felt in every sector of society. There's a reason people point to the Nordic model, they're not pulling this stuff out of their butts you know. To Hickel's argument I would say this. Pinker is correct that where one draws the line of absolute poverty is irrelevant because the data shows that no matter where one draws the line (at that level of things) the numbers show poverty (at the global level, for the poorest of the poor) is decreasing. I think Hickel is correct in pointing out that all rich countries have protected their economies and continue to protect their domestic economies, Hickel lists a number of authors who pointed this out to which I would add How Rich Countries Got Rich and Why Poor Countries Stay Poor by Erik S Reinert. But that doesn't refute the data, it just refutes Pinker's ideology. People like Hickel are basically anti-capitalist which for me is a non-starter. I'm opened to being proved otherwise. Don't get me wrong: crony capitalism can be critiqued, as can the excesses of capitalism – but I think people like Hickel would criticise capitalism itself which as I say for me doesn't fly. On the other hand people like Pinker either don't see or choose to downplay the ills of neoliberal globalist unfettered capitalism. What bugs me about Hickel's take is that it feels like he's suggesting we can either have capitalism or public education, that we can have capitalism or public health programs. And so on. I don't think Pinker would be against such systems. All the most successful nations show that capitalism and some socialist policy can work hand-in-hand very well indeed. This is the debate we need to have I think, and urgently before skyrocketing inequality leads to violent social unrest and God knows who'll get into power then and God knows what cuckoo ideology they'll have. The wealthy have rigged the system in their favour. By the wealthy I mean, wealthy individual humans and wealthy corporations. We've allowed it to happen and now it must be addressed. People like Hickel are awful. They rail against everything, scream that we're destroying the Earth (hint: we're not), and their proposed solutions are either socialist programs mostly _everybody_ agrees with and are implemented in _most_ nations or anti-growth solutions which are in a word 'bonkers'. Be very suspicious of people who say we're doing nothing right and who have a fundamentally pessimist view about humanity's growth.
blub 8y ago
Rosling, Gates etc are right that things are overall getting better. The rich are getting richer and the very poor are also doing better, but this is coming at the cost of the middle class in Western Europe and the US, where the average couple of working adults can no longer afford to buy a home and have to live with the fact that their jobs are significantly less stable compared to the past. Many are forced to work part time or take on gigs to make ends meet. I could go on, but something's clearly rotten in the west.
- kiba 8y ago
  Why is "affording to be able to buy a home" should be our definition of living standard. It seemed to me that we have chosen to increase the cost of living by spreading ourselves out and requiring cars and making homes investments.
  - blub 8y ago
    Home and land ownership has been one of the main ways that the working class can accumulate wealth. It's the average man's tried and true method of investing.
    - Symmetry 8y ago
      Is that actually true? I mean, it was true in the US in the middle of the 20th century but it seems at odds with what I know of conditions elsewhere, though I'm not an expert.
      - igravious 8y ago
        Yes it's actually true. It's more that the counter-position broadly applied over the long run is untenable. If you don't own the home you live in and/or the land it stands on then you are by definition renting that property. A portion of your labour is going straight to someone who owns at least one home and some land thus depending on how long this goes on for drives inequality. It's not called “Rentier Capitalism” for nothing you know: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rentier_capitalism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rentier_capitalism If people have a decent chance to own their own home and land it gives them an avenue to a better life, if they don't it doesn't.
porpoisely 8y ago
That argument is both true and deceiving at the same time. The poorest countries are improving the most because they are so far behind everyone else that any improvement is spectacular when viewed as a percentage. Take a homeless person who has a penny to his name. You give him $100 and his wealth skyrockets by 1000000% in a day. Compare that to bill gates whose wealth probably increases by a "measly" 10% per year. But if you look at the wealth increase by absolute numbers rather than percentages, the picture is quite different. Bill Gates' 10% probably gets him $10 billion while the homeless man's 1000000% gets him $100. $10 billion vs $100. 10% vs 1000000%. Whereas the mainstream media may be too pessimistic, rosling is even more optimistic. The idea that the poorest countries ( like CAR ) is going to lead the world is unrealistic barring some apocalyptic event in the US, Europe, East Asia, Middle East.
- RealityVoid 8y ago
  > The idea that the poorest countries ( like CAR ) is going to lead the world is unrealistic barring some apocalyptic event in the US, Europe, East Asia, Middle East. I don't think that OP was arguing that will happen. He was just arguing that growth is happening and they are catching up.
- grecy 8y ago
  > The idea that the poorest countries ( like CAR ) is going to lead the world is unrealistic barring some apocalyptic event in the US, Europe, East Asia, Middle East. That's not at all what I said. What I meant was that Sweden (and every developed country) improved in one generation from where CAR is today to where Sweden is today. CAR is currently improving faster than Sweden ever did, so it's probably that in one generation CAR will be where Sweden is today. Of course, Sweden will probably improve in that same generation.
  - drinfinity 8y ago
    > CAR is currently improving faster than Sweden ever did, so it's probably that in one generation CAR will be where Sweden is today. Yeah... that's not how it works. Yesterday you had zero wifes. Today, on your wedding you have 1. Thus, just plotting the trend, tomorrow you have 2. You'll soon have dozens. https://xkcd.com/605 https://xkcd.com/605
cc439 8y ago
>In only his lifetime Sweden went from having an infant mortality rate similar to that of the poorest countries today, to being one of the world leaders. This simply isn't true. Between 1900 and 1905, Sweden's infant mortality rate was merely 2.3 per 1,000 live births [1] which is basically the same as they currently report (2.6 per 1,000 [2]) according to the CIA world factbook. Compare that with Lesotho's rate of 46.1 per 1,000 [2] and it's plain to aee that comparison is completely unfounded. Today's poorest countries have rates in the 60-80 range despite the best efforts of the Western world to share the basic knowledge which caused such a precipitous decline in infant mortality post-1850 with those nations. [1]: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1448444/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1448444/ [2]: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_infant_and_under-five_mortality_rates https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_infant_...
- zeroname 8y ago
  > This simply isn't true. Between 1900 and 1905, Sweden's infant mortality rate was merely 2.3 per 1,000 live births [1] which is basically the same as they currently report (2.6 per 1,000 [2]) You're mixing up maternal mortality (the mother dies) with infant mortality (the child dies). It would be quite remarkable indeed if somehow medicine in Sweden today achieved a slightly worse infant mortality than at the beginning of the previous century.
  - cc439 8y ago
    Well I'm stupid, I'll delete the comment until I can find a good source.
throwaway47861 8y ago
How is anything you said related to the points defended -- and others debunked by -- by the article? It was mostly talking about the amount per day needed to have proper nutrition. Why do you shift the goalposts to abstract terms like "it's improving faster"? Sure, if you are on the rock bottom, it's only up from there on, and obviously you want to go faster when distancing yourself from the bottom. Zero relevance to the article.
Balgair 8y ago
A repost of an old comment of mine with some good sources of the late Dr. Rosling's: Factfulness is available, for free, here: http://www.factfulness.science/ http://www.factfulness.science/ The late Dr. Rosling's website is fantastic and a good example of easy to use GUIs for data science. Play around with the data yourself here: https://www.gapminder.org/tools/#$state$time$value=2018;;&chart-type=bubbles https://www.gapminder.org/tools/#$state$time$value=2018;;&ch... Try taking the quiz here to see if you are smarter than a chimp: http://factfulnessquiz.com/ http://factfulnessquiz.com/ I'd encourage everyone to read Factfulness. It's fairly quick to churn through and very enlightening. The world really is getting better.
- justfor1comment 8y ago
  Thanks for the good read. Very insightful book. I am not from a developed country but still had the same misconceptions that the author wanted to highlight. I think most people from developing countries also think the developed countries are way ahead of them and their home country is only getting worst.

by grecy 8y ago

sonnyblarney 8y ago

"is that the poorest countries in the world are currently improving faster than any country ever did, at any point in history. " This isn't surprising and the reasoning isn't that hard. Economic advancement is very hard if you have to 'figure out how to do it' i.e. intensive R&D. But if you are 'far behind' and there are examples to copy, you can just copy. Developing nations not only have many examples, but they have access to capital, credit etc.. Many of them have natural resources to get things gong. As long as there is conscientious leadership - they can grow quickly. There are examples of countries growing 'even more quickly' than such developing nations - and those are post-war nations. Nations that already have functioning institutions, when faced with a cataclysmic shock of war - don't need to build from scratch, rather, they are 'repairing' their economy. Europe, S. Korea, Japan in the post-war years really boomed. China, one might argue is not just 'developing' but it's 'snapping back' after a long period of oppression. But once development reaches a certain level, it tends to slow, and come in line with the development of other advanced nations. You can see this glowingly with Japan and S. Korea as they rockted forward, but are now in the slog with the rest of us. When you have 'no roads' - investment decisions are easy. But when everyone has 'stuff' ... well ... it's a lot harder.

rory096 8y ago
This phenomenon is known as convergence. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Convergence_(economics) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Convergence_(economics)
kiliantics 8y ago
The post war countries you mention had access to massive investment from the US, e.g. the Marshall plan. It's no surprise they're doing well. In contrast, the post-colonial developing countries today were hit with extremely predatory debt by the IMF - as a form of "international aid" - so it's no surprise they are not as wealthy. Some of these places were also very developed prior to colonialism and could have "snapped back" given the chance. Unless the exploitative nature of the relationships between wealthier and poorer countries changes, they will have a hard time reaching our economic standards.
- sonnyblarney 8y ago
  You've contradicted yourself in your own statement. You can't have 'not enough investment' and then 'debt trap' (i.e. taking on too much debt) at the same time. Which is it? They can't access debt? Or they're taking on too much, so much they can't service it? Countries usually wantonly and willingly approach the IMF/WB for loans - not the other way around. The reason is because they can get better terms than anyone else will provide. The IMF/WB are sources of capital wherein none else would even exist. The IMF/WB are not really profit centers for anyone. If it were highly lucrative, then lenders would be lining up to put money into these amazingly profitable funds! But of course this is not the case. The reason these countries end up with problems, is the same reason they are not able to 'catch up' to rich countries: they are dysfunctional, corrupt, lacking many of the institutions and systems necessary to make use of the money. Corrupt leaders often take a hefty chunk off the top of the loan, hand out sub contracts to their idiot friends etc., and things fail or fall apart. And then the lender is blamed? There's a lot of money floating out there and made available for rational infrastructure investment - on very good terms - it's just that the money often can't be turned around into some kind of productive gain. This should give a hint as to why the countries are poor in the first place.

heyjudy 8y ago

Yet you fail to mention the thousands of deaths every month from Al Shabab and the genocides and famines that have happened repeatedly throught the continent. Putting lipstick on a pig, it's still a pig. China and India can pour all the money they want into various countries' infrastructure, it can all come tumbling down with the next disputed election or sectarian genocide.

empath75 8y ago
People who say stuff like this forget that Europe nearly destroyed itself through war twice in just the last hundred years— and followed it up with an arms race that put the entire planet at risk of extinction. It was only the threat of nuclear annihilation that stopped Europeans from murdering each other on an industrial scale.
- saiya-jin 8y ago
  You are badly mixing up sides in nuclear race a bit, we europeans were bystanders compared to US-Russia race and never really caught up with neither of them.
  - empath75 8y ago
    France and the UK both built nuclear weapons. They didn’t have the resources to build more than they did or they would have. But that wasn’t really my point. I was merely pointing out that the so called civilized west is responsible for far more misery and death than any nation in the developing world could even aspire to at this point. It’s not that the Europeans are uniquely horrible people, only that the current era of peace and cooperation in the west is a historical aberration.
pas 8y ago
How bad is Al Shabab compared to obesity and car accidenty? (Or other luxury deaths/ills) > can all come tumbling down with the next disputed election or sectarian genocide. Will it though? I mean sure it might look like that, but the US just had a Gov shutdown, whereas India and China had none in the previous decades. [Even if the US system is better IMHO.] (Of course there is an index for that: https://www.theglobaleconomy.com/India/wb_political_stability/ https://www.theglobaleconomy.com/India/wb_political_stabilit... and let's say vs Syria https://www.theglobaleconomy.com/Syria/wb_political_stability/ https://www.theglobaleconomy.com/Syria/wb_political_stabilit... )

teddyh 8y ago

> so in just one more lifetime they'll be where the world leaders are today. You are extrapolating the current rate, but doing that is dangerous: https://xkcd.com/605/ https://xkcd.com/605/

igravious 8y ago
No. Not true. Nobody does that. Economists are well aware that as countries develop the rate at which they progress slows.

Maro 8y ago

I read the Factfullness book, and I thought it's really poorly argued. I remember my BP was through the roof on the plane when I was reading that. HR is not believable imo. (I work in data, I'm a physicist.)

WA 8y ago
Care to elaborate on actual data?
nabla9 8y ago
Rosner, Pinker and Co fell into the same trap they critiqued others - belief in destiny. They try to counter pessimistic destiny narratives with positive destiny narratives and selecting data that fits the narrative. You can't extrapolation the future from current trends. There are discontinuities and challenges that can change the dynamics.
- pas 8y ago
  Aren't they simply trying to explain and persuade people current institutions are responsible for the positive changes, and that therefore they are good, and thus we should be supporting them? Also, they seem to counter misconceptions, not advocate for blind faith in a never ending progression. Pinker actually addressed this, but unfortunately I can't remember in which book/lecture/talk/article. Largely paraphrasing he said that we have to work for the gains, but that doesn't mean we can't have a positive attitude about these processes. (Such as comparative advantage resulting in trade resulting in cooperation and some degree of altruism - or we can just call it "counterparty risk management", or simply looking out for your buyers and suppliers.)
  - nabla9 8y ago
    > people current institutions are responsible for the positive changes, and that therefore they are good, and thus we should be supporting them? Current institutions as a vague continuity or the same? Because if Pinker and other try to argue that current institutions have been historically enough, we just continue growth, they are very much wrong. Benefits from innovations and growth have been accompanied with massive institutional changes in every 30 years or so. The current era is becoming an exception where institutions are becoming stale after 40-50 years of the same. That threatens continuity because institutions have to change in response to the change in the environment or they collapse.

hannob 8y ago

> so in just one more lifetime they'll be where the world leaders are today. This is where you are probably wrong and which so often is used in the narrative of "things are getting better". You make an implicit assumption that this development will go on. It probably won't. The reason is climate change.

goatlover 8y ago
> It probably won't. The reason is climate change. But as is the case with automation predictions and massive net job destruction, it hasn't happened yet. So it's possible we're wrong about such predictions. We've been wrong in the past about environmental doom and job loss. Or maybe not this time, but we should keep that in mind and be a little bit skeptical about our current state of knowledge when predicting the future. It would be one thing if the trend was clearly toward things getting worse because of climate change. But it's not so far.
- Aeolun 8y ago
  Anecdotally, I’ve seen more climate related disasters in the past year than in the previous 5 before that.
  - deleted 8y ago
    [deleted]
- thiagoharry 8y ago
  We also have been wrong in the past about the end of poverty and the gap between countries. These predictions usually focus just in technology improvements, ignoring politics, both internal as international.
- sgift 8y ago
  > It would be one thing if the trend was clearly toward things getting worse because of climate change. But it's not so far. Someone tell Fiji, I'm sure they will be happy to hear that: https://unfccc.int/news/how-fiji-is-impacted-by-climate-change https://unfccc.int/news/how-fiji-is-impacted-by-climate-chan... https://www.salon.com/2012/09/19/first_village_relocated_due_to_climate_change/ https://www.salon.com/2012/09/19/first_village_relocated_due...

pizza234 8y ago

> Those poor countries are improving faster than Sweden ever did... so in just one more lifetime they'll be where the world leaders are today. This is a very simplistic extrapolation. There are significant factors, primarily social/cultural ones, that will halt the relative development of those countries, sooner or later.

pas 8y ago
Why? What are those? Could you please explain this argument?
grecy 8y ago
> primarily social/cultural ones, that will halt the relative development of those countries, sooner or later. Hans addresses this in the book, actually. What you said has no basis in fact, and makes no sense. Do you think people said exactly the same thing about Sweden a generation ago? Why / why not? We in the West have this completely-made-up assumption that "they" can't develop like "we" did, with absolutely no grounding in fact.
- megous 8y ago
  > We in the West have this completely-made-up assumption that "they" can't develop like "we" did, with absolutely no grounding in fact. They can. But "we" developed in a very turbulent and deadly ways. Just handful of decades ago, during WWI and WWII, "we" were killing millions of people, helping spread massive disease outbreaks that killed other millions in just a few years, created economy destroying monetary and isolationist policies, impoverished millions, destroyed advanced industrialized countries in the middle of Europe with communism, were colonizing, destabilizing and exploiting natural resources of other countries, etc. We're still humans, and all this is still possible to repeat. And developing "like we did", is not necessarily something great or positive. It can mean pretty much anything, unless you cherry-pick baselessly.
  - kiliantics 8y ago
    This is absolutely right. The wealth in the West was largely gained through colonialist/imperialist means. Developing countries don't have this option.

igravious 8y ago

Enlightenment Now was easily Pinker's worst book. It took the counter-intuitive theme ("hey, things are not so bad when you look at the data") of Better Angels of Our Nature – which is a great book – and ran with it. Enlightenment Now is really two books: the first part deals with (chapter by chapter) a successive list of indicators of human progress. It's second part deals with the philosophical reasons behind human progress, what collectively are called enlightenment ideals. Let's put to one side the second part of the book which is some of the worst material Pinker has put down on paper – not in terms of style of course, he writes like an angel, but in terms of philosophical content. What struck me about the first part was where he deals with inequality. It is demonstrably true using Pinker's own metrics and datasets that economic progress is not distributed evenly. To put it very simply the data shows that the middle class is becoming hollowed out in the developed world. Where is that wealth flowing to? The rich in the developed world and the poor in the developing world. The argument goes like this: because the number of very poor and poor that are being lifted out of poverty in the developing world outnumbers the middle class that are losing their wealth in the developed world, then the current system is great because smaller overall numbers are better. QED. You can attack this position from two angles. First, as Jason Hickel does by saying that the way poverty has been and is being measured is broken in some way. Second, in a way that is more compelling which is this: that the global and regional and national growth in wealth ought to be more evenly distributed. The current distribution is fundamentally and deliberately skewed. That would be the tack I would take. I would say, why do there have to be losers? And isn't this what Brexit in the UK, the Yellow Vests in France, and the election of Trump in the US demonstrate? It shows that many feel squeezed and left behind. This was the first time I felt like saying to Pinker, "Well, look at you, a successful author in a developed country – do you not care about how your average countryman is doing?" Extreme and rising inequality is bad in and of itself. We know this because historically and in the present day when societies are more equal the knock on effects are felt in every sector of society. There's a reason people point to the Nordic model, they're not pulling this stuff out of their butts you know. To Hickel's argument I would say this. Pinker is correct that where one draws the line of absolute poverty is irrelevant because the data shows that no matter where one draws the line (at that level of things) the numbers show poverty (at the global level, for the poorest of the poor) is decreasing. I think Hickel is correct in pointing out that all rich countries have protected their economies and continue to protect their domestic economies, Hickel lists a number of authors who pointed this out to which I would add How Rich Countries Got Rich and Why Poor Countries Stay Poor by Erik S Reinert. But that doesn't refute the data, it just refutes Pinker's ideology. People like Hickel are basically anti-capitalist which for me is a non-starter. I'm opened to being proved otherwise. Don't get me wrong: crony capitalism can be critiqued, as can the excesses of capitalism – but I think people like Hickel would criticise capitalism itself which as I say for me doesn't fly. On the other hand people like Pinker either don't see or choose to downplay the ills of neoliberal globalist unfettered capitalism. What bugs me about Hickel's take is that it feels like he's suggesting we can either have capitalism or public education, that we can have capitalism or public health programs. And so on. I don't think Pinker would be against such systems. All the most successful nations show that capitalism and some socialist policy can work hand-in-hand very well indeed. This is the debate we need to have I think, and urgently before skyrocketing inequality leads to violent social unrest and God knows who'll get into power then and God knows what cuckoo ideology they'll have. The wealthy have rigged the system in their favour. By the wealthy I mean, wealthy individual humans and wealthy corporations. We've allowed it to happen and now it must be addressed. People like Hickel are awful. They rail against everything, scream that we're destroying the Earth (hint: we're not), and their proposed solutions are either socialist programs mostly _everybody_ agrees with and are implemented in _most_ nations or anti-growth solutions which are in a word 'bonkers'. Be very suspicious of people who say we're doing nothing right and who have a fundamentally pessimist view about humanity's growth.

blub 8y ago

Rosling, Gates etc are right that things are overall getting better. The rich are getting richer and the very poor are also doing better, but this is coming at the cost of the middle class in Western Europe and the US, where the average couple of working adults can no longer afford to buy a home and have to live with the fact that their jobs are significantly less stable compared to the past. Many are forced to work part time or take on gigs to make ends meet. I could go on, but something's clearly rotten in the west.

kiba 8y ago
Why is "affording to be able to buy a home" should be our definition of living standard. It seemed to me that we have chosen to increase the cost of living by spreading ourselves out and requiring cars and making homes investments.
- blub 8y ago
  Home and land ownership has been one of the main ways that the working class can accumulate wealth. It's the average man's tried and true method of investing.
  - Symmetry 8y ago
    Is that actually true? I mean, it was true in the US in the middle of the 20th century but it seems at odds with what I know of conditions elsewhere, though I'm not an expert.
    - igravious 8y ago
      Yes it's actually true. It's more that the counter-position broadly applied over the long run is untenable. If you don't own the home you live in and/or the land it stands on then you are by definition renting that property. A portion of your labour is going straight to someone who owns at least one home and some land thus depending on how long this goes on for drives inequality. It's not called “Rentier Capitalism” for nothing you know: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rentier_capitalism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rentier_capitalism If people have a decent chance to own their own home and land it gives them an avenue to a better life, if they don't it doesn't.

porpoisely 8y ago

That argument is both true and deceiving at the same time. The poorest countries are improving the most because they are so far behind everyone else that any improvement is spectacular when viewed as a percentage. Take a homeless person who has a penny to his name. You give him $100 and his wealth skyrockets by 1000000% in a day. Compare that to bill gates whose wealth probably increases by a "measly" 10% per year. But if you look at the wealth increase by absolute numbers rather than percentages, the picture is quite different. Bill Gates' 10% probably gets him $10 billion while the homeless man's 1000000% gets him $100. $10 billion vs $100. 10% vs 1000000%. Whereas the mainstream media may be too pessimistic, rosling is even more optimistic. The idea that the poorest countries ( like CAR ) is going to lead the world is unrealistic barring some apocalyptic event in the US, Europe, East Asia, Middle East.

RealityVoid 8y ago
> The idea that the poorest countries ( like CAR ) is going to lead the world is unrealistic barring some apocalyptic event in the US, Europe, East Asia, Middle East. I don't think that OP was arguing that will happen. He was just arguing that growth is happening and they are catching up.
grecy 8y ago
> The idea that the poorest countries ( like CAR ) is going to lead the world is unrealistic barring some apocalyptic event in the US, Europe, East Asia, Middle East. That's not at all what I said. What I meant was that Sweden (and every developed country) improved in one generation from where CAR is today to where Sweden is today. CAR is currently improving faster than Sweden ever did, so it's probably that in one generation CAR will be where Sweden is today. Of course, Sweden will probably improve in that same generation.
- drinfinity 8y ago
  > CAR is currently improving faster than Sweden ever did, so it's probably that in one generation CAR will be where Sweden is today. Yeah... that's not how it works. Yesterday you had zero wifes. Today, on your wedding you have 1. Thus, just plotting the trend, tomorrow you have 2. You'll soon have dozens. https://xkcd.com/605 https://xkcd.com/605

cc439 8y ago

>In only his lifetime Sweden went from having an infant mortality rate similar to that of the poorest countries today, to being one of the world leaders. This simply isn't true. Between 1900 and 1905, Sweden's infant mortality rate was merely 2.3 per 1,000 live births [1] which is basically the same as they currently report (2.6 per 1,000 [2]) according to the CIA world factbook. Compare that with Lesotho's rate of 46.1 per 1,000 [2] and it's plain to aee that comparison is completely unfounded. Today's poorest countries have rates in the 60-80 range despite the best efforts of the Western world to share the basic knowledge which caused such a precipitous decline in infant mortality post-1850 with those nations. [1]: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1448444/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1448444/ [2]: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_infant_and_under-five_mortality_rates https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_infant_...

zeroname 8y ago
> This simply isn't true. Between 1900 and 1905, Sweden's infant mortality rate was merely 2.3 per 1,000 live births [1] which is basically the same as they currently report (2.6 per 1,000 [2]) You're mixing up maternal mortality (the mother dies) with infant mortality (the child dies). It would be quite remarkable indeed if somehow medicine in Sweden today achieved a slightly worse infant mortality than at the beginning of the previous century.
- cc439 8y ago
  Well I'm stupid, I'll delete the comment until I can find a good source.

throwaway47861 8y ago

How is anything you said related to the points defended -- and others debunked by -- by the article? It was mostly talking about the amount per day needed to have proper nutrition. Why do you shift the goalposts to abstract terms like "it's improving faster"? Sure, if you are on the rock bottom, it's only up from there on, and obviously you want to go faster when distancing yourself from the bottom. Zero relevance to the article.

Balgair 8y ago

A repost of an old comment of mine with some good sources of the late Dr. Rosling's: Factfulness is available, for free, here: http://www.factfulness.science/ http://www.factfulness.science/ The late Dr. Rosling's website is fantastic and a good example of easy to use GUIs for data science. Play around with the data yourself here: https://www.gapminder.org/tools/#$state$time$value=2018;;&chart-type=bubbles https://www.gapminder.org/tools/#$state$time$value=2018;;&ch... Try taking the quiz here to see if you are smarter than a chimp: http://factfulnessquiz.com/ http://factfulnessquiz.com/ I'd encourage everyone to read Factfulness. It's fairly quick to churn through and very enlightening. The world really is getting better.

justfor1comment 8y ago
Thanks for the good read. Very insightful book. I am not from a developed country but still had the same misconceptions that the author wanted to highlight. I think most people from developing countries also think the developed countries are way ahead of them and their home country is only getting worst.