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If we would live on an ideal planet, what exactly happened would be presented in the news by journalists, and relevant backgrounds to make them even more powerful would be provided. However, in our world, grabbing the attention of readers is the job of journalists, and readers want things that are both basic and enthusiastic. Therefore, we face a distorted view of the world - a weak projection of the real world. In the center of our distorted worldview lies the belief that humans in the world live in a world worse than it was before. However, this might not be beyond the truth. In reality, indigence is less seen than any time before, the lifespan of people increased, and sexist and cruel patriarchies run a smaller portion of the world. The global economy that saves people from indigence by increasing their income levels is the reason why favorable alterations happen. In reality, when combined, 91 percent of people in the world are from middle- and high- income countries. When we consider the fact that 85 percent of the people were in indigence just 200 years ago, this is a miracle. From this brief, we can figure out the extent of the advancement that has occurred, and learn the way we can handle the negations to view the world more brightly. Chapter 1 - Mega Misconceptions, such as discrimination of East and West, blocks our bright view of the world. If you would be faced with a question that asks what happened to the level of excessive indigence in the world in the last 20 years, what would be your answer? Would you say it has been doubled, it remained as it is, or it has decreased by half? If you would say that it has decreased by half, you are a rare person in getting the right answer. Only five percent in the United States and only nine percent in the United Kingdom got the right answer - even some of the smartest professionals of today got it wrong. The mega misconceptions and our instincts are the reason why so few people have a correct insight into the world. According to the extent of the distortion of our worldview, some misconceptions can be “mega”. Western people’s mentality of “us- versus- them” (the belief that the West and the East are completely different and opposite of each other) is one of the big mega misconceptions. This can also be called the old idea of discrimination between the “developed world” and the “developing world”. In the lectures of the author, he observed that some of his students were still thinking that the Eastern countries include countries with extreme birth rates and the creation of a modern, “Western” society is impossible because of religion and culture. One of the students of Rosling thought “They can never live like us.”. What constitutes “they”, ”East”, “developing world” is unclear. Are Japan and Mexico City included in “the East”? Is having modern cities still thought to be impossible for China and India? If we look at the child mortality rate worldwide in 1965 - a great measurement of a nation’s well being in the areas of schooling, economy, and health care - 125 countries would be considered as “developing” because more than five percent of the children were dying before the age of five in these countries. Currently, only 13 countries fall into this category. To put it another way, there is no difference between the “West” and “others” anymore. Chapter 2 - Our instinct of negativity serves as a cause in other mega misconceptions. Now, think of the following question: What percent of the girls in low- income countries all around the world graduate from public school? 20 percent? 40 percent? 60 percent? Do you start to guess that the answer is the most positive one? Yes, 60 percent of the girls in low- income countries worldwide graduate from public school. The truth is, the average time spent in school is nine years among all 30- year- old women - only one year less than average that of 30- year- old men worldwide. Through these examples, we can see just a part of the excellent improvement has been accomplished – an improvement that a low number of people are conscious of. What is the reason for these plusses to be unnoticed? The instinct of negativity of us that causes another mega misconception: a gradually deteriorating world. In reality, the world has become a better place according to numbers and facts such as life expectancy, prosperity. However, there is a tendency for us to think of negatives rather than positives. When compared to 1800 in which the indigence rate was 85 percent, currently this rate is 9 percent! This is an excellent improvement, however, the news would not tell about these. News tends more to show topics like catastrophes, murders, or anything depressing that deviates from the else great route of the planet. There was a lower amount of news people could read in the 1980s, and all the world could be destroyed with no news printed. Today, news from all around the world could be reached with a touch and this causes an unprecedented subjection to more negative news for you and any person in the world. This excessive subjection makes people think that the world became more unpleasant compared to twenty years ago. It should be noted that, when there is dead because of a natural disaster, there is also survived the catastrophe that is not written about in the news. In reality, low- income people are more secure than at any time before with the help of new inexpensive building supplies. There is a 25 percent improvement in the percent of deaths because of catastrophes today compared to 100 years ago. Chapter 3 - In addition to straight-line instinct, fear and size instincts are other causes that distort our worldview. When you see a graph with a continuously increasing trend, you tend to believe that this increasing trend will continue forever. Yet, most of the trends do not continue steadily. For example, we grow steadily in our childhood for some time, the trend of our height would be steady at this time, however, our height reaches a top point, and it stops. Thoughts on the world population are also in the same way: The third mega misconception we have is that this number will always increase, although we are near to the top point. UN predictors who work on population increase report that the number of people in the world will remain the same between 2060 and 2100. The main reason among lots of others is that as prosperity increases, the birth rates will decrease. Because of the high number of children’s death, women were giving birth to approximately six children a hundred years ago since children were required in the farms and factories. Today, on average 2.5 children are given birth by women with the help of education, wealth, and birth control. In the year 2060, today’s children will have had their children and the number of people in the world will remain at approximately 11 billion according to the predictions. There is no need to be anxious about an ever-increasing number of people. However, we are anxious. The fear and size instincts cause this anxiety. The motive behind the fear instinct clarifies itself - being scared can save us from dangers. This intuition has evolved in our predecessors in perilous times that people were under the threat of competitor clans and wild animals. In today’s world, since we do not face such dangers, we are likely to mislay our fear and be anxious about the dangers that are not present. On to that, the size instinct of us causes an exaggeration of the threats that are made up of our fear instinct. Think about the fear of severity. More news that contains severity are shown to us than at any time before, and we think there should be further. In reality, the statistics show that violence decreased. Although there were 14.5 million murders recorded in the United States in 1990, in 2016, this number decreased to 9.5 million. Chapter 4 - Humans are inclined to overgeneralize and incorrectly consider some consequences are inevitable.