Factfulness

01Why We Love Dividing The World

Human beings possess a deep-seated, almost biological urge to divide all kinds of things into two distinct, often conflicting groups. We see this everywhere in our daily lives, from the way we categorize good versus evil in the movies we watch, to how we fiercely align ourselves with one political party over another. When it comes to looking at the globe, this psychological habit manifests as the "Gap Instinct," which leads us to inaccurately slice humanity into two misleading categories: the rich and the poor, the developed and the developing, or simply "us" versus "them." The authors point out that if you ask most people about the state of the world, they will confidently describe an insurmountable chasm between the wealthy, modern West and the destitute, struggling rest of the planet. They picture a small group of people living in absolute luxury, while the vast majority of the human race starves in the dirt. However, the data tells a completely different and overwhelmingly positive story. The reality is that the world has fundamentally changed over the past few decades, and the so-called gap between the rich and the poor is actually a massive, bustling middle class. The binary concept of "developing" and "developed" countries is entirely obsolete, yet we continue to use these labels because our brains find binary divisions comfortable and easy to process. To cure ourselves of this incredibly limiting worldview, the book proposes a completely new framework for understanding global wealth. Instead of two categories, we must begin to view the world through the lens of four distinct income levels. Let us take a detailed stroll through these four levels to truly grasp how humanity lives today. Level 1 represents extreme poverty, where people survive on less than two dollars a day. If you are on Level 1, your life is a constant, grueling struggle for basic survival. You walk miles every single day barefoot just to fetch water in a dirty plastic bucket. Your food consists of the exact same meager porridge every single night, and if anyone in your family gets sick, you cannot afford antibiotics, meaning a simple infection could be a death sentence. For thousands of years, almost all of humanity lived exactly like this. Today, however, only about one billion people remain on Level 1. Moving up, we find Level 2, where people earn between two and eight dollars a day. This might not sound like a lot of money, but the leap in the quality of life is absolutely astronomical. Here, you can afford to buy a bicycle, which means you can travel to the local market much faster and bring back more goods to sell. You sleep on a mattress instead of the hard dirt floor. Your children get to attend primary school, and you can occasionally afford medicine when illness strikes. Roughly three billion people currently live their lives on this level. Next is Level 3, where incomes range from eight to thirty-two dollars a day. Life here begins to look much more recognizable to the modern eye. You have access to a cold-water tap right inside your home, meaning nobody has to spend hours fetching water anymore. You own a motorcycle, which vastly expands your employment opportunities. Your diet is rich and varied, your children complete high school, and you might even take a modest family vacation once a year to a nearby beach or city. Another two billion people call this level home. Finally, we reach Level 4, where people earn more than thirty-two dollars a day. This is the level where you have a car, hot and cold running water, access to advanced medical care, and the ability to fly on an airplane for a holiday. You have a washing machine to do your laundry, saving you countless hours of manual labor. About one billion people, including the vast majority of people reading this summary, live on Level 4. When you lay out the data in this four-level framework, the illusion of the gap completely shatters. You quickly realize that the overwhelming majority of humanity—roughly five billion people—lives right in the middle, on Levels 2 and 3. They are not starving, nor are they driving luxury sports cars. They are simply working hard, slowly improving their lives, sending their children to school, and buying their first refrigerators. To overcome the Gap Instinct in your own life, you must actively train yourself to look for the majority. Whenever you hear a news report or read an article that tries to pit two extremes against each other, pause and ask yourself where the middle ground lies. The extremes are always the loudest and the most visually dramatic, which is why the media loves to highlight them. But the true story of humanity, and the place where the most profound progress is quietly happening every single day, is right there in the massive, invisible middle.