• The world has changed and has been going in a positive direction throughout the years- the living conditions, world income distribution, access to public health, women education and electricity have improved globally.
• We as human beings seem ignorant in terms of every kind of deviation from what we already know, so we pick on differences rather than picking up on similarities. We are splitting people into “us” and “them” even though most people worldwide live in a similar way [to each other], including living conditions and socioeconomic status.
• Due to technological and scientific milestones, we have progressed drastically. However, we act like we didn’t know we could compare our level of development, world income distribution, access to electricity, education, or vaccination, to the level of access available back in the day.

This book is recommended to everyone regardless of education, nationality, or religion. Every person can relate to and find plenty of useful and factful information about how to perceive the world around us.

• We seem ignorant when interacting with people representing different cultures. Even though we have all the data necessary to confirm that while traditions and culture may vary, the essential needs and expectations of people may overlap.
• We are not the best at filtering the information we receive, because we are subjected to never-ending reports of negative news. We tend to assume the worst outcome because it is uncommon to report anything neutral and drama-free. 
• There are four levels of income worldwide instead of two which we call “poor,” and “rich,” however, we tend to divide people into such groups because of assumptions, ignorance, or outdated data.
• There are specific instincts that are the reason for our distorted perspective, such as the fear instinct, the urgency instinct, the gap instinct, the negativity instinct, and the blame instinct, f ex: We have an instinct to find someone to blame for our failures and external conditions instead of taking ownership.
• We tend to stand by our opinions and beliefs regardless of the facts.

1. The Gap Instinct – It is a very strong instinct toward binary thinking of dividing things into distinct groups with nothing but an empty gap in between. This is why we divide things into good or bad or “my country” versus the rest of the world. As if there were only those two completely opposite options available.

How to control it? Understand that we should look for the majority rather than extremes because the majority is in the middle and the gap is probably not there at all.

2. The Negativity Instinct – Today we witness a typical way of communication worldwide being focused on reporting horrifying, dramatic news which is supposed to play on our emotions. Good news and daily, neutral stories that millions of people experience everyday, are not being reported, because no one would find them interesting to follow.

How to control it? Realize that it is thanks to technology development we get a chance to hear about these reports. Before, there were more crimes or deaths caused by natural disasters, however, we did not hear about them – now there are fewer of them, which means the situation is better than before. To put it into perspective, good news about thousands of airplanes landing everyday is no news, but it is that one tragic incident which is reported by the media.

3. The Straight Line Instinct – There is a perfect example given by the author, to quote: When people hear that the population is growing,they intuitively think it will continue to grow unless something is done.  This is not true. 

How to control it? Realize that the trends may not follow growth with straight lines, they can be curvy, slides or S-lines. As Rosling puts it into perspective: A kid doesn’t continue growing as much as during the 1st year of its life, so doesn’t the global trends!

4. The Fear Instinct –  We all have a tool called Attention Filter which unfortunately notices information which triggers our fear instinct to kick in. This leads to prejudice that the world we live in is a terrible, scary place, full of overwhelming events we can’t control. Back in the day our fear had helped us survive, but today there is  no point in being scared of a wild animal attacking and killing you when walking down the street, unless you live on the 1st level of income.

How to control it? We need to analyze whether the fear comes from our exposure to a real danger, or if it’s rather caused by a dramatic news report.

5. The Size Instinct – Big numbers always look big as Rosling said. Single numbers on their own are misleading and can mean something different than they seem. 

How to control it? We should look for comparisons of numbers over the years and across various groups and places to get a clear picture of a situation.

6. The Generalization Instinct – It is common to make assumptions based on single numbers taken out of context. It is also common to generalize different nationalities which leads to stereotypes. 

How to control it? The majority in this context can be misleading, because it can both mean 51% as well as 99% which is a tremendous difference when making a conclusion. 

Generalizing that people from different countries are living in a different way, have different needs, expectations or standards of life, is also wrong and makes us jump to conclusions.

7. The Destiny Instinct – We tend to have prejudice or make assumptions that certain societies are meant to live in a certain way. As if we did not notice the change over time and we just “went along” with the conclusion we made that “it’s meant to be and it won’t ever change”.

How to control it? Societies and cultures are in constant movement, they change very slowly, therefore we should avoid making assumptions that things don’t change and they’re not meant to be, because they do. You can collect data and compare it over decades.

8. The Single Perspective Instinct – We like to cling to our perspective and opinions looking for examples to prove it. Instead, we should be looking for contrary examples or arguments to test whether our point of view may change.

How to control it? Stay open-minded and be curious to gain knowledge from new sources.

9. The Blame Instinct – We tend to look for someone or something to blame which leads us to a distorted perspective of reality. We often place blame to confirm and stand by what we already believe in.

How to control it? Instead of blaming everyone around us, we should be ready to take ownership of our mistakes, unpraparation or failures first. 

10. The Urgency Instinct – When we receive a message to make a decision now, becuase it’s now or never, we are under sudden pressure. Being under stress doesn’t make us think clearly. When we make decisions rapidly they might be unreasonable.

How to control it? As Rosling suggested – take a deep breath and cool down a bit. If it isn’t a life threathning event, you probably don’t have to make a decision right away!