With a high probability, if you ask a number of questions about the current state of the world, poverty, inequality and health problems, you will cope worse than chimpanzees, which, as true, will celebrate random answers. Hans Roading clearly shows this. But this is by no means just unpleasant knowledge. A world health specialist, founder of the Swedish branch of "doctors without borders", creator of the project GapminderHans Ratering gives the reader a way out of the world of delusions. His book “Factologism”, published shortly before his death, is the result of many years of work and observations of how a person perceives the world around him.
Excerpt for familiarization
Why do children survive more, and there are fewer people
If you add the indicators of all parents from the second, third and fourth levels, whatever their religion (and even if they do not consider themselves to be any religion at all), on average they will have two children. Without jokes! And this is given the population of Iran, Mexico, India, Tunisia, Bangladesh, Brazil, Turkey, Indonesia and Sri Lanka, not to mention other countries.
The poorest 10 percent of families still have an average of five children. Every second family living in poverty loses on average one child until he reaches the age of five. This indicator is shamefully high, but still demonstrates a significant improvement in comparison with terrible numbers that restrained the population growth in the past.
Hearing that the population is growing, people intuitively assume that it will continue to grow if you do not take the necessary measures. They represent how the trend remains in the future. But do not forget that you do not need to take any exceptional measures so that my grandson Mino stops growing.
Melinda Gates, together with her husband Bill, leads a charitable foundation. They spend millions of dollars to save the lives of millions of children who live in poverty. To do this, they invest in primary health care and primary education. Nevertheless, smart, fulfilled good intentions, people call on the fund to stop work every now and then. Their argument is as follows: "Continuing to save the poor children, you will kill the planet overpopulation."
I also heard this argument after some of my speeches. It was brought by people who sincerely want to preserve the planet for future generations. It seems intuitively true. If more children survive, the population is simply growing. Right? No! Absolutely incorrect.
Parents living in poverty give birth to a lot of children for the reasons that I have listed above: they need children's labor, as well as insurance in case some of the children will die. In countries with the highest level of child mortality, such as Somalia, Chad, Mali and Niger, women give birth to the most children - from five to eight. As soon as children begin to survive, their work ceases to be needed, and women get education, information about contraception methods and access to contraceptives, in all cultures and religions, men and women begin to dream of a fewer better educated children.
The statement “Salvation of poor children simply increases the population” seems true, but in fact everything is different. The population is growing while the exit from poverty is delayed. Each next generation living in poverty produces an even greater generation. The only reliable way to restrain the growth of the population is to eliminate poverty and give people the opportunity to live better, including opening access to education and contraceptive means. In this case, parents themselves decide to have fewer children. Such a transformation occurs around the world, but it always requires a decrease in the level of child mortality.
“Factologism” is a set of effective thinking tools that allow you to perceive the world in all its complexity and completeness, without depressing and news panic. Without simplifying and not turning away from problems, but not dramatizing reality, and understanding what exactly the information stress is caused and how to fight it. Ralling describes in detail traps, which practically inevitably gets our mind, and tells how the level of poverty, birth rate and mortality actually changes.
Since the first edition in the book, only one short fragment has been statistically outdated, and it will remain relevant for many years. Including, because it is not only devoted to a person, but is called to help him live in practice, relying on reliable knowledge.
