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How not to be ignorant about the world | Hans and Ola Rosling

TED

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  • Recommended by 5 people: 5 on Hacker News.
  • A classic. People kept recommending it from 2015 to 2023.
  • Presented by Hans and Ola Rosling, Gapminder

Beginner. No background in the topic needed.

3.1M views12 years ago5 recommendations

Computer scienceDatabases and dataData visualizationMath for programmers

Hans and Ola Rosling use global population, health, and income data to demonstrate widespread misconceptions about the state of the world.

How much do you know about the world? Hans Rosling, with his famous charts of global population, health and income data (and an extra-extra-long pointer), demonstrates that you have a high statistical chance of being quite wrong about what you think you know. Play along with his audience quiz — then, from Hans’ son Ola, learn 4 ways to quickly get less ignorant. TEDTalks is a daily video podcast of the best talks and performances from the TED Conference, where the world's leading thinkers and doers give the talk of their lives in 18 minutes (or less). Look for talks on Technology, Entertainment and Design -- plus science, business, global issues, the arts and much more. Find closed captions and translated subtitles in many languages at ted.com/translate Follow TED news on Twitter: twitter.com/tednews Like TED on Facebook: facebook.com/TED Subscribe to our channel: youtube.com/user/TEDtalksDirector

Why it's here

5 people recommend this

What people say. Highly recommended for its masterclass in data visualization and its optimistic, data-driven perspective on global development.

ptaipaleon Hacker News • Recommends

On “'Extreme poverty' to fall below 10% of world population for first time”

You really should watch this Hans Rosling's TED talk: link to this video It's not misleading. Malnutrition is going down, lack of education is going down, lack of access to healthcare is going down. The more you read the Guardian, the more you have misconceptions about how bad the world is developing.
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Baeocystinon Hacker News • Recommends

On “Nothing can now be believed which is seen in a newspaper (1807)”

Not the person you were responding to, but I learned it from this TED talk: link to this video (Not joking in the least. It's a very good presentation. Title is: How not to be ignorant about the world | Hans and Ola Rosling)
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Baeocystinon Hacker News • Recommends

On “The Microwave Economy”

I'm not sure if capitalism deserves the credit or not, but you are completely correct when you say that life is much, much better now than it was even in the recent past. To those who doubt this: Please watch Hans Rosling's talk first, which I will link below. I promise it is not a waste of your time. link to this video
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sekouon Hacker News • Recommends

On “Is the World Falling Apart? Not at All”

The "How not to be ignorant about the world" ( link to this video ) TED talk by Hans (Rest In Peace) and Ola Rosling covers this topic well. Objectively the world is improving for humanity, however in the West and in "developed" nations it's harder to feel like things are going well.
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NalNezumion Hacker News • Recommends

On “Mean World Syndrome”

Hans Rosling had a talk about this topic1 6 years ago, albeit less about "mean" and more about how "bad" the world was, and more importantly, how bad people thought the world was compared to how it actually is. Not too surprisingly, even media and journalists scored worse than random guessing. So it's hard to point fingers to the viewer getting wrong impression of the world when the information senders themselves can't measure it (or send it) correctly 1 link to this video
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thomashopon Hacker News • Recommends

On “Meta releases New SOTA Text to Music generator better than MusicLM”

Can you provide some sources? Last time I looked into statistics on these topics I found the opposite to be true. The brothers Rosling have a nice talk about how all the big stats are improving globally (gender equality, education, health, extreme poverty, life expectation) link to this video
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dexenon Hacker News • Mentions

On “There is nothing more depressing than “positive news””

While the parent comment is getting downvotes, probably due to the somewhat accusatory form, the facts behind it are universally true: our civilization is improving. If you took several metrics and weighted them by people's concern, you would see a positive trend 1. Any "good news" is a statement of the fact, and should be a duh moment to everybody. Granted, we need the "bad news" too, as certain things still need fixing. However living with a negative impression of the world is living in denial. 1 link to this video
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NalNezumion Hacker News • Mentions

On “Industrial Literacy”

…e core argument such an emotion inducing controversial point that justify almost straw-man-like criticism? edit: I now understand that it seems to be a bit of a politically heated topic. For me, a non-american, I saw similarity in "Industrial Literacy" and what Hans Rosling1 told us a couple of years ago: "Hey, it is not as bad as you think" 1 link to this video…
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