Better

(cont'd)  Spoiler alert: if you didn't start the talk by Hans Rosling in yesterday's post and answer the 3 quick survey questions at the beginning, do it now before reading further

Hans started "Gapminder" to help people develop a view of the world that is based on facts, that is, information that represents reality.  I think it's a worthy labor. As he says in the talk, we need "to know about the present" in order to think clearly about the future. 

There's good news that should be told. About a billion people have risen out of abject poverty over the last ~30 years. Why don't people know it? Maybe because they get their news from the world of entertainment (you know the standard, "if it bleeds it leads").

We discover that, contrary to conventional wisdom,  most girls in the world are educated, natural disasters kill far fewer people, and there are far fewer in desperate poverty today than just a few years ago.

Perhaps the reporting of news is somewhat agenda-driven. Maybe it serves some ideology to emphasize the bad news and under-report the improvements, the good news.

(cont'd tomorrow)