AUG 27 RESPONSE TO HANS ROSLING’S TED TALK

Ziyue Feng

This is not my first time to watch Hans Rosling’s Ted Talk and I consider him an optimist. He knows that we live in a world far from ideals and facing numerous challenges and problems. Nonetheless, unlike others, he has focused on the process, the effort people already made and the trend of human developing rather than the ultimate results we are still far away from. I think Hans Rosling gave us a great lesson in this video, by attempting to disclose the fact that preconceived ideas seem to dominate people’s perception of world development. The great change in various part of the world has gradually shorten the gap between “we” and” them”. Even I am from China and fortunately witness the supersonic progress of Chinese economy and society, I never expect we are so close to developed western countries in terms of living standard, infrastructure, social insurance and most importantly, people’s perception and ideas. Moreover, I personally have no idea about other developing countries, where people live a much better life than I expect. Those original third world countries have already stepped into emerging economies and started to catch up with western leaders.

What makes me and other individuals have a wrong perception about them is not prejudice. The key is that we failed to acquire up-to-date data and information. I think this reveals two important ideas of using data science to analyze global development. The “freshness” of data is significantly meaningful. We live in dynamic world nowadays where innovations and changes happen every day. We need to and ought to obtain the latest data and information, otherwise our view and perception will be trapped in history, just like those Swedish students and professors mentioned in Hans’ speech. Another idea of data is exposure. There is a need for the public to have a sketchy but correct understanding about the development of this world. People will be easily affected and persuaded by pessimistic speech or views such as “the environmental problem or social inequality has already been incurable”, if they lack knowledge or basic ideas about it. Data shows the deficiency and shortcoming of our society, but also it illustrates people’s effort tackling these problems and the existence of social improvement. This encourages us to live for future.

Rosling, H. (2020). The best stats you’ve ever seen. Ted.com. Retrieved 25 August 2020, from https://www.ted.com/talks/hans_rosling_the_best_stats_you_ve_ever_seen?language=en.