I’ve been caught out, exposed, hung out to dry!
I confess to my failing and am red-faced. I can hear you asking me what this is all about. Well, my husband asked me three quiz questions on worldwide topics. Each question had multiple-choice answers but I still managed to answer each one incorrectly. I was ignorant of the facts. Now I know you would have known the answers to these global questions. Try them.
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1. Women aged 30 spent how many years in school?
(Men of the same age spent 8 years)
a. 7 years b. 5 years c. 3 years
2. What percentage of the world’s one-year old children are vaccinated against measles?
a. 20% b. 50% c. 80%
3. In the last 20 years the percentage of people living in extreme poverty has…?
a. almost doubled. b. remained about the same. c. almost halved.
You can hear the whole talk by Hans Rosling & Ola Rosling: How not to be ignorant about the world from T.E.D. Talks
The answers are provided in the lecture.
When Colin enlightened me with the correct answers I was surprised by my ignorance of reality. Ignorance isn’t bliss.
Ignorance sometimes vies with stupidity for top spot on the silly podium
Coincidentally on the same day as my quiz, my sister shared a story of an incident that took place in a retail store where she works. A sales person was walking through the babywear section of the store and overheard two women talking. One woman spoke loudly and was clearly agitated. She was remarking that the babywear was ‘Halal’. The other woman asked how that could be. The first woman pointed to a baby wrap and almost yelled that the label said ‘Muslim’. They were both disgusted that the store would stock ‘Muslim’ baby wraps and swore they would never buy them. These women didn’t know the meaning of ‘Halal’ and they didn’t know that baby wraps are made from muslin and have been made from M.U.S.L.I.N. (a cotton product) since the time of Moses. I was torn between laughing my head off and scared at what damage mob ignorance could do. Ignorance isn’t bliss.