Emotions Trump Logic

Faith is harder to shake than knowledge. Love is harder to change than respect. Hatred is more durable than judgement. The driving force behind most great social/political changes is not scientific knowledge but a mythos-driven fanaticism that animates the masses and stirs souls.

— Sherry (@SchrodingrsBrat) September 4, 2023

This post was a breath of fresh air in my feed, which is usually filled with techno-optimists who tend to believe that facts change people's minds, or call forth some semblance of reason in others. Unfortunately, much as I'd like to, they don't. Combined with the fact that we're all inhabiting our own realities and bubbles, facts are now mere opinions, rather than ways of describing or talking about reality for some people.

If there's one thing I am grateful for, it's to have had a stint around advertising and marketing before fully becoming a product manager and engineer. One of the most useful lessons it can teach (apart from the fact that it's healthier to assume that nobody cares about your product or message) is that in most cases, you should try really hard to make people feel something. Stories, rather than facts tend to make people feel things, especially when their or their group identity is called into question.