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Ask HN: Are there "story-based" and "fact-based" people?

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Re: Ask HN: Are there "story-based" and "fact-based" people?

#21

Post by BoiledCabbage »

leftcenterright wrote: post #11

It sure does ring true. I think fact-based more or less overlaps with unbiased and open-mindedness while the other category is more on the side of having certain mental biases either as a result of personal experience or ideology, for this category new evidence and facts do not make much of a difference unless they are too big and readily perceivable.

> I think fact-based more or less overlaps with unbiased and open-mindednes

Which is exactly the story that some people like to tell themselves but is completely wrong. People who think of themselves as "fact based contrary to most others" often are extremely rigid in stories and on top of it extremely blind to them because they view themselves as "fact based and unbiased".

None of you are Data or Spock. The sooner you come to accept that you are human and that comes along with all the human biases the better off you'll be - because then you can start to manage them.

Re: Ask HN: Are there "story-based" and "fact-based" people?

#22

Post by aristofun »

Humans are infinitely-dimensional creatures.

If the dimension you point out works for you - great, use it.

But keep in mind that people are fluid and also are heavily context dependent beings.

There is no real that vs that people. All of these are nothing but oversimplified models, with extremely narrow areas of applicability (at best).

For example, in some contexts I can be very arrogant and inconsiderate because "i know the truth" or just on another level with audience and don't bother spending time laying out all the steps (the narrative) that lead to the "right" answer. At the same time I can be very story/feelings oriented in others (like acting, where i'am just an amateur or psychology, which is by the nature is not very fact oriented matter).

Re: Ask HN: Are there "story-based" and "fact-based" people?

#24

Post by aeze »

The way I've viewed something similar is top-down vs bottom-up thinkers.

top-down

- makes decisions based on intuition, rationalizes them afterwards if necessary

- quick reactions to new information

- more flexible (sometimes inconsistent) beliefs

- faster to adopt new ideas that align with their feelings, but also more resistant to ideas that they don't like

bottom-up

- systems based reasoning

- builds internal frameworks around ideas

- consistency is paramount

- slower reactions to new information

- can be seen to have more "unique" thoughts or insights through drawing parallels in their internally developed frameworks

- can be more rigid when it comes to new ideas, but not stubborn. it either fits into their frameworks or it doesn't

I'd say it's a spectrum, but people tend to significantly favor one way or another in my experience. I feel like top-down thinkers would be much more likely to be story-based, and bottom-up fact-based.

Re: Ask HN: Are there "story-based" and "fact-based" people?

#25

Post by rawgabbit »

I believe what you are describing is more of roles people play. The role of a leader/visionary/sales and the role of an engineer/execution/support.

The leader is trying to sell his ideas by presenting a neat concise story. Think Elizabeth Holmes' story of her uncle hating getting his blood drawn and how he died or something? The details are irrelevant because the story is emotional and intended to pull your heart strings. If you raise objections, you are seen as non-believer. A heretic who must be purged.

The engineer is tasked with implementing the leader's vision. This is where reality throws a thousand wrenches into well laid plans and deadlines & story points multiply exponentially because there are a hundred edge cases. Or maybe it just doesn't work in the case of Theranos' Edison machine. A battle-scarred engineer sees all the things that can go wrong because he's been there and done that. Should you raise concerns as an engineer? Yes, but realize the executive's response maybe to stonewall and refuse to listen.

Re: Ask HN: Are there "story-based" and "fact-based" people?

#26

Post by MrLeap »

Remember we're all a co-emergent phenomena. Nobody is ever one thing, we're all affecting and affected by each other simultaneously all the time.

I think you're very near to understanding one of the core uses of story telling. Story telling can be a method of data compression, both cognitively and for transfering ideas to other people. The bitrate of our language is much lower than that of our imaginations. We use tricks to span the gap.

"The heroes journey" can be wielded the same way as a binary tree. They're both data structures for representing abstractions. You need a fuzzier data structure to encode our fuzzy reality.

I suspect if you and I worked together, you'd bring the storyteller out of me. Course details and dotted outlines are the matte and canvas for fine detail.

When I work with grand storytellers, it brings out my inner architect. Some people have strong psychic gravity, others aggressively fill vacuums. We all do a little of both and at different amounts depending on where we are in space and time.

Re: Ask HN: Are there "story-based" and "fact-based" people?

#27

Post by ahazred8ta »

jonahbenton wrote: post #3

Sure, as a mental model- it's wrong but has value when it comes to communicating effectively to an audience. Specialist communication within a domain implies a shared narrative and context, so can focus on granular details (facts). Generalist communication across domains and up or down the status hierarchy always requires storytelling, to establish context, before presenting any facts. So people themselves have to do…

There's an essay on detail cultue versus fuzzy big picture culture; it comes down to a difference between narrative word-based comprehension versus web-of-facts. Lawyers versus engineers. Rhetoric versus logic. https://www.someweekendreading.blog/math-illiterate-rulers/

Related to "Let justice be done though the heavens fall" (Fiat justitia ruat caelum) versus "We're not going to acknowledge this because we don't like the outcome; we don't want to live in a world where X is true, so therefore it's not true."

Re: Ask HN: Are there "story-based" and "fact-based" people?

#28

Post by mherkender »

I think you are categorizing people's peferred methods of persuasion. There are traditionally three ways to persuade someone -- logic, emotion and authority.

Ultimately people weigh each method differently. I think you are pidgeonholing them into two categories.

I think that's unwise, since it hurts the potential for you to grow your "EQ", so to speak.

Re: Ask HN: Are there "story-based" and "fact-based" people?

#29

Post by irvingprime »

It's an interesting model but in practice I don't think anyone is really all one way or all the other. A better way to approach it might be to find out which narratives are most important to someone and how far they'll go to protect them.

In the end, being a fact-based person might just be a narrative you hold about yourself.

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