Did you intend to ask if being story- vs fact-based is story or fact?
I find it fun that you posed this then said you identify as fact-based. This dichotomy is a story (regardless of whether or not it has any basis in fact).
Ask HN: Are there "story-based" and "fact-based" people?
31–34 of 34 posts
Re: Ask HN: Are there "story-based" and "fact-based" people?
#32Sure, 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 lik…
mherkender has a good point about 'people's peferred methods of persuasion'
Re: Ask HN: Are there "story-based" and "fact-based" people?
#33Yes and No.
Yes: There is the idea of constructivism, where everyone constructs their own reality all the time. There is no shared, objective reality. And there are multiple ways to construct a reality, and some are, for example, based on emotion: "I feel it, therefore it must be true"[^1]. And there are reinforcing patterns which protect your reality constructions from falling apart, proofing it against what from other people's perspective would be considered evidence. The most famous protection mechanism is the Confirmation Bias. Another one that is widely spread among conspiracy mystics is Disagreement implies Ignorance: You disagree with me because you're ignorant to the facts. Another one would be Disagreement implies Dislike: You disagree with me because you don't like me, not because I'm wrong. So yeah, what you call "story-based" is from my perspective a class of reality constructions.
But no, it's not about some people being like this, and some people being like that. Everyone constructs their reality all the time, and constructing them in a specific way is a muscle you can train, something that changes over time _and_ something where you can fall into both of your categories at the same time. A famous example would be HALT: Hungry, Angry, Lonely, Tired. People who are any or more of these things tend to create their reality differently without even noticing. If I'm hungry, I'm angry, and I tend to accept things more easily into my world view that justify my being angry, without even being aware of it. Only after a good meal I would be able to change my perspective again.
[^1]: For a fascinating glimpse into many reality construction patterns which are centred around emotions, I recommend this series of texts around a sub-group of parents of estranged children: https://www.issendai.com/psychology/estrangement/
Re: Ask HN: Are there "story-based" and "fact-based" people?
#34It 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 y…
sure, but isn't this also a story with that perspective? I am not Data or Spock but can sure try to question everything and seek provable facts? Extreme bias makes people close their minds and just not consider any facts that do not align with their "story".