Re:Epic, Spotify, and Tinder form advocacy group to push for...
by munificent on Thursday September 24, 2020 @03:40PM
(#24582659)
I think what you're noting is that analogies are powerful tools. They can create a deep visceral association between A nd B that strongly affects how someone feels about B based on their existing feelings about A.
Like any powerful tool, it can be misused. But it can also do great good when used well. We live in a world surrounded by fiendishly complex systems with layers of abstractions and deep chains of emergent phenomena. Our primate brains aren't geared to process the consequences of our actions in a space that far removed from the forests where we evolved.
Analogies are one of the best tools I know to let us do that. But we do have to be careful about which analogies we choose to believe.
I think that's where the danger lies. In the end we are not explaining much, just passing a vision of the issue in terms of good/bad/meh depending on the analogy we choose.
That's also how we convince people a lot of stuff is just "against freedom", or "big <xxxx> acting selfishly" etc.
As you say it accomplishes something, people take a position very quickly. But is it a good thing ? I'm torn.