Simulated Emotion

The minor simulation proved to be quite the stimulating experience. It led us down paths of thoughts hitherto unexplored. New ground was charted and our skills as mind cartographers were heightened. However, I feel what impacted me the most was how appealing to emotion was far more effective than using reason to prove our point.The video my group (The Sierra Club) put forward several firmly grounded and solid arguments. While we did use hyperbole to stretch the horrible effects repealing the tariff would provoke, our video was basically just one long argument. However, I found that the groups that used music and incredibly tropic video to support their case to be far more persuasive. The Foreign Auto Manufacturers particularly impressed me with their video. It expressed several arguments that had merit on the surface but would never stand up to a decent rebuttal. For example, they talked at length how they are bringing jobs into the US, and because removing the tariffs would save them money, they could therefore bring in more jobs. However, they failed to recognize that the only they are bringing jobs to the US is because of the tariffs. But it didn’t matter. That was the beauty of it. Due to how wonderfully edited and put together their video was the arguments in it seemed to express some sort of metaphysical depth that transcended all logic. How could one argue against such banal, tropic, yet heartwarming music placed over such recycled video of hard working and ironically all-American folks? It was impossible. Thankfully they spoke afterwards which helped to dispel the charms they had clocked us with. As a side note, I found it amazing that no one in the other group for the tariffs brought up the point that removing them would violate NAFTA.>That seems like a somewhat essential point and I wish that I had stressed it more.