How often do you admit you were wrong?
As the title says, how often do you admit you're wrong? Is it different when it's a factual dispute versus something more subjective?
I make an effort to concede early if I'm in error. I think because my mother almost never admits fault. She'll fall back to "that's not what I meant" or similar deflections first, and that's really annoying.
The last big factual error I made was about the distance of walking, and that's where I learned about Taxicab Geometry ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taxicab_geometry ).
I think some people believe admitting fault is a sign of weakness, but I find it's more of a power move. It takes strength to do it, and people can tell when you're sweating and desperate. Usually it leads to resolving the conflict faster and cheaper, too.
(I expect some people will feel the urge to reply they're never wrong. I'll file that under never admits fault.)
103 replies
Early and often. I used to be one of those people who would just never admit if I'm wrong, grew up with them for sure. Learned it's WAY less stressful to just admit the moment you realize you're wrong.
That said, I use devils advocating to figure out what my actual opinions are, so I will argue positions I'm not 100% sure of pretty adamantly. Always seems to throw people when we debate for 20 minutes, me passionately defending my stance and then at the end I'm like "huh, yep. You right." Most people think I'm fucking with them or something and keep trying to argue and I'm just like "yep, 100% agree".
Quite often but I find that if I admit I'm wrong but the other person never does then I stop when im around them.
All the time. People tend not to take it well but that seems their problem.
Also it's one of the things destroying politics.
That's often the previous stop on this train of thought. There are maga people that in their secret heart know they've made a mistake, but they struggle to come to terms with that. Though that also carries the fear of losing all their social bonds and being rejected by the group.
Exactly, it's two sided trained behavior. On one side, no guilt is admitted leading to all downsides of never learning and on the other side there's a ruthless expectation. It can never work.
It doesn't help that any time a politician changes their opinion on something, the other side jumps on them for it and accuses them of flip-flopping. In reality, changing a view when presented with a compelling argument or new information is a good thing but they use it as ammunition to attack each other, so of course everyone just sticks to their guns no matter what...
usually it takes me a while to contemplate what the other person just said and whether they're actually right. sadly by then they're mostly gone so i can't tell them.
We'll find out if I am ever wrong. 😤
I try to express my wrongness in a casual way in front of my child or children in general. I aim for them to take away that it's not a big deal and there is no big stakes in always being right. And if I am right I try to argue facts and attempt to leave personal stakes out of it.
This is something I need to work on, and its more apparent to me after having a conversation with my mother recently.
She said something quite unpleasant to my bf, and when I said how hurtful it was to both of us I was met with her denial, her refusal to see how hurtful it was and it was my fault for being upset, and also that I should just move on and forget about it
If she'd said that it came out wrong, or was sorry to have said something that had landed in a hurtful way etc that's all I/we would have needed
Unfortunately i can see this attitude in myself, in the fact I find it near impossible to apologise for anything
I think my mother has a lot of her own issues around this, and I have my own 'version' because of my issues (my autism, and the fact that she's my mum)
So I'm now going to do my best to rethink my behaviour and do some self reflection...
I really don't want to be like my mother at all
I think this is a big motivator for me. I've seen how aggravating it is when someone refuses to admit fault, continuously reaches for excuses and justifications and lies, rather than just shrug and say "Oh. Seems like you were right." Hell, you don't even have to explicitly say "I was wrong" most of the time.
Every time someone is able to convince me I'm wrong, which is not hard to do, I tend to consider things logically, so empirical evidence that I'm wrong will make me flip immediately. Unfortunately most people use very flawed arguments like trying to appeal to emotions or strawmaning my point (or one of the many fallacious things we all have to deal online). And that will not convince me, in fact it only proves you have absolutely no argument. Which is very unfortunate because I'm wrong quite often, and it only takes one person pointing at actual evidence that I'm wrong to make me realize that, yet the majority of my disagreements online end up at an impasse with the person refusing to find common ground to build the debate up.
One thing I struggle to remember sometimes is someone can make a bad argument, but what they're arguing for can still be true.
I used to work with a guy that would argue with me, and sometimes at the end he'd be like "I actually agree with your point, but I wanted you to be right for solid reasons"
Of course, it's also very common for people to be making bad arguments because they're just feeling stuff, and they're pulling together whatever words come close to capturing that right now.
Yes, bad arguments can be made about true statements, but people need to understand that you won't convince anyone with bad arguments, and that discrediting an argument is not the same as discrediting the statement or attacking the person who made it.
For example, just the other day there was a thread about how pitbulls are supposedly more aggressive than other breeds, but the argument they used was "they're a minority of the population, yet cause the majority of fatalities, therefore they're aggressive", which is a TERRIBLE argument that discards all other possible explanations for the observed statistics. It may be true that pitbulls are more aggressive than other dogs, but that argument will never convince me as it's just plain wrong. And pointing out just how absurd the argument is brought up a bunch of angry people asserting pitbulls are aggressive and attacking me personally for discrediting the logic.
Yeah, I do that as well, I call it playing devil's advocate, it's helpful to be sure the decisions you're reaching are actually the best ones.
What about for more squishy arguments that are entirely about emotions and feelings etc? I remember getting tilted by reading "my culture is not a costume" on a zine, and the emotional appeal is what got me to change my tune
An argument about emotions can be good or bad like any other, a simple "just because it offends me" is a bad argument because I can be offended by censorship and find your attempt to censor offensive. However a "Currently that word has been embraced by people with a certain mindset, thus by using it you're giving those people more validation on their beliefs as they think you're one of them" is a very clear argument as to why certain words can be hurtful socially.
My culture is not a costume to me is sorta a weak argument, think about what people dress as for custome parties: Pirates, Ninjas, Vikings, Nuns, Nurses, etc... Most costumes are either of something that doesn't exist or a culture (and sometimes both). However diminishing someone's culture to just the clothes is offensive regardless of culture, and exalting a problem in that culture as part of your costume is also offensive. For example, as someone born in Argentina I wouldn't be offended by someone dressing as a Gaucho, if a friend of mine wanted to dress like that for a costume party I would even lend him my mate. But I can see people getting offended by someone dressed as a soccer player with white powder under their nose (although me personally would just laugh it off, I can see that as being something someone takes offense with).
I actually usually admit if I'm wrong, but I think I don't if it's a thing where it's obvious I was wrong and the other party is holding it over my head. It's a character flaw but also I don't really know how to deal with that situation because admitting I'm wrong to a person doing that, in my mind, gives them permission to blame me for anything else adjacent to the situation, which is usually unfair.
I understand you, but try to see it from a different perspective: by admitting your error you are in fact taking their ammunition away! Continue on and if they try to bring it up again and again you can ask them why they can't move on, do they have a problem?
I appreciate that suggestion. That is probably the exact way for me to think of it. Now if I can break this pattern...
It's comments like yours that give me faith in Lemmy honestly. They do a lot to cancel out the judgy and angry ones.
My mother never admitted that she was wrong. I don't want to be like that to my kids or any one else.
I can get defensive, but with some after thought I will admit I was wrong.
When I'm wrong ... I admit I'm wrong. No shame in being wrong about something.
One of the best interview questions rarely asked. I hate working with people who have to always be right.
As often as I am actually wrong.
::: spoiler Tap for spoiler Which of course is NEVER! :::
Whenever I'm wrong 😀
Yeah, I scream it from the rooftops (figuratively).
When I am wrong and there is evidence?
It makes sense to me, because you learned something.
Once I realize it I will admit it. I kind of like it because it opens up a little spot in my head that's eager to be filled with better information.
I think that it's natural for people to think they admit when they're wrong, but it's also natural to not admit it. As humans we don't make decisions based on logic, we do it based on emotions. We then instead explain our decisions with logic. I think the usual way people's minds change is that they'll effectively be convinced of something but won't really admit or accept it (or even be consciously aware of it), but then the next time the topic comes up they'll have the new opinion.
I read an article once about how people change their minds. It cited a long term study that found people who changed their stance on big issues (eg: abortion) often didn't remember they had ever held the opposite opinion. Not only do people not like to admit changing their minds, sometimes they can't even consciously realize.
You may like this VSauce video about this topic called The Future of Reasoning. I spent a lot of time in 2020 and 2021 arguing with people online about covid and election fraud. I was under the impression that if someone just calmly, gently, respectfully laid out why they were wrong they'd accept it. I mean, for goodness's sake, one of the claims I responded to was someone saying something about X number of people voted in some county but there aren't that many people registered there. I told them it's easy to debunk and that I just searched Google for the county's official website and voter registration numbers and, as expected, they were different and higher than the number of people who voted. You wanna know what their response was? "Google is biased." Even though the information wasn't from Google, that's just how I found the site. (And I probably even used duckduckgo but didn't want to explain that lmao, point still stands.)
This video came to me after I'd already made the conscious decision to just stop doing it for my own mental health. It was really impactful.
https://youtu.be/_ArVh3Cj9rw
Perhaps the most ironic (or unironic) thing is that had I seen this before I had that experience, I may have disagreed with the video.
Daily.
Whenever's there's a disagreement I'll at least entertain that I might be wrong.
Being wrong and not knowing it feels exactly like being right. You wouldn't know.
Nevermind situations that are more about perspectives than actually binary right/wrong.
I tell people I hate being wrong, so the sooner I am corrected or can correct myself the better.
And the answer is... whenever I'm wrong. I am fairly diligent about thinking through what I say and do, but everybody makes mistakes or lacks knowledge, so I am quick to admit being wrong when I am.
Also, counterintuitively, quickly and casually admitting to being wrong often serves to make people forget you were wrong in the first place. My wife and I have had conversations where she admits being wrong (after entirely too much argument), and comments about how I'm never wrong. And I tell her I'm wrong all the time, I just admit it quickly instead of making a big deal about it, so it's not very memorable. (As we've gotten older, those conversations have become more rare, but she still had me 3D print a medal and trophy wall mount, where she gets a "You Were Right" medal or a trophy each time she's right... like when she convinced me to take my vomiting dog to the vet at night on a weekend and saved his life, and ended up with a dachshund trophy for her wall)
I love the fact that you have a 3d printed dachshund trophy for your wife's trophy wall
All the time...
Being wrong is the pre-requiest to learning something.
If you live your whole life only running into shit you already know, what the fuck is the point?
What makes it confusing is someone that lived a life like that, is gonna accumulate a shit ton of random knowledge. To the point people think of them as a "know it all" when it's just the normal result of an inquisitive life.
Basically, the people that can't admit they're wrong never learn anything except how to keep arguing longer than the person trying to help them. There's people walking around everyday that think they understand things, because everyone who knows better also knows explaining ain't worth the time.
I can't think of a single time someone has admitted to having been wrong about something and me thinking less of them because it. It's always the opposite yet it's still so painful being in that spot yourself.
I was talking about this with someone a while ago and they suggested that some people's lived experiences have been more... abusive. Like as a child if they made a mistake their parents treated them like shit. Now they have that untreated trauma deep in their personality. When they make a mistake like making a reservation at the wrong time, they subconsciously think it's going to be like when their dad screamed at them, smacked them, and sent them to bed without dinner. So they lie and prevaricate to avoid that.
I don't know how often that kind of early childhood trauma is the root of the behavior, but if that is happening that's really sad.
I have my suspicions that my ex is like this because of bad parenting.
When my baby nephew tries to stack his stacking rings, my family praises him even if he has the order wrong. It's how babies learn.
I suspect that people who can't admit when they're wrong had parents who told them not to do a task unless they could do it right the first time
Never had someone with a martyr complex "admit to being wrong" about something completely inconsequential or stupid? If so, I envy you.
When I'm wrong, I always admit it immediately.
It just hasn't happened yet /s
Never (I rarely speak)
All the fucking time. "I don't know" are the three most-important words. It's pretty much the key to everything, you can't improve without it.
There have definitely been times in my life I refused to admit it. It’s more common if people arguing against me are inflammatory: “LOL, you absolute moron! Take a look at this: (well-researched study)”
I think most recent was doubt towards the accusation Chet Faliszek opposed SKG. I still think it’s not quite as clear cut as being an industry shill, but the guy clearly expects more good faith from major publishers than the rest of us do (having worked for the best one).
I try to remember that "The worst person you know just made an excellent point" onion post for times like that.
On the Internet? Almost never, I like arguing.
With people I actually know? All the time.
Pretty much daily. I will do it every time I know im wrong. Sometimes I'll be wrong and not realise it and look like a tube later, but thats life.
The only time I wont willingly admit it is if the other guy is a prick and it won't do to give them an inch.
At the risk of being seen as a prick myself, I feel like I hear the siren song of that behavior, but man is it unhealthy.
wrong? what does that mean?
I try very hard to never be wrong, but, like all of us, I fail often. I have a scholar brain, I love learning new things, so if I'm wrong that's an opportunity to learn something, makes it easier for me I guess.
I'd like to believe I do it every time I recognize that I am wrong. Equally as important, I think, it to constantly admit, to yourself, and to others where appropriate, that you could be wrong.
The fallibility of human memory and reasoning is enormous, even for very smart people. I think few people properly appreciate this. If you develop that appreciation it is really trivial to admit you are wrong, it's like admitting that you ate.
Especially intelligent people all eventually end up taking real IQ tests like a Weschler's. Which breaks it down into a dozen or so categories.
What you're talking about is crystalized knowledge which is just a tiny slice of the pie and incredibly hard to measure. Making it the least important
On the Weschler it's just trivia questions and you keep going till you miss 3. Or spend ~2 hours (just for this subtest) answering every question even if you're wrong 66% of the time. Like, it's literally the hardest to measure because of that, and because it's the one (obviously) most likely to be effected by education.
Like, one of the questions was/is "who wrote To Kill a Mockingbird". Every American was exposed to that information as a kid, so a younger test taker has a better shot at remembering, but wouldn't have been exposed to other knowledge yet due to their age.
But that's probably the biggest difference for especially intelligent people: everyone else still thinks of IQ as a single number. Two people can have the same sub score and drastically different overalls, or the same overall but a completely different spread on the sub scores.
If you're looking for the most important sub score, you're gonna want something like working memory or processing speed, but even those conflict. If your brain is running at 120mph, keeping something in your head for 2 minutes while doing something else is harder than someone's brain running 30mph due to difference in perception of time.
Tldr:
Intelligent people realize overall IQ just isn't that important for intelligent people.
The vast majority who get "too high to measure" never take the more specific test that could give them a more accurate score. 3+ standard deviations above 100 and it just doesn't matter anymore.
I'm not sure how I was specifically talking about crystalized knowledge. People can be flawed in applying any mental skill. And various forms of intelligence come into play in various ways in navigating the nuances or reality, or failing to.
Knowing or not knowing a fact is the simplest to see and talk about, so it probably dominates conversations about intelligence, sure.
I usually admit right away because the more you deny it the bigger the lie and the problem become
Whenever I'm wrong. I'm more interested in the truth than my feelings.
Whenever I am wrong. So pretty often, since I learn best by making mistakes.
ETA I do get defensive when someone is mean about it. With my ex it was harder because he mocked relentlessly and though he could dish it, could not take it. Nice in plenty of ways but so mean in others. With husband now, and at every job I've had, it's no big deal.
narcissist do that, they wont admit, and will just double down.
I'll admit I'm wrong more often than I'll say I was right. I know I'm stupid and most likely got 0 idea what I'm talking about.
Frequently. When I recognize I'm wrong; it's a couple of times a week at least.
That does not generally coincide with when Lemmy thinks I'm wrong, which also happens a couple of times a week.
More often than I'm actually wrong
Which... is a problem. I think I learned to do this in order to not offend bosses, might have something to do with my field of work...
Depending on who I am talking to.
If it's a person that never admits to being wrong I will have my fun and just say whatever. Doesn't matter with those people.
If it is a person which admits fault, being wrong... Makes themselves vulnerable in general, I do te same.
But I got burned one time to much to still treat assholes as something other then a waste of time.
All the time.
If i make a mistake I own upto it like an adult
At least once or twice a week. Maybe more, a lot of the silly mistakes I make and apologise for are pretty forgettable.
For actual book knowledge things you can look up, once every couple months or less. Mostly because I look up a lot of book knowledge, and rarely am behind the curve.
Subjective-ish things are a weird one, because the reason why you arrive at whatever conclusion has a lot more substance than whatever it happens to be. You pretty much have to grow as a person to change your mind on politics, for example. There are people who, if I could speak to them again, I'd like to tell they planted a seed that eventually won me over.
The shitty thing is, certain people will take nothing away from that about your character. It just means you were totally wrong and cornered into admitting it, so you must not be very smart. The end.
Now, maybe those aren't the best people, but there still might be a cost to ignoring them.
Since having kids, anytime I make a mistake or jump to a conclusion, I try to model for them how to say sorry and make it right.
That said, I don't make mistakes that often; I'm much more likely to just say I don't know or I have no opinion. I think it's most important to teach people it's ok to not know or have enough information to make a judgement.
I remember once when I was a kid, my uncle asked me something or other. I dithered for a bit, and then admitted I didn't actually know. He said something really nice about how it's much better to just say you don't know than to dig deeper into bullshit. Really stuck with me, for some reason.
I'll let you know when it happens... /s
Just kidding. I'm not THAT big of an asshole.
often. usually, when it's something I misjudged. there's no shame in it - I had x information, I thought it would be a good idea to do y. I forgot to consider z. can't win 'em all. or yep I screwed I up I did these calculations / tasks wrong because I was rushing.
it's harder when it's an "oh shit yeah I was out of line" thing, but I do it whenever I can because I genuinely want to know if I acted appropriately or not
I will always own up to being wrong if I agree that I was wrong. I will be an absolute pain in your ass if I think I'm being blamed for something that's unfair/untrue.
Quite a bit. It's the adult thing to do.
I noticed some specific women liked me more when I would do that. So of course I made that my entire personality.
Often, but I still constantly realize that I was proven wrong a few days before and I held on to the wrong opinion rather than admit it. It is a constant battle to honestly admit when I am wrong to people.
Often, because I'm often a potato.
Sometimes I nearly fall into the "I don't care about facts, I'm still right" trap. It's really enerving to know I might really fall in some day.
When it comes up and I am actually wrong.
I would guess a few dozen times a year since I work in a complicated field where we take our best guess and sometimes it isn't right so admitting being wrong and doing things differently has better outcomes than digging in heels.
There are a lot of people I've known who really focus on other people admitting they were wrong but somehow they are never at fault themselves.
Whenever I am wrong.
Whenever I become aware of it, either through my own realization or someone else pointing it out. I'll always double check before coming out and saying it, but if my first stance is actually wrong, I have no problem admitting it
Always?
Whenever I am wrong.
I despise being wrong, so I will readily admit it and change my position as soon as it's clear.
One hack I use sometimes is suffixing 'i could be wrong' to the end of sentences when I'm not sure so that I'm already halfway there and can easily switch my opinion.
This comes with the side effect of being very hard to convince otherwise when I'm quite sure I'm right.
In real life, I often can't be bothered debating people especially when it's something trivial or when I don't care about them enough to help them see the error of their ways, so I'll concede with a 'maybe' just to move on from it.
You could also prefix something you're not fully sure about with "From what I understand". That lets you pivot to being wrong if the other person presents better facts, but also is a more positive if your position remains solid.
As often as I am. Which has become less common in my old age.
Yep. Potentially unethical protip: a lot easier to admit you're wrong when you make claims carelessly to begin with.
Prove me wrong and find out
And mean it?
More and more as time goes by. I can definitely recognize that there have been times where I would have dug in and tried to argue my way out to the bitter end, but now I find myself just saying "You know, I don't really want to waste my time with this" and just cutting my losses. Sometimes it'll get a "You know what, my bad," and sometimes I just realize I never really had anything worthwhile to contribute, and just see myself out of the discussion. I've had shit takes called out in the past, including on topics I thought myself fairly knowledgeable about. Before, I would have been right back in there looking up sources and trying to eke out a "win" in those sorts of circumstances. These days, I'd rather just concede the point early on and go about my life. I don't have free time to go wasting entrenching myself to defend a position that's already benn demonstrated to be untenable and/or just completely incorrect.
I feel like you at least have to look into things enough to confirm that the arguments against you aren't bullshit, it's good to admit you're wrong when you're actually wrong but not so good when your debate opponent has just figured out how to make the argument too exhausting to continue. It's also an option to stop responding without conceding anything.
A common example is, someone links to a source that they claim proves all their points. Often the source doesn't say that at all, and they are banking on nobody taking the time to actually read it. If you admit you're wrong in this situation you just propagate misinformation.
I meant more when I realize that I'm clearly in the wrong in my first post. Like, I made some ignorant comments on Lemmy concerning Portuguese a while back, and someone who knew the language way better than I did came along and pointed out my post was bullshit and ableist. In the past, I'm pretty sure I wouldn't have conceded the point, and just kept arguing away and finding whatever sources backed me up, without being too critical of them. This time, I said, "Wow, that was an incredibly shit take I had." and decided I should probably take a break from bothering people on that instance for a while and just keep my mouth shut until I was satisfied I'd learned better.
I'm still game to argue a valid point when I know that I'm correct and I don't think I'm just feeding a troll, but I feel like I've gotten better at owning it when I realize I've been supporting an untenable and/or indefensible position than I was 10 or 15 years ago, and moving on to change my views.
To children, I try to admit it every time. I don't want them to grow up thinking that adults are always correct.
To adults, it depends on them. If they are stable and reasonable they I'll do it, but not when the admission is itself grounds for derision.
I kinda did today. Was talking to a guy on the weekend and I was wrong on a thing but not sure if I will see him again or remember to mention it. Somewhat regularly anyway. Whats funny online is you can meet a certain type where you can cede part of an argument and say something is wrong and they will go with. Well then you must be all wrong. Usually its pretty hard to converse with them after that as they will obsess over the one point and its like ugh. Its a good indicator for me though.
I am happy to do so. If I see evidence, I immediately accept.
Probably around 2/3rds of the time, with perhaps half of those cases happening in the convo and the other half some time later. And even then, maybe I'm being too soft on myself, lol.
Lately I admit I was wrong in all instances, maybe just at work it's harder. And idk why, maybe because I'm always mentally exhausted at work.
I’m rarely certain enough to claim that I’m right. Oftentimes I’ll acknowledge that uncertainty by stating where/when I heard something so the other person can judge the validity of that source themself.
That said, if I am confident in something and I’m told that I’m wrong, I’ll usually look it up there or just say something like “that’s not my understanding but I can’t dive into it now.” Then when I do have time I’ll do a bit of research, or if the topic comes up again I’ll assert what I was confident in with the caveat that so-and-so told me this other thing.
If I do the research and find that I was wrong, I’ll try to remember that the next time I see the other person and let them know I confirmed they were right.
This reminded me of a person I used to know. She adamantly refused to look things up. We were having some casual conversation about work, and I was like "I think that's not what that word means." She just refused to look at the dictionary or engage with trying to find out the answer. I don't know if it was pride, or an insane commitment to a bit, but it was frustrating to deal with.
Incidentally, she was the worst D&D player I ever had, and was deeply dysfunctional in her romantic relationships. I can only imagine what madness she's up to now.
Do you remember what word it was and what she thought it meant?
Unfortunately, no. I think it was a semi-obscure but not terribly so word like "esoteric". We were all native speakers from the same region. From what else I remember from the conversation, her general practice was to avoid looking things up. If she couldn't figure it out from context, it wasn't worth doing more.
I felt this. I use qualifiers so damn much. The moment you say something like "X is a result of Y 100% of the time" some pedantic little shit is gonna "ackshualllllly! In this ultra rare and never considered case it can be a result of Z".
Only 3-5 times a day.
(More would make my good reputation go away)
I'm long-term married, and that just dies not work without the ability to admit when you're wrong — even and especially when the other person is also wrong.
Any reciprocal respectful long term relationship tbh.
I'm never
wrongrightAh, paradox.
What can be also hard is to admit that you don't know, but that can be turned into a good thing by admitting your ignorance and either listening to someone's reasoning, or together try to find an answer. Especially with kids, part of being a parent was learning with them as you seeked out answers to a simple question that you weren't sure about. A subset of the XKCD Ten Thousand. Being right or appearing to know something isn't always as good as the journey to get to the actual facts.
When ever i am wrong
I admit I'm wrong when I'm wrong. If I'm factually wrong, I say I stand corrected. If I do something bad, I apologize. I fear it looks like I'm bragging right now but it shouldn't be something to brag about, it should be what everyone does. It's what mature people do.
People who can't admit they're wrong completely close themselves off to learning or growing. They think they're protecting themselves from shame by making excuses that they meant something else or it's someone else's fault they did a bad thing, but oftentimes they suffer even worse consequences by behaving that way
On the flipside, though, the other extreme is also bad. You shouldn't concede that you're wrong when you're not wrong
I'm a slow learner, and I have come to compensate for this by gradually building out this tree of knowledge I can hang new little bits on. When I encounter a contradiction to something I had placed on the tree, I must redo the branches in the area. They need to be self-consistent or I am going to have a bad day.
So when I am challenged, I do probe a bit and ask the other party to prove or justify their stance. It's not motivated by any sort of pride in my own opinions, but rather the work it would take to sort things out again in my head. I don't want to do so unless I am clearly in the wrong.
But if I am proved wrong, I will certainly accept it. It can lead to new insights as I rework the tree.
It may even be that the slow-learning is actually due to this system I've developed? Like every piece of knowledge has to be processed into the context of my current understanding of things, and that takes time and effort.
I think this is perhaps the problem with AI? It makes all these little connections between things, but it doesn't have a big picture, which makes it frequently contradict itself. I couldn't live like that.
As long as the person I'm admitting I'm wrong to deserves that concession.
I sometimes argue with a Facebook "friend". He's a fucking idiot that will instantly change subject or whatabout when I catch him in something stupidly wrong. He then is too stupid to track the multiple different claims and arguments he keeps shoving into the thread so he interprets some of my comments as responses to completely different topics and loudly proclaims how wrong I am and that I can never admit it. I don't admit I'm wrong to him. Mainly because I'm not making many factual claims, just pushing back in him being a fucking dumbass. But also because he would never do it.