Imagine you have 100 instances where you do a bunch of research, with the intention of having an unbiased view of the situation. Then you tell somebody about the result and they don’t agree. But they don’t support their points well. So you share the information you found and point out that their points were unsupported. They fail to produce any new information or points that actually add to the conversation. You may not have been trying to win, but if they’re unable to support their points or supply new information and yet believe themselves to be right, when you destroy that illusion, the feeling of “oh I guess I was right” is a natural result.
Imagine that during the same period of time, this happens to you zero times. Nobody finds a logical fallacy or poorly supported point. This is not because you are perfect—you aren’t. It is probably due to hanging out with the wrong people—people who are not dedicated to reasoning well. Knowing I am not perfect is not reducing the cockiness that is starting to result from this, for me. It is making me nervous instead—this knowledge that I am not perfect has become a vague intellectual acknowledgement, not a genuine sense of awareness. The sense that I have flawed ideas and could be wrong at any time no longer feels real.
Now that I am in a much bigger pond, I am hoping to experience a really good ass kicking. I want to wake up from this dream of feeling like I’m right all the time.
The reason I want to lose is because I agree with you that I shouldn’t see these debates as thing for me to win. I am tired of the experience of being right. I am tired of the nervousness that is knowing I am imperfect, that there are flaws I’m unaware of, but not having the sense that somebody will point them out.
Your comments are consistent with wanting to be proved wrong. No one experiences “being wrong”—from the inside, it feels exactly like “being right”. We do experience “realizing we were wrong”, which is hopefully followed by updating so that we once again believe ourselves to be right. Have you never changed your mind about something? Realized on your own that you were mistaken? Because you don’t need to “lose” or to have other people “beat you” to experience that.
And if you go around challenging other people about miscellaneous points in the hopes that they will prove you wrong, this will annoy the other people and is unlikely to give you the experience you hoped for.
I also think that your definition of “being wrong” might be skewed. If you try to make comments which you think will be well-received, then every comment that has been heavily downvoted is an instance in which you were wrong about the community reaction. You apparently thought most people were concerned about an Eternal September; you’ve already realized that this belief was wrong. I’m not sure why being wrong about these does not have the same impact on you as being wrong about the relative fighting skills of programmers and fruit-pickers, but it probably should have a bigger impact, since it’s a more important question.
No one experiences “being wrong”—from the inside, it feels exactly like “being right”.
That’s insightful. And I realize now that my statement wasn’t clearly worded. What I should have said was more like:
“I need to experience other people being right sometimes.”
and I can explain why, in a re-framed way, because of your example:
I don’t experience being double checked if I am the one who figures it out. I know I am flawed, and I know I can’t see all of my own flaws. If people aren’t finding holes in my ideas (they find plenty of spelling errors and social mistakes, but rarely find a problem in my ideas) I’m not being double checked at all. This makes me nervous because if I don’t see flaws with my ideas, and nobody else does either, then my most important flaws are invisible.
I feel cocky toward disagreements with people. Like “Oh, it doesn’t matter how badly they disagree with me in the beginning. After we talk, they won’t anymore.” I keep having experiences that confirm this for me. I posted a risk on a different site that provoked normalcy bias and caused a whole bunch of people to jump all over me with every (bad) reason under the sun that I was wrong. I blew down all the invalid refutations of my point and ignored the ad hominem attacks. A few days later, one of the people who had refuted me did some research, changed her mind and told her friends, then a bunch of the people jumping all over me were converted to my perspective. Everyone stopped arguing.
This is useful in the cases where I have important information.
It is unhealthy from a human perspective, though. When you think that you can convince other people of things, it feels a little creepy. It’s like I have too much power over them. Even if I am right, and the way that I wield this gift is 100% ethical, (and I may not be, and nobody’s double checking me) there’s still something that feels wrong. I want checks and balances. I want other people with this power do the same to me.
I want them to double check me. To remind me that I am not “the most powerful”. I am a perfectionist with ethics. If there is a flaw, I want to know.
And I don’t go around challenging people about miscellaneous points hoping for a debate. I’m a little insulted by that insinuation. I disagree frequently, but that’s because I feel it’s important to present the alternate perspective.
I am frequently misunderstood, that is true. I try to guess how people will react to my ideas, but I know my guesses are only a hypothesis. I try my best to present them well, but I am still learning.
Even if I am not received well at first, it doesn’t mean people won’t agree with me in the end.
It’s more important to have good ideas than to be received well, especially considering that people normally accept good ideas in the end. Though, I would like both.
You should stop thinking about discussions in these terms.
Imagine you have 100 instances where you do a bunch of research, with the intention of having an unbiased view of the situation. Then you tell somebody about the result and they don’t agree. But they don’t support their points well. So you share the information you found and point out that their points were unsupported. They fail to produce any new information or points that actually add to the conversation. You may not have been trying to win, but if they’re unable to support their points or supply new information and yet believe themselves to be right, when you destroy that illusion, the feeling of “oh I guess I was right” is a natural result.
Imagine that during the same period of time, this happens to you zero times. Nobody finds a logical fallacy or poorly supported point. This is not because you are perfect—you aren’t. It is probably due to hanging out with the wrong people—people who are not dedicated to reasoning well. Knowing I am not perfect is not reducing the cockiness that is starting to result from this, for me. It is making me nervous instead—this knowledge that I am not perfect has become a vague intellectual acknowledgement, not a genuine sense of awareness. The sense that I have flawed ideas and could be wrong at any time no longer feels real.
Now that I am in a much bigger pond, I am hoping to experience a really good ass kicking. I want to wake up from this dream of feeling like I’m right all the time.
The reason I want to lose is because I agree with you that I shouldn’t see these debates as thing for me to win. I am tired of the experience of being right. I am tired of the nervousness that is knowing I am imperfect, that there are flaws I’m unaware of, but not having the sense that somebody will point them out.
I just want to experience being wrong sometimes.
Your comments are consistent with wanting to be proved wrong. No one experiences “being wrong”—from the inside, it feels exactly like “being right”. We do experience “realizing we were wrong”, which is hopefully followed by updating so that we once again believe ourselves to be right. Have you never changed your mind about something? Realized on your own that you were mistaken? Because you don’t need to “lose” or to have other people “beat you” to experience that.
And if you go around challenging other people about miscellaneous points in the hopes that they will prove you wrong, this will annoy the other people and is unlikely to give you the experience you hoped for.
I also think that your definition of “being wrong” might be skewed. If you try to make comments which you think will be well-received, then every comment that has been heavily downvoted is an instance in which you were wrong about the community reaction. You apparently thought most people were concerned about an Eternal September; you’ve already realized that this belief was wrong. I’m not sure why being wrong about these does not have the same impact on you as being wrong about the relative fighting skills of programmers and fruit-pickers, but it probably should have a bigger impact, since it’s a more important question.
That’s insightful. And I realize now that my statement wasn’t clearly worded. What I should have said was more like:
“I need to experience other people being right sometimes.”
and I can explain why, in a re-framed way, because of your example:
I don’t experience being double checked if I am the one who figures it out. I know I am flawed, and I know I can’t see all of my own flaws. If people aren’t finding holes in my ideas (they find plenty of spelling errors and social mistakes, but rarely find a problem in my ideas) I’m not being double checked at all. This makes me nervous because if I don’t see flaws with my ideas, and nobody else does either, then my most important flaws are invisible.
I feel cocky toward disagreements with people. Like “Oh, it doesn’t matter how badly they disagree with me in the beginning. After we talk, they won’t anymore.” I keep having experiences that confirm this for me. I posted a risk on a different site that provoked normalcy bias and caused a whole bunch of people to jump all over me with every (bad) reason under the sun that I was wrong. I blew down all the invalid refutations of my point and ignored the ad hominem attacks. A few days later, one of the people who had refuted me did some research, changed her mind and told her friends, then a bunch of the people jumping all over me were converted to my perspective. Everyone stopped arguing.
This is useful in the cases where I have important information.
It is unhealthy from a human perspective, though. When you think that you can convince other people of things, it feels a little creepy. It’s like I have too much power over them. Even if I am right, and the way that I wield this gift is 100% ethical, (and I may not be, and nobody’s double checking me) there’s still something that feels wrong. I want checks and balances. I want other people with this power do the same to me.
I want them to double check me. To remind me that I am not “the most powerful”. I am a perfectionist with ethics. If there is a flaw, I want to know.
And I don’t go around challenging people about miscellaneous points hoping for a debate. I’m a little insulted by that insinuation. I disagree frequently, but that’s because I feel it’s important to present the alternate perspective.
I am frequently misunderstood, that is true. I try to guess how people will react to my ideas, but I know my guesses are only a hypothesis. I try my best to present them well, but I am still learning.
Even if I am not received well at first, it doesn’t mean people won’t agree with me in the end.
It’s more important to have good ideas than to be received well, especially considering that people normally accept good ideas in the end. Though, I would like both.